>>Can someone give me a primer on what exactly is going on?
Currently there is a system in place for those characters who already have last names can Register them (for a fee) which will prevent anyone else from Choosing it, when that part of the system is live.
The next step will be to allow people to CHOOSE a surname, CLEAR their current surname, and ADOPT other people, allowing them to use your surname. A name that is Registered cannot be Chosen, but it can be bestowed on you if the name-owner Adopts you.
Names can be Chosen without being Registered. That is, if you choose the last name Smith, and someone else walks up and chooses the last name Smith a day later, that'll be allowed. It doesn't necessarily make you family.
Names can be Registered by someone other than the name's original owner. If you have had the surname Smith for the past eleventeen years and did not choose to register it, as soon as Choosing last names gets open you may have other people Choose to be a Smith. They may then choose to Register their name, preventing anyone else from Choosing it from that point on. This will not affect the folks who already have the name. It will prevent those folks from Adopting new Smiths, though, as the Registered person has control on that.
The Registered character may allow another Smith to Adopt new Smiths into the family. This is a revokable privelege, if they don't like your choice of siblings/children/crazy uncles.
Clear as mud? To reiterate, only the first paragraph up there is live at the moment.
Killing you softly with his song,
- Stormsinger Shavay
What is the moral? Must be a moral. Here is the moral, wrong or right:
Morals tomorrow; comedy tonight!
