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Originally Posted by MSecorsky
Doesn't anyone pay attention?
It looks like name is a primary key. What that means, in a nutshell, is that name is used as a lookup into the databases for your characters information. Most likely, this field is not modifyable. That means you cannot change it, and any attempts to do so would throw an error.
Now, IF they were to recreate all the databases, copy all the data from the old databases into the new ones, rename the new ones to the same names as the old ones (after deleting the old ones) and have GW shut down the entire time... then they would have to deal with the headaches that come with having databases with modifyable primary keys.
You don't want this. Trust me. The risk goes way beyond potential scammer abuse.
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With all due respect, I doubt that's how the backend is implemented. A user visible string, the character name in this case, is rarely if ever used as the primary key. I'm just speculating here, but combination of account id plus the slot id seems to be a more likely candidate for the primary key.
Besides, if a name change would result in a full database migration / rebuild, then ANet would have a very difficult time dealing inproper character names.
There is a risk for being abused. However, it can be mitigated via,
1. limited use, a scheme similar to changing territory
2. cost, may be something similar to buying skills
I don't see any risk in providing the ability to change appearance. It would be another fun thing for people to do. Just make them pay dearly for their "plastic surgery"
/signed