The Mana World Forums

Greetings!

What do you thinking about a random name generator by the char creation?
in my first days i saw a lot of people with names like "he3l2!!!" or "Linux-man". TMW is a a roleplaying game and the world in it musst live. nobody in the real world has unreality names like "Mr. Blaster-Push!" or so.

i think phantasie names are a better default for char creation or better rule for the char names. everyone with a wrong name musst force to become a better name from a GM or so.
what do think the devs abouth this idea?

EDIT: please move this topic in the right forum... sorry.

First of all we could make it so that numbers and question marks and such cannot be entered in a character name.
Maybe later we could add a name generator. This could be a random name generator or some app which allows you to create a name using given syllables.

I don't see any real need to enforce name rules for the game. If someone wants to be take seriously they will choose a serious name. But not letting someone chose a name unless it is approved seems a little elitist. Perhaps if there is a large enough group of hardcore role-players that wants such rules they could run their own role-playing only server.
-Cosmostrator

We once again have the question brought up, what's the point of this game, is it for the roleplaying or is it for the character. 5t3v3 for example would probably need a new name if it's about roleplaying (as in with the rest of the players) while if it's just about having the best character or having fun killing monsters and gaining skills his name is perfectly fine. I do know a Mrs. Cashdollar in real life though, so some names may sound fake but are not.

There should be rules on name choice, but not necessarily for RP purposes; just today I saw someone with their name being five or so spaces and no other characters. This is just ridiculous. There should be an alphanumeric to non-alphanumeric minimum ratio.

Some people may understand this:

What about non-english people who want to use unicode characters in their names (the new client/server supports a very large range of unicode characters)?

But one thing that should be forbidden when you want a roleplaying atmosphere are numbers in names.

True was talking with a Japanese on here yesterday, numbers and characters, and at least with Roman characters you should have to start with a capital letter. But the question is, do we want to allow no Roman characters into names, I can read some Japanese and know a bit, but no Chinese, Korean, Arabic etc. It would make it hard to talk about people and to report them also.

Keep in mind we're developing a platform, upon which people can eventually host societies of pretty much whatever variety they desire.

So the rules of the society maintained by us in the future are one issue and the topic of what should be technically allowed on the platform is a different one. So far we've managed to remain somewhat English speaking. (Excluding the pseudo content and playerhood out of this.)

Except for the Brazilians, who seem to believe that no matter what game they are playing nor whether it's a server hosted in Washington DC or London England that speaking in a language other than Common (AKA English) is perfectly fine. I think that in EQ dark elves are like that. And wookies in the star wars games.

Well, I can configure that the char names may only contain letters, but I don't know how it will affect currect char names.

Regards.

There should defenitly be limitation to the way that spaces are used. I've seen a member called:
[ ] (5spaces) and another called:
[ ] (7 spaces) you could see how this can be confusing. We had a new character poping up today called:
[QOAL jr] at first I thought QOAL made a second character. But seems it was just someone trying to cash in on his reputation. I'm expecting any day now you'll start seeing names like:
[QOAL ] (with spaces added at end) and:
[ QOAL ] (with spaces added both at front and end )
and so on...
Perhaps not only to take advantage, but even to do mischiefs in other people's name. But I do think that's where control should end.

As for numbers, the reason I picked this was because me real name (5t3v3=steve, for those unfamiliar with 1337) was already taken. So with a bit of imagination you could just see that as an alternative orthography. xD
In fact, the reason I chose this was so I could play with my real name after all instead of using some other name. For me roleplaying means that the character that I control has my name, that way I feel moe attached to the character! So I think not allowing number characters is a bit to strict. And then you'd have to be consequent and do something about names
"LiKe tHiS" ,
"LIKE THIS" ,
"L I K E T H I S" or
"xxxx_LIKE_THIS_xxxx"
Or how do you stop someone from naming himself "Maggot slime" or "Bug Leg"?
I guess what I'm trying to say is, the combination of unrealistic names is endless. Let people name themselves what they want to.

nobody in the real world has unreality names like "Mr. Blaster-Push!" or so.

Nobody in the real world wears an axe-hat for a highr defence while hunting nor does anyone go hunting for fluffy's in the first place. Nobody seriously summons pumpkingghost for Halloween either. In the real world snakes don't have lamps on their heads and they definitely don't carry jeans, I mean, they don't even have legs! And the only "evil" mushrooms are hallucinogenics. You'll only find ice bears on the north pole, no Santa and definitely no star trek convention. If the world can be unrealistic, why does everyone have to have dull normal names?

5t3v3 wrote:There should defenitly be limitation to the way that spaces are used. I've seen a member called:
[ ] (5spaces) and another called:
[ ] (7 spaces) you could see how this can be confusing. We had a new character poping up today called:
[QOAL jr] at first I thought QOAL made a second character. But seems it was just someone trying to cash in on his reputation. I'm expecting any day now you'll start seeing names like:
[QOAL ] (with spaces added at end) and:
[ QOAL ] (with spaces added both at front and end )
and so on...
Perhaps not only to take advantage, but even to do mischiefs in other people's name. But I do think that's where control should end.

I agree with you here.

5t3v3 wrote:As for numbers, the reason I picked this was because me real name (5t3v3=steve, for those unfamiliar with 1337) was already taken. So with a bit of imagination you could just see that as an alternative orthography. xD
In fact, the reason I chose this was so I could play with my real name after all instead of using some other name. For me roleplaying means that the character that I control has my name, that way I feel moe attached to the character! So I think not allowing number characters is a bit to strict.

I am more deeply attached to Arenlor than to my real name. I am even considering changing my name. Do you even know how to role play, the point is to create a second you, not recreate yourself. It's an escape and a new life all in one.

5t3v3 wrote:And then you'd have to be consequent and do something about names
"LiKe tHiS" ,
"LIKE THIS" ,
"L I K E T H I S" or
"xxxx_LIKE_THIS_xxxx"

Hopefully they will do that too.

5t3v3 wrote:Or how do you stop someone from naming himself "Maggot slime" or "Bug Leg"?
I guess what I'm trying to say is, the combination of unrealistic names is endless. Let people name themselves what they want to.

I myself would like to see them put something in to block common words like those, I may just get back into programming in order to do it myself so that common words and names (such as Steve) will be blocked, leaving only words like 'the' etc left in it. People will always be able to come up with junk names yes, but if they were to maybe go through every * days/months and clear out all those junk names it would improve the game for the rest of us. You are one of the people that ruins the atmosphere of the game for the rest of us. I have seen games where you had to have a Fantasy name or else you'd be kicked and your IP banned. Those were the good games.

5t3v3 wrote:

nobody in the real world has unreality names like "Mr. Blaster-Push!" or so.

Nobody in the real world wears an axe-hat for a highr defence while hunting nor does anyone go hunting for fluffy's in the first place. Nobody seriously summons pumpkingghost for Halloween either. In the real world snakes don't have lamps on their heads and they definitely don't carry jeans, I mean, they don't even have legs! And the only "evil" mushrooms are hallucinogenics. You'll only find ice bears on the north pole, no Santa and definitely no star trek convention. If the world can be unrealistic, why does everyone have to have dull normal names?

Arenlor is a dull normal name? I would say Steve is equal to John in dull and normal. As a trekkie I am very mad that you would think we don't have an annual convention, I know there's one in Baltimore and one in Las Vegas and I don't know where else. You also realize that in the real world people who play video games like this are thought of as the less social people?

Arenlor wrote:I am more deeply attached to Arenlor than to my real name. I am even considering changing my name. Do you even know how to role play, the point is to create a second you, not recreate yourself. It's an escape and a new life all in one.

I guess to me role playing means being myself because I don't get to be myself in the real world. Please don't impose your personal interpretations of how you should play games on other people.

I myself would like to see them put something in to block common words like those, I may just get back into programming in order to do it myself so that common words and names (such as Steve) will be blocked, leaving only words like 'the' etc left in it. People will always be able to come up with junk names yes, but if they were to maybe go through every * days/months and clear out all those junk names it would improve the game for the rest of us. You are one of the people that ruins the atmosphere of the game for the rest of us. I have seen games where you had to have a Fantasy name or else you'd be kicked and your IP banned. Those were the good games.

Well you do realize it's a bit hypocrite to "ruin" it for others just because you feel some names don't belong in those kind of games?

As a trekkie I am very mad that you would think we don't have an annual convention, I know there's one in Baltimore and one in Las Vegas and I don't know where else.

If you actually read my sentence more accurately you'd see that I said there are no star trek conventions on the northpole in real life! I did not say there are none at all, or none at Baltimore or Vegas.

You also realize that in the real world people who play video games like this are thought of as the less social people?

Yes, I know, and I'll be the first to admit that I am asocial. It comes bundled with the Aspergers syndrome, so I'm proud of it. Aspies for freedom!!!!!! (In case you didn't spotted the sarcasm the asocial part was a joke at your expense). Which brings me back to something I said a couple lines ago. You know why I can't be myself in real life? Because neurotypical people (i.e. people like you) made up all those insane social rules that don't make sense and punish anyone who doesn't abide by your stupid imposed laws. But I guess the real world isn't enough and you want people to follow your will in the game to. Whatever...

And why is it that you are so aggressive against me? I'm ruining your game, I'm insulting your hobby, I'm asocial towards you... Do you really think you're the center of the universe? Again please stop imposing how you think I should enjoy a game.

I'll sidestep the emotional part of the discussion, but will still add my 2 cents about rules on naming. There are clearly two different issues here. One is a taste issue about what names should look like, and the other is a usuability issue with names that look very much alike. We can and should clearly do something about the second issue, though probably only on our own server. The following changes have my support:

* Case insensitive duplicate checking (so no QUAL and QuAL allowed).
* No whitespace at start and end, and no more than one consecutive spaces anywhere else in the name.
* Only alphanumeric characters, but this option should be server-side configurable since not the whole world uses the latin alphabet [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lati ... bution.png