World of Warcraft: Forever’s beta has proven exceptionally popular, as ‘crazy’ numbers of players flock to play this new twist on the beloved MMO. And among Forever’s new features is a character naming system that has allowed creative players to get naughty.
In all other versions of World of Warcraft, characters have one name, so you could call a character “Eurogamer” for example. However in World of Warcraft: Forever, characters have forenames and surnames, so you can call your character “Eurogamer Reader”, if you really want to.
This allows for some wonderful roleplaying possibilities, and if you randomly generate a character’s name, that’s what you get. A nice touch is that these randomly generated fantasy names align with your character’s race. The new skyborne elves have wind-themed surnames, for example. However, people love a bit of mischief, and this exploitable two name format has allowed people to create some cheekily named characters.
Naughty names have been screenshotted and posted online ever since the beta launched. One Reddit user – FarKiwi_4882 – shared their collection of noteworthy picks including “Hemorrhoid Man”, “TBCisgone Forthisshit”, and “Bigpeniss Cok”. To which another user, yqozen, responded: “Behold the humankind in all its glory,” which seems about right.
Of course, for as long as video game enthusiasts have been given the freedom to express their creative side, they’ve been quick to get freaky with it. Games like Spore were laden with phallic community creations, and Mythic Quest, a TV show based around game development, grabbed the issue with both hands, addressing the “time to penis” problem in one of its episodes.
Still, this deluge of naughty names has drawn a statement from Blizzard. One player, who complained about being suspended from the WoW: Forever beta, received an official response on the World of Warcraft forums. Customer support rep Vrakthris confirmed that the World of Warcraft naming policies remain present in the beta, and that those reported for having especially naughty names are at risk of having their beta access removed. Blizzard has long relied on player reports to clamp down on such names.
Whether or not this will remain a continuous battle Blizzard has to fight when World of Warcraft: Forever releases in November remains to be seen, but the desire to be crude remains a pathologic urge for us humans. Unless players are keen to report their fellow players for such names, we could very well continue to see such mischief for some time.
