The WoW: Forever beta launched on Thursday and has been very popular. One of the new features that players have been excited about is a new naming convention: players can choose both a First and Last name. While this adds a lot of customization and creativity for players, it also opened up a whole new avenue for players to circumvent the ToS with offensive name combinations.
Blizzard has addressed this on the forums when replying to a player who had their Beta access removed, noting that offensive names that break the naming policies could have their Beta Access removed.
I have not received an email as to why it happened either :frowning:
You should have received an email with the reason, specifically the name that was selected for your WoW: Forever beta character. The email that I show that was sent includes the name. Check your spam filter/junk 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.
At the end of the day, it’s a beta test. Introducing a new character naming scheme requires real-world stress testing, so why ban players for showing blizz what needs to be tuned?
It isn’t a matter of “tuning”, we know what bad names are and we know people create characters with them all the time. We have a reporting option specifically to have those addressed. Some slip through the cracks here and there because they go unreported.
Having the option for a first/last name provides opportunities for a lot of… creativity, but our policies are still in place. The names themselves should continue to abide by our naming policies. The Development team for WoW: Forever is trying to address those names that are brought to their attention.
Beta is primarily run by QA and the Game Development team, so policy enforcement there primarily falls under their banner. However, if you feel an error was made you’ll want to submit an appeal. None of the examples I have seen thus far seem to be appropriate, but that isn’t my call.
