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To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Character naming rules - what do you prefer and where do you want Intrepid to draw the line?
Nerror
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I am curious how serious or goofy you all want the names in Ashes to be, what you prefer yourselves, and where you want Intrepid to draw the line when it comes to allowable names?
For example, the absolutely top-shelf, S-tier names like Tanky McTankface and Healy McHealface will be highly coveted by many, while more serious and boring people will look at them with disdain.
For me, I don't mind seeing silly names as long as they are in somewhat good taste. I most certainly want Intrepid to stop any really crude, sexist or bigoted names, including those where people try to be clever and change them a bit, even though the meaning is clear enough.
For my own character names, I might actually try to match their names with the RL cultures the race draws inspiration from. From the wiki:
My Dünir could be named Harald or Astrid, for example, and if I make a Vek, perhaps a name like Tlaloc or Yalina. If I make a Niküan fisherman, a name like Kaikea. I will resist the urge to make a Niküan lady called Moana
I don't expect/want you to list your planned names here or anything, but I would like to know your thoughts on naming, your limits, and where you want Intrepid to set the limit.
For example, the absolutely top-shelf, S-tier names like Tanky McTankface and Healy McHealface will be highly coveted by many, while more serious and boring people will look at them with disdain.
For me, I don't mind seeing silly names as long as they are in somewhat good taste. I most certainly want Intrepid to stop any really crude, sexist or bigoted names, including those where people try to be clever and change them a bit, even though the meaning is clear enough.
For my own character names, I might actually try to match their names with the RL cultures the race draws inspiration from. From the wiki:
Aelean architecture has a French medieval influence.
Dünir have a Nordic cultural influence.
Empyreans have a Greco-Roman imperialistic feeling.
The Kaelar have a European racial influence.
The Niküa have a Polynesian influence.
The Py'Rai have a Navajo Native American influence.
Pyrian architecture has a Greco-Roman influence.
The Vaelune have a Middle Eastern racial influence.
The Vek have a Mesoamerican racial influence.
My Dünir could be named Harald or Astrid, for example, and if I make a Vek, perhaps a name like Tlaloc or Yalina. If I make a Niküan fisherman, a name like Kaikea. I will resist the urge to make a Niküan lady called Moana
I don't expect/want you to list your planned names here or anything, but I would like to know your thoughts on naming, your limits, and where you want Intrepid to set the limit.
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Comments
Also if they want to push even further 'AI that helps to convert your standard or goofy name to a more appropriate name racially if you choose to accept it.
Other than that, I'll just be happy if they somehow discourage 'IlllIlIllII' and similar. I'd be fine with some limits set if they also made sure to have the 'AI assisted name shift'. Discouraging symbols other than hyphens and apostrophes, and limiting numbers (or allowing them but making them disappear in some mode or in certain ways) would be good.
Crude names are a problem because languages have different words that then need to be censored because the game allows many. I prefer that 'obviously' offensive names just get reviewed, because it's easy, in my opinion, to set a flag on those.
Not being able to name your character BasementDweller-TheBigBlade because of censorship, isn't a thing I agree with. BalSemenDuelHer-BiggBlad should just get reported.
And yes, a good name generator would be really nice. Especially if it takes into account the race of the character.
I remember Neverwinter Nights and the such having random character creation with dwarves getting brutish stone-themed names and elves having airy fairy ones etc. Good times.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'
No punctuation
No racial or genital epiphets
Yes on Unicode
Yes on repetitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive spelling.
Go for it, xxoX_Bob_Xoxx. I'm gonna hunt you down, but you go for it.
Correct me if I'm wrong but if I remember right Warhammer Age of Reckoning had a name generator that suggested suitable names for characters depending on what race the character belonged.
A few examples in German
" Pommesbude " = Fries stand
" Apfelkuchen " = Apple cake
" Eiscreme " = Icecream
Those are all just food related "names" which might be very immersion breaking, but bear no malice and have a slightly comedic touch. May or may not make you want to bite into the real article briefly.
Nothing that I would get too annoyed by.
And then we have stuff like this
" Hurensohn " = Son of a b°tch ( and maybe a few letters swtiched to get by the censor )
" Hitlair " = but we all know who that player had really thought of
" Fleshspear " = debatable how funny innuendos are
A good censor needs time to be bolstered up to perfection.
Who knows what horrors we gonna see.
Give one apostrophe allowance.
So that means, Dünir und Kaelar will be the MOST hated Races, similar like the Nord in Skyrim, from the Playerbase ... ... ...
... ... ... kidding. Please don't stone me.
But seriously the Times i've read Comments in the Forum back then, who were like :
" I joined the imperial Legion. Because the Nord are RACIST !! "
" Joined the Legion. Because the Nord/Stormcloaks are RACIST !!! "
" Joined Legion, 'cause RACIST !!! " (lol)
" The Stormcloaks are SO. racist !! "
" Nords are racist. "
" Ulfric Stormcloak is racist and THIS is why i joined the Legion !! "
" Racist. "
" Racist !! "
" Racialist* !! "
" xXYyHigs'da'gaggle'di'ga'RACI'SM'muuhh- "
The Game was, where the Fun was. The official Skyrim Forums were, were the CRINGE was !!! 🤣 😅
" Magically ",
no one was also ever interested, in the Fact that the Thalmor are LITERAL Elf-Supremacists - and viewed Humans Beings as a Lower Race that should exist simply to serve them and the like : because Altmer/High Elves are allegedly unconditionally superior due to having more Mana than all the other Races.
This is why i personally - like - the Empyrean Elves.
They are so honest. Like all Elves, they sure have One or several, physical Traits and Abilities that probably seem "vastly" superior compared to all other Races - and i can't see why someone should "NOT" be arrogant, when oneself seems so far more perfect or complete, than all other Races.
I shall await the Spice,
the spiciness that will be Players in the Forums, calling "Dünir" and "Kaelar" racist, for probably Dünir not wanting any other "Races" to have to big an optical Impact on their Proud Dwarven Nodes,
and the Kaelar just for being white. 🤣👍 ... ... 😅 ... ...
Personally, i am curious of why People would be suspicious of the Tulnar instead of being curious about them. Yes, they will probably to likely look the most different from all other Races - won't they ?
Lizard-like Tulnar, "Lion-Minotaur"-like Tulnar - damn if invented right, this Race will be so damn cool.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
...and so will similar players, I suspect.
Players of similar age and inclination may well choose similar names. So, the ones who name themselves 'Big Periscope,' 'Donkey Dik,' and 'Dragging Meat' will guild together and a separate guild will form with 'Papa Smurf,' 'Fairy Butterfly,' and 'Pink JelloMoon.'
That makes it easier for other players, perhaps more serious and mature ones, to choose who to group with, guild with, and place our trust in. If I have to choose between being a citizen of a node with a Mayor named Careful McCrafter or a node led by iiIILLIIii, I sure know where I am going to choose to live.
To sum it up, idiotic names chosen by idiots will let us know who the morons to avoid are.
I admire the Amount of Trust you have into People. ( *ggg* )
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
no i just dont care and i dont get offended. and when it comes ot immersion, there are weird names irl, so why not in game as well? and it doesnt bother me at all tbh.
Have a family name, that is account bound. And then given names for each character. So if someone has multiple alts, you can see they are linked.
I don't disagree, but Steven wants spies to be a thing, so I don't think we'll see that. To be a successful spy people will likely have to use alt accounts anyway though, the way housing is account-wide. Aside from the whole superman/clark kent dynamic.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
It's not just that some Names are offensive, but in general an Attempt to break the Fantasy-Paradise-Feeling the People basically to literally flee into, when they log into such an cool Fantasy-World, away from their Reallife.
Call it Immersion or not -> but i don't wish to see "Screwdriver", "Taxidriver", or "TwerkingXYZ" running around, when i can help it.
If i can't prevent it -> fine. I guess i just try to ignore some Names then.
If i can report them, then "BattleStarGalactica", "DarthVader" or "StarLord" (lol) will probably have to Answer to the Game Masters for having Names intentionally going against the Lore and Universe of Verra.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
I KNOW RIGHT?
Expect another horrible accumulation of letters to haunt your eyes and destroy your immersion.
Guess you just gotta squint quickly and look the other way.
I will never forget the WoW expansion that introduced the Illidari and then we had to look at
"Illidaan/Illidaaan/Illiiidan/Illiidaan" and those wierdos were not even related to each other in any way.
Even
"EvilDarkShadowKill" would be better. ^^
We had a guild-officer named something like Aldi, once. This gal went on vacation IRL, and most of the rest of the guild leadership knew it. However, an Aldi with a ' over the i appeared in our guild's custom chat-channels, and began causing a lot of problems and trolling our members. Since you weren't allowed to send whole-guild mails in said game, it took a LOT of work to clear up the mess this player made, in the absence of the real one.
In addition?
It's hard enough to spell some players' names correctly.... Do I really need to have a chart showing how to type special characters hanging by my computer, just to send someone an in-game DM?
Just in apostrophes we get different variants too, so they would have to make sure only one type is used, like the ASCII decimal code 39 one: '
For example, there are extended character sets and Unicode, where different apostrophe-like characters exist:
U+2019 - ’ (right single quotation mark)
U+02BC - ʼ (modified letter apostrophe)
and my keyboard has ` and ´ as well. So it's a whole thing they need to be aware of at least. It should be a trivial task to enforce that any and all apostrophes are ascii code 39 though. I assume all keyboard layouts for different countries have the apostrophe as a possible key option, but I am not 100% sure actually.
see what you are trying to do is to force others into your gameplay, then you complain about red players xDD
if someone idea of fun is to have a silly name, why is your idea of fun of having an elvish or orcish name more valid or important than theirs? and now we are getting to the point of reporting and punishing players if they dont pick an orcish of elvish name or name their characters however you want? really...
i personally dont use high fantasy names, or silly names, and its quite annoying when you try different names and they are all taken. so punishing someone because they tried 20 different names and they were all taken so they went with "screwdriver" after 20 minutes of frustration doesnt seem to be very nice and welcoming and seems to be rather oppressive.
I think the main points here are immersion and probably youth protection (to the extent that this is even relevant, this seems still up for discussion). Both I'd say touch on basic company goals: Market access and rentention of the core player base ("old school RPG gamers").
So what will IMO most likely happen is that Intrepid looks at what aligns most with their player base and Stevens vision for the world of Verra. Ultimately I think this a side issue at best, people who want "serious", "immersive" names will organise themselves to stay away from those they think dont take the game serious enough. Could be a great fall back for an RP driven scenario.
How would it be a players fault when the company decides on a specific policy?
well, taking the taxidriver example. is that an offensive name? what if my favorite activity is running caravanas or maybe i have a super cool legendary mount that can carry more poeple and its faster than any other mount, then i charge a fee for taking people from A to B and i name myself taxidriver,. so now i get punished and im forced to change my name because some dude who cant distinguish a game from reality and wants to play IMVU in verra reported me because my name broke his immersion? now im forced ot use an orcish or elvish or dwarven name or whatever? thats not company policy my man, thats cancel culture and oppression.
if we are talking about player retention and old school mmorpg gamers, guess what? im an old school PVP mmorpg gamer and i have never use an "immersive" name, so why the meta roleplayers, which are probably also a small minority and dont spend as much money as my kin do, are more important, for example?
And, depending on what game rating Intrepid end up shooting for, they may have some legal obligation to apply some degree of censorship anyway to maintain their rating.
The stranger's eyes lifted to the blood red cloud on the horizon.
'We have to move. It's not safe here.'