No, it’s not a “harmless circumvention.” It’s violating Blizzard’s EULA and TOS. These aren’t just random things that Blizzard came up with like, “if you do not bring back a shrubbery within 24 hours of installing the game, we will suspend your account.”
These are naming convention rules that are meant to keep everyone (or almost everyone) safe and happy.
Your name, m’dear, is in violation. Nearly everyone knows what the AF at the hindquarters of your name means.
And if you were reported and the GM reading the ticket said, “You know, that’s not a great representation of what Blizzard thinks is a good naming convention. I’m going to flag this player character for a name change.”
Then if you decided, “OMGWTFBBQ. No one is going to tell me what to do or how to name my toon,” and you renamed the character similarly, or with the same name, yes, you should be suspended.
If doesn’t matter that you really meant Oh My Goodness, What in France, Big Baby Quail! This is Bunny Spit! No Moustached Frenchman is going to tell me what to do or how to name my Gosh Darn toon!"
Perception is a large part of it, and if you don’t understand, it’s not Blizzard’s problem.
I don’t see the name mentioned, but it doesn’t take a lot of critical thought to analyze whether a name is offensive / inappropriate, etc. Even if it is let through the filters, that doesn’t mean that the name is OK.
Moving forward, just pick a name that you know is objectively not insulting. Avoid naming things as if you are a 13 year old boy. Also, don’t try to play dumb about it, that bit is all but worn out.
Asking the real question here. I’ve never had an action on my account in 13 years of playing, let alone for something as easy to control as my character’s name.
Oh, and the funny part is that this name wasn’t even the one I was talking about and never got reported.
I’m sure Calmaf has offended many a player. I’m really sorry for coming up with such a horrible, insensitive name.
In the incident of the name in question, my thought process was literally just “It would be funny if it just let me use the same name”… and guess what, it did and it was kinda funny, and the name hasn’t been an issue again since then, so I guess it’s really not as offensive. I didn’t do it to “fight the system”. Chances are the name wasn’t even the reason I got reported in the first place. People will report for anything.
I’m fine if they force me to change my name. I really couldn’t care less. I was just really confused then because I didn’t even receive any message as to why I got kicked out of the game and forced a rename. Obviously I knew why, but there are names where it just isn’t clear. For example, if I take the word “fish” and apply a verb ending from my own language in order to create a verb equivalent to what means “to fish” as in “fishing”, it becomes “fish*t”, and I didn’t even realize that until the in game chat censored it when I just used it automatically without thinking. It’s just the result of combining two languages happened to include a bad word in it.
In any case, I just think it’s a funny oversight to let people just reuse their name when this happens.