Jawn
Honorable Pirate
Greetings, fellow pirates! Today, I would like to bring light to an issue that you may've seen before when recruiting new players to a guild. First, let's talk about placeholder names.
These names, a.k.a "Freebooter" or "Seadog", are given to you temporarily when submitting a typed name that must be manually approved. When approved, your friends list updates accordingly to reflect this change (may require a relog). However, there's a part of the game that struggles with name approvals and updating to reflect this change: Guilds.
The Problem
Let's say you find a Level 1 Seadog. They're green, brand new to the Caribbean. You want to recruit them into your guild, and strike up a conversation to eventually recruit them to your ranks. All is well! A new friend for you. We've all seen the chat message when you invite someone to a guild:
Now, they've yet to get their proper name - but this is remedied within a few hours. Yay! They've got themselves a sea-worthy pirate name to forge a new path with. However, there's a distinct issue you notice when this new player logs off and on... Surprisingly, the game will still say: "Seadog has come online."
(Another bug. It shows as "Freebooter" in the guild list, but as a pirate name on my friends list.)
Confusing, right? Why would the game still call them "Seadog" when their name was approved by a moderator? You try and work with them to fix the issue, but the game refuses to budge. It's really determined to disavow this pirate's name, isn't it? The following attempted solutions, after trial and error testing, have so far not fixed the issue:
Reproduction
Now, for those who have encountered this issue before, or those who've just heard of it, I've formulated a step-by-step to more or less replicate the bug. Try it yourself and see the results! Borrow a friend for the guild inviting stuff, or run a second account, before continuing:
My own personal theory is that, unlike the Friends list, Guilds don't "update" for names the same way (if at all, definitely a bug). You can avoid this issue entirely by not inviting pirates with temporary names to a guild, but that's if you're hard-pressed to get away from the issue. Some miscellaneous stuff I found while testing this issue out:
These names, a.k.a "Freebooter" or "Seadog", are given to you temporarily when submitting a typed name that must be manually approved. When approved, your friends list updates accordingly to reflect this change (may require a relog). However, there's a part of the game that struggles with name approvals and updating to reflect this change: Guilds.
The Problem
Let's say you find a Level 1 Seadog. They're green, brand new to the Caribbean. You want to recruit them into your guild, and strike up a conversation to eventually recruit them to your ranks. All is well! A new friend for you. We've all seen the chat message when you invite someone to a guild:
Now, they've yet to get their proper name - but this is remedied within a few hours. Yay! They've got themselves a sea-worthy pirate name to forge a new path with. However, there's a distinct issue you notice when this new player logs off and on... Surprisingly, the game will still say: "Seadog has come online."
(Another bug. It shows as "Freebooter" in the guild list, but as a pirate name on my friends list.)
Confusing, right? Why would the game still call them "Seadog" when their name was approved by a moderator? You try and work with them to fix the issue, but the game refuses to budge. It's really determined to disavow this pirate's name, isn't it? The following attempted solutions, after trial and error testing, have so far not fixed the issue:
- Kicking and reinviting the pirate
- Kicking, having them relog, then reinviting
- Promoting/demoting the pirate
- Completing all the tutorial quests up to Joshamee Gibbs in the Faithful Bride before sending a guild invite
- Inviting to a different guild
Reproduction
Now, for those who have encountered this issue before, or those who've just heard of it, I've formulated a step-by-step to more or less replicate the bug. Try it yourself and see the results! Borrow a friend for the guild inviting stuff, or run a second account, before continuing:
- Create a new pirate, appearance and the custom name are irrelevant. Do not use the Pick-A-Name.
- Once given a placeholder name, using a friend or other account, invite the new pirate to a guild.
- Optionally, complete the tutorial before doing so. The end result is the same, but reproducing it on both ends is helpful.
- Log off the new pirate. Wait for a little while until the name you submitted has been approved.
- Bring the new pirate back online, and voila! You've arrived at the pitfall some poor new pirates may have been trapped in.
My own personal theory is that, unlike the Friends list, Guilds don't "update" for names the same way (if at all, definitely a bug). You can avoid this issue entirely by not inviting pirates with temporary names to a guild, but that's if you're hard-pressed to get away from the issue. Some miscellaneous stuff I found while testing this issue out:
- Kicking a pirate from a guild and relogging without closing the game sometimes causes a crash. Not consistent, so more testing is needed
- Doing the reproductive steps above and obtaining a gun afterwards causes the game to not notify when the new guild member comes on/offline (needs more testing
