It’s only logical that a profitable company likes money. That’s exactly what they’ll continue to lose if they keep banning folks for having a name that’s against the TOS. I can fully understand about profanity and whatnot, but banning someone that uses a real person’s name? It’s kind of a mediocre offense, I think (unless you happen to be that one person whom that name had referenced to, naturally). Anyway, I propose the name change because people = $$$ = keep the game community alive!
I Need More Cowbell – Piken Square
[BS] Badger Spirits
They did exactly that, but only got arguments in return. People only took it seriously when they got banned for 72 hours. I have read posts on the thread “Account Issues” of how people ignored the warning when they weren’t banned. So yes they already used this idea and it failed in their opinion.
Quote from Gaile Gray:
“We’ve been supporting Guild Wars for 8 years now. And many of our devs were involved in games for years and years before that. We’ve found that warnings are ineffective. That taking the time to send emails earns us arguments back and continued discussion for a subject that needs no discussion.
The 3-day suspension IS your warning. There is no lasting effect on your account, but this system has proved to be very effective, and our game world is regarded as a far more pleasant place to be than most game worlds, in part because we don’t fiddle-faddle around with offensive names and chat”.
Edit: you can consider that the TOS, which you accepted, saying that you had read it and agreed to the terms, was your first warning.
Quote from Gaile Gray:
“We’ve been supporting Guild Wars for 8 years now. And many of our devs were involved in games for years and years before that. We’ve found that warnings are ineffective. That taking the time to send emails earns us arguments back and continued discussion for a subject that needs no discussion.
The 3-day suspension IS your warning. There is no lasting effect on your account, but this system has proved to be very effective, and our game world is regarded as a far more pleasant place to be than most game worlds, in part because we don’t fiddle-faddle around with offensive names and chat”.
Edit: you can consider that the TOS, which you accepted, saying that you had read it and agreed to the terms, was your first warning.
Heh… there is another way. Don’t ban the player unless you offer him 1 chance to change his name amd make it right. The team shouldn’t even waste time. Do a simple warning like this:
“Dear player,
This is a warning. Your name is violating the rules (link to the rules). In order to login we offer the possibility to change your character name. Choosing a similar name that will further contradict with our rules, will lead to your account ban temporary or permanent. Thank you for your understanding. "
_
This means giving a second chance, not all players are fascists.
Quote from Gaile Gray:
“We’ve been supporting Guild Wars for 8 years now. And many of our devs were involved in games for years and years before that. We’ve found that warnings are ineffective. That taking the time to send emails earns us arguments back and continued discussion for a subject that needs no discussion.
The 3-day suspension IS your warning. There is no lasting effect on your account, but this system has proved to be very effective, and our game world is regarded as a far more pleasant place to be than most game worlds, in part because we don’t fiddle-faddle around with offensive names and chat”.
Edit: you can consider that the TOS, which you accepted, saying that you had read it and agreed to the terms, was your first warning.
I agree with everything that the post and you have said, but you need to realize that not every single name ban is offensive, justified, or even understood. If a name a blatently offensive, sure, ban em’. But that is simply just not the case with every single one.
I love the way these ‘wronged’ players refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and go out in full whine mode on the forums. It’s always somebody else’s fault.
I suppose this this the result of the “I know my rights” culture we live in these days. Yes, you know your rights, but since when did your responsibilities become everyone else’s problem to deal with?
I stole a special snowflake’s future by exercising my democratic right to vote.
Quote from Gaile Gray:
“We’ve been supporting Guild Wars for 8 years now. And many of our devs were involved in games for years and years before that. We’ve found that warnings are ineffective. That taking the time to send emails earns us arguments back and continued discussion for a subject that needs no discussion.
The 3-day suspension IS your warning. There is no lasting effect on your account, but this system has proved to be very effective, and our game world is regarded as a far more pleasant place to be than most game worlds, in part because we don’t fiddle-faddle around with offensive names and chat”.
Edit: you can consider that the TOS, which you accepted, saying that you had read it and agreed to the terms, was your first warning.
Heh… there is another way. Don’t ban the player unless you offer him 1 chance to change his name amd make it right. The team shouldn’t even waste time. Do a simple warning like this:
“Dear player,
This is a warning. Your name is violating the rules (link to the rules). In order to login we offer the possibility to change your character name. Choosing a similar name that will further contradict with our rules, will lead to your account ban temporary or permanent. Thank you for your understanding. "
_
This means giving a second chance, not all players are fascists.
Actually, the first time is often just a forced renaming. The actual bans come in if the name is really bad or after the first forced renaming. Where she was saying the suspension was the warning, it was in response to a guy who made an name offensive enough to get a ban as well as a forced renaming and who then made a forum thread to argue about it. He posted his name and it had explicit female sexual references. I have read other threads where the person only got a forced renaming. Their ban came with the second forced renaming.
They shouldn’t waste time on people that can’t follow simple rules. They have more important things to do.
But it’s not simple. Could you explain to me how a name like “Do It To It” is offensive and bannable?
Gladly. It’s offensive and bannable if people in charge of that decision consider it to be offensive and bannable.
Thanks for proving my point.
You have no point. It’s the responsibility of players to choose names that can’t be considered offensive by someone in charge of that decision. It’s not like that guy is just sitting there looking for someone to ban for no reason.
They shouldn’t waste time on people that can’t follow simple rules. They have more important things to do.
But it’s not simple. Could you explain to me how a name like “Do It To It” is offensive and bannable?
Gladly. It’s offensive and bannable if people in charge of that decision consider it to be offensive and bannable.
Thanks for proving my point.
You have no point. It’s the responsibility of players to choose names that can’t be considered offensive by someone in charge of that decision. It’s not like that guy is just sitting there looking for someone to ban for no reason.
And when offensive is defined by obtuse, inane, measures and not by generally obvious ones, how are players to determine what is considered offensive if they do not have rules or examples to go off of? In actuality, you cannot choose a name that is not offensive if your reason is “well they say it is so it is”. There will always be something that is offensive since they can just magically will it to be.
They shouldn’t waste time on people that can’t follow simple rules. They have more important things to do.
But it’s not simple. Could you explain to me how a name like “Do It To It” is offensive and bannable?
Gladly. It’s offensive and bannable if people in charge of that decision consider it to be offensive and bannable.
Thanks for proving my point.
You have no point. It’s the responsibility of players to choose names that can’t be considered offensive by someone in charge of that decision. It’s not like that guy is just sitting there looking for someone to ban for no reason.
And when offensive is defined by obtuse, inane, measures and not by generally obvious ones, how are players to determine what is considered offensive if they do not have rules or examples to go off of? In actuality, you cannot choose a name that is not offensive if your reason is “well they say it is so it is”. There will always be something that is offensive since they can just magically will it to be.
You proved my point, thank you very much.
And here you are, arguing away. Doing exactly what ANet said that you have no place to do. Nice.
You know, most people would think that a character name is supposed to be exactly that, a name. Not a phrase. But hey, if you want to go there, you can always take a hard, long look at the name and think. Ask yourself could a speaker of the English language see something offensive or bannable in this name. That’s a pretty good guideline when it comes to figuring out whether your name is offensive or not.
For the record, I looked at the name “Do It To It” for about half a second before noticing how obviously it could be interpreted as a roundabout sexual-themed imperative.
I think the only problem here are non-violent- or non-offensive-intended-names.
Sometimes there are names that seem inappropriate to one but meant was something else. A three day ban seems unfitting in this case in my opinion. There again such names can actually throw up heavy discussions about inappropriate or appropriate so we’re where Anet is or was standing. Every person has a different experience and opinion.
For example I only think sentences or words are offensive if they’re referred to a person or animal. If they’re referred to an object (e.g. “kittening computer”) it’s not offensive to me.
After all words are just words they mean what you give them.
If we would use “player” as a swear and “ kitten #8221; instead it would seem ok to call everyone “ kitten #8221; and it wouldn’t be ok to call someone a “player”.
(This is quite interesting when thinking about swapping the meaning of words with others.)
Gamer & Developer; Playing games is part of making games! Gather experience and make games!
They shouldn’t waste time on people that can’t follow simple rules. They have more important things to do.
But it’s not simple. Could you explain to me how a name like “Do It To It” is offensive and bannable?
I’d ban it on principal. It’s a stupid name and shouldn’t exist in a fantasy setting. I could care less if you agree or are even interested in such sensabilities. It’s a bad name that needs to go.
BUT, what are you “doing” and what is “it.” The reason it’s offensive and bannable is because it implies sex.
I think it is simply, its not our decision. “Do It To It” is first off a clearly, and obviously, an offensive name. Do you honestly think people will believe that you were meaning the innocent “DO IT or else” meaning? If so, why did you add the “To It” part? People sometimes, just need to think. There are other people on than just ONE culture anyways, so if its insulting in one culture, then that’s enough reason not to have it. This is a community based game, so in reality we should be thinking about our community first. And what is the reason behind putting inappropriate or offensive names on your characters unless you WANT to get them ban. So when your character does get banned for an inappropriate name, why complain? Congratulations, you achieved what you clearly wanted. There are thousands of people who can pick a name that is appropriate and non-offensive, so why can’t you? (Just re-read this and this can be taken as a little mean, and I don’t mean it. Just making a point. Sorry >.< I love all of you!)
It wasn’t my character, good job! We are evaluating “Do it to it” a phrase you can easily toss in a search engine and get the meaning for, not just “do it”.
I like that no one is taking my second challenge and explaining Mildread. C’mon, is it not obvious???
How a company governs itself and treats customers does concern me. If something happens that I cannot find justifiable I need to learn about it so it cannot happen to me and I can be more aware of it.
Just because something happens to someone else does not make it a good reason to turn a blind eye.
Quote from Gaile Gray:
“We’ve been supporting Guild Wars for 8 years now. And many of our devs were involved in games for years and years before that. We’ve found that warnings are ineffective. That taking the time to send emails earns us arguments back and continued discussion for a subject that needs no discussion.
The 3-day suspension IS your warning. There is no lasting effect on your account, but this system has proved to be very effective, and our game world is regarded as a far more pleasant place to be than most game worlds, in part because we don’t fiddle-faddle around with offensive names and chat”.
Edit: you can consider that the TOS, which you accepted, saying that you had read it and agreed to the terms, was your first warning.
I agree with everything that the post and you have said, but you need to realize that not every single name ban is offensive, justified, or even understood. If a name a blatently offensive, sure, ban em’. But that is simply just not the case with every single one.
They shouldn’t waste time on people that can’t follow simple rules. They have more important things to do.
But it’s not simple. Could you explain to me how a name like “Do It To It” is offensive and bannable?
Since you ask, it might not be offensive but doesn’t mean it’s not “warnable” (as it was said before, the 3 days suspension is a warning, not a ban).
The naming policy (can’t link to it, it redirects me to the spanish version because my browser is in spanish) directly forbids using names that refer to (paraphrasing from the spanish version) references people, materials or products protected by copyright, and as you probably know, “Do it to it” is the name of a single by the group Cherish.
It’s a pile of Elonian protection magic, mixed with a little monk training,
wrapped up in some crazy ritualist hoo-ha from Cantha.
A real grab bag of ‘you can’t hurt me. They’re called Guardians.
No, I didn’t know until I Googled it the day of the incident. The reason given was that it was offensive, not that it was a copyright infringement. When questioned further, the player as told that it was an offensive name.
Having said what I did, I agree Mildread doesn’t seem deserving of a ban at first glance.
However, if a simple google search can show you that it’s considered insulting or offensive somewhere in the world, you should just rest your case and accept ANet’s decision.
Names like Do It To It, however, are unacceptable in a persistent world MMORPG.
ANet has many flaws, but naming policy doesn’t seem to be one of them.
Um, at this point, you do realize Mildread was a trap, right?
And you keep at it. It was all your plan, and we fools fell for it. Good for you.
Doesn’t change the fact you’ve been proven wrong regarding your naming policy stance, both by examples and arguments, and now resort to ignoring others’ arguments, changing the subject or nitpicking at technicalities.
My point was that it’s the first Google result. Not implying anything else.
As Google search results are skewed by your recent searches and pages, all I see is what you use Google for, because it’s the second to last link of my second page of results.
Thanks for airing your dirty laundry.
You can think what you want, I won’t even try to show how stupid your comment is.
What I see though is that you never accept to be shown wrong; so it’s worthless to discuss with you.
Despite all the talk and arguments presented in this thread, at the end of the day, every single player knows what kind of character names will NEVER be considered insulting or offensive – names that actually make sense belonging to a character.
Call it “RP names”, call it what you want, but you know exactly wich ones will never get you into trouble.
That’s why all the shocked and surprised behavior towards naming bans feel extremely fake and hypocritical.
Because when you choose ANY OTHER kind of name – any name that isn’t obviously safe – you do it knowingly.
Whether it is conscious or subconscious, it’s effectively trying to act smart and find a way to bend the naming rules without breaking them – trying to get away with something that isn’t right, but – in your idea – isn’t wrong enough to warrant a ban.
Fortunately, bending naming rules is not acceptable either, and should always remain bannable.
Now, a little in your favor, some names – like Mildread – don’t obey to what I said above.
They are names that actually feel harmless to 99% of the population, except the few that belong to a country or ethnicity that interprets that name in a different manner.
In that regard, I agree banning is harsh.
You should simply be brought to character select screen and prompted to change your name – not warned, forced.
Because obviously “Mildread” wouldn’t be bannable by default – someone probably reported it, and action was taken.
That action – in that particular situation – was harsh.
My point was that it’s the first Google result. Not implying anything else.
As Google search results are skewed by your recent searches and pages, all I see is what you use Google for, because it’s the second to last link of my second page of results.
Thanks for airing your dirty laundry.
You can think what you want, I won’t even try to show how stupid your comment is.
What I see though is that you never accept to be shown wrong; so it’s worthless to discuss with you.
