Agro from Blizzard

Dehhib

Dehhib

New Member
This was posted in on a general WoW guild page on this site but was prompted for it to become its own topic. Guild <Forgiveness Through Him>

RiverTigress said:
I feel for you, Dehhib. That is terrible to have to go through, but I'm glad you have shared it here. Technically Blizzard does have the right to make whatever rules they want since their servers are their own private property, but that seems short-sighted to not allow people to at least advertise an affiliation that directly impacts gameplay and social expectations. If Christians can't find other people to play with that will respect their values then they will most likely end up having to stop playing and supporting the game.

Personally I think your post probably deserves a thread of its own, being an issue that is a concern for more games than just World of Warcraft. I'd like to see it discussed more anyway as I am working on the formation of a guild in Everquest II, but the discussion might get lost in or not be appropriate for this thread.

~ Taigris
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Basicly i was asking for advise about the situation i have atm in WoW about recruiting for my christain guild. A GM contacted me saying im not allowed to recruite in public channels and i have to change my guild name. We havn't preached in game only recruited stateing that we are a christian guild in the message plx help

GM.jpg


Even though they say the name is not in Blizzards policies, there any many other more religous names on WoW and on my server. For exaple:
Jesus was Soulstones
PathFinders
Divined
also the most famous EU WoW guild is called Nihilum, thats religious however not a problem.
If a non-chrsitain guild had the name it wouldn't be a problem so imo that is discimination.

p.s. complaint to bliz post Clearing things up
 
Blargh, our first guild was simply disbanded on religious terms.

As a Christian, you still are subject to the rules of society and the consequences of not following them. Blizzard sucks when it comes to these types of policies but ultimately, their position is to let sleeping dogs lie until somebody complains. You can see somebody with the name JesusSux and wonder why it hasn't been dealt with to your hearts content. But know this, it will be dealt with if you report it.

Redeemed is probably the longest running Christian guild in all of WOW. Even Christian employees at Blizzard have joined it from time to time.

Anyway, I think some of the best ways to promote a Christian guild is simply by acting as one. And doing little things that catch peoples eye that says you are different some how.

At the end of PUG runs I say goodbye with a † God Bless †, that gets a lot of response. I ignore the negative ones and pursue the positive ones. Also remember to be Christlike in your groups and not be afraid to "shake the dust off and move on" when the group doesn't accept you. If a person is contantly "God dang.." "For Christs sake..." you know the people I mean, stand up and say "Hey, please don't take the Lords name in such away." So what if you get kicked out of the group, who's acceptance is more important? If you are kicked out somebody in the group will take notice and a change will start. Even if your guild is only 10 people strong, be a shining light on the server, people will be drawn.

===edit===

Be a positive influence in PUGs, you'll be suprised at the response.
 
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from the post on Bliz forums i did get the name of the guild back however there is still a penalty on my account. i might advotise as a 'Minoity guild' rather than a christain guild and /w for info, i.e. private channel then
 
I am seeing this as two separate issues here: the guild name itself and the guild openly communicating its Christianity in public channels.

First concerning the guildname, there usually are naming convention standards in place for RPG's to be able to protect the integrity of their lore and gaming environment since that is what the company is investing money and labor in and what customers are paying to recieve, otherwise they would just go to more generic social-networking sites to meet their needs instead. So public disrespect of that lore can be seen as disruption of their business and livelihood. Now from a Christian perspective I am not saying we shouldn't be publicly disrespectful of lore that promotes a multi-diety environment and I know we don't want to be guilty of coming across as being ashamed of Christ and not willing to publicly proclaim Him wherever we go, but since doing it in-game could be considered akin to being disruptive to business on someone else's private property then I think it requires much consideration and prayer and guidance from the Holy Spirit as to what will do the most good in honoring God.

We are not supposed to keep silent out of fear of persecution and we are supposed to let our light shine before men, but we're also supposed to be law-
abiding citizens and respectful of authority and I would think that would carry through to being respectful on someone else's private property as well. Jesus preached publicly and openly but I can't remember a time when he disrupted someone's business to do it (and I'm sure there were many sinful businesses at the time -- he had to find the sinners and prostitutes to preach to from somewhere) except for the Temple, and He had the right to do that because the Temple was His to begin with.

That being said, <Forgiveness Through Him> is not something I would consider anything close to being disruptive of anyone's experience except for maybe someone who was so hostile against Christ specifically that they will hurt anyone who carries any reference to Him out of spite, and such a person is probably petitioning to try to get you personally, and by extension Christ, removed from the world, not just the reference. Blizzard should not take such a petition seriously since it's not justifiable for someone to petition for someone else to take their 'real world reference' out of the game as a result of their own 'real world anger' that they are not leaving behind. But I guess there are two ways of looking at this: one is that Forgiveness Through Him is genuinely an obvious religious reference as Blizzard is claiming, and that is cause for rejoicing because that means we're doing a good job as Christians in communicating that truth to the world as a whole that people would actually know that and carry within them to know where to go when they are ready to accept it, or two is that the GM or whoever ordered to GM to take action is lying to you about it being so obvious and they are indeed selectively persecuting you, in which you can also rejoice because you are guaranteed a reward in heaven for suffering this.

As for not being able to publicly label your guild as Christian though, that seems pretty unjustifiable and not smart. Recruiting for a guild is not the same as recruiting for a religion, and labelling a guild as Christian is just honest advertising that is helpful, not harmful, to the entire gaming community. Saying that we're a group of people that play around certain values, priorities, and schedules is important in environments like WoW where advancement is largely dependent on large numbers of people being able to work together and respect each other and be on the same page at the same time. I can't see any reasoning for that except just to discourage Christians, or anyone else who wants to see some moral standards or at least not constant swearing in the people they interact with, from playing.

I'm sorry this ended up so long, but this is an issue I am currently wrestling with too in the formation of my own guild, whether it is better to brightly shine out for the Lord to glorify him and not be ahsamed or afraid of the consequences, or to fly more under the radar to be able stay in the world longer to reach more people through making personal relationships instead. I am also concerned about the action taken against you spreading out to other WoW guilds as well so I will pray for you all.

~ Taigris
 
Interesting. A few years ago, they had a lawsuit filed against them by a lesbian that was criticized while recruiting for a homosexual guild. Blizzard employees eventually told her to stop advertising as a gay guild because it was drawing too much negative attention.

The woman won the lawsuit and was permitted to advertise however she wanted, as long as she didn't promote homosexuality in the channels (but was allowed to say that she - and her guild - was gay).

I find it odd that Blizz is starting back up that same machine that they've already had shut down in court.
 
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Exaclty the only reason why guild is getting attention, is because of the negative attention other players of the game are giving it, and will defend my right to continue recruiting in public channels however i am going to temporarily put public recruitment on hiatus. But when it comes down to it i would rather save one person or even plant one seed than have my bank of epics.

Im sujesting we come up with a group statment to blizzard protesting our rights in a structured and factual way, so we can as a minimum defend our right to recruit in trade etc. I don't mind putting my account on the line for it if needed
 
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When Redeemed (formerly known as Choose Joy and then previously ti that it was God's Peons) started we were fortunate enough to have CGA and ToJ behind us. This meant that we did not have a ton of recruiting to do when we started. We had plenty of members.

When I was a recruiter for Redeemed I would post in Blizzard's recruiting forum about Redeemed, and to be perfectly honest, I cannot remember whether I mentioned we were Christian or not. I believe we did, but don't hold me to it. :)

Blizzard effectively disbanded our first guild (we moved to Stonemaul and changed the name to Redeemed from Choose Joy) by making us take the word "God" out of God's Peons. That is the only run-in with Blizzard that Redeemed as a guild had ever faced to my knowledge.

I did not think it is "illegal" to pronounce your guild as Christian, but I know it is "illegal" to pronounce you only accept Christians into your guild. When you go to recruit be careful that you or your recruiters know the TOS, and when you choose a guild name, make sure it isn't screaming "We're Christian!". That will get Blizz all over you again.

On Stonemaul, Redeemed is a widely known Christian guild. Over time people slowly recognized it.
 
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that's odd, because The Forgiven never had trouble with GMs that I'm aware of, and a profession of faith was a requirement for admission to the guild.

Of course, we never recruited.
 
I like this comment from the GM

Whilst we have no qualms with similarly minded folks banding together within a guild, we do not wish for them to be openly advertised inside our virtual world in which Religion is not a recognised entity, to avoid offending others.
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Soooo...if your association is religion, then how are you supposed to band together "similarly minded folks"? Not to mention, there are any number of things that go on in general chat that aren't a "recognised entity" within WoW. I mean, where's Chuck Norris in lore?
 
I can understand where Blizzard is coming from. You can have one guild that loves Jesus, but you could have another that makes fun of Jesus and insults Him in the name of their guild. Blizzard wants to avoid any scandal all together.

I'm not saying I agree with it. I just bet that's their reasoning.
 
I disagree. It's just another form of persecution. The gay-guild promoting (and banning people that harassed the lesbian) is a perfect example that we're not on a level playing field.
 
I am with TJ on this one. If a guild started up that was recruiting saying "If you hate Christians and think they all stink, join our we hate christians guild" we would all be on to Blizz before they knew what hit them. You can't have your cake and eat it to, either you say no recruiting on the basis of religion, gender, politic, etc. or you let a free for all. It is not persecution per say, I mean after all Blizz did not want the gay guild recruiting and even after the legal case they were not allowed to recruit on the basis of sexuality. In any case I dont think it is a case of Blizz hating christians, I suspect they could not care less and only want to protect their own backsides and in this environment fair enough.

In any case they have not ruled that you can not recruit on your website have they? If so dont most guildies just type "christian guild" into google to join up. Stoping open recruiting in chat does not stop the many other ways of recruiting.
 
ppar3566 said:
In any case they have not ruled that you can not recruit on your website have they? If so dont most guildies just type "christian guild" into google to join up. Stoping open recruiting in chat does not stop the many other ways of recruiting.
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This is how SoE gets all of its members. And over the years we have gotten 100+

Treat your guild like a church. It doesn't matter how big or small, its the people. A bigger guild doesn't mean better (in fact, I find its quite the opposite, less intimacy and harder to manage), and trust God that He will give you the perfect amount of people for His plan in your guild.
 
ppar3566 said:
In any case they have not ruled that you can not recruit on your website have they? If so dont most guildies just type "christian guild" into google to join up. Stoping open recruiting in chat does not stop the many other ways of recruiting.
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On a related note: Our Info for Christian World of Warcraft guild list thread currently has 36,937 views.

Our List of Christian World of Warcraft guilds thread has 4,923 views.

Posting about your Christian guild on these forums gets attention.

Blizzard asks all users to agree to Terms of Service before allowing them to play World of Warcraft. While Blizzard's response to the homosexual guild mentioned earlier in this thread proves their enforcement is not fair or even, I still believe recruiting in compliance with the ToS is a more productive use of your time as Guild Leader.

There's no shortage of uninformed anti-Christian sentiment on gaming forums. I've been active in the Christian gaming community for nearly 10 years and I've seen countless hateful, unoriginal, misinformed, and false posts deriding Christianity. I've also seen a wealth of posts from non-Christians who applaud our efforts.

You have two choices as a Guild Leader:
  1. You can try to explain the logical fallacy of identifying people one doesn't know with Salem residents who burned witches in 1692-1693 or with mobs who massacred Jews during the age of the Crusades.
  2. You can be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves, focus your recruiting efforts where recruiting is allowed (like this forum), witness through your style of play in-game, and be prepared to answer when people ask why you're helping them.
I long ago stopped visiting recruiting call threads once I posted them on public forums. I learned that the people interested in joining would make the effort to fill out a membership application while the bitter and hateful would almost always content themselves with a caustic reply. It wasn't a productive use of my time to return to the thread.

I know I've gotten slightly off-topic, but I thought I'd share a bit of hard-earned experience in hopes of saving you time and energy.
 
Tek7 said:
Blizzard asks all users to agree to Terms of Service before allowing them to play World of Warcraft. While Blizzard's response to the homosexual guild mentioned earlier in this thread proves their enforcement is not fair or even, I still believe recruiting in compliance with the ToS is a more productive use of your time as Guild Leader.
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QFT . If you got out of your way to be petulant and arguementative when you get called to task over not following the ToS which you agreed to when you joined WoW you run the risk of destroying any good work you may have done by being a Christian guild. I was pretty cranky with Blizz when I first read the OP but having had the chance to think about it I think the right thing to do is suck it up, say "my bad" and focus on what you are allowed to do rather than what you can't do.
 
Here is a thought, how about approach it like this:


"Guild A is recruiting all classes see our website www.ABCDEFG.com for more information or whisper me."

And if they whisper you, "We are a guild of people who are Christ and or family oriented seeking members who are interested in a clean playing enviroment a fellowship with other likeminded gamers. If this interests you...."
 
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Gods_Peon said:
Here is a thought, how about approach it like this:


"Guild A is recruiting all classes see our website www.ABCDEFG.com for more information or whisper me."

And if they whisper you, "We are a guild of people who are Christ and or family oriented seeking members who are interested in a clean playing enviroment a fellowship with other likeminded gamers. If this interests you...."
Click to expand...

Why exactly did you link to hooked on phonics?

use http://example.com/ which is reserved for that purpose.
 
vibrokatana said:
Why exactly did you link to hooked on phonics?

use http://example.com/ which is reserved for that purpose.
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Have you ever seen how many gamers can't type or read basic English, and subsequently can't communicate effectively? I think that the link is appropriate :)

Although GP does present an effective way to get around Blizzard's policy that doesn't violate the spirit of the law, so to speak.
 
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