Battle.net

Dear Blizzard,

Since the official announcement of a plan to develop a Paid Character Name Change Service back in August of 2010 (http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/572264), there have been several attempts by the community to reach out for some kind of follow-up on this feature's progress. Having gone a whole year without so much as a word on paid name changes, thousands of players took to the forums to voice their concerns (as well as their frustrations) regarding the lack of updates on this issue.

One thread in particular, authored by DMsev, featured a grand total of 1726 posts over the span of 87 pages and sat at the top of the Popular Topics list for well over a week.
http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/3123318915?page=1

A similar thread popped up on the EU forums, garnering over 25 pages of replies, while TeamLiquid and Reddit also featured the discussion on their respective sites.

Elsewhere on Battle.net, the comments section in the original news piece similarly accumulated an astonishing 3890 responses regarding name changes, all unanimously requesting some form of expedited support.

Presumably as a response to this feedback (albeit long overdue), you decided to respond with a moderator post (authored by Zarhym) that is currently still stickied to the top of the General Discussion section. The thread goes on to say:

Recently, some inaccurate information was shared with the community in regard to the future of a paid name change service, so we wanted to take some time to clarify our current stance on the implementation of this feature. Our original plans to implement a paid name change service have not changed, and it is indeed something that we would like to make available as soon as possible. As with any feature, however, it remains a matter of scheduling it among our other development projects before it can be introduced. We’re not able to give a specific timeframe yet, but we are targeting work to begin late this year or early next year. We’ll share release plans once we’re further along in the process.

As always, your ongoing constructive feedback is appreciated.

This post by all accounts was a failure to address any of the legitimate concerns that the community had raised. It was also, however, a successful move on your part to quell the recent wave of dissatisfaction that had suddenly swelled on the forums in regard to the lack of updates on the Name Change Service. As a result, it became clear that Blizzard had no intention of resolving the issue immediately, so many members became exacerbated and simply gave up. After all, what was the point of trying to persuade a company to release a service that they'd promised well over a year ago... but hadn't even begun working on it yet? It was like talking to a wall, so who could blame them for wanting to throw in the towel? But that didn't mean there was suddenly a lack of interest in the service all together. People were simply tired of requesting support from a company whose priorities clearly lied elsewhere.

Lately, however, there has been a growing discussion as to a possible "compromise solution": one that would benefit not only you, but the community as a whole. It's clear that we won't receive the Paid Name Change Service anytime soon, that much is certain. Whether it's being held for Heart of the Swarm, or the end of some future season, or whether it hasn't even been started on yet; that doesn't matter. What does matter is at least trying to make an attempt to offer support in the mean time. You can set whatever obscure timetables you want for development, but at least give players the opportunity to change their names in the interim. You owe them that much. And luckily, there IS way to accomplish this with one simple response:

Give players another free character name change while they wait.

Providing a free name change in lieu of the lack of service back in November of 2010 was a very generous action on your part; one that we're all very appreciative for. So why not repeat that cycle of generosity while we're forced to continue waiting for an official name change service? It was obviously a very simple system to implement, with almost little to no stressful effects on Battle.net as a result. So why not consider a compromise and enable another free name change for all StarCraft II players? Being a simple, pain-free, and instantaneous (albeit temporary) solution to the name change problem, I see no reason why Blizzard cannot make this simple gesture of good faith towards the community.

So, StarCraft II fans... If you agree with my sentiments, and feel that Blizzard should offer another free name change for all players because they are fully capable of doing so, then please... join me in voicing your thoughts. Perhaps together, we can make them realize that not only is the right thing to do, but that we've already waited patiently and have demonstrated more than enough interest for this issue to be considered a top priority.

Blizzard... we ask that you please give us all another free name change while we wait for the official service to come out. Show us that you are still a company that knows how to take care of its customers... and I will show you a most grateful StarCraft 2 community...

Sincerely,
Your Customers