Character name contains sensitive words...?

[Pumathang]

Tried to create a character and keep getting this message for the name I want to use, "Meliara" (which is the name I normally use in games like this). Is this some kind of bug? I started over and created a second character and still got the same message.

I have a couple different names I use based on the overall look/class of the character I typically play, but due to the extremely limited customization, none of them really "fit" so I want to use this one. Everything else seems fine, just really frustrating to get this message for no apparent reason.

[Prototyp_002]

yeah, there are quite a few things on the list of forbidden wording. Wanted to give a Weaponmaster the title "Klingenmeister" -> meaning "blademaster", but it was forbidden. After trying and removing letters, i found out that the letter-combination "nm" in every word gives a bad result, confusing the heck of me.
I wanted to name the chests fitting to the corresponding items -> "thick rope". But "thick" (in my language) is forbidden. So i always name these chests "adipose ropes", making little jokes about it.

Yeah, it seems kinda pointless, sometimes annoying.
Hope you find a name you like to use for this game.

[Pumathang]

Originally posted by Prototyp_002:

yeah, there are quite a few things on the list of forbidden wording. Wanted to give a Weaponmaster the title "Klingenmeister" -> meaning "blademaster", but it was forbidden. After trying and removing letters, i found out that the letter-combination "nm" in every word gives a bad result, confusing the heck of me.
I wanted to name the chests fitting to the corresponding items -> "thick rope". But "thick" (in my language) is forbidden. So i always name these chests "adipose ropes", making little jokes about it.

Yeah, it seems kinda pointless, sometimes annoying.
Hope you find a name you like to use for this game.

It seems VERY pointless... why on earth would they impose arbitrary restrictions in the first place? Imposing seemingly random limitations with no discernible reason (at least nothing that is conveyed to the player) is just frustrating, and there's no "benefit" whatsoever. At least if it was a profanity filter there would be some sort of purpose to it... although if someone wants to amuse themselves by naming their chests something blatantly profane, they should be allowed to---it's not like it's a game for little kids, and it's not hurting anything.

I've honestly never seen something like this before, and it's completely mind-boggling. EA bugs and glitches I can deal with, assuming they eventually get fixed, but it looks like this has been an issue for a while. I know it seems like such a stupid thing to snag on, but it has completely killed any desire I had to play an otherwise cool-looking game---not because I have some compulsive desire to have a standard character name, but because I'm getting that familiar sinking feeling that the devs don't really care about the end user experience of their game.

Doesn't mean it's not fun to play in the current state---I've got plenty of hours into games where the devs clearly just said "screw it" or abandoned the game, or just kept adding paid content without fixing longstanding game-breaking bugs... but it's usually a case of not wanting to fix or rework a complex system. Never before have I seen someone deliberately add to the code in order to obfuscate the basic functionality of saving text entered into a field, thus creating an issue that never existed in virtually any other game I've ever played. That's just... unbelievably rude.

[BigBombz]

I think the issue with seemingly arbitrary forbidden names and letter combos has something to do with developers being chinese. Perhaps there are some letter combinations and words unknown to us westerners that mean something that is forbidden in china.

But yes it some if not all these restrictions seem stupid, especially when they are enforced even when you are playing on single player mode.

Most hilarious and stupid thing in my opinion is that word f uck is censored both in character naming and in chat, but if you open a toilet door when one of your tribe npc's are in it, one of the lines they can comment is "f uck off" splashed in the middle of your screen with big letters.

[Pumathang]

Originally posted by BigBombz:

I think the issue with seemingly arbitrary forbidden names and letter combos has something to do with developers being chinese. Perhaps there are some letter combinations and words unknown to us westerners that mean something that is forbidden in china.

But yes it some if not all these restrictions seem stupid, especially when they are enforced even when you are playing on single player mode.

Most hilarious and stupid thing in my opinion is that word f uck is censored both in character naming and in chat, but if you open a toilet door when one of your tribe npc's are in it, one of the lines they can comment is "f uck off" splashed in the middle of your screen with big letters.

Seriously? Bahaha that's hilarious, I want to see this now.

But... if you're going to have a game with multiple languages, pretty sure any kind of filter would have to be language specific...? There are literally basic words like colors that can be offensive or even profane in another language... And either way, WHY? It's nobody's business... and it's NOT going to prevent me from swearing at the computer if something goes horribly sideways. Worst-case scenario, the cat gets woken up from his nap and wants to be fed... but I promise he doesn't mind. -_-#

[Judaspriester]

Originally posted by Pumathang:

Seriously? Bahaha that's hilarious, I want to see this now.

But... if you're going to have a game with multiple languages, pretty sure any kind of filter would have to be language specific...? There are literally basic words like colors that can be offensive or even profane in another language... And either way, WHY? It's nobody's business... and it's NOT going to prevent me from swearing at the computer if something goes horribly sideways. Worst-case scenario, the cat gets woken up from his nap and wants to be fed... but I promise he doesn't mind. -_-#

It may sound hilarious, but it's kinda common to have just 1 bad word filter table in stead of a language specific one. I've already seen this in a ton of games, where you sometimes even weren't able to write the translated names of the items, because of the filters. You most likely will even face the issue here in steam if you try to use some german words (e.g. "thick" => "♥♥♥♥", or trying to circumvent the censor "d_i_c_k"). The big difference we have here is that they are chinese developers, so we got a brunch of other bad words that cause issues we aren't familiar with.
Fun fact, back when playing New World, I got multiple bans with the reason "bad name" for using "Judas" in the character name.

[Pumathang]

Originally posted by Judaspriester:

It may sound hilarious, but it's kinda common to have just 1 bad word filter table in stead of a language specific one. I've already seen this in a ton of games, where you sometimes even weren't able to write the translated names of the items, because of the filters. You most likely will even face the issue here in steam if you try to use some german words (e.g. "thick" => "♥♥♥♥", or trying to circumvent the censor "d_i_c_k"). The big difference we have here is that they are chinese developers, so we got a brunch of other bad words that cause issues we aren't familiar with.
Fun fact, back when playing New World, I got multiple bans with the reason "bad name" for using "Judas" in the character name.

Forum posts I can understand... they get indexed by Google and anyone can see them. Group chat on an online game makes sense, but your own personal gaming experience, no... especially considering most games do have cursing in them. Either way, if there absolutely must be a filter for some reason, it shouldn't be implemented until it functions well enough to more or less do its job without negatively impacting basic game functionality for literally everyone else.

Developers should be developing their game with the experience of the people who just want to play it normally in mind, not a bot spamming adult content.

Or... stupid question, is there an option somewhere in the settings to just disable it? I guess I never really went through them in detail to look.

[Judaspriester]

I'm sorry but it sounds like you missed like 20 years of online gaming communities... while I really dislike them, I must sadly admit that there are existing for a reason. For the chat you can simply use symbols in order to mark censored words. But for Character names? There it becomes way more difficult.

While I would love to switch between a soft and a strict bad word filter, most games doesn't offer an option like this. also for soul mask I'm at least not aware of an option to disable the filter.

about the "it shouldn't be implemented until it functions well enough".. as programmer I'm really unsure I should laugh or cry here, given the amount of banana software I've seen until now. Not even mentioning all the "AI" tools.

[Pumathang]

Originally posted by Judaspriester:

I'm sorry but it sounds like you missed like 20 years of online gaming communities... while I really dislike them, I must sadly admit that there are existing for a reason. For the chat you can simply use symbols in order to mark censored words. But for Character names? There it becomes way more difficult.

While I would love to switch between a soft and a strict bad word filter, most games doesn't offer an option like this. also for soul mask I'm at least not aware of an option to disable the filter.

about the "it shouldn't be implemented until it functions well enough".. as programmer I'm really unsure I should laugh or cry here, given the amount of banana software I've seen until now. Not even mentioning all the "AI" tools.

I don't play a lot of online games... it's probably been at least fifteen years since I touched an MMO, and I run solo on anything with both options (Ark/Conan/Valheim/etc)... but I distinctly remember constant bots shouting things, posting ads and all sorts of nuisances. I honestly don't know if it's gotten better or worse, but my point was that online stuff is a whole different bag. Filters exist for a reason, but that doesn't mean it's appropriate to use them anywhere you want, just because you can.

I am also a programmer, and that's actually the reason it bothers me so much. If my code doesn't work properly, I'm going to fix it so it doesn't cause headaches for everyone else before I push it live. If it's already live, I'm going to fix it, not shrug my shoulders and expect everyone else to deal with it indefinitely because it's not my problem anymore. I'm certainly not going to knowingly add code that prevents the existing, working code from functioning as expected, with no explanation or benefit, at least if I can help it... we typically call that a virus, or the occasional Windows update. -_-;

If I absolutely must do something in spite of the obvious problems it will cause, I build in an easy way to toggle it right back off again... saves me the work of going back and undoing everything later, but it is indeed work for someone to go through and ADD that if it wasn't built in at the time. A checkbox in the settings would be an ideal solution... assuming it's feasible at this point. If such a setting DOES exist, please point it out to me and I will gladly take back all complaints. :)

[johnno23]

largely due to the Chinese language and the manner in which pin ying or chinese with English alphabet can string certain characters together meaning something that is undesired.
playing solo it makes no sense at all but the restrictions I imagine are due to the game having online servers and the ability for people to chat etc. So as a consequence certain combinations of English alphabet letters kinda fall into the censored bin.
Very common with games out of Asia.
I mean after all a simple word as Thick can in English be an insult when used as a derogatory towards another player essentially calling them Stupid or Dumb. Not something dev's wnat to be held responsible for in a chat box with players calling each other out for being toxic etc.