I have been in World of Warcraft since day one and have 8 characters at level 70 and a guild of over 140 accounts. We are the oldest guild on our server Sisters of Elune and I have totally enjoyed it till June of 2008. We started a Guild on Sisters of Elune server the very day Burning Crusade came out in January of 2007 named The Shadow Council and never had a problem, in May of 2008 a few members left our Guild disgruntled and filed a complaint against our name as a petty and mean act at retaliation. Summarily Blizzard Entertainment was sent email after email requesting the matter be resolved, we were sent back after many attempts finally an answer from Blizzard Entertainment a "form" letter stating that the correct actions were taken against us. Regardless of the fact that on Blizzards "own" Armory Website there are a list of 3 pages of Guilds on other servers with the name Shadow Council. Yet we were the only server that had its Guild named yanked from us with that name. We all love the game play and think Blizzard has a great game. Yet we highly recommend that you do not purchase this game. Especially if you expect to be fairly treated by Blizzard Entertainment.

It tells you, in the EULA, quite clearly, that you are powerless and at the mercy of Blizzard, with basicly every aspect of the game, so even though u have a point about them singling you out, its still pretty lame that you tell people not to buy the game, i mean you did read the EULA right? Besides, the Gm system in WOW is 1 of the most reliable in existance, so as far as being treated fare, its not realy an issue. There is over 12 million players, cant expect them all to be happy. So QQ all u want but i suggest getting over it, or maybe in protest u could start a character on 1 of the servers who still have that same guild name, and join that guild, kinda a silent protest. But it seems u are kinda blinded by your frustration,so you will probably go play everquest2 or runescape LOL.

That really isnt fair at all. I would suggest contacting them directly not by email but by phone. This is really the only way to get personal treatment.

Doesn't really matter, Blizzard clearly states in the EULA that they can do whatever they want in the game. If enough people complain, things will chang, guild names, character names, ect.

seems like i said that already ^^

I got to agree with shizzie and wolfkin14 it's blizzards game to do with whatever they find necessary and proper to keep customer satisfaction up. Sorry bout your guild though.

I'm also one of the WoW Veterans. And when I first started the game in november 2004 (closed beta eu), I saw a really good idea and concept for a great mmo, but I do believe that the popularity and the big mob, had a bad influence on blizzard as well.

A small example is the first expansion which changed our end lvl experience completely.
In normal WoW it was more about the Items and gear that you had. It was also harder to get a decent piece of equipment. Nowadays (TBC+), blizzard tried to create a more 'commercial' like WoW. Enjoyable for the Big mob, everyone gets epics and everyone gets gear. It doesn't really matter if you play an hour a day or 8. I see a game which I believe that ain't that special anymore compaired what it used to be ^^.
In the old days you worked hard and a lot with friends or people ingame to accomplish something! And when you finally succeeded, then you might get an item or upgrade.

Another example is the "Olympics Tabard" that they made today. If you play a full battleground, you get a 'rare' tabard. The moment I logged on I see everyone wearing that tabard. Before I even had it, the fun for me was over.

So called "customer Satisfaction" has gone to their heads. The only thing they want is more monthly fee's ^^.

i dont agree with much of anything us said victus, but the tabard is the worst thing ive ever seen anyway, im glad its easy to get, this way i was able to see how horrible it looked before i worked for it. Atleast the dragon pet is cool.

as far as the game becomeing more 'commercial", i ultimatly think thats its saving grace.I say this because its solidified there player base, and sense wow's strong point is its robust community, thats realy the most important thing.

i play many other mmo's and they all fail to bring in large numbers of new players, and this lack of being "Commercial" results in games being nothing but elietists after the 1st year or so, basicly allianating potential new players. Where as with WOW, u can log on to any of there 100 er more servers at any given time of any day,and find new players running around the low lvl areas, and this is after over 4 years of existance. Ever heard of the major servers being merged in wow? no, this is thanks to there being "Commercial"

Ofc it has it advantages. But 8 out of 10 people I know, who were familiar with MMO's before World of Warcraft was released, HATE the game. A lot of warcraft haters out there ^^. I cant shut one of my friends up about Age of Conan. A different friend of mine loves Acheron's Call 1,2 (he is a real wow hater btw). They both are good samples of people who dislike the game for the exact reason I told you in my previous post.

I don't agree with you. You're only looking at it from your own perspective.
It's always about opinions and expectations. I've had my most entertaining moments during World of Warcraft regarding mmo's! I <3 the game ^^. That's probably why I'm still playing the game after almost 4 years.

asherons call 2 was 1 of the only mmos to get shut down ( i played the hell out of it, was alot like wow) , i bet your friend who hates WOW wishes asherons call 2 was alittle more commercial.

i also played mmo's long before wow, and games like AOC seem like a step backwards ( my opinion) aside from the visuals...its not even seemless open world, how old fashion is that?
even the amount of zoneing in eq2 drove me away, buy AOC takes it even further, totaly killing the immersion. It might aswell be lobby based like guild wars or PSO.

ah ok. Nice to actually hear that from someone. I always heard his stories you know, about how insane AC was and how much WoW sucks, etc ^^.
I do think he was partly right about some stuff though. Blizzard had a very big impact on the MMO community in 2004. There never was a game that popular and that big before it and I think they had no choice, but to 'commercialize' the game a bit, so that the big mob enjoys it.

My friend always said that when Turbine took over, AC went down the drain. It was owned by Microsoft or something b4 that right? He talked about tight communities, great friendly chatter stuff like that.

yes turbine thought it was going to be a great step for ac2 when they bought the rites (back?). But realy, basicly everyone i knew in ac2 shifted to WOW not long after turbine regained control, which was kinda a perfect storm realy, not to mention afew other mmo's ccomming out at the same time, such as L2 which was almost just as big as WOW at launch.
Its sad realy, cuz even AC1 is still active, yet ac2 joined a very very very small list of mmo's that actualy shut down completly, tuff to even dig up screen shots of the game anymore.

You can always try contacting Customer Support and tell them what happened, maybe you could convince them to change it back. But that might be asking a bit much, Blizzard just isn't forgiving on that kind of thing, and it makes them look bad.

But Good luck on trying to get it back, Also try to make a post on this in the Customer Service forum's on the WoW Site, a lot of the CM's there are very nice and helpful. :)

That's not discrimination.

Your guild was using a name that was against the EULA (by taking an in-game faction and trying to make it look like it was yours; thus impersonating Blizzard). Blizzard simply doesn't take a proactive stance on hunting down illegal names in the game and rely on the playerbase to report them. Once attention has been called to an illegal name, they take the appropriate action in order to force you to comply with the digital contract you signed when you joined the game and after every patch.

It would help tremendously if you simply tried to be original with your names rather than copying Blizzard or anyone else.

I had a similar experience, My guild is called 'Sunken Temple Pilots' and is a casual levelling guild (on EU Agrammar).

We decided to make a sister guild for raiding, as we were getting many 70s and while they didn't want to leave, did want to raid, and we'd tried raiding in guild and it causes stress and tension.

So we decided on the Black Temple Pilots, until I hit the stumbling block that I couldn't register the name.

After a lot of getting guildies to ask various GM's in gamer, and getting a lot of 'the name is not allowed and we cant tell you why' we finally got one who would come out and give us the reason.

Turns out 'Black' is censored by the software, which to me seems a little silly, I'm sure no racist guild name would last long before being slapped down or reported, and there's far more uses of 'Black' than the racial term. The GM agreed with what we were doing and stated that he'd talked to his superior, and if we could get around the coding, and we didn't get reported, then he would have no problem with the name, and actually thought it quite a good name.

So, while not entirely happy, we ended up going with the BlackTemple Pilots, leaving out the space confused the name register and made everything ok.

Its messy and I don't like badly spelled or spaced names, but we really wanted it to have a solid and obvious link to our main guild while saying to the world 'we're going raiding!'

Sometimes it's down to finding the guy who's into helping his customers and not just working from the script. (Not knocking the GMs btw, most of them are nice people who help quickly and efficiently, just seemed to take forever, probably because it was dealing with a 'dangerous' race issue, even if only just.

EDIT: forgot to mention, we'd worked out by elimination and trying other names that it was the word 'black' causing trouble, yet couldn't get anyone in power to confirm it!

It might not be fair but with hundreds of guilds and billions of subscribers sometimes the simplest fix is just to satisfy the whining party and rely on the compellingness of the game to keep the affected party playing.

I can't help but chuckle at this thread.

I have been playing Blizzard games and talking with the Blizzard employees for many years. Forget being a World of Warcraft veteran, I am a WARCRAFT veteran. In elementary school I brought in Warcraft: Orcs and Humans to show everybody this awesome new game is.

I have always loved the Blizzard employees, they have always been really cool to me. Even when I got banned for hacking, we would laugh about it and my ban would be lifted.

Blizzard is a nice company filled with fun people, this thread can't be further from the truth.

Korvas:

Just come up with a original fucking name! I can't believe how many people lack the intelligence to come up with something witty and original. This counts for both character and guildnames.

So now you come crying here telling us not to buy the game over your pathetic dispute? What do we look like? Your personal army? I cant believe you even thought for a moment that this forum isnt made up of gamers who have most likely known of WoW or even play it!

Stop crying and get over it!