Concerns About New Nickname Policy

[Zxul]

On the side note, if you look a bit, pretty much all RL names are religion related. Michael- obvious, John- yep, Sean- comes from Hebrew name which means "God gave", Anna- comes from name of sky goddesses of Middle East, Dana- possibly same origin as Anna, or related to Irish goddess Danu, etc. GL finding something which isn't based on RL religion, if you look a bit.

Also, where is the new CoC even posted? Looking on forums, could find only the 2016 version.

[Albais]

Also, where is the new CoC even posted? Looking on forums, could find only the 2016 version.

You can find the updated code of conduct here.

[tazdingo]

ban them all, let sigmar sort them out

[Omegus]

In terms of "are game companies bat-**** crazy when it comes to copyright?", 3 examples I immediately think of are:

1) Bethesda suing someone for a game named "Scrolls" due to having the trademark on "The Elder Scrolls"

2) Edge Games suing anyone and everyone who even thinks about using the word Edge in a video-game related context

3) And the most relevant in this case: Marvel suing NCSoft - creators of City of Heroes - over user-generated content that might infringe on Marvel IPs.

Having an official policy to disallow those names gives the devs a bit of a legal safety net and if a litigious game company - of which there are many - find something here they don't like it becomes a lot harder for them to try and go after ROR/Max direct for endorsing said names when the server policy is that they are not allowed.

And while we typically think of this server as a small rogue thing that no one knows about, earlier this week it had 12k+ viewers on Twitch from the French event.

[Albais]

In terms of "are game companies bat-**** crazy when it comes to copyright?", 3 examples I immediately think of are:

1) Bethesda suing someone for a game named "Scrolls" due to having the trademark on "The Elder Scrolls"

2) Edge Games suing anyone and everyone who even thinks about using the word Edge in a video-game related context

3) And the most relevant in this case: Marvel suing NCSoft - creators of City of Heroes - over user-generated content that might infringe on Marvel IPs.

Having an official policy to disallow those names gives the devs a bit of a legal safety net and if a litigious game company - of which there are many - find something here they don't like it becomes a lot harder for them to try and go after ROR/Max direct for endorsing said names when the server policy is that they are not allowed.

And while we typically think of this server as a small rogue thing that no one knows about, earlier this week it had 12k+ viewers on Twitch from the French event.

Sure, I can somewhat see that argument. But still, even if trademark law applies to character and guild names, I still don't see the reason for all of these rules:

You may not use proper names of areas within the game for character names.
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.

They don't seem to be related to any fear of copyright troubles. You might say, 'proper names that appear in the game are also part of the copyright of the game'. But then, how is it possible for this exception to exist?

Guild names MAY use the proper names of specific areas, to help promote role-playing and realm pride.

All in all, it still seems needlessly broad to me. I mean, under these current rules, it would even be possible to make a case that character names of staff members violate the naming policy. As an example, 'Majordok' would be reportable since it contains a title or rank in the name.

[Omegus]

You may not use proper names of areas within the game for character names.
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.

At a guess - especially if this is the same policy that Mythic had in place - is because GW didn't want people doing it. And as the license and IP holder, they own all the cards. If legal license holder Mythic had to jump through these hoops, then not-quite-so-legitimate private servers should be even more careful, not less careful.

[Scottx125]

This is all well and fine, however. I'd suggest it's more of a case of don't do this otherwise if something arises we will forcibly change your name to comply with a legal challenge. That being said, what is the likely probability of that any massive company is going to care about a decade old dead MMO causing damage to their brand because on person in a community of 1k people is called 'Legolas'.. I'd wager it's far less than 1% a year.

[Albais]

You may not use proper names of areas within the game for character names.
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.

At a guess - especially if this is the same policy that Mythic had in place - is because GW didn't want people doing it. And as the license and IP holder, they own all the cards. If legal license holder Mythic had to jump through these hoops, then not-quite-so-legitimate private servers should be even more careful, not less careful.

Well, if these overly broad rules, that for the longest time were not part of the previous CoC as it existed on these forums, are seemingly an absolute necessity that the server simply cannot exist without, so be it. We'll just have to hope that they are not being abused by people to report the names of players they don't like. Because with how these rules are written you can apply them to practically any name. In the end, it'll be the GM's who will have to sift through that.

[MaxHayman]

You may not use proper names of areas within the game for character names.
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.

At a guess - especially if this is the same policy that Mythic had in place - is because GW didn't want people doing it. And as the license and IP holder, they own all the cards. If legal license holder Mythic had to jump through these hoops, then not-quite-so-legitimate private servers should be even more careful, not less careful.

Well, if these overly broad rules, that for the longest time were not part of the previous CoC as it existed on these forums, are seemingly an absolute necessity that the server simply cannot exist without, so be it. We'll just have to hope that they are not being abused by people to report the names of players they don't like. Because with how these rules are written you can apply them to practically any name. In the end, it'll be the GM's who will have to sift through that.

They were in the code of conduct which appeared in the game. We've merged them and they now appear in both places. I imagine these were put in there for a reason originally.

Regardless, I'd encourage players to carry on as normal.

[lumpi33]

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.

Yeah, pretty much this. Whether these rules were in the live version or not, GMs will use it and point at it whenever they want to get rid of someone.

People that are around for a while know how that works. Basically like this: Someone of the enemy realm logs over and uses the right click option to report someone they don't like, saying it is against the Rules and GMs will punish with the argument that it is "clearly written in the CoC". With that broad set of rules they can ban everyone whenever they feel like.

btw: what about existing names? So we all have to rename our 10 year old characters just because there might be a conflict with the CoC now? Or risk to get punished any time in the future for that name? Beside that you can only rename a character once a month, right? When I do a quick guess there is probably 50% of all characters somehow in conflict with these rules. Please explain.