WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: "the"

[temnix]

A couple of weeks ago I made a Mastermind called the Panzercrator. He was an artificial intelligence from the 25th century in charge of a space factory on an orbit between Earth and Mars who chanced upon a database of human culture, thought he deserved independence, pieced together a robotic body for himself and shuttled off. Later he was picked up by Portal Inc. and ended up in contemporary Paragon City, instructing a gang of street punks in a better way, applying his mastery of chemistry and shooting from two long black Navy Colts. I wrote all that at length before the bio editor gobbled up the text. Anyway, here he is, the Panzercrator. Specially for Rudra, the disco crotch grab:

 

 

That done, I can point out that NPC don't use "the" when talking to the playing character. The one at the start of the name is just for the player's eyes. But it matters that they say that little "the." It is going to matter to the Chosen One, the Real Mccoy, the Elephant, the Thing, the Final Solution, the Very Same, the Checkered Knight, the Eternal Flame and all those others. People are writing all those stories. So Homecoming should update its name token to include "the," case sensitive, of course. But not everywhere. Most direct addresses from NPC, in second person, don't need "the." They are glad to exclaim: "Good to see you, Panzercrator!" "I have another job for you, Panzercrator!" But when the Hellion bubbles around the corner, he ought to say "The Panzercrator will be caught by surprise!" Aye, and when the Skull blurbs, he ought to declare "Watch out for the Panzercrator!" Even some second-person addresses need this article, like when Lord Recluse inflates "Take my boa but don't kill me, mighty Panzercrator!" (Unlock this with 1000 Reward Merits by clicking on the left Arbiter Drone in Mercy.) It's a case-by-case thing, and something that players should be encouraged to report on the boards, since they are working as interns for Homecoming anyway.

 

String-wise, the developers need two tokens instead of one: with "the" and without, and insert them where appropriate. As a mass replacement they could substitute the one with "the" in all balloons and keep the one without in all dialogues. No rush like a mass textual replacement across a database. Then they could fix the exceptions gradually one by one. Exempli gratia, Dean Macarthur on Sharkhead Isle refers to the villain of the story in third person all the time.

Edited April 3 by temnix

[Rudra]

19 minutes ago, temnix said:

Specially for Rudra, the disco crotch grab:

I appreciate the shout out, but what is the shout out for?

 

20 minutes ago, temnix said:

That done, I can point out that NPC don't use "the" when talking to the playing character. The one at the start of the name is just for the player's eyes. But it matters that they say that little "the." It is going to matter to the Chosen One, the Real Mccoy, the Elephant, the Thing, the Final Solution, the Very Same, the Checkered Knight, the Eternal Flame and all those others. People are writing all those stories. So Homecoming should update its name token to include "the," case sensitive, of course. But not everywhere. Most direct addresses from NPC, in second person, don't need "the." They are glad to exclaim: "Good to see you, Panzercrator!" "I have another job for you, Panzercrator!" But when the Hellion bubbles around the corner, he ought to say "The Panzercrator will be caught by surprise!" Aye, and when the Skull blurbs, he ought to declare "Watch out for the Panzercrator!" Even some second-person addresses need this article, like when Lord Recluse inflates "Take my boa but don't kill me, mighty Panzercrator!" (Unlock this with 1000 Reward Merits by clicking on the left Arbiter Drone in Mercy.) It's a case-by-case thing, and something that players should be encouraged to report on the boards, since they are working as interns for Homecoming anyway.

You know, you can just place "the" in your character name and it will be posted in those comments? "The" isn't normally considered part of the character's name. Even Thing, Hulk, and others, the "the" part isn't normally needed, even in the cases where you are specifying "the" should be included. Is it more grammatically correct? Yes in several cases. However, it isn't necessary. So if you want your character to be known as "The Panzercrator" and be referenced as such rather than having a "the" name addition which is there for clarification purposes, just put it in your name.

[Greycat]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

You know, you can just place "the" in your character name and it will be posted in those comments? "The" isn't normally considered part of the character's name. Even Thing, Hulk, and others, the "the" part isn't normally needed, even in the cases where you are specifying "the" should be included. Is it more grammatically correct? Yes in several cases. However, it isn't necessary. So if you want your character to be known as "The Panzercrator" and be referenced as such rather than having a "the" name addition which is there for clarification purposes, just put it in your name.

 

 

Actually... you can't.

 

Go ahead and try to create a character, start their name with "The." It will *immediately* erase it as soon as you hit the space bar after the E.

 

It will let you put it in in the *middle* of the name - Alexander The Great would work, but not The Great Alexander. You'd have to use the little dropdown, which is ignored as part of your name.

Edited April 3 by Greycat
Added link, once youtube's done with mangling it...

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Greycat said:

 

 

Actually... you can't.

 

Go ahead and try to create a character, start their name with "The." It will *immediately* erase it as soon as you hit the space bar after the E.

 

It will let you put it in in the *middle* of the name - Alexander The Great would work, but not The Great Alexander. You'd have to use the little dropdown, which is ignored as part of your name.

Huh. I sit corrected. Thank you.

 

Edited April 4 by Rudra
Edited to add missing "ed". Sorry, @Greycat, I know what I was trying to type, I just failed to.

[Haijinx]

and the The Jranger came in to the thread .. 

[temnix]

Even if it were possible to add the "the" by hand, it would not be case-sensitive. NPC would say "Here comes The Panzercrator!" Then again, I did see just now the Skulls mentioned in the middle of a dialogue as The Skulls, so maybe that would be all right for the shabby writing of this game.

[Rudra]

1 minute ago, temnix said:

Even if it were possible to add the "the" by hand, it would not be case-sensitive. NPC would say "Here comes The Panzercrator!" Then again, I did see just now the Skulls mentioned in the middle of a dialogue as The Skulls, so maybe that would be all right for the shabby writing of this game.

The game does not adjust capitalization based on context. It simply pulls the preset name/data. So "The Skulls" will be used as "The Skulls are attacking the warehouse." and as "We have knowledge about The Skulls hideout.", with no means of changing whether or not that "the" is capitalized or not. It simply loads the preset name into the assigned text's name variable/string. This is a very old game on an ancient game engine. It is limited in what it can do.

[Haijinx]

Comic books don't exactly follow the rules of style either ...

[A.I.D.A.]

On 4/3/2024 at 3:46 PM, temnix said:

. . . the Final Solution . . .

 Maybe not a great thing to include in your list of "the-names."

[Chris24601]

44 minutes ago, A.I.D.A. said:

 Maybe not a great thing to include in your list of "the-names."

I’d use it for a supervillain in an AE arc.
 

Just calling themselves that implies a sense of megalomaniacal villainy that’s hard to top.

[Greycat]

 

Eh, maybe but it's got a bit too much historical baggage to it.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Aaaaand, just registered "Teh Suck" on Ex

[Saiyajinzoningen]

@temnix

What a misleading title

I came expecting to find a

"find the zone AV bounty" suggestion

was sorely disappointed