One of the largest concerns with realm transfers is losing your guild name, and especially your character name. Blizzard has stated that they will be monitoring the situation and actively freeing names that others have intentionally blocked. In addition to this, they will be freeing more names from players who have been inactive for a long period of time.
Realm Changes & Free Moves for Mists of Pandaria Classic
Please note, feel free to grab names now, but please refrain from intentionally blocking others names, we have and will take action against people proven to be acting maliciously.
Additional names will be available on patch day as we will be reigning in the date that we consider “inactivity” for Mists of Pandaria Classic to free additional names for incoming transfers.
How Blizzard Classifies Inactive Characters
Currently, there is no known timeframe that dictates what makes a World of Warcraft Classic character inactive. This is different from Modern WoW, where “characters that are inactive for more than 2 expansions may be renamed to allow active players the use of those names”. The following is offered by Blizzard Support regarding Classic WoW:
- “Classic versions of World of Warcraft will periodically rename inactive characters. Customer Support has no information on when inactive names will be made available
- To be considered active you must log into the version of World of Warcraft with the character whose name you wish to preserve. For example, playing on a Modern World of Warcraft character will not preserve a Classic or Season of Discovery character’s name.”
Blizzard Official Sources:
Hopefully, these changes are monitored closely, and everyone can retain their current names!
Blizzard is Monitoring Intentional Name Blocking
A common occurrence on WoW servers is players creating a bunch of level 1 characters with names they may want in the future, and names they believe other players will want. The goal is to either maliciously block a player’s name (perhaps a friend from another realm, or a content creator you watch), forcing them to rename.
Blizzard has stated they are monitoring the situation and warns that they “will take action against people proven to be acting maliciously”. While there has been no official statement about how to report players blocking names, we suspect that this will be handled through the official World of Warcraft Support tickets.
Are you concerned that your character name won’t be available? How many “inactive” names will be freed up for this new mega-realm? Be sure to grab your character’s name as soon as possible, and check back in to see if it has become freed up recently!
