After All These Years...

[JaredSpellFrost]

The topic of name changing was brought up in a past KI Live, to which we learned that this would not be possible. IIRC, their explanation was that your Wizards name is deeply coded into the game, and has been ever since the beginning. Changing this would require a monumental effort, and it was ruled that this task was not worth undertaking.

With a game as old as Wizard101, its not surprising that we'd run into problems like this! Hopefully someday there will be some breakthrough in coding that will make this dream a reality... Until then, just call me @JaredSpellFrost!

[Dylan Windwalker]

The topic of name changing was brought up in a past KI Live, to which we learned that this would not be possible. IIRC, their explanation was that your Wizards name is deeply coded into the game, and has been ever since the beginning. Changing this would require a monumental effort, and it was ruled that this task was not worth undertaking.

With a game as old as Wizard101, its not surprising that we'd run into problems like this! Hopefully someday there will be some breakthrough in coding that will make this dream a reality... Until then, just call me @JaredSpellFrost!

Not surprising at all that Kingsisle would avoid taking on this giant mess of coding, the company is definitely busy with other projects such as the New World, 5th age, maybe even a new battle mechanic for all we know. I think it's in our responsibility to remind new players to make better name changes before they get too deeply leveled such that effort would be wasted if they choose to start a wizard with a better name. I know that kids don't know any better, but I'm sure they would be happier knowing in the future if they choose to continue playing that their character names make sense to them (like school related)

[masterofcatastrophe]

Really? I just assumed that because the Character's name is mentioned/displayed somewhat often in the game such as Friend's list and "When you're backpack and bank are full" tips from Lincoln, that changing the name of the wizard will cause a lot of bugs in the game. I guess I could imagine it possible such that the name of our wizard's character information will update the same way that it occurs when a wizard is updated when they change gear. I'm guessing there would a chat log update that states "your friend X has changed their name to Y!" or something like that.

I'm simply saying that if it was possible to have changed, it would have been included in an update several years ago given there are extreme amounts of complaints from people who wanted this exact update to occur. But since it has never happened as of yet, there must be a fair reason the company hasn't tackled the challenged in knowing that "name changing" would significantly boost overall player enjoyment and profit (assuming that name changes will cost extreme amounts of crowns). So I simply assumed it was something challenging in the coding. Perhaps it really is just a problem of friend recognition.

Yep so echoing @Richardlionheart898 words, the backend is a variable where X is replaced by whatever is in the database.
So it really is the friend recognition that is the challenging part. Its more of a logical issue than a coding problem.
So basically the coding is very easy, but the logic/mechanism is the hard part.

Also, KI has only recently started pushing Quality of life updates in the last 3 years. Prior to that they only pushed content updates like worlds. So introducing name change early simply wasnt on their backlog of priority items, just like character customizations that they have finally introduced in the magic mirror shop recently. It simply wasnt ”important” enough.