Flagged for name change, but change doesn't work.

[Wowish 0]

Last night two of my characters were flagged for name changes. When logging in this morning, I was allowed onto Stormrage with one of them without changing the name, but the other character still says the name change is required.

When trying to change the character's name, I receive a renaming character failed message. Not sure what's happening, but there are definitely some issues to work through for this migration.

Elysium staff - I have experience in release management. Maybe it's too late at this point, but if you all need help I'd be happy to help where I can.

[Zancon 117]

The failed is because the name you have chosen is already taken on the server.  We are looking at ways to "reclaim" names on accounts that have been inactive.

[Wowish 0]

I am new to the Elysium project. I created my character Darkone a short time ago, and have been playing the character daily since creation. He's level 20. If the name was unavailable, why didn't I receive a notification at the time I created the name? Also, at this point, to be able to play, I have to give up the name?

Is it absolutely necessary to rename my character?

[Zancon 117]

It was available on the original server in which it was created. That server had to be merged into our other server as it was becoming unplayable due to low population. Unfortunately the name was not also available on the other server which is much older so it had naming priority. This is what forced the name change in order to be able to play.

It may be as simple as just doubling one of the letters such as making it Darkkone.

With the above said and my previous reply we are working at ways to reclaim names from inactive accounts but don't have an ETA for that.

[Wowish 0]

Thanks for your help Zancon. I think I'll just leave Darkone alone until you all have time to dig deeper to see if the names can be fixed to allow characters to continue playing under their existing names.

Is it possible to combine username and character name as the primary key? That would likely resolve the majority of issues. For example username: user1, charactername: char1. Instead of updating records using charactername, char1, use user1+char1 as the primary key.

Without seeing the SQL, hard to say if a simple solution like that will resolve the issue, but it could be a potential solution.