Banned for WHAT EXACTLY?

[L1Z4RD]

So I'm playing on ATL shard on my crafter this afternoon and I get pulled to jail.

A GM appears and tells me that I have a character named 'futt bucker' on ATL shard on my account and that it violates the terms. I DO NOT, nor have I EVER had a character named this name. I did however, have a dread mare by this name, which I changed a few weeks back.

I told the GM all 5 of my char names (NONE of which matched said name) and offered screenshots and to log in on said characters in front of him. He asked me to log off for 5 minutes while he 'addressed the issue'. 30 minutes later, I log on to the account terminated screen.

I received NO EMAIL.

I logged on a temp account and paged. A different GM pretty much told me to write an email to [email protected] and left the convo.



Are you kidding me EA? To this day, a UO GM has NEVER done ANYHTING for me besides telling me to 'write an email'. Update your prehistoric and pathetic customer support...or at least provide some communication in which I can defend myself against your obviously faulty claim.

 

[Theo_GL]

What are your character names? Besides l33t dood.

 

[L1Z4RD]

What are your character names? Besides l33t dood.

Are you being serious or are you a trolling...

 

[EvilPixieWorks]

What I’m thinking... some prude that thinks any movie over a “G” rating is too strong reported you weeks ago... even months ago for the pet name. The Game-Master didn’t read the report correctly and used this seemingly now common “sledge-hammer” approach to attack a otherwise innocent player. I honestly hope you can fight it... however I have seen so many “questionable” character names over the years, this is mild... and for a pet, easily changed to something less offensive. What really is starting to frighten me is this whole idea of an out of control GM staff who has no clue that it's better business to be nice and keep a customer then fly off the handle and loose customers for the company.

Keep with it and don’t give up!

 

[Thunderz]

I got banned once for logging out at luna whith a char whos guild abreviation was "****".

Apparantly someone paged because it was to similare to.... You know the word!!

I took the name from the clothing firm with the same name as it was a tailor guild.

I logged at luna and was playing another shard when i got the screen spam "youv been banned" checked email "for offensive guild name"

I roflmfao, kids can say and offensive abusive discsting words that want in chat these days but for having a name or a guild name similar to one your gona get banned!!!!!

Bloody joke but i guess you can use the filter for word "said" but not when there "similare" in a name or guild.

Thunderz

 

[Thunderz]

It reminds me of not to long ago when bio took over stratics there was a kid who worked for them who attacked people them edited there posts.

Anyone else remember that, same kinda joke lol

Thunderz

 

[Kralock]

you will receive an email within 24 hours based off my knowledge, they will tell you what and why and for how long you got banned, if you have been temp banned twice before for any reason your prob screwed.

I was talking to a pvper in luna and we where reminiscing about older publishes, I told him shortly after pub 16 when they added the procs to weapons my axer used to $ape(to be polite here) mages. A hour later, I had a non english GM try to tell me I was making sexually offensive remarks in game, I treid to explain that all I ment was I killed mages back in the day. Then I got disconnected, and banned, I got an email about 5 hours later teling me it was a 72 hour ban.

3 days later I log on in Jail had to wait 4 hours for a gm to come and then I had to say i'm sorry, I took about a 6 month break after that, and let my account go.

 

[THP]

Its joke when u look at the crap and abuse the pvp community litter the general chat with day in day out....

 

[Kralock]

yep it just all depends if someone pages on you, in the past you would have been told to change the name, and that would have been that, I don't know what got up there craw this time.

you can script use healer bot macros, speed hack, but god help you if you have a potty mouth in a game that you can be blocked or use a filter played mostly by folks in the 40s

 

[Madrid]

Shame on the GMs.....

There was a player griefing my vendor by tieing up items about a month ago name ****. GMs did absolutely nothing...

More to the point if your able to pass a name through the character creation process that name should never get you banned. One shouldn't be able to input a name that is bannable, players should receive a message stating that the name is "invalid" upon the character creation process.

If the name gets through the system in character creation then all bets are off and the Devs/EA shouldn't have a leg to stand on. It's their job to make sure players can't create names deemed offensive. Banning players after the name has been allowed to go through their system is a totally absurd.

Personally I get a laugh out of some of the names I see make it through. Players can be very creative.

Shame on the Devs and the GMs for this type of nonesense!

 

[Theo_GL]

You are only hearing one side of the story. Most of the so called 'innocent' people usually aren't telling the whole story. I would not be surprised if the rest of his player names were questionable.

If only one person got to speak at trials - everyone would be innocent.

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Why even tempt fate with naming your pet that? To see what you can get away with?

 

[Storm]

I agree, Naming the pet that to begin with was a mistake! also there is always more to the story and 2 sides to them all!
The OP needs to email EA and talk with them! There is no way the people here can come to a informed VERDICT when we dont have all the details!
maybe the gm was in the wrong or maybe the OP is not giving us the whole story and has 10 warnings for the same thing... We just dont know either way!

 

[DenAlton036]

Its joke when u look at the crap and abuse the pvp community litter the general chat with day in day out....

Exactly, and the chat filters do not work.

 

[Deaol]

Yeah thats a pretty pathetic reason to get banned considering you can blatantly watch people multibox @ events, its quite funny to see a herd of naked synchronized dudes running and hiding off screen waiting for the EM to pop the item vending machine.

 

[soze]

we seem to be seeing a few posts about GM's suspending and/or banning players lately.

Whats the deal? Hope GMs are not getting overly, and unnecessarily agressive about enforcing rules without applying reason.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

More to the point if your able to pass a name through the character creation process that name should never get you banned. One shouldn't be able to input a name that is bannable, players should receive a message stating that the name is "invalid" upon the character creation process.

I agree with the sentiment, however, the name filter needs SERIOUS work. Some names are invalid for no apparent reason, such as "John Smith"... Even words with Ultima connections like 'Compassion,' are invalid as names, house names, or even rune titles. I'm sure people can cope with the 5th through 7th letters of that word in that particular order...

Once they fix silly issues like this then yes, anything that passes the name filter should be unbannable (barring new serial killer, crime victim, et al names).

As far as the OP naming a horse what he did... Eh... I've seen worse player names and guild tags. If these are seriously the things the GMs are wasting their time on (instead of policing the crapfest that general chat is 24/7), they have poor prioritizing skills.

 

[EvilPixieWorks]

Wow! Hot topic tonight. I have a couple responces for a few posts.

Unfortunately, the last few weeks... recent months, it seems we are hearing a few more of these kind of stories then normal. It really does sound like there is someone new and really inexperienced driving the GM boat and that really kind of frightens me when you could say something totally innocent, take a break from the keyboard, or even play a joke on someone you know and end up banned.

What about being banned for accusing a scripter of being a scripter? Criminals really love turning around the truth to someone who’s busted them on their actions. We can't post these things here, only report them, yet the reporting process never seems to see the criminal busted while he keeps at it.

Saying the “R word” is offensive... but it's part of the mentality of the standard PK player, I hate to say. I sure don’t think it's worth banning someone and loosing a customer. I’ve seen far worse.

And yeah... I totally agree, temping fate with questionable names is foolish. I see them all the time on Atlantic. Not as many offensive names, but just flat out stupid ones. If it were up to me... I would take a player with a stupid name to jail and give them the opportunity to change the name with a non-transferable deed, like a hair change deed. How many characters named “Harry Potter” do we need running around the game? A few years back, it was Lord of the Rings. I’ve seen some very questionable crafter names, but it's all a matter of prospective. Mostly, this would be an option, but I think we can all agree we’ve made some naming mistakes at one time or the other. One time, I had the soul stone fragments to save all the skills, clear the bank and character... delete, made new, put all the skills back... all with a nice new name and never spend a penny on a name change token. They sure aren't handing out SS Frags again... why not a little love now and then an offer for a free fix? Would be Coolsville.

 

[EvilPixieWorks]

I agree with the sentiment, however, the name filter needs SERIOUS work. Some names are invalid for no apparent reason, such as "John Smith"... Even words with Ultima connections like 'Compassion,' are invalid as names, house names, or even rune titles. I'm sure people can cope with the 5th through 7th letters of that word in that particular order...

Oh lord... I have run into that issue with the “compassion” lettering thing before. So amazingly stupid. Even putting one of the plants on vendors, you see that infantile editing take place. A few times, naming characters even for cross-shard transfers, I’ve hit that wall or walls like it... unclear reasons to say a name is unacceptable. It would be so nice to ask WHY... but I can't even remember an example of something I had issue with. I’ve made so many of these trade characters.

And for me... not that you can't tell, I’m very playful with my naming process. It's true for characters as well as pets. It wasn’t so clear back in the olden days, so my oldest characters have the least fun names. My big dog being PINK and named “A Strawberry Poptart” people laugh about all the time. A blue beetle my crafter has named “A Double Burger”... pet names should be fun, because you can change them. Hell, I saw a vendor name at one of my own malls today that had me laughing out loud. Fun is better.

 

[Salivern_Diago]

ITs quite simple really, the Devs should put in a word filter for the mroe extreme words. However as the game as a Teen rating it shouldnt be handled like a kid of 4 will be playing the game. Sounds like a GM is becoming a bit too big for thier boots.

After all I seen the same scripters I've seen and reported for the last 6 years and still they are going on. HA!

 

[pgib]

While i don't know exactly what happend in this case it's good to see GMs enforcing the tos. Let's hope they don't stop here.

 

[hen]

If you had called the nice horsey John or Cecilia, this would never have happened!

 

[lucitus]

I think they have too much paying customers, they need to reduce the income. Heard that often the last 2 weeks, first they are doing nothing the year and now they are banning the last strangers playing UO?

The UO style and the ToS conformed style is soo different, they have to accept that the life changed, otherwise they can shut down!

 

[Salivern_Diago]

TBH though futt bucker isnt exactly offensive unless your the kind of person who loves drama and being the cause/center of it.

If I were you I'ld lodge a formal complaint (as in posted not email) detailing what happened, citing the terms of the ToS you were told you were in breech off and then point out the 'teen' rating the game has. Make sure you state that you wish to make a personal complaint about the GM too, and that you believe he was acting in an unprofessional manner (Although this is EA and thier whole CS/GM staff act unprofessional) and that you are a victim of malicious intent.

I dont know where you live but if its in the UK then you have statory contract rights that you can act on. Luckilly in the UK the companys/corporations dont have that much control over the law and as such we have laws that protect the consumer rather than the corporations dictating terms to the govenment. I hope this gets sorted out for you, asnd demand renumeration for your time, upset and gametime spent while being 'banned'.

 

[Mapper]

Although you didn't break the TOS, Seeing as the words Futt and Bucker alone aren't offense, I am sorry you were banned.

That said, I would never risk my items, account and house by using the name 'Futt Bucker' as its clearly obvious what you are trying to say.

 

[Ludes]

Quite clearly a tongue in cheek attempt to reference profanity..
The ban was justified I think ..

 

[Kayne]

It reminds me of not to long ago when bio took over stratics there was a kid who worked for them who attacked people them edited there posts.

Anyone else remember that, same kinda joke lol

Thunderz

Bioware DO NOT and NEVER have owned stratics!

 

[weins201]

When you signed the ToS you agreed to not use profanity

get over it you deserve it for ever naming you mare like you admitted to. A ban for somthing you "fixed" is still justified.

:gun:Stop trying to make it look like you are innocent. You violated the ToS so now you suffer the punishment.

 

[LadyNico]

It reminds me of not to long ago when bio took over stratics there was a kid who worked for them who attacked people them edited there posts.

Anyone else remember that, same kinda joke lol

Thunderz

Bioware DO NOT and NEVER have owned stratics!

Kayne's right, Thunderz, but you're actually part-right. The actions you mention weren't under bioware's ownership, but rather it was an employee of the current owners of Stratics.

 

[4gregu]

Wayyy back in the day I had a character named "Chuck U Farley" and I was pulled into the macro room by a gm and told that if I didn't delete the character right away, I would be banned. I asked if he could change the name for me (before name change tokens) he said no. So i lost all those skills i had worked up on that character.

If the OP story is true, I really hate that it has come to this extreme action by gm's. Can UO really afford to lose paying customers over a pet name that was already changed?

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

So I'm playing on ATL shard on my crafter this afternoon and I get pulled to jail.

A GM appears and tells me that I have a character named 'futt bucker' on ATL shard on my account and that it violates the terms. I DO NOT, nor have I EVER had a character named this name. I did however, have a dread mare by this name, which I changed a few weeks back.

I told the GM all 5 of my char names (NONE of which matched said name) and offered screenshots and to log in on said characters in front of him. He asked me to log off for 5 minutes while he 'addressed the issue'. 30 minutes later, I log on to the account terminated screen.

I received NO EMAIL.

I logged on a temp account and paged. A different GM pretty much told me to write an email to [email protected] and left the convo.



Are you kidding me EA? To this day, a UO GM has NEVER done ANYHTING for me besides telling me to 'write an email'. Update your prehistoric and pathetic customer support...or at least provide some communication in which I can defend myself against your obviously faulty claim.

I hope your kidding? You named you horse the exact named you got jailed for and you think this is a miss understanding?

Are all your other charactures named something fluffy like...

Joe Smith
Shara Harris
Queen Butterfly
Fluffy Bunny

and the like. Come on bud... you do the crime and carry the attitude you go to jail. Spare us.

 

[kleos]

Wayyy back in the day I had a character named "Chuck U Farley" and I was pulled into the macro room by a gm and told that if I didn't delete the character right away, I would be banned. I asked if he could change the name for me (before name change tokens) he said no. So i lost all those skills i had worked up on that character.

If the OP story is true, I really hate that it has come to this extreme action by gm's. Can UO really afford to lose paying customers over a pet name that was already changed?

On Atl, I had a crafter named 'my Sex Slave' who I used to bank sit with for at least a year or two. I never did any kind of RP stuff with the name or anything. I just thought it would be funny if everything I made was crafted by 'my Sex Slave'

he had even been to jail once or twice in the past....

Then one day I got pulled in and told the name had been deemed offensive. I did get the option to choose a new name.

 

[Salivern_Diago]

Well if something like that is a voilation of ToS then I would be screwed if I named something like the following:

Essex (As thats the county where I live)
S****horpe (A town I recently had a holiday in and which the Stratics filter blocked out immedately)
Twitter (I mean, who dosnt know what that is?)
FUBAR (I've seen that often)

They're all referencing something that could be seen as dodgy/swearing. Would I too get banned if I used one of those four? Ok maybe action was required BUT at the time not a month later and it certainly dosnt deem a ban. A warning on the account maybe but thats it. Its over-zealous and a bit extreme not to mention way too late.

Thing is guys this game as a Teen rating, so some things are going to have to be looked over. Its not a kids game and believe me if you have kids they will have heard and seen far worse than what someone has written in the game. Futt Bucker while it needs a littl thought to work out what it really means, would a 11 year old click on? Sorry but its a drama case and the GM took it a bit too far IMO, expecially as it took him/her a month to action it.

 

[longshanks]

given the uo announcement on tos violations i would say it tis the season to tread softley.

if its a word that you would be uncomfortable saying to your mother its probably not appropriate.

a novel idea would be to play the game in the spirit of how its meant to be played. use approved programs without landscape navigation and turbo programs and you will have nothing to worry about.

you'll get no sympathy here spinning a one sided tale.

ho ho ho.

 

[Mook Chessy]

I have had a pet named Long Duck Dong for over 10 years...one time a GM pulled me in and after I explained it was from the movie 16 Candles (rated pg) he let it go.

 

[Picus at the office]

Wow, the stratics pvp board winners have sure come out here tonight.

With all the crap that gets said on a daily basis in this game giving some guy a ban for naming a horse that is beyond daft. All it takes is one slight mistake from any of you and then I'll be reading a thread about how unfair it is that you got banned for something.

EA needs to get those lazy GM's taught what the job is. Help the players and stop screwing the last 7 of us paying people.

 

[grig_since98]

While I believe that the filter is ridiculous, and the delay between the offense and the response is wildly unfair to you, I have to say that I feel the action taken by the GM is appropriate. Given the time elapsed and the minor nature of the problem, I think a warning and a name change ( assuming the pet even exists anymore) would have been sufficient, but I don't make those rules.

I have read that UO players are averaging well over 30 years of age. Its time to grow up a bit. Frankly, if I had my way, any name that isn't context appropriate would be changed whether it was offensive or not. I would love to see the day when everyone I ran across had a name one would expect to find in the Ultima setting.

 

[kleos]

Futt Bucker while it needs a littl thought to work out what it really means, would a 11 year old click on? Sorry but its a drama case and the GM took it a bit too far IMO, expecially as it took him/her a month to action it.

If they hadn't heard it already an 11 year old will probably giggle his/her head of for 20 minutes, and then go on with their life. If they have heard, they will probably think, it's a lame joke.

The problem is the parents get so indignant about this sort of thing, they probably page over and over till they get a sympathetic GM.

 

[Picus at the office]

ESRB ratings guide and definitions

Teen states that the game might contain "crude humor". Clearly the horse would fall in this section and hence should not be a issue.

 

[Black Sun]

Ok, there's nothing ranting here will accomplish. You have the email to dispute the ban, I suggest you use it.

Best of luck to you.