Costume Character names

[josephgudgeon]

Is there anyway you can make it so I can have a Different name for each costume slot of the same character ? I have a Character who needs his name to change when he changes costumes.  Thank you for your time.

[Aurora_Girl]

No. 

[MTeague]

Not currently possible.  You *might* be able to set a different title  ("the Amazing Superdude" / "the Powerful Superdude"), but even that, I don't think you can automatically tie to a costume change. Maybe to a Build, but not a costume change.

 

I mean, I can see the appeal, if you want to mostly be a reknowned hero, but sometimes have a different costume for when you got full vigilante execution style street justice, or heck, maybe your hero has schizophrania.  I've got a Praetorian Archer/TacArrow blaster who I used very different costumes for when she was Resistance vs Loyalist, but kind of had to headcanon any kind of maintaining a separate identity. The engine isn't kind to it.

[Greycat]

So, let's go over all the issues this would face and/or cause:

 

1. People already complain about "all the good names being taken." I don't agree with this, mind you. But for this to work, you'd be changing names *up to ten times per character.* Which:

- a. either means you want to *reserve* up to ten names per character, which would likely result in tarring and feathering, or

- b. cause support problems when you go from the Blastinator in costume slot 3 to Huggins in costume slot 6... but the next day, when you go to costume slot 3, someone else has already taken "Blastinator." People would try to argue that's "their" name for that costume slot.

 

2. Not sure you can actually change names while logged into the game. It's a function on the character select screen. While you can change *globals* while (and only while) in game, I'm not sure how the database is set up or if it would allow you to change a character name. GMs can generic people on the spot (I've seen it happen,) but I don't know what doing it multiple times on a character, repeatedly, would do.

 

3. Oh, the fun of *invites.*

"ITF LF 3 more."

"OK, I (Blastinator) am on the way!"

*Changes costume.*

*Team leader tries inviting. Gives up, because you changed slots to SuperSpud, and gives the slot to someone else.*

 

I mean, those problems popped into mind in a few seconds of seeing this.

 

Best you can do is put it in your bio - "Hey, blue/white costume, please refer to me as Unit 07. If I'm in the green suit, Henry. Yellow tights, Urinalota Trouble."

[josephgudgeon]

Actually. My Main character is the Emperor, King, Lord of the Underworld of the dead. In Other words, He is Satan, Hades, and Anubis.  I can Create the look for each of these on the same character, But i would like for the name to match the look. And i always thought that not allowing players to have the same name makes little logical sense. I mean If you get enough players, eventually There will be no names left that anyone can use. 

[Greycat]

2 hours ago, josephgudgeon said:

 I mean If you get enough players, eventually There will be no names left that anyone can use. 

 

Didn't happen on live. Unlikely to happen.

[Rudra]

It didn't happen on Live because players would embed the name they want.

 

oO<Name>Oo

X<Name>X

XX<Name>XX

XXX<Name>XXX

ooO<Name>Ooo

 

etc.

[Marbing]

3 minutes ago, Rudra said:

It didn't happen on Live because players would embed the name they want.

 

oO<Name>Oo

X<Name>X

XX<Name>XX

XXX<Name>XXX

ooO<Name>Ooo

 

etc.

You forgot XxX<N4M3HaX0r>XxX

[Rudra]

5 hours ago, josephgudgeon said:

Actually. My Main character is the Emperor, King, Lord of the Underworld of the dead. In Other words, He is Satan, Hades, and Anubis.  I can Create the look for each of these on the same character, But i would like for the name to match the look. And i always thought that not allowing players to have the same name makes little logical sense. I mean If you get enough players, eventually There will be no names left that anyone can use. 

Satan and Hades? Sure. Satan rules over a realm where the souls of deceased sinners are tortured. Hades rules over the Underworld, where the souls of all deceased go regardless of how they lived their lives. Except Hades (the place) had different regions where Hades (the god) sent the souls for their afterlives based on their lives.

 

Anubis? Wasn't the god of anything. He was a god, yes, but his job was to ferry the souls of the dead to face judgement by Osiris.

 

Lore/mythology phase of post concluded.

 

NOW! You want to be able to use all 3 names for your single character. Combining 3 different religions and locking down all three names, again on a single character. CoX does not have the ability to share names, so I am against the idea of a single person getting to use multiple names for a single character. CO allowed it because your global ID was part of your character name. (Edit: Which was tedious as all Hell. "Avatar Of Unholy Devastation And Ruin @MasterEngimaGodPlayer, I would like to ask....") I personally think it is silly to want to have a multi-named character, unless you're playing a schizophrenic. (Especially when the character in question is basically three different deities from three different religions.) Yes, I'm that petty,

Edited March 7, 2022 by Rudra

[Marbing]

5 hours ago, josephgudgeon said:

Actually. My Main character is the Emperor, King, Lord of the Underworld of the dead. In Other words, He is Satan, Hades, and Anubis.  I can Create the look for each of these on the same character, But i would like for the name to match the look. And i always thought that not allowing players to have the same name makes little logical sense. I mean If you get enough players, eventually There will be no names left that anyone can use. 

You could come up with some single name and write a bio about how that entity is actually all the entities you mentioned. Like, some story about how these God’s were all presumed separate but in fact are the same (plot twist, gasp) then use the costumes to enforce this concept. This way, a name change isn’t required because we get the pleasure of seeing his/her real name, even if we don’t ever get to see his/her real face. 

 

[Rudra]

19 minutes ago, th0ughtGun said:

You could come up with some single name and write a bio about how that entity is actually all the entities you mentioned. Like, some story about how these God’s were all presumed separate but in fact are the same (plot twist, gasp) then use the costumes to enforce this concept. This way, a name change isn’t required because we get the pleasure of seeing his/her real name, even if we don’t ever get to see his/her real face. 

 

Points for creativity.

[Aurora_Girl]

8 hours ago, josephgudgeon said:

Actually. My Main character is the Emperor, King, Lord of the Underworld of the dead. In Other words, He is Satan, Hades, and Anubis.  I can Create the look for each of these on the same character, But i would like for the name to match the look. And i always thought that not allowing players to have the same name makes little logical sense. I mean If you get enough players, eventually There will be no names left that anyone can use. 

 

Be more creative, learn how math and letters work, or both!

 

Problem solved, no spaghetti required. 

[Greycat]

4 hours ago, Rudra said:

It didn't happen on Live because players would embed the name they want.

 

oO<Name>Oo

X<Name>X

XX<Name>XX

XXX<Name>XXX

ooO<Name>Ooo

 

etc.

 

Odd, never did that. And I was most definitely an altaholic.

[Rudra]

And you've never seen it before on Live either?! I swear they were literally everywhere.

 

(And as a fellow alt-itis sufferer/beneficiary, I've never done that either. I'm stubborn enough to find a name I like that matches the name I wanted that was taken.)

 

(Edit: And still opposed to the OP.)

Edited March 7, 2022 by Rudra

[MTeague]

There are definitely some low hanging fruit names that get scoffed up. 

But it usually doesn't take *that* much effort / imagination to find an available name if you put a bit of a twist on it. 

• I wanted a brute. Villain. To punch things. A lot. Goes on mayhem missions. generally cause havoc. Ooo, let's try Havoc for a name!  Taken.  Havok?  Taken. Plus, X-Men. So I filled his backstory with lots of Cold War stereotypes, put hin in a tanktop with a Hammer-and-Sickle emblem, and thus was "Red Havok" born. 
• I wanted a sonic character. Most things i tried related to speakers or decibles were either taken or just didn't do it for me. So I made his backstory that he was an opera singer, and named him "Phil Harmonic". 
• I wanted an Electric Affinity character. looked up some general electrical terms. A number of things I wanted were taken. So i took a break, started up some dinner, plugged in my phone.... and inspiration it.  While quite rare "Cable" can be a first name. And thus was born "Charge Cable". Backstory has his full name as Cable William Guy, and oh yea, he's heard allll the jokes about "Cable Guy" "Cable Bill", and he's kind of got a bad attitude about them. Quirks like that just flesh out a character and make them so much more fun to play.

 

 

[BrandX]

29 minutes ago, MTeague said:

There are definitely some low hanging fruit names that get scoffed up. 

But it usually doesn't take *that* much effort / imagination to find an available name if you put a bit of a twist on it. 

• I wanted a brute. Villain. To punch things. A lot. Goes on mayhem missions. generally cause havoc. Ooo, let's try Havoc for a name!  Taken.  Havok?  Taken. Plus, X-Men. So I filled his backstory with lots of Cold War stereotypes, put hin in a tanktop with a Hammer-and-Sickle emblem, and thus was "Red Havok" born. 
• I wanted a sonic character. Most things i tried related to speakers or decibles were either taken or just didn't do it for me. So I made his backstory that he was an opera singer, and named him "Phil Harmonic". 
• I wanted an Electric Affinity character. looked up some general electrical terms. A number of things I wanted were taken. So i took a break, started up some dinner, plugged in my phone.... and inspiration it.  While quite rare "Cable" can be a first name. And thus was born "Charge Cable". Backstory has his full name as Cable William Guy, and oh yea, he's heard allll the jokes about "Cable Guy" "Cable Bill", and he's kind of got a bad attitude about them. Quirks like that just flesh out a character and make them so much more fun to play.

 

 

 

I think the problem here is you think those names are creative while others can see those names as terrible.

 

Of those three, only Red Havok seems very superhero comic booky.  Charge Cable seems close, but it also seems like the type of name you'd hear others making fun of in the comics.  Phil Harmonic more so.

 

That said, only so many names to go around, but at the same time, lots of people don't like seeing multiple "Popular Superhero" running around with others using the name, because the company couldn't sell the other names.

[Luminara]

4 hours ago, Rudra said:

Hades rules over the Underworld, where the souls of all deceased go regardless of how they lived their lives. Except Hades (the place) had different regions where Hades (the god) sent the souls for their afterlives based on their lives.

 

Hades was the god, Tartarus was the underworld.  Tartarus was a Titan, originally, then became the embodiment of the underworld when the pantheon defeated the Titans.

 

4 hours ago, Rudra said:

Anubis? Wasn't the god of anything. He was a god, yes, but his job was to ferry the souls of the dead to face judgement by Osiris.

 

It depends on when you look along the Egyptian time line.  In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the god of the dead.  He was the protector and guardian.  By the Middle Kingdom, Osiris had become the god of the dead (after Set chopped him up) and presided over Duat (the afterlife in this mythology), and Anubis' role had been shifted to the god of embalmers, the god who weighed the hearts of the dead in the Hall of Ma'at, and the protector of graves.  Then, near the end of the Dynasties, he was also portrayed as the guide who led the deceased to the Weighing of the Heart.

 

So yes, but no.  Anubis didn't rule Duat, but he was the god and ruler of cemeteries and tombs (and his power there was beyond that of any other), and in early mythology, the god of the dead.  This is why he was also known as the First/Foremost of the Westerners (to "go west" in ancient Egyptian culture meant to die, evoking the myth of Osiris' death and its connection to the setting of the sun), the Lord of the Sacred Land (nothing was more sacred than the places where the dead were buried), He Who Sits on the Mountain (mountains being symbolically important as representations of tombs) and many other names.  Anubis was a god of different things, but he was also "just" a god in the sense that he didn't rule a place like Olympus, Tartarus or the ocean.  Despite Anubis not being the "ruler of the underworld" (ancient Egyptians didn't have an underworld.  Duat was neither a place of punishment nor reward, it was simply the next phase in living.  they didn't believe in any kind of Hell, instead, if a soul was deemed unworthy of entering Duat, it was devoured by Ammit), he was immensely important in that culture, as important as the Nile, because, to them, the afterlife was just more life, and Anubis was the one who made that life possible in the same way the Nile made their mortal life possible.

 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

[Marbing]

Meet Anubis. Same as Anoldbis.

[WanderingAries]

8 hours ago, Greycat said:

 

Didn't happen on live. Unlikely to happen.

 

Even excluding the creative alternatives, this was never an issue AFAIK. Hell, for some of My alts (partially to avoid licensing issues) I've done things like use the character's "normal name" that would be so obscure only the fans would know. That or some creative variant on the name itself. I'm not the most creative of the bunch (by a mile), but I've had little issue with names in this game Live or otherwise.

[Aurora_Girl]

I didn't want to make Rogue. I wanted to make Aurora Girl. 

 

Sorry I took your cool name. 

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

 

Hades was the god, Tartarus was the underworld.  Tartarus was a Titan, originally, then became the embodiment of the underworld when the pantheon defeated the Titans.

 

 

It depends on when you look along the Egyptian time line.  In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the god of the dead.  He was the protector and guardian.  By the Middle Kingdom, Osiris had become the god of the dead (after Set chopped him up) and presided over Duat (the afterlife in this mythology), and Anubis' role had been shifted to the god of embalmers, the god who weighed the hearts of the dead in the Hall of Ma'at, and the protector of graves.  Then, near the end of the Dynasties, he was also portrayed as the guide who led the deceased to the Weighing of the Heart.

 

So yes, but no.  Anubis didn't rule Duat, but he was the god and ruler of cemeteries and tombs (and his power there was beyond that of any other), and in early mythology, the god of the dead.  This is why he was also known as the First/Foremost of the Westerners (to "go west" in ancient Egyptian culture meant to die, evoking the myth of Osiris' death and its connection to the setting of the sun), the Lord of the Sacred Land (nothing was more sacred than the places where the dead were buried), He Who Sits on the Mountain (mountains being symbolically important as representations of tombs) and many other names.  Anubis was a god of different things, but he was also "just" a god in the sense that he didn't rule a place like Olympus, Tartarus or the ocean.  Despite Anubis not being the "ruler of the underworld" (ancient Egyptians didn't have an underworld.  Duat was neither a place of punishment nor reward, it was simply the next phase in living.  they didn't believe in any kind of Hell, instead, if a soul was deemed unworthy of entering Duat, it was devoured by Ammit), he was immensely important in that culture, as important as the Nile, because, to them, the afterlife was just more life, and Anubis was the one who made that life possible in the same way the Nile made their mortal life possible.

 

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

Hades was both god and Underworld. Tartarus was the place where the worst of the worst were sealed away and also the most dangerous titan imprisoned there. There was some debate as to whether Tartarus the titan was the place the worst were sealed inside of. That is, the realm of Tartarus was possibly a living prison, with the prisoners kept inside the titan. However, it is known that Tartarus was both a place and a titan. Hades the place contained Elysium, Tartarus, the forbidden area where the Furies lived, and several other locales. When it came to the underworld, places and entities both had the name.

[MTeague]

1 hour ago, BrandX said:

I think the problem here is you think those names are creative while others can see those names as terrible.

 

Being creative and being terrible are not mutually exclusive. And sure, qualify of names is highly subjective. Some will like names I choose, others will shake there head and say "Whatever dude." And that fine with me. 

 

Far more important to me is not having "xHell Beastx" Or "SpineyFireGuy".

But, just as I would shake my head at those, I'm sure someone else thinks they're great. 

[biostem]

Maybe try roleplaying it?  Perhaps you could get your group to use certain names if they see you in a particular costume, or you could put something in your bio.  Perhaps we could have something like a particular title could be associated with each costume slot or something...

[GM Impervium]

Just chiming in here to lend a bit of a technical perspective:

Names CAN be changed mid-game. I've done it to myself several times when doing RP events. However, the command to do so currently requires GM-level access (as it can be done to anyone, all I did was point the command at myself).

Even if we freed up this command for people to use on just themselves, there would still be the issue of reserving names. Even if you hot-swapped, it could cause a bit of confusion about what names are currently available (Imagine someone making a character "AwesomeDude" while someone else is renaming themselves that and the reservation feature doesn't work?)

Also, as a GM, I'd find my job a bit tougher if people kept renaming themselves. I could imagine a few sneaky jerks trying to get away with stuff (luckily, most people are diligent enough to record global names when reporting others for misbehavior).

But here's a maybe-workable idea: Badge Titles. It's already possible use a macro to set your badge title to correspond with a costume change. Granted, badge titles are in smaller text and oftentimes may not have the names you want, plus you'd have to collect them all first... but maybe that's something you can work with?

[biostem]

1 hour ago, GM Impervium said:

Just chiming in here

Could you do something like a "Doing business as" or "AKA", where the character's real name remains unchanged, but their title reflect what they are currently going by...