I'm sure whoever chose to charge for WoW: Forever beta access is feeling very chuffed, given Blizzard's had to expand its server size a second time

One of the developers running the World of Warcraft: Forever beta has shown no tolerance for players who think they can get away with naming their characters inappropriately. While playing the beta, the developer observed a higher number of offensive names than usual, which should have been blocked during character creation. Senior game producer Tom Ellis explained on X that the naming filter wasn't ready for dual names, but they assumed players knew what was acceptable.

Due to this oversight, Blizzard had to manually run every name through their filter system and double-check them, resulting in a wave of bans during the beta's first major patch. Some players who received the bans went on social media and Reddit to complain about being wrongly punished, as they had accidentally omitted a 4th character in their names.

Ellis clarified that there is no new policy for WoW: Forever and that players with such names would have been banned in any variation of WoW in the past. He emphasized that this is not a new policy and that individuals with such names would have earned a suspension in any time WoW has existed. Ellis stated that he should have known better than to engage in that behavior.

Since the situation is now resolved, he will provide one final update on the topic before returning to working on the launch.