What I dislike the most
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-06-12 15:26 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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I see the point went well over your head there. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being creative. The reason it's not the ideal solution in this environment is because creativity doesn't guarantee that you'll get the name you want. The *only* thing that guarantees you'll get the name you want is to get it first. Nor does getting it first necessarily mean you were being creative.
| And LOL at the "Being creative isn't the ideal solution in this environment" comment. Creativity, how evil! >.< |
Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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Umlauts, carets, diacritics, and such might be the 'croutons' you're looking for. Last time I tried to use letters with such marks, though, it couldn't be done.
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Originally Posted by Blue Rabbit
May I enquire about croutons and such? Also, you're making me hungry.
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Goodbye may seem forever
Farewell is like the end
But in my heart's the memory
And there you'll always be
-- The Fox and the Hound
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There were over 20 marks of Spitfire, plus the Seafires and subvariants. >.>
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Originally Posted by Traska
By the way, not all of my characters concepts are inflexible. I'll give you an example. I wanted to play a British armored hero named Spitfire (named in honor of the WWII fighter, naturally.) Well, that name wasn't going anywhere... so I made Supermarine Spitfire instead. Although quite honestly, I don't know how many more permutations I could have done if that didn't work.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
This is one of those situations where people who look for solutions find them, and those who reflexively blame others for their own shortcomings don't.
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dingdingding
We have a Winnah!
I have seldom been stumped for more than a few minutes in finding a name. My first choice is frequently taken, but I'm original enough that my second or third choice usually yields results.
The people who say they can NEVER find an original and appropriate name just aren't being original or creative enough, in my opinion.
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Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately. |
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Calling yourself "Ookillaowapringazing" is original, and you'd probably be the first on your server to have it. Neither of these things makes a good name. And I'm glad that you are able to find names, but the names that suit you likely would not suit everyone, just as the names that suit me would likely not suit everyone.
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Originally Posted by ClawsandEffect
dingdingding
We have a Winnah! I have seldom been stumped for more than a few minutes in finding a name. My first choice is frequently taken, but I'm original enough that my second or third choice usually yields results. The people who say they can NEVER find an original and appropriate name just aren't being original or creative enough, in my opinion. |
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Originally Posted by Thirty-Seven
And that means none of them are in comics? All of those names are "genre" appropriate as far as I can tell.
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As far as I know, other than Nick Fury, none of those characters had a comic by those names.
Luke cage had the comics Power Man and Heroes for Hire.
Jean Grey? X-men
Black Tom? Never had his own comic.
Or to put it another way, if you can't see the name being on the front of a comic book, as the title of the series? Probably not a 'good' name by some peoples standards for the genre.
Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
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I understand that you are saying, but am not sure you hear what others are saying back to you about creativity.|
Originally Posted by Traska
It's not a problem of creativity (I have near every server filled with characters, so I'm making them), it's a matter of not being able to play the character you want to play.
In non-superhero games, this generally isn't a problem... the chance that you're going to have the same fantasy based name as someone else is remote at best. But in the superhero genre, names tend to run along lines. Flame, Blaze, Fire, Spark.... Ice, Chill, Freeze, Frost... Mental, Mind, Psi, Psy... Using ice as an example, I honestly cannot think of a single comic-book hero or villain with ice powers that doesn't have some version of cold or ice in their name. It's just the genre. Now, one can break genre (and go with a normal name like "Jenny Lewis" or "Jack Parker"), but I'm willing to wager than most people who play this game are superhero comic fans, and most of those fans started this game with the idea of playing the kind of character they'd read about. The problem is, the game makes it increasingly difficult to find an in-genre four color name. And saying Be Creative is all well and good... but that's precisely what I mean about in-genre. The vast majority of superhero names are: - Based on main power - Based on an animal or creature of myth - Mister/Miss/Doctor/Captain fill-in-the-blank - Color +fill-in-the-blank - fill-in-the-blank man/woman/boy/girl |
You're saying it's important to you that your character has a name that represents your powers. I don't agree that "most" superheroes have names that indicate their powers, but if that's what represents a hero name to you, then it's very important!
IF the only way you can make a fire/whatever is to use words like "Blaze" or "Ember" or "Hot" or "Flame", or flat-out copy the name of a power in the set you're using, you may have difficulty. But see, there are other words.
You'd previously indicated it was all but impossible to get a name that references your powers if you're a "fire" anything. I made a fire/traps corruptor a couple weeks ago, and got "Combustible Me" on the first try (on Virtue). Now, is it the world's best name? Probably not, and very likely not to you, but I am pleased with it (of course, I think the name "Eeek" is a good superhero name, too, so take that for what it's worth), and I like to think that's what matters. Does this reference the powers I use? Sure it does. Fire? You bet! Does it describe what I do? If I run into a spawn with my PBAoE nuke, yeah, I am pretty sure it doesn't even get more descriptive, actually.
You're limited because you can't get the overused, obvious names. Personally, I'm glad. Find something unique, something that makes other players want to get to know you, or can at least find interesting or clever. Comic books were big on clever, too, especially if a pun was involved.
Don't settle for being a cliche.
You're better than that.
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You can??|
Originally Posted by MajorDecoy
If you're not using your transfer tokens for anything, you can rename a character with two of them.
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HOW?
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This isn't obvious?|
Originally Posted by _eeek_
You can??
HOW? |
1) Move the character.
2) Create another character with the same name.
3) Move the original character back. Since there's a name collision, it'll offer you a free rename.
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Technically, it is. If the search function were built to accommodate such circumstances, give options to further seek out individuals besides just name and/or aided you with special features, then what you mention wouldn't be the actual problem. It would be the laziness of people that would then be the problem and you're not going to solve that.|
Originally Posted by Schismatrix
It has nothing to do with search functions, just that if you saw someone run by with a popular name and the global wasn't visible because you find it ugly and immersion-breaking you'd have no idea who you were trying to invite. That's not a search function issue at all.
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If you could search through player lists and also see their Bios/portrait, for instance, or if there were a special function where it can pull up globals of individuals you recently encountered (since you have to load their costume data and what-not). Then there's always the point of actually *talking* with the character. "Are you suchandsuch with the soandso costume?"
Well, it's obvious once you explain it.... *embarassed*
(And thank you, Brad!)
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I guess it'd be the same amount of sense as having fifty thousand superheroes with the same powers but different names.
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Originally Posted by QuarriosSoul
How much sense does it make for a world to have fifty thousand John Doe superheroes, even if they happened to have different powers?
People wouldn't be able to keep track. |
I think this is one of those situations where the feasibility of the idea is the kicker for me. I wouldn't mind having non-unique names at all, but regular naming purges seems far and away the easier option. By the logic I'm seeing, it's not hard at all to come up with a good name, so people who haven't played in years or are hogging names on trials shouldn't have much issue with coming up with a replacement name. I find it somewhat disheartening that a lot of great potential names (and I imagine a majority of the "simple" ones) are unavailable or simply being sat on. And if other games have taught me anything, it's that even with a non-unique system, you'll rarely find people with the same name. I sincerely doubt that aside from planned groups/events you would encounter more than one person with the exact same name.
And for the record, I'm aware they did name purges at some point. Afaik there haven't been any in a while, however.
I'd love an open naming system tbh... but I don't see us ever getting it.
Names I've gotten that I am honestly shocked I got?
Celeste
Hemomancer
Moonstar
Lady Revenant
Jem - Ill/Rad Controller Lv 50+3 Nic - Mind/Psi Dominator Lv 50+3 Lady Liberation - Invuln/SS Tanker Lv 50+1 Invicitx - Demon/Pain Mastermind Lv 50+1 Celeste - Emp/Arch Defender Lv 50+1 Nightsilver - DB/WP Scrapper Lv 34 Dusk Howl - StJ/Regen Brute Lv 32 Kyriani - Time/Energy Defender Lv 41Psifire - FF/Psi Defender Lv 50
Star Lighter - LB/LA Peacebringer Lv 30
As long as people are dissatisfied with a feature, they're going to keep asking that it be fixed (and yes, from a certain viewpoint, the system is broken).
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Translation: There will always be people complaining things they don't personally like even when it is working exactly as the devs intended and has the support of most of the player base. However that won't stop the unhappy few from claiming that whatever they don't like is "broken" when it isn't and that it "needs" to be fixed. It also won't stop them from pretending that there are more people that agree with them than actually exist.
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Originally Posted by Traska
As long as people are dissatisfied with a feature, they're going to keep asking that it be fixed (and yes, from a certain viewpoint, the system is broken).
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Stuck on a name? Add something to it!
Flame Guy taken? Jazz it up with these handy additives!
A "." Either before (.Flame Guy) or after (Flame Guy.) Make a statement with a "."!
Go extreme with "X". xXFlame GuyXx now that says "XTREME!"
Be devilish with the mark of the beast. Flame Guy666 says "i'm evil against villiany"
Show off your L337 skills with "FL4M3 GUY"
Be political with your herbal friendly "Flame Guy420" or "Chronic Flame Guy"
What you need is a little space. "F l a m e G u y" has more awkward pauses than a Jeff Goldblum speech.
So get out there heroes (or villians) and make your mark on mediocrity! If not you, then whoever... Just make sure you park that name so one else can snag it.
"You sir, have never been in a hammer fight, that much is clear."
-Blast_Chamber
*yeah, I quoted myself.
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In the spirit of the challenge, I was thinking about more conventional "four-color" names and not the sort of names I normally look for. "Deep Friar" is more the sort of thing I would normally be thinking but I threw out any name (without checking) that didn't seem to be of a "Human Torch - Firestorm" sort of vintage.|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I had better luck than you did Arcanaville. Here's the frst ten names I came up with on Freedom and they were all available.
Deep Friar (Deep as in Philsophical, Friar as in monk/burning pun) (available) J G Petrol (Jellied Gasoline) (available) Napalm Avenger (available) Phlogistinator (available) Khan Flagration (available) Blaze Incandescence (available) Pyro Luminosity (available) Midnite Immolator (available) Dusk Inferno (available) Eternal SoulFyre (available) |
My names aren't usually quite that conventional, but almost always available. I'm not sure I would even make a name that was as general as "fire-based." I'm more apt to name a fire controller called the Pyronanny (available), or a fire/ice tanker called the Cindercicle (available), or a Fire/Rad corruptor called Meson Inferno (available), or if I was going all fire maybe a Fire/Fire Blaster called Farrah Fireball (available).
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This is what I was saying about not all names suit all people... out of that list of names, only Meson Inferno would grab me. There's nothing wrong with those other names, they just don't suit my style. As someone mentioned above, the vast majority of character names I make I try to visualized splashed across the top of a comic book cover.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In the spirit of the challenge, I was thinking about more conventional "four-color" names and not the sort of names I normally look for. "Deep Friar" is more the sort of thing I would normally be thinking but I threw out any name (without checking) that didn't seem to be of a "Human Torch - Firestorm" sort of vintage.
My names aren't usually quite that conventional, but almost always available. I'm not sure I would even make a name that was as general as "fire-based." I'm more apt to name a fire controller called the Pyronanny (available), or a fire/ice tanker called the Cindercicle (available), or a Fire/Rad corruptor called Meson Inferno (available), or if I was going all fire maybe a Fire/Fire Blaster called Farrah Fireball (available). |
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I just checked. The Inquantumite is available on Virtue.
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Originally Posted by Tenzhi
It's not being any more creative to get Texas Noun when someone else can't get The Inquantumite.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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I'm always amused when the folks that "hate" the current system throw out, what they consider to be, the worst sounding name as an example...
Hm... moar popcorn.
Throwing darts at the board to see if something sticks.....
Come show your resolve and fight my brute!
Tanks: Gauntlet, the streak breaker and you!
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Originally Posted by PapaSlade
Rangle's right....this is fun.
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I'd love it if every name I came up with was available all the time. That'd be awesome. But it's not the case. Yeah, I spend way too much time mulling over character names and it takes forever to find the right one. And I hate that.
But I'd hate it more if everyone could run around with the same name. I think having the names be unique is the lesser evil here.
I think it might be ok if they did something like, if you've not logged into the game in a year or more, your character names end up for grabs, first come first served, and you get a free rename token for those characters you have redeem before bringing them into the game again (like when you do a character transfer and there's a character of the same name on the server).
But I wouldn't support lifting the name restrictions to unique names, no matter how annoying it is when I come up with the "perfect" name and find out someone else has it.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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No need to use X's. Both "Flame Guy Extreme" and "Flame Guy XTREME" are available on Virtue. |
Originally Posted by Blast_Chamber
Go extreme with "X". xXFlame GuyXx now that says "XTREME!"
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| Be devilish with the mark of the beast. Flame Guy666 says "i'm evil against villiany" |
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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