Star Citizen Naming Drama – Sorry That Name is Already Taken…
Hello & Welcome to some more Star Citizen with the The Great Naming Drama – Sorry That Name is Already Taken…
Ship Naming is coming to Star Citizen Alpha 3.13 and players can start naming their ships now… kinda… it’s only for 6 ships to start with the Hammerhead, MSR, Reclaimer, Carrack, 600i and 890J.
It’s not done in game, its done externally via the website hangar and is NOT available for ships you’ve bought in game only with Real Money via the website.
Names will appear on the side of your ship… there is an assumption from me that it will also appear on the UI when you target or scan a ship too.
If you own one of those ships then over the next 4 weeks you can name it… it’s done in waves each monday (which started 1st march) with more and more people being able to name their ships based on how early they pledged for it with everyone with the 6 ships that are part of it being able to do it in wave 4 on the 22nd March onwards.
However the ship naming feature and the way CI are doing it has caused a reasonable amount of drama and anxiety not just because of it’s limited roll out as already mentioned.
There are naming restrictions it’s 32 characters ascii and names have to be unique to hulls so only 1 Carrack called Bob but you could own or there could exist a Carrack and a 890 Jump Called Bob just not 2 Carracks.
A lot of Backers are worried the name they want will be taken and CIG’s Zyloh has responded:
We’ve been monitoring feedback closely, including the direct messages we’ve received, both from the community, and internally at CIG (we have many avid and passionate citizens on staff, of course, so the team gets plenty of internal feedback as well).
We’ve seen many love the proposed naming functionality, but also many who don’t. With this one, it’s clear that either route is going to be met with resistance of some kind.
Ultimately, the path of unique-per-hull naming was chosen as our preference. The opportunity to build a legend for your ship and become recognizable in the ‘verse carries value to us. While it is true that ships will also have serial IDs, we don’t believe that carries the same weight as an identifier in player-to-player specific scenarios. We’d much rather an infamous player vessel be known as “The Emerald Dragon,” rather than “EXS-642531.”
At this stage of development, we’re not afraid to try, test, and explore different avenues, and as always, we see and process all the feedback from our community. Whether it’s a flight model, a CitizenCon digital ticket, or even how ship naming functions, nothing is immune to the iteration that we so often talk about. With that in mind, we are monitoring the healthy discussion within the community and will continue to take your feedback into account.
I totally back CI on getting the mechanic in and seeing what works… but I’d certainly like to see some changes and clarifications.
CI have said that names must conform to TOS and be appropriate I did find them saying:
“Restricted names may include those referencing in-fiction lore, offensive terms or phrases, divisive rhetoric, real persons or places, or other factors we deem applicable.
There are filters and measures put in place to prevent the use of some terms and words, however these are not perfect and players may still find a way to get offensive or restricted names into the game. “
BUT what’s inappropriate is not defined beyond no swear words, slurs or CIG names. I was talking on my stream about can you actually call your ship the Millennium Falcon OR is that name Copyrighted? Or is that ok because a player is doing it? The truth is I don’t actually fully know but really it’s down to what CI think and the rules are purposely vague.
So that CI can enforce whatever rules they need to later. I would hope to see a much more in depth guide/statement.
The waves for naming basically looks at the last time you upgraded or unmelted the package. So for people that added a Piceces to their Carrack, well it looks like it thinks that you actually upgraded it then and you’ll be in a later wave even if you had originally purchased the Carrack when it first went to concept. Tho CI might be addressing that.
It’s the same for multiple ships as part of a large package too.
It is worth it if you’ve changed the parts of your ship to Remove the Components on your ship before you name it… looks like it resets the ship. If you have all best in class components you might not want to lose them.
Are we going to see Greymarket start selling ship names for incredibly inflated prices? Ship names stick on the ship package and move with the ship so you could technically sell them on the grey market… I haven’t seen that on there yet BUT I have seen older packages and original concepts on the grey market now be sold as with ship name reservation… even ships that aren’t part of this initial roll out… so a Corsair bought during it’s first concept sale.
I would expect at some point ships with names to be sold on the market. Where there are wants a market forms after all HOWEVER in that market the Golden Ticket holders would be king… So golden ticket holders are players that registered on the RSI website before October 10th 2012… but in the current wave system and if that continues it allows you to name ships AS IF you bought them during their first concept period.
That gives you quite the advantage of snapping up names.
All Names Taken?
I’ve come up with a solution for names which is either have your Org Name then ship name that you want… TEST Horizon, BG Like Subscribe… that means you can see what org someone’s in easily (assuming we can see ships names on the UI in 3.13 that is).
We don’t have Orgs shown on their yet by default so this is actually pretty good.
The other ways are to have some Prefix or Suffix, UEE, HMS or MKI MKV…
I don’t really want to go the leet speak route with numbers in my name BUT you do you.
I do think this will be a bit of a problem with Starter Ships as they will be very common…
Most names might be taken unless you make suffix/prefix concessions.
Player were having some issues where the ship naming system just didn’t allow them to change a name too and CI have said:
Assuming you are selecting a name that is both free and allowed under the restrictions, the most common cause for this issue is browser addons blocking the function of the hangar section of the RSI website.
The thing is that CI could allow the same name on ships if they wanted, each ship comes with a unique serial number anyway… so why not just let people name a ship whatever they want? CI say it’s because they want names to be meaningful and unique ok… I suppose they can always change that in the future if what they are doing doesn’t work out too well.
However the current rollout is a little bit of a bodge job, it’s only for some ships, only external to the game, only purchased ships and there are a lot of vagueness to everything…
In the future… All ships will be able to have names and it will be available in game for in game purchased ships.
They are currently reviewing various options to limit the ability to change ship names infinitely as you can freely change a name on the website (tho that does add the old one back into the name pool immediately, as does upgrading or melting a ship)… there is a worry there that they will add a fee to this… I’d rather they just LOCK the ability to name a ship.
I want to know about the future of names tho…
What happens when your ship blows up and you reclaim it, does it lose it’s name, does it get a new serial number? Can you insure your name?
Will we get people calling hits on named ships so that they can quickly grab the name when the ship explodes? Obviously at the moment that’s not the case… you don’t lose the name BUT maybe in the future you would.