Accounts being suspended over appropriate names

Sallymen

"A member of the community got banned for having lore-friendly thematic names honoring the sets dropped from their favorite raid encounter that they've had for years. Could we get a member of ZOS looking into this, please? They've had the names for thousand of hours and have interacted with support plenty, and now their account is permanently deactivated; wiping out all of their progress over has to be an automated mistake from a bot.

Since I cannot name this person outright, I can also recall some people got their accounts suspended or their character's name changed outright. For having names such as "Telvanni" or "Hlaalu." Lore-friendly names that could not be interpreted as offensive. This sets a bad precedent for anyone can get their account's deactivated for having appropriate lore names for their characters."

@ZOS_Kevin

React

I read through the email this player received and the reasons cited are completely invalid, as there was zero breach of TOS whatsoever.

tyran404_ESO

Yeah seen a picture of the support ticket and I gotta say this is another wrongful ban. Said player has been public figure in the community for ages and having a lore-friendly name to boot? I would think the first step would of been a name change not an outright banning. Heavy handed and misdirected.

BretonMage

Wait, you can be banned for a name referencing your race or house?

Alchimiste1

I've seen similar things happening to a few people now. I've also read the TOS and still don't understand how any of those were breaking the agreement. ZoS should look into this; I assume its an error.

DerAlleinTiger

Are you kidding me? This is insane! You can be banned for having a name that is lore-friendly? I could understand, for legal reasons, if ZOS wanted to keep people from having account usernames that were "proprietary names" and thus make players change them. Banning them, though? Going after character names? What if someone came up with a character name years ago and then a brand new piece of content drops where an NPC happens to have the same or similar name? Are you going to ban a player because you decided to use a name that they started using first?

This is absurd. Practically speaking, there are so many indicators that someone is a player and not an NPC (alliance rank even if you haven't set foot in PvP at all or gained a single AP yet, character level, CP's if they're 50+, username) that there's no practical reason to keep players from using them. The only thing I can see is it being a legal matter, and frankly I don't think that's something you can maintain for very long when you have as many NPC's as there are in ESO.

What are roleplayers supposed to do? Each race only has so many known naming conventions, prefixes, suffixes, etc. Do roleplayers now have to live in fear that they'll wake up one day to find that their account has been banned because ZOS decided to use a name they pieced together from existing in-lore naming conventions in a new piece of content they might not even have played?

This is a really terrible precedent to set. I don't know the person in question, but I don't need to in order to know that this is a load of bull and extremely suppressive to the playerbase at large, and in particular roleplayers who want to use lore-friendly names.

noblecron

This has to be a mistake by the bot. There's millions of folk that play this game and many like to have lore accurate names. This honeslty makes me scared and worried that many friends of mine will get banned just for having characters with names similar to lore if having a lore friendly name is also against TOS and bannable, what exactly are we to name our characters?

endorphinsplox

Ayo I heard about this as well. Can we get a clarification on the TOS here? I've had this issue as well for copyrighted characters and references to real-world people. So I'm aware that the Code of Conduct forbids copyrighted names being used as character or account names so does that apply to names that are imitating names that are present in-game? That makes zero sense. Would that not mean then, that having a lore-friendly character name like Telvanni for roleplay reasons would be a violation of the Code of Conduct? And if these things result in such harsh reactions from support, why aren't these rules enforced evenly?

If this was an error and gets corrected, will the team be doing anything to make up for this error, including offering an explanation for the error and a plan to prevent further issues from arising? If this was due to mass-reporting, as I've heard rumor it was, does that mean that ZOS listens to majority rather than logic, or is there any plan to punish repeated misuse of the in-game reporting system? Is there going to be any accountability on this at all?

Ondolemir

It'll probably be reversed once Monday morning service reps awaken.

umagon

I have not seen the names or the email, however my guess is the names may have contained letters that may have formed some type of word and/or acronym that zos’ automated systems have on their banned word list. The bot probably just autobans any account with characters with those words or letter arrangements somewhere in their name.

DerAlleinTiger

umagon wrote: »

I have not seen the names or the email, however my guess is the names may have contained letters that may have formed some type of word and/or acronym that zos’ automated systems have on their banned word list. The bot probably just autobans any account with characters with those words or letter arrangements somewhere in their name.

No, they were all names that were related to in-lore NPC"s or items. One was even flagged despite being a name not from ESO but TES V instead.

GrizzlyTank

Perma ban for a character name seems ridiculous, unless it's a death threat or something.

MrGarlic

This is absolutely awful. I hope Zos fixes this promptly. I hope the affected player still continues to play the game afterwards.

Panchaea

I've seen the the correspondence as well and can confirm none of those clauses were in breach. Either this is a complete oversight/error or they're throwing about T&Cs at a whim. I do believe it's the former and they've had some sort of automated process misinterpret the names, but there is virtually nothing in these names that breach the T&Cs.

If it is the latter and the ban was approved, it sets a terrible precedent where any of us can be punished for the slightest things. I've seen worse names float around in zone that use expletives and derogatory references and nothing has been done about them, but somehow this is worthy of a ban?

Ball's in ZoS' court unfortunately, but hopefully this was an oversight and not something intentional.

tim77

This rule should really be looked at. It's very... doubtful.
If the names are not hateful like "all [insert npc name here] are stupid" or whatever... this "rule" is really not player friendly.
!!! And i'm not talking about the actions which comes with it, just the rule in general !!!

On the other side, there must be more in this story.
You normally dont get a perma ban, you get a 3-day ban and a forced rename.

BretonMage

DerAlleinTiger wrote: »

umagon wrote: »

I have not seen the names or the email, however my guess is the names may have contained letters that may have formed some type of word and/or acronym that zos’ automated systems have on their banned word list. The bot probably just autobans any account with characters with those words or letter arrangements somewhere in their name.

No, they were all names that were related to in-lore NPC"s or items. One was even flagged despite being a name not from ESO but TES V instead.

I can certainly understand a rule against impersonating an Elder Scrolls character, but not an item.

SilverBride

I can see a forced name change, but a ban is very heavy handed, especially if a name is not rude or vulgar.

Sarannah

I'm using Telvanni as a last name on one of my characters too, though the first name looks nothing like any character in-game. This kinda scares me, as I have a lot of money and time invested in my account. I would be devastated if someone, or myself, was banned for this.

Lorefriendly names are no reason for a ban at all, just force a namechange with a short reason explaining why a certain name is not allowed. So players do not pick a similar name again. But honestly, normal lorefriendly names should be allowed.

SilverPaws

These days Zenimax bans for pretty much any ridiculous reason they can come up with. I can't believe they actually ban for something like this... That's really insane and disappointing..

virtus753

My best guess is that ZOS considers names from the ES IP to be covered by this:

“Names or material protected by copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights cannot be used at any time except by the rightsholder. Rights ownership must be established prior to use on any ZeniMax Media, Inc. site or service. Any use of material protected by intellectual property rights that is not wholly owned by the account owner is a violation of the Agreement, including the Code of Conduct.”

They have clarified sometimes in other threads when there have been questions about how to understand the ToS/CoC. Perhaps they could consider doing so here.

DrakeHellfire

This is fairly worrying and could be seen as a possible trend of things to come.
The banning wasn't in line with the reasoning, let alone the fact that one of the names in question wasn't even offensive in the first place.
However, why was the person not given name changes? It seems rather harmless, since it's only happened recently after the player in question having their account and name the way that it has been for so long, with so many people, players, hardcore players, ESO creators and even Devs encountering them in the world of ESO and yet it has not been presented until now?

It's a little worrying. What about the RPers out there that use lore surnames for their characters?
Are we next on the chopping block?
Are meaningless joke names also going to be cut because someone got offended? Or because someone out there has it in for us due to how we play the game?
It's a scary prospect.

MidniteOwl1913

Um, if it's a banable offense why let the name be chosen in the first place? They have veto control over names when you create them why allow one that will get the player banned. That doesn't seem like a good way to go about making the player base happy. And out of the blue like, it's chilling...

RedTalon

Kinda worrying have seen a number of people using house names has their chars surname and so on over the year,s know they can ban thing in changing name tokens and at char creation even if one word wouldn't be allowed so does seem like a mistake.

Valion

I am really looking forward to see some green comment here.

This really seems like some unfortunate error, and I'd love to see this matter solved -
with a fair compensation for those people impacted.
(Missed Daily Log In boni etc.)

Avishag

Panchaea wrote: »

I've seen the the correspondence as well and can confirm none of those clauses were in breach. Either this is a complete oversight/error or they're throwing about T&Cs at a whim. I do believe it's the former and they've had some sort of automated process misinterpret the names, but there is virtually nothing in these names that breach the T&Cs.

If it is the latter and the ban was approved, it sets a terrible precedent where any of us can be punished for the slightest things. I've seen worse names float around in zone that use expletives and derogatory references and nothing has been done about them, but somehow this is worthy of a ban?

Ball's in ZoS' court unfortunately, but hopefully this was an oversight and not something intentional.

Yes, I have seen names many times, that describe sexual acts or *** or something similar. Yet those remain..
Must be awful to have your progress wiped

Sevalaricgirl

Wow, this is completely insane. My character names have nothing to do with ES lore but they do have something to do with my favorite video games, book series, etc. To be banned for it is just stupid ZOS.

Vaoh

Could be get an official comment regarding why totally normal lore-friendly names are bannable...? Telvanni, Hlaalu, Tiber Septim, etc. why would someone get banned for this?

Tandor

I doubt I'm the only one who suspects that there's rather more to this story than we're being told here...

Syldras

It must be a mistake. I use lore-friendly names only and so do many people, without any problems.

BretonMage wrote: »

I can certainly understand a rule against impersonating an Elder Scrolls character

There are thousands of NPCs, I assume it would even be possible to choose the same name as one by accident, especially if you consider the typical Dunmer or Altmer naming conventions and choose a rather common name. It's not different to real life, just that IRL when you name your son Paul Smith, you can't be sued by an older Paul Smith, let alone be accused of trying to impersonate him

Ragnaroek93

This is getting ridiculous. I know people who constantly hate whisper everybody who kills them in PvP and they are still running around despite getting reported all the time. Meanwhile others get permabanned for having a name refering to an ingame lore object [snip]

[edited for profanity bypass]

ssewallb14_ESO

I've had exactly one interaction with the player in question which in retrospect I probably should have reported, but decided to ignore and move on because I know what it's like to have a bad day. Since then others I've talked to have had similar experience.

I'm just saying I'd be skeptical of the claim that they were banned for their name.