As you may remember, the guild I was in for Legion and BFA imploded in the beginning of February. The remaining officers and a few others from that guild transferred to a new server and went Horde.
The previous guild leaders came back, and formed a new guild from the remaining players. We've been raiding with another guild on Doomhammer for the past couple of weeks. They're a pretty good group and are around our age, skill level, and preferred schedule. We've picked up Heroic Grong and Heroic Opulence, and are working on Heroic Conclave.
In any case, the Doomhammer guild asked us to server transfer and join up with them. Our guild leaders want to step back from the work of recruitment and building up the new guild to a point where we could raid on our own. So they, and most of the other people in our new guild have decided to transfer.
I'm probably going to join them, but there's one thing holding me back. My main name, Coriel, is taken on Doomhammer. It's taken by a level 90 blood elf paladin, who I think left the game in Mists of Pandaria.
I am rather loathe to change names, since that character has had that name since Vanilla. But I guess I'll have to do so. If it was a low level alt, I'd try and get it released, but it looks like someone's endgame main.
Several of the secondary names I use are free on that server, so it's not a huge deal. It's not like I'll have to resort to alternate characters. Though, amusingly, one person who was trying to invite me to a group recently asked what the code was for the "i" in Coriel, automatically assuming it was something special.
The other thing I'm considering is, since I have to change names anyways, is switching to a male character. I don't talk a lot in Discord, and I think some people have started assuming I'm female. It's kind of unusual, because in the past the default assumption has always been male. But maybe it's the combination of healer + female character + not talking. Either way, it's a little awkward, so I'm thinking of switching.
Server transfers are annoying, though. They're simultaneously too easy and too difficult. They're easy enough so that people don't really bat an eye at transferring a single main to join a specific guild on a different server. But it's also annoying to have characters spread out on multiple servers.
Sometimes people assume I'm female even though I play a male healer. There are little ways that I sometimes get treated differently... nicer, maybe... that cause me to suspect they think I'm a female, and then they confirm it later. It'd odd.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's kind of weird that the healer role has come to be so strongly associated with women. I didn't think the association was so strong before.
DeleteThough maybe it's just because there are more women playing these days. In a mostly male guild, your healers are going to be male regardless.
I don't think this is globally true. While I do know some lady healers, the majority by far is male, and noone on my server (sylvanas eu) seems to assume healers are female
DeleteIf the other character hasn't been played since MoP, I would still try to get the name released. At worst they say they can't and you still need to find a new name.
ReplyDeleteChanging character names is a pain. What I've done is to pretend my character is switching to a middle name or had a 'stage name' and is switching to a real name. Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but for me names give a great deal of continuity to my characters so I try to make sure the name still fits the character. With the upcoming change which allows you to have all 50 characters on a single server I'm looking at moving most and having to likely rename some, possibly most. :sigh:
As far as switching to a male character, I personally wouldn't as I don't want to lose that part of history of my character. I used to be the guild main tank so I do talk in Discord regularly. So guildies do know I'm male with all female characters. If a pug says 'she' about me, I just say 'he', laugh, and move on without letting it become an issue.
Funny, I'm more expressive about my character's imaginary personality and names than I am about the game in general. :)
In the end, I went with 'Corie'. It's a short form of the name, so it's kind of similar. I'll try to get the name the next time Blizzard does a name reclamation.
DeleteAs for the male thing, the problem is that it usually comes up in the middle of another discussion, and I don't want to distract from the main point. Like if we're discussing raid strategies, and someone says "she", I'll ignore it and focus on the strategy discussion at hand. Insisting on "he" at that point seems awkward to me.