Dear Blizzard,

First of all, I really do have to thank you for changing the name of that guy called Longjohnson. Yeah, He sent us this pretty long rant about how it was unfair his name was changed, but honestly, it was a pretty clear violation of the naming policy against inappropriate references to bodily parts or functions (Sorry Jason, I'm only siding with you to a point here. Your character's name needed to be changed). That said, I'll give him this: It is pretty annoying that he was able to then proceed to the Armory and find 19 characters named Longjohnson and 60 characters named Bigjohnson. If a name is impermissible because of being profane or inappropriate on one server, it should count on them all, right? Every server has the same set of naming rules, except for RP servers, which have the extra "appropriate for an RP server" qualifier, so this shouldn't be a problem. Mike has actually observed that enforcement tends to be a bit lax in the past regarding both the naming policy and RP server policy, but I figured it was worth bringing up again.

I've heard about this multiple times since Ritual of Refreshment was first introduced in 2.3: Mages are a little combusted over casting this food creation spell in the battlegrounds. Their first complaint was the reagent cost-- even though casting buffs is free in BGs, the reagent cost is still there for mages, and so lots of them haven't bothered casting it at all (I ran an AB to research this story-- tough work, but someone's got to do it-- and though we had two mages, I didn't see a table at all).

But now, the other problem arising is actually ninja looters-- people are joining the battlegrounds, grabbing all the food from the table, and then afk-ing out. It seems crazy to me, but it's happening, and Neth says (as per Blizzard's rules) that stealing items from other players in this way isn't actually a violation of game policies. But it is dumb. Never mind why you would need all that food, but it seems like the issue would be easy enough to fix-- either make food conjured in BGs stay in BGs, or just make the food unique to 100 (apparently people are sometimes stealing all 50 stacks right off the table).

Of course, that doesn't fix the other RoR problems-- a few mages are also wondering why they get to lay a great spread, while only getting crumbs and water themselves, but that's a problem for another day. Have you had your Manna biscuits ganked in the BGs?

This post on the official forums, like many others in languages that aren't English, got closed down. Why? Because it's a policy of Blizzard that they do not "offer foreign language support" on the forums (although, in looking through the Forums Guidelines, I can't see anything that officially says that). At any rate, the rule is no language but English on the official forums, and Timbal is sticking by that policy.

And it's not just Spanish-- I've seen this come up on the EU forums as well, when someone posts in French or German. Why is Blizzard so opposed to players posting in their native language? Of course, as Timbal says, not everyone can know every language, but Timbal knew enough Spanish to realize the original thread (called "server latino") was asking for new realms. And this is 2007-- is it too much to ask for one Blizzard forums employee that speaks Spanish, or in the EU, French or German? They may not know enough to actually answer the questions in that language, but they should know enough to police players who are speaking in that language, maybe in a special foreign language section of the forum.

Now, also according to forums policy (but also not listed in the "guidelines"), you're also not supposed to request new realms, so even if the thread was in English, it would have been closed anyway. And if someone speaking a foreign language is somehow being obscene, that doesn't belong on the forums either. But it's unfair for people who have legitimate questions or requests and want to posit them in their native language to be shut down by Blizzard automatically. Nine million people play this game, and it's very likely a large number of them don't speak English as their native language-- for Blizzard to completely ignore them on the forums is a poor decision.

Update: Our terrific commenters point out that there are French, Spanish, and German forums for the EU servers. But the fact remains that Blizzard closes, without second thought, any thread started in a foreign language on the US servers.

The rogue Grenthar sighed as he slowly walked through the crowd at the main entrance of Stormwind. It had been a long day of slaughtering boars and thinning out the Gnoll population, but it was worth it-- he had a pack full of skins and trinkets to put up for auction. He entered the House, sticking to the shadows by instinct, and when his turn came, dealt quickly and quietly with the auctioneer, firmly setting each starter and buyout price for his goods.

Suddenly, there was a yell from outside in the city: "OMG did you just see what happened on 24? Jack BAuer ROXXORS!!"

Yeah, personally, I'm not that big on roleplaying, but I can see what people get out of it-- complete immersion in a world where they're the hero. Unfortunately for those really interested in it, the illusion is so easy to break that even on RP servers, Blizzard doesn't really enforce roleplaying that much. From what I've gathered, the majority of it takes place in groups and guilds of people committed to doing it right.

So when Patsie asks why Blizzard even has an RP policy when they don't enforce it, I can see what he's saying. And maybe Blizzard should crack down on non-RPers, just as they've cracked down on gold spammers and AFKers. What if everyone on an RP server could report someone with just a right click, and if enough reports came in on that person, they earned a suspension or even a ban from the server entirely? You have to think that if Blizzard made a serious effort to shut down non-RP activity on an RP server, they'd become what they were meant to be in the first place-- servers where everyone actually played a role.

Then again, people who don't roleplay are paying their $15 like the rest of us, and, as Patsie says, there are lots of people on the RP servers who didn't join them to RP. But if Blizzard is advertising these servers as RP, shouldn't they be taking steps (beyond enforcing the naming convention, which is iffy itself) to make them so?