In Star Wars: The Old Republic, your characters are in danger as they might lose their names. Here’s what you need to do.
Most players associate a lot with their character names in MMORPGs. It can be a nickname used across many games, a name with special significance for role-playing, or simply a pun that they found particularly clever.
It’s frustrating when you lose your character name after years. However, that’s exactly what threatens to happen in SWTOR, as the developers will release the names of countless characters if the associated accounts remain inactive.
Which names are affected? All character names from accounts that have not logged in since January 2024. So if you have been inactive for the last 11 months and do not log in again by the end of the year, your character names will be affected.
Accounts that have a permanent subscription are not affected – regardless of whether they log in regularly or not. Only free-to-play accounts that are inactive have to worry about their names.
What happens to inactive names? Inactive names are not directly “deleted”. Instead, they end up in a pool of “released” names. This means your character keeps the name until someone else wishes to use that name – only then do you lose it.
If that is the case and you still want to return in the future, you can expect a free rename of your character upon logging in.
How can you save your names? You only need to log in to SWTOR with the relevant characters once before the end of the year. Once you have done that, your names are safe for the time being – at least until the next release. So if you are particularly attached to the names of your SWTOR characters, you might want to start up the MMORPG again and make sure no one snatches the name away.
No subscription is required for this.
Why is SWTOR doing this? The fact that names in larger MMORPGs are released after a while is not entirely new – this also happens regularly in other games, such as World of Warcraft. With the passage of time, many names are simply taken and it becomes increasingly difficult to find a nice name without many special characters for your own character. After all, no one wants to be called Xxshádôwkíllêrxx, except – well – very special people.
The action is viewed controversially, as a year’s pause can certainly happen to MMORPG fans. However, there is also enough time to log in again. For most, it’s just a minor annoyance that can quickly be resolved – at least if they are still following news about SWTOR.
Star Wars: The Old Republic will soon receive a significant update – it’s worth logging in again.
