Quote from Gantrithor

We specifically choose the words we do to best convey a thought or an idea that we have. When our ability to make this choice is impaired, our ability to accurately convey our thoughts and ideas is as well. Censorship does just this. And TiKels? "Synonyms" will not suffice - no, they just won't do. You still lose the feel of the words, even if you preserve the meaning. Try reading some classic literature with actiblision's censorship applied to it and call me back if you still disagree.

THIS. Though I think that "Actiblizzion" would've been a wittier spelling.

Quote from Gantrithor

Next thing you know blizzard will be allied with Eastasia instead of Eurasia... Err... I mean EA and Activision.

Blizzard has always been allied with Eastasia, silly.

Quote from Gigins

Funny, how do you say "hell" differently but still mean the same thing so that everyone gets it? "The place where god sends you when you're really bad"?

Not supporting the synonym thing, but try 'The underworld'.

I got banned from posing on any of the forums and an entire thread was removed because I challenged them to reply to the thread. Talk about pathetic. We all know it's there, deleting a thread and silencing a member isn't going to change anything....

"under" is probably banned because it's part of "underwear."

Rather than "grape" go with "plum" or "olive". Pick a fruit that fits the criteria. Are you really gonna do this on a word by word basis?

Quote from Gantrithor

We specifically choose the words we do to best convey a thought or an idea that we have. When our ability to make this choice is impaired, our ability to accurately convey our thoughts and ideas is as well. Censorship does just this. And TiKels? "Synonyms" will not suffice - no, they just won't do. You still lose the feel of the words, even if you preserve the meaning. Try reading some classic literature with actiblision's censorship applied to it and call me back if you still disagree.

You make it sound like you HAVE TO MAKE IT SOUND BAD when you change out a word, you can maintain both meaning and finesse when altering words in a paragraph. Hell, let me give you a link to a REALLY good website for this. Visuwords is an online graphical dictionary that works by you putting in a word, and it connects this word to other tiers of words that can be synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, blahblahblahblah. Here's your resource for improving your map's vocabulary.

I'm not saying it'll be perfectly what you want. I'm not saying you'll always be able to do things the way you want them. But you know what, you are taking a problem where you slightly lose a bit of eloquence in speech, and are turning into something on the scale of "map destroyer/game ruiner/apocalypse".

Quote from TiKels

Rather than "grape" go with "plum" or "olive".

But a plum/olive isn't a fucking grape.

Also, aside from the banned words, the restrictions like 5 maps per mapper and a 20 mb limit is completely ridiculous.

So by that site, instead of "go to hell" he should say "go to netherworld", or "go to infernal region"? Not quite the impact, imo.

SIDE NOTE: I find it humorous they link 'hell' and 'heaven' to 'imaginary place'. Shows their beliefs.

I agree, that's probably the weakest point in my argument, but it is only 1 word (hell).

Technically in the beliefs of a lot of christians, Heaven and Hell are not physical places. I agree "imaginary" isn't the right word, but you get what I'm getting at.

Quote from Dem0nS1ayer

Quote from TiKels

Rather than "grape" go with "plum" or "olive".

But a plum/olive isn't a fucking grape.

Give me an instance where "grape" HAS to be used and can not be replaced by any other word. Also: alcohol is censored AFAIK so "wine" won't work. And just so you stay on topic, this is about people whining about RETARDED censors like "grape". Something like "wine" could be mildly considered censurable.

Quote from TiKels

Give me an instance where "grape" HAS to be used and can not be replaced by any other word.

The Grapes of Wrath.

You sir, just got graped. I wonder if " Raping " is censored, and if so, if " Rapin' " is.

Why is "hell" censored, when the opening scene, which was also used as the promotional video, for Starcraft II has the phrase "Hell, it's about time." ?

... 'The Plums of Wrath' , not to be confused with the classic novel 'The Grapes of Wrath', because that word can't ever be used.

EDIT:

Quote from TiKels

I agree, that's probably the weakest point in my argument, but it is only 1 word (****).

Technically in the ******* of a lot of **********, ****** and **** are not physical places. I agree "imaginary" isn't the right word, but you get what I'm getting at.

Quote from Dem0nS1ayer

Quote from TiKels

Rather than "g****" go with "plum" or "olive".

But a plum/olive isn't a ******* g****.

Give me an instance where "g****" HAS to be used and can not be replaced by any other word. Also: ******** is censored AFAIK so "****" won't work. And just so you stay on topic, this is about people whining about ******** censors like "g****". Something like "****" could be mildly considered censurable.

Fixed it for ya' ^_^

-----

On another note though, does anyone have any e-mails from Blizzard Support? (ANY e-mails)
Because we can't use their names. They're customer support representatives and we can't use their names, because it's against the policy.
So, if someone there is named John Smith, we can't depict a John Smith in our maps.

Hell Heaven's opposite Underworld, it's about time.

About the discussion if it's really that much of a problem...

Quote from Post #253048

Apparently the younger gamer generation never knew freedom in computer games so they gladly accept restrictions it if there's epic content that awaits them. Realizing this makes me really sad.

Think about it: WHY all these restrictions? You gonna tell me children that played sc1 got offended or tainted because there were no filters? C'mon... It worked back then it would work today. Blizzard just wants total control over everything and people like you, Tikels, and anyone who bought SC2, help changing the video gaming market. You should protest against these changes rather than try and convince others that it's a good thing...

Protection from offensive content, especially if you can disable it via options, is a good thing. Blizzard just went completely over board with it.
I could understand if they censored words from chat and during game play when the word filter is turned on. But I can't understand why the entire map has to banned for it.
Also they should've kept it within reasonable bounds and only censor stand-alone words. Keep grape, but censor rape. Keep butter, censor butt. And fucking keep colors and country names ffs! And censor fuck, fucking and fucked.
I think you get the idea...
Tbh I'm even more offended that they think colors that describe races (black, white) need to be censored. Isn't the idea of liberalism that it isn't a big deal? Why are they making a deal (by censoring) out of something that is about to be forgotten?

Quote from TiKels

you can maintain both meaning and finesse when altering words in a paragraph. Hell, let me give you a link to a REALLY good website for this. Visuwords is an online graphical dictionary that works by you putting in a word, and it connects this word to other tiers of words that can be synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, hyponyms, blahblahblahblah. Here's your resource for improving your map's vocabulary.

I'm not saying it'll be perfectly what you want. I'm not saying you'll always be able to do things the way you want them.

Right there you admit that the censoring is a pain in the ass. And a needless one, I might add, as explained above.

Nude is the first person to provide a very good argument. +1 for nude.

I am less so fighting that "censoring is good" moreover I am just perturbed at how ragin everyone is getting over what I perceived to be almost nothing. I never said censoring wasn't a pain in the ass.

Quote from TiKels

And just so you stay on topic, this is about people whining about RETARDED censors like "grape".

I'll have to think about Nude's argument. I don't think there's any way to stop blizzard from doing what it wants. I'd like to hear blizzard's point of view, because saying "blizz went overboard" is an assumption. You don't know what they were thinking. Too bad that's not gonna happen =( .

Someone take over Blizz HQ and keep all the employees hostage until someone answers our questions about these restrictions. >:O

Quote from TiKels

saying "blizz went overboard" is an assumption.

Actually that's my own opinion. But yeah it would be interesting to get a statement from Blizzard why they think such restrictive censoring was necessary.

Quote from Dem0nS1ayer

Someone take over Blizz HQ and keep all the employees hostage until someone answers our questions about these restrictions. >:O

GOGO

As long as the word Zombie isnt ever censored, Ill be fine.

Work arounds are one thing, not needing one is another.

You can have your zombie. But you can never kill it/them, because "kill" is censored.

"In this game, you must 'cure' the 'living impaired'"

Quote from Undead-Fox

"In this game, you must 'cure' the 'living impaired'"

"In this game, you must 'cure' the 'living handicapable'"

It's funny how the SCII slogan would actually be censored..

"----, It's about Time"

Try "In this game, you must 'liberate' the 'animated people who are not alive anymore but still wants to eat your brains'.

Can someone please clarify exactly WHERE this censoring is taking place? I haven't seen a clear description of exactly what things are censored from where.

From my understanding, it seems to be map names and descriptions that are auto-censored and prevent map publication, yes?
Are unit names, descriptions, map strings etc also auto-censored? Are these replaced with censor characters, or is the map prevented from publication? Or is this type of censoring done on a case-by-case basis by humans, and not an automatic system?

If it is indeed only map names/descriptions that are being censored, then it is fairly obvious that Blizzard's real intent here is to prevent people from spamming the game list. In SC1 you could create games with any names you wanted, and the list is frequently filled with spam. In SC2 you cannot create custom game names, instead the map name is used and the description is displayed. Clearly Blizzard are preventing people from working around their 'no custom name' system by preventing people from spam-creating maps with offensive names/descriptions. This, I don't have too much of an issue with, although censoring substrings like grape and butterfly is pretty stupid, but you can imagine some troll could create a map that said "I'm gonna gRAPE you in the BUTTerfly" and so Blizzard just decided to ban the substring entirely.

If there is auto-censoring, to the point that you can't publish maps that have any of this very wide list of words in it anywhere (no unit names, descriptions or map strings), like kill, transport and blow up, then that is indeed a step too far.

So, which is it?

I'm pretty sure the censors are for all the strings in the map.