January 2019
I'll try to explain this as simple as I can. (Also Baza, I've messaged you on you know where )
Basically, back in 2009, MaxisCactus and her team disabled the ability to delete personas on Spore.com. Source is here: http://forum.spore.com/jforum/posts/list/18053.page
The problem is, that the delete button was still present and would break that persona after this point. But it would be break in such a way that 1. The ability to login to that persona would be impossible. 2. The persona would not be removed from http://www.spore.com/view/screenNameManage and 3. Setting the persona as default and logged out would make it impossible to use your e-mail and password to login.
Essentially, it's a ghost persona. Upon pressing that 'delete' button, the persona is wiped from EA's database, but its presence is still there in /screenNameManage. You just can't do anything with it aside from changing the avatar and setting it as your default, the latter being a problem.
Now, before the new login system was updated to direct you to EA's login page, you could bypass this glitch by entering your e-mail, then adding a colon at the end of this e-mail along with the persona in question that you wish to login to. This way, you could log in to a persona that wasn't broken.
For example, say if I had two usernames; Sharples65 and Sharples100. Say if I pressed the 'delete' button on the Sharples100 persona and then switched the persona as my default, then logged off, I would no longer be able to login using my normal e-mail and password. I would have to find one of my personas that I could login to from my account, in this case Sharples65. So I would use the following format: [edit: email address removed]:Sharples65 along with my password to gain access to my account. Preferably you would go into /screenNameManage and put your default back to a persona that wasn't broken.
The new login system no longer allows the ability to login with the colon system. So you can't do [edit: email address removed]:Sharples65. Meaning if you set a persona that is dead and you logged out, you would have basically bricked your own account. This is precisely what Derezzed did and potentially future players will do. If you ask me, http://www.spore.com/view/screenNameManage needs to reviewed. Removing the "Setting up multiple Spore Screen Names" since this information is now absolute with the new login system and putting a warning up to let people know to not switch their dead personas to default. Ideally you'd have the glitched accounts be purged from http://www.spore.com/view/screenNameManage - Though that would probably be easier said than done.
January 2019
July 2021
MaxisCactus is female!?! I thought she was a guy!