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I noticed that in many gaming related systems, this is already kind of the case. Blizzard appends random numbers to the end of each username in order to avoid n

I noticed that in many gaming related systems, this is already kind of the case. Blizzard appends random numbers to the end of each username in order to avoid name clashes, Steam lets you change your displayed username (although your account is still accessed through the old one), and so on. UUIDs were also my first idea, but I have the feeling that sharing them (i.e. to invite a new friend) would be cumbersome. I wonder if a new system akin to what3words.com could help there.

gspetr 9y ago
You mean modern Blizzard does that. Oldschool Battle.net had a 16 alphanumeric characters with underscore allowed and that was that. At least for Warcraft 3 it's been the case since 2002 for a very long time (until quite recently last year they allowed fancy symbols in usernames). You also had to login at least once every 3 months or Blizzard purged your account.
- btschaegg 9y ago
  > You mean modern Blizzard does that. Of course, yes. I doubt this problem came up with the original Battle.net accounts :-)