Maybe a way to prevent all these name snipes is making a user be able to change a username once if it has already been used. Your account must be active for about 2-3 years, must have 2-step authentication, and must have a verified account.
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I’d like to point out that your poll is useless; many participants are visitors. As such, it only reflects a shared saltiness over missing out on epic namesnipes.
It is fruitless to suggest more arbitrary rulesets as to what names can and can’t be stolen.
You should’ve put that effort into thinking of a sufficiently unique username, or, like I did, a sufficiently unique gimmick.
Again,
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Polls don’t decide whether features get implemented or not BTW. This feature is more determinant on concerns with effectiveness and how it would be implemented without causing negative side effects – not desire for it.
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I think a better idea in general would be to allow taking usernames from terminated accounts under the conditions that:
- The account was not terminated for an inappropriate username
- The account has been terminated for a long period of time (i.e. over 2 or 4 years)
- The name in question is not a well-known username (this would restrict names like “jaredvaldez4” or the infamous “1x1x1x1” from being taken again, since those names are well known.) (Unfortunately this would be a pain to document)
I’ve seen a lot of usernames taken, but upon searching the username I get no result because the user is term’d. (If it’s tagged, I just do the trick of getting profile via username)
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Unfortunately username swapping was implemented such that you can snipe tons of names.
Because of this, unlocking taken usernames doesn’t make any sense. This is a lot of work to implement and will benefit maybe 100 nostalgic power users? I don’t get the point.
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I know, I was just kind of curious myself
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The poll was more for myself to see some numbers. The ruleset I suggested was also just an idea for it, that could potentially help prevent namesniping and hoarding.
Sorry but as I previously said, I wasn’t inspired to make this post by wanting some ‘epic namesnipe’ but because my name I use on everything else is taken by an inactive user. But, I see the point you’re trying to make.
A good example of that is myself - I use the name Lightlim on pretty much everything. My Roblox username would be Lightlim, if it wasn’t taken a year ago and not used since (https://www.roblox.com/users/152827596/profile48). This led to a few complications, like how searching Lightlim into google gets you a lot of my accounts on other websites except Roblox, but searching Lightlimn only shows my Roblox one since it’s ever so slightly different and changing my name to other combinations but looking the same won’t help. Other issues too, like just making things slightly more complicated than they need to be for linking accounts together, just because someone took the name once.
Honestly, I’m not too bothered about this feature being implemented or not, but it would just be something kind of nice. I know other people have suggested it and want it, so I thought it could be brought up again. If there is any chance I can get my original name, I will take it.
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This should specifically be a thing for terminated accounts with no chance of return along with accounts with under X amount of play hours, or inactive for X amount of time.
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I’d like to bump this and give an updated opinion I have on this:
This idea is so that inactive accounts who fulfil some kind of criteria for being inactive (e.g. less than 5 hours played and logged in >1 year ago, unverified etc.) should have their names be able to be taken with the username change system we have now. This would open up many more names, and allow for better customisation and branding as a developer.
A big argument here was that people who want to namesnipe and keep the namesniped accounts will just log on periodically to keep the namesnipe. That’s true, and I guess that should be allowed to happen. If someone really wants to namesnipe that name, then they will no matter what. But for the possibly hundreds of thousands of good names there are, like my name Lightlim which are unable to be taken, it’s unlikely there’ll be many people actually holding onto them. Random usernames people thought of and forgot, stuff like that. They should become free after a set amount of time (6 months, maybe a year).
Another ‘argument’ against this was that it isn’t necessary if you can’t get your ‘epic namesnipe’ and I find that a bit ridiculous. There’s a lot of things that aren’t necessary, like changing of names in the first place but it’s convenient and aids in recognition if you’re a famous developer. If you say the name ‘asimo’, people know exactly who you’re talking about, even random people on the website. It does matter.
The poll I did on this also showed that there are a lot of people who have their wanted names taken by inactive accounts. I’m not saying this means this should happen, but it would be a very nice thing to have.
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re-opening names is always great in theory
but the chaos that it brings with it is never that great
really, I think it’d just be better to allow the “upper-echelon” of members to get names
i.e, if Asimo wanted to be just “Asimo” without numbers. Or CrazyMan32 wanted to drop the 32. That’s all very fine and dandy and allowable, but opening names widely to the masses all over again is problematic.
edit: And maybe one day Roblox will recognize that I’m a good boy and give me “George”
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That’s another idea, and I’d also be happy with that, however I don’t understand how my original idea would bring chaos at all.
How do I log into an account if its name has been taken by another player? Could an account I’ve spent money on be subject to losing its name for inactivity?
The most obvious chaos would be people losing usernames and worrying about losing usernames.
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These will be accounts which have been inactive for a long time - if you were worrying about keeping that username then you’d probably just go on it every so often. In League of Legends if your name gets claimed, you are just prompted to make a new username on login. None of your progress is lost - you just choose a new username.
- People would complain about “Obselete” usernames.
I.E. I haven’t been Daytona2090 for years. Should that name be stripped of me and given back to the public? Look at all these names I’ve acquired.
- People could just spam new accounts to get the good names, thus, having the name-snipe problem all over again anyways.
- People who can’t afford a name change will be upset they miss out on the bonanza.
- There would be a set time for it to happen. Some people will indefinitely sleep through the name change bonanza.
- People will attempt to jump onto partial versions of popular names. (i.e. “Asimo308” or “Asimo30”)
- People will just be generally upset when they don’t get the name they want because someone else got it first, bringing up the “it’s not fair” clause.
- What happens to all the accounts that receive their name being stolen away? Some of them have limiteds. Some of them had BC/TBC/OBC. Some of them have places. Some of them have a lot of things.
- What about controversial users? Like JaredValdez?
There’s just too many issues when it comes to a gaming/social platform to just release names into the wild willy nilly. Xbox could do it because the names don’t have significant meaning behind them. LoL could do it because the names don’t have significance either. There’s just too much havoc caused by releasing names like that. And what happens if everybody trying to change names all at once crashes the site? Then there is huge outrage. It’s just all in all not a good plan. However, I do believe there should be a system for certain users to get a namesnipe. Should be locked up to Staff/Interns/Well-Known Users. (I.E. The Users that essentially make Roblox what it is. Asimo, Crazy, Merely, Stickmaster, etc.) But tbh, all of those guys wouldn’t change their name anyways. They’ve built too much on their name to lose it all.
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Obselete usernames or ones you have previously had should obviously not be up for grabs - people would recognise you as that user, so nobody else should be allowed to have that name because you should be able to switch back to it if you want to.
Another thing League of Legends does it have this only usable for the name changing system, and not for making new accounts. This makes sense, because it prevents people from mass namesniping without any cost. This prevents hoarding names unless they want to pay thousands of robux. I’m okay with that.
Really? This seems like a non-problem. You could literally say this about anything, like not being able to go somewhere because you can’t afford it - so they should make it free because it’s not fair.
People already do that though, and it’s hardly a problem. New accounts have those names already, or people using them. Not really a big deal.
Accounts which actually had a lot of stuff like limiteds, BC etc. or were banned shouldn’t be able to have their names taken of course. Like I’ve said multiple times now - some limitations will obviously be applied, like you can’t take terminated user’s names and you can’t take the names of people with > X number of place visits, friends, if they’ve had BC, etc… There are a lot of limits which could be applied and there would still be a LOT of new names available.
What I said just before applies to this too - he was terminated and had BC etc, of course he wouldn’t be able to have his name taken.
I don’t see a problem with this. Players who have done things on their account and actually used it should be safe from it, and users who have recently logged in.
Again… really? That’s just a technical issue - I don’t see at all how this is relevant to my feature request. You could apply this to anything again. What if everyone changed their names all at once anyway? Doesn’t really make sense or matter.
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My point is that allowing mass name changes causes mayhem, havoc, panic, and anger. The good of some people being happy to get a name does not outweigh the mass-hysteria and backlash that Roblox would receive if they announced this kind of thing.
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Maybe you’re seeing something I’m not seeing - but I don’t understand how there would be “mayhem, havoc, panic, and anger” at some old usernames being free to take. Any users whose usernames are free to take would be inactive anyway, and they wouldn’t be people with famous names. I can’t really see how any mayhem or havoc would be caused through this.
The users taking names. That’s the havoc and mayhem part. The old users, will never really know. But if you announce that some premium names are up for grabs, it’s chaos. You have to understand that in some cases certain names are as valuable as a Dominus.
Yeah, and it was like that when underscores in usernames came out. It wasn’t really chaos, just first come first served. The names O_O and 0_0 etc. are really cool and ‘valuable’, but… so what? They got the name. They can use it.
“Being fair” isn’t necessarily a problem—even more so when you think not being fair will cause havoc and mayhem. Who are we being fair to? Users who were inactive for years, probably forgot about Roblox, and had their username taken away? Users who can’t afford to change their name? Users who wanted a username, but was too slow?
We have these “problems” all the time as @Lightlimn said with the underscores. It’s going to be a first come first serve basis. Users not being able to afford things can be compared to them wanting their “dream item”. If they want it, they work for it.
There’s not much Roblox will lose when it comes to requesting taken usernames—if anything they’ll gain something (money of course). And, honestly, who’s going to spend all of their Robux changing their name 100 times to get the name snipes?
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