Stupid Character Name Syndrome
Saturday, October 6th, 2007 - 12:50pm
Gone are the days of UO's alternating caps names, Drizzts and Gandolfs, and characters called Muffdiver and Creamy Panties. Although the latter may slip in on occassion.
Today players are choosing a new breed of stupid names, basically taking the class name or function and using it as their character name. Examples from WoW's armory.
And the examples go on and on. Some even exist on RP servers which is mind boggling.
This fad says something about the playerbase, at least as far as WoW goes, I don't know if other MMOs right now have the same problem. What does it say? Probably that the playerbase is unimaginative and lazy. Which is sad cause WoW as a game is very rich in lore and quest stories, it deserves better than to be treated like a cheap stat based whore, where the battle is already calculated before it even begins.
I reminded of the scene from the WoW South Park episode where the kids are in the basement, with barely any energy from sitting hours on end playing WoW, and Cartman in a very bored voice is calling out raid tactics.
Stories of Yesterday
The Home Tree
I honestly dislike any name that is not 'immersive'
I usually refuse to group with anyone that has the letter 'u' for 'you' in their name.
As a former WoW guild recruiter, I can tell you it made recruiting a bit easier
That is, until an awesome mature woman who was lazy and named her priestess Heals came along. There's always someone out there spoiling a perfectly good generalization!
What really blows my mind is when people do this in real life and rename themselves as "Dreamz" (life coach on Survivor) or "Butterscotch" (beat boxing girl on America's Got Talent). Damn I watch too much reality TV
y r u so meen 2 tardz?
XBL: MikeMac75
In a way it is good because you can tell an unimaginative tool from their name alone.
I spend a lot of time on character names, obsessing about it until I have something perfect for that character.
XBox Live GamerTag: Boot Stackhead
Since I came back to WoW after about a year break I have noticed the naming of characters has gone very downhill in the time I was gone. In the past it was unusual to see a bad name, these days it is the norm. Even some people in the GWJ guild. I considered keeping track of names that clearly violate Blizzard's naming policy, but I would have hundreds of names and would spend more time reporting than playing, if Blizzard even cared.
I have come to the conclusion Blizzard does not care. With the millions a month they rake in they could pay a guy to just sit there and look at character name lists from the servers and strike out any that violate the policy. Or just write a script to look for names that are a combination of words, which is a violation of their policy. But they don't. They don't care.
Its tough to get a decent name anymore.. most are taken since so many people have alts.
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
Sure, it can be more challenging. No excuse to give up and make a character named Pallyhealzzu
XBox Live GamerTag: Boot Stackhead
I'm not quite this far yet. I'll get there eventually.
All in all though, MMO names have been like this since the dawn of time. It will continue until the end of time. Best get over it, quick.
Coldstream wrote:
Still better than
HordePaladin
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
I was going to mention a lot of people have som many alts they get tired of innovative names. What are you going to name your 5th paladin?
I don't think I've ever said this sentence before, but man would I love to hump that butterfly.-- KrazyTaco
One phone call and you're melting like butter over my kettle pop. -- Edwin to Mex
2005 GWJFFL2 Champion
I've had numerous high level WoW characters and every one has been named something "real". Ronsinn, Blackadar, Pepperberry, Zurala, Auzarl, Ulazar, so on and so forth. Yet my latest toon is a mage named "itsnotwater". Why? Just for fun. I couldn't think up anything good and the WoW random name generator is all but useless at this point because everything it suggests has already been taken.
I am so going to quote that out of context.
I think I like Bubblehearth and its ilk better than the names taken from D&D books, which then must be misspelled because someone else has the original name. There's a guy in my guild with a hunter named Driizzt, and a priest named Cadderlly. Please make it stop.
This reminds me of the best ironic custom license plate I saw the other day: "CRE8IV2"
"Raise high the black flags, my children."
-- Gebhard von Blucher.
Those of us in our guild when a game comes out will use our extra player spots immediately to reserve our inevitable alt names and if we know someone is going to be joining later we'll try and create toons with their mains name and just delete them when they're ready to join.
Gamer Tag: Rantyr
If you've made 5 different paladins, you have problems that go way beyond what you're going to name the next one.
XBox Live GamerTag: Boot Stackhead
Tonight I saw a dwarf named HarryPitts...
GWJ Alliance on Blackhand
Lunazul - Rouge & GWJ Paparazzo
Lunarel - Druid
Funkenpants wrote:
As a raid leader, the names I want in my raids are:
(a) shortish
(b) easy and obvious to pronounce
My method for creating alt names is to use the predictive texting on my mobile phone. I randomly type buttons to get two 4 or 5 letter words and concatenate them to create the name. Eg. SiloNova, EelsGulf. They tend to be normal words and so are easy to pronounce but they are rarely already taken together.
In the EU you are allowed accented characters, which makes the names even worse.
It will do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.
- AE Houseman, trailblazing XBL user
XBox Live
Yesterday I was in a PUG for Sethekk Halls. Our group consisted of a priest, rogue, hunter, myself (mage) and a warrior. A gnome warrior, named Tinytank. When we had all got summoned and entered the instance, the first thing he said was, "Do I have to tank? I haven't got a shield."
Duuude! The clue is in your name! Why the fark do you think we invited you? Why call yourself Tinytank if you have no intention of tanking?! I realise he may have respecced from a tanking build to something more levelling friendly, but still. Am I wrong in assuming warriors are expected to tank instances?!
Xbox Live | H&U
Hmm... your wrong IF there was another tanking class in your 5 man.. but there wasnt.. so I would have asked who did he expect to tank?
Aint nothing new about the world order..it's been playing since the day they put George Washington on a quarter
85's face the truth you're too dumb.
http://www.myspace.com/armyofthepharaohs
The pet.
I had this happen with a guy named besthealz or Hothealz... something like that. We bring him in, and he says he's shadow and refuses to heal. I kicked him (since I now had to find a healer, and he was the last dps'er to come in), and reported his name so he could change it. I picked up a healer pretty quick, and then started getting messages from the shadow guy saying "I'll heal if you let me join in again." Sorry, we're full.
It's still not that hard to use the name generator to pick out a name. The first time I got on WoW, the best name I found was Veloren, which I liked, but was taken. Throw in a 'y', and we get Veloreyn (mage). I also have Veloraen (priest), Veloryen (I don't remember... something to hold the name), and Velorayn (warlock). Later on I got Sylana from the generator, but again it was taken, so I added an extra 'l' for Syllana (hunter). Then went on to change it a bit to get Syllanna (shaman) and Syllenna (warrior).
Some of the funny names don't bother me, and some do. It just depends on how creative the person was. Blackadar's "Itsnotwater" made me laugh, so I don't mind that one as much.
IronClad Online: PurEvil
I just find names that sound like boobs
WOW: Bounce
I refuse to group with anyone that has the word "you" in their name.
NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.
Spore
hehe - Bounce, Rackage, etc...
I'm trying to remember which one of your alts got the GM's attention though?
My nickname among friends at work is "Deepsea" so I was really happy when I was able to snag that. When I started getting altitis I tried to think of some other gaming tags. Then I thought about what a pain it is to look at someone's character and not really know who their main was. I ended up making my first alt with the name "Deepsee". It thought it worked well for me, no need for a player note. Now I have Deepsea, Deepsee, Deepcee, Deepcea, etc... It may seem unoriginal but I like the way it's worked out.
"Fault always lies in the same place...with those foolish enough to lay blame"*
-Cort
*Unless you're Amazon or Funcom, in which case, SCREW YOU.
Chalk me up as a mixture of both. I've got some serious names, and some that are pretty much tard names.
Kelgas - 70 Shaman, Ayetbebyz - 61 rogue, Reavi - 57 Hunter, Latrevian - 40 Hunter, Neviril - 36 Shaman, Fujioka - 34 Paladin, Steyr - 23 Warlock
Mostly serious sounding, but only half came from a generator. The rest are either anime characters, or sentences in a name.
Coldstream wrote:
This reminds of my days as an EQ Guide taking petitions and warning people about their awful, Naming Policy-violating names. As a personal habit I avoid to death anyone with a stupid name.
XBL Gamertag: Bear Patrol
Blog: Triple Point Blank Fire
Ah my much beloved Sixtynine. I couldn't play my warrior after the hammer dropped
I regret having stopped playing WOW before BC dropped so I could run around with my saved name of AuntFlow for my Blood Elf.
WOW: Bounce
on aggramar?? lol. i guess there can be more than one out there.
my first toon's name was random generator'd and thus sort of uncreative but fitting.....the second one i rolled i picked myself but it was still a name vs something like "Darknspooky". i just plain judged all people with such descriptor-names as idiots until they proved me otherwise but that didn't happen a whole lot.
LOL
Hmm
I stole the name of a GameBoy game: Snood gnome rogue.
I stole the name of a character from a book: Livac gnome warlock
I stole the name of a god: Aressa (female) human warrior
I Made a joke about a guildmate (Leaping): Groundbound human priest
and finally I used a name generator name: Opalora night Elf Hunter.
"Also, I have four legs and am covered in wool. Baa!" *Legion* reveals his inner furry.
My main (Sunseeker) has had a few times where it was assumed I was female before they saw my toon or I corrected their mistake. The irony is that the name has nothing to do with beaches, bathing suits, or babes, but rather it was part of a role-play I started about 15 years ago. I created a paladin called Tir Ironhand who's mantra was to "seek the truth of faith within the ultimate light." Thus, Sunseeker.
As a side note, it was while RPing as Sunseeker that I met Valleja.. so he (and I) did find his ultimate light.. just not in a form he originally expected.
4E D&D Campaign: Valley of Shrouds
Steam Community: ShadeRaven
Badgods.com presents: An Except from The Fellowship of the Ring, Substituting Actual Names of World of Warcraft Characters.
XBox Live: Alex C
My UO character names were "Boxer" (dumb workhorse) and "Hamlet Pendragon" (quickly discarded "main").
Please feel free to laugh.
Edit: My private server name was "Captain" Marcos de la Cruz. A lumberjack and professional alcoholic, with booze-induced hallucinations of being a shipwrecked pirate forced to live on land.
Also, he hated gorillas. And frickin' elves. And anti-labor groups. (He was totally cornering the market on lumber until the elves started giving him a hard time for logging "their" trees.)
Elysium: The democratization of the web ... has installed an illusion of a digital first amendment that protects speech no matter how poorly spelled or stupid.
XBL: E Munnie
elementsofmeaning.blogspot.com