Screwed over by Bioware!

[Hoodling]

A) If you made a truely original name the chances of another source of media creating the same name is incredibly slim

 

B) Batman film or not, it's certainly not an original name. Even without the film it would still be against policy.

 

C) It's far from rediculous. It's par the course for the genre and you (apparently) being a veteran to MMO's would know that this isn't just EA's policy or some draconian measure to persecute you.

 

D) So long as your not using the dictionary to create your character it doesn't matter how many of them are protected. And why, in a Star Wars RPG, would you ever want to do something like that?

 

E) DC and Marvel both sued City of Heroes about characters named and made to resemble theirs.

 

F) there's a certain level of immersion that gets broken by these kinds of shenanigans. If it were me, any name that was not "real" or was derived from another source would be against policy.

 

I hate to break it to you pal, but I'm not looking for original names. I'm not a new-age neo-hippie. Yes I know this isn't the only MMO haivng filters. Why would I want the name Superman in SWTOR? I don't. City of Heroes is a unique example of where people could create characters that actually looked like the actual DC/Marvel heroes. I still find it completely idiotic that (if it's true what you say) DC/Marvel sued the owners of the game over that. But I don't think they'd ever care about somebody naming their Jedi Superman. And yes, Superman is a crap name for a Jedi or anything else in this game. And thank Bigfoot and Elvis that you're not in any position of power here.

[Darth_Halford]

Clearly you're not a fan of Role Playing Games either, because making actual names for your actual characters is not a "new age hippy thign" but a staple of the genre as far back as the pen and paper days.

[Darslk]

I'm not sure if only a few people are getting the point of this thread or if most are and are just trolling... It doesn't really matter what the names are, other than the fact that they were important to him and that he lost one of them directly because of something he was told by a representative of Bioware. Now because the name violates the ToS, Bioware could've forced him to change the name whenever, but that isn't what happened, so that is unrelated too.

 

I think that two things should happen here:

 

1. Bioware should apologise. Hey, sorry, we made a mistake. Nothing big, but acknowledging a mistake is pretty important to me.
   
2. Bioware should enforce their name policies. Anyone who currently has a name that violates the name creating procedure should have to change it. I think it's only fair.
   

 

Seems unlikely that anyone who has read this far will care about this, but no need to mock what the OP feels is important. I'm sure something is important to you that others don't care about. I have an irrational liking of pets that I know most others really don't care about, and regardless of what others say I'd be annoyed if someone messed with them

 

Hooray for civil discussions! Peace on Forums!

[PurpleLynx]

The fact that I was able to make the character with the name says it all. I even rerolled the character after patch 1.2 because I had made several human characters, and I would rather level up a different race to get a new legacy unlock. So even some time after patch 1.2, people could still name their characters Bane. It wasn't until the launch of the latest Batman movie that the name suddenly got added to the prohibited list. So what if someone makes a movie next year with the name of one of your own charcters? Must Bioware then add that name to the prohibited list and ask you to rename your character? It all starting to get a bit ridiculous. If someone owns the copyright on the word Bane, what about Reaper, or Grace, or Titan? Nvidia just launched a new series of graphics cards named Titan. Did they own that word? Where does it stop?

 

It makes me wonder sometimes, just how many words in the dictionary are copyright protected? And how many word-combinations? Why does it even matter what we call our characters in a silly gameworld anyway? Even if my character was named Superman, it's not like I would be earning money off the brandname or anything. Would DC seriously sue some random guy on the other side of the planet for having a character named Superman? I could buy some random.com and make a forum just to call myself Superman on that forum. Would DC sue me over that? It's crazy. I could understand that since this is a SW game, they'd put in rules about not allowing names like Skywalker, but if you're going to disallow every word in the dictionary because someone copyrighted that word, then we'd be left with names looking like encryption keys. I'd seriously like someone to explain it to me why MMO's bother adding all these restrictions. Fear of litigation? That's ridiculous!

Fear of litigation is it. City of Heroes was sued, and lost big time by DC and Marvel for allowing people to use those names. Turbine was sued in DDO for allowing WOTC names, and that game is part owned by WOTC. Its an owned trademark, so the company that owns the trademark will protect that trademark. As I said, they might not catch it right away, but when they do, they will change it.. Happened to me on DDO, I had a Dwarf fighter named Durnan, a relatively minor character in Waterdeep, someone reported it, and bam, renamed. So yes, you might have gotten it, but playing with those names is dangerous, better to try something you made than regurgitating names from popular fiction or culture. Easier in the long run. Its hardly ridiculous, its business.

[PurpleLynx]

I hate to break it to you pal, but I'm not looking for original names. I'm not a new-age neo-hippie. Yes I know this isn't the only MMO haivng filters. Why would I want the name Superman in SWTOR? I don't. City of Heroes is a unique example of where people could create characters that actually looked like the actual DC/Marvel heroes. I still find it completely idiotic that (if it's true what you say) DC/Marvel sued the owners of the game over that. But I don't think they'd ever care about somebody naming their Jedi Superman. And yes, Superman is a crap name for a Jedi or anything else in this game. And thank Bigfoot and Elvis that you're not in any position of power here.

 

Actually, they would. Its their name. Superman is OWNED by DC Comics, and they WILL defend its use. And trust me, I have seen a Sith named Drizzt. So someone might try it, just cause you wouldn't doesn't mean someone else would. I would never name someone Bane or Reaper, but its fine if you do, just realize, some names, like Bane, are copyrighted, and usually will be on lists, and it doesn't really matter when those lists are made, you agreed to abide by them when you log in. Hell, LOTRO has been name banning again due to expansions and new movies, and that game has been out far longer.

 

As someone has stated, original naming is hardly a neo-age hippie thing. Ive been playing role-playing games for nigh on 32 years. A name is what you start with, it defines the character. A thief named Buzzsaw kinda needs a story behind it, a fighter with that would be "that makes sense" but a thief? That's the point to naming. I sympathize with you. I lost quite a few names in the merger, wasn't happy at all, but i came back, renamed some, deleted and rerolled others. If you wanna name your characters common things, expect they will have issues getting or keeping those names in mergers, especially is they are just place holders.

 

I am sorry that you had a problem, but its not lying, its a general answer, No you will not loose "a" name when you reroll, if you are fast enough. But if said name is on prohibited list, and you brought attention to it, sorry charlie.

[planet_J]

Fear of litigation is it. City of Heroes was sued, and lost big time by DC and Marvel for allowing people to use those names. Turbine was sued in DDO for allowing WOTC names, and that game is part owned by WOTC. Its an owned trademark, so the company that owns the trademark will protect that trademark. As I said, they might not catch it right away, but when they do, they will change it.. Happened to me on DDO, I had a Dwarf fighter named Durnan, a relatively minor character in Waterdeep, someone reported it, and bam, renamed. So yes, you might have gotten it, but playing with those names is dangerous, better to try something you made than regurgitating names from popular fiction or culture. Easier in the long run. Its hardly ridiculous, its business.

 

Actually...the suit was considered frivolous, and Marvel sued, not DC. Plus, marvel had to attempt to protect the TM through legal systems or, because of our laws, someone else could cite it as an example to blatantly infringe later. Marvel actually dropped litigation after the first hearing, and the 2 parties quietly agreed that a simple banning of the possible names for use that was ALREADY in place was sufficient...no money changed hands and CoH lost nothing.

 

tl;dr it was all posturing by Marvel to protect TM'ed IP...that's all. Though the threat exists, the example cited was a poor one.

[TalkingDinosaur]

Hoodling if you want my opinion, you shouldn't come to the forums expecting sympathy. You could have evidence as clear as day and somebody will shoot you down because your evidence is on lined paper.

[Hoodling]

I'm not sure if only a few people are getting the point of this thread or if most are and are just trolling... It doesn't really matter what the names are, other than the fact that they were important to him and that he lost one of them directly because of something he was told by a representative of Bioware. Now because the name violates the ToS, Bioware could've forced him to change the name whenever, but that isn't what happened, so that is unrelated too.

 

I think that two things should happen here:

 

1. Bioware should apologise. Hey, sorry, we made a mistake. Nothing big, but acknowledging a mistake is pretty important to me.
   
2. Bioware should enforce their name policies. Anyone who currently has a name that violates the name creating procedure should have to change it. I think it's only fair.
   

 

Seems unlikely that anyone who has read this far will care about this, but no need to mock what the OP feels is important. I'm sure something is important to you that others don't care about. I have an irrational liking of pets that I know most others really don't care about, and regardless of what others say I'd be annoyed if someone messed with them

 

Hooray for civil discussions! Peace on Forums!

 

I agree with everything you said there. The point some people are making about the name Bane being prohibited isn't why I lost it. Hell, they even told me I could keep it since I actually created the character way before it got on the prohibited names-list. If they told me I had to rename the character because the name wasn't allowed, I'd still be angry, but I'd accept it and move on.

 

The thing that's making me crazy here is the way they steamrolled their playerbase, and some people (like myself) twice over. We lost our guildname as well with the second merge, and finally their complete incompetence led the loss of the last name I gave a crap about. Obviously I care deeply about the names I pick for my characters. Picking a name isn't something I do randomly. I'm not even going to play a character that I don't consider to have some kind of identity. For me, that's part of the immersion that connects me to my character and my character to the storyline aspect of the game.

 

I simply cannot believe the amount of trolls on these forums.

[OwenBrooks]

WHAT he has LINED paper, well there we are that is it, he is in the wrong ... wish that was mentioned at the start

 

Now onto my thoughts

What happened was unfortunate and is XXX big time, what can be done about it though I guess is squat.

 

Was it fair probably not, but if they decide to add a name to the ban list not much we can do.

 

Mind I would still send an email to accountdisputes@swtor.com just on principle especially given the circumstances. (think that is the correct address)

Edited March 2, 2013 by OwenBrooks

[Hoodling]

Hoodling if you want my opinion, you shouldn't come to the forums expecting sympathy. You could have evidence as clear as day and somebody will shoot you down because your evidence is on lined paper.

 

I'm not actually looking for anything from the community, least of all sympathy. I fully expected this to ignite a fire in the fanboy camp, but that's entirely inconsequential to me. I made this post in the hopes that someone at Bioware would read it, and realize that I'm still deleriously angry! I want them to know that when they pull this kind crap it isn't easily forgotten. They may own my account and everything on it, but that doesn't mean I'll sit idle and accept it in silence. The only thing I could possibly do here was to make a public stink about it. Mission complete!

[Hoodling]

WHAT he has LINED paper, well there we are that is it, he is in the wrong ... wish that was mentioned at the start

 

Now onto my thoughts

What happened was unfortunate and is XXX big time, what can be done about it though I guess is squat.

 

Was it fair probably not, but if they decide to add a name to the ban list not much we can do.

 

Mind I would still send an email to accountdisputes@swtor.com just on principle especially given the circumstances. (think that is the correct address)

 

Now there's an actual helpful suggestion. Thank you. I might just do that.

[OwenBrooks]

seems this maybe the correct address, apoligies

 

swtoraccountdisputes@bioware.com

Edited March 2, 2013 by OwenBrooks

[Darth_Halford]

Picking a name isn't something I do randomly. I'm not even going to play a character that I don't consider to have some kind of identity. For me, that's part of the immersion that connects me to my character and my character to the storyline aspect of the game.

 

I actually doubt that when you call the traditional route of creating "real" names for characters a "new fangled hippy thing" and when your character list looks like words picked randomly out of a Thesaurus.

 

you know that old line "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"? There's alot to that, and again I have trouble really buying into this idea that the only "identity" you can provide your characters is by a name that was spawned from the dictionary. With all of the plotlines, the nuances, and everything that tries to immerse yourself in a Star Wars Universe, the part that connects you is with names that have absolutly no part in the franchise?

 

I'm not calling you a liar, but that sounds incredibly hard to believe.

Edited March 2, 2013 by Darth_Halford

[MariaD]

An interesting theme came up in this topic. It looks like corporations somehow have more rights to dictionary words, even if individuals have been using that word earlier.

 

This is just one aspect of how messed-up the copyright and trademark laws have become.

 

For another example, check out despair.com - the home of Demotivators . They actually hold trademark rights to the frown smiley :-( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Despair,_Inc.

 

Regardless of how I feel about the OP's list of names, I dislike how invasive trademarks are!

[Omedarcus]

I was frustrated too when having to transfer from Grand Master Zym to the Shadowlands; especially since i was in beta as well. The game said my name wasnt available when checking on the server it was, i.e. creating a level 1 character on both sides and seeing if i could add myself as friend and finding character doesnt exist. A bunch of people in my guild had the same issue and all of us either had to add or delete letters from our names just so we could have the names of the characters.

[Uber_the_Goober]

Wwwwwhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

 

*sniffle snort*

 

Wwwwwwhhhhahaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

 

Seriously kid, get over it. Go into Microsoft Word, and type your name, then go to "Insert Symbol", and find one that looks cool / looks like the letter you want to swap. Then ctrl+c it, go into char creation, and ctrl+v it. If it's an allowable symbol, it'll go into the name box. If not, try again!

 

If I were your father I would have smacked your whiny little mouth by now. Time to grow up and face some actual tough situations. You will live kid. Everything will be fine.

 

This "situation" of yours, it sucks, but that's it. It just sucks. Nothing more than that. Suck up the suck, and move on with your life.

 

"But I want what I want! And I want it now! And I think that I paid for it! So give it to me!!!!!!"

 

[TheShootist]

This thread is too funny, and the OP is very childish......you lost your PRIZED names, who cares, most of us have lost names during the mergers. Yep I lost my main to a level 2 inactive account, that to this day is still inactive. Do I still have the name Yep, just added an alt character and now good to go. I got mad when someone reported the name of my female powertech " Bøøbie'fettish" and had to change that one after the second server merger, which I had since early access. Did I write a 20 paragraph post crying about it? I simply changed the name and moved on.

 

[rant] BTW the person who reported the name of my toon, you have no sense of humor, not once did anyone ever make a bad comment about that name. All I got was praise............[/rant]

 

Oh and I really wanted to join the guild "Jawas Strippers Union" with that toon too......

Edited March 2, 2013 by TheShootist

[Rafaman]

Some one please.... put this thread out of its misery. No offense OP.

[Malastare]

I made this post in the hopes that someone at Bioware would read it, and realize that I'm still deleriously angry!

 

I'm making this reply in hopes that the anyone at Bioware who reads your post will read it and realize that I'll be deliriously angry if they let you have a name that is very obviously a violation of the naming policy. I'd be equally angry if they change their policy for name collisions on server transfer.

 

See, one of the biggest problems I see in society today is that a few whiners are able to drive policy because no one is willing to stand up for the majority and say that the whiners are being stupid and that caving in to their selfishness will anger just as many people as ignoring them.

 

No. You don't get special treatment because you ordered the CE.

No. You don't get to force someone to change their character name because you chose to transfer to their server.

No. You don't get first crack at names during server consolidation just because you were squatting on names since early release.

No. You don't get to have a name that violates the naming rules.

 

You will be treated the same as everyone else, comply with the same rules, and get the same perks and nothing more. If Bioware would say that they made a mistake and restore that character's name, the first thing I'd do is make a character on that server and report your name.

[Uber_the_Goober]

No. You don't get to have a name that violates the naming rules.

 

Which of his names violated the policy? I'm genuinely curious...they all seemed rather inane to me.

[ObiJuanShenobi]

This may be a topic that's lost in history to most active players today, but I will never forget!

 

My first experience playing this game was at the BETA stage. I played for two minutes as a Trooper and then I minimized the game to pre-order the Collector's Edition. I've played the game continuously since then, and I love it. But, the server-merges really screwed me over, as it did with a lot of people.

 

The reason I pre-ordered this game was to get in on the early-access so that I can get some really cool names for my characters. I didn't just get cool names. I got iconic, epic names. Here's a screenshot of my character selection screen way, way back... on a server named Bao-Dur: http://i1128.photobucket.com/albums/m483/okrings/Character7.jpg

 

With the first server merge, there was no system in place to allow people like myself to keep (some of) our names. You simply had the choice to leave your server, or get stuck on a damned tombstone! So, naturally, I left Bao-Dur as fast as I could... so that I might potentially get to keep my names or at the very least get something not completely terrible. I'm sure a lot of people were thinking the same during the days of the first merge.

 

When the second merge happened, there was finally some kind of system in place to ensure that if you were an active player and all that, you might get to keep your character name(s). But, at that point, my epic character names were all gone. Infact, the only name I had left was Bane (how?), and I lost Bane when Bioware customer service *ensured* me that the name would become available again after I rerolled the character with that name. I was told that the name would be up for grabs again as soon as I deleted my current character with that name. The reason I wanted to reroll was that I already had a level 50 Guardian at that point, and the character named Bane was a level 20 Sith Warrior. I was so worried about losing that name that I actually contacted customer service to doublecheck and verify that the name would still be available after I deleted my character. A valid concern after having tried to make a character named Bane on another server only to be told that the name was invalid (as in not allowed). I deleted Bane, and as I suspected... I was not allowed to create a new character with that name. Even though Bioware's very own customer service told me I could. Naturally, I contacted the customer service again, in a fit of rage (yet still very polite) asking why they lied to me. The response I got was that, after checking out the situation more carefully, the name "Bane" was on the prohibited list. If I hadn't decided to reroll my warrior as marauder after being lied to by Bioware customer service, I would have still had at least one of my original names.

 

My main character is my Commando. He used to be called Reaper. I've been actively playing the game ever since the early access, raiding, raid-leading and then becoming a GM of a very active raiding guild that's still active to this day, and will remain active in the coming expansion. I've done a lot of good work for the community in this game, and I will never forget how Bioware repaid the favor. I lost all my character names in the first merge. I might have let that matter rest, but then Bioware's customer service outright lied to my face... making me lose the last name that meant anything to me. The pathetic excuses offered by the customer service people after realizing how badly they screwed me over still makes me chuckle madly to this day.

 

I'm sure I'm not the only one that's been screwed over like this. Bioware should have had all the rules about who gets to keep their names in place for the first merge, but no... they didn't.

 

These days, all I see ingame are screwed up names like "PõÙltrymân" etc. It takes me 15 minutes to figure out how to invite certain people to my groups! At the very least, Bioware should have adopted the Guild Wars 2 way of naming characters, as in allowing long names with spaces so that we could make names like "Bender the Offender" or "Grim Reaper" and so forth... instead of the Legacy crap. Whatever surname you choose for one of the characters won't fit the next one, or character of the opposite faction. With this superserver lagfest crap they're peddling, there's too many people with too many character on the servers for anyone to get a good name for their character.

 

EDIT: Let me just make it clear that this isn't about whether or not people think the names are epic or not. This is about how Bioware treats their paying customers. Like I said, we all got shafted. I'm in no way unique there. But the way I lost that name Bane because of Bioware's incompetent customer service was simply enfuriating. Add the loss of all my other names to that, and the fact that we even lost our guildname in the end, and you have yourself one upset customer. I've never played another MMO where the players were treated like this.

 

You're complaining about this now? Where were you 6 months ago?

[Vandicus]

Which of his names violated the policy? I'm genuinely curious...they all seemed rather inane to me.

 

Bane.

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Bane

 

Actually the reason the OP is complaining is because he deleted a character of that name and was unable to recreate it.

[Asheris]

I'd like to just throw out an observation.

 

Hoodling is automatically assuming that he made the characters on his server, before the other person on that server, made theirs.

 

It is entirely possible that whoever owns those characters was also a pre-order guy who did exactly what he did and may have even gotten it sooner and was actually able to level those characters up...

 

But it's easier to just assume the "me first" mentality that obviously he's the one that deserves those names and not the person who doesn't have to move from one server to another and may value their character names just as much as he does.

It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is that the OP lost his UNIQUE and COOL names.

No matter if someone had them first, no matter if they are copywrited or not.

 

No, it's not important. His character cannot be named REAPER or TITAN because only he deserves the coolest things in this MMO as he pre-ordered his ultra-super-duper CE.

 

...yeah

[Ratajack]

I'm not sure if only a few people are getting the point of this thread or if most are and are just trolling... It doesn't really matter what the names are, other than the fact that they were important to him and that he lost one of them directly because of something he was told by a representative of Bioware. Now because the name violates the ToS, Bioware could've forced him to change the name whenever, but that isn't what happened, so that is unrelated too.

 

I think that two things should happen here:

 

1. Bioware should apologise. Hey, sorry, we made a mistake. Nothing big, but acknowledging a mistake is pretty important to me.
   
2. Bioware should enforce their name policies. Anyone who currently has a name that violates the name creating procedure should have to change it. I think it's only fair.
   

 

Seems unlikely that anyone who has read this far will care about this, but no need to mock what the OP feels is important. I'm sure something is important to you that others don't care about. I have an irrational liking of pets that I know most others really don't care about, and regardless of what others say I'd be annoyed if someone messed with them

 

Hooray for civil discussions! Peace on Forums!

 

Actually, he lost one of the names because he chose to disregard what he already KNEW from his own attempts to create another character with that name-that the name was invalid. He even admits that he did not believe the first response and so kept sending tickets and making calls. He finally sent enough tickets and made enough calls to convince himself of something he KNEW to be untrue, and now wants to pull the victim card and blame EA/BW.

[QBSlide]

Thank you! Finally someone that understands.

 

I loved this thread. The OP told everyone how their opinions sucked until one person agreed with him and then he posted the above. The OP isn't looking for a discussion people, he just wants a pity party.