Since Dead Maze and Transformice both share the same database, I think it's now more than ever to really take a hard look at freeing up some account names.

Now any account even slightly "on the line" should not be deleted, but I feel accounts that don't meet even one of these criteria can safely have their name freed up.

Active (only need to meet at least one criteria)
-Logged in within 6 months of last login date
-Notable stats (over 50 cheese?)
-Notable total play time (over 5 hours?)
-Fraise purchased (real life money invested perms the account)
-Email validated (since completely optional and shows some investment)

*All of these must be false for an account to be considered inactive; thus if even one of these is true, an account will be safe*

What happens to these accounts
These accounts would still exist (not deleted), just their name would be taken. Think of it like a reverse name change; instead of a name of your choice, you get some random jumble of numbers or something for your name. Or maybe your old name would have some special character added before it (kinda like how extinction accounts have a "+"; maybe a "-"), and upon logging in these players would be prompted for a new name (a free name change for the hassle; not that many of these accounts would ever log in again in theory). If you logged in with the old username and the old password, it would detect it's you.

The Logic
The criteria for inactivity are meant to ascertain what users have truly invest themselves into the game, and are most likely to log in again at a later date. And by only taking the game and not deactivating / deleting accounts, this prevents players from losing their account, but instead just frees up their name. While this still might suck, it isn't hard to meet at least one the the above criteria, which would make your account safe from this. This also wouldn't remove your name by default once all of the criteria is met, but only make the name available to be taken; until then the name would remain safe.

Do you like this method of making names available? Have any suggestions? Post below!