Recently I had a name change. I was Watercolors, now I am Bleubird. No! Not the cheese >.> I wanted "Bluebird" But somebody already had it. Guess what? They haven't been on for 955 days. That is over almost three years... And doesn't seem fair. Why should they get a name someone else, who plays everyday might I add, wants? Seems like people like me would have earned it.... In addition, the amount of days they have been gone minus their account age amounts to, wait for it, 2.

So me and a few others were thinking, perhaps if you are gone for 335 days you get an email warning that if you don't come back and play your account will be deactivated. This way, if the person is actually still alive, they will have a choice to play or not. Also,

Perhaps accounts could have a deactivation feature. Maybe a person comes back to see what it was, in case they forgot, and again decided they had no use for it. Then they could deactivate it themselves, instead of having it active for another year..

Any opinions?

Link: https://www.sylestia.com/forums/?thread=33919&page=1#1 Author: Carrotbae Time Posted: 3/9/2016 at 3:47 PM Many people, pick up, leave sylestia. But some of those players might want to come back, and can't remember the name (I've done this many times) What if your account sent you an email saying "come back your pets miss you" with the little crying jinxie that's on the site down page. It would auto send at 30 days and 180 days and every 180 days after that. That would mean a month of inactive you get an email, six months from that another, and another six months after that. And then people would be like, oh yeah, i need to go play that game again. Also on he email, there would be a link that says "click here to disable these emails". That way people dont have to see them after they see them, and don't want no more. Also a way to de activate accounts would be nice (courtesy of GC) maybe in the account settings, or something to get rid of your account. You wouldn't be able to re register with the same email though, just to make sure your deleting your account, and not re starting. Opinions are greatly appreciated :)

Only one person had to post it xD
But I agree with this, I see so many people that wants to have their account deactivated, but they can't because there is no way to have it deactivated...
As for the "can't use the same email to make an account" is brilliant, as I've also seen people that wanted to start over... Though I've also seen people with more than one account... So that will not deter them.

But overall, a good idea ^_^

I agree that something should be done about the 99% of accounts on here that were created and then never signed on to again, but there are a lot of technicalities to consider before wiping them from the system, and I highly suspect that's why Krin and Fai haven't done anything about it.

For starters, this might be a free-to-play game, but there are parts of it that cost real dollars, and if a player buys something before going inactive, deleting their account could run into legal issues. If a player buys an item in the Diamond Shop, the system doesn't seem to differentiate whether the diamonds were bought on the Currency Exchange with gold or with real money using PayPal. Whenever a player buys diamonds with PayPal, it shows up in the Account Overview, but the Account Overview is wiped every three months. If there's not a file in the site database that can be checked to see if a player has bought diamonds with PayPal before purging their account, deleting the account could be seen as theft.

So, it's better for business if the site has thousands of dead accounts with 0.02% game completion than to risk deleting the account of a paying member and having that person come back later, demand a refund, and spread all kinds of bitter hate on other websites to ruin Sylestia's reputation.

But let's assume that there is a file in the database that records PalPay use, since it seems Krin and Fai are now using that to determine who gets to be ad-free for up to a year. Any player that has ever bought diamonds with PayPal is automatically exempt from purging, hooray. Sounds fair, right?

Then what? Should there be another level of exemption to consider, such a game completion percentage? What if somebody was active for a year, accumulating items, unlocking several AP options, and amassing a fabulous collection of pets before dropping suddenly with a short "indefinite hiatus" announcement on their profile? For all we know, they could be in a coma for the next five years but still want to come back after they wake up. (It's far-fetched and very unlikely, but it could happen.)

What if the player dies and there is actual documentation to prove their death? Does their account stay up like a memorial or is it poof'd like any other inactive account? Would their stuff be given to a "next-of-kin" player or put up in an "estate" auction for any user to bid on? If not, what happens to their pets? Would the pets be auto-released into the wild, including any tagged they might have? Would they be automatically set up for breeding by the system so other players could interact with them?

I have most of my pets set up for breeding just in case something happens and I can't reach my account for a long time, so that they would at least be available to other players. Should there be an exception made for players who have pets up for public breeding or sale since parts of their accounts are accessible by other players?

Heck, what if a player wants to manually delete their account? Would "deactivating" an account really and truly delete it and all information associated with it, or would it be like Facebook where it just goes dormant until you reactivate it?

If the account is dormant, would any of the player's pets show up in Advanced Search? If they do, would the profiles be viewable? If they are, could other players feed or breed the pets? Would the player's trade Broker listings or Currency Exchange listings be automatically ended and traded back to the player?

If the account is deleted, are the player's pets released into the wild or also purged from the database? If they're released into the wild with the deleted owner's username attached to them, does that mean whoever signs up with that username next can "buy" the pets back for 50 diamonds? If the deleted owner's username is not attached, does that mean any player can buy them back for the standard 50 diamonds? Would any of the player's Trade Broker listings or Currency Exchange listings still be available under a "null" account, or are they purged as well? Would any of the deleted player's forum posts still be viewable under the author name "deleted account", or would there be a sudden series of holes in a bunch of threads?

TL;DR, deleting and purging accounts would probably cause more problems than it'd solve.


Alternative Idea:

Since usernames can be changed by Krin or Fai as many times as they allow, why not just make usernames expire after a period of inactivity? A player's user ID, email, and password would stay the same, but they would have choose a new username (if somebody else nabbed theirs) upon returning to the site. Any forum posts made by the inactive user would just show the user ID until they pick a new one, and pet profiles would also just show the user ID in lieu of an owner name.

o: Yes your alternative idea sounds /much/ much better than the original! Thank you very much for the feedback

If anything like this gets implemented, I personally think it would be a good idea for a player to have some means of safeguarding their username if they're going to be inactive for a time, but intend on returning.

I've recently returned to this game after a roughly two-year hiatus. Prior to that, I was very active, playing everyday, running the dungeons, nurturing pets, spending real money on diamonds. After returning, I've been pretty much about as active as I was before.

I would have been incredibly upset if I'd lost my username during that time. For that to be taken away from me, without my consent, I certainly would not have appreciated that.

I do not support this. Hoenstly, things come up i peoples lives that may cause them to go inactive for a long time. If i ahd to eave for any reason, I would be absoltuely furious if my account or even my username was gone. I would be especially furious if someone else had the userame I chose for myself, ust becaus ei wasn't able to log on for a certain amount of time.

Like others have said, many people pay real money to get features on the site. Over the few years I've been playing, i've probably spent hudnreds of dollars or more. If all of that money was jsu tto have my account deactivated becaus ei couldn't log on, me no be happy.

My biggest concern with something like this would be someone intentionally taking advantage of a well-known / trusted person's absence (as many people have mentioned, things happen that may require an absence and they're not always planned) to adopt their username and then effectively impersonate them.

This could occur inadvertently as well as intentionally. For example, a new-ish user who never knew the well-known / trusted person might happen to want their username which would then cause confusion / misunderstandings for those users who did know (and/or regularly dealt with) the original user with the username.

Some people might then say, "Why not just protect the names of those well-known?"
My response to that would be, "Who makes that decision? On what basis would the decision be made? What if people disagree with the decision?"

Overall, I think it would throw up a lot of issues and upset quite a few people.

(All that said, I do understand your frustration.)

I believe Krin has said they would never do this - removing someone's account from them just because they've been inactive. There's just no way to tell apart someone having left the site and someone with a genuine absence for reasons beyond their control - you can't just be taking away their names or punishing them for that, it's terrible service when trying to keep someone on a site lol.

EDIT: If anyone else is in this situation, remember we only get one name change so we should make sure to be happy with the new name before changing, if the one you want isn't available, find another you click well with :)

Agreed, But what about their Sylesti? Would they all go back into the wild or would they be sold to the highest bidder? I say this because I've had my eye on a Lighira for the past 2 weeks. And you know what they haven't been on in 534 days. That's just about 1 1/2 years!