Questions about character name policy.

mdb800

This is a semi-old but relevant topic: I myself am doing my best to avoid any potential issues regarding offensive names even go so far as to name change tokens.note: for this post, I'm not talking about meme names or funny phrases as names. I'm talking about conscientiously named characters via the name generator or something that is adjacent to lore relevance.
1: I have noticed a few situations where someone who used it. The name generator at character creation found themselves in violation of the terms of service. I would direct the attention at the name generator or suggest flagging names that use the name generator so that they don't get unfair scrutiny. I don't know if this is already done or not.
2: some people had names that were not offensive but due to the age of the game being 10 years old and world events happening that affect contemporary culture, the names could be deemed offensive that would not have been remotely offensive prior to said world event. Dungeons& dragons types of names regarding paladins such as the oath of justice oathbreaker oathkeeper cannot be fairly described as offensive if the character names pre-existed a world event or a ultra-nationalist group adopting such terminologies or names. It is unfair and unsustainable to be asking players to warp and wrap their lives around news media and order to avoid offense. Some of us hold religious beliefs to avoid the overconsumption of news media.

I don't say anything his as a "shame on you" . But just as a mark of awareness.

I'd also recommend instead of lambasting names of consequence like mentioned above and trying to mark those players as potential violators just give a simple apology and a request to change their name along with a name change token. Be nice Rather than a message that can be perceived as vengeful and vindictive. I've seen a number of screenshots as of late and as of old of some of these messages and I got to say: there are a good number of people getting caught up in all of this that never had any intention whatsoever to be coy with names. I understand. There's a lot of people that do do that. I understand that might even be the majority. Please don't let that frustration bleed over to punishing money paying consistent polite customers they are not your problem.

BardokRedSnow

Who is getting tagged for having "oathkeeper" in their name, pretty sure thats even a title or something.

scrappy1342

not sure what the issue is here, but as long as it's not a blatant on purpose violation, you're not looking at serious punishment. things that are innocently done, you're probably just going to get a free name change, no big deal

Syldras

Support can see when a character was created and whether names were changed at some point. I'm sure if a questionable real world group (criminals, terrorists or similar, for example) would be founded that shares the name with a character that was created with that similar name already a decade ago, you'd get a name change token and that's it.

And I think that's a good solution. If I was in that situation, I would want to be able to change my character's name anyway, because I don't want to be wrongly associated with such a questionable real world group either.

Wereswan

OP, the specific group you're talking about was founded in 2009. ESO was launched in 2014. Nobody's character name predates that group.

It is fair to say that they used to be somewhat obscure and most characters named variations of "oathkeeper" probably got it from some other fantasy work (Brandon Sanderson published a book by that title in 2017, for instance,) but as Syldras already said, at this point people are likely to associate it with said extremist group.

Syldras

Wereswan wrote: »

It is fair to say that they used to be somewhat obscure and most characters named variations of "oathkeeper" probably got it from some other fantasy work (Brandon Sanderson published a book by that title in 2017, for instance,) but as Syldras already said, at this point people are likely to associate it with said extremist group.

Well, I would not to be honest - and I guess most people outside the US would not, as they never heard of that group. Also it's a term that comes up several times in TES lore, including as a character/faction name in ESO. Which leads to another problem: How can people from other parts of the world know about questionable groups (or terms that gained a bad reputation) somewhere else on this planet?

Also happens the other way around, by the way, when ZOS (rarely) unknowingly uses terms that come across as rather questionable in my country because they don't know the cultural and historical context for this country (and I don't blame them, no one can know about the habits and taboos of every culture there is).

robwolf666

My character names tend to be mashups of the names of people I know irl... Kind of a fun exercise for me to make up something that sounds realistic from them.

wolfie1.0.

At the end of the day its up to ZOS to decide if something breaks the naming policy or not. It may be arbitrary, subjective, and vague... but they are allowed to deem something as such. Its part of the TOS, EULA, and player code of conduct.

You can ask for clarification, but they are not required to provide it.

Its how online games work.

whitecrow

I must be really out of touch.

Wereswan

whitecrow wrote: »

I must be really out of touch.

Hopefully it's not a TOS violation to say that if you enter "Oath Keepers" with the quotes into your search engine of choice, the news articles that come up should answer any questions you may have.

whitecrow

Wereswan wrote: »

whitecrow wrote: »

I must be really out of touch.

Hopefully it's not a TOS violation to say that if you enter "Oath Keepers" with the quotes into your search engine of choice, the news articles that come up should answer any questions you may have.

Ah, the usual propaganda.

ZOS_Hadeostry

Hello everyone,

As a reminder, if you have received a request from us to change your name and wish to appeal that decision, please make sure to submit a ticket to Customer Support. This process allows us to review your case and ensure that your concerns are addressed.

@mdb800 Can you DM/PM me the ticket number, so I can take a look at it?