Recently I attempted to log into one of my characters and was greeted with a little pop-up box informing me I had to rename that character before logging in.
I wasn’t happy about it as I liked the name – but what really annoyed me was I hadn’t received an email, an in-game message or whisper. Nobody had bothered to communicate with me at all. I was just told I had to rename the character in a tiny box, with no reason why.
Asking around, it emerged that some people find the term offensive (in my country it’s not at all offensive) so I thought “okay, well if I’ve offended someone, fine.” I intended just to let it slide and continue playing the character with a new name.
Tonight I discovered that another of my characters had received a “forced rename”. This time I can’t think of a single thing anybody would find offensive about the name. It’s not an offensive name.
What’s more concerning for me is that both of these chearacters are rarely played – one I use for dungeons a few times a month, the other is a new-ish character that hasn’t been out in the world much yet. Now, given the amount of abuse, harassment and hatred I and my guild have had from certain elements of the community, I’m beginning to wonder if people have been reporting my names for the sake of it. That may sound paranoid – but I’ve been informed by several people that I’m being mass-reported by their friends/guild/family/pets for various offences such as defending a keep in Edge of the Mists, or completing an event people wanted to exploit.
Since I wasn’t actually doing anything wrong, these mass-reporters would make up any old reason to report me. I’ve had a few tell me they’d get this name or that name banned (innocent names). Some told me they were reporting me for “botting”.
I’d like to ask ArenaNet three things: firstly, why have you forced me to rename my character “Deranged Killer”? Secondly, why couldn’t you be bothered to contact me about this? Thirdly, have you been swayed by reports? Is it a case of “x amount of people are reporting this player, let’s look into something we can punish him for”?
For the record, the first character I received a forced name change for is around 8 months old. His name was Digital Midget. If that’s so offensive that it needs to be changed, why wasn’t it changed before?
The whole thing is very suspicious to me, and coupled with my friend receiving a suspension on shaky grounds (again with no contact from ArenaNet) I’m wondering – why are players who play the game being punished, and those who exploit, cheat, harass, abuse and insult allowed to continue? I’ve personally reported dozens of players for obscene language, threats and worse, and they’ve been there the next day, and the next week, etc.
I’ve seen names around with racist/homophobic undertones for well over a year that were reported by various players – and yet the name Deranged Killer is offensive? Come on.
