Two name forms for a toon

Sometimes when talking to NPCs, having only one form of a name (depending on the name) can come across as stiffly formal, and even artificial (Contact: "Boy, Sgt. Sam Hill, that got hairy for a while! But you handled that mission well. I feel I can trust you fully now, Sgt. Sam Hill.") I'd like to suggest that it be possible to specify two forms of a toon's name - the one used to talk ABOUT him (Passerby NPC: "I heard that Sgt. Sam Hill is on the case."), and the one used to talk TO him (Rescued NPC: "Thank you for rescuing me, Sgt. Hill!"). I don't know how existing toons would be handled; perhaps each toon could be issued a free name-change token with an expiration date. That's for the devs to work out.

This becomes particularly hilarious in the dialogue setting up the Moral Choice in the mission at the end of a particular Praetorian contact's arc. "You set up Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla to be killed, but he escaped. And I don't think Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla is inclined to let you get away with it. Are you, Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla?" "... Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla!" "What do you say, Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla? Should we start with the beating down now?" "Don't you do this, Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla!"

It all gets a bit ponderous, though that probably could have been mitigated if the dialogue was written a little more carefully. Its writer clearly expected everyone going through that mission arc would have a classic short, snappy superhero name, and it rather falls apart if you don't.

So I like your suggestion, and I begin to wonder if it might even be carried a little further - one name that's the character's full nom de guerre, for use by passers-by and in more formal contexts ("So you're Sgt. Sam Hill. Heard a lot about you."), one used for what you might call respectful address (as in your "thanks for rescuing me" example), and one for "among friends"-type dialogue (as when speaking with a contact you've reached Friend or Confidant status with). Sgt. Sam Hill would thus be Sgt. Hill to people he's just rescued and Sarge or Sam to his friends.

That could get complicated trying to explain to new users what the blanks in the form are for, but what the hell, I mean, if one had to, one could make it part of the new "extended tutorial" concept - have the player enter the "full name" during character generation and provide opportunities to select the other two forms during early conversations.

However it was structured, I'd make the Full Name the one with the permanent existence, only alterable by rename token, and the other two free-floating, like the fields for bio and Battle Cry. If you've actually got a short, punchy superhero name, just set them all to the same thing, or ignore the "lesser forms" and they'll default to your proper name. That might make the optional names more open to abuse, I'm not sure, but since only the player him- or herself would ever see them, that may not even be important.

It'd be a pretty big job to go and recode all those dialogue strings to use context-dependent $NAME fields, though. Expect opposition from the Number Slaves and standard code ranters who see development resources as a zero-sum game and don't want their coding time spent on your quality-of-immersion feature.

It would probably be incredibly time consuming, but I wouldn't mind if it existed, and would probably use it for several of my characters.

My main Claws and Effect is a good example. People who know him (but not outside his hero identity) call him Claws. His friends, people who DO know him outside his hero identity call him Alvin or Al (his real name).

Marshall Stack is just Marshall, or even Marsh if you know him well. (Marshall Stack IS his real name, so there's no hero identity there)

Return to Cinder goes by Cinder or Kyle.

And so on and so forth.

So, yeah, it would be time consuming, and there are other things I'd rather see done first, but if they got around to it I wouldn't oppose it.

(Edit: This post is probably a good sign. I'm generally one of the more difficult people to convince that something is a good idea)

Something easy they could do is set up a field for us to fill in like
Prefered Handle:

It would not need to be unique (but would still need to be tested for copyright, vulgarity etc)

I've always been a fan of this. I am often tempted to name my characters in some way that makes the NPCs sound daft.

Greetings and salutations, John Spartan. Be well!

Yeah, I've always wanted to have at least two separate names for my characters. My namesake character - Samuel Tow - is a prime example of why it's so goofy to have people call you by your full name in casual conversation, especially when the writers often like to insert name references just because they can even where they really don't belong. Not only is "Samuel Tow" a dumb name (hey, I can admit it when I'm wrong), but it just makes contact text... Weird.

And Sam isn't my only character with a full name. People like Yamikaze no Rikimaru and Shen Shao Shi are also prime examples, as is my Herald of Light. Some names just sound a lot better as a character name than a casual character address. Even Captain America gets his name shortened to just "Cap," right?

I'm actually reminded of one of the Civilization games, which gave you I think three or four name boxes for your civilization leader. One was his name, one was the name used when people address him, one was his name in the possessive form and one I don't remember. Having something like this as optional, uh... Options at character creation or by accessing your ID screen post creation, with tooltips, would be very welcome.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Thats a very good idea. I'd be happy if NPCs stoped addressing my Animated Stone.

I'm over here! *waves*