Bioware has a problem with Ron Paul?
Submitted by egervari on Thu, 12/01/2011 - 20:18I was invited to participate in the Star Wars: The Old Republic beta last weekend. It asked me for an account name and character name, and so I called them both "RonPaulForPrez".
I just received an email stating that I have violated their internal policies.
As you are aware, your current character name has been found to be in breach of our internal policies. As such, we are offering you the opportunity to change your characters name to an appropriate one which is in line with the testing agreement and our terms of service (http://www.swtor.com/game-testing-agreement and http://tos.ea.com/legalapp/WEBTERMS/US/en/PC/ )
Can you please reply to this email and provide us with 5 appropriate, alternative names. These should be listed in order of preference.
Once received, if these names are deemed to be appropriate and are available, we will organize for your character name to be changed accordingly. However, please note that if the names are found to be inappropriate, or are unavailable for use, then we will have no alternative but to choose and apply an alternative for you.
At first, I didn't even understand what I had done, because I didn't know that any of the character names or account name I used were offensive or inappropriate. How is RonPaulForPrez inappropriate?
Make no mistake, I agree that this is their property and they have a right to do this, but why?
It's kind of a joke. I don't like MMOs anyway, but I definitely will not buy this game. Dragon Age 2 kind of sucked, so they are now 0/2 in their last two :)
Update
Well, I asked the ticket person to provide me with the exact paragraph in the testing agreement where it says I can't have this name. I glanced through it and I actually couldn't find anything in there, so I asked him to give me evidence. He has not done so over many days - I guess he's not going to do anything now.
Even further, the EA agreement I didn't consent to. It never asked me - only the testing one.
So my name hasn't been changed yet. I guess the person who reported it and/or the ticket person who doesn't like Ron Paul simply gave up.
I see no problem with them
I see no problem with them not wanting a character with such a name running around. Character names have an impact on the play environment of others.
I suspect that if your character name had simply been Ron Paul you would not have recieved the email.
And it is the character name not the account name that has the problem it seems.
They would have sent you the same message if your character had been called mickeymouserulz
"How is RonPaulForPrez inappropriate?" It is inappropriate if they are trying to keep people to names that do not ruin game emmersion.
A high quality game
to buy right now is Skyrim. It's incredible, very high quality graphics and story.
(Keeps me out of the bars every night ;-)
"If this mischievous financial policy [greenbacks], which has its origin in North America, should become endurated down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debts. It will hav
yes!
Skyrim is awesome!!! This game is clearly a labour of love. Game of the year - again ;) Bethesda has a habit of doing that.
Yeah, heard it was great.
Almost seems like one of those games that would motivate people to upgrade their PC just to play it. As it stands, I can't even run Fallout 3. Damn priorities :/
Got a kick of of this video, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt5aUdijAN8
A signature used to be here!
How dare they. So I should
How dare they. So I should pick a Ron Paul themed name of some sort for my trooper.
As long as it is a name and
As long as it is a name and not just a string of words it would probably work fine.
Just a guess, but
could it be because he's opposed to SOPA? I know it's a pretty heated issue on many gaming boards as of late.
I mean, that's all I can really think of, and it's a pretty big stretch IMO. If that *were* the reason, that'd be a bit silly, but whatever.
A signature used to be here!
That's a good guess
That might be part of it. I don't know why bioware would care in this instance... because it's an MMO... and I'm guessing those are pretty hard to pirate. Still, maybe you're right.
Well
MMOs *can* be pirated, although getting past the monthly fees is a whole other issue (it's doable, but that's a whole other story). Besides, they have other franchises to worry about.
Like I say, I could be wrong (and probably am), but the only other thing I could think of was that whoever banned you was butthurt over the Gingrich ad. ;D
A signature used to be here!
So change your username.
So change your username. Make it: BiowareisagainstRP
Yep!
I put a request for this account name with the ticket person.
This is almost certainly a liability issue
I would imagine that they ban any 'political' names as this could possibly be misconstrued as an endorsement on their part and in general it is bad marketing for a company like Bioware to get involved in, or be perceived as getting involved in, politics.
How is my account name
How is my account name constitute an endorsement from them? They didn't make the account - I did.
So if someone makes an account name, "IAmRetarded", does that mean bioware is retarded?
I would see if any ther name goes through before
I got up in arms over it.
Mitt, Newt, etc..
The names did go through.
The names did go through. This was accepted for at least a week. Their server's validation code did not reject it.
wow
send them an email and ask: "wtf?"
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Either A Mod Saw It or Someone Reported it
Being an IT geek...
They must have a smart filter that somehow brings attention to such names... (although i highly doubt Bioware would think to include an algorithm that picks up high profile names)...
More realistic is they have a system where people can complain or flag someone. (which they do).
Once it is brought to a Game Mod's attention...that person just flags it as inappropriate...
So two things you can deduct from this.
1) Someone saw your name and doesn't like Ron Paul enough to flag you.
2) apparently the Game Mod who got the ticket has no love for Ron Paul or else he would have just ignored it :D