Community names can change

This doesn't matter whatsoever. I don't give a damn how easy it is for them to manage accounts, and neither do players. Players want to be able to have their own unique account names, not some generic Graal#. They cause headaches for developers who are already pushed close to the edge by lack of updates, and they are an inconvenience to players as well.

So we should let a small minority ruin it for others? If they make an inappropriate account, ban/disable the account, and force them to make another. It's their own fault, and the other players need not be punished.

There are other solutions to this, as well. For example, force trial accounts to use Graal######, but when they upgrade, they can change their account name. There could be a global event triggered on all servers when account name changes take place, and the stats could be transferred. Or you could go back to the old (better) trial system where stats are reset, force them to use a Graal######, and when they upgrade, they can create a new account. It's not even that big of a problem, most online services (e.g. Google) do it exactly the same way.

We've made tons of posts on the forums about the problems already.

• RC player list needs to show community names
• Commands like /open, /opencomments, etc do not accept community names (/openaccess does, though)
• Server options require community names, which is bad because community names can change.
• There are no proper scripting functions (getAccount(), getCommunityName()), just some unknown sendtext stuff

There are more as well, just go look at the threads.

So?

Problem has always been that graal12345 accounts and community names have been poorly implemented. This pretty much falls back on the desire not to update things, and thus being stuck years after they have been implemented with tools and clients that weren't made with community names in mind.. If they were properly implemented, they could have been added and been working in the background and no one would have ever noticed.

that could easily change

I have always gotten the feeling that the new system was to work like so:

Graal12345 accounts were supposed to be for system and data checking. A static and reliable value. This is something that should be completely behind the scenes. Players should never have to see them.

Community names are what players should be seeing. They are what players desire to see(their own picked names), and still reflect a somewhat-static representation of the player, even though they can be changed. However, if they changed, the data falls back on the graal12345 value, thus everything goes smoothly.

But like my last post says, it wasn't added in a seamless way and not much consideration was taken into account in how these changes clashed with the out-of-date client and tools.

Why not just have guests having these crazy IDs and actual accounts just be regular? No one is going to remember Graal+a bunch of random numbers. That's completely unmemorable.

Actually people don't need to know their Graal# name for login, they can use the e-mail address.

It's more so for other people, your chance of remembering someone with a unique account name is much greater than remembering a Graal# account.

It's quite surprising how many recognize each other by account name.

Community names are a pain. As a scripter, the biggest problem I've run into is having to keep track of BOTH a player's account name AND their community name. For example, a guild system that displays a list of members will need to display community names because "Graal3453534, Graal345345, Graal345345" looks retarded.

What does this mean for me? My SQL table now has two columns, member_account, and member_cname. And my guild system is checking everytime a player logs on if their communityname has changed.

I've noticed that most servers have not bothered with this trouble and still use the account name for everything -- even simple chat commands (":kick account"). This is why player's hate community names. They're difficult for developers to work with, and in return, even more difficult for the players. A guild leader is not going to remember who "Graal542342" is and whether or not he needs to kick him. Logical solution in the guild leader's eyes? Don't recruit Graal# account noobs.

K.I.S.S. -- You're making it way too complicated for everyone with this stupid system.

Stop accepting registrations with Graal#### and open up the old system again is wut I suggest. Trial accounts that are unused after a certain period of time could be deleted to solve the "TRIALS R STEALIN OUR NICKS" problem which isn't really a problem anyway but ok O_O.

It's not really possible to delete an account, it would still leave things behind on servers; imagine registering an account, and even upgrading, only to log on a different server and find you already are known by reputation, and perhaps are even in jail/have a jail log.

Besides that, servers like Zodiac (and eventually Era) would keep the items even if the account is traditionally reset.

I just don't think it's a big enough problem to worry about. The major problem with community names is just the lack of scripting support.

better than graal40598305893459 mate u_u

Client bugs that are players are exposed to:

• If I'm on a server and viewing people on the other servers through the playerlist, both the tooltips and the profiles will display Graal# instead of the community name.
• If I get a PM from someone who isn't on my server, again it will show their Graal# instead of their community name.

Unless I'm forgetting something, these bugs are the only things that expose the Graal# accounts in the Graal client itself. Everything else I've experienced seems to have to do with the local scripting. Not even going to argue about the concept itself though, it's just not executed well at all and everyone knows it.

Usually when I signup for a game,
I spend hours trying to think of a name,
Man, all that went to shame
I guess this game is getting lame!

Im #1 rapper.

I was wandering.

Graal###### accounts have a unique ID.
Other Graal Accounts had the chosen id.
As for the community name. Can it be the same as someone else community name? (If so than there would be no need for account names such as sephiroth123 because someone already got sephiroth as an account name.)

I actually wish there was a website out there that listed all anime / manga / popular game character names that companies could look up and REFUSE ANY AND ALL STUPID PEOPLE REQUESTING TO USE SOME FORM OF SOME POPULAR IMAGINARY CHARACTER for an account/user name.

You all have real names. Do you really need to copy some video game character/anime character/manga character?