A Funny Tidbit In The ToS

[JustAGuy]

I was reading the Terms of Service for the beta, and came upon some interesting tidbits.

2. World of WarCraft Rules of Conduct
a.    Rules Related to User Names.
Each user will select a name for his or her character ... In particular, you may not use:

1. Names of another person with the intent to impersonate that person; 
2. Names which incorporate ?swear? words or which are otherwise offensive, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
3.  Names subject to the rights of any other person without authorization;
4.  Names of popular culture or media personalities;
5.  Names that are trademarks, or registered trademarks (e.g., Ferrari, Zenith, Pepsi, Charmin);
6.  Names of religious individuals; (e.g., Buddha, Jesus, Allah,  Jehovah, Lucifer);
7.  Names of characters from Blizzard?s WarCraft products, including character names from the WarCraft series of novels; or
8.  Names related to drugs, narcotics, or criminal activity, including references to drug substances (e.g., Heroin, Cocaine, Cannibus).

No Jesus or Allah players running around sounds fine to me, but the trademarks thing gets me... Why would this matter? And media personalities? What if my name really is Dan Rather and I want to play as him?

c. Rules Related to Game Play.
(i)                  You may not intentionally kill or attempt to kill a monster that is engaged in combat with another individual or group, unless asked to do so. This action is often referred to as ?Kill Stealing? and, if witnessed or verified by a World of WarCraft representative, will result in immediate disciplinary action.

(ii)                You may not intentionally lead a hostile monster or non-player character into attacking other players of your realm without being asked to do so by the other players. This action will also, if witnessed or verified by a World of WarCraft representative, result in immediate disciplinary action.

(v)                You may not use errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or ?program bugs? to obtain a competitive advantage over other players.

(viii)           You may not do anything that Blizzard considers contrary to the ?essence? of World of WarCraft.

Kill stealing and griefing are actionable offenses by Blizzard. Looks like Blizzard is taking griefers really seriously. The last one, "you may not do anything contrary tot he essence of WoW" just sounds funny. Man, contrary to the "essence"... That's quality right there. What the heck is the "essense"?!

8. Selling of Characters, Items and Accounts.

Remember, at the outset of these Terms of Service, where we discussed how you were ?licensed? the right to use World of WarCraft, and that your license was ?limited?? Well, here is one of the more important areas where these license limitations come into effect. Note that Blizzard either owns, or has exclusively licensed, all of the content which appears in World of WarCraft. Therefore, no one has the right to ?sell? Blizzard?s content, except Blizzard! ... You cannot sell items for ?real? money. That being said, Blizzard does not regulate the transfer of accounts between individuals, as long as such transfers occur outside of the World of WarCraft game environment. Advertising your account for sale through Chat or broadcast channels in World of WarCraft will not be tolerated, and may subject you to disciplinary action.

That's a really jovial piece of legal writing. I like how it boils down to "you can't sell anything of ours, but if you do, keep it a secret will ya? Don't make us lay down a whuppin' on ya."

[FoxBat]

For character trademarks, I would think Blizzard wants to argue that they own your characters, and therefore they are liable for any names users pick. On the other hand, no-one has a copyright on real-life media and culture personalites, so I have no idea what they are thinking. Maybe some far-fetched scams or something.

The "essence" line just shows once again what a bad piece of legal doo-doo many software Terms of Service are.

I can understand the "it's OK if you do it outside WoW" as meaning "we aren't so upset about account transfer, rather we don't like the spam ad-bots that will inevitably show up." Although how account sales differ from item sales on e-bay is beyond me.

[BEEFMOTRTON]

I figured the trademark thing, along with not allowing numbers is more to prevent "Illidan420" and tons of "Gandalf69" characters

[Chesspiece_face]

No Jesus or Allah players running around sounds fine to me, but the trademarks thing gets me... Why would this matter? And media personalities? What if my name really is Dan Rather and I want to play as him?

As far as trademarked material it is just a general TOS item that has to be in there. technically any time you put trademarked material in print you are elligable for legal action from the trademark holder. Most of these things are vague and don't go to court but if you have any interest in Al Franken, or Bill O'Reilly for that matter, you probably know how these things can go. The amusing thing here is that in the TOS they actually print copyrighted material making themselves possible targets. The real problem here isn't people that would name their characters "Pepsi" but characters that would name their characters "PepsiSucks" thus defaming the product. That sort of attention Blizzard doesn't want to bring to itself if possible.

The same thing can be said for the media figures. They don't want people going around pretending to be media figures and duping the less than brilliant other players but they also don't want their actions in game to be reflected back on a media figure that doesn't actually support that behavior. Lets take the Bill O'Reilly point. If i started a character in-game with that name and then went around saying and doing obnoxious things i'd be willing to bet the real O'Reilly would inlist his legal factor in a second.

What the heck is the "essense"?!

This is probably just an easy way for them to control how people speak in a game without having to make the extra effort of creating true Role Playing servers. If people are running around talking about 1337 Haxxors it would be against the "essence" of WoW. I'm all about this clause cause if it is truly enforced it can keep out the swine that are attracted to the online environment.

[Tal]

Too late. I've run across a couple of variations on "Gandalf", "Aragorn", "Gimli", "Legolas", and the dreaded "Drizzzzzt". ;) The thing that irritated me about the latter was that it wasn't even a nightelf rogue (only rogues can dual wield) but a human warlock. :blink:

[JustAGuy]

If people are running around talking about 1337 Haxxors it would be against the "essence" of WoW. I'm all about this clause cause if it is truly enforced it can keep out the swine that are attracted to the online environment.

Fortunately, I've yet to see any l33t sp34k. But, when this thing goes public, who knows what kind of illiterates it might attract.

[FoxBat]

Fortunately, I've yet to see any l33t sp34k. But, when this thing goes public, who knows what kind of illiterates it might attract.

You know what would be amusing? A l33t-sp34k filter. :P

[Cryptic]

Fortunately, anyone who wants to cause trouble can run over to battle.net; it's a little harder to be a #$%& when you're playing on daddy's credit card. Some of those terms are just silly, but overall, I'm looking forward to a cleaner and more mature play environment. No griefers, no guttersnipes, and no Baron JesusGotServed? Sounds good to me.
;)

[AtomicKitKat]

:P

I'm not famous enough to be a "personality", but I really don't want some idiotic 13 year old running around griefing people and spoiling my general MMORPG good name(helping newbies, general philanthropy, witty remarks, etc.) :(