Character names becoming hard to come by

Originally Posted by DePr0grammer

With thousands of players making tens of names each, it is indeed becoming more difficult to get it right...

Still, I've gotten some nice dictionary words and simple phrases for names...granted that they were mostly on Triumph.

Deprogrammer, Fruitcake, Crackles, Grumbles, Raving, Unresistable (granted that it's not a real word, but it almost is), Enraged Citizen, Clear Blue Skies... Oh, here's a fun one. Pwny.

Heck, here's the rest of my list of names while I'm at it. Only one has punctuation, and that's only because I wanted it.
Ferrous Jen, Minimate, Maximate, Miximate, Chunkz, Nanobyte, Frozen Cap, Techno Necro Nirate, Masculine Widow, Coy Mase, Culler Dores, Sweet Blue, Alexei Novikov, Homez, Har D, Warpflash, UnProgrammer, Dark Cliche Man, Rid Lee, Green Comma, Ekusai, Etaminaer, Sam Aaron, Don Smart, A. Biggs, Bub Rock, Pink Pi Hunter, Guyaume Zapper, Cassey, Hitless, Miss TSS, Ollive

Originally Posted by The_Alt_oholic

...
We know that there are lot of standard conventions for hero names.
[color] [power descriptor] - White Fish
[color] [animal, totem, weapon, etc.] - Black Canary
[any descriptor] [age related gender description] - Superman
[alignment descriptor] [power related name] - Black Adam (yeah, that's a color, but he was really called "Black" Adam because he was "evil"...I just can't think of a better one at the moment)
[size descriptor] [power or any descriptor] - Little John
[size descriptor] [color] [power descriptor] - Little Red Riding-hood
[age related w or w/o gender description] [any descriptor] - Kid Eternity
[Rank, occupation, etc.] [Country, color, power-related, etc] - Doctor Midnight
[descriptor] [Rank, occupation, etc.] - American Maid

You get the idea, but we know that there are tons more...

Originally Posted by ToySoldierZolgar

Indeed, you can get names easily if you have any remote level of creativity..
Lookit my sig for some.. and a few others I've gotten:
Sewer Crocodile
Zolgar (actually surprised me)
Sapphire Tempest (took a few tries to get something close that fit)
Twilight Nacreouse (May have spelled that wrong, the name stems from a type of cloud.. she's an air elemental.)
Amezarak
I could list more, but a lot of them are names I pull out of my *** (Therias, Qiari, etc.)

Very few names I have used have had puncuation, fewer have had numbers.


This "problem" is a fact of MMOs and something that we all deal with. There's no viable way to change it that isn't going to be annoying.

Originally Posted by Joe_Blow

They should just attach everyone's global to the end of their character's names, hidden or not. That way, anyone can have any non-restricted name.

Just look at Champions Online. That's what they did. It was one of their only great ideas...

Originally Posted by The_Alt_oholic

I don't think that is a great idea.
Others have already posted about how that will lead to multiple character with the same name running down the street at the same time.
I would certainly hope that every time someone runs into someone with the same name they would have to stop and fight them for the right to use that name.

Originally Posted by The_Alt_oholic

Once you have this basic convention then making an automatic name generator simply isn't that hard.
Once the system automatically generates name it checks to see if that name is taken on the server yet. If it isn't taken yet, then the system locks the name until the player decides if they want the name or not. If they like it, they start directly into the game.

But wait? How would that work you may ask.
Simple.

The basic variables are picked from your character design.
The system knows your gender, powers, size, physical, attributes, costume choices, costume color options, weapon/shield choices, etc. From these variables it generates random names base on the standard comcbook naming conventions.

Adding such a feature would not stop the rest of us from picking our names. I know that I always will, but allowing an automatic name generator to be added to the game would help the people get names quickly.

It will not, however, stop people from complaining that they can't get the names that they want. When it comes down to it, that is what these naming threads are always about.