Bring back the name rule

[Doukan]

 

As per title, but with more of a focus specifically against low effort cheese/cringe instead of popular culture blacklisting.

I've got nothing against a well placed reference joke or a good name pun (looking at you rawrist) but the ongoing plague of human rogues and vulp wolfs is killing muh immursions and should be stomped.

 

Can't remember why it was ditched in the first place actually, something about player freedom? Whatever it was I'd rather have a bit more jackboot please, standards are really slipping.

 

[Purpose2]

Gandalf the RD... makes me want the fucking shoot myself in the head.

[Spacemanspark]

 

I'm also starting to lose my patience with some of these names.

We're an MRP server, this is rather unbecoming of one.

 

Edited February 13, 2017 by Guest

[Urlance Woolsbane]

 

Hear, hear!

 

Admittedly, it's a tricky issue. I have seen, for example, a player named Jeremy Brett. I know who that is, and so for me it's jarring, but I've no idea if most players do. But the Gordon Freemans and the Skel E. Tons should be easy to weed out.

 

What's the worst that can happen? Someone has to rename their character. That's hardly game-ruining.

 

[necaladun]

 

Which naming rule exactly did you want to bring back?

 

The problem with them has always been specific wording and getting people to agree on it.

 

[NethIafin]

 

@Neca, I think he means that you can't name your character as any (well known and popular) character of the book/game/movie

 

But to be honest, if you look at real life, there are some Khalisie's and Dovakhins (just fucking google it, it is awesomely hilarious), and while we see 1-2 Adolf's Hitler's they are born to a depressing set of parents.

 

IMO, and I will from now on do that, come to any character that has such a name, and start laughing at them. Yes, NT is an equal opportunity employer, but nothing forbids you from laughing your (and your coworker's) ass off by the hilarity of that name... LIKE YOU MIGHT DO IRL

 

AND THEN IT GOES BACK TO MEDIUM RP =)

Try it

I certainly will

 

[ExGame]

 

Please do bring it back.

I hate seeing unrealistic names or just plain out snowflake names 24/7 on Para.

 

[Mass595]

I agree with Nethlafin, getting a little tired of seeing Groot pacing around the Cyberiad.

[pazneria12]

+1

[Shadeykins]

I'm in full agreement with this, but I doubt it will pass muster as there are people on the staff team who use glaring pop culture/reference names.

[Mass595]

I mean it's funny to have a centcomm officer or something reference real life people (I find RASPOUTINE acceptable), just not regular crew.

[apneaman]

 

Urgh but how will i be hank scorpio

 

 

[Spacemanspark]

You won't.

[Doukan]

 

Which naming rule exactly did you want to bring back?

 

The problem with them has always been specific wording and getting people to agree on it.

Yeah they've always been contentious since unless they outright ban anything referency there's going to be arguments over where to draw the line.

Pop culture names kinda take the piss and could do with discouraging (gandalf? really?), but not nearly as much as shitty no effort ones do. Firstname-no-lastname shit should be purged, unless it's a proper I.P.C designation/diona truename/Vox codename or something of course.

 

I'm not even sure if I'm joking when I say muh immursions, I honestly cannot get immursed at all.

The old one was mostly fine as it excluded the likes of sanic toils but let us have grendel mordorim, should come down to common sense ideally.

 

[flimflamm]

 

Having played a slime person named "Ivan Ooze" for about three years now, I'm a bit iffy on this. (I'm pretty sure my name is an example of successfully lifting a name from a movie)

 

The name comes from a D-list 90's kids movie (power rangers), and only handful of people have ever caught on and LOOC'd at me, and when they did they did not seem to be disappointed so much as pleasantly nostalgia struck (the actual character I'm referencing is so similar to slime people that the referense on some level "makes sense")...

 

There's a fine line to be drawn though. If the power rangers movie was more popular and Ivan Ooze was a household name, it would obviously not be worth it. But because the name itself is pleasantly simple (and alliterative), AND is actually descriptive of my race, the fact that a few people might suddenly recall a power rangers villain upon reading my name isn't too hefty a price. In fact, I like to be associated with the original character, who was a purple man made of slime, a showman at heart, with grand aspirations and a flare for the dramatic.

 

I will say that names taken from real life would be much more immersion breaking than my name, and so if we do make a rule, it should probably outright ban non-fictional names.

 

Also, it would perhaps benefit us all greatly if we formalized naming conventions even more than they already are uniquely to each race. I would not mind having a list of "houses" or "family-names" for slime people which could be highly encouraged. IIRC the new lore states that slimes take human-esque names due to the un-pronounceability of slime names. It also states that slimes reproduce a-sexually, which means that everyone in a given slime family would share the exact same lineage and hence, last name. "Ooze" seems like the perfect last name to me for any slime and I would love it if slimes could begin to share in communal lore; having a list of suggested or "main slime family" last names I think would be great to jumpstart this. We could even associate family names with character personality traits. Example:

 

- The Oozes are passionate intellectuals who tend to follow a strict moral code of causing no unnecessary harm. They ravenously absorb their career pursuits like so many monkeys, often to the chagrin of the less ambitious co-workers they work circles around. When a member of the Ooze family feels directly and seriously transgressed upon, their passion will tend to take over and render them to a state of mouth-foaming anger whose only catharsis comes in the form of what some have described as "radio broadcasted enhanced vitriol". Both helpful and arrogant to the end, the Ooze family brings to the crew a double edged sword of expertise and emotional baggage which depending on the shift can either be openly welcomed by the crew, or be inflicted upon them.

 

Edited February 13, 2017 by Guest

[Shadeykins]

 

Having played a slime person named "Ivan Ooze" for about three years now, I'm a bit iffy on this. (I'm pretty sure my name is an example of successfully lifting a name from a movie)

 

The name comes from a D-list 90's kids movie (power rangers), and only handful of people have ever caught on and LOOC'd at me, and when they did they did not seem to be disappointed so much as pleasantly nostalgia struck...

 

There's a fine line to be drawn though. If the power rangers movie was more popular and Ivan Ooze was a household name, it would obviously not be worth it. But because the name itself is pleasantly simple (and alliterative), AND is actually descriptive of my race, the fact that a few people might suddenly recall a power rangers villain upon reading my name isn't too hefty a price. In fact, I like to be associated with the original character, who was a purple man made of slime, a showman at heart, with grand aspirations and a flare for the dramatic.

 

I will say that names taken from real life would be much more immersion breaking than my name, and so if we do make a rule, it should probably outright ban non-fictional names.

 

Also, it would perhaps benefit us all greatly if we formalized naming conventions even more than they already are uniquely to each race. I would not mind having a list of "houses" or "family-names" for slime people which could be highly encouraged. IIRC the new lore states that slimes take human-esque names due to the un-pronounceability of slime names. It also states that slimes reproduce a-sexually, which means that everyone in a given slime family would share the exact same lineage and hence, last name. "Ooze" seems like the perfect last name to me for any slime and I would love it if slimes could begin to share in communal lore; having a list of suggested or "main slime family" last names I think would be great to jumpstart this.

 

Slime people lore in general is due for an expansion, so.

 

[flimflamm]

 

 

Slime people lore in general is due for an expansion, so.

 

I might just be the most slimingest slime to ever have slimed.

 

How can I join the discussion to contribute to the new lore?

 

[Shadeykins]

 

 

Slime people lore in general is due for an expansion, so.

 

I might just be the most slimingest slime to ever have slimed.

 

How can I join the discussion to contribute to the new lore?

 

PM any member of the lore team on discord. Hugo Lumann and myself are the most active members on it presently.

 

[Machofish]

 

To be frank, I would be in support of tightening server rules about naming policy.

 

This topic has been an elephant in the room for long enough. If someone here has an honest, sensible and heartfelt argument supporting the tolerance of pop-culture names - which are vehemently denounced at worst and awkwardly tolerated at best - I'd be extremely interested in hearing and discussing it. Like it or not, this is a conversation that needs to happen - it has taken place time and time again behind turned backs and closed doors. I'm of the opinion that refusing to discuss a matter of this sort is exceedingly harmful, due to its propensity for cultivating falsehoods and hurtful rumours - and the longer this sort of talk goes unaddressed, the more this directionless resentment will build up.

 

Notwithstanding the context of discussing a sci-fi game about clowns and explosions in space, I am confident that we are capable of having this discussion in an honest, calm, upfront, and mature manner - instead of whispering to each other about it like so much recess gossip at an elementary school.

 

So I'll pose the question again: Perhaps we should not discuss "why the rule needs to be changed," because that point of view has been presented and almost unanimously supported to a point of redundancy. Instead, I think it's more important that we hear the counter-argument explaining "why we haven't changed the rule yet." I'd rather accept a forthright, honest argument from the horse's mouth that I can respectfully agree to disagree with, rather than be forced to accept this awkward, borderline political quagmire of deflections and coy finagling that seems to pervade the whole topic like a bad smell.

 

I mean c'mon - we're all smart, articulate people here. In lieu of actually being mature, reasonable adults, I'm certain we can at least act like it. Surely something as simple as this shouldn't be such a big deal to at least talk about?

 

[necaladun]

 

On reddit at least, as well as on the discord, ive talked about it a lot. Annoying amounts actually. Pretty much everyone is in agreement that stronger naming rules would benefit the rp environment

 

 

Now, find where to draw the line, and concisely write that as a rule. Survive the nitpicks and salt and arguments and get something near a consensus and its got a damn good chance of passing.

 

Complaining is easy. Change is hard.

 

[shazbot194]

I doubt there will ever be a perfectly written rule, and will always have to be up to the discretion of an admin/team of admins to pick names as it is very hard to draw a line and then apply everything to that line. As someone with the username Shazbot and my engineering character named Shazbot, I don't want to see a blanked rule, which I doubt there will ever be if fox is still around. I will throw my two cents in though, anything blatantly offensive to a lot of people should not be allowed. Such as Adolf Hitler. With an exception made for something like nukeops making that their ID name.

[GunDOS]

I'm also starting to lose my patience with some of these names.

We're an MRP server, this is rather unbecoming of one.

[Purpose2]

 

On reddit at least, as well as on the discord, ive talked about it a lot. Annoying amounts actually. Pretty much everyone is in agreement that stronger naming rules would benefit the rp environment

 

 

Now, find where to draw the line, and concisely write that as a rule. Survive the nitpicks and salt and arguments and get something near a consensus and its got a damn good chance of passing.

 

Complaining is easy. Change is hard.

"Don't use a fucking retarded name".

 

[Mass595]

 

"Don't use a fucking retarded name".

See that's the problem exactly, some of us don't just want to avoid offensive names, we want to avoid references to people/characters of real life. I feel like the rule should be something along the lines of: You can base your character's personality off of something IRL, but don't literally copy their name/personality word for word. For example, I'd be much more accepting of a Diona named Root instead of Groot; or something along those lines.

 

On the other hand, maybe we don't even need a set rule, I feel like if the community as a whole constantly and strongly recommended players to not copy IRL characters (In the actual OOC, not just salting in Discord); maybe those players would actually consider changing.

 

[Doukan]

 

On the other hand, maybe we don't even need a set rule, I feel like if the community as a whole constantly and strongly recommended players to not copy IRL characters (In the actual OOC, not just salting in Discord); maybe those players would actually consider changing.

"no fuck you I can call myself what I want it's not against the rules" is what you're usually going to end up getting if you ever question someone.

Peer pressure is a great way to root out such things but it's not too effective with 100+ rounds being the norm and plenty of other things to moan about.