Offensive names cost players their beta access

Blizzard is taking beta access away from players who pick an offensive character name. Support agent Vrakthris confirmed that on 19 September in the Customer Support forum. World of Warcraft: Forever gives every character two names, and that doubles the room for creativity.

Two names per character

In Forever a character carries a Full Name: a main name and a secondary name, both typed at character creation. The combination is unique per region, because Forever has no realms.

“Having the option for a first/last name provides opportunities for a lot of… creativity, but our policies are still in place”, writes Vrakthris. The names themselves have to keep to the naming policy, and the development team of Forever is working through the ones that get reported.

What happens to the account

Several players reported the same thing on the forum: the game refuses the log-in with the message that the account has been suspended from the beta. The appeal page said no action had been taken on their account, so there was nothing there to appeal.

That email does exist, writes Vrakthris, and it names the character name that caused it. He advises checking the spam folder.

Character names must adhere to our naming policies, including in Beta. If you violate those policies that may result in the removal of beta access.

Who enforces it

The beta is run mainly by QA and the game development team, writes Vrakthris, so policy enforcement there falls under them rather than under normal support. A player who believed a mistake was made could still file an appeal at the time. Since 24 September that no longer applies: the Customer Service team does not handle appeals over names, writes developer Fwoibles.

He adds that none of the examples he has seen so far look appropriate, but that the call is not his. Blizzard has since done both. On 24 September it began forcing renames on names that break the policy, and kept the removal of beta access for the worst ones.

Why it lands now

The beta opened on 17 September and is one of the largest tests Blizzard has ever run. The naming system is new, and the thread on the forum ran to 62 posts and more than 3,000 views in two days. Blizzard set out the rules itself later on 21 September, and writes there that the system weighs both parts of a name together.