Username Restrictions suggestion

[UserNameGoesHere]

I am surprised this hasn't been suggested before, but obviously there are problems with users who choose names that have periods, commas, grave accent marks, quotation marks, etc... in their names. They may run into strange problems with the website or game sooner or later.

Wouldn't it just be easier and a better solution for future users if they weren't allowed to choose usernames with those problem characters in them?
They could be told that is not a valid username because of blah blah and to please choose another.

I don't think it would be so hard to limit the username generation to names containing only alpha-numeric characters. It also would save the people trouble who do register with problem names only to later complain about it, be told they cannot change their names, and then have to start new accounts.

Such testing for bad characters could even be done in JavaScript on the client side so that way if someone is intentionally trying to break that and register an improper name anyway, they can deal with the consequences (of having things break on them/etc)

+1 for this idea?

[NFD]

Period marks do nothing to avatars, they're perfectly fine.

[chidori!]

i have a ! in my name and its fine
and a - in the other one

[UserNameGoesHere]

Originally Posted by chidori!

i have a ! in my name and its fine
and a - in the other one

True. And you haven't had any problems I assume?

Obviously some people do have problems with some characters in the names though. Couldn't these problem characters be figured out and then when someone is registering an account, prevent them from registering one with the problem characters?

So perhaps the ! and the - don't cause issues but some others do.

[JKPolk]

Couldn't you just not be retarded when making a username?

Letters and numbers make sense. Backslashes, ampersands and dollar signs do not.

[IAAW]

Originally Posted by JKPolk

Letters and numbers make sense. Backslashes, ampersands and dollar signs do not.

Agreed. Having $$$RichDude$$$ as a username does not mean you are a rich dude. Rich people have too much **** going on to do anything else, unless you have people doing the work for you, and paying you for doing all the work. But that probably means you're a pimp instead of a rich dude.

[Tasselfoot]

! and - are fine... as is _... not sure about . though... and other stuff definitely does mess it up. like ' or |.

[Babyvpr]

Originally Posted by Tasselfoot

! and - are fine... as is _... not sure about . though... and other stuff definitely does mess it up. like ' or |.

I thought Destiny's name had the |'s or am I wrong?

[Sullyman2007]

There are ways to block the problematic characters from being selected as a username. Supporting this.

[Pz_N-]

I have _ in my name and I have no problems at all. Some people do have ridiculous names though.

[foilman8805]

| and l are often confused.

[-Yukari-]

Isn't the main problem if you START with a problematic character? Could have sworn somebody's username started with a Japanese symbol and it ****ed the profile up, but another guy had a Japanese character in mid username and it was fine.