Discord Major Change In Usernames Many Users Affected

The chat platform Discord says goodbye to usernames with hashtags and numbers. The first accounts are currently being asked to choose a new, unique nickname. This is known to lead to problems, especially with prominent members and servers.

In early May, Discord Co-Founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy announced the end of “ErikaDoe#1234”. The previously used numeric ending is to give way to unique user names. Meanwhile, early access to the name change has begun, favoring long-established users (since 2015) and subscribers to the paid Discord Nitro service. As expected, users in Early Access are pouncing on the names of well-known (gaming) greats and their servers, causing confusion.

Indie developer Rusty Lake (via PC Gamer ), known for puzzle games such as the Cube Escape series, Rusty Lake Hotel, and The White Door, is one of the people kicking off the discussion. As a verified owner of a Discord server with more than 240,000 users, the Dutch studio was also able to change its name early. Lo and behold, “Rustylake is already taken.”

Discord customer service offers no help

Due to possible imitation and impending legal costs for action against trademark infringement, Rusty Lake contacted Discord customer service, who only responded to the problem with an automatically generated email and a reference to a separate helpdesk. Likewise, popular names such as “pewdiepie” and “ksi” are said to have already been in circulation, which Discord has since taken back and reserved for their rightful owners.

Such special treatment is very unlikely to be provided for the majority of the 200 million Discord users. Not even if they look after community servers with hundreds of thousands of members. A previously manageable part of 15. against changing usernames. However, normal gamers should already expect that the name they want may already be taken.

There is hope: Discord allows you to have an additional display name in addition to the unique account name. The desired name can thus be displayed externally within servers and chats, while the name of the account only plays a role in friend requests.