Dashed said:Not to be combative, but I personally feel the word immersion is incredibly overused and abused. I am not a proponent of prohibiting anything based only off of the concept of someones elses "immersion". If there are to be naming restrictions, perhaps they could be constrained to RP servers as it could be argued that it creates a more tangible negative impact (contrasted against a regular ruleset server). Related to names is a persons choice of gear colors. If it's one persons enjoyment to wear hot pink, I disagree with anothers need to put up artifical restrictions based on someone elses inability to get past it and start yelling "it ruins my immersion". Yeah, I also don't enjoy a hot pink wearing troll rogue named Tiny McStabby, but it would never distract me from what's important; the games ultimate functionality and playability.
Slightly off topic; in at least one old game, a long name was detrimental for purely mechanical reasons - it stuck out and was visible when hiding behind a tree in the pvp zones. More of a mechanical issue than anything else.
Completely agree here.
Only profanity and outright offense should be banned. Who cares what some character makes a name for? They are allowed to play silly just as you are allowed to play serious. Roleplaying servers exist specifically for this reason, and is the only workable way to "police" names in regards to this topic.
I don't get the problem with people using names from popular fiction - so someone like the idea of playing AS a giant barbarian named Conan. That can help them to get immersed in their own way.
I would much rather the developers focus on game content and bug fixing then player names. Policing creativity just seems anti-nerd, which lets be honest, we all are(nerds).
Cynwulf said:phamtrinli said:Cynwulf said:Beowulf is a given name just like names such as max, dave, joe are... nothing wrong with using it.
Conan is a given irish name meaning little warrior or little hound or little wolf just like names such as scott, andrew or george...nothing wrong with using it.
Gandalf is a given norse name was used by a norse king well before J.R. tolkien used the name for a wizard. I am not sure it would fall under intellectual property today. It means wand elf in old norse. To be safe i would probably use the old spelling Gandalfr. Their was also a poem written about a dwarf named Gandalf.
max didn't defeat grendel
joe didn't defeat a dragon
scott didn't kill giant sea beasts with his bare hands while swimming in the ocean
beowulf is an intercutlturally recognizable name from a very famous and singular work of writing
just like normal people aren't named gandalf or voldemort or dovahkin or alucard or don quixote -
these are unique character names which originate from fiction, not from actual family ties/lines/lineages which have been passed downbeowulf is one such name as well.
It's fairly easy to tell the difference between a normal name and one belonging solely to a famous fictional character, honestly.Beowulf, Gandalf and Conan did not originate from fiction! Fiction authors used names which were used in our past for their characters. Conan is still used today as a name. There is nothing unique about these names other then some fiction writer decided to use a name from our past in a story, poem etc.
Ragnar is another name written in a saga so its off limits too?
Setting aside for the moment that I didn't say "Conan" anywhere in my post -
It depends on how strictly you want to adhere to a fantasy naming policy.
Strictly speaking, I would say yes, it's off limits.
The point of naming a character in an MMORPG is to make something that only belongs to you, so that as you play and interact with people, people associate that name with YOU - not with some fictional character or celebrity from real life, or item place or object.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to argue about this at all because people wouldn't abuse names, and would genuinely try to name themselves something that was theirs and theirs alone. But since we can't count on people obeying the spirit of the law (so to speak) we have to come up with an imperfect, complex set of restrictions that people will just find ways around in the end anyway...
It's a mess, honestly. But what I'm arguing for here is the spirit of naming yourself something that is conducive with the fantasy world you are going to be taking part in - and when you are running around seeing people named Legolas, Gandalf, Voldemort, SpeedRacer and such - it doesn't matter that someone somewhere in reality, some time in the past may have been named that or something similar - it just isn't conducive to the spirit of the naming policy for this fantasy world.
phamtrinli said:Setting aside for the moment that I didn't say "Conan" anywhere in my post -
It depends on how strictly you want to adhere to a fantasy naming policy.
Strictly speaking, I would say yes, it's off limits.
The point of naming a character in an MMORPG is to make something that only belongs to you, so that as you play and interact with people, people associate that name with YOU - not with some fictional character or celebrity from real life, or item place or object.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to argue about this at all because people wouldn't abuse names, and would genuinely try to name themselves something that was theirs and theirs alone. But since we can't count on people obeying the spirit of the law (so to speak) we have to come up with an imperfect, complex set of restrictions that people will just find ways around in the end anyway...It's a mess, honestly. But what I'm arguing for here is the spirit of naming yourself something that is conducive with the fantasy world you are going to be taking part in - and when you are running around seeing people named Legolas, Gandalf, Voldemort, SpeedRacer and such - it doesn't matter that someone somewhere in reality, some time in the past may have been named that or something similar - it just isn't conducive to the spirit of the naming policy for this fantasy world.
I really understand where you're coming from. But not everyone plays the game for the same reasons. On a RP server I can absolutely understand having more strict naming guidelines, and abiding by the "spirit of the naming policy". But if someone wants to name their character speedracer. I honestly don't care. It doesn't bother me.
Not everyone is trying to build a legacy in a game. Sometimes people just want to be funny, have a good time, and give people a good laugh. If all naming policies were strict, I never would have seen amazing names like PallieMcBeal.
phamtrinli said:Cynwulf said:phamtrinli said:Cynwulf said:Beowulf is a given name just like names such as max, dave, joe are... nothing wrong with using it.
Conan is a given irish name meaning little warrior or little hound or little wolf just like names such as scott, andrew or george...nothing wrong with using it.
Gandalf is a given norse name was used by a norse king well before J.R. tolkien used the name for a wizard. I am not sure it would fall under intellectual property today. It means wand elf in old norse. To be safe i would probably use the old spelling Gandalfr. Their was also a poem written about a dwarf named Gandalf.
max didn't defeat grendel
joe didn't defeat a dragon
scott didn't kill giant sea beasts with his bare hands while swimming in the ocean
beowulf is an intercutlturally recognizable name from a very famous and singular work of writing
just like normal people aren't named gandalf or voldemort or dovahkin or alucard or don quixote -
these are unique character names which originate from fiction, not from actual family ties/lines/lineages which have been passed downbeowulf is one such name as well.
It's fairly easy to tell the difference between a normal name and one belonging solely to a famous fictional character, honestly.Beowulf, Gandalf and Conan did not originate from fiction! Fiction authors used names which were used in our past for their characters. Conan is still used today as a name. There is nothing unique about these names other then some fiction writer decided to use a name from our past in a story, poem etc.
Ragnar is another name written in a saga so its off limits too?
Setting aside for the moment that I didn't say "Conan" anywhere in my post -
It depends on how strictly you want to adhere to a fantasy naming policy.
Strictly speaking, I would say yes, it's off limits.
The point of naming a character in an MMORPG is to make something that only belongs to you, so that as you play and interact with people, people associate that name with YOU - not with some fictional character or celebrity from real life, or item place or object.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to argue about this at all because people wouldn't abuse names, and would genuinely try to name themselves something that was theirs and theirs alone. But since we can't count on people obeying the spirit of the law (so to speak) we have to come up with an imperfect, complex set of restrictions that people will just find ways around in the end anyway...It's a mess, honestly. But what I'm arguing for here is the spirit of naming yourself something that is conducive with the fantasy world you are going to be taking part in - and when you are running around seeing people named Legolas, Gandalf, Voldemort, SpeedRacer and such - it doesn't matter that someone somewhere in reality, some time in the past may have been named that or something similar - it just isn't conducive to the spirit of the naming policy for this fantasy world.
I would not disagree with Legolas, Voldemort since as far as i know their purely ficticious names. However Gandalf was an old norse name prior to the fiction. As for SpeedRacer while i think it would be a stupid name in a fantasy setting its just two words used in common speach. Anyway its really up to the development team what they will allow and what they will not. I personally really do not care one way or the other but it pisses me off when folks believe a name it a fictitious one because some fiction writer put it in a book when in fact the name was used prior to the fiction in our past. Its easy to look up Gandalf for example and find tolkien took the name from old norse.
Whether a name was used prior to a popular fictitious work or not really has no backing on a would be naming policy. If it has become widely known to be from a specific theme...that's what it is widely known for. The origin isn't what is in question. To argue the origin seems silly in relation to a naming policy. The policy won't be that in depth that the origin of words is considered.
That being said, I'm sure the naming policy will only exclude profanity, hate speech etc. (except maybe on the RP server?)
At this point we are just restating the same things that have already be said.
I worked for Government Medical Insurance in Canada, we registered births and deaths.(one of our many duties)
One memorable newborn name was "Marijuana"...first thing I said to one of my coworkers was: Ya can't choose your parents, and how much you want to bet that kid is going to be teased mercilessly in school. hehehe
philo said:Whether a name was used prior to a popular fictitious work or not really has no backing on a would be naming policy. If it has become widely known to be from a specific theme...that's what it is widely known for. The origin isn't what is in question. To argue the origin seems silly in relation to a naming policy. The policy won't be that in depth that the origin of words is considered.
That being said, I'm sure the naming policy will only exclude profanity, hate speech etc. (except maybe on the RP server?)
At this point we are just restating the same things that have already be said.
How much you want to bet we'll be seeing various renditions of "Trump" or someone well known like that..running around ingame. lol
no max: there was a fictional tv show with max headroom.
no joe... joe vs the volcano
no scott.... scott pilgrim v the world
no maximis one letter from maximus (Gladiator was as fictionalized as Beowulf)
no evoras one letter from edoras
OR
Show nameplates:
X All (Default)
_ Friends/Guildmates
_ None
P.S. Only "None" seems role play. People rarely carry signs with their names.
P.P.S. We do need stronger naming rules in the real world.
P.P.P.S. As an aside, it seems odd that copyrighted names get banned. I fully expect it is due to some lawsuit somewhere. (I am not interested enough to look.) Just seems odd that if Mark McGwire was called Big Mac in a game it would have been a legal breech, but it was fine being called it every day on MLB broadcasts.
