Discord has announced that they are going to remove the 4 digit ‘tags’ in Usernames. This is done to make the process connecting and finding other users less tedious. This has led to some limitations in username conventions. Such as, usernames can now only be lowercase, alphanumeric and restricted to limited special characters. This also means that everyone using that must update his username to fit the standards.
New rules to pick a Username
Before, Discord allowed users to have whatever username they wanted to pick. 4 extra characters called tags were added to the username to make it unique. Since, This method got rid of “username taken” problem, users were free to choose any username they wanted.
This method of username structure also posed the complications. The users are their friends had to remember the last 4 tag characters if they wanted to connect to someone. This made things complex and the amount of users on discord grew and the tag characters were not enough. Since there only 4 digits, username were unique only up to 9999. Also, it wasn’t easy for most people to remember these tag characters.
Users will now have alphanumeric, lowercase usernames. These usernames will now have a “@” in front of them. There are also going to be non unique display names. These display name don’t have any restriction on their naming schemes. Users can using any special character or spaces in them. Display names can also be changed a number of times.
However, the old username system will still work after the conversion process. This is done so that people who don’t know other peoples new username, can still add a user using old username. However, The developers the developers with numerical IDs won’t have to change their names.
The new username system is explained in detail by Discord here
