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Help name the location!

Started by August 15, 2009 01:45 PM
2 comments, last by bardbarienne 15 years, 6 months ago
Let me know which ones you like the most and what comes to mind when you hear the names. The 15 names with the most votes will be used. Your response to what comes to mind when you hear the names will be used to help design the place! Here is a list of 30 possible locations that might be in game: Clearden Forest DeepDell Westcliff Barrens Mapledell Freyville Blackfoot Barrens Blacksnow lake Ironpond Mallow cliff Mallowcliff pond NorthBeach Summerhaven Winterbeach woodville Bluecourt Mill Black Meadow High Lake Ice Castle Oakville Spring Marsh Oldhollow Westbridge Westerwolf Beach woodview CrystalMage field Hollow Bridge Highmill land Ice Haven Mage Coast Westfort downs Looking forward to reading your responses! I have one picked out for one of the capitals. I will let you know which one and what my ideas for it are after I see some of your responses!
In Development:Rise of Heros: MORPG - http:www.riseofheroesmmo.com
They all suck. I am joking.
My favourites are:
Clearden Forest
Oldhollow

All the others look like names of british villages.
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Mapledell



Mapledell is a busy center of commerce and trade. The city is protected by 2 sets of walls. The outer walls stand just over 15 feet tall. In the wall is a arch gateway leading to a bridge that crosses a large river. On the other side of the bridge stands the giant stone inner walls. Standing over 100 feet tall these walls have never falling during a war and are a testament to the craftsmanship of it's citizens.

History



Mapledell has a long and proud history. It was the first Human Walled city to be built in this new land. In its early days it was used as a rearming and stocking area during the invasion of this land. It wasn't until several years later that it started being built as a full city and today it has grown to be one of the few largest cities.

I will be posting more about Mapledell and our other locations over the next few weeks.
In Development:Rise of Heros: MORPG - http:www.riseofheroesmmo.com
Most of them are good, but the problem is that you named almost all of them after (I assume) the appearance of the place. Your players will have a hard time distinguishing between places, because nearly everything is [plant][landscape feature].

Towns are named for a reason, and it all depends on who lives there, or how it was found. Was your continent discovered by explorers? In that case, it's likely the explorers named different towns/regions after themselves or those they are loyal to. Case in point: Jamestown and the James River in Virginia, USA were named after King James of England. Virginia itself was named for the Virgin Mary, while Maryland (just north of Virginia) was named after Queen Mary, King James's wife.

Or, perhaps the town is named after a peculiar piece of architecture, or some other defining factor. Case in point: Thousands of streets and communities with names like Wilkes Mill, or Browns Mill, or Bingham Farms - these aren't real places, but there are many places in the US with names like "X Mill" or "X Farm" because there used to be a mill or a farm there. In your game, perhaps there is actually a mill or a farm there. In a book I read, there was also a really neat town name - Broengae, or something like that. The town's main building had a broken gate on its fence. Initially it was named Broken Gate, but as time went on, people stopped pronouncing all the consonants. Generations later, no one remembered that it was named after a gate in the first place, and the shortened version stuck.

Or, sometimes new places are named after old places - New York, New Orleans, New Jersey, New Hampshire. . .

In places where a native population existed before explorers arrived (the Americas, Australia, Africa in some cases), rivers, towns, states, or whole regions use names the natives were already using.

You do have some zingers, though. Ironpond? That had better have an awesome story behind it. Maybe a Medusa/basilisk-esque creature lives in the pond, and the depths of her abode are filled with the stone corpses of everyone she's laid eyes on. Either that, or it's a silly story the locals tell strangers so that they don't fish in the pond.

-Freyville seems interesting, it might be named after its founders.

-Highmill Land is a little clumsy - you could go with High Mill and be fine.

-CrystalMage Field and Mage Coast could be scrapped in favor of naming them after some famous mages, or using the word Magus instead. "Magus Coast" and "Magus Field" roll off the tongue a little better. (But don't use Magus for both of them.)

-Winterbeach? Are you serious? If you are, it needs a story.

-High Lake is silly. Lakes are not high, in fact they're usually lower than sea level for obvious water-related reasons, unless of course it's a lake up in the mountains. If that's the case, I think the locals would give it a better name than High Lake.

-Hollow Bridge is my final nitpick. I can only imagine that a hollow bridge is a really terrible idea - things should be hollow if you want them to be lightweight and/or fly, and there is absolutely no reason for a bridge to be either one, unless you've got a really good reason for a flying bridge.

Summary: You may be using too many landmark buzzwords. Think about your areas before you name them - if they have a reason to exist, they'll have something nameable about them.

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