No more four-digit tags.
Discord is making “big changes” to how identities work on the platform, a move that will force you to change your username, The Verge reported. Up until now, the company has appended four-digit tags to identities as a way to distinguish people with the same username. However, the new system will give everyone a unique username, much like Twitter, Instagram and other services.
“The whole point of these changes is that we want to make it a lot easier for you and all the new users coming to Discord to connect and hang out with friends,” co-founder Stanislav Vishnevskiy wrote in a blog post. “We know that your username and identity are important, and we understand that some of you may not like this change and disagree with it.”
The original aim with the four-digit tags was to allow you to choose any username you wanted, but it has now become “technical debt,” according to Discord. The company said that the usernames are “too complicated or obscure” for people to remember.
The new system will be implemented over “the coming weeks,” and you’ll receive a message when it’s possible to do so. If you’ve been on the site (founded in 2015) for a long time, you’ll get priority over newer users, Discord said. Your previous username and discriminator will continue to function as an alias, so friends will still be able to find you.