Anets naming policy

Gun we need more protection than that

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YFC0O393DQ
Link is to Naked Gun Condom scene.

OT:

The naming policy itself is fine and needed to protect the company from lawsuits and the anti gaming crowd in DC, who love to attack gaming in order to advance their own careers/agendas.

The implementation of the policy is hard. The ability of one person to be able to get a guild/person banned for a period of time is like an overpowered skill in need of balance. In the case of a person who is using the rules to act as the naming police is not bad in itself as long as it is not being done to attack/harass players. But when done to attack/harass players it is just wrong, problem is unless the attacker is dumb enough to post publically about it you really cannot tell. Too bad it just takes one jerk to file a frivolous lawsuit.

If I create a female warrior/necro called Harlot of Grenth and get that char the drunken title. Is that offensive since she is a drunkard and a Harlot and can equal a drunk prostitute or is it original name using the lore of the game for a female warrior who is dedicated to Grenth but has a drinking problem due to that dedication?

How many drunk prostitutes are playing guild wars and may be offended by that? How can anyone determine that I created that character with the specific intent to disrespect all the drunken prostitutes playing GW or the brother/sister/mother/father of drunken prostitutes.

How about Balthazar's Bekart(bastard in polish) in mythology many gods fooled around and had bastard son/daughters. Attack on all bastard children in the game or using ingame lore with mythological stories to create a character with more meaning than Joebob is Leetness.

But once again it takes one jerk to file the suit claiming he is a bastard son and needs therapy because he saw bekart in an online game. Pitiful.

Will the Guild Wars Novels adhere to the naming policy and not get into any kind of mature situations that would be banned by ANET if referenced in the game?

Do not envy ANETs position on this. Maybe they are in need of the big Naked Gun Condoms more than us.

I just got a 72 hour ban for the name Juggahoe Killa.

WTF?

Seems to me is that it's not ArenaNet's place to get involved into cultural or moral debates. AreaNet is not a moral institution. I believe this entire direction you are heading on is overzealous and cannot bring your company any good, en contraire it will only hurt your image.

Also this has nothing to do with the perfect world. Most of the players don't name their guilds or characters because they want to send a direct message to anyone that ever bothers to read their name/tag. There is a big difference between shouting the world "bitch" in the middle of a crowded street and calling you personally a bitch. Naming a character or a guild is not a direct offense at anybody, since there is no direct dialog involved in this process.

Your try to censor and in this way try to limit the free speech can only have bad results. What you could try instead and would be far healthier would be to apply a filter just like you already do in chats. A filter that different people can set at different levels.

The problem here is not that I named my character X, is that somebody else finds X inappropriate, whatever the reason. So that somebody else should be given the tools to filter X out of their sight if they so wish.

And lastly and as it was pointed already in this thread, as much as I hate to say it I also believe you guys are handling the community communications very badly. To just give an example you can read Regina's talk page when she refers to one of the people making comments on her page: "I am tired of your crap". How is that not offending when is obviously directed to an exact person *on a public page*. This is the example you lead by. And usually I get the feeling that you work against the community (as enemies that you must always fight with) instead of together with the community as valuable allies.

So the letter "G" is what is stopping people from using names with spaces in it?

Seriously..... wtf

Fix kkthx.

Impersonating an ANet or NCSoft employee or representative is against the rules. Having a filter on a singular letter "G" is done to prevent names like "G M Mike" from creation.

A part of the problem in the naming policy is the rating of the game. From Amazon.com:

From ESRB:
Titles in this category may contain:
Violence: Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing. (Legal definition = the Abuse of force.)

Suggestive Themes: a subject of artistic representation, an implicit or recurrent idea, or a motif tending to suggest something improper or indecent

Crude Humor: the ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd [in a way] lacking tact or taste; blunt or offensive.

Minimal Blood: a vital or animating force or lifeblood in smallest amount or degree.

Simulated Gambling: made in resemblance of or as a substitute for ... a bet, wager, or other gambling venture.

Strong Language: communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols [which are] forthright and explicit, often offensively so: strong language.

Dictionary Definitions above provided correct grammar in order to link definitions of words used in a phrase, such as Suggestive and Themes.

The game is sold with the understanding that players will not be under the age of 13 and that they will tolerate and accept Crude Humor and Strong Language. If parents buy the game for children who are under this age they should not be permitted to violate our right to expect the game be playable under the conditions and advertisement which the game was sold to us as having. This includes the ESRB. We have every right to expect strong language and crude humor while playing this game because that is the advertised content.

These people WANT to be offended/victimized, thus will not use the tool. It is a shame because GW would be more enjoyable seeing creative names.

QUOTE=Fitz Rinley;4587656] This includes the ESRB. We have every right to expect strong language and crude humor while playing this game because that is the advertised content.[/QUOTE]

QFT

Fitz, I already tried that argument in the other naming policy thread. It was brushed aside and ignored. Hopefully you get more attention than I did.

We've already touched upon [email protected] rating of the game and what the designers have already put into the game. Anet chooses to be two faced on the issue, they promote strippin down of their own characters, butts, boobies, panties n all, names that suggest crude humor, violence and all of the above relating to the teen rating. Difference is when the community tries to pull something of those lines off they get the ban hammer.

Thus no one is at fault but them and ArenaNet cannot be liable had it provided such a tool. If those people would complain to customer support, they could get an answer how to make the tool stricter so that their demands are met.

Also the chat filter is enabled by default and I had to disable it. This should work the same. The fact that I changed that filtering level is also my consent to accept the filtering level I've switched to.

This would be a very sane thing to do. Instead they waste time and money to argue why name X is inappropriate to people that don't find it inappropriate on one side and argue why name X is appropriate to people that do find it inappropriate. When it's not their place to be in this argument to begin with. And there is no way such an argument could be won on either side.

Well, lets see here... the GM that was quoted on page 1 was named ApplePython. I just decided that I'm offended by that name; it sounds like he's describing a large-headed penis.

WTF are they banning obscure crap like the op's old guild name when GW's OWN SUPPORT TEAM uses such nasty names for themselves?

Or are we supposed to believe that a name like APPLEPYTHON is just an innocent name? He just had to know that name would be offensive to all us poor innocent kiddies. Right?


In other words, this whole banning thing is out of hand. It's one thing to ban obvious profanities, but this is bull****. Good luck getting people to buy GW2(if it ever comes out) if you're going to treat the players(your customers) this way.

I agree with you. I also had to turn off the filter to be able to curse like a true sailor. If a filter could be made to accomplish this and remove liability from ANET I would be all for it. I enjoy seeing creative and funny names.

ESRB rating? Come on. A rating within one of their categories, Teen in this instance, does not mean it contains all the elements of that rating. It's the same with MPAA and films: not all "R" rated films contain all the content or elements that cause the MPAA to set that rating.

If you actually look up the ESRB rating for Guild Wars, you find: Use of Alcohol, Violence, Animated Blood(BMP), Mild Suggestive Themes(EotN and BMP), and Suggestive Themes(Factions). You will note the absence of Crude Humor and Strong Language for the ESRB rating of any Guild Wars product. The ESRB does not rate players. In fact, the rating on the front of the box says: "Game experience may change during online play."

Same. I have no problem with whatever name anyone could ever come up with. Quite the opposite funky names may actually give me a good laugh...

Support acts on offensive names. I've seen comments to the effect that people doesn't want Support taking action on names that break the rules, which is not really a workable solution. We understand that people make innocent mistakes, but what matters to support is whether the name breaks the rules, not whether someone did it unknowingly or did it maliciously. Their responsibility is to remove names that violate the User Agreement. I know it feels bad for players who make an innocent mistake when naming a character or guild. I know people get upset and angry about it, when they didn't even know or feel like they were doing anything wrong. Support isn't doing this out of any kind of vendetta against people. They're only acting on names that break the rules.

I'm also seeing different tolerance levels of what is "offensive" despite people's claims that they all agree with each other on what is offensive/not offensive. Some people personally would not have banned names that were banned (and speaking personally, just as a player, I do feel the same way sometimes). Well, someone found those names offensive enough to report to Support, and after Support reviewed the User Agreement and naming policy, those names were found to be in violation. If names don't break the rules, Support will not take action. There are plenty of reports made by players where Support doesn't ban a name -- because the name doesn't break the rules.

Another point about the "Teen" rating. Again, I will point out that GW is an international game, and "Teen" doesn't mean the same thing in every single country. Our players do not come from just one country, and GW is not played in just one country. If servers were sharded by region, this wouldn't be as much of an issue. Support will block "b***" in Polish (this is in reference to Super Kaon Action Team), and I would like to point out that we do actually have Polish language support in-game, and we do have Polish people playing the game.

We're in continuing discussions with Support on these issues, and we have been bringing your opinions and views to them in our discussions.

Just to make sure the point gets across:
http://www.google.com/search?q=suka&...ient=firefox-a

Reveals over 38 million results. Can you make sure ArenaNet makes it a personal crusade to clear all of the "internets" of this evil while you're at it?

It will never work. You need to change your approach, see my thread above. Anyway... I've wasted enough time on this subject. Do whatever you like, for me your policy is a move against freedom of speech and I condemn it as such. However this is my opinions and how ArenaNet chooses to do business is not my problem, but I am entitled to an opinion and to playing games that I don't feel that they restrict the ways I can express myself.

EDIT:

Just for fun the fun and ridiculous of your decision:

There is company named Suka Press (BOOKS THAT INSPIRE) http://www.sukapress.com/

There is a restaurant called Suka: http://www.toptable.com/en-gb/venue/?id=817

There is a musical instrument called Suka: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suka

And so on. If I were the owner of Suka Press and wanted to have a presence in GuildWars are you telling me that I would be forbid to use my own company name???

All this is absurd.

got banned 3 days for the word "hoe" is a joke.

–noun
1. a long-handled implement having a thin, flat blade usually set transversely, used to break up the surface of the ground, destroy weeds, etc.
2. any of various implements of similar form, as for mixing plaster or mortar.
–verb (used with object)
3. to dig, scrape, weed, cultivate, etc., with a hoe.
–verb (used without object)
4. to use a hoe.

By the way, our tag still is SuKa, wonder when it get's changed.
Becuase [ban] is a cooler tag than [SuKa].

http://www.guildwars.com/products/guildwars/default.php

Scroll to the bottom to see specific rating info for Guild Wars.

Rating:Teen [Use of Alcohol; Violence]

The inclusion of Violence and Alcohol warrant the Teen rating. This does not mean that the game publisher needs to include other items that may warrant the same rating.

That is truly awful. I feel so bad that I'm not going to google "Juggahoe" and look at the very first result. Then we can feign self-righteous indignation together!

Conversely, one could argue that anyone from [Suka] could have googled it, looked at the very first result, and avoided this whole situation.

If all languages supported are to be known when creating a guildname, then it'd be a much better job if you cared to make up a filter containing all words deemed offensive in all these languages.
After all, that's what you want right?