Will Destiny be designed in such a way that forces every Guardian to have a unique name?
If so, within what scope (global, PS, Xbox, etc.)? If not, then presumably the online service unique tag (Gamertag or PSN Name) would be used, so how would a player using multiple character slots [i]distinguish each of his or her Guardians to other players[/i]?
[b]Edit[/b]: Now that I have given it more thought, my question is - [b]How much would the role-playing and cross-platform potential of Destiny be limited if online service tags were used for Guardian names?[/b]
Interacting with characters that have online service tag names (i.e., leopardstealth, masterchief5136, xxxx killa xxxx, etc.) would make Destiny feel like a video game versus being immersed in a world that actually exists. A world with other people that have believable names, not constrained by the uniqueness requirements of online service tags.
Also, names could convey something about your character. For example, your Hunter named "Strider" is laid back, your Titan "Xena" is an overconfident nag, and your Warlock "Harry" is self-less and courageous. Or maybe all your Guardians are named your real life first name so you are more responsive to in-game dialogue.
Lastly, assuming Destiny has temporal stickiness (long life), the chances for it to become cross-platform increases. To ease the potential merger, it makes sense for Destiny to require a player to have a bungie.net account that is unique across platforms. However, this methodology also suffers from the uniqueness requirement of online service tags. Non-unique Guardian first names would again enrich the role-playing potential of Destiny with the bungie.net account acting as the surname.
Much like Diablo 3, wherein you can have multiple characters with the same name, but messaging is handled through the account name. Or in Halo 4 where each player has a non-unique, 4 character call sign. Oh, and much like real life where three of my co-workers are named Ed but all their surnames are different.
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I would bet they will handle it similar to how a few other games I have seen handled such an issue. The character would have a unique name and the gamer tag would be entered as a nickname for example. My hunters if we get to a first and last name will be Kiara Malwani with the use of a nick the display name would be.... Kiara "xXNetCodeXx" Malwani. Just how I forsee it being handled so that there is no confussion or conflict with merges or cross platform gaming. However I do not see cross platform gaming happening with destiny as MS has stated they wont allow it between xbone and the ps4. But they would with xbone and pc..