Goblin Squad Member
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RP? You think what the NPC calls me is more important than being able to give my character the name I want for when I RP with actual RP'ers? I don't think too many RP'ers would agree with that.
So you want the server to be flooded with 133t speak names and who knows what else as character names. It'll also flag in the arrogant, the uncaring, the zerg hordes and other possible players who could ruin the game. Given the proposed Naming convention I laid out above, I don't think RP'ers would oppose it, as the last name is a near complete free for all, just the first name and middle name have restrictions.
I really, really don't see what the deal is with status symbol names. No matter what the naming conventions are, players who get in first will get status symbol names. I don't see how we break the game cuz somebody gets to be John.
How is forcing a last name breaking the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So you want the server to be flooded with 133t speak names and who knows what else as character names. It'll also flag in the arrogant, the uncaring, the zerg hordes and other possible players who could ruin the game. Given the proposed Naming convention I laid out above, I don't think RP'ers would oppose it, as the last name is a near complete free for all, just the first name and middle name have restrictions.
I really, really don't see what the deal is with status symbol names. No matter what the naming conventions are, players who get in first will get status symbol names. I don't see how we break the game cuz somebody gets to be John.How is forcing a last name breaking the game.
I never said it was breaking the game, I said it was an unnecessary naming restriction. Single names are iconic and popular in fantasy.
l33t-speak names will be made no matter what rules you put in. I think we all agree #'s and the really crazy symbols should be left out
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Goblin Squad Member
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Btw, MOOC's (massively open online courses) get students to mark each others work (multiple).
You could have a system where players "mark names" and earn some pts for doing so (with feedback)?
(MOOC reminds me of OOK, the noise the librarian orangutang in Terry Pratchet's novels makes)
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as the basic naming mechanics go, to me The Secret World probably has come up with the system most suitable for any MMORPG that is actually concerned about the RPG aspects (such as PFO). The set up is roughly the following:
Nickname: Unique identificator for the character
* single name with n (e.g. 16) basic ASCII characters, no numbers, no spaces, no special characters etc.
* use of capitals allowed for visual effect but irrelevant for character identification (e.g. my nickname could be "DeadMeat" but for identification purposes this is the same as deadmeat, DEADmeat etc.)
* allows for easy character identification
* can be used for roleplaying purposes or independently (I personally would not require lore appropriate nicks, just the normal racial slurs etc. taken out)
* must be unique (e.g. only one "deadmeat" allowed)
Real name: Character's true name
* first name (mandatory) + last name (optional, i.e. can be left blank)
* each field has n characters (e.g. 16), no limitations as to what characters can be used (i.e. have at it with whatever weird characters you can come up with as long as they pass the next requirement)
* must be "appropriate" (whatever that means, Ryan has explained this a few times)
* although neither of the true names (or actually name fields) needs to be unique by themselves, I would personally prefer not to allow anyone to use exactly the same first and last name combo as has been previously registered (i.e. if I name my character "John Dough", there can be many Johns but only one with the Dough surname)
The best part about a hybrid system like this would be that it should be fairly easy to allow players to choose on the client side how they want names to be presented (for themselves).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Unfortunately, there isn't a protocol out there that will be able to disallow all bad names while allowing good ones. Additionally, what is good and bad can vary in the eyes of the beholder.
Since it will be impossible to stop bad names from being made, I want the system to be as open and nonrestrictive as possible to allow players to have the name they want, and then rely on in game reporting to combat bad names. I would prefer a system to have a required first name and an optional surname, with the possibility of additional titles to be earned in game. Barring that, then having a long free text field would be my second choice, with the slightly worse UI consequence of having the full name appear in all game text.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe a group of players volunteers (and is screened in some easy way by GW) to review every single name submitted. This group might number 20 or so and they could review names sent to their "names for review bucket". If they saw a questionable name they would turn it in to a predetermined person at GW. Or they could forward that name to another reviewer (say for a foreign name, or one that was so odd they couldn't determine if it was valid or not).
GW would be the bad guy, but the labor could be provided by players (unless there was a law or policy prohibiting such things). There are a lot of names in use in Darkfall that are not suitable for anyone under the age of 18, but the users are probably age 13.
I wanted to vote for something, so here:
Stephen would look better with a:
1) topknot
2) scob knob
3) mohawk
4) flat top
I pick topknot!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe a group of players volunteers (and is screened in some easy way by GW) to review every single name submitted. This group might number 20 or so and they could review names sent to their "names for review bucket". If they saw a questionable name they would turn it in to a predetermined person at GW. Or they could forward that name to another reviewer (say for a foreign name, or one that was so odd they couldn't determine if it was valid or not).
GW would be the bad guy, but the labor could be provided by players (unless there was a law or policy prohibiting such things). There are a lot of names in use in Darkfall that are not suitable for anyone under the age of 18, but the users are probably age 13.
I can only hope GW GMs will put this much effort into reading petitions and fixing bugs. Truly objectionable names should be changed. Names that don't harm anyone should be ignored by all. It really isn't that big of a deal, in my opinion.
And no, a GM can't do both. Time is finite and while they are fixing a name, they can't be getting you unstuck from bad collision detection.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think that there exists a regex that sorts 'good' names from 'bad' names.
No, but remember the "only 4500 new players per month" thing that's different from heavily-hyped theme parks. It'll be relatively easier for GW to dump all names of characters created since thus-and-such a date to one place for somewhat-easy review by a human being.
Since we already know there'll be human GMs with "arbitrary and capricious" powers to control behaviour in-game, naming could be added to the list of behaviours they control.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Maybe a group of players volunteers (and is screened in some easy way by GW) to review every single name submitted. This group might number 20 or so and they could review names sent to their "names for review bucket". If they saw a questionable name they would turn it in to a predetermined person at GW.
I don't think that a volunteer group is really necessary; it might even be too limiting. If you just let anyone report a name they find offensive, providing details why names like Qqqq might be working around the rules, then you have hundreds of volunteers, not just 20.
And while it might be worrying that a GM might be forcing a name change while some poor sod is stuck in terrain some place... I'll just assume that the GMs are average human beings. People who can, you know, prioritize their tasks, like most of us do on a daily basis. People who have some sense of customer service and can say, "so think of a replacement name; I've got an emergency and I'll be back to you in a bit."
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Goblin Squad Member
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Guys, of course the name thing is one of many duties of a GM. You make it sound like being the bad name Nazi is priority number one. Get serious. This is a name thread. We are discussing names, good names (hopefully) and ways to get rid of bad names. Stop with the GM duties stuff. They will have many more important things to do on a regular basis. Just throwing this out there.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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There are lots of things about names that I worry about before I even get to things like name fields.
If we allow non-American English symbols in names, we create problems where people can't report misbehavior easily - there are lots of characters that are hard to type on an American English keyboard unless you know the Alt-Codes. This is especially going to be problematic if, as I suspect, we attract a lot of Russian and Eastern European players, who naturally will want to use letters from the alphabets they are familiar with.
This problem is utterly compounded if we consider non roman/cyrillic alphabets or languages like Arabic or the Asian ideogrammatic writing systems. Yet those are HUGE markets and we would not want to limit our ability to offer the game there if we decide that's a good idea.
(This is one of the few downsides to having "one server").
There are then the issues of offensive words from foreign languages that would likely pass an American English speaking moderators' filters. Fantasy games are filled with made up nonsense words as names. It's easy to slip some pretty offensive character names into the mix. As anyone who has ever tried to work on a "smut filter" knows, there are an infinite number of ways to slightly misspell an offensive word without really diluting its meaning. Doing that with a non-American English word is even more trivial.
Then we have the issue of copyrights and trademarks. I've got no time or interest in spending money dealing with lawsuits derived from folks who want to be Drizzt or Gandalf so I can probably write a filter that catches most of that foolishness. But what about the guy who wants to be CmdrTaco? Or Kobe Bryant? Its an endless rat hole.
Of course we'll have people claiming primacy on names regardless of when they deign to show up and play. "I am the one and only BigBobFromBurbank"! The imposter who is using that name on your service should relinquish it to me! I have been BigBobFromBurbank since I was posting on Usenet in the 1970s!
Next up we have the people who think that the name "Grande Dame Marquetta The Extra Bold of Queensreich" is the minimum they can accept; and they'd really like her full title of paragraph long excellence but of course they understand we can only accommodate this shortened version.
The whole thing is just endless, and endlessly frustrating. Its a space where "be reasonable" seems to collide regularly with bad attempts at sophomoric humor, real attempts to harass or spread hate speech, people's role playing desires, plus accident and cultural value differences.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Thanks again Ryan for chiming in. Always good to know you are reading the boards regularly! (And even reading this one, since I know the topic has been brought up before...)
GW will set a standard and most will follow it, but some will try to sneak through with something they know they shouldn't. They will be reported and called "RiverKingdomsCrusader06245724" (I admired that about CCP with EVE...and you REALLY had to break some rules to get thumped in THAT world!)
The "Player Review Panel" was just a thought to take some work of GWs plate, as I would prefer you guys coding cool stuff than fighting these trivial battles, and you would have plenty of volunteers. (Still another program to manage though.)
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Goblin Squad Member
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It is likely that the only real defense of appropriate naming will be necessarily reactive, subjective evaluation by a GW moderator. There could be extensive lists of what isn't allowed but those lists will never cover every objectionable case. If this is accepted it frees the naming rules that have to be coded. Instead, extend user interface tools so that if the players see what we consider an infraction we can right click the target, or their name if it appears in chat, and select to flag that character for evaluation. A list of a limited number of appropriate infraction types can be selected, possibly providing a dialog in which we can provide details. Then the CSR or GM will more easily evaluate the case. This measure would then cover many kinds of possible infraction, reduce the labor involved, and increase efficiency. I recommend, however, that behavior problems should require monitoring (observation/verification) by the GM in order to counter the tendency for unjust vigilantism.
Agreed, complex sociocultural reading tasks are something computers suck at, but that humans excel at--trying to code for it would be both inefficient and futile.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Hardin, one thing about a review panel - which is actually a strong positive for it - is that people with offensive names can go unnoticed for a long time if they're mostly tucked in with friends who won't say anything. Then they appear, three months into the game, and everyone assumes that the GMs must have seen that name and deemed it acceptable sometime in the past.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There is a corp in EVE which has (I guess) a contest to see which character can have the most offensive name without getting an involuntary name change. None of the names I remember are suitable for entering here. We will have clowns in PFO who think that would be funny, and they will promptly be turned in and either changed or banned (you'll know who tried to make a name and failed, or who picked something as offensive as possible). I just don't want to have to spend my valuable game time narcing out idiots when I could be crafting works of metal and iron that are wondrous to behold.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just don't want to have to spend my valuable game time narcing out idiots when I could be crafting works of metal and iron that are wondrous to behold.
Eh, if it's a simple right click on someone's avatar and choose flag then it's a few seconds to send a report.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I just don't want to have to spend my valuable game time narcing out idiots when I could be crafting works of metal and iron that are wondrous to behold.Eh, if it's a simple right click on someone's avatar and choose flag then it's a few seconds to send a report.
It takes even less time to simply ignore it and go about your business. Mind you, I'm not talking about truly offensive names (racial, ethnic, gender, sexually explicit, etc..).
But, if I run into "Buggs Bunny the Barbarian", I'm not going to feel like my gaming experience has been ruined. Buggs Bunny might actually be a really cool person, that can contribute to whatever activity I need help in doing.
Corny or inventive names are sometimes entertaining all by themselves and since it really does not harm anyone, I'd rather have GMs fixing bugs (not Buggs!).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Corny or inventive names are sometimes entertaining all by themselves and since it really does not harm anyone, I'd rather have GMs fixing bugs (not Buggs!).
I'd rather not see Buggs, especially if he opens GW to a lawsuit from Warner Brothers. Some people don't care about a joke names, but it really break immersion for others. I'm not saying that the SCA heralds who want every name to be researched to a specific date and place are right for this type of game, but in my perfect world there is a middle ground everyone would have a fantasy-sounding name that is more in place in the river kingdoms than in Eve, the matrix, or even 21st century earth.
As for GM priority, I expect name duty to be the lowest priority of GMs, do be done during server maintenance windows when there is nothing in-game to moderate.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm actually concerned about naming my character's in River Kingdom plausible names. My immersion as a role player is in my mind, not in what I see or in what others say or do.
If naming broke my immersion, then the floating tags above everyone's heads would set my hair on fire!
Ryan didn't actually explain what GW could do or will do. He sort of danced around it. I'm assuming they will ban any names that are truly offensive, and that might be enough.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It takes even less time to simply ignore it and go about your business. Mind you, I'm not talking about truly offensive names (racial, ethnic, gender, sexually explicit, etc..).But, if I run into "Buggs Bunny the Barbarian", I'm not going to feel like my gaming experience has been ruined. Buggs Bunny might actually be a really cool person, that can contribute to whatever activity I need help in doing.
Corny or inventive names are sometimes entertaining all by themselves and since it really does not harm anyone, I'd rather have GMs fixing bugs (not Buggs!).
If it's borderline I say let it pass, especially the ones that pass as funny nicknames (poopface). Offensive, illogical and trademark protected takes care of almost all of the names that don't belong and that's in the EULA.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Ryan didn't actually explain what GW could do or will do. He sort of danced around it.
Ryan went into a lot of detail in the blog.
A lot of folks choose to grief others right from the start, through the selection of their character names...
We're going to have a very tough policy on bad names. We reserve the right, at any time, for any reason, to make you choose a new name...
You'll have access to in-game tools to report characters for having bad names. We won't promise to act on those notifications—our ability to do so will be based on resources available—but we will make a reasonable effort to keep on top of those reviews. And the more people who report the same character for having a bad name, the more likely we'll be to take a look at it. These reports will be kept anonymous—the only time you'll know there is a problem is when we tell you you have to change it.
There's a lot more there, but I tried to pull out the important bits.
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There are lots of things about names that I worry about before I even get to things like name fields.
If we allow non-American English symbols in names, we create problems where people can't report misbehavior easily - there are lots of characters that are hard to type on an American English keyboard unless you know the Alt-Codes. This is especially going to be problematic if, as I suspect, we attract a lot of Russian and Eastern European players, who naturally will want to use letters from the alphabets they are familiar with.
This problem is utterly compounded if we consider non roman/cyrillic alphabets or languages like Arabic or the Asian ideogrammatic writing systems. Yet those are HUGE markets and we would not want to limit our ability to offer the game there if we decide that's a good idea.
(This is one of the few downsides to having "one server").
A way you could combat this would be to allow these people to have two names. One with all the crazy characters, and then have them do an English translation (or some other word in the normal English alphabet). Then you could display one name to the English-speakers, and one name to the Russians or Chinese etc. So every name would have two versions, depending on where they were (or one version, if they were in the US, EU, AU, etc).
I see some obvious problems with it, but, it seems to fix the overarching problem of not being able to tap into those markets without showing people crazy characters in names which they don't want to see, and would have a hard time communicating with. If you decided to implement it, you could probably work out the kinks.
There are then the issues of offensive words from foreign languages that would likely pass an American English speaking moderators' filters. Fantasy games are filled with made up nonsense words as names. It's easy to slip some pretty offensive character names into the mix. As anyone who has ever tried to work on a "smut filter" knows, there are an infinite number of ways to slightly misspell an offensive word without really diluting its meaning. Doing that with a non-American English word is even more trivial.
As far as this goes, you could hire native-speaking VA's in all the major countries dirt cheap, who could just log into a client from home and get support tickets from people in these languages who complain about certain names. I've hired VA's in India and the Phillies for like $2/hour... it would be hard for them to cut into the bottom line at that price. If you pay them weekly/monthly it's even less.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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This is a great example of where having a rule will result in a lot of gamesmanship, but having a policy may limit it.
The policy is "if we don't like your name, for any reason, we'll make you change it". People who find themselves constantly being forced to change a name will, hopefully, give up eventually and just select a useable name. People who are serial name abusers will get banned or exiled, and they'll stop being a drain on our resources.
If we gave people hard and fast rules, we'll just encourage them to make a name that doesn't violate a rule, but is still offensive or legally problematic, or a headache for players and customer service, then complain bitterly when their "legal name" gets revoked.
By not having a written rule, we're creating an incentive to not try and out-think us. Because you can't. We'll be capricious and arbitrary, not bound by precedent or by clearly defined rules. One day your name will be fine, the next you'll be forced to change it. And we may never explain the reason for our decision.
90% of our players will never have a problem. Maybe 5% will have a problem for a reason they didn't know about (maybe their made up nonsense name actually means something horribly offensive in Spanish, for example). The remainder will be the people who will either change their behavior or be severed from the community for their obstinacy. And their howls of protest about how unfair it all is will fall on deaf ears.
The policy is "if we don't like your name, for any reason, we'll make you change it". People who find themselves constantly being forced to change a name will, hopefully, give up eventually and just select a useable name. People who are serial name abusers will get banned or exiled, and they'll stop being a drain on our resources.
If we gave people hard and fast rules, we'll just encourage them to make a name that doesn't violate a rule, but is still offensive or legally problematic, or a headache for players and customer service, then complain bitterly when their "legal name" gets revoked.
By not having a written rule, we're creating an incentive to not try and out-think us. Because you can't. We'll be capricious and arbitrary, not bound by precedent or by clearly defined rules. One day your name will be fine, the next you'll be forced to change it. And we may never explain the reason for our decision...
And their howls of protest about how unfair it all is will fall on deaf ears.
This seems to be the theme for rule-enforcement in PFO, but I think this will attract GM's with a certain "attitude" shall we say. You should have a system of checks and balances. Who do I talk to if a GM is being a prick?
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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This seems to be the theme for rule-enforcement in PFO, but I think this will attract GM's with a certain "attitude" shall we say. You should have a system of checks and balances. Who do I talk to if a GM is being a prick?The policy is "if we don't like your name, for any reason, we'll make you change it". People who find themselves constantly being forced to change a name will, hopefully, give up eventually and just select a useable name. People who are serial name abusers will get banned or exiled, and they'll stop being a drain on our resources.
If we gave people hard and fast rules, we'll just encourage them to make a name that doesn't violate a rule, but is still offensive or legally problematic, or a headache for players and customer service, then complain bitterly when their "legal name" gets revoked.
By not having a written rule, we're creating an incentive to not try and out-think us. Because you can't. We'll be capricious and arbitrary, not bound by precedent or by clearly defined rules. One day your name will be fine, the next you'll be forced to change it. And we may never explain the reason for our decision...
And their howls of protest about how unfair it all is will fall on deaf ears.
You do exactly the same thing as you would if a GM was abusing their authority and saying that you were breaking rules that you weren't breaking- escalate it through a customer service channel, knowing full well that there's only a tiny chance that the decision will be reversed.
You already have to trust the dictatorship to be benevolent, because you can't force them to follow their own rules. The absence of rules means that you can't try to play lawyer with "That name isn't under copyright, it's in the public domain!"
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The absence of rules means that you can't try to play lawyer with "That name isn't under copyright, it's in the public domain!"
But isn't this the very foundation of Pathfinder? ROfl.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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The absence of rules means that you can't try to play lawyer with "That name isn't under copyright, it's in the public domain!"But isn't this the very foundation of Pathfinder? ROfl.
There's a huge difference between the OGL and Don Quixote. (The exact example I was thinking of turns out to not actually be public domain yet; it still belongs to the estate of Henrik Galeen, despite being used by many different companies without acknowledgement, at least one of which has been known to make spurious infringement claims).
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Goblin Squad Member
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What do people have against one word names? Only half of the most iconic fantasy names (Merlin, Gandalf, Beowulf, Conan, etc.) didn't have last names. A player should be able to choose single word names.
Again, who cares what the NPC calls you? It's PFO!
Consider one names are for powerful/or characters with impact. after the Nth (15th ? merit badge, character may claim single name, for instance surname, nick name or other new name. It can not be other single name, but may use first name or surname that other use.
Tom Jones becomes Jones and is known as Jones, while Bob Jones is still Bob Jones and may never be Jones.
Not starting with one name, but winning it. [May require cash shop?]
Lam
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Goblin Squad Member
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Devs/Ryan?
If a character is present in my scene, can I click on something that captures the identity even I if can not figure out how to type the characters. If I speak to others I can use the label, properly formatted, to others in a private or public chat. If I choose to msg GW, the tag would uniquely identify the character and player.
??
Lam
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Goblin Squad Member
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"...don’t use honorifics (King, Queen, Lord, Duke, Prince) as there may be some sort of event in game that applies a title or bestows an honor and those titles are otherwise earned through deeds."
As an Add-On for the Kickstarter you could add an Honorable Title for $10.
"You can choose a formal title for your character: Sir, Dame, Master, Brother, Sister, Father, or Mother. You can control when this title is displayed to others in-game. You may purchase this Add-On multiple times; each purchase provides you with the ability to confer an honorable title on one character in your Pathfinder Online account."
There's a huge difference between the OGL and Don Quixote. (The exact example I was thinking of turns out to not actually be public domain yet; it still belongs to the estate of Henrik Galeen, despite being used by many different companies without acknowledgement, at least one of which has been known to make spurious infringement claims).The absence of rules means that you can't try to play lawyer with "That name isn't under copyright, it's in the public domain!"But isn't this the very foundation of Pathfinder? ROfl.
I understand avoiding possible "lawsuit" names, but my point was more that giving GM's ultimate power and no necessary basis on which they have to make their decisions doesn't exactly create an atmosphere for a "benevolent dictatorship" if I may use your terminology.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A key part of their "arbitrary" GM actions idea is that they do have a basis for their actions, but they don't tell the players what that basis is. In the case of names it would likely be defined as something like "anything that breaks copyright, is already a famous name, contains offensive words, or is otherwise disruptive". Yes, even that is vague with the last part, but they want to give the GM's whatever wiggle room they need to do their job.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A key part of their "arbitrary" GM actions idea is that they do have a basis for their actions, but they don't tell the players what that basis is. In the case of names it would likely be defined as something like "anything that breaks copyright, is already a famous name, contains offensive words, or is otherwise disruptive". Yes, even that is vague with the last part, but they want to give the GM's whatever wiggle room they need to do their job.
I was concerned about “arbitrary GM's” for reasons similar to Qallz, but this was the argument that people at Pax managed to drill into my skull to assuage them. Just because the GM's aren't telling us what rules and regulations they are following doesn't mean that those rules and regulations don't exist. There will still be oversight of staff, you are still as protected from a GM having a bad day as you are now. They are just being less transparent about the whole thing.
I would still prefer that GM's actions were kept as transparent as physically possible, and I personally believe that Dancey's “people will toe the line” argument is drek, but I don't think we have too much to worry about.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would hope that a more opaque system would be coupled with less punishing penalties; if you don't know what they count as bad behavior, it's hard to avoid it. If, however, bad behavior is clearly defined (talking about things like hate speech, spamming, etc), and they simply don't tell you how much bad behavior will earn you punishment, I don't think "pulling punches" will be necessarily needed, though I suspect they would be rather lenient anyways.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We have guidelines, and as adults we should understand the difference between right and wrong. "Don't be a jerk' is one way to say it. that is clear enough. We will be guests in their house and it will properly be their determination what is okay and what is not. Calls to unnecessarily create vulnerability to their ability to adjudicate should be strongly resisted. None of us out here are the judges, nor are we licensed to practice law in Golarion. I'd go so far as to recommend that appeal requests go to a dummy email account and never be read. Technical issues should be publically posted in a special subsection of the forums.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A key part of their "arbitrary" GM actions ...I was concerned about “arbitrary GM's” for reasons similar to Qallz...
I do not believe it is for us to judge the Judges. Whether their judgment is understood or not it is not for us to pronounce judgment on their determinations. That is a responsibility that belongs to Goblinworks. It is their problem to handle, not ours. Our responsibility is in whether we spend our money, not manage their business.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I did say "less punishing penalties". I hope that the first time wrong behavior is found, there should only be a warning, maybe a small punishment the second and third time. I think that should be enough breathing room for people worried about power-tripping GM's and "daggers from the dark", or punishments that come out of nowhere when the player didn't know something was wrong.
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Goblin Squad Member
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punishments that come out of nowhere when the player didn't know something was wrong.
Rule one is don't be a jerk. I'm sure that there is going to be no offensive/copyrighted material in the terms of use to create an account.
If a player doesn't bother to read that before logging on with an offensive, obscene, or bigoted name or behavior, then ignorance isn't an excuse.That said, I'm sure the punishment for a name that is not blatantly offensive or just a copyright issue will be a forced rename.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Rule one is don't be a jerk.
Except that that is a terrible rule. It is entirely subjective, and doesn't actually tell the players what is expected of them. What one person might consider being a jerk, another might consider standard operating procedure. And the same applies for individual GM's, who are not infallible. Most of them are low on the totem pole, under paid and under appreciated staffers.
Which is why having capricious GM's is potentially so dangerous. What might be an acceptable activity one day becomes unacceptable the next (Dancey has gone so far as to say that this is expected). If I happen to kill you one too many times in a day and GM Bob, who is having a bad day because his wife left him, decides to ban me for it, is that my fault? Should I lose years of character investment because I have no real means of appeal, but I can't even really tell if the ban was considered legitimate?
And it isn't as if we haven't seen GM's become corrupted by their power in previous games. The internet is full of verified stories of GM's powertripping and committing incorrigible actions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It is perfectly okay for them to be subjective or even capricious. It is their house. It is up to them to decide what is acceptable for their GMs and irrelevant whether your subjective evaluation is that one is capricious. And yes, every consequence of your actions is your responsibility.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is a PvP game. Killing other characters is to be expected, that is what the reputation system is for. I expect bans to be done for offensive/abusive chat in either the general chat window or in PMs, or for doing things like teabagging after killing. But not for simple PvP combat vs anyone out in the wild, even if they aren't flagged.
We as customer have to have some level of trust in the GMs or we shouldn't be playing. If there is ever an incident that is unjustified, then there is appealing to customer service.