What do you think about the idea of giving players the option to rename potentially undesirable procedurally generated name results?

Legend has it that when Elite was published the scheme for randomly generating names for worlds gifted players with a planet named Arse. Most people probably laughed it off, but I'm sure it was immersion breaking for others.

As I've found a handful of semi-questionable names among the hundreds I've been generating for my own game I've wondered about whether or not players should be able to click the name and simply rename it. I don't expect it to be something they'd regularly have to do (obvious problems are deleted by a filter) but I imagine with dozens of name generation patterns the player just might encounter something phonetically awkward (such as the planet Hommoh which inspired this post).

Thoughts?

If your game is single player and it's easy to implement, I can't see how it would hurt to add that feature in.

The thing that bothers me about that is that it feels a bit too much like part of the game, and in that sense, it breaks immersion.

I don't have the right to rename Uranus to something less "offensive". Why should my character have that ability?

Now if you allowed the player to add words to the filter, that would feel more like a game option than something my character is doing to the world. It also means the player can't choose to rename every planet to "Arse". [grin]

From all I've gathered by reading your posts regarding your game in design I don't think I would bother with it too much. Are people really going to take notice of every planet name they come across? Maybe its just me but I'd be forgiving for a few names here and there that might sound a little weird, laugh then move on.

I dislike the idea of players having the option to change planet names, if they have just discovered it then they might be able to lay claim to it and name it but if it has an established race/intelligence on it then I'd also put it down as an immersion breaker.

I agree with sandman I'd rather not be able to rename things in game unless I was the discoverer. But give me full freedom and documentation on how to change the resource files that way if I customize the game world in a small way to my liking.

Giving players limited abilities to rename things is ok. In "Sins of a Solar Empire", you can rename planets, but only the playents you own.

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Legend has it that when Elite was published the scheme for randomly generating names for worlds gifted players with a planet named Arse.

Well if the planet had a Hydrogen/Sulfur atmosphere, then this might be acceptable :D

Wouldn't that violate the prime directive? Citizens of Arse probably have a long and proud tradition and wouldn't take any smart-ass puns regarding their home's name kindly. If your home planet's name referred to some amusing part of alien anatomy in some martian tongue would you agree to change it?

Also, lol @ Uranus.

There is a serious issue here. That names _matter_ any one who's read Tolkien or browsed through a Royal Navy list of ships knows.

I can't think of any games that shine in this regard other than the ancient Lords of Midnight. Names in a procedurally generated game seem doomed to be arbitrary and meaningless - and whatever meaning attaches to a name would be lost when starting the game over.

I've never derived satisfaction from being able to name game entities, chiefly from being unable to come up with ones I felt appropriate, and doubly so in single player games because the game world cannot react in any way to the name.

Perhaps the game should automatically choose names according to the virtues and flaws of a place / character / ship, or else with the mood and fortunes of the parents / colonizers / builders of the named entity (Turin's older sister is named Lalaith - laughter; but the younger Nienor - mourning, following "the battle of unnumbered tears"). An entity's name could also change or be appended with an honorary title if it undergoes an extraordinary event.

Alternatively the player could be able to select from a list of names, and the choice of name would affect appropriate attributes of the entity bearing it (some name may boost luck - some may instill a greater sense of duty or courage, etc.).

If names can change attributes, a neutral name may also acquire positive / negative bonuses if an entity bearing it distinguishes itself one way or the other.

One way to do it is the way diablo 2 named unique monsters and rare items. They picked prefixes and titles and such from a bag of hand-selected names to create random combinations. Of course you still end up with some funny ones: "snot bag the vile".

You could add some rules like classes of parts that go well well together. Basically add rules that are more abstract than just "this combination is not allowed".

Another way is like how we name planets and stars: known stuff gets names of mythical figures, random "uncharted" stuff gets gibberish code-names like "GSH-7562" until they become important. Not sure how well this would adapt to prodecurally generated "known" stuff.

Sounds fine to me, especially if I'm the discoverer of the planet. People who don't want to change the names can just... not. If you hide it right, most people will go blissfully unaware of the feature's existence.

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Original post by theOcelot Sounds fine to me, especially if I'm the discoverer of the planet. People who don't want to change the names can just... not. If you hide it right, most people will go blissfully unaware of the feature's existence.

Edit box with default random generated name is fine.