Naming our characters

Absolutely agree on gamertags ruining the immersion. A big reason why I don't read the Pirate Times.

Thing is SoT runs through Xbox Live, as a pc gamer this is the first Win10 game I had to try. So I created my account just for SoT.
Only occasionally do I run into a player that has a name crafted to a pirate toon.

You can change your name, but it cost ten bucks to Xbox Live, first change for free.

nicknames would he a cool option

I love the idea and agree with the immersion problem, but if players could hide their gamertags it would open the door to abuse. How would we report problem players? How could they be identified even if we had video as proof? I'm afraid we're stuck with the often absurd, sometimes jarring gamertags.

I very much hope that they add some way to name your character into the game. I agree that it is immersion breaking to see silly gamertags while playing, and I don't think paying a fee to change one's gamertag is reasonable. I hear your concerns though @Genuine-Heather, and they are not unfounded, but I would even be happy if they allowed us to have our pirate's name above (alongside our selected title), then our gamertag below. Maybe that would be too much text.....but I would be ok with that just so that others know my true name on the seas - Barnaby "Blackpowder" Billings! I love me some gunpowder kegs!

The only catch 22 to this is eventually all the permutations of names will be taken and you'll still end up with 'immersion' breaking names and l33t-speak.

This could be a solution to the stream sniping problem. And while they’re working on names maybe we could get different colors for allianced crews

@enf0rcer Sure thing mate, go ahead :)

@genuine-heather Truth to be told, didn't thought about that. But perhaps ability to turn viewing the gamer tags in game, right under the character's name, would do the trick. Players could set in Options menu whatever they want to see only the character's name, gamer's tag, or perhaps both like in other mmo's. This way even if You'd see only the names of ingame avatars, someone in your crew would see gamer tags so, if needed, you could report them :)

@goedecke-michel Ain't this the same with gamer tags? If some player is so infantile and things that vulgar words are some funny they'll use them anyway, no mater if it's thier character's name or tag.

It would be so much better to have character names instead of gamertags. A character name use to be a staple of most games. The surge of PvP pushed the trend to gamertags due to players wanting to use them.

Sadly game companies now just usually leave a character name option out. It has to be managed very well and a strict naming policy enforced. It use to matter in MMOs, but eventually most of them have caved to the use of gamertags. I think it would be very fitting to do so in SoT if Rare could make the use of character names meaningful and stand behind a naming policy.

Hiding names would pose a problem reporting player issues. Character names could be used instead of gamertags, but they would have to be unique for tracking purposes.

The issue with stream sniping is how names are used. In a lot of cases names like the streamer’s persona and gamertag are the same or similar making them too searchable. Important to protect information and oneself online just as in real life.

@ardent-hallern me and my friend name our characters, but it would be cool if we could actually name them in-game.

My character is called Crooked Betty. But when she's digging or rowing for hours, I call her Bulky Betty haha! And then there's Blunderbuss Betty. Ah.. the possibilities.

I also play Elder Scrolls Online by the way, and they let you choose whether you want to see gamertags or character names above other players' characters. So it's definitely possible.

This could also help stop abusive messaging via Xbox - something we could all do with. ^^^

@x-crowheart-x there could be an accessible in game list of people on your server when you need to report someone with their aliases or gamertags (whichever they show) visible.