What's with the generic names?

[Nerio72]

I have a milk blaster/milk sword nin, UdderNonsense 😁

[CaptainHit-Guy]

Two months ago I made a new villain. She was going to be a member of my Villainous Ideals SG (each member is the physical manifestation of a villainous concept). I knew want I wanted but thought to myself, surely it would be taken... it was not. And so was born, Pure Evil. Unique or generic? You decide!

And yes, this was an homage to Time Bandits 😁

 

When the new Issue dropped I made a new EM scrapper. He is an AI that binged too many Westerns; meet Marshal Electron!

 

So yes, there are plenty of decent names still available on Excelsior (unless I nick them first).

[Grouchybeast]

1 hour ago, Nerio72 said:

I have a milk blaster/milk sword nin, UdderNonsense 😁

When I started playing on HC I was gutted to find that the name of my old milk blaster, Dairy Queen, was already taken.  So now she's Buffalo Lill.

 

 

[Nerio72]

1 minute ago, Grouchybeast said:

When I started playing on HC I was gutted to find that the name of my old milk blaster, Dairy Queen, was already taken.  So now she's Buffalo Lill.

 

 

Udder Nonsense was taken so I had adjust it (which kinda relates to the topic), I sometimes like some names better without the spaces. Not always...

[Techwright]

1 hour ago, Nerio72 said:

Udder Nonsense was taken so I had adjust it (which kinda relates to the topic), I sometimes like some names better without the spaces. Not always...

You've reminded me of the OG game where there used to be cattle supergroups, and one would occasionally see the herd running through the city.  Kind of miss that.

[macskull]

The "obvious name" or "faceroll the keyboard" character names are typical for when I'm testing things on beta and sometimes even on live. I have zero emotional attachment to any of my characters so the name is pretty irrelevant. Usually I just try to make it amusing.

[Grindingsucks]

I enjoy having a sort of "ownership" over the name that I make up, so I appreciate the unique name aspect of the game.  With regard to the bland/generic names, I admire clever and imaginatively named characters a more than blandly  named ones, but I acknowledge that each players has the right to name their own character.  I enjoy roleplaying, so it can be a bit jarring when I'm trying to immerse myself in the game world, but certainly no more (and, probably, a lot less) jarring than people that don't roleplay at all.

[Solarverse]

Names that irk me the absolute worst are names like Fartface MacDeeznuts and silliness like that.

[The_Warpact]

38 minutes ago, Solarverse said:

Names that irk me the absolute worst are names like Fartface MacDeeznuts and silliness like that.

Isn't that a toon on Everlasting?

[Solarverse]

3 hours ago, The_Warpact said:

Isn't that a toon on Everlasting?

I would not be the least bit surprised, lol.

[gourdhead]

I really don't understand people complaining about lack of names, when in just the last 2 weeks I've gotten "Fire Coyote", "Mistress Magic", and "Muffin Man" (my Frank Zappa tribute toon 🙂 ).  Plus a couple of slightly more obscure ones (my sonic blaster to be "Nitro Headache").

[Jeneki]

On 11/28/2020 at 5:39 PM, The_Warpact said:

 "Rad Sword"...can you guess what the powersets are?

80s sunglasses / sword.

[The_Warpact]

1 hour ago, Jeneki said:

80s sunglasses / sword.

I wear my sunglasses at night, so I can, so I can...

[Herotu]

On 11/29/2020 at 1:16 AM, Solarverse said:

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?"

... and yet ... that itself becomes ripe for a juicy, clever pun! Perfect for a spoof computer-oriented character.

[Jeneki]

We're lucky freakshow don't have flamethrowers, or some of those Fireman alt names would be in-game.

[dopeninja]

I try to find punny names. Like Miss Tree (Plant/Nature Troller), Sleight Delay (Ill/Time Troller), Psychoplantis (Psi/Plant Blaster). Sometimes it takes a few tries to find a name that works and other times I get it first go. It's getting harder and harder to do as my character count goes up.

[Sailboat]

On 11/29/2020 at 8:41 PM, Solarverse said:

Names that irk me the absolute worst are names like Fartface MacDeeznuts and silliness like that.

I play another game (don't tell anyone) called War Thunder, a vehicular combat simulator (PVP).  There are many players, from many countries, and a LOT of them have either troll names or random letters/numbers.  Sometimes the results are funny.  I was dogfighting in WWII planes against a guy named RocketAss and managed to set him on fire.  As his fighter arced downward trailing a pillar of fire, I said, "there goes RocketAss."

[Sailboat]

I played a bit of Marvel Heroes online before it shut down.  Of course they're invested in their trademarked characters, so they use the names we're familiar with.  Up to 8 players could be on a team, sop sometimes the team introductions went like this:

 

"Hello, Hulk.  I'm Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Hulk."

*nods* "Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Yo, Hulk."

"Me Hulk.  You Hulk?"

"Yep, Hulk, Hulk."

[Cutter]

On 11/28/2020 at 6:24 PM, Techwright said:

*looks both ways, quietly opens game*

*hits rename on xXxSol@rvers3xXx*

*renames to Energy Blast*

As long as you're not on Reunion... one of my kids snagged "Energy Blast" a year ago 🙂

[Solarverse]

2 hours ago, Sailboat said:

I played a bit of Marvel Heroes online before it shut down.  Of course they're invested in their trademarked characters, so they use the names we're familiar with.  Up to 8 players could be on a team, sop sometimes the team introductions went like this:

 

"Hello, Hulk.  I'm Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Hulk."

*nods* "Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Yo, Hulk."

"Me Hulk.  You Hulk?"

"Yep, Hulk, Hulk."

I played that game for like 5 minutes and then said, "nope, not today or any other day."  lol

[Player2]

The problem I have with unique names isn't that people get them before others who want to use them... or even people who get them and then squat on them because they plan to do something down the road.  It's when someone takes a name for their character, plays awhile, and then goes off to do other things... and maybe they'll come back to the game someday and they want that character to still be here when they get back.  But as long as we're stuck with the unique name system, I say if you're not using it then you should lose it.

[Coyotedancer]

3 hours ago, Sailboat said:

I played a bit of Marvel Heroes online before it shut down.  Of course they're invested in their trademarked characters, so they use the names we're familiar with.  Up to 8 players could be on a team, sop sometimes the team introductions went like this:

 

"Hello, Hulk.  I'm Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Hulk."

*nods* "Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Yo, Hulk."

"Me Hulk.  You Hulk?"

"Yep, Hulk, Hulk."

 

Hulk becoming sort of the superhero version of "Dude"... 🤣

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, Sailboat said:

I played a bit of Marvel Heroes online before it shut down.  Of course they're invested in their trademarked characters, so they use the names we're familiar with.  Up to 8 players could be on a team, sop sometimes the team introductions went like this:

 

"Hello, Hulk.  I'm Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Hulk."

*nods* "Hulk."

"Hulk."

"Yo, Hulk."

"Me Hulk.  You Hulk?"

"Yep, Hulk, Hulk."

 

"Shepard."

"Wrex."

[The_Warpact]

37 minutes ago, Player2 said:

The problem I have with unique names isn't that people get them before others who want to use them... or even people who get them and then squat on them because they plan to do something down the road.  It's when someone takes a name for their character, plays awhile, and then goes off to do other things... and maybe they'll come back to the game someday and they want that character to still be here when they get back.  But as long as we're stuck with the unique name system, I say if you're not using it then you should lose it.

I thought after 30 days of inactivity the name frees up.

[Player2]

6 minutes ago, The_Warpact said:

I thought after 30 days of inactivity the name frees up.

I believe the policy you speak of is for character levels 1-5.  6-20 it's 90 days, and 21-49 is a full year.

But I also believe that policy has not been initiated yet.