It makes no sense, and it's anti-immersive. There's no reason to even expect unique names in a universe of this size, and all it does it remove top tier sim experience by denying a portion of players their very first choice in their RP experience--because someone else chose that nick first.
I understand the need for a unique ID for each player, but it doesn't need to be, and shouldn't be, their name. I'm certain there's already a hidden ID number in each player record that is sufficient and likely used by most internal game systems to deal with situations where a player ID is relevant to interaction with the environment.
The only reason for it that I know of, is for things like whispers and tells in an in-game chat system, but it's time to put that to bed because there are better ways--and for ED, more immersive and "simmy" ways to accomplish that task.
For example, I have a couple Battle.net accounts that use the same nick. The reason I can do that is because they assign a semi-hidden numeric suffix to the player nick. It isn't shown on screen outside of places where it's relevant, like when trying to add someone to your friends list via search. You can see your own suffix by digging a little into your own profile, but for the most part, it's invisible.
For use in something like ED, you could make that suffix like a phone number. The player's nick is all that would generally be seen, but the suffix could still have a purpose within the comm system by allowing people to input contact info for people they haven't met yet. Once they're in your rolodex, you have a handle for contacting them.
People manage to navigate knowing multiple people with the same first name in real life. I'm sure we can handle it in simspace--especially if allowed to make notations to friends list like:
John: the one I like hanging out with
John: the guy who knows how to get that thing
Once you have that unique and generally invisible suffix in place, visible name collisions can be resolved by organic intelligence.
I understand the need for a unique ID for each player, but it doesn't need to be, and shouldn't be, their name. I'm certain there's already a hidden ID number in each player record that is sufficient and likely used by most internal game systems to deal with situations where a player ID is relevant to interaction with the environment.
The only reason for it that I know of, is for things like whispers and tells in an in-game chat system, but it's time to put that to bed because there are better ways--and for ED, more immersive and "simmy" ways to accomplish that task.
For example, I have a couple Battle.net accounts that use the same nick. The reason I can do that is because they assign a semi-hidden numeric suffix to the player nick. It isn't shown on screen outside of places where it's relevant, like when trying to add someone to your friends list via search. You can see your own suffix by digging a little into your own profile, but for the most part, it's invisible.
For use in something like ED, you could make that suffix like a phone number. The player's nick is all that would generally be seen, but the suffix could still have a purpose within the comm system by allowing people to input contact info for people they haven't met yet. Once they're in your rolodex, you have a handle for contacting them.
People manage to navigate knowing multiple people with the same first name in real life. I'm sure we can handle it in simspace--especially if allowed to make notations to friends list like:
John: the one I like hanging out with
John: the guy who knows how to get that thing
Once you have that unique and generally invisible suffix in place, visible name collisions can be resolved by organic intelligence.
