Suggestions

I'm going to be real, I'm not sure if this is possible with FR's coding (I say that like I know what I'm talking about), but I'm going to throw it out there anyway.

Some people want inactive users to have their accounts archived and deleted, and I think the only reason for that would be to free up usernames on dead accounts. (If I'm wrong on this, please tell me!)

I definitely get that. There are a lot of cool usernames that are tied to inactive accounts! I'm one of the people who wants an already used username... Angel!

Instead of archiving and deleting old accounts (which could lead to a lot of heartache for people), what if the devs just removed their username and put it back in circulation, so to speak? Would it be possible for these accounts to get a new "username" related to their ID? For example, if I was inactive for a certain period of time, my username would be removed and I would instead be "#226373" until I returned. The # is not allowed in usernames currently, so naming people after their ID wouldn't take someone else's username.

In that period of my inactivity, the username "AwkwardAngel" would be available for anyone to take. When I return, the game could ask what username I'd like, or give me back my old one if it's still available.

I'd propose an inactivity period of a year. After seeing replies on thread, a period of three years might be more suited to the FR community. I think that's a reasonable amount of time. It's long enough so people who leave FR for half a year or more for school don't lose their usernames, but not so long that it'd basically be an unused feature.

This way, no one's losing dragons, items, treasure, etc., but just a username (which might not happen at all, if no one wants your old username!). It would be a little sad to come back and find AwkwardAngel gone, but I think the good (having old usernames back in circulation) outweighs the bad (potentially losing a username). I think this might be a good middle ground. What do you guys think?

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Later posts addressing concerns:

Logging in with username?
I think there could be an alternate way around this, like offering other ways to recover an account. Instead of usernames, you could use your ID (if you remember it), an email (if you have it), and if you have neither of those, there could be a set of security questions that FR could start asking for account recovery.

Pinglists
Yes, this would be annoying to go through and clear up with people. When you change your username, you already have to alert pinglists you are currently on that you've changed your username. But it's definitely not so annoying that it would dissuade people from taking the effort. Pinging someone who is trying to ping the old username doesn't take a whole lot of effort, and if the user has been inactive for a while, the pinglists they're on might be out of use anyway! Regardless, I'd be willing to go through the extra step to sort out the unwanted pings, since I'd be signing up to do that anyway.

Too short of a wait period
If a year is too short... maybe two years? Three years? To a certain extent, the time period itself is immaterial, it just matters that those old names are allowed to be picked up again.

There are many usernames out there
Of course! But, like others are pointing out, some users want specific names and would be unhappy with another. Misspelling or adding in a string of numbers might not be what a user wants.

I want my username forever
Because you play the game! If you didn't think about FR for years and years, you probably wouldn't care if someone picked up a username on an account you'd never use again. A longer grace period could help assuage this worry.
This system would really only catch users who have put down the game and will not likely pick it up again. If you wanted to keep your username, all it would take is one log-in in a pretty sizeable window of time (two years? three years? I'm curious... would a longer window make this more agreeable, or are people completely opposed to this?)

Potential bullying/harassment for an old username back
I could see this being a problem, but bullies would be dealt with in the same way as they always are.

Not picking up usernames in time
Oh well! At least under this system, people have a chance to.

no support. this kind of reminds me of the suggestions to put the items on inactive accounts up for sale just because people wanted retired items. usernames have always been first come first serve.

No support. Not only is a year a short time period (school, work, illness, deployments, etc... can all take someone away from a petsite for over a year), there are a lot of logistical issues with freeing up "inactive" usernames even if you ignore the part where people just don't want their names taken away for no reason other than they didn't log in for a set period of time. [list][*]Logging in is tied to username. Logging in when your username has changed can be difficult, since you can't guarantee that they'll actually be aware that it was changed. Maybe they didn't realize how long it had been, that the policy existed ([i]especially[/i] nearly 8 years into the game without the policy), or any notification email was actually received. [*]If you went inactive, and left yourself on any pinglists, any new user who signed up with that name or changed their name to it would start getting those pings. I have already seen this happen before when a user changed their username and someone new signed up with it later. It's not a nice welcome, especially if you're on big pinglists like GASP or SIDHA or the G1 pinglists. Yes, they can just ask to be removed, but it's still rather unpleasant to get a ton of pings you never asked for. [*]For people who are aware of the policy, it kind of... starts defeating the purpose eventually when people log in for like, 5 seconds every 11 months just to keep their username. That's not solving anything and is just annoying people. [*]I can absolutely see some unpleasant people harassing other users or newbies for having their original name and trying to get them to change it so they can have it back. Reportable, but absolutely better if it doesn't happen in the first place.[/list] It's a nice thought to free up names for people who want them, but at the end of the day it's a logistics nightmare and is really unfair to a lot of people. There's an infinite amount of names someone can choose already.

I honestly don't see any point in it. Yes it might free up usernames but I don't think its worth the possible headaches:
--Numbers are allowed in usernames so changing it to the ID could run into issues if someone happens to have an entirely number username
--Pinglists, Blocks and the like are based on the account name and not the account number, so using your example of Angel, if the old Angel was on a ton of pinglists you would inherit all of them and some may be difficult for you to get taken off of (for example being on a dom ping list from a different flight)
--Previous associations. If the previous account name holder had a bad reputation you would inherit the reputation and any blocks associated with the previous account holder


Yes this can already happen if you happen to change your username to another player's previous name but if old usernames were freed up that would be more likely to happen

[quote name="DragonSage" date="2021-03-07 15:46:03" ] --Pinglists, Blocks and the like are based on the account name and not the account number, so using your example of Angel, if the old Angel was on a ton of pinglists you would inherit all of them and some may be difficult for you to get taken off of (for example being on a dom ping list from a different flight) [/quote] fwiw I'm pretty sure blocks at least are tied to ID in the backend. I've looked at my blocklist, seen names I didn't recognize, and then realized it was someone I had blocked under their old username, so it auto-updated for the new username.

No thank you.

As someone who is planning to leave for a long term hiatus as soon as I finish my current projects I would be devastated to come back and find my username gone. That’s just punishment to people who’ve been gone for a long time and I don’t even think that’s a good idea based off the fact you have to log in with your username and password not email and password.

I have to give another no support.

Yes, there are a lot of 'cool' usernames out there already taken, but by that same standard, there are still a lot of 'cool' usernames yet to be found and ultilized, because there are a LOT of words in various languages out there. Some of them would be out due to various reasons, but that still leaves a LOT of names/words available to be used.

Then, when you start adding in alternative spellings, deliberate misspellings, substitution of numbers for letters, that opens up the possibility by a great deal.

I realized in the last thread that this came up on, that changing those user names would actually mean that most of the players who have 'lost' their UNs wouldn't be able to log in again, because the UN is required to log in. I have heard many people say 'I can't receive the password to my account because I lost the email associated with it' so there wouldn't be any guarantee those players would recieve their 'new' username to log in with.

There are also players whose entire UN is a number. No letters. This means that if any account goes inactive and gets their UN taken that has someone else using their account ID, there are going to be problems, because two player cannot exist with the same UN. Since the lack of # is most likely a coding issue, the UN would probably not include it when the change takes place.

I have also heard of people who have associated businesses, for example, a person who draws dragons for a living, will try to 'reserve' their UNs on various sites, to prevent players from 'impersonating' them and potentially ruining their reputation on sites where they are most likely to be brought up.

Finally, as has been said, people take hiatuses for a long time. I joined another site in 2016, In april. This year alone, I have seen people with lower IDs than mine, that I had *never* seen before on that site, come back on site. So, that is four years of hiatus. (and I know they were on hiatus and not just my not noticing them because the site is a very small one, and they literally said they had went on hiatus a long time ago). It would really stink to come back to a site after some life changing event that took you away for years, to find out that your UN was taken just because someone else wanted it. Especially if it is a UN that you are known by across multiple sites. There are some people who never change their name across sites unless they find their preferred UN taken. Those people would suddenly have a different UN, and from experience, that can be very confusing.

Basically, I see no reason to take names from inactive accounts, because there isn't a lack of UNs available.