The problem with having “Tank” as a class name

Hello all, I believe this discussion may have come up before, but I really would like Steven and friends to reconsider the name “Tank”. Overall, they have done a good job at naming the other classes and subclasses, but they ruin the immersion of the game by using the class name “tank”. Tank was a code name given to military vehicles being created in 1915. It has been a slang term for classes and archetypes in many video games given to the role that is used to absorb/mitigate or “tank” damage. Having a class name feels very uncharacteristic compared to the other class names. It’s like naming your cat “Cat”. It’s cute and punny, but is that what they really want for their game? What class do you play? Oh, I play a tank! Yea, but like what class? TANK!! *insert meme of a tank with a face on it... drooling*

Find more posts tagged with

Staff

Comments

daveywavey

maouw wrote: »

It doesn't bother me too much, but I still like throwing in ideas for alternatives:

How about "Strawberry"?

Not sure where the idea came from. Just remember reading it recently.

BobzUrUncle

How many threads do we need about the name of Tank? What is wrong with Tank?

Sathrago

rikardp98 wrote: »

Isn't cleric a priest that is heavily connect to holy power or the light. So all other healing powers that exist will not be used, meaning that cleric is, from my understanding of the word (english is not my first language), pretty narrow when it comes to magic usages.

So I went to see if I missed anything on lore for the cleric and discriptions. Surprisingly the excerpt on the wiki does not even mention the gods. Which I find odd, so perhaps they are taking a fresh perspective on the "cleric" and changing what it would normally mean. This might sound odd but read this and you will hopefully get what im trying to say.

In a world often fraught with peril, a Cleric is never wanting for friends. They can protect their allies in a number of ways, and when necessary, snuff the life out of others. As masters over the very essence of vitality, they can sense the broken and corrupted... The strands of this essence connect everything and everyone. Clerics find themselves particularly attuned to the threads that channel life and motive energy. By reinforcing these tendrils, they can heal and even resurrect those that have been wounded. By tearing them, they can steal energy from their foes, turning their enemies’ powers against them amid the frenzied heat of battle.

This would explain why all clerics can heal, but leaves room for clerics to branch out from said healing into other forms of magic and might.

Atama

Tank is idiotic. Imbecilic. It makes no god damn sense at all. It is without a doubt one of the stupidest decisions made for this game. It displays a massive amount of ignorance. Unless Intrepid decides that Verra is a post-technological society that slipped into a dark age somehow (like Shannara) there is no logic behind choosing the name. They might as well call a class “leet dood” if they don’t want to put any thought into how they name things.

Some schooling for the ignorant... The term “tank” had nothing to do with warfare prior to World War I. In fact, the entire reason the phrase “tank” came to be associated with war vehicles was due to deliberate deception. When the shells of vehicles were being developed for war purposes, they were called “tanks” to trick enemy intelligence gatherers into thinking that they were mundane containers. Because the term “tank” just meant a container for a liquid. Eventually that also came to apply to the vehicles that those “tanks” were made into; first informally then formally. With that in mind, it’s clear why the term makes no sense in a fantasy world.

Calling someone a “tank” is like calling them a “barrel” or a “vase”. It’s lazy and insulting. It needs to change. Simple as that.

Intrepid can keep it, and the company can continue to receive well-deserved ridicule over their stupidity.

Noaani

Atama wrote: »

Some schooling for the ignorant... The term “tank” had nothing to do with warfare prior to World War I. In fact, the entire reason the phrase “tank” came to be associated with war vehicles was due to deliberate deception. When the shells of vehicles were being developed for war purposes, they were called “tanks” to trick enemy intelligence gatherers into thinking that they were mundane containers. Because the term “tank” just meant a container for a liquid. Eventually that also came to apply to the vehicles that those “tanks” were made into; first informally then formally. With that in mind, it’s clear why the term makes no sense in a fantasy world.

I mean, a suit of plate armor doesn't look any less like a water tank that the outside armor shell of a 1916 tank.

Whose to say this exact same thing could have happened?

Sathrago

Atama wrote: »

Tank is idiotic. Imbecilic. It makes no god damn sense at all. It is without a doubt one of the stupidest decisions made for this game. It displays a massive amount of ignorance. Unless Intrepid decides that Verra is a post-technological society that slipped into a dark age somehow (like Shannara) there is no logic behind choosing the name. They might as well call a class “leet dood” if they don’t want to put any thought into how they name things.

Some schooling for the ignorant... The term “tank” had nothing to do with warfare prior to World War I. In fact, the entire reason the phrase “tank” came to be associated with war vehicles was due to deliberate deception. When the shells of vehicles were being developed for war purposes, they were called “tanks” to trick enemy intelligence gatherers into thinking that they were mundane containers. Because the term “tank” just meant a container for a liquid. Eventually that also came to apply to the vehicles that those “tanks” were made into; first informally then formally. With that in mind, it’s clear why the term makes no sense in a fantasy world.

Calling someone a “tank” is like calling them a “barrel” or a “vase”. It’s lazy and insulting. It needs to change. Simple as that.

Intrepid can keep it, and the company can continue to receive well-deserved ridicule over their stupidity.

Alright now lets slap some magic and fantasy tropes on that backstory and it works for people that are extremely durable. Teehee yay we all agreeee im so happy.

Gizban

Dygz wrote: »

Tank sounds fine for a fantasy game.
In a fantasy setting - it connotes a heavily armoured object.

And that connotation was born from the a modern battle tank. 'Tank', as we understand them, don't exist in Vera, so by lore the word wouldn't mean anything.

Sure you can claim they coined the term themselves, but that is just convenient laziness.

Noaani

pyreal wrote: »

'Tank', as we understand them, don't exist in Vera

So what do they hold their liquids in?

Mushin

Noaani wrote: »

pyreal wrote: »

'Tank', as we understand them, don't exist in Vera

So what do they hold their liquids in?

A well, we should rename tanks to wells

Sathrago

pyreal wrote: »

Dygz wrote: »

Tank sounds fine for a fantasy game.
In a fantasy setting - it connotes a heavily armoured object.

And that connotation was born from the a modern battle tank. 'Tank', as we understand them, don't exist in Vera, so by lore the word wouldn't mean anything.

Sure you can claim they coined the term themselves, but that is just convenient laziness.

This is why you have no argument. We don't know the lore yet. We have a teeny tiny bit of it. The fact that you can claim it is immersion breaking without knowing the lore of the tank archetype in AoC is silly.

akabear

I`m quite enjoying this set of arguments, the highly selective use of particular point in time of the words etymology progression begs a few questions.

Does one select when the word was first used and its meaning then, when it had a similar meaning and popularised, when it had the current meaning regardless of past, when the most people used that name.
(very crude population numbers)

17c - which spelling is more correct tadaga (sanskrit), tanke (marathi), tangue (portugese) or tank (English) 1bil
18`s word synonymous with pond, then later water tank or storage items
1915 WW1- 1.75 bil world population probably not widely known
1970`s Boxing, first PUBs - 4bil
1980`s RPGs 5bil
1990`s MMORPGs 6bil
2020`s 7.8bil

Sholer

lol I didn't know my thread was going to piss off so many people

Sathrago

Sholer wrote: »

lol I didn't know my thread was going to piss off so many people

I mean, this is why everyone called you a troll initially. This argument has been around a while.

Noaani

akabear wrote: »

Does one select when the word was first used and its meaning then, when it had a similar meaning and popularised, when it had the current meaning regardless of past, when the most people used that name.

I would say neither, one understands that language is fluid, and changes in language are simply a representation of changes in the social makeup of the population that speaks the language.

I mean, using your own post there, we can see the use of the word change over time. The word splits from having one meaning to having three meanings, depending on the context in which it is used. In the process of this, the word would now never be used in English as it was originally used - which as you point out was a synonom for "pond".

Sholer

Sathrago wrote: »

Sholer wrote: »

lol I didn't know my thread was going to piss off so many people

I mean, this is why everyone called you a troll initially. This argument has been around a while.

It wasn't my intention to get people angry, just really think "Tank" is a name for a rol, not for a class.

But whatever I think the mayority don't want to change the name so I think the best option here is let the thread just die.

Noaani

Sholer wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Sholer wrote: »

lol I didn't know my thread was going to piss off so many people

I mean, this is why everyone called you a troll initially. This argument has been around a while.

It wasn't my intention to get people angry, just really think "Tank" is a name for a rol, not for a class.

But whatever I think the mayority don't want to change the name so I think the best option here is let the thread just die.

To be fair, tank isn't a class name in Ashes. It is an archetype name.

Two archetypes make up your class, which has it's own name.

Sathrago

Sholer wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

Sholer wrote: »

lol I didn't know my thread was going to piss off so many people

I mean, this is why everyone called you a troll initially. This argument has been around a while.

It wasn't my intention to get people angry, just really think "Tank" is a name for a rol, not for a class.

But whatever I think the mayority don't want to change the name so I think the best option here is let the thread just die.

Noaani said it earlier but basically you should think of these archetype names as roles and it should not feel so horrible to you.

you have your different flavors of dps, your healer, and then you have tank. It just so happens that there is no real good name for "tank" that is as general as "tank". If you use anything else it becomes too specific and wouldn't make sense according to the class created.

Marcet

If they leave it like that people will laugh at it forever, now and 10 years after the game is released.
It makes no sense to anyone, it's not the end of the world, but it's a thing too dumb to let it pass with the seriousness this project has.

Trust me 10 years after game release people will still ridicule and ask why "tank" is an archetype name.

Sathrago

Marcet wrote: »

If they leave it like that people will laugh at it forever, now and 10 years after the game is released.
It makes no sense to anyone, it's not the end of the world, but it's a thing too dumb to let it pass with the seriousness this project has.

Trust me 10 years after game release people will still ridicule and ask why "tank" is an archetype name.

It boggles my mind that you cannot accept calling the archetype tank when you will be calling the class "tank" the entire time you play the game.

Noaani

Sathrago wrote: »

Marcet wrote: »

If they leave it like that people will laugh at it forever, now and 10 years after the game is released.
It makes no sense to anyone, it's not the end of the world, but it's a thing too dumb to let it pass with the seriousness this project has.

Trust me 10 years after game release people will still ridicule and ask why "tank" is an archetype name.

It boggles my mind that you cannot accept calling the archetype tank when you will be calling the class "tank" the entire time you play the game.

Same.

Peoploe may well mock it, but then any sane person will then log in to their MMO of choice, start forming a group, and say in that games world chat "lf tank for..." and all of a sudden the whole thing will click, and they will feel just a little silly.

Child Item