Loving the game so far, but one thing that really stands out is the horrible names that the name generator spits out. It seems like the coding of the generator is such that it says "throw a bunch of alternating vowels and consonants into a word that's between 4 and 16 letters long". Needless to say, it takes hitting the button a good 10-15 times before a name that is even usable (though still not good) will pop up. At least for the city names, it would be nice if there were some pre-programmed names for each nation (maybe 6 for each?). If I had to think of a new name every time I founded a new city in Civilization, I would have given up long ago.
Agree lol. Even some basic grammatical rules would be nice, like no more than 2 vowels in a row in each name, always a consonant after the other vowels, never XZY next to eachother etc..Heck the easiest thing would probably be to code it like the japanese language (lol), just have chunks of 2 letters that form one sound combined.Kata, Rubiri, Borari, Deraka, Pydimi, Zuleda. Almost any combination you can think of is pronouncable.
As stated in another thread with this same topic I agree, the name generator needs more "unrandom" names, as things stand currently the random names convey nothing in terms of the game's atmosphere.
Agreed. They could also implement a <CityNames> code for faction's XML where we could put pre-generated names for later use.
I agree 100% with stethnorun and Baleurion. The current random name generator is pretty lame.
There is an old Games workshop stategy game, Mighty Empires I think was the name, it used multiple tables to product names, so if you were creating a city you would roll first to find out how many elements the name contained. Different races had different maximum numbers of elements. Then you would roll again on that races element chart to create the name.
For example, you find a dwarf city, you would make your first roll to find the number of elements:
Roll #of Elements
1-2 1 element
3-6 2 elements
Then you roll however many times you need to on the elements table to find the actual elements:
Roll Element1 Element2
1 Askul -a-grim
2 Brok -a-karak
3 Dun athol
4 Dur ban
5 Kar krag
6 Thor ungol
So if you roll a 4 the name is two elements; you then roll a 4 and the first element is Dur; finally you roll a 2 and the second element is -a-karak; name = Dun-a-karak.
If you were rolling on an orc city it might be more likely to select only 1 element, and the orc element table would be different, so the names for an orc city would be something like: Bog or Naz for single element names, or Bogrot or Bogbad for two element names.
Maybe elven cities even had 3 elements possible.
A system like this would still give a great degree of randomness, while also letting each faction create city (and hero) names that are specific to each faction, and eliminate the unpronouncable random names.
Anyway, just a suggestion...
Yeah sorry for the double post...the forums were lagging really bad when I was posting. If a mod wants to close this one down, please go for it.
I disagree, i think the random name generator should be disabled and just a huge list of good sounding names implementeand.
Stardock can use a generator to create the list and pick only the good names if they like.
I think this strange gibberish names is the thing which annoys me at most when playing elemental.
And also i think when the unit is more then 1 person it shouldnt have a randomized name, but should be called "Soldiers" "Archers" "Raiders" and so on.
I dunno, I kind of like the name generator.
I get to conquer the world of Noob with me and my son, Asses.
I agree with this, it's a small thing but it's constantly showing up and annoys me each time. I love the idea of creating pseudo-random names from a list or index of parts of a name, just like efarias explained above.
Grammatical rules?
Three vowels in a row does happen ie: Aeon, Lieu, or (if you're only talking of names) Louis (come on, that was easy). I think the problem is when you get something like Zoooxootui. Some sounds just aren't that common it might be better to simply adjust the frequency with which certain letters appear. Of course, then you might miss out on cool names like Uluru.
Three consonants in a row is also problematic because some sounds are made with multiple letters (thread, school, sham-wow, or my personal favorite, borschts you get the idea).
Personally I've never had an issue with the names: if i take a city with a crazy name, i rewrite it. If i don't like the suggestion I make up my own, (or just cycle through and adjust if i find one close enough). The only thing that annoys me is that I can't rename people, so when I want to marry off the kids I have to choose between Talalalax and Ziwitijix. ... actually that last one sounds kind of cool, i think i'll pick her.
Is it so difficult to come up with your own names?
Since the city level up dialog box isn't modal and I always forget what cities are focused on what, I've just taken to naming my cities, "Library", or "Temple" or what have you.
One problem with this: I'm playing a big map. I have about 20 cites, 4 kids, each with 4 of their own and one more below that (23 people in the dynasty so far, not counting spouses). There are 8 other Factions and at least 3 minor factions. But when you add this all together how many name do you think I'll be using? how many if i play another several hundred turns? Sure, you might be able to make a random element generator that could handle that, but could you do it without repeats? Especially if, as suggested, you can't use the same elements for Gilden as for Krax, or Tarth? Suddenly that's a lot of names.
On a related note, if you don't like the weird names that often happen now, what would you do if stardock made sure they were ALL weird because that's what they imagined the Krax, or Urxen would find normal? (Like those crazy people that spell Matthew with one T).
Or you could set up a system where cites beginning with T are tech, A archan and G gildar and then expand the letter set in whatever fashion you find most easy to remember.
Or we could just construct one or more languages.
I'd love it if it remembered names you previously used and displayed them as options in a drop down list. Kind of like when you're filling out forms on the interwebz (if you're saving form history).
Yeah, like the Disgaea games - you can randomly have names selected, but they all (well, a lot of them given how crazy NIS is) make sense and could be pronounced easily by most.
That said, I like the idea of one person had with rolling up syllables, though it would have to be crafted to make "sense" in terms of the game world.
But I think Chorge's idea would be the best way to attack it. Could still have fantasy, faction-specific names, but then they'd all make "sense" in the game's world.
Have you noticed a change in the names by faction? I haven't.
I could see if, say, Resoln had "funky" combinations (like the "ln") but, say, Capitar had more "plain" names, while Altar had some of everyone's (given their melting-pot philosophy).
As it is, ALL the names sound/look "weird". It's not like it's a Krax city with weird names but Capitar had "traditional" names.
I mean, even the names in the book aren't that funky. Geni, Tandis, Xander, Mirdoth - not Mary, Jane, Sue of course, but as far as fantasy goes, pretty "traditional".
While, maybe, it would be "Urxen" in flavor - why would Capitar use a Urxen name? I could see *Krax* doing it, being they've adopted Empire culture and philosophy...but not any of the Kingdoms (except maybe, just maybe, Altar and more here and there, not their whole language/names).
Lol yeah one time i got a worldname of "Nubs". I was like......... "are you kidding me?" Oh and the best one so far, i got the "It's a boy!" popup, and the first randomized name was "Nogirl".I'M NOT JOKING!!
So... coming up with a name on your own is hard, so you use random name generator...
...but the random name generator is criticized for not coming up with good names...
Irony?
Because of the UI bug that forces you to choose a city level upgrade without letting you check what the city produces, it's best to either use non-random names or use random and completely distinct names, even if they are a bit silly.
So for now, it might be a bug, but fixing it will currently cause more problems than it fixes.
I disagree, I like the random name generator and the names it produces (they have the right 'flavor' for me), and I really hate the predefined names of cities (probably the thing that I hated more in Civ4
Needs polish.
My third city in my last game was Girusky. Does that count?
You think names like "Ooukkzisu" and "Fuririaaoarr" have the right flavor? In what world? The gibberish world?I mean they dont even sound fantasy'ish or foreign, they just sound like german-angry-kid banging on his keyboard.
Whats to stop you from altering the names that they produce? You can easily make Okisu, Furir, Furira, Furia, ... out of those by just deleting some of it. If you can't make anything of it, hit refresh.I always find some kind of a decent name within 5 refresh.
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