[1019] Nametag changes expose box characters
closed
FairlySadPanda
This is an undocumented change that is a consequence of the new nametag implementation.
Using certain characters on the old system would appear as empty spaces in VRC, allowing people to use otherwise taken names (for example IIRC Merlin, the creator of U#).
Although Tupper said this is an intended change on the Open Beta Discord discussion board, this is worth bugging anyway to both provide visibility here and record specific feedback on this undocumented change.
My view: the problem appears to stem from the link between username and the UID that VRC uses to identify people. Whilst it's probably far too much work to fix this after so many years of development, at the minimum refreshing the name change timer on release would allow people to mitigate the change.
However, I'd encourage VRC to consider releasing long-dead VRC usernames back into availability. This is good practice which has been adopted by other games with this problem over the years.
Log In
Tupper - VRChat Head of Community
marked this post as
closed
This change has been mitigated, but not "completed". We do not want to encourage or allow the usage of invisible characters, but also realize the impact that this has on players that have been non-maliciously using them for a long time to have their desired names.
As such, I am marking this issue as closed instead of complete.
As noted by Aev, we are investigating some alternate solutions to this issue in particular, but don't have any more info at this time.
Aev
marked this post as
complete
We've replaced the box with a small centered circle in the latest build, which will still communicate an "empty" character but not be invisible or look as weird as the box. Generally, invisible non-space characters in names are not something that we want to allow.
We haven't allowed name changes to abnormal unicode for a long while, so anyone who still has these kinds of symbols in their name should already have a name change available on the website if they'd like to use something else. If not, contact VRChat Support and they'll be happy to help you out.
We are investigating alternate solutions for these naming issues, but do not have any further information to offer at this time.
FairlySadPanda
Aev: Hi, I'm afraid I don't regard this as complete - the regression here is that the ability to use invisible characters to allow someone to use a name that is otherwise being squatted on has been removed from VRChat.
If Canny has the feature it'd be better to flag this as Won't Fix or Closed.
Μerlin
Going to link this also:
Clearing old names is a temporary solution to a problem that doesn't need to exist in the first place. It does nothing when other people are using the same name and are "active" users, and disincentivizes people from returning to the game. Giving people another roll for their name is not the point. There should be no "chance" to being called what you want.
blueasis
Clear old accounts, let people get a chance at getting their name.
Ohni
I am stressing out about this so much, because my name was grandfathered in when they removed the ability to add symbols to your name and seeing as names are so important in this game, it really bothers me how my name went from being a simple name to being
[]Name[] which I've had for a long time.
Really hoping they'll let us keep it the way it was.
Table
+1 for releasing dead account names in tandem with this change.
FairlySadPanda
As an addendum, it's risky to bundle this change, which is likely to be controversial, with the remainder of the system.