Star Wars: The Old Republic set to wipe long-abandoned character names

According to an email sent to Star Wars: The Old Republic players, BioWare will soon begin a “Character Name Renewal” program, targeting inactive players. Free-to-play characters who have not logged in to the game for long periods of time will have their names released into the general pool for anyone to use.

TOR saw a big spike in revenue and player activity when it switched from a subscription model to a free-to-play arrangement last year. All of those new players created characters with unique names, so newly-created characters may find themselves having trouble coming up with a name that isn't already taken. To help combat the problem of low-level characters claiming a name, enjoying (or not enjoying) the game for an hour and then never logging in again, BioWare will wipe away the names of old characters starting on November 12.

Note that Bioware is only flagging characters for renaming. The actual characters, with experience and inventory and dashing good looks, will not be affected.

Subscribers won't have to worry about their characters' names at all, nor will any character over level 30, no matter what the status of your account is. If you have a low-level character that you've been away from for 2-6 months, simply log into your character before November 12 to safeguard your name.

Thanks, PCGamesN .