Names

[ChaoticFission]

i think that TNT should add a feature that would allow us to rename out pets. a... Naming Fountain, perhaps? i would even go as far as to say, it can even be a fee-associated thing that you can only do once a month. just think about it, no more badly-named pets would have to rot away in the pound because nobody wants it.

 

another thing that i think you should be able to do, is to release your account name. my idea for this is that: if the account has been frozen for a reason other then self-ice, and it has remained frozen for 5 years, that account should be purged, thus releasing its name back into the collective. in addition to that, it would be great to delete your account altogether, not just self-ice. that would inevitably accomplish the same thing as the first, but at the hands of the owner.

 

so, what do you guys think? when will TNT make this happen?

[Cornflakes]

Nope, it'll never happen. I don't think TnT is all that customer-oriented. Do they care if we're happy? LOL, no.

[Spritzie]

I don't think it will ever happen, but I think if they made a Name Change Token, like LiveJournal does, in the NC Mall, they'd make a profit, because people would be willing to do it, and with the incentive of money, it would make it slightly more likely.

[Wembly]

I don't think that its very practical though because each pet has its own page based on its name and such. Database wise I would think that its much easier to just make people keep the names they chose at the start. And pets don't really sit and rot in the pound, they disappear after a while.

[CAV of Gang Green]

TNT doesn't care about the customer. They care about saving money, and making money. It's not really surprising because that's how Viacom always acts with anything they own.

 

Sorry, but it ain't gonna happen.

[Sofa]

It seems unlikely. I suppose most people who are worried about names would just create new pets and start over, put the old badly named ones on a side acc. or somesuch. I wish there was some way of changing username whilst still keeping the account the same...but that's even more unlikely to happen.

[jesse_rocket]

The other thing is, c'mon, at this point, what's left? If I used my hypothetical name-change token to change my pet's name, I'd be limited to having to pepper everything with ___ and xXx or numbers or whatever, all the "good" names are taken.

 

As for retiring idle/frozen names, I think I read elsewhere that they're already doing this a bit. I forget much in the way of specifics, but there was some really common (normal) girl's first name, being used on a pet less than a month old. I would be extremely surprised if that name had never been taken until now, in all the time Neopets has been running.

[Kuroida]

Yeah. Not going to happen. If e-mail and fb and all those sites out there don't do it. Why should neo? Besides, it's way too troublesome...and now a days, if I can get a name I want I feel so insanely proud of myself XD If pets had the same name they wouldn't be special :P

[Octopus]

The problem with having a name change function is that people would do it multiple times and the database would overload :P.

[x__slinky]

I say never.

Of course I would like to be able to rename a couple of my pets,

but TNT doesn't give a rats bottom. XD

They are all about control and this is just another part of it. There's no point in protesting.

Just enjoy the game for what it is. :)

[jesse_rocket]

I say never.

Of course I would like to be able to rename a couple of my pets,

but TNT doesn't give a rats bottom. XD

They are all about control and this is just another part of it. There's no point in protesting.

Just enjoy the game for what it is. :)

 

I don't think it's a case of TNT not caring, and certainly not about control. I think it would be much too hard to implement, as has been mentioned before in the thread, PetPages alone would be problematic, let alone the strain it would put on their databases. It's a case of practicality, rather than holding us, the users, to ransom or something.

We all of us had a choice to name our pets what we wanted when we started (or some close approximation of that), and yes, some of us regret our choices - for instance, JessesKau is a stupid name that I came up with 10 years ago for my first ever Neopet - but they were the names we chose, and TNT shouldn't be held guilty for if we change our minds about them at a later date.

[SlightlyCautious]

I'm kinda liking the NC idea. I think that would be the only way they would do it. I agree that it's not TNT's fault we chose bad names, but I don't think it would be that big of a deal to change, especially if you charge people $3-$5 per change. Petpages go blank when you transfer them, right? Or they could say that if you changed the name, you give up having a petpage for that pet.

 

I also think that accounts (either frozen or inactive) should be purged after one year. Think about it, logging in takes 5 seconds. If you don't care enough to log in once in 365 days, you probably won't miss your account much.

 

True, I became active again after a hiatus of more than 2 years, but I didn't actually expect them to still have the account, and my case is probably more the exception than the rule.

[Sakurabelle]

It would be lovely if we could change the names of some pets. I sometimes search through the pound just trying to find pets with cute names. It would make it a lot easier if I could ignore the name, knowing that I could change it later. Unfortunately I don't think it's every going to happen. It seems as if too much is tied into a pets name. It would probably force TNT to rethink how their database of information is tied together. It's still a nice dream though.

[hrtbrk]

I think they don't feel it's necessary because they'll just purge the name/pet (as they've been doing as of late) It's probably easier for them to do it this way - and better for us.

 

When they started the purge, someone created a pet named Claire but didn't capitalize it >.<