[mixxit]

Beta acceptable names


ISSUE # 58

January 23rd - January 29th


Editorial - Absor
I'm not usually one to complain about 989 Studios, now RedEye Interactive. I suppose that I'm considered a suck up by many. I'm pretty confident in my ability to see the truth, and so I'm not worried about misperceptions about me. For the most part I have understood why and how RedEye has handled things in regards to EverQuest, and have agreed with most of their decisions. And that may make me sound like a brown nosed little punk.

Oh well.

But I'm getting a creepy feeling lately. Someone posted a list of recently accepted guilds on the newsgroups. This raised a bit of concern, primarily because one of the guilds was called Covetous Crew. At first I just shrugged and said, who cares that this might be a group of less than popular folks from UO? The name itself doesn't bother me much. It's a reasonable, though not great and innovative, name for a guild. And certainly I don't expect anyone at RedEye to look at what the guild may or may not have done in UO when deciding if it is acceptable for Norrath. So I had no problem with their decision to accept Covetous Crew as a guild. Assuming that they had a good charter and they were convincing in their letter asking to become a guild, I'm fine with it.

But that requires that I make an assumption. Taken on it's own, I can live with that. But there was another name on that list that struck me as odd. Now keep in mind that this was a list of nine guilds that were recently approved for creation during the beta. Nine… For me one questionable in nine is fair. But two?

Mystic Order of the Brotherhood. If this guild name had appeared in a Lil' Archy I would have thought it was a perfect mockery of a guild name. I guess the sarcasm was lost on someone at RedEye. It was pointed out to me that I knew these guys, the ones that formed this guild. I could tell because of the initials. They created the guild name in order to preserve their three-letter acronym. Despite advice from a couple of smart folks, they chose to submit their guild as Mystic Order of the Brotherhood.

Up until today this would have just been another stupid player choice, and another guild for me to mock. But today it's different. Someone at RedEye looked at that name and said, "Sure, looks good to me." That's like having a child and calling it Billy Bob Jim. Let's ignore the whole concept of last names and give our son three first names.

Once I started to question this, I had to go back and look at my other assumption, that Covetous Crew submitted a good guild charter. Did MOB submit a good charter? Or is RedEye Interactive following a pattern that I've seen before. I remember reading that they would be insisting that all characters had names that fit the fantasy genre. I was happy about this. It was one of the things that made me think there really was a role-playing commitment from these guys. But, as often happens with grand promises, this one might not be kept. Does anyone remember when we were promised that Tanarus would be kept fresh and frequently updated, even after release? I certainly do. But as of the 15th of this month, I am no longer a Tanarus player. I finally gave up.

In a fit of disillusionment, I logged on to the server last night to perform a test. I wanted to see just how many characters there were with names that I thought were inappropriate for a high fantasy game. High fantasy was Brad's term, and it is important, being a bit different then just fantasy. High fantasy is stuff like Tolkien, LeGuin, Kay… where a name like Shadow would not really fit in. Where a name like Soul Render would never appear. Such names might work just fine in your local D&D game. They could appear in a fantasy novel. But they are not high fantasy names. Now I am enough of a realist to know that these names will probably be acceptable. I know enough to know that Brad will define high fantasy differently then I will. Heck, Brad refuses to accept that a good and reasonable definition of role-playing exists…

Fortunately and unfortunately, due to the 3.5 download and all the confusion with it, there were only just over 200 people on the server when I did this. I was fortunate that there were not more players on. With only 200+ players I still had to jot down about 54 names. That's about 25% of the population. While having the full 1,500 on line would have made a better test, I would have had writer's cramp long before I was done making my list.

What's on this list? Well, I wrote down every name that I would have questioned if I was the name filter. I freely admit that I would have passed a lot of them. Let me break this down. I have three categories for the names on my list. Unacceptable: names I would never accept. Bad: names that I would probably have declined, but would allow that someone else could accept it. And Poor: names that I would have accepted, but regretted it. Here's what I found:

Unacceptable: 22
Examples: Tupac (5th level), Whiteshadow (6th level), Foobar (2nd level), Sirgrief (anon), Barbwirez (corpse), Phread (12th level), Asian (14th level), Pulsar (17th level)

Bad: 10
Examples: Worloch (anon), Planeswalker (corpse), Booster (2nd level), Shameless (12th level), Nolag (16th level)

Poor: 22
Examples: Italicus (1st level), Snotbubble (2nd level), Snax (7th level), Wolfrider (9th level), Zappy (20th level)

Comments: To me the Unacceptable ones don't need explaining. The Bad ones for the most part were names that were words (like Shameless) that don't fit my definition of High Fantasy. Note that Strider was a Tolkien fake name or nick name, not the character's actual name. I included Worloch because, to me, it's only a bit better then spelling the word properly (Warlock), and spelled properly I would have put it in the Unacceptable category. Poor to me is the use of two word descriptive names, like Wolfrider. While fair fantasy names, they are not high fantasy names. Snotbubble might go into the acceptable category on a good day. It's a funny name for an Ogre, and while not High Fantasy, it would pass me if I was a name filter.

What really bothered me were the ones over 5th level or so. I mean, hell, how could a character named Pulsar get to 17th level unnoticed? How the heck does Nolag get to 16th without someone talking to him…

Way back when, a friend of mine in the beta had his name forcibly changed. His was a name recognizable from a popular novel. One day he logged in and one letter in his name had been changed. If his name had been Frodo (and it was not), then it would have been changed to Frodu. In fact, at that time several such names were changed. This encouraged me. While I don't think it's a reasonable or feasible idea to try to eliminate all the names that ever existed in popular literature, it was a step in the right direction, and it kept me sated on the matter for quite some time. I would much rather they err on the extreme side in this matter. Even if they found Absor to be too much like the word absorb, and therefore refused it, I would be much happier then if they continue to allow names like Metallicus (10th level).

Now, I will accept that this is beta, and so things are still in the testing stages. But it's also a heck of a lot easier to control things now and set a trend. The trend I see is not one that I like. The promise of at least a desire for a role-playing game seems to be fading. I sorta feel like Jules in Pulp Fiction. I wanna call Brad and tell him what I want to make me happy. Send the Wolf, Brad. Do something decisive and convince me again that this is not the way you want it. I know, I know, it's a beta and things are still in the works. But this is a policy issue, not a mechanics issue or a bug to be fixed. And while it might seem like I'm nitpicking, this is an important issue.

Let's assume that RedEye really does want to foster role-playing in EverQuest. There are a few things that can be done. The first is to show the players that you actually want it enough to do something about it. Enforce your high fantasy rule, for guilds as well as the characters. Take the time to talk to the players that run events, especially those that look suspiciously like Quake deathmatches. And DO NOT wait until final to do this. Start it now. Hell, you started a while ago. Keep it up. You will lose players, paying customers, if you tell them that they need to follow your rules. But you will lose customers if you don't. I hope to hear that you are going to take the high road that you started out on.

Addendum:

After writing this editorial, I sent it off to the folks at EQX. I knew it was a bit alarmist, so I wanted to see what they thought. Well, perhaps it's too strong. Certainly there aren't enough GMs to go around changing all the names, and their time is better spent working on the beta. And certainly some folks will think that some names that I hate are just fine. But I see this like the guide system. If there isn't something functional and useful in place before release, I find it hard to believe that it will be put in after release...

And I want to encourage all of you to read Nepenthia's article on naming characters.

Editorial by Absor

Please enjoy this issue of EQX!