Renames: Why so expensive?

I just renamed my level 31 Fortunata, as I'd finally found a concept that I could roll with to resurrect the character. Sadly, it seems I was literally one day late on the sale of rename tokens.

Which begs the question, really; why the hell am I paying nearly £8 or more just to rename my character? There is no other way to earn renames, in or out of game, so the sole reasoning behind the price, to my mind, is the fact there is a monopoly on that function. I'm not paying for convenience here, as I am with respecs or alignment shifts (i.e. stuff I never buy because I can get it in game), no, I'm paying because that is my ONE OPTION.

That's pretty crooked logic, in my opinion. If not downright mean. The only other 'option', that's only practically valid (for people like me) below a certain level and invalid just on principle IMO, is to re-roll the character. What if I have badges or stuff on there that I don't want to lose (anniversary etc)? Well, tough apparently? Besides, for me at least, getting back to level 31 isn't something I can burn up in a few days, so my one method is to shell out in cash for a rename.

Why are they so damn expensive?

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Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

The first logical thing that comes to mind is to keep down the amount of people renaming characters so it doesn't tax the system.

I'd have to think harder to come up with a better reason than that.

Actually.. the first reason I can find is that the devs like money.

A service as this is an easy money maker. People making mistakes (I made a typo when I created my main when I started playing) is a good way to make money.

8 still still seems a bit high though. A normal price of 5 would be high enough.

It is not taxing the system...
They dont want to encourage name changes for fast shifting of toon names in the community. It keeps room for irritation in the community.

They've offered renames before Freedom, they were $10 then and Freedom hasn't really presented any reason to change that.

Because VIPs get a free one every other month?

No, seriously, the price is a bit silly. I suspect they chose the price because they want to keep renaming to a minimum, rather than to maximize profit on that particular item.

Could always burn 2 server transfer tokens to switch names.

- Take Bob, and pick a destination server.
- Make sure the name Bob is taken on the destination server.
- If the name Bob isn't taken, make a character with that name on the destination server. Alternatively, check a different server to see if it's taken there.
- Transfer Bob, get prompted for a rename.
- Re-name Bob something that you like that isn't taken on your original server.
- Transfer the re-named Bob back to the original server.

Not exactly efficient, but I rarely use those transfer tokens anyway.

......Arrrrrghh, I have spare Transfers and totally forgot about that. [PANCAKE] -_-

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

There's a school of thought, going waaay back to before there was a "market," when renames were first offered (and they were the same price then that they are now), that the pricing of renames isn't so much about price-gouging or about the system's inability to process too many name changes -- it's actually priced that high as a deterrent. Not because they don't want you buying renames, of course, it's just that they only want you buying one if you're really, truly serious about wanting to rename your character.

If renames were 80 points, sure that'd be nice, but it would also mean people would be changing their characters' names constantly, often on a whim. Maybe some people would use them to confuse friends or harass people (change name to name of someone else, but with L/I trick, irritate some people, log off, change name back). Maybe some would use them to change a character's name for an afternoon or a weekend, fully intending on changing it back, only to find when they tried to that their original name had been snapped up by someone else. Sure, it's their own fault in that case, but do you think that would stop some of them from rage-quitting because they couldn't have "their" name anymore?

So yeah, I'd suggest using a pair of free server transfers to rename your character instead.

I already renamed the character using the normal method, so that options gone.

And, honestly, I get rather sick of this 'because griefers MIGHT use it' excuse because, hello? We have a bloomin' report system, and I'm pretty sure the QA/GM team have tools that make it easy to keep track of that sort of thing. Certainly more than players do.

As it is, having to pay an annoying amount or re-rolling a character all the way from 1 to 31 (no, I'm not a fast leveller, so please don't bring up that [Pancake] about 'Oh, that's easy!') is a bit of a non-choice. If the ONLY reason that is in the way of a fairer price is 'potential griefing' then, well...that sucks, frankly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

if they wanted changing names to be a casual thing, it'd be cheaper.

obviously they don't, and I doubt the reason has anything to do with conserving system resources or 'griefing' or whatever.

I don't put much into the griefing players argument but I can see the logic behind making it just too expensive for people wanting to circumvent getting back their names after they got genericed by a GM.

Circumventing a GM's decision outside of an appeal is a bannable offense and that causes the company to lose a paying customer, where the price of a rename as it is simply discourages people from doing something that will cost them their account.

This discussion again? Ok.

Everything you do requires data. Your character data, bios, costumes, power choices, blah blah blah. It all requires data and data requires storage.

Data storage is expensive. Believe it or not, it is. I have family members that do data warehousing for companies. It's not simple. My mother, at 62, is up at 5AM every day to make sure the databases have updated correctly and haven't been corrupted.

So, changing your character's name isn't some willy nilly attempt to steal your money. It's a fee for a service.

Seriously, if your attitude is that the developers are vampires trying to suck away all the money in your wallet you should really find another game to play - one where you're not distrustful and paranoid Good luck with that.

When you find a p

Before CoH, I recall two MMO's I played that offered renames & transfers at $30-$50 each ( I never used the service). Part of that price may have been that they didn't foresee enough demand to justify making automated tools, so it required manual db work. Part of the price may be that they just wanted to discourage the service. Names back then were your core identity-- and renames let you escape the identity that you made for yourself (without the cost of a reroll) so increasing the cost of a rename meant you paid a larger price for building up a bad reputation (roll a new character & relevel OR pay to rename).

Those don't really apply (much) now:
- we have global identities and a game that allows MANY alts, so individual character names are less identity driven
- we have an automated renaming process.

What we do have, though, is an established history of MMO's pricing "renames" rather aggressively, and while CoH did price renames below those preceding games, it didn't drop them as far as they could have to still cover their costs. One of the old adages of capitalism is you don't charge what a product costs... you charge what the market will bear. if you think the market will bear $20 for something that takes you $1 to make, you charge $20.

So why the complaining now? Why not when it was first introduced years ago? Or is it easier and more satisfying to complain about it now to make it seem like the Developers are trying to "steal" as much money of us they can with the new marketplace?

*yawn*

*laugh*

Get over it. They charge for the service, end of story. The fault isn't theirs that you can't name or type your character properly or suddenly have a change of heart.

Things like renames aren't expensive because they're hard to do or because of database maintenance or any such thing. When you buy one, it's pretty much instantaneous because they've completely automated the process. It's not as if someone has to sit there and type in your new name in place of the old one. Like Doctor Roswell said, it's because they just don't want people renaming their characters all the time so they charge a non-trivial amount for it. Every MMO I've seen is the same way. They want you to at least have some attachment to your characters.

I think it's probably a little bit of all the things that are being thrown around here.

Hey we just Catwin'd this thread.

THAT cat is going to need a... CAT SCAN!