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Blizzard Made Me Change My Name
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.
You have to be reasonable. bnetd is a joke. Blizzard makes awesome games that are almost unparralled. If you're going to take a stick up your ass approach on everything we'd be confined to using an archaic OS (Linux) for everything and never buying any movies, music or video games from companines that have employed the use of the DMCA at some point in the past.
That would be a very sucky life.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Its a game. I get the impression that too many people that play in these 'virtual worlds' are losing touch with reality.
It's just a GAME! Pick up your toys and find a different sandbox to play in. And get a life!
Best Buy can have you arrested
My guess is that the reason you're upset about bnetd is that you or somebody you know was trying to avoid giving them money in the first place!
"What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos"
Rob,
I'm sure you have a blog somewhere. This is "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." Not "The Whiny Blog of Rob Malda." Seriously. Go post this somewhere else, and quit posting stories that serve no purpose other than to get pageviews for your ads.
Sincerely,
Everyone who saw through this article
I am scientifically inaccurate.
nuff said
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Slashdot didn't invent the idea of a blog. LiveJournal didn't copy from Slashdot.
/. today.
It's not that easy to say "just leave," because Slashdot is for some reason treated as the top bastion of tech news, when it hardly posts tech news anymore. Just posting a link takes down a webserver. And the pseudo-science and half-baked commentary posted to this site as "news" gets adopted by newbies, and we end up with more misinformed assholes ruining the community.
Most of you don't even know what the OSS community used to really be like. It ain't what you see here on
"Sufferin' succotash."
By your own reasoning, CmdrTaco should STFU and not even have posted this.
After all, it's Blizzard's "house," and they make the rules! He can leave! He doesn't own it!
"Sufferin' succotash."
Yeah. Forgive me if I just don't care that you gave money to a company that sues Free Software developers for doing nothing more than writing interoperable software and - shock - got screwed.
If you weren't funding lawsuits against Free Software developers, then maybe I'd have some sympathy.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Hi CmdrTaco,
I see why you don't post on slashdot much as a commentor, you just got a bunch of silly moderators out giving you -1 Redundants and such. Have you had many -1 Troll moderations done to you?
I'm happy I got "Saskboy" on Slashdot, it's the name I started using in Quake I, and tried to get it for eBay too but someone beat me to it, so I took the next best thing - computer_saskboy. Perhaps you could consider Violated_Taco as your backup identity name?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
A few things about your post....
1. GM's don't just change names...someone reported you. Find your in game enemies and punish them.
2. You said:
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!
Which is utterly stupid. Having your name changed in an MMO, in no way related to a real life name change. The government telling the onion to stop using the presidential seal is nothing like forcing private citzens to change their names. You liberal fuckwads love to string together half facts to come at illogical conclusions. The white house told the onion not to use the presidential seal anymore....so yeah maybe they will start forcing everyone to change their names soon! What kind of logic is that? Are you that fucking stupid?
3. You will still be on everyones friends list that you were on before, just with your new name. Make your new one similar to your old one and people will figure it out. (IE. CTaco).
4. When you are forced to change your name, you can't re-log in until you do so.....accounts like this go for a lot of money on ebay. Maybe it's time to sell your gimp paladin anyway. You don't really think they are going to fix it in 1.9 do you?
Not a fvcking thing. I guess some people flaunt it in the same way that guys making up for some shortcoming buy Corvettes, Porsches, and Vipers.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
You totally needed to create a spam account called "Violated" or "Captain Fantastic Malda" to post that from. What a missed opportunity...
No this isn't Taco, this is just someone who came across your post. If Taco wants it, he can have the account. Unfortunately, there is a limit on the number of characters that can be in a name so the last 'a' got left off.
Um, actually, you [i]do[/i] make up the rules. Every rule is made up. The esteemed Cmdr didn't make up this particular rule, but someone did. They didn't come upon their naming policy through rigorous scientific method--they made it up.
You know what? Strikes are made up too. [i]Baseball is made up.[/i] You honestly [i]can[/i] give everyone four strikes if you feel like it. And if you own the field, you can [i]make everyone else play with four strikes.[/i] Suddenly saying that "3 strikes you're out, end of story" doesn't seem to matter.
All Hail the Maggott Show
The paladins Shield, even when using the truesilver blade... absorb damage, until a threshold is reached. It's not the paladin's fault you are too weak to over power a short duration shield.
there is no such thing as common sense. If sense was common, everyone would have it. -unk
Oh please. Like anybody actually reads the EULA's where such rules are spelled out. Did you?
Not really, I think you are thinking about it too hard. I don't see how hard it would be to program a function in the game that checks during character creation if the name is either a famous person, a military title, or a variation of the spelling of a military title. Giving players the false impression that the name they use is ok and then taking it away from them later is going to make them angry.