What's with the generic names?

[The_Warpact]

Example, "Healing Defender" or "Fire Tank" or "Robot Mastermind "........or my personal favorite "Rad Sword"...can you guess what the powersets are?

 

Has imagination just bottomed out? There are sites out there that will make a named profile for anything...hero, villain, D&D, etc for free I might add.

 

Just seems weird...

 

 

[Techwright]

Just speculating...Are these on high level characters?  I'm wondering if they're low-level characters, in which case, knowing that changing names is free, perhaps they're placeholder names until the player can figure out a concept and name?

 

Alternatively, might they be the result of having a named generic'ed by the GMs, either selected by the GMs, rather than assigning a number, or chose by the players who lost a name?

[The_Warpact]

21 minutes ago, Techwright said:

Just speculating...Are these on high level characters?  I'm wondering if they're low-level characters, in which case, knowing that changing names is free, perhaps they're placeholder names until the player can figure out a concept and name?

 

Alternatively, might they be the result of having a named generic'ed by the GMs, either selected by the GMs, rather than assigning a number, or chose by the players who lost a name?

True...levels have been all over the place. Just seems rather rampant. 

Although, have been seeing alot of pop culture, movie, comic names too.

So the generic idea would fit.

[wolfshadow31]

I suppose if you have tons of alts, on many shards...keeping track might be a bit hard.  This would make it easier I suppose.  Rad Sword would certainly be easier to identify than Captain Kablooey.

[EmmySky]

A lot of theory crafters name like that so they can easily track who is what and tweek builds.

[The_Warpact]

27 minutes ago, wolfshadow31 said:

I suppose if you have tons of alts, on many shards...keeping track might be a bit hard.  This would make it easier I suppose.  Rad Sword would certainly be easier to identify than Captain Kablooey.

 

15 minutes ago, EmmySky said:

A lot of theory crafters name like that so they can easily track who is what and tweek builds.

I suppose that makes sense, just noticed a large influx recently and had me wondering. 

[Player2]

"Super" and "man" = so very generic.

"Wonder" and "Woman" = also kind of generic.

 

Thor, God of Thunder is fairly specific...  Iron Man not so much.

 

What makes a good hero (or villain) name differs to a lot of people.

Personally, I'm guilty of this naming convention also.  Some of my names include:

 

Burn Time = fire blast / temporal manipulation blaster

Cloudburn = fire blast / storm summoning corruptor

Cold Cuts = dual blades / ice armor scrapper

Jungle Julie = beasts / nature affinity mastermind

Night Lightning = electric melee / dark armor brute

Pretty Painful = illusion control / pain domination controller

Terra-Joule = earth control / electric assault dominator

Terrorformer = darkness control / nature affinity controller

Think-Tanker = willpower / psionic melee tanker

Thoughtstorm = storm summoning / psychic blast defender

Triggerstorm = dual pistols / storm summoning corruptor

Whipstorm = demons / storm summoning mastermind

Zero Time = ice blast / temporal manipulation blaster

 

[Solarverse]

It's better than "XxxFiremanxxX" or "F1R3M4N" or "Firemannn" or some other such crap. Nothing irks me more about names than when if a name is already taken, people will be so desperate to get that name that instead of coming up with something original, they just add X's or numbers to replace letters or add extra letters at the end. I just look at those names and go, "Really? That name was that important to you, eh?"

[Techwright]

*looks both ways, quietly opens game*

*hits rename on xXxSol@rvers3xXx*

*renames to Energy Blast*

[Spy]

Not everyone gets cool names, some have to make due. Others get lucky, like me.

[Apparition]

When you have a server with a few hundred thousand characters on it, names are kind of scarce.  At some point, some people will just give up and go with KCDF1ZUP48 or something.

[Player2]

Just now, Apparition said:

When you have a server with a few hundred thousand characters on it, names are kind of scarce.  At some point, some people will just give up and go with KCDF1ZUP48 or something.

People will...  but I won't.

 

I will just be bitter and move on to another twenty ideas...  just to get the names before anyone else does.  If I can't have the name I wanted, then I want to make sure I keep some names from other people.  That's right, I'm a vindictive namer.

 

[Solarverse]

10 minutes ago, Techwright said:

*looks both ways, quietly opens game*

*hits rename on xXxSol@rvers3xXx*

*renames to Energy Blast*

Hahahaha! Thanks for that, you just made my day!  😄

[Solarverse]

2 minutes ago, Player2 said:

People will...  but I won't.

 

I will just be bitter and move on to another twenty ideas...  just to get the names before anyone else does.  If I can't have the name I wanted, then I want to make sure I keep some names from other people.  That's right, I'm a vindictive namer.

 

The name Eagle Eye was taken, the name Arrowhawk was taken, the name Deadeye was taken. So I got creative and came up with Cyberoptic (which sounds like Fiberoptic) and loved that name more than any of those easy to think of names. I mean, I don't think it's hard to be creative with names, you just have to think outside the box IMO. So I agree with you, it's not that stressful and it's not that hard to be original.

[Player2]

14 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

The name Eagle Eye was taken, the name Arrowhawk was taken, the name Deadeye was taken. So I got creative and came up with Cyberoptic (which sounds like Fiberoptic) and loved that name more than any of those easy to think of names. I mean, I don't think it's hard to be creative with names, you just have to think outside the box IMO. So I agree with you, it's not that stressful and it's not that hard to be original.

I've only had one character get bumped from a name I was using when switching between servers and liked my rename better than the original.

I had Poledancer for my staff fighting scrapper and moved over to Torch where it was taken.  Picked up the name Grindhouse instead, and I'm very pleased with the change.

 

Everything else is rubbish and I hate when something like that happens or when I can't create a new character because someone else is using the name already.

 

Other name changes that I've made and people tell me they like and I absolutely can't stand:

 

Flood -> renamed as Aquaduct

Hotness -> renamed as Hot One

Violence -> renamed as Violenza

Spine -> renamed as Backbone

Good Girl -> renamed as Virtue Girl

Origin -> renamed as Demigoddess

First -> renamed as Fear Incarnate

Dervish -> renamed as Dancing Girl

Bricks -> renamed as Brix

Sunder -> renamed as Flawless Axe

Omnipotent -> renamed as All-Powerful

 

Hate them all and the enjoyment of playing them has come to a halt.

[Player2]

Unique names is a crap system.  Names are not unique in the real world, and hell they aren't even unique in comic books among superheroes.  There've been as many as 4 Spider-Men running around simultaneously... 2 Supermans (and other Justice League members) also...  and over time, names have been passed around.  Captain Marvel has been used by like 8 or 9 different characters... two at the same time in different comic universes.

 

We need non-unique naming with names tied to players' global chat handles, and then we can stop seeing all the xX(name)Xx, oO(name)Oo, as well as numbers as letters and a dash or period before or after a name... except where people REALLY want that as their name.

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, The_Warpact said:

Example, "Healing Defender" or "Fire Tank" or "Robot Mastermind "........or my personal favorite "Rad Sword"...can you guess what the powersets are?

Well, let's sift through my characters and pick some:
"Теневой Огонь" (Tenevoy Ogon', 'Shadow Fire', fire/dark corruptor),
"Лучник" (Luchnik, 'Archer', arch/ta blaster),
"Обморожение" (Obmorozheniye, 'Frostbite', ice/ice dominator),
"Ядерный Огонь" (Yaderniy Ogon', 'Nuclear Fire', fire/rad controller),
"Термоядерный" (Termoyaderniy, 'Thermonuclear', fire/rad sentinel),
"Пожарная Сорняк" (Pozharnaya Sornyak, 'Fire Weed', fire/plant blaster),
"Голубая Молния" (Golubaya Molniya, 'Blue Lightning', elec/elec defender),
"Ядерная Зима" (Yadernaya Zima, 'Nuclear Winter', ice/rad corruptor).

 

All with names that are essentially just descriptions of their powers, yet, having been filtered through a foreign language, acquire more weight.

[Techwright]

6 minutes ago, Player2 said:

We need non-unique naming with names tied to players' global chat handles, and then we can stop seeing all the xX(name)Xx, oO(name)Oo, as well as numbers as letters and a dash or period before or after a name... except where people REALLY want that as their name.

We'd still need a visibly unique identifier, both for team selection purposes ("Which of you 20 Spidermen wanted to join the TF?"), and for avoiding griefing from players deliberately disguising themselves in name and costume as others to give others a bad name via bad behavior.

[The_Warpact]

3 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

Well, let's sift through my characters and pick some:
"Теневой Огонь" (Tenevoy Ogon', 'Shadow Fire', fire/dark corruptor),
"Лучник" (Luchnik, 'Archer', arch/ta blaster),
"Обморожение" (Obmorozheniye, 'Frostbite', ice/ice dominator),
"Ядерный Огонь" (Yaderniy Ogon', 'Nuclear Fire', fire/rad controller),
"Термоядерный" (Termoyaderniy, 'Thermonuclear', fire/rad sentinel),
"Пожарная Сорняк" (Pozharnaya Sornyak, 'Fire Weed', fire/plant blaster),
"Голубая Молния" (Golubaya Molniya, 'Blue Lightning', elec/elec defender),
"Ядерная Зима" (Yadernaya Zima, 'Nuclear Winter', ice/rad corruptor).

 

All with names that are essentially just descriptions of their powers, yet, having been filtered through a foreign language, acquire more weight.

Yeah I have Kreigpakt and Pacte de Guerre.

[Player2]

1 minute ago, Techwright said:

We'd still need a visibly unique identifier, both for team selection purposes ("Which of you 20 Spidermen wanted to join the TF?"), and for avoiding griefing from players deliberately disguising themselves in name and costume as others to give others a bad name via bad behavior.

Names get tied to global chat handles.  So when you see a "spiderman" saying they want to join the TF, you right click on that spiderman's name and select invite to team.  You can also use the add note feature to keep track of which player is which with common names.  So if there were suddenly a hundred characters named Grindhouse like my staff fighter and you know you like teaming with me, you add (or edit) note and you have the option of giving that person a rating of 1 to 5 stars.  When you see that player again, the star rating you gave them is there regardless of what character they're playing, and you can see in the notes every character name they've used when you edited your note of that player (auto updates), as well as anything you specifically add in your note.

 

So players griefing in the way you describe could easily be kept track of.  If you see someone behaving this way, 1-star them with a note and whenever you see that player you'll know what they did.

[Solarverse]

1 hour ago, Player2 said:

I've only had one character get bumped from a name I was using when switching between servers and liked my rename better than the original.

I had Poledancer for my staff fighting scrapper and moved over to Torch where it was taken.  Picked up the name Grindhouse instead, and I'm very pleased with the change.

 

Everything else is rubbish and I hate when something like that happens or when I can't create a new character because someone else is using the name already.

 

Other name changes that I've made and people tell me they like and I absolutely can't stand:

 

Flood -> renamed as Aquaduct

Hotness -> renamed as Hot One

Violence -> renamed as Violenza

Spine -> renamed as Backbone

Good Girl -> renamed as Virtue Girl

Origin -> renamed as Demigoddess

First -> renamed as Fear Incarnate

Dervish -> renamed as Dancing Girl

Bricks -> renamed as Brix

Sunder -> renamed as Flawless Axe

Omnipotent -> renamed as All-Powerful

 

Hate them all and the enjoyment of playing them has come to a halt.

I understand where you are coming from, however I don't fully agree with it. One thing I absolutely hated about Champions Online, was the lack of unique identity in that game. There were so many players with the name of Frost that I just couldn't get in to it.

 

This game has always held that unique style to it that has always guaranteed that you will never see another player of the exact same name as yourself. Yes, Spider-Man and Superman do indeed have multiple people with the same name, however, they are almost always from a different multiverse/universe (aka different server). This game has always allowed us to be unique and this conversation has been brought up since release more times than I can count. Every time it gets the same answer...the players will continue to be unique.

 

I do however understand your frustration. If I did move servers (which I will not do unless it is forced) and I was forced to change the names of my characters, I would put on a frown face and then get to changing names. What I would not do is come to these forums to push for a change in the name policies. There are only a few names that I would pitch a fit about if I could not use them but that is only because I own the intellectual property to those names. The rest, I would just deal with it and reach out to my imagination to come up with names that I can like rather than just refuse to play those characters anymore.

 

Edit: However, as a Compromise, I would be willing to share a name with another player that came from another server but with a short hand tag under or above the name. Such as, if your name was Casket (which I own on Excelsior) and you came to Excelsior with that character, it would not bother me if you also had that name, but under that name have (TB) to indicate that you came from the Torchbearer Universe. That IMO is a great compromise that could be implemented that would not bother me because it would make sense in a comic themed world.

 

 

 

Edited November 29, 2020 by Solarverse

[Player2]

25 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

I understand where you are coming from, however I don't fully agree with it. One thing I absolutely hated about Champions Online, was the lack of unique identity in that game. There were so many players with the name of Frost that I just couldn't get in to it.

I'm sure every John Smith in the real world agrees with you.  But that's not how life works.

[Solarverse]

Just now, Player2 said:

I'm sure every John Smith in the real world agrees with you.  But that's not how life works.

You are correct. However, I would like to point out that this is not the real world.

[Player2]

1 minute ago, Solarverse said:

You are correct. However, I would like to point out that this is not the real world.

And, as I pointed out, this phenomenon also occurs within the comics world.

[Solarverse]

Just now, Player2 said:

And, as I pointed out, this phenomenon also occurs within the comics world.

As I would like to point out that I covered the reasons behind that and how it makes sense. I also pointed out a way in the edit in how this could be handled as a compromise. I think it's worth taking a look at.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Solarverse