I have just a small handful of questions left that I was going to ask in my previous thread, but it has run its course.
I’m not sure if any of them can be answered, but I wanted to ask them anyways so I’ve made a quick thread for them if that’s alright.
If I, or anyone else, ever have a question on if a name is permissible or not, is this forum the appropriate place to ask? If not, then where?
Is there a list or guideline that we can follow to get a better understanding of what isn’t permitted? One of the things I learned about was titles - if not for my previous thread, I likely would’ve never known this rule.
This question is mostly for curiosity’s sake and is less important, but anyways; why are certain things (i.e. titles) not permitted? I’m not asking about vulgar words or words that can be easily considered inappropriate, I’m curious about specifically the aforementioned and potentially similar. When comparing to other games, both big and small, WoW seems oddly strict about it, so I’m just trying to get a better understanding overall. I’m not expecting an answer for this third question, but I wanted to ask it anyways because I’m really curious about the thought processes.
Name titles real people are a no no Just stick to fantasy or use the ingame generator not that hard.
Never use body parts or something that u think is innocent rarely is.
Plenty of fantasy name generators out there.
Comon sense is what it boils down to do you realy want to see a polarizing persons name that is often looked down up then dont use the name.
They don’t allow titles, popular people names, and other identifying names. This is mainly due to avoid folks trying to make names plus in-game titles to start stuff in games.
They don’t have lists, just general areas they don’t allowed.
That’s kind of why I’ve been confused. Yes, it is common sense that certain names of famous people (notably politicians) aren’t a good idea - but my question isn’t about the obvious. It’s about the less obviously problematic ones, i.e. just the title itself. I can see how “Queenelizabeth” isn’t a good idea, but why is just specifically “Queen” not a good idea?
Look at it this way its a title and alot of toons have titles like king anduin wyrm or queen moira bronzebeard titles that can be used by wow NPC are blacklisted. Like u cant name a toon vrakthris or orlyia pretty sure those are black listed.
I thought that names naturally used by NPCs were entirely off-limits in the character screen (by entirely off limits I mean we straight up cannot use them even if we tried, i.e. Garrosh or Thrall).
But even then, I’ve never heard of having your character share a name with NPCs, by using special characters, be against the rules. I can’t tell you how many Garrosh’s I’ve seen running around lol.
And what about the titles that players share with NPCs?
If reported they will get a name change blizzard doesnt have the manpower to go thru hundreds of thousands of players name they rely on players to report them.
I’d like a confirmation on if having a character share a name with an NPC (again using special characters, because it’s impossible otherwise) is actually against the rules. I swear I’ve seen even the official WoW social media team have memes about this?
It’s a better place than most, but understand you will not get a guarantee that the name is appropriate forever as definitions and language can evolve from day to day. That’s just a chance we have to take and be aware of at the time of creation.
Their policy as it stands for now:
This, however, is a development decision and is best posed to them where they don’t always inform support staff of their decisions. You can try finding them over on Twitter, @WarcraftDevs. A response is not guaranteed.
This is why were not allowed to discussion acount actions based on name violations people will try to lawyer there way out.
Botom line is you dont want to poke blizzard too hard on rule violation black marks never go away and penalties stack and double including account closers.
Having a broader, vague outline of the rules gives them more freedom to determine on reports instead of them having to put more manhours into an uncontrollable amount of appeals because “but that wasn’t mentioned in the policy!”
Generally speaking, for major characters of lore in the game, it’s against the rules.
Using special characters would not prevent your name from being reported and possibly actioned.
At the end of the day, there’s a reason that Blizzard keeps their rules somewhat vague, and it’s to prevent abuse/rules-lawyering.
No, Blizzard will not (here on the forums are via a ticket) give you the ‘green light’ for a specific name. This is a game based on a fantasy world. With fantastic character names both via the NPCs and other players.
There are plenty of fantasy name generators out there and you can even ask ChatGPT to lend you a hand. In fact, you can ask it to do its best to keep the name within proper naming guidelines too.
It’s really never going to be. The context of certain words and names can sometimes change over time, rendering them inappropriate to use at a point in the future. Also, there is no way to provide an exhaustive list of every single word that people are not allowed to use. The more reasonable solution is to have a broad-stroke policy that covers as much as possible whilst leaving plenty of room for discretion from both players and staff to enforce what they deem unacceptable.
How long has it been against the rules to have lore names? I’ve been playing the game for a really long time and had no idea it was considered a problem - especially when considering how normalized it is in the community. What if that player specifically wants to roleplay as a lore character with their friend group or guild? Even the guideline for RP names doesn’t say anything about WoW lore characters, it just alludes to primarily characters outside of Warcraft.
Are the characters of lore in-game only against the rules if its on an RP server?
Also, hasn’t even WoW’s social media made memes about it? I’m just surprised that this isn’t spoken about more.
Lastly, if I or others don’t have a place to ask if a name is alright, then how can we safely avoid account action? Shouldn’t this be a very easy thing to avoid?
There were naming restrictions added to the game a few years ago that prevented players from naming themselves after many in-game concepts such as character names and races, so the game itself prevents them from being used.
You can definitely ask if a name is okay. What you’re not going to get however is a definitive list of names that you can or cannot use. You will only get broad criteria in which you can name yourself, but that should be more than sufficient as a reference point for absolutely everybody. As Darth said earlier, it really is just a matter of common sense.