Because "xXBillyTankerXx_34" seemed like a good idea at the time.

Hey all, a few friends and I thought it would be a good time for WarGaming NA to change their policy on old and inactive usernames no longer used. Accounts made in 2011-2012 (5-6+ years ago) that have little to no games on their accounts and no activity within the recent years. I think it's time we open up these usernames for our player base that actually plays.

I think a fine cutoff is any account that has 5+ years of inactivity or if that is stretching it, zero battles is fine too.

Many other top games use this policy, as well as the Russian server as referenced in this post here and the original WarGaming RU article here and the google translated version. I'm sure it's time for NA to catch up with the rest of the WarGaming servers.

As Yankee stated:

Yankee, on Oct 17 2017 - 05:17, said: I simple fix, Wargaming already has the “renamed user” function built in for offensive names, a quick run through the database could clear a lot of things up

Since this wouldn't put any extra strain on statistic websites, as well as the WarGaming API. You could also set it up how the RU server has it, and make it so you can reserve names if your period of inactivity is too long.

EDIT : I found the RU article for this policy. (translated version here)

Sharing this around also helps in order to get this policy changed.

Edited by Elevendy, Oct 18 2017 - 10:34.