What's in a name?

[foamingowl]

What can an opposing player do with your name?

For instance, if someone wants you to "join" their team and they ask your name, can they summon your poor defenseless body while you are sleeping?

Should names be kept secret? Are they valuable?

[Bechorath]

There's two things that are linked to a name. One is the non-tangible reputation. The other, is if you have someone memorized, it will say their name when you come across their property.

However, it sounds like when you say "join" their team, your talking about partying. When you are in someone's party, trespassing on their property isn't considered a crime. Also, when you are in a party, it shows an arrow pointing to your other party members, but it has been known to be a bit glitchy. Other than that, that's all that I know of for parties.

So no, names aren't really valuable, unless you value your reputation - meaning if someone knows your name and you robbed someone, and they know you robbed them, they would have your name to go by, which simply means, if they find someone with the same name again, they will likely want revenge, but nothing tangible to go by past scents and evidence.

The same could be said of kinning - having someone on your kin list would only tell them what the real name of your character is (which remember, anyone can have any name, no matter if someone else has it as well, so it is easy to impersonate someone), along with telling them when you are logged on, assuming you keep them kinned.

[MagicManICT]

Other than rep, they can do nothing with your name unless you are kin, and as Bechorath points out, the other person can only see if you're online.

If you've memorized anyone, they start off as ??? and you can give them any nickname you want. (I usually use ?1 as in #1, etc for random people.) Anyone you've memorized will have a name show up for them when you come across them or you find their claim. Another note about the kin list--once kinned and you find out the character's actual name, you can still change it. If I have a trade contact in game, I'll usually append their forum name to the character name for easy reference. Just be sure to not delete the name completely. It's bugged and may (probably will) crash you.

The other thing to know about names is that they aren't unique in the world, only unique to your account. Anyone can use the name "John" exactly once (per account). If the "John" character dies, then that player can no longer reuse it. However, I can name my character "John," too, and pretend that I'm you and create all kinds of problems for you by making people angry. (For examples, see some of the recent threads in House of Burgesses and accusations of scamming and such.)

Should they be kept secret? I think so for some of the reasons I mentioned. There's no security with the name and anyone can make an imposter. But are they valuable? I think no, but if I were to be a scammer and to find out a trader character's name, I could probably make some money off of it.