Trying to find out whether our characters can have one name or two names has been one of my ongoing missions since the TOR forum opened. Yet whether we can, or not, is a secret that’s still up there with UFOs, Bigfoot and Elvis being spotted at 7-11. It’s been asked a million times and, only recently, we got the, “it’s still under discussion” brush off.

(Really? Something so simple still under discussion after all these years…?!?)

So it was interesting to read Daniel Erickson’s comments (reproduced below), not in the sense that Darth will be off-limits when creating names… that was always a given. And not even in the sense that you can become a Lord or Darth or some other title through what you do in the game… I’ve pretty much always believed that would be the case.

No folks, what his comment suggests to me is that we’re now going down the path of single character names. And why? Simple. If you name your character, “John Smith”, becoming “Darth John Smith” looks terrible… not only because of the extra name in there (“Darth Smith” or “Darth John” would be much better in a pinch), but also because a Sith would typically change their name when becoming a Darth anyway… and I doubt the game will allow for people suddenly changing their name entirely, or dropping a first or last name to be replaced by their title later on.

(But hey, if the game DOES allow that… great… I just don’t think it will…)

So this, more than anything, suggests to me that we are heading for one-name characters and perhaps the reason Bioware is being so cagey with this information is because it knows there’s a ton of RP people out here who are going to freak out when they are told that their character can only be known by one name and, if that character doesn’t attain a title, will ALWAYS be only known by one name. Honestly, some people are going to absolutely hate that concept.

Your thoughts?

Hey Folks,

Darth and Lord are ranks in the Old Republic time period and while they represent an increasingly smaller percentage of overall Sith, they are clearly not at as rare as only having one or two running around in the galaxy. There are already numerous Darths (Baras, Malgus) we’ve seen who are not on the Dark Council.

It will likely not come as a surprise to most people that the titles of Darth and Lord are story-based rewards (one does not become a Darth by grinding frog-dogs) as are Master, etc. What may come as a surprise is that not everyone who completes a Sith or Jedi story will achieve them. There are always choices and those choices matter in many ways, including your notoriety and the rewards or reputation you earn. Darth will absolutely be off-limits when creating names.

Hope that helps!
Daniel Erickson