Concerns About New Nickname Policy

[Haojin]

Hello friends, i've read new Code of Conduct and saw a confusing rule there.

You may not use names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials or products.

With this new rule, i think many of our friends violating this rule already :/ Here some examples below:

Spoiler:

Could any of the staff clarify this ? There will be a mass re-name incoming ?

Regards.

[Cyrylius]

Those americans really are after RoR VIPs

[Minisynn]

I say perma ban them all, that'll teach them for having the gall to break the new code of conduct

[agemennon675]

Yeah these new code of conduct rules are either not very well though out or just intentionally made this way so they can ban anyone they want or don't like whenever they want.

[MaxHayman]

Yeah these new code of conduct rules are either not very well though out or just intentionally made this way so they can ban anyone they want or don't like whenever they want.

Copied from another thread.

Just to clarify the old wording on the forums was far more general.

1.1 Don't Be A Jerk
We are all here to play and enjoy the game. Attacking other players in chat, trolling players in general with toxic attitudes, or finding other creative ways to disrupt other players from enjoying their time here. None of this is appreciated. Consider this a very broad and generalized rule that we will apply liberally when players are in fact being jerks to each other. If only we lived in a world where this was the only rule needed.
Respect is the word, whether you hate someone or simply think they're a bad player, you can be respectful. Keep in mind this is just a game, and there is no reason and no place for real grieves/grudges.

So the new rules are meant to be more specific. Additionally most of the rules were taken from the original Mythic one which was in game and had been from 2008 to before this patch.

In regard to voicing your opinion. If it's a review that is fair criticism then it's fine. Giving people an opinion of whether you thing its worth playing its fine. If someone is uploading a video shouting racist commentary or something in a video while playing the game. Then that wouldn't be allowed.

If you have any specific concerns please let me know and I will address them.

[lemao]

They all have to change their ign, feeling very sorry for them

[Scragmuncher]

Ban seems fair to me, I see no issue with it.

[Aurandilaz]

If you have any specific concerns please let me know and I will address them.

The new rules state that no religious or historical significance names allowed. So I assume this means names that are used by religions of our world, for example nicknames or alternative names for gods, divines, spirits, saints?

I understand you probably do not allow names likes Allah, God, Deus, Muhammed, Jesus/Jeshua/Joshua/Josh/Iesu/Ioannes/Ivan/Joan/Jean/John etc, but what of their variants like Yahveh, or players with similar/modified versions of those like YWHI, or less dominant world religions like (old/modern) Norse Paganism, where gods names are used by playernames like Thorbolt or Grimnir (Odins nickname / Grímnismál origin) or Wotan (Woatan/Odin/Wednesday).
Do all religions have same importance for ensuring rules are applied fairly, or is it mostly to ensure the larger world religions and their most common Anglicised name variants are not used ingame? There have existed maybe thousands of local religions over human history, will you look out for names from religions that are not just from the Abrahamic main 3 groups, or also Asian/African/American/Austronesian/European pagan native religions?
Many modern western names are derived from Biblical names of Prophets, Apostles, Saints, Martyrs, so all would have some religious meaning and historical significance in christian church history.

Lot of players might have somewhat common or typical fantasy sounding names, not maybe knowing their real etymology or relation to modern world religions, so having this rule created 9 years 4 months after the launch of ROR does get somewhat weird, if players with names that have religious/historical background (most modern names do), will have to be renamed or otherwise punished, possibly years afterwards from the initial name picking.

[MaxHayman]

If you have any specific concerns please let me know and I will address them.

The new rules state that no religious or historical significance names allowed. So I assume this means names that are used by religions of our world, for example nicknames or alternative names for gods, divines, spirits, saints?

I understand you probably do not allow names likes Allah, God, Deus, Muhammed, Jesus/Jeshua/Joshua/Josh/Iesu/Ioannes/Ivan/Joan/Jean/John etc, but what of their variants like Yahveh, or players with similar/modified versions of those like YWHI, or less dominant world religions like (old/modern) Norse Paganism, where gods names are used by playernames like Thorbolt or Grimnir (Odins nickname / Grímnismál origin) or Wotan (Woatan/Odin/Wednesday).
Do all religions have same importance for ensuring rules are applied fairly, or is it mostly to ensure the larger world religions and their most common Anglicised name variants are not used ingame? There have existed maybe thousands of local religions over human history, will you look out for names from religions that are not just from the Abrahamic main 3 groups, or also Asian/African/American/Austronesian/European pagan native religions?
Many modern western names are derived from Biblical names of Prophets, Apostles, Saints, Martyrs, so all would have some religious meaning and historical significance in christian church history.

Lot of players might have somewhat common or typical fantasy sounding names, not maybe knowing their real etymology or relation to modern world religions, so having this rule created 9 years 4 months after the launch of ROR does get somewhat weird, if players with names that have religious/historical background (most modern names do), will have to be renamed or otherwise punished, possibly years afterwards from the initial name picking.

I'd argue that most of these you mention aren't really significant. Also intent has a factor.

You may not use names that are religiously or historically significant.

In reference to

so having this rule created 9 years 4 months after the launch of ROR does get somewhat weird

The naming rules have been the same ones in the game since 2008. Mythic had them. They are more like "follow these rules and you will have no problems".

When it comes to

You may not use names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials or products.

If someone who has a claim on a trademark thinks a character name is infringing, they are welcome to contact us. This rule is common on a lot of video games or MMOs. Additionally trademark claims usually have different classes.

The principle behind trademark protection is to prevent confusion in the marketplace. If two businesses operate in different industries or offer unrelated products or services, they can both register the same or similar trademarks without infringing on each other's rights.

Expect these things to be enforced in a smiliar way to Mythic, and mostly the same here.

Nike stops Max

[Albais]

1.

You may not use names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials or products.

Max, to defend this rule, you said the following ...

If someone who has a claim on a trademark thinks a character name is infringing, they are welcome to contact us. This rule is common on a lot of video games or MMOs. Additionally, trademark claims usually have different classes.

The principle behind trademark protection is to prevent confusion in the marketplace. If two businesses operate in different industries or offer unrelated products or services, they can both register the same or similar trademarks without infringing on each other's rights.

... and cited an article on LinkedIn about a trademark dispute between two businesses. Why is any of this relevant to the names of characters or guilds on an MMORPG private server? Why do we need such a rule today, on this server? Surely, player names are not equivalent to the brand names of private businesses?


2.

You may not use names from popular culture or media.

I also don't quite understand the need for this rule. What does it matter if someone names their character 'Gimli' or 'Legolas'? This rule in conjunction with the last one

You may not use misspellings or alternative spellings of names that violate any of the above rules.

leads to heaps of names that qualify for forced renames. Why is this necessary?


3.

You may not use names that are religiously or historically significant.
You may not use proper names of areas within the game for character names. Guild names MAY use the proper names of specific areas, to help promote role-playing and realm pride.
You may not use proper names of NPCs within the game.
You may not use names containing titles or ranks within them.
You may not use names that contain a phrase, sentence or any fragment of a sentence.

For the sake of brevity, I'll just bundle all the other weird naming rules together. Again, none of these make sense to me. What does it matter if a name is religiously or historically significant? Peter, Thomas, Joshua - all religiously significant names. Richard Lionheart, Xerxes, Nero, ... what is the issue with any of these names? I understand that there are certain historical figures you wouldn't want to see used as names in game. But then instead of "historically significant" maybe something along the lines of "no names of controversial real-world individuals or organizations or referring to sensitive events, both current and historical" would be better. This is basically the phrasing that you used a few lines earlier in the CoC and I think it fits the intended purpose far better as it is less broad and more specific in what it covers.

The same goes for using the proper names of areas/NPCs in game or names containing titles or ranks - why is any of this problematic? For example, there are many different dwarf NPCs in game that have last names derived from one of the many dawi clans. If a player would like to 'join' one of these clans by taking the clan's name as their surname - what would be the issue with that?

You keep saying that these naming rules were part of Mythic's Code of Conduct. That's great, but this alone does not justify their continued existence. Why do we need them today?


Edit: Also, you mention that intent matters. But this is not directly stated in the section on the character and guild naming policy. It just says that

The guidelines listed below outline the types of names that you can NOT use

This makes me think that those rules have to be applied as written, no? In which case, they seem way too broad to me.