It sure seems that way... ive seen an increasing number of "witty" names recently...

and im not liking it... (well except "piffy the merciless" witch gave me a good giggle)

There must be some. On the general forums last night someone posted they had there character locked for a name and had to submit a new name before it would be unlocked.

Not sure how bad the name has to be though.

These are the naming policies:

# Naming Policy

 

When creating a character or guild name for Star Wars: The Old Republic, it is encouraged that you select a name that reflects the theme of the game. The guidelines listed below outline the types of names that you can NOT use, and apply to both player or character names, as well as guild names.

 

1. You may not use any names that violate the General Rules. This includes the use of names that are hateful, defamatory, racist, ethnically offensive, obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, or any other language that is offensive in nature.

 

2. You may not use names that are harassing or defamatory to other players or employees of EA, BioWare or LucasArts, e.g. EASUX, Timsretarded, and Biowaresux.

 

3. You may not use names of any EA, BioWare, or LucasArts employee or service related to Star Wars: The Old Republic.

 

4. You may not use names of copyrighted or trademarked characters, materials or products, e.g. Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper.

 

5. You may not use names from popular culture or media, e.g. Lady Gaga or George Lucas.

 

6. You may not use names that are religiously or historically significant, e.g. Jesus, Winston Churchill.

 

7. You may not use proper names of areas within Star Wars for character names. Guild names, however, MAY use the proper names of specific areas to help promote role-playing and realm pride, e.g. Defenders of Tython or Protectors of Hutta.

 

8. You may not use proper names of non-player characters within Star Wars: The Old Republic, e.g. Darth Malgus, Satele Shan, Yoda, Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.

 

9. You may not use names containing titles or ranks within them, e.g. General Supertrooper, Captain Tim, Darth Timmy, Knight Wakey.

 

10. You may not use names that refer to drugs or that are drug related.

 

11. You may not use names that contain an inappropriate phrase, sentence or any fragment of a sentence or Leet speak, e.g. uberhaxer, xxspeederxx, lolface, rofl, Noobwhacker, TimmyF**k, kock, fuk.

 

12. You may not use misspellings or alternative spellings of names that violate any of the above rules, e.g. Hamsolo, Yooda, DorthVader.

 

13. You may not use gibberish names when creating character, e.g. ajsdu, rifndsw, qweszs.

 

If you violate any part of the above Naming Policy you will either be assigned a new name, or given the option of changing the name. In addition to this, your account could incur a penalty up to and including account closure.

 

Source:http://www.swtor.com/legalnotices/roc

I was worried when I learned they were not going to have additions to regular naming policies for the RP servers but once they finally posted their policies I reconsidered. The above policies are really good ones, in my opinion, but they are worthless unless Bioware enforces them, and we don't have much data on that yet.

The only thing I can say is if we see names we believe violate those rules we should report them and move on. If Bioware shows us they are not supporting their own policies then we need to let them know how we feel about that. I think the only way to report names is through a petition under Help.

I guess you can still report names but they will not activly search out and change bad ones?

RP servers will have to self-police themselves and just use the /report feature "player name". You'll get an email [not in game] similar to this:

"Thank you for contacting us regarding the player name violation of another player. Your report has been forwarded to the relevant department, who will investigate further. We regret we will be unable to provide you with further updates on this issue, but recommend checking future patch notes for any up to date information."

I don't think any more detailed naming policies are a positive for the game.

Enforcing them uses up a lot of support resources that could be directed somewhere else.

They're also often abused by players. Because it's so hard to define what is a RP acceptable name above and beyond obvious things like 'No Dorth Vader', this leads to malicious reporting, where people report the names of those players they dislike for other reasons, like personal disagreements.

The best RP-naming tool is simply a strong RP community. If the numbers of RPers are substantial, then it makes the impact of poor names much weaker.

I've noticed generally overall, the naming people do on the RP servers I have poked at, are far better then those on a vanilla server. The progression I saw was this:

Going from generally the best to the utter worst (that I have noted):

1. RP-PVE Republic
   
2. RP-PVP Republic
   
3. RP-PVE Empire
   
4. RP-PVP Empire
   
5. PVE Republic
   
6. PVE Empire
   
7. PVP Republic
   
8. PVP Empire
   

I believe this is just a side effect of the types of people who actively roll on a RP server vs not. I'm not saying vanilla rollers are bad people... its just they seem more relaxed in what they want to call their characters.

For example, in a FPS or MP shooter game, I use all kinds of crazy names (even my forum handle here). However in MMORPGs or RPGs solo, I use a name that suits the character.

The policies BW has overall will help weed out the really bad ones.

These are the naming policies:

 

 

 

 

I was worried when I learned they were not going to have additions to regular naming policies for the RP servers but once they finally posted their policies I reconsidered. The above policies are really good ones, in my opinion, but they are worthless unless Bioware enforces them, and we don't have much data on that yet.

 

The only thing I can say is if we see names we believe violate those rules we should report them and move on. If Bioware shows us they are not supporting their own policies then we need to let them know how we feel about that. I think the only way to report names is through a petition under Help.

Thank you for posting that. So now I know who I can report. I've already seen some EU character names I need to report next time I'm in game, but I'm sad I won't be able to report some of the silly names I've seen.

I don't think they are going to do any enforcement unless the name is very offensive.

That said, we have quite a few gems on Jung Ma. In fact I ran into "HanJobba" and "Booty'Hunter" over the weekend.

That is just the tip of the iceberg, there are plenty of other ridiculous names over there. Walk your toon around and you will find a couple every few minutes.

The very first person I ran across in the game on day 1 (RP/PvE Empire - Shien):

Candypain

Next day I ran past: Canopener

Too be fair, he might be handy on a camping trip.

What about reference to other games then EA's and BW?

I saw one the other day called Arthas "facepalm" and that was ona RP server... I can't be serius RP'ing with this guy, but havent yet reported him and can't due it is not a violation.

Still it grinds my bones how people are damm lazy not being orginal thinking of names of their own. Even as there is a random name generator I dont like to use it. I like to have unique names to all of my charecters, even from WoW.

Sorry to compare WoW with TOR, its the only other MMO I have played and seen my share of names that is a violation to the RP servers in my time "shivers"

I'm currently on a PvE server and at least 2/3 of the names are just so lame and immersion-breaking. Is it any better on any of the RP servers? I'm a mature gamer and prefer to play with adults and folks who don't roll with names like tooleet. I also do t want to see guilds with names like "wow in space" or "I don't give a sith." Should I bother changing to one of the RP servers and if so, which are the best? I'm on the U.S. west coast.

Oh, and my forum name is not indicative of my in-game names

Unfortunately, given the number of players it seems impossible to police names.

I'm of the opinion that people should name whatever they want, they'll just be laughed at and ignored most of the time by the community anyways. The system is lax and it could be better but it's so far working. At least for me, I've seen a few knock offs but nothing offensive that would warrant a report.

I don't think any more detailed naming policies are a positive for the game.

 

Enforcing them uses up a lot of support resources that could be directed somewhere else.

 

They're also often abused by players. Because it's so hard to define what is a RP acceptable name above and beyond obvious things like 'No Dorth Vader', this leads to malicious reporting, where people report the names of those players they dislike for other reasons, like personal disagreements.

 

The best RP-naming tool is simply a strong RP community. If the numbers of RPers are substantial, then it makes the impact of poor names much weaker.

Yes. If you can convince people that RP is fun and worth trying out it will lead to more players taking RP-friendly names.

On the other hand, if we continue to reinforce the stereotype that RPers are frustrated nerds by acting as if this was a cool kids only treehouse... it will have unwanted results.

Well on the RP server I am on I reported the name "Poonstank" and got a ticket dismissed response... Then again I haven't seen any real RP or name enforcement since FV on EQ1. Granted the other end of the spectrum RPolice who would gladly ban anyone over a minor infraction exists as well.

Hehe!

Yeah, I reported quite a few names that fell smack dab under one of their bullet points in their naming policy, and they did nothing about it. Closed the ticket, and days since, those names still exist. Pathetic. Why write a policy if you will not even uphold it?

I tried "Jen'tara" and it was not allowed (INVALID NAME, tried on multiple servers first day, no way someone already had that name). When I asked them why, they said it was filtered because it had sexual connotations, and they therefore could not further discuss it with me. When I said *** let me talk to some higher up in the tier that CAN talk to me about sexual connotations of a name with no sexual connotations, they then replied that the name was not allowed because apostrophes are not allowed in character names. I called BS on that, but never got a third reply.

So, they don't even know their own naming policies or the ones enforced by the naming filter and I got two different reasons why a name was not allowed both of them total BS, good luck getting them to enforce policies they know nothing about.

I tried "Jen'tara" and it was not allowed (INVALID NAME, tried on multiple servers first day, no way someone already had that name). When I asked them why, they said it was filtered because it had sexual connotations, and they therefore could not further discuss it with me. When I said *** let me talk to some higher up in the tier that CAN talk to me about sexual connotations of a name with no sexual connotations, they then replied that the name was not allowed because apostrophes are not allowed in character names. I called BS on that, but never got a third reply.

 

 

So, they don't even know their own naming policies or the ones enforced by the naming filter and I got two different reasons why a name was not allowed both of them total BS, good luck getting them to enforce policies they know nothing about.

Oh, my ... god.

Yeah, they don't even know what CAN by typed?! Haha! Apostrophes are perfectly allowed. I've seen many people with them. Even a dash. Holy crap that is priceless on their response! That is CSR failure right there, I'm sorry, but that is unacceptable.

While there are certainly some griefing/trolling type names out there which should be addressed, I also think some of the stickler RP community needs to loosen up a bit and remember what universe they're playing in. There's been a good deal of heckling people for having names that aren't "unique" or some odd combination of letters. Those guidelines were fine in a medieval fantasy setting. This is Star Wars, where you have characters like

Salacious B Crumb

and

Savage Oppress

Is it really so lore breaking to have names like Vampirius (an example from the forums who was harassed)? This isn't EQ, or LOTRO, or (someone shoot me) WoW where only names like Uthgor and Jak'rel are acceptable RP names. Just try and remember what world we're in is all.