Verry Pissed Off at ncSoft...

My guildmate's PvE char "God of Sodomy" was created during the BWEs, since the final release has played everyday, finished all missions, collected many runes, money, items, weapons and large skill sets for 4 profession by changing his secondary profession multiple times.

Yesterday, while attempting to log on, he received the message that he char was banned and he is to delete the character due to offensive name.

This is the same name that he has used for years in many other games, it is the same name he used in the BWE and has kept since. The name was not blocked when he created it nor does it contain any words deemed vulgar in any language.

However, in order to be cooperative he sent them a very polite e-mail asking that his name simply be changed to something they (nsoft) found non-offensive. The reply was a stern "NO, your account is banned, we will not change the name, your items will be lost". Not to mention all his work collecting skills and XP!

We moved to this game from a Chinese MMORPG because or poor support, communications and lack of customer friendliness. Now we find out that this game too has no concern for their customers!!! I did not want to post about this ban, I expected they would change the name and nothing needed to be made public about it. Boy was I wrong... I am flaming pissed off.

Apparently, ncsoft is a Koran company, and Sodomy (in the minds of morons) can be linked to homosexuality, and in Korea homosexuality is indecent. So they feel compelled to enforce their self-righteous beliefs on the worldwide population of this game! I think I have had enough of provicial beliefs shoved down my throat, so much for the 5 copies of the game I bought for family and friends, so much for my contributions to the community, and so much for my support of A-Net and their hope for financial success.

ONE PISSED OFF CUSTOMER!
-Nim

While I see your friend's problem, apparently they do not have the ability to rename characters. I wanted to change the name of my main, Walahmar Razorcraft ... to something else. They said at this time there was no way to do that.

People keep calling me Wally or Wally Mar... Wah Lamer :/ For the love of Pepe people it's "Valahmar" *sigh*

::Gasp::
Lets protest against them!

As much as it might suck for your friend, you really shouldn't take your temper out on NCSoft or "koreans" or whatever.

I had the exact same impression as the person who reported your friend.
I'm very openminded about things, but could easily see where your friends name crossed the line.

Take a look at this page with a definition of "sodomy". It is the reference link that Webters uses online.. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sodomy .

I do think that they need to give a way of changing a name rather than deleting it.. but such is not the case at the moment.

and exactly how do YOU define Sodomy so that it isn't an offensive word?

Wait, lemme get this straight. Guy makes a char called "God of Sodomy", and then gets banned?

They can't change names? Sounds like a dumb excuse or lazy programming.

But what does it matter, they should at least unban the character for one day so that the guy could move his items.

First off, I feel for you and your friend for losing all that work. It's totally ridiculous that they have no option to change names. The MMO's that I come from all had problems with names but also had the option to change names without deleting the character.

Now for the but side. (no pun intended, well maybe a little )

His name could easily be considered offensive. Read the definition in any dictionary. Sodomy is illegal in many places and at best frowned upon in every society.

Throw a religious "God of," in front of it which could easily be construed as a slur on religion and it's a surprise he lasted as long as he did in this game.

Now I'm with you and anyone else who runs into this problem. They should be able to change names without destroying all that work.

His name is not at all offensive to me, but I can't blame someone that might be offended from reporting it.

The word, "Sodomy", has no non-sexual definition. I don't think I fully grasp the level of idiocy that would be required for one to choose such a name and not realize that it would offend people. I do feel sorry for your friend, but not because his character got deleted. I feel sorry for him because he's an idiot.

Erm, are there any non-offensive definitions associated with sodomy? >.>


I'm not finding any alternatives for sodomy other than "intercourse not involving the male and female genitalia" and "intercourse with an animal" and neither is generally appropriate in mixed company...

BTW, did you play Monster & Me? Everything there is going down the drain, 'cuz it's closing on the 30th. Pretty compelling reason to quit

that's sad for your friend yes, his name wans't really appropriate ( even if i don't mind to see such a name.. ) but baning it is a bit hard. They should offer you an option to rename him or something, and i personally doubt they can't rename him.

I can agree with our need to impliment a way to change names of players.

However, I belive this account SHOULD have been banned. Yo. Peeps got little kids that play these games... I am QUITE sure that if I had a 10 year old playing this game, I would not appriciate him/her asking questions about SODOMY.

You, and your friend apparently, have no respect for the wishes of others.

And while you might be a little agry that a specific account has been deleted, there are hundreds, if not thousands of people that are glad to see it.

-Witt78

PS - What possesses people to create players with names like that anyway? Only reasonable explanation that I can think of.... They enjoy offending other people. Well... Guess what. Don't let the door hit you.

he suffered the "I'm a ****ing dumbass" penalty....deal with it

I'm sure they can rename him.

But do they want to?

Your friend messed up, his fault IMO.

Any intelligent being should be able to go "hmm...now is this name crossing the line?" and say 'yes, yes it is'.

Edit: And apparently if one has a .gif avatar you have to click on it to see it? That's kinda weird. Can ya'll see my animation?

Why in earth would someone create a name called "God of Sodomy"? That is a very disgusting name. Your friend deserved what he got but I agree with provoko that NCsoft should at least let your friend move his items. What I find puzzling is that why can't NCsoft just simply rename his character? What's so hard about that?

still some of you are missing the point

the account has been there since the beginning of GW, and they are just NOW making this guy delete his character

thats pretty shady

It is about "Half-Size" of a normal Avitar, but yes... we can see it

-Witt78

It isn't shady. Bans come about because players are offended and report names. It doesn't appear that NCSoft sits there and babysits servers looking for offensive names... they let the players police themselves for the most part. It was reported, NCSoft/A.net agreed it was offensive, where's the shadiness?

Witt: I realize that but that's to prevent image distortion. If I could find larger images of the spell icons I'd change it up. It's already distorted a little bit but it's not noticable really.

Maybe only now has someone complained.

I don't see how that justifies anything...

Unless you mean to say that the account should have been deleted earlier.

I think they should delete his account and then go to his house and shock him on the neck with a stun gun. Then laugh.

That's just me... (Don't ever let me become a King) hehe

-Witt78

you are wrong

they have to actually review and in some cases reverse a decision

they finally got down the evergrowing list to him

about time

No, I'm afraid YOU'RE missing the point. The reason it was banned is because it was offensive, plain and simple. I personally am nigh impossible to offend, but this is clearly offensive to many. I would go so far as to say it's so blatantly offensive that it was likely intentional. The fact that it wasn't banned until now simply means that it slipped by unnoticed for a while, a LOT of people play this game. But it was inevitable and frankly your friend (if it really was your friend and not you yourself) is lucky he got away with it for as long as he did.

Hmm....Name like that, and he is surprised it was banned? Come on, we have know since we were children what is Right from Wrong.

They have ALL been given fair warning to all that create their names before they do so. I have no sympathy for those that create names like that. These names are not Funny,Creative, or Clever. They are just plain Childish!

Also wasn't a thread very simular to this just closed today?

Simple. Your friend violated the terms of the game. B-bye.

Scratch off one more idiot... thank you NCSoft/ArenaNet!

How could your "friend" not see that one coming? LMAO

Hmmm let's see, I know I am playing a game that has naming policies; I know that if someone gets offended by my name and reports me, Anet will take a look and decide if it is indeed offensive; I know that if they do find it offensive, they will lock that character and force me to delete it. Hmmm what name should I pick... I got it! Captain Cornhole!

Exactly. Your friend flew under the radar in the BWEs.

On the one hand, I can see the "You need to change the char name" and not ban it as banning from the info provided seems a bit harsh but on the other hand, call it a common sense penalty. I don't/can't imagine someone even thinking the slightest that name as being even close to Kosher. I don't know. I wonder though, due to the harshness of the ban (and I have to admit God of Sodomy is a very offensive name as most view Sodomy not as a "Homosexual Act" but rather a violent attack on a unwilling particpant) if said friend hasnt received other complaints on his/her online behavior and them saying enough is enough and the name was the final straw.

Captain Cornhole is actually less offensive than God of Sodomy.

OK, fine he made a mistake, but damn - they should let him change his name and fix it, people deserve a second chance right?

The name was offensive, simple as that, just look up the meaning, he probably even knew the meaning why else choose that name, his charachter deserved to be banned, the fact that it wasnt banned at the start was probably because they didnt spot it. Bottom line they had every right to ban it, and you agreed to the rules (licenser agreement)

in case you hadnt heard it yet that ability to change a name is being worked on but is not available yet

Depends.

In the TOS I'm fairly certain it mentions naming your character.

I wish I could find a copy of the TOS as to be sure but I can't, amybe someone else can help you.

If it does mention it, then no.

If it doesn't, then yes.

I hadn't heard this. I really hope that this is severely limited. Allowing name changes on a whim is actually not as good an idea as it might sound (scammer's playground). And if forcing a name change becomes the future solution to offensive names, I hope they have a "X number of strikes and you're out" policy. X being a very small number and "out" being having your entire account locked. There's only so many times you can "accidentaly" create an offensive name.

for the user standpoint...maybe. it would require the changing of variables and a GUI to allow the user to do it..as well as a checkset to insure the user had the proper rights to do so.

on their end...it's always been available

No he should NOT get a second chance. Why do people need a second chance? They were fairly warned in the beginning. People tend to think they are above the rules. No means NO. Here is a person that thought they were so clever and witty with their character name that gets banned for the use of it. Boo-Hoo. Now maybe people will get the message that there are some standards that they have to comply with. About time. Nothing wrong with having some manners and courtesy toward others. My children would never create such names. Why? They simply know better. They know it is not funny and it is a reflection upon themselves in the long run.

Shady? Suspicious? Suspect? You believe that ArenaNet had ulteriour motives? There was some conspiracy to make you play for a long time with an innapropriate name, bwahahaha, joke's on you?

Um. Doesn't seem likely. More likely that ArenaNet has had more important things to do right before and right after releasing a major online game around the entire world, and someone (thankfully) finally pointed it out to them.

I would not mind if they allowed a renaming of the account or transfer or items, but I don't have a lot of sympathy, either.

ROFL Lasher...
NCSoft must be Sith Lords, they only deal in absolutes - everything else is just various shades of . . . brown? heheh...
Too bad the OP, er.."his friend" didn't get banned in BWE...oh well.

In my opinion, the account was not deleted because of the name of the character.

Instead the account was deleted because the name was created with the sole, singular intention of offending other players. The name itself, I personally don't find offensive. I have thicker skin than that. But this player Purposfully displays his disregard and disrespect for other people and thier wishes. THAT I find offensive.

As a matter of fact. This forum thread was most likely created for the EXACT same reason that "God of Sodomy" was used as a player name. Even though the author of this thread is getting slamed like a rag doll. He's prolly enjoying the read. He enjoys pissing people off. Or as they say, he "Thives on misery" a personality trait that is unfortunatly becoming more and more common in America. I love this danm country! It saddens me to see that the number of people like this is quickly growing. It saddens me even more that it's left to the administrators of "Guild Wars" to take up the responsibility of parenting this obviously younger individual.

And for all of these reasons... No. I don't think he deserves another chance. If he wants to play Guild Wars that bad, let him go pay the $50 for another licence. (That is my take on this. Mine and only mine.)

And as much as I enjoy doing a little bit of the slamming. This thread should prolly be locked and moved as soon as possible.

-Witt78

nah still think its shady

its either a valid name at creation or not, 'offensive' isnt an evolving thing, its either offensive or its not

if it was worthy of getting deleted now, that means it was then...and it didnt, thats anets fault, oh well...move on

as for someone saying they need to review and they just got to him...hes a BWE char and they JUST got to him?! I should make an offensive character name (but only offensive in small countries) and see how long it takes them to sort it out....

so now we have the 'evolving name process' in which anet randomly determines whats offensive and not offensive this month

i hope you guys see what i'm getting at here

Yeah, I guess that sucks, a guild member of mine got his character banned recently as well.

"Harry Bawls" was his name. I mean c'mon, what's wrong with that? So Harry's a cryin' little kid, who cares? Seriously guys, THEY'RE the perverse ones for lookin' at it in such a way as to ban it.

...pfft, who am I kidding, it was funny as hell that he got that character banned. (referring to bawls not your friend) I remember laughing about it over the TS channel.

On another note though God of Sodomy is an offensive name plain and simple. You do realize that the devs don't go and look at EVERY single name created and watch his or her progress personally through the game right? Someone has to REPORT it for it to get noticed by those who can ban it, it isn't THEIR fault it just now got recognized, it's the fact that people didn't report it until now that you should be angry over.

The name was offensive plain and simple, I wouldn't want kids seeing that name either. I don't see how you could look at the name and NOT find it offensive, there aren't any other meanings to it...did your friend even know what the hell it WAS when he went and made the name? If that be the case, you don't really have the right to complain. If he did know what it meant (and he should've) then he should've been EXPECTING it to get banned.

Either way, offensive name, gets banned. Tough.

It does suck that they can't change the name though, Bawls was at a lvl 20 character as well, his primary in fact. I would say in SOME cases they should send an email to the owner of the account saying "We will be changing the name of this character to whatever you send us in the next email, blah blah blah, if you don't send us one we'll ban him, etc, etc." Shame they can't change the name though. And that would make sense because there are some names that get banned that can only in some really slang/uncommonly perverse and creative way...can be found offensive, and that's not right if only one guy thinks of a way for it to be bad and bans it.

Your friend though, "God of Sodomy", should've been banned as soon as they got a report from him, that's just offensive plain and simple.

Sucks yeah, but that's the way it is.