Varo.

Many NPCs in the game share the same name.

I have characters who have first names, and others that have last names which are the same of some NPCs but not both on the same character. This has yet to be an issue, and I have not been informed that this is any sort of violation.

ezio45 wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

ezio45 wrote: »

why would they make you change your name for sharing the same name as an npc?


like is this a thing?

if I wanted to name a highelf toon queen ayreen your telling me they would be mad about that?

It came up recently and seems it is a thing, although I am not sure how much ZOS invests in policing it without someone reporting the name.

omg its a thing!!!!!!!

that is the second dumbest thing ive heard this week

Why would zos... makers of THE ELDER SCROLLS online, a game primarily for fans of THE ELDER SCROLLS series have a problem with fans those games naming their characters after characters in THE ELDER SCROLLS lore

They are fans of the games, if someone wants to name their character after a character from the games good on them. There fans of not only eso but the entire elder scrolls series....

Noone even uses character names..... everytime i see it im like what are you actually doing.....

Is fun against eso tos????

Well the only example we have is someone who had Sheogorath and was made to change it.

Thread for full information of what happened can be found here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/434852/eso-lore-names-in-character-names-not-allowed-anymore

Numerikuu wrote: »

That is the dumbest *** I have ever heard when it comes to name changes. Sounds like the player is only being forced to change it because some salty ass wanted the name themselves and reported them for it.

The last MMO I played before coming to ESO actually had a pretty similar stance, most MMO's actually do have something in the TOS about not using copyright names or those of real world personalities.

It's one of those rules that I've never seen a company enforce actively unless players bring it up though.

I think you're almost certainly safe in this case. As far as I know ZOS have only changed it when someone copied a well known characters name exactly. (And in one case also made their character look as much like the NPC as possible.)

I'm not sure but I think that's a weird way of protecting players from scams - a bit like not allowing GM in character names and telling us all GMs have a Z icon next to their name even though we never see them. In some games the developers will make playable versions of NPCs which someone at the studio will control for special events. For example if ZOS did it they might have had someone controlling Razum-dar welcoming players to Summerset on release day. As far as I know ZOS don't do that, but there's still a risk that if someone saw a player character called Razum-dar who looked like the NPC standing around chatting to players they might assume it's someone from ZOS and the person controlling them could take advantage of that.

But it's unlikely someone is going to see a character with the same first name as a relatively obscure NPC, but presumably otherwise different from the NPC, and think it must be someone from ZOS.

Turelus wrote: »

Numerikuu wrote: »

That is the dumbest *** I have ever heard when it comes to name changes. Sounds like the player is only being forced to change it because some salty ass wanted the name themselves and reported them for it.

The last MMO I played before coming to ESO actually had a pretty similar stance, most MMO's actually do have something in the TOS about not using copyright names or those of real world personalities.

It's one of those rules that I've never seen a company enforce actively unless players bring it up though.

I think the bit about real world personalities and other copyrighted names is just there to protect ZOS.

As I understand it because the TOS says that nothing on our accounts belongs to us, including characters (legally we're renting access to a service when we buy the game) if someone called their character Ned Stark and George R R Martin or his publisher found out they could sue ZOS - since legally they own the character. This way ZOS can respond by saying a player did it and broke the TOS by doing so, absolving themselves of responsibility and because it's a breach of the TOS they can force a name change or even delete the character or ban the player to appease the copyright owner and end the dispute. Which is highly unlikely to happen, but for ZOS it's far better to put the rules in place so they're covered than hope no one notices and end up getting sued for breach of copyright.

(Incidentally copyright holders aren't entirely free to ignore it either even if they think it's irrelevant or even like it - otherwise they risk setting a precedent that can be used in court to prove the name is now in common use and cannot be copyrighted. Which has lead to things like Google stopping people using the phrase "google it" to mean searching even though it seems like it'd be great advertising for them.)

Turelus wrote: »

ezio45 wrote: »

why would they make you change your name for sharing the same name as an npc?


like is this a thing?

if I wanted to name a highelf toon queen ayreen your telling me they would be mad about that?

It came up recently and seems it is a thing, although I am not sure how much ZOS invests in policing it without someone reporting the name.

I think its mostly just deity or if like you name yourself Abnur Tharn and such or Mehrunes Dagon/Nocturnal

Turelus wrote: »

@Danikat that's my understanding of it as well.

I actually used to game with a published author, and she always said she would laugh when seeing people with names of her characters, because it was odd to see someone like her characters enough to use the name in video games.

I can imagine that would be very weird.

It was weird enough when I shared my main characters name (one I'd been using in various games for over a decade) and the meaning behind it on another games forum then shortly afterwards saw someone else with the exact same last name - it turned out he'd seen my post and liked the name enough to use it. I know they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but that actually put me off posting in those topics unless I can use names I'm not that attached to or which I think are unlikely to be copied.

Then I found out it's similar enough to a French word which is also a name that other people have come up with almost the same variation by a different route, and there's an NPC in ESO whose first name is the same but with an extra 2 letters.

What do I have to do to get an NPC named after me?