These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE Information Portal

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

New dev blog: What's in a name

First post First post
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Danny Husk
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#441 - 2012-03-02 04:21:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Danny Husk
There was nothing at all wrong with "Scourge," and as a menacing term it's much more congruent with "Interno," "Nova," and "Mjolnir." "Trauma" is just weird and dissonant, and has a biological tone out of step with stuff that suggests big blazing fireballs and giant hammers smashing stuff into little bits of dust.

It's been suggested by several others already, but the solution to the whole "Assault" conundrum is simple:

Cruise Missile Launcher
Torpedo Launcher

Heavy Missile Launcher
Heavy ROCKET Launcher (was HAML)

[Blitz | Dual | Quad] Rapid-Fire Light Missile Battery (was AML)

Light Missile Launcher
Light Rocket Launcher

Problem solved.

The HAML <-> AML idea is just bad, bad, bad any way you spin it. There is nothing you could do that would work worse than that in making a little less tangle of the whole thing.

The new AML really needs a term that is distinctive enough that it doesn't suggest it is simply a "better" version of Light Missile Launcher (i.e., something akin to the "Dual 180mm" guns; not something that just sounds like an upgrade, but a different class of weapon composed of several of the smaller class weapons). Even "Rapid" sounds a little like it's just going to be a "better" light missile launcher, which will lead to endless confusion when noobs can't figure out why four of them won't fit on a Kestrel.
David Carel
SWAT Team Sales Consultants
#442 - 2012-03-02 05:25:02 UTC
I don't support those name changes.

All of them.
Midnight Hope
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#443 - 2012-03-02 05:45:08 UTC
CCP Gnauton wrote:
Hi guys,

...is the meta scheme really serving the player, and is the cost to flavor too great?...



First off, thanks for replying. I was afraid the feedback was going to go down the drain as it seemed to have happened when we were force fed the missile names.

For the record, and for the third time, I still think Trauma presents no clear advantage over Scourge. I agree with renaming them (firefox, gremlin, etc - way too many names), but you should have kept the more representative names (like scourge or mjolnir) instead of coming up with new ones that have absolutely no meaning to anyone in EVE.

Same goes for prop mods. Y-T8 was too well known to simply be discarded and changed to "experimental" (talking about lost flavor).

Which brings us to the meta levels. It seems a good idea to expose the meta levels on the names, but the cost of flavor (as you put it( is simply too great. Now, out the window goes Malkuth and Arbalest. Really?

If you are going to rename EVERYTHING to limited, experimental, prototype, etc (or whatever names you end up with), then EVE looses a lot of flavor. Everything will have the same 4 names, from guns to prop mods, from missile launchers to warp disruptors (at least the target painters are spared!!).

You are loosing a LOT of immersion and diluting the universe of EVE. You are loosing what EVE actually means, a far away dark and gritty place waiting among the stars...

PS: Sorry for getting sentimental at the end. On second thought, maybe you are going at this backwards. I understand the idea: make EVE easier to learn, make EVE easier for the new player. Maybe the way to do it is to actually mention the meta level concept in the tutorials. Teach them about the attributes (show info) each thing has and teach them about the compare tool, instead of renaming everything to fine, good, gooder, bestest.

Tiger's Spirit
Templars of the Shadows
#444 - 2012-03-02 06:55:53 UTC
Adaahh Gee wrote:
*Facepalm

More renaming?

After all the uproar and complaints from your existing paying customers, you want to rename more modules?

Do you ACTUALLY listen or is the voice of Sony in your ear more influential?

Why not remove ship spinning again? if you really want to wind us all up?

Do you not understand that by the standardization of naming, you are removing the immersion from the game.

NEWSFLASH! Immersion is what gets people logged on for 15 hours a day, it's what makes people tell their wife they can't go out that evening as there is a CTA scheduled, it is what makes Eve such an awesome game.

By dumbing down the game, you are really, genuinely alienating your core user base, and honestly, it will not attract new players, it will not make people who have a short attention span suddenly stay playing after their 14-day trial ends.

Please, please, please, Reconsider your streamlining, concentrate your efforts on some worthwhile UI improvements, Streamline the way roles are setup in corps so they are actually easy to understand, Add some more nice shiny ships, Tier 2 Destroyers with E-War bonus, make the Scythe and Bellicose actual useful ships in the way Blackbirds and Arbitrators are.

Finally, please understand that we love this game (Probably more than you do) and that we spend huge chunks of our lives dedicated to playing it (again, probably more than you do).
The playerbase of Eve is an enormous resource for you, you can use it to make genuine, useful improvements. Or, you can change names of things that don't need changing and have a bunch of people on a forum whining about it.


+1
Main Malaak
Annexion Industries
#445 - 2012-03-02 07:21:01 UTC
tl;dr

Maybe someone already came up with the following idea, but if this is mostly about how you can display the meta level of an item, why not simply marking the icons with meta level tags, just like you do it with T2 or faction already?

simple and no messing around with item names

additionally i would implement a better sorting for the market

done.
Sturmwolke
#446 - 2012-03-02 07:45:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Sturmwolke
Lol, I posted (in pg20) without even reading any comments in this thread ... reflecting back, a lot of players think alike when it comes to certain things.

That leaves me to the point of this post, who was it that thought it was ok to remove "Scourge"?
I'd like to put that person into a cage and sink him/her to the bottom of the ocean Evil

Edit:
Looks like there's a couple more idiotic things that's been done like the changes to the AB/MWDs (hey, I haven't been active in the game for a few months).

Infact, the whole approach towards this initiative got off on the wrong foot - by running through significant/major changes that affects the gaming experience, without at least some player feedback. This blog looks like damage control and stepback. This sort of missteps is way too common CCP, it's getting old. Please appoint someone as a gatekeeper/czar that oversees the entire EVE production to keep the project leaders on a leash so that they don't make "common sense" mistakes that's detrimental to the game, especially those that blow back into your face.

[A bit of rambling] CCP, at this juncture, you don't have the leisure to emotionally alienate your current playerbase. Remember, EVE will never be mainstream (as in having > 1 mil subs ... heck, even 500K might be pushing it, imo) due to the complex nature of the game. Recognize and accept that fact. Play instead to your strengths, instead of pandering trying to become as accessible as the other std AAA MMOs. If you do the latter, you'll be in direct competition - it's a battle you cannot win without selling your soul. Hearing CCP Soundwave is into anime/manga stuffs, I wonder if he's heard or read the manga called "Bakuman"? Look it up. There's a few things that can be learned from it.[end ramble]
Medusa The Gorgon
Temple of the Serpent
The Gorgon Empire
#447 - 2012-03-02 08:53:29 UTC
Boycott the changes! Save the PWNAGE target painter for future generations!
Lady Spank
Get Out Nasty Face
#448 - 2012-03-02 09:09:59 UTC
CCP Gnauton wrote:
While there've been dozens of good (and a few very good) suggestions for alternative schemes, the proof is nevertheless in the pudding. Look at how many different schemes you guys came up with. Look at how different they are. Look at the disagreements amongst yourselves on which of them is the most intuitive. Everybody has different associations with all of these words,so in the end the fact remains that any word scheme will to some extent be arbitrary and prone to disagreement and confusion. This is not said in defense of my own scheme, because as you've continually (and rightfully) pointed out to me, it certainly has its flaws.

I think if you are going to run this line of argument then you very carefully need to consider the most obvious logical option.

No one had an issue with naming conventions before any of these changes were suggested/implemented. Since then there has been nothing but complaints. While people may have different suggestions, the best option is simply to leave them alone. This is not only for its simplicity, nor 'legacy' reasons but also immersion/roleplay. Why should modules manuifactured by different organisations follow any sort of dumbed down conventions, especially when this is meant to be a universe revolving around Corporate wars.

This is very much a case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it.


Finally, you could consider changing Trauma to Greed in homage to the last time you steamrolled unpopular changes into the game.

(ಠ_ృ) ~ It Takes a Million Years to Become Diamonds So Lets Just Burn Like Coal Until the Sky's Black ~ (ಠ_ృ)
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#449 - 2012-03-02 09:40:46 UTC
Medusa The Gorgon wrote:
Boycott the changes! Save the PWNAGE target painter for future generations!


Already saved. It was never on the table to change.

But if you'd read the thread before posting, you'd know that. Or even just read the dev comments on the thread.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#450 - 2012-03-02 09:43:12 UTC
Midnight Hope wrote:
For the record, and for the third time, I still think Trauma presents no clear advantage over Scourge. I agree with renaming them (firefox, gremlin, etc - way too many names), but you should have kept the more representative names (like scourge or mjolnir) instead of coming up with new ones that have absolutely no meaning to anyone in EVE.


Lol
probably should have picked one of the representative names, other than Mjolnir.

I'd mostly agree with the sentiment, though.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
Wyte Ragnarok
#451 - 2012-03-02 09:50:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Wyte Ragnarok
tl;dr the thread.

The names have been fine for years. It takes a noob a couple of months (whilst they're learning the game) to realise Meta 4 > Meta 1. I'm getting more confused now with Experimental 10MN MWD. Whilst you're making the game 'tarded for all the WoW players who choose to take a break from killing whatever fairy tale animals they have on that server, your stupifying it for the rest of us as well. Eve used to proudly boast that it was possibly the most complex, open game, sandbox. And that was cool. Now I'm seeing more and more WoW players who have quit/taken a break and now want to try Eve. And by Jove it's difficult trying to explain the differences between things in Eve to their WoW, especially with their often young and dense skulls.

Talking of young, dense skulls; average pilot age. I'm 21 and the youngest in my corp. Ask yourself CCP, what was the average pilot age for the last few years? As far as I remember it was around 20-25. Why? Because a lot of mature players enjoy the game. What's the average age of CoD or WoW, you know the games where you hear high pitched, annoying, brain dead 12 year olds squawk about how unfair their death was and as if they died to you, noob. One of the main aspects I actually bother to stay round Eve is the company; the players. Internet spaceships is far too serious business for 12 year olds, which is why I support the more complex name system. Yes CCP, we know you want more customers but try somewhere else. 12 year old WoW players are probably still likely to get confused finding the undock button.
Ceptia Cyna
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#452 - 2012-03-02 10:31:22 UTC
Quote:
Because a lot of mature players enjoy the game.


Sounds more like a bunch of whiney kids to me!
"Oh, noes they taken away the unique names, i can no longer brag around how iam super nerd and memorized useless stuff for a video game to set myself appart cause i have no skill to do so."

REALLY? GET A LIFE!Roll

Namechanging wont change anything about the complexity of EVE it will just sort out the fact that you had to stupidly memorize unnecessary unique item names. (Yes i will miss some but the overall benefit weights much more!)

I do however agree that the changes suggested should be re-tought considering the wording might be missleading as mentioned before.
Velicitia
XS Tech
#453 - 2012-03-02 11:33:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Velicitia
Lady Spank wrote:


Finally, you could consider changing Trauma to Greed in homage to the last time you steamrolled unpopular changes into the game.


+1, Lady Spank for CSM, etc, etc.

Also -- how about you play the damn game guys? And I mean, really play -- to the point where you've memorised enough of the module names that you're fitting to know what they do.

e.g. (for blasters)
Neutron is better than Electron is better than Ion

T2 is (in general) better than Modal(M4) is better than Anode(M3) is better than Regulated(M2) is better than Limited(M1) is better than Meta 0

Wyte Ragnarok wrote:
Yes CCP, we know you want more customers but try somewhere else. 12 year old WoW players are probably still likely to get confused finding the undock button.PVE Server

Fixed that for youBlink

One of the bitter points of a good bittervet is the realisation that all those SP don't really do much, and that the newbie is having much more fun with what little he has. - Tippia
Trebor Daehdoow
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#454 - 2012-03-02 11:39:20 UTC
CCP Gnauton wrote:
While there've been dozens of good (and a few very good) suggestions for alternative schemes, the proof is nevertheless in the pudding. Look at how many different schemes you guys came up with. Look at how different they are. Look at the disagreements amongst yourselves on which of them is the most intuitive. Everybody has different associations with all of these words,so in the end the fact remains that any word scheme will to some extent be arbitrary and prone to disagreement and confusion.

The only way to avoid these inevitable confusions is to encode an unambiguous sequence into the naming scheme, either explicitly (ie: Enhanced M1 "Phased" 1MN MicroWarpdrive I or Enhanced α "Phased" 1MN MicroWarpdrive I), or implicitly by having the level prefix names in alpha sort order (A,B,C,D...)

For example (just off the top of my head):

Augumented
Boosted
Catalyzed
Developed

Private Citizen • CSM in recovery
Tiger's Spirit
Templars of the Shadows
#455 - 2012-03-02 12:09:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Tiger's Spirit
Trebor Daehdoow wrote:
CCP Gnauton wrote:
While there've been dozens of good (and a few very good) suggestions for alternative schemes, the proof is nevertheless in the pudding. Look at how many different schemes you guys came up with. Look at how different they are. Look at the disagreements amongst yourselves on which of them is the most intuitive. Everybody has different associations with all of these words,so in the end the fact remains that any word scheme will to some extent be arbitrary and prone to disagreement and confusion.

The only way to avoid these inevitable confusions is to encode an unambiguous sequence into the naming scheme, either explicitly (ie: Enhanced M1 "Phased" 1MN MicroWarpdrive I or Enhanced α "Phased" 1MN MicroWarpdrive I), or implicitly by having the level prefix names in alpha sort order (A,B,C,D...)

For example (just off the top of my head):

Augumented
Boosted
Catalyzed
Developed


Oh no another stupid standarized name ideas. Because dump pilots we loss the sci-fi feeling for the game.
It's time to change the ships to MK1/MK2/MK3/MK4 because some pilot not have brain and cant do thinking.

Pls CCP after this change, do another dumb name changes.

Give new names to shiptypes too, maybe that changes give to us same dumb feeling to the game such a experienced,upgraded etc name changes.

Upgraded Gallente Battleship MK1 (Dominix)
Limited Gallente Battleship MK2 (Megathron)
Experimental Gallente Battleship MK3 (Hyperion)
Prototype Gallente Battleship MK4 (Navy Mega)

Do you feel the idiotic and useless changes ???
Argyle Jones
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#456 - 2012-03-02 12:13:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Argyle Jones
A few comments on the dev-blog:

Quote:
...but it's nonetheless true that there are certain things that add to this complexity in a meaningful way and other things that simply befuddle and obfuscate for no real reason. Needlessly complex item names, we've come to firmly believe, are among the latter.


I think it was established very early in this thread that complex item names are not needless. They add flavour to the game and help with player immersion. Learning that an 'Arbalest' Heavy Missile Launcher is valuable and a much better weapon system than a 'Malkuth' Heavy Missile Launcher is a part of the player experience and defines player progression in the game world in a much more subtle, meaningful and elegant way than any experience bar or level system ever could.

Quote:
our goal here is not removing EVE's flavor, it's improving EVE's usability. We have a deep and abiding love for our property's depth and flair, and we don't intend to harm it in the slightest. We just want to make things a little more accessible.


If the only goal is to make EVE more accessible I think you should write a pros and cons list. Here's what it might look like:

PRO
Idea Making EVE online a more accessible game to new players.
Idea Increased revenue from increase in new players who chose to subscribe after trial. (needs research)

CON
Idea Breaks killboards and causes your members hassle with updating killboards, loot management systems, etc.
Idea Removes SCI-FI flavour from the game, making the game a more bland and generic player experience.
Idea Is not consistent with the EVE lore that competing corporations would all name products with the same scheme.
Idea Breaks player immersion in game world, which is particularly important for the roleplaying community.
Idea Removes a part of the player progression experience.

I think that if you proceed with this name change you open up a veritable pandora's box, for one might then ask why other parts of the game are named in such a complex manner? What's next? Should Caldari ships have a 'Caldari Sensor Strength' attribute instead of Gravimetric? Should a 'Radar' site be called a 'Hacking' site? Why have veldspar asteroids that refine into tritanium when you can have tritanium asteroids that make tritanium ore that can be refined into tritanium minerals?

I strongly urge you to reconsider these changes. As someone else already said, dumbing down the game will not attract more players, it will simply make for a more bland gaming experience for your existing community. It would make more sense to focus your efforts on educating new players via the already extensive tutorial system and the wiki / help pages.

Just my two cents,

/Yargle
TripStarrR
State War Academy
Caldari State
#457 - 2012-03-02 12:34:27 UTC  |  Edited by: TripStarrR
from my understanding there are 2 groupings of missiles...

guided and unguided

and these are split into size groupings of small, medium, large, extra large and extra exta large...


Guided Missiles
s - codename whatever
m - codename whatever
l - codename whatever
xl - codename whatever
xxl - codename whatever

Unguided Missiles
s - codename whatever
m - codename whatever
l - codename whatever
xl - codename whatever
xxl - codename whatever

if you "tag" them (or make attributes searchable) rather than complicating thier names by trying to be descriptive it doesnt matter what u call them because i can just search for it based on tags or attributes rather than by name (like website or database searching)

so say im looking for a small kinetic unguided missile...

excaliber rocket
tags:
small, light, missile, unguided, kinetic

do you see what i mean? it doesnt matter what the name is. it can be as funky as you want if the search and market browsing is catagory and tag based. like a proper search mechanic should be... so instead of making overcomplicated names just add the ability to search by attribute or tag and you solve the problem :)

what are peoples thoughts on this?
Buzzmong
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#458 - 2012-03-02 12:59:56 UTC
Lady Spank wrote:
CCP Gnauton wrote:
While there've been dozens of good (and a few very good) suggestions for alternative schemes, the proof is nevertheless in the pudding. Look at how many different schemes you guys came up with. Look at how different they are. Look at the disagreements amongst yourselves on which of them is the most intuitive. Everybody has different associations with all of these words,so in the end the fact remains that any word scheme will to some extent be arbitrary and prone to disagreement and confusion. This is not said in defense of my own scheme, because as you've continually (and rightfully) pointed out to me, it certainly has its flaws.

I think if you are going to run this line of argument then you very carefully need to consider the most obvious logical option.

No one had an issue with naming conventions before any of these changes were suggested/implemented. Since then there has been nothing but complaints. While people may have different suggestions, the best option is simply to leave them alone. This is not only for its simplicity, nor 'legacy' reasons but also immersion/roleplay. Why should modules manuifactured by different organisations follow any sort of dumbed down conventions, especially when this is meant to be a universe revolving around Corporate wars.

This is very much a case of if it ain't broke, don't fix it.


Finally, you could consider changing Trauma to Greed in homage to the last time you steamrolled unpopular changes into the game.


I wouldn't normally like to be seen agreeing with Lady Spank, but on this point, he's pretty much right.
JamesCLK
#459 - 2012-03-02 13:03:05 UTC  |  Edited by: JamesCLK
Trebor Daehdoow wrote:

The only way to avoid these inevitable confusions is to encode an unambiguous sequence into the naming scheme, either explicitly (ie: Enhanced M1 "Phased" 1MN MicroWarpdrive I or Enhanced α "Phased" 1MN MicroWarpdrive I), or implicitly by having the level prefix names in alpha sort order (A,B,C,D...)

For example (just off the top of my head):

Augumented
Boosted
Catalyzed
Developed


This was kind of what I was pushing for earlier, just not as a homogenous change across all modules.
Each race and/or faction could have its own naming convention for certain things, but it should be consistant enough that if you know how the Amarr name their meta modules, you can figure out all of the Amarr sourced modules.

The variation in how each race or faction conveys that a module is superior to another would provide the spice, while keeping the benefits of consistancy in an organised naming structure (essentially, instead of having to remember meta names for every module class, you only need to remember the name structure for a handfull of factions).

For example:

Caldari (using the example in one of my earlier posts) [developer tag]-[class][tech][meta] [name]:
- XT-i102 Braced Invulnerability Field I
- CN-C108 Caldari Navy Cruise Missile Launcher
Amarr (borrows heavily from theological or religious sources, 'god' induced state of mind during development?):
- α 'Inspired' Small Energy Neutraliser I
- β 'Revealed' Tracking Disruptor I
- γ 'Enlightened'
- Ω 'Perfected'
Minmatar (salvaged or recycled is a recurring theme, nothing must be wasted - the more "upgrades" the better):
- 'Repurposed' 150mm Autocannon I
- 'Upgraded' 10MN Afterburner I
- 'Optimized' Phased Weapon Navigation Generation Extron I

So on and so forth...

-- -.-- / -.-. .-.. --- -. . / .. ... / - --- --- / . -..- .--. . -. ... .. ...- . / - --- / ..- -. -.. --- -.-. -.- / ... - --- .--. / .--. .-.. . .- ... . / ... . -. -.. / .... . .-.. .--. / ... - --- .--.
SwissChris1
Stimulus
Rote Kapelle
#460 - 2012-03-02 13:04:18 UTC  |  Edited by: SwissChris1
The hardwiring rename is alright but everything else is just ******* stupid....stop breaking our game!

edit: well not "breaking" but dumbing it down to unnecessary levels

if it ain't broke, don't fix it
if it ain't broke, don't fix it
if it ain't broke, don't fix it
if it ain't broke, don't fix it