Account name expiration

#1

RealmEye has seen nearly 5 million players over the years. However, only ~130,000 of them on average are active in any two week period. It’s been like this a while.

Given RealmEye only indexes players with at least one star, chances are many of those have picked a name. There could potentially be 5+ million names are out there. That leaves less and less for new players. I was lucky enough to secure my name on day one, but I really feel bad for someone new today who may have to try for a name several times before getting one far removed from their first choice.

What I’d like to see is a reasonable scheme by which Deca could release names from old, abandoned accounts for re-use by new players.

Here’s how I think it should work:

  • All accounts inactive for 90 days, with less than 10 hours total active time, and without gold purchases, should have their names revoked.
  • All accounts inactive for one year or more, with 5 stars or less, and without gold purchases should have their names revoked.
  • All accounts inactive for two years or more, with 10 stars or less, and without gold purchases should have their names revoked.
  • All accounts inactive for three years or more, with 20 stars or less, and without gold purchases should have their names revoked.

Seem fair? Is there anything else that should be considered that should prevent someone from losing their name?

Name Snipes
The wishlist thread!
#2

Excellent idea! I would add one thing though:
Whenever an account that has had it’s name revoked logs in, it should be required to choose a name. This way, people cant exploit the name revocation to return to an unnamed character, and take advantage of the anonymity it provides to hack or exploit without consequences.

#3

Glorious idea Comrade, this similar practice is used on many games and realm would really benefit from it

#4

Oh, thought of something else.

Perhaps player names marked for deletion should be sent an email informing them of their pending removal and give them a 30 day grace period to log in and preserve their name.

#5

So just fame train your names to 21 stars? Doesn’t seem that hard as you can get 14 of them super easily.

#6

Could you make a bot for this? Like it logs in every week. Also there are bots out there that log on to automatically get the Daily Loot Drops, so I don’t know if this will always work.

#7

About the star count, I would hope one wouldn’t purposely train to 21 stars simply to avoid losing a name three years later. It would be kinda silly.

Either way this is targeting dormant accounts. If they’re logging in for rewards, mules, whatever, they’re by definition not dormant.

#8

Ah okay ^^ Just giving some ideas.

#9

Go for it. I mean, you’re right that some people would farm just to save their name, but I think it’s kind of an irrational thing for them to do personally. But if they really want to keep their name and not pay gold, then why shouldn’t there be a way? Seems fine to me.

#10

Yeah thanks!
I respect you a lot more now. You seem like a really nice moderator. Just by reading what you say kinda reminds me of OB.

I miss ob

#11

I don’t think so about this. Some 20 star players have gotten pretty good with no gold, and some might want to come back to RotMG with all this DECA craziness. Maybe push it to four years

#12

3 years is a very long time for a game like realm

#17

I’m having trouble understanding this I guess? The way I’m seeing it this requirement here makes the other 3 about star ranking useless, no? If you are inactive for 90 days, regardless of star, you lose your name, making the rule about being inactive for a year with less than 5 stars pointless?

#18

Thinking about this even more, Deca could do this a couple ways. They could reset old accounts to a default name when they expire. OR, and this may be better, they could let old accounts keep their names forever, but if someone else chooses a name already in use then the above checks will be ran and the name is released to the new player only if the old name is expired. This would have the benefit of old players not automatically losing their name, but only when someone else wants it.

Getting back to replying to @Etahn, that first one was intended to counter name squatting. But I can see your point, there is some overlap between star counts and active-time totals.

IMHO, if someone registers an account and can’t manage 10 hours total play time before going inactive for an extended period of time then the system shouldn’t reserve their name for very long at all. An experienced player can get 5 stars in an hour or two. For them, it’s a lower barrier to reach and it would let them squat on a name for 2 years using this scheme.

Forcing at least 10 hours as a minimum requirement across all star-based expirations seems fair to me, and releasing those names at 90 days inactivity is reasonable to me as an anti-squatter measure. Additionally, warning users of impending name removals could be a useful retention tool. For example, “Hey player, we haven’t seen you in a while. We’re going to let someone else have your name in case you’ve stopped playing. However, if you raise your sword once more and face the Mad God’s hordes within the next 10 days we’ll make sure nobody can take your name.”

Here’s a few samples of pseudo-GQL code to identify these users.

  • 90 days inactive with less than 10 hours playtime regardless of star count, no gold:
SELECT guid, player_name 
FROM accounts 
WHERE purchased_gold = false 
    AND last_active < (today - 90 days)
    AND active_time_total < 10 hours
  • 1 year inactive with 5 or fewer stars, no gold:
SELECT guid, player_name 
FROM accounts 
WHERE purchased_gold = false 
    AND last_active < (today - 1 year)
    AND star_count > 5
  • 2 years inactive with 10 or fewer stars, no gold:
SELECT guid, player_name 
FROM accounts 
WHERE purchased_gold = false 
    AND last_active < (today - 2 years)
    AND star_count > 10
  • 3 years inactive with 20 or fewer stars, no gold:
SELECT guid, player_name 
FROM accounts 
WHERE purchased_gold = false 
    AND last_active < (today - 3 years)
    AND star_count > 20
#19

A very well constructed and easy to understand reply, I wouldn’t expect anything less. Thanks for clearing it up a bit for me.

This sounds like an amazing and fair idea, but how would this affect realmeye? You, to my knowledge, haven’t played realm in a fair amount of time, making your name open. If someone were to take said name, how would that affect your account on the forums? It would also go against the reasoning behind this rule if you just logged in periodically for no other reason than to preserve your name.

#20

great idea +1

#21

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