Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
He is making OUR game, komrade ❤️
Ultimately? I'd have to stand in-support of keeping the naming-convention for cities as-is. As @Yuyukoyay pointed out, we're certain to find ourselves in something akin to Harrywood or Las Vages very quickly, otherwise.
We have enough already that we can custom-name; We don't need players spoiling maps for any RP'ers, or otherwise subtracting from the game environment in this manner.
I'm hoping for a better map of city names in-game than IRL Britain....
P.S. - Yes, these are real, though they're mostly buried amongst a bunch of normal names, on a full map.
Look at the way Nether Wallop got it's name, for example. Wallop is a Nether is derived from two Old English words that when combined mean "valley of the spring water", or some such, and there are actually three towns in that same valley that have that word present. The word Nether is a bit more difficult to pin down, but it goes back to at least 1086, as it was the name given in the Domesday book. It is safe to say that language has changed since then, but that places name has not.
Westward Ho! was the name of a 1855 bestselling book that was set in the general area. The Earl of Portsmouth (amusingly named Isaac Newton Wallop) bought an estate in the area and built a town in order to capitalize on the book.
The towns hotel that he built was called the Westward Ho!-tel.
One of the four Jumps in the map above was named after the valley it is in (the Jump Valley), which in turn was apparently named by coal miners that had to jump a stream there to get to work.
Catbrain is a term that was used to denote a specific soil type, so it isn't surprising to see a place named after it.
This is why I disagree. While on the surface these names seem funny, many of them have fairly interesting reasons behind them. If the names in Ashes are half as interesting as these names, then the game would be better off.
While you make interesting (and enlightening!) points, I somehow don't see this coming about/evolving from letting video game players coming up with the cities' names.
Like the town my parents live in was called Robbers Roost for all the obvious reasons 200 years ago.
The local lore of the place should have an effect on the name.
Oh, I am not suggesting that should be the case.
I am quite happy with the current situation where players pick from a list of names, I just hope that this list of names reflects a little of each node location.
If the actual town of a given node is near a stream, having names that involve stream, brook or or run would be fitting, whereas if the town is in the mountains, ridge, rock or peak would fit better.
It would be odd having a node named * Ridge if it is in a forest, or *field if it is in the mountains.
If the names are offered to players like this, then we have a better chance of node names being interesting.
I'd really like to see a node near a stream named * Brook or something similar, and then as that node is developed to a metropolis the stream is built over. People coming to it when it is a metropolis would ask "why is this named * Brook, when there is no stream or brook around here", and people that had been there a while can answer with "well, actually...".
I'd also like to see the other half of place names make some sense as well, and the best way to do this is to allow naming of geographic regions rather than just nodes.
Imagine there is an area with a node in a valley, a node on a hill, a node by a large river and a node in a large plain - all close together.
The valley node has access to * Valley, Vale, Basin, Gorge, Pass etc. The river node has access to River, Run, Stream, Bridge etc, the hill node has access to Ridge, Mine, Rock etc and the field one can be field, meadow, green etc.
Each of these has fairly general options associated with it, Iron Ridge, Springfield, etc, but there is also the option to name it after a character or event of note. In our case let's chose Steven and Noaani as the available options.
Let's assume the node on the plain levels up first, and opts to be called Stevenfield. Let's be honest, no one wants to live in Noaani Meadow.
This automatically names the general area as Steven.
When other nodes level up enough to be named, they still have the more general node options, but the options for the node on the hill no longer include Noaani, it can be Steven's Ridge, Stwvens Mine, Steven's Peak, Steven's Hill etc, or even Iron Ridge if they like.
Also, nodes that are not in that general area no longer have the option to use Stsven in their name, but have many, many other options to pick and generate the same naming scheme.
This way, we can have a cluster of nodes in a general area that we can all refer to as Stwven, or perhaps The Stevens, and if you are not in that area, you cant name your node that.
This is how I think node naming would be best implemented.
If it turns out we get to name our own city I will name mine Epoch (time traveling ship from Chrono Trigger) OR BootyMcClappertonTown. Definitely one of those two options.
Well they could come up with 2 names themselves and the community gives 2 suggestions for each city. Then the one they like best is picked. That way the community has a chance to pick names and none of the zones are forced to be called Pi Pi Village.
U.S. East
Agreed. I refuse to have the town I built with my digital blood, sweat and tears to then be named Nodey McNodeface when the first passing popular idiot rises to power.
Even if they did allow players to toss names into the hat, it would most likely be less than 25% the available names that the devs will use.
I'm not that confident that they would actually choose many player suggestions, but those are just in case someone says a name that is better than their initial idea. Sometimes it changes stuff internally when people give really good suggestions.
U.S. East
Feel free to start a thread asking for people to submit city names.
In a lot of MMO´s, reporting names have a tendency to work and being noticed the first few weeks, or month´s if lucky. Then, it usually goes downhill and players with very clear abusive names go on to keep existing for years even.
The level of some people when they choose a " name " to be as offensive as possible knows very few boundaries, and for many, it´s a " funny " contest to annoy roleplayers.