Copyright/Profane question

Was in the middle of a multi-mission story arc for my SG. Got half way through, established a ton of different characters, RPed them and everything. Then this happened. All the missions I made in advance, nearly all the characters, groups, etc. were deemed in violation of copyrights. Had to postpone the entire story just because of the massive amount of "violations" that suddenly popped up.

Please, devs. Fix this. AE is one of the few things I actually stick around this game for.

(reposting this now that a kind soul directed me to this thread)

I haven't done anything in AE for a long while, but recently went into it and realized that my AE mission, Attack of the Monsters of Legend (arc id #82060) will not work. Upon investigating, I see that a lot of the characters and mob groups are flagged with "ProfanityCopyrightDetected." Since there is no profanity anywhere in the missions, I assume this is due to copyright. The thing is, all of these characters - Abraham Van Helsing, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, Dracula, Larry Talbot, Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolfman, etc. - are in the public domain, and have been for something like 100 years!!

I've sent a petition, but it really annoys me that some idiot decided that these characters were copyrighted. What a joke. I suspect I'll never gain any satisfaction via the petition, so decided to post it here.

I cannot begin to state my level of dissatisfaction that this copyright/profanity filter issue is still not resolved.

I spent over 4 hours trying to fix the enormous amount of damage this filter caused to my AE Arcs. I finally gave up on one of the AE Arc fixes because I couldn't find an alternative name for a 'filtered' word/name.

I don't know what the timetable is on getting this fixed, but we're starting to loose people, and once again, there is a stigma now locked onto doing AE missions as a result of this problem.

I asked one of my dedicated AE SG mates if he'd done any AE mishes lately (since he usuallly did 4-5 other folk's AE arcs a week) and said he will NO LONGER do AE missions; he's sick and tired of all the issues and problems that keep cropping up with the 'quality' (i.e., not farms) ones he wants to do. I couldn't help but become irritated that AE once again looses another interested body, this one in particular, an AE fan, all from the cause of lack of attention and fixes/updates REQUIRED to keep this feaure working right.

I mean really, when was the last Dev's choice issued to any AE Arc? Ya, not lately, that's for sure.

SUGGESTION: With AE on a severe wane of updates and with Incarnate sucking up a slew of players, devs need to, once and for all, KEEP the AE system manned with at least one dedicated dev (preferably two) to keep AE rolling with all the issue updates, new AE features, character changes, faults, customization map adds, NPCs, unique feature abilities (Anti-Matter's orbital ray of death feature for AE mishes, for example) etc. In other words, LET'S GET BACK ON THE AE HORSE, DEVS!

I'm seriously disappointed that once again a key feature in this game is left withering on the vine, dying.

AE, Welcome to the dev's blind eye club: fellow compatriots-Bases, PvP, zone updates, EAT customization. Expect more club members soon (tm).

Here is the response I just received to my petition:

"You will need to change these character names if the Architect interface says you should. The Development Team is aware of the issue, and any work you do to change them before any change to the Architect system itself should be viewed as a workaround."

What a joke.

Just found out the other night that the arc in my signature isn't working because one of the NPCs is named "Lieutenant Nelson" (after my good buddy Eric Nelson and patterned after his main character). "Nelson" is apparently copyrighted.

I assure you that the character in question is not, in fact, a surly yellow pre-teen boy in a torn denim vest that points and laughs "HA-ha" at the misfortune of others, and is in fact a female Spines/Invuln Scrapper in a Longbow costume.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

This new filter has pretty much crippled the MA engine in the game. The Devs need to make a clean sweep and just drop the filter all together. I mean, seriously Devs, you have just shut down (for well over a month now) one of the more interesting draws to your game. This should be priority one, and an EASY fix by just removing the filter.

Let's get to it. Your paying custumers are only going to continue paying to not use the MA system for so long.

I agree, it's just plain ridiculous. And what simpleton decided that "Dracula," "Nelson," and a bunch of uncopywriteable words and names are copyrighted in the first place?

I just recently went into my only published story. Which has been out a year. And just found out it was unplayable. My arch was centered around my Villan Group, the Shadow Wolves, and had alot of my villans as the AVs in it. One of which is named Dark Thorn.

Well, she was flagged "ProfanityCopyrightDetected"... after a few emails to customer support, they said the filter flagged her because 'Thor' was in Dark Thorn..... also flagged was a npc you rescue, named Ronald O'Conner.... but they didn't mention why he was flagged.

But seriously? Dark Thorn is flagged over Thor bieng in the word Thorn... REALLY?!
It is very rediculous.... They pretty much said Id just have to change the names in my story. Well... my story is about MY villan group and villans, changing the name ruins it totaly.....

I basicaly just unpublished my story. Its useless now. I dread if this new filter ever goes into filtering player names outside of AE.....

They need to rethink this. This filter has ruined AE for alot of us. Im really starting to get frustrated with alot of desicions made lately.

Just a question - haven't been able to take part in the live conferences, but has this been raised with the Devs lately on UStream? Something to remind them that this problem is still going on and people are getting pissed.

This is just nuts. It doesn't take a lot of brain power to know what names are copyrighted and what aren't. I can't believe this has gone on for so long.

The "Man" in "Manager" triggers the profanity/copyright filter.

And here I thought that my arcs had escaped this bug. Guess you really can't tell until you try to enter the mission with the error.

Edit: I can use "Manager" in an objective description, just not as the name of a captive.

Just returning to the game after a lengthy hiatus, and stumbled across this problem in AE as well. I'm afraid to check out my published arcs as i fear they're all unplayable for this and other nerfs over the months. After going over my unpublished arcs however, i can add these words to the "banned" list:

Apocalypse
Chastity
Trinity
Sentinel
Sentry


I realize some might think there's a valid reason for blocking some of these words, but the fact remains that they were all acceptable when i created them. I've made changes in order to get past this problem, but my npc Jenna Blaze sounded much better as Chastity Blaze. I'd appreciate a fix, but until then, i'll go with the flow.

A new piece of stupid: The word "things" is invalid for use in an arc title. But "thing" is ok. Apparently the devs thought the Ben Grimm Clone Saga was so terrible they didn't want anyone inadvertently reminding people of it through the mission architect.

You know what would be great? To have someone create an arc that uses a bunch of trademarked names that aren't in the filter, and also has a bunch of references to the common names that are blocked by the filter. Also, it would be nice (but somewhat time consuming) to see a complete list of common words blocked by the current filter.

After seeing this whole post up to date, i must say that the filter it is overzealous. Blocking Greek Mythology names and mythological creature names that always have been public domain, that's just over the line. I know they are working on this and the best we can do is wait for this whole issue to be fixed.

This is my point of view on the following names for both mission architect and player character: A name like Phantasm which is public domain in City of Heroes since we have access to a pet that is called Phantasm, if an Illusion Controller reach level 32 and up, this name does not represent any danger along others mentioned here like Dracula, Hades, Frankenstein, etc.

As others here i understand the fear of another lawsuit but for none of those companies can damage Paragon for using a Greek Mythology or Urban Myth names. Their character concepts, well that's a different story but for that a lot of people here have something that we call 'Creativity'

Someone real special here saw my Phantasm creation already and her name is not Andrea or Danny, she does not have a cloak and a mask of death and she does not speak with a special voice changer to intimidate the crime bosses. She does not either have telekinesis powers and a arrogant greedy attitude. :P, she is an average specter from the Netherworld.
The costumes i created for her are perfect for any story arc based in the Netherworld, Paranormal activity , Ancient and Urban Myth themes. So it will be nice to use her for an arc or for someone to use her costumes for any of this film and literature genres.

The last thing i can laugh at is of Nelson being marked as Copyright/Profane.

Now let's wait for this to be fixed. We have enough evidence here that this filter will never work for anyone who just want to create an arch without braking the rules.

Part of the problem here is that some missions may have corrupt data - at least some entries seem to have corrupted data in the error display and then any name is considered invalid, even hitting the keyboard at random.

Cannot remove the culprit characters and cannot change their names...

Any update to the cursed list coming soon?

I don't think they added anything to it since Dr Aeon's last post...

Pretty please?

One for the list: the common real-world name 'Byron' is blocked. No idea why.