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Blizzard Made Me Change My Name
from the getting-on-the-old-soapbox dept.
First of all, the reason that my account is in violation is that my name contains a title prefix. It took dozens of inquiries to get that explained. 'Cmdr' is the problem. I'm told that since the game has an internal honor system with titles, my name is not allowed. Never mind the fact that 'Cmdr' is not one of their titles. Never mind that countless other titles abound in the game: Mr, Sir, Sensei. Am I in violation of their policy? Probably. Is the policy stupid, meaningless, or inconsistent? I think so, but that's not really why I'm writing this.
I've been using 'CmdrTaco' online for around a decade now. It predates the existence of this website. It has followed me from game to game, both local, networked, and massive. My only problem with it is that as Slashdot grew in popularity, I started finding places where an impostor has taken it. I was excited when I was able to get it in Warcraft. It's like a warm blanket. It's stupid I know, but it's mine.
But Blizzard chose to take it from me. Now let me be clear: this is certainly their right: They own the dice and the board and the rulebooks, and I only play in their world. But If the US Government told me to change my name... let's say Congress passed a law making it illegal to have a first name that is a verb (Don't laugh, the White House cease and desisted The Onion!) Well I guess 'Rob' would have to go. My friends would still recognize me: I'd still have the same face, address, and social security number. I'd just have a cool new name like "Captain Fantastic Malda". With a name like that, the auto mechanics would never try to rip me off!
In this virtual world, two levels gives me a couple new pieces of armor, and suddenly I am unrecognizable to anyone who may have run an instance with me. In guild chat, I am a total stranger to people I may have chatted with for months. My history with other players has been erased. It almost makes me wish that I spent my first 45 levels ninja looting!
It's not like Blizzard decided to change gameplay dynamics. I spend a lot of time working on the Slashdot moderation system, and I never have any problem changing any "Rule" in the system if I believe it will improve the overall functionality of the whole system. If blizzard wants to make my mace have 5 less DPS and 3 less stamina because it's unbalanced, well I can accept that. Balancing gameplay is really hard. But in a massive multiplayer game, your name is different- that isn't about balance, it's about identity.
A friend of mine actually quit Everquest over a forced name change. His name was Marilyn Hanson and while fighting something he was disconnected without warning. When he returned, his name had been changed to a randomly generated one. When he asked GM, he was told that he could not have celebrity name. When my friend asked who Marilyn Hanson was, the GM could not answer, but instead just said arguing wouldn't matter. My friend quit EQ that day.
I don't think I'll quit WoW over this, but I will take away some lessons. The GM I talked to had a nickname of something like Lathanian. I found this disconcerting. If you were arrested by Officer Snuggles or found guilty by the honorable Judge Lawtron, it's hard to take that seriously. In this case 'Punishment' is being dealt. A real human is wearing a shroud of anonymity and handing out the bitchslap to a total stranger. That really makes the whole experience even more dehumanizing. In a massive virtual world, we're still people.
You don't see names and faces, which is why you'll see a 60 corpse camp a 30. When you don't see the real person on the other side, the tendency is just to forget. You expect it from opposing factions- but it feels different when it's the GM. Personally this is something I struggle with in my work too. You deal with a hundred support requests and it starts becoming abstract. Unreal. Virtual. I doubt it's much different if you work at the support counter at a retail store, but I think it's easier to forget when the only communication is chat.
Second, the GMs at blizzard really have no power. I asked for contact information. For email information. For names. For an appeal. To talk to a supervisor. And the best they would give me was the generic help phone line or a mailing address. Like with a stamp! I was told that almost every question I asked was unanswerable in game. I gave an email address but they never emailed. They wouldn't even tell me what was wrong with my nickname until after a half dozen inquiries of why. You have really no recourse against a GM. That scares me.
Lastly, I didn't really realize that I was so attached to my nickname. It's not because I'm "Famous"- We have a lot of readers, but these days very few actually know who I am. And of those, the percentage of people who play warcraft, and are alliance, and on azgalor... well it is very tiny. As CmdrTaco I probably had a total of 5 people actually recognize my nickname (and nobody ever gave me gold because they read Slashdot!). As Violated, nobody ever will recognize me for my day job. But that's really not what bugs me. I was really attached to my name. This character bounded through Azgalor slaying monsters and meeting new people. Now that character is erased and another character stands in its place. Same armor. Same class. But different somehow. I like my nickname. I wish I had it on every system I used. I'm annoyed that someone else registered my nickname on gmail before I could. It's always the first name I try when a system asks me to create an account. I feel strangely possessive about it. I doubt I'm alone in being attached to a pseudonym. And I feel kind of stupid admitting it.
Anyway, I've said my piece on the subject. And just to be clear, I'm not really mad at Blizzard. I think what they did was needless and inconvenient, but not evil. Their policy may be silly, but I still was in violation of it, so I guess I got what I deserved. But I wonder about others. And not just in Warcraft, on any online forum. I wonder about our attachment to virtual names. And if nothing less, it will make me take changes in Slashdot a little more seriously next time.
Taco? (Score:5, Funny)
Who are you, and what have you done with the real Taco?
Re:Taco? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Taco? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Taco? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, this new style makes me feel... Violated.
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My name... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:My name... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:My name... (Score:5, Informative)
It prefixes all you chat converations with [$Selectedname]:
It's called Incognito, it was on curse-gaming, but they haven't been up for a while, it's on our wiki, but I don't want to link that on /., but I assume that you can e-mail me or something if you are intrested.
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Re:Taco? (Score:5, Funny)
light bulb flashes
The GM slowly gets this warm fuzzy feeling inside, an opportunity for sweet revenge. A chance to hit CmdrTaco where he lives, by stripping him of his name, and he can do it arbitrarily and anonymously and CmdrTaco can't do anything about it and Rob will beat his head against an anonymous wall just like Slashdot users do. How sweet it is.
This anonymous GM just read Slashdot this morning and saw Rob's rambling screed and he laughed all the way the way through. He obviously nailed Rob where it hurts and its totally eating him up inside. There is just some total karmic justice here.
Revenge, a dish best served cold.
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Re:Taco? (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine was forced to change his name. He was a paladin named "HolyWarrior". After some amount of chafing and resistance, he found it was because someone complained that it was offensive, invoking terroristic imagery or something. Two weeks later, he has a new name, and sees a newbie running through the Auction House named "HolyWarrior". Note the past tense, he did quit the game over this.
Suffice to say, they'll make you change your name, but they won't do something intelligent like implement a database of names that are illegal. Hence, you can keep creating your favorite illegal/offensive name, and just use it until someone notices, rinse and repeat.
Of course, that is probably what happened. Someone complained about your name, because they wanted it. Now it is free, since you don't have it; so anticipate seeing someone using it in the near future. This is worse than someone beating you to your own nick on gmail... They actively stole your nick, by skillfully wielding the incompetence of others...
P.S. If you want to see if your
name is in use, instead of not
permitted, try sending mail to that
name in game... Game Mail will let you
know if there is no such character.
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bitchslap (Score:5, Funny)
When did the topic become the moderation system?
Re:bitchslap (Score:5, Interesting)
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sure to be heard and meta-moderation (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and don't listen to anyone who compares WoW's GMs with Slashdot's moderation system. Tell me, does WoW have meta-GMs??? If one GM slaps you down, can two more GMs bring you back up? Slashdot is really the only discussion site on the web worth looking at, despite the occasional misspelling or duplicate post, and it is all due to your moderation system.
Party on!
-Brian
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Re:bitchslap (Score:5, Insightful)
Besides, how do you think the BNet.d creators feel after Blizzard tried to screw them out of their hard work?
I enjoyed Starcraft and Diablo 1/2, but I am not buying the kids another Blizzard game until they soften their policies. Besides, I get more work done without these crack-addiction games anyway.
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Re:bitchslap (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the difference between moderation and Blizard's rules enforcement system is the concentration of power rather than the diffusion of power. When someone mods down one of my post because they disagree with my politics, I'm annoyed - but not angry. If what I said is well thoughtout and relevant, the bad moderation will be canceled out. Many people can moderate - and so the odd jerk is canceled out by the weight of numbers.
Blizard has very few GMs -- which isn't really so much of a problem. But that the GMs are really the last level of appeal in the game and (more often than not) the last level of appeal at all makes the lack of oversight all the more troubling.
You go to great pains in your recounting of events to point out that this whole thing is probably silly - but I disagree with you there. Sure, WOW isn't your social security card, but it is a service you're paying for. Clearly, the name you chose is not confusing, nor does it in any way supplant any of the promotions that the game hands out. In any sane customer relations system, you would be granted an exception to the rule. That's what customer care is supposed to be about -- saving the individual from the system.
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Re:bitchslap (Score:5, Funny)
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Well that will sure show them! (Score:5, Insightful)
You could a) take your money elsewhere
b) keep giving them your money, and give them some publicity on /., too
With enemies like you, who needs friends?
I think I speak for all Horde when I say... (Score:5, Funny)
Shouldn't that be... (Score:5, Funny)
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It's 11am on a Wed. (Score:5, Funny)
Everquest namechange (Score:5, Funny)
To the article submitter (Score:5, Funny)
Lol (Score:5, Funny)
What is wrong with people? (Score:5, Insightful)
It disgusts me how little sense of real community /. folks have. CmdrTaco has been a major force in keeping this place together for years, and you constantly make use of the fruits of his labor. Now he wants to let off a little steam and all you can do is insult and yell at him? What's most interesting is that at least one of these posts are telling him he has no right to bitch, then in the same paragraph complaining about the quality of slashdot itself.
The "abuse of power" charge doesn't hold well, either. He's not asking for any action to be taken. We have plenty of basically editorial articles posted here every day, and many are much more trivial, biased, and/or political. If you can't stand it, maybe you should take your time and energy somewhere else instead of telling him what he can and can't post here.
Forget about Taco for a second (Score:5, Insightful)
This article fits the requirement to be on slashdot even had it not happened to Taco.
1.) It is about technology
2.) It fits into the Games category
3.) It is a legitimate technology concern as to what you can and cannot do on someone elses network
It's fine (Score:5, Insightful)
In response to Taco's claim that "Cmdr" is not one of the PvP ranks, I would just mention that "Commander" is, in fact, such a rank - it's the third highest rank, and the server I play on only has five of them at the moment.
In other words, whine more, noob.
I guess I'm silly (Score:5, Funny)
I'll post this until it gets modded to 5 (Score:5, Insightful)
Cmdrtaco, you think YOU feel "violated?" (Score:5, Insightful)
You have been using your online name for ten years. I have been using "Daniel P. Smith" for, uh, my whole life.
The airline ticket clerk takes my driver's license away from me, along with the driver's licenses of my wife, son, and daughter-in law, and he and another airline ticket clerk took them to some inner sanctum and did something mysterious, and after about five minutes came back and said we could be issued boarding passes.
On contacting the TSA I'm told that I can submit a form called a PVIF [tsa.gov] along with notarized copies of three forms of identification (driver's license, birth certificate, passport, etc.). This will accomplish... well, it's not exactly clear what it will accomplish. "Please understand that the TSA clearance process will not remove a name from the Watch Lists."
So what does it do? "Instead this process distinguishes passengers from persons who are in fact on the Watch Lists by placing their names and identifying information in a cleared portion of the Lists."
And what does THAT do? Well, here's what it doesn't do: "Clearance by TSA may not eliminate the need to go to the ticket counter in order to check-in. While TSA cannot ensure that this procedure will relieve all delays, we hope it will facilitate a more efficient check-in process for you."
You're upset because some online game doesn't like the name you've chosen for yourself? Please.
_I'm_ upset because my government doesn't like the name I was born with. And, yes, I'm upset because I can see the look in the clerk's eyes... and in the eyes of the notary at my local bank stamping the notarized copies (yes, of course I caved... what do you think I am, someone with principles?)... thinking "Well, he's probably OK but, gee, he's on the TSA's list..."
I think I'm going to get a court order to change my surname to Cmdrtaco. Hopefully there aren't too many people on the no-fly list named Daniel P. Cmrdtaco.
Bizzard sadly have crap support, and don't care. (Score:5, Interesting)
I very politely contacted support 4 times over next week and a bit about this issue, including contacting GM's in game and via the site, pointing to there AUP/EULA agreement which explicitly says they will try to reinstate character data, items and gold in such an event (which was clearly due to a software fault) [ unless, it states, the rollback was part of a forced server roll back, which it was not. ].
Eventually, each time the GM responded with a poorly written reply which made no sense (as if he didn't speak English particularly well and / or hadn't read my ticket at all) saying they 'Don't reinstate characters when there has been a server roll back'. Though I got no response back from interim support query I had made via the web site. I indicated they hadn't done a server roll back at all of course, but they kept replying with the same old canned response.
Faced with the choice of grinding mobs for XP to re-level, re-rolling or quitting, I quit.
Bizzard, like SOE, employ some (not all, I'm sure) very poor quality support staff and GM's, that act seemingly randomly (enforcing rules on a whim, merrily ignoring some blatant abuse - even if it's reported multiple times by different players) and abuse customers in a way that, if they behaved like that in any other industry they'd be fined by watchdogs and/or have legal action taken against them by consumers and consumer groups.
Some of the customers are rude, abusive punk kids I'm sure (and I have very little sympathy for them should they get kicked off - which sadly they rarely seem to) but if you treat customers like scum by default, they will abandon you for the competition the first chance they get.
You'd think, given what we've seen happen to SOE, Blizzard would have noticed that (and how much gamers distrust and dislike SOE - the antics of some of the support staff there are legendary, with repeated tales of abuse by GM's and players calling for them to be sacked following repeated abuse).
You'd think, at the very least, they could employ support staff who can actually read and write English.
Of course the network performance (particularly for some of the servers, the ones in a separate data server in Paris) really, really sucks here in Europe - after ~6 months away I just rejoined so I could play with people I knew recently as that's what every one is playing and it's poor for everyone on our server (to the extent you just can't play sometimes - not helped by the fact that if it goes south on Friday afternoon, you're screwed till Monday morning). That's assuming you can log in (not due to server queues - due to the unreliable login system we seem to have).
I'm sure if the Penny Arcade or GU guys had a problem like this on the US servers there would be a huge stink about it, but the media don't cover it and we don't really have any gaming community representatives of our own to draw attention to it.
Here's what's really going on (Score:5, Interesting)
Problem #2: These games require naming policies of some kind that are non trivial to automate. Since they are non-trivial to automate, there will always be people who slip through. Even if you have a human monitoring each new name (Everquest used to do this), Borisyeltsin may slip through because the human monitoring name approval that day happened to not known who Boris Yeltsin [wikipedia.org] is.
In this specific case the core issue wasn't that CmdrTaco was not a valid name, or even that it was changed, it's that it was changed at level 45, after 100s of hours were invested in the character. This makes the impact of #1 very real.
In WOW name petitioning is basically a form of griefing. There is no review process for names. I've seen people who have petitioned and spoken with GMs (who obviously saw their names) and then weeks later their names were changed because someone petitioned them, their name was reviewed, and then changed. All name petitions come from players essentially. Why did the other 10,000 people who saw Taco before not petition? Probably because they weren't jackasses, and the guy who petitioned was.
I don't have a perfect solution but it seems like the best one is a combination solution:
The grandfather-clause policy would apply to a player's name after some period of time (say 48 hours of play time and one week of real time have passed). It would basically say, by this point a number of humans have seen you and have not complained about your name. Your name was reviewed by customer service. At this point while we can still change your name, we recognize the social impact, and as thus will be more lax in applying the policy.
Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Insightful)
If the idea of MMORPG social circles seems trivial or unimportant to you, what about something like a seller's account on eBay? In a digital world when all someone has to go on is the reputation of your "unique ID," what happens when that ID changes such that it is no longer recognizable as you?
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Insightful)
I might also point out that he specifically said, more than once, that he was not complaining about an abuse of power.
Please keep the petty bitching confined to livejournal.
Et tu? Ahhhhh, the irony.
KFG
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Funny)
True that. This [slashdot.org] is one of my favorite entries.
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't that exactly what Slashdot is? A blog site. Run by a guy called Taco and his friends. Albeit very popular, sold to a larger corporation and run as a business.
Is it his fault he came up with the idea and coded his own system long before Live Journal took off, copied the concept and then gave it to the masses? Does that suddenly invalidate his use of his own site for the purpose he came up with first?
I think we get proprietary about Slashdot. Because it's such a great service, we spend so much time with it, we forget it's someone else's and start to see it as our own. Thus, much like someone coming in and bitching all over our own blog, we take it personally. But, we forget, we're in his house. If we don't like it, we're welcome to leave. Hell, he even shares his code so we can make our own. But, no, we'd rather bitch about his use of his own site.
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, this hasn't happened on Slashdot in quite a while, but honestly, I'm glad to see it happen again, and I hope that this means it will happen more in the future.
Of course, I think the reason why it ended in the first place is that the comments section for every single opnion piece that Slashdot ran was filled to the brim with slashbots' knee-jerk rants and flaming of whichever editor wrote the article, to the point that the opinion pieces brought Slashdot comments sections to a new low in that absolutely no intelligent discourse would happen whatsoever.
Given that your flame of CmdrTaco hit "+5, Insightful" so quickly, I have a feeling that things haven't changed much since the first time the slashbot crowd killed opinion pieces on Slashdot. So yean, even if I want them back, I admit they probably shouldn't come back.
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Insightful)
Taco has the right to post whatever articles he wants here. This one does bring up some interesting points for discussion, albeit points that have already been talked to death in other forums. However, he could have posted a long diatribe about the way the bagger at the grocery store put his canned peaches on top of his eggs in the same bag, and that would have also been a valid submission. If he replaced every article with that sort of thing, it would obviously change the whole character of Slashdot, but he (and his corporate parents) can go that direction if they so choose.
I also remember the JonKatz articles, and while Katz was a pompous blowhard who loved to hear himself type, it was a valiant effort at creating original content for Slashdot. It seems the editors have largely given up on that concept, probably due mostly to the slashbot issue you mentioned.
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Not abuse. USE. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not cheap either. Shit, you can get basic cable for almost the same money as some of these online games per month, and if you have a problem with your reception a cable guy comes to your house! In an MMORPG, you can't even get a name of a supervisor, let alone any actual help.
The customer service in online games is positioned in a way that the customer is always lying, cheating, and trying to pull a fast one. It's not true. The vast majority of players just want to play the game and have fun doing it, and the customer service people should be happy to make their customers happy.
So, I'm glad to see a gripe like this on a busy site like Slashdot. Maybe with more pressure from the actual players of the game, they'll start to pay attention.
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Nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Informative)
If you regard this as petty, I understand, but I tried not to write in an agressive tone. My intentions are anything but petty.
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Funny)
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Give him a break (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus, it isn't like he does this ALL the time.
so I think I'll give him a pass on the occasional rant.
Not that Blizzard would ever be so smart as to apologize or anything. I wonder if they care? (not)
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Re:abuse of power (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The Real Reason (Score:5, Interesting)
Guess the obvious solution would be:
* TacoCmdr (postfix)
* TheCmdrTaco (infix)
* Taco (nofix)
* AlmightyCmdrTaco (dogmatix)
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No need to be funny. (Score:5, Interesting)
CdmrTaco
If read it quickly it'll pass and most everyone who knows you will recognize it.
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Re:The Real Reason (Score:5, Funny)
Which, of course, never leads to embarassing and uncomfortable remarks.
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There's a lot in a name. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like my name. It's been my identity. It's simultaneously an indicator of my taste in movies and what I do for hobbies. People still see me in public places and shout, "Hey, Short, how's it going?"
And I still get irritated whenever someone registers my name on an IRC network, or on a free email server, or whatever. I still get hung up when trying to log into a friend's machine where he had to truncate my username because it caused formatting issues with tabstops in the config files.
There's a lot in a name. Especially when you've spent years with it, not constantly nym-shifting whenever your inbox got filled with spam.
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Everything's in a name.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, I do research on virtual groups and social identity. Our names matter when we interact fora long time online. A name represents a person exclusively online. Even pictures are minimal in effect compared to names, because the name occrs every time you interact with the person. Psych research in onthis question is showing the importance of our online names both to us as individuals and to the smooth running of social structures.
Finally, to all those crapping on CmdrTaco for postin this, leave the discusion. If you don't think it is worth discussing, then DON'T. If you have aposition within the discussion that disagrees with his stance, byu all means chime in. But to dicuss about whether the post is worthy of being in discussion is ironic and a waste of time.
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Re:Just the facts, man (Score:5, Interesting)
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