Quote:
Originally Posted by loramin
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I think the problem with that argument is, if you follow the premise of it then logically you pretty much have to be against any non-random name.
Look, I'm not a fan of the fiftieth dark elf named Drizzt. It was dumb on live, and it's dumb here. It also is jarring to anyone who sees it: it knocks you out of your stupid 20-year old elf sim fantasy world. But ...there's a vast spectrum of names, and Drizzt is only one end.
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But your second paragraph directly addresses your problem with the premise in the first. It's a spectrum of names, on one end with Aaragorn/Drizzt/etc, and the other, completely random names. Everyone, including staff, has a line somewhere on that spectrum where they feel is "too far" and that's just a preference where people fall, there is no intrinsic right or wrong to it where you have to be for or against something. "I can't define it but I know it when I see it", that's just the way human things work a lot of the time; including how staff even enforces the rules here, I've seen that one come up a lot when dealing with some of the heavy LawyerQuest types. So that's my position on what is and isn't ok for a name.
Quote:
Originally Posted by loramin
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I've got an Enchanter named Kalasiris who is on the other end. It is not an original name ... but it's from an ancient Greek novel that no one except Literature majors would ever read, so it might as well be: (virtually) no one will ever see it and petition me, and if they did the GMs might not even believe it's from a book.
By your logic, if someone, me or anyone else, made a Kalasiris seven years ago, and never played him (or played him for only a few minutes), no one should ever be able to make a character on Green with the awesome name Kalasiris? I'm not trying to trick or argue with you here, but I'm asking is this really what you believe?
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Yes, because I just don't care about that kind of stuff. I just find another name and move on. Or I'd make Kalasirys or Kalasirus or something (and just for fun, I tried both of these and they worked, so I'd be happy with that). Someone else got Kalasiris, thems the breaks, either I mod it or move on. Daud certainly wasn't the first name I put into the filter for my rogue, and I've got several more characters like this and it just doesn't bother me or make me want to delete someone else's character to get something I want, even if it is just collecting dust as a naked level 1 on a forgotten account. I don't feel like it gives me that right to do that.
I think the problem is people are getting real specific with what they want. When you want that name, and only that name, and that spelling of it, yeah, it's disappointing, especially if it's a level 1 character no one's ever seen. But I don't believe there's a shortage of names to the point where we should just delete or rename characters just because you happen feel disappointed that you didn't get specifically what you wanted.
Quote:
Originally Posted by loramin
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It seems to me that the good kind of name, the ones no one has heard of and sound fantasy, are still a finite good. There's less of that good to go around for everyone if 7-year old toons no one plays deplete the stockpile. IF you agree with that on any level, and you're still against renames, then you have to believe there's a corresponding value to letting those names stay unused, which makes me wonder ... what's that value?
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Finite doesn't mean scarce, though. Unless you can throw out what percentage of the 15 quintillion possible names on this server meet your personal subjective definition of "good" and how many of those are taken, and I know there's a lot thrown out for ones like repeating letters and whatnot that doesn't make sense or violate CoC and every other obvious stupid combination, all we have really is how we "feel" how hard it is to get a name out of the name generator, and personally, I don't find it that hard. Obviously there's a lot of players who feel hindered that they can't get a "good" name past the filter, but, again, it goes back to my suspicions of what I think they personally consider "good", not feeling like there's a shortage, and not feeling it's right to delete other people's characters regardless of how much and when they've played.