Livestream Follow-Up: Character Names

[Balandar]

Terry Michaels posted a follow-up in regards to how naming will work in EQN.

Highlights:

1) Your Station Name is what you use to log into any SOE game. This Station Name is NEVER exposed to other players. Instead, we have a Station “Handle” which is sort of like a nickname for your account. The Handle is what gets used within the game to identify your character. It has no visible connection for people to use to find out your Station Name.

2) Some people may have set their Station Handle to the same thing as their Station Name (this destroys security, so generally a bad idea).

3) No, you cannot CURRENTLY change your Station Handle.

4) Yes, we WILL be allowing people to change their Station Handle before it would show up in any of our games, though only once.

5) You won't be able to search for other people via their Station Handle regardless of what character they are on, so people can still “hide” by simply not sharing the name of their “hidden” character. As we discussed in the Friends List Round Table question, we only allow people to “friend” someone at the account level if both sides agree. That is an “opt in” type system.

6) You won’t be able to anonymously troll someone that does know you because once you communicate with them, they WILL be able to see the Station Handle portion of your name.

7) By default, people can’t see the Station Handle portion of your name just by seeing your character running around in the world. You have to communicate back and forth in chat for the Handle to become visible to other players.

8) Your Station Handle can be anything deemed acceptable by our naming policies (no curse words, etc).

9) Your Station Handle isn’t your “Last Name” in the game. I used it as an analogy when trying to explain in during the live stream. It wasn’t meant to be taken literally. It is the unique identifier that allows people to have the same name as someone else in the game but that will allow your messages, emails, group requests, etc, to go to the correct character.

Source: https://forums.station.sony.com/eqnlandmark/index.php?threads/livestream-follow-up-character-names.854/