Undead Names

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Yomar
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Undead Names

Post by Yomar »

I was wondering why not change some undead's generic names to more fantasy related ones.
Like instead of Necrophage or Shadow, why not using Wight ?
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beetlenaut
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Re: Undead Names

Post by beetlenaut »

Wight used to be a perfectly normal word (for "creature"). It has a fantasy sound now just because it was used by a number of fantasy writers. Wesnoth could help cause other words to have more of a fantasy sound by using them in a fantasy setting! I like that Wesnoth doesn't try to copy every other fantasy game.

Skeleton and ghost are kind of boring, but the names get better as they level up. That's on purpose. Shadow seems pretty good to me, and what do you have against necrophage? That's one of the better choices: It's Greek for corpse eater, so pretty spot on.
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The_Gnat
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Re: Undead Names

Post by The_Gnat »

Yomar wrote: October 17th, 2018, 1:06 am I was wondering why not change some undead's generic names to more fantasy related ones.
Like instead of Necrophage or Shadow, why not using Wight ?
I do see your point about the names, ghost,shadow,fighter,swordsman, and many more are fairly generic names and not, perhaps, as cool as they could be. :) Maybe some of the level 1's could use better names (skeleton, ghost) but as Beetlenaut has said the level 1's are supposed to be normal.

I think I have (after nearly a decade of wesnoth) grown somewhat attached to the old names and probably you will find that is the same for plenty of wesnoth players. In particular in relation to the undead I like the Shadow and Necrophage. I think part of the reason they were chosen despite their simpler names is the same as the reason the 'Wight' gained its name. Simplicity is often a good thing and in the case of undead they are creatures few live to tell about so maybe that's why they did not develop more detailed names ;)

But of course that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.
Byron
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Re: Undead Names

Post by Byron »

Why are the buildings called villages, when the campaign creators put several "villages" together to show a village?

Sorta off topic, but sorta not, too.
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The_Gnat
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Re: Undead Names

Post by The_Gnat »

Byron wrote: October 22nd, 2018, 2:06 am Why are the buildings called villages, when the campaign creators put several "villages" together to show a village?

Sorta off topic, but sorta not, too.
:lol: Good point. I think they are each supposed to represent a village but since the artwork shows a single building it is easier for the player to envision a "village" as a collection of such buildings. However, I think it is called a "village" because it would make no sense to gain income from taxing a single poor farmer in his little house ;)

I personally imagine a village as a single building on the map. Perhaps a lonely cottage in the middle of a forest. I only imagine a village when there are multiple of these aforementioned buildings.

I guess it is the struggle where gameplay meets backstory meets artwork. It is not entirely cohesive but nonetheless fun 8) .
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Re: Undead Names

Post by otzenpunk »

Yomar wrote: October 17th, 2018, 1:06 am I was wondering why not change some undead's generic names to more fantasy related ones.
Like instead of Necrophage or Shadow, why not using Wight ?
Well, afair wights in fantasy literature like LotR are ghostly creatures, so it wouldn't fit at all to use this name for an advanced ghoul. But the existing denominations of higher level ghosts, like shadow, are perfectly fine imho as well. There simply aren't enough different ghost level-ups for all those names. At least this leaves 'wight' as a possible name in the case any campaign creator wanting to introduce a custom ghost variant, like a third way besides wraiths and shadows, or a special powerful level 4 upgrade to any of them.
Byron wrote: October 22nd, 2018, 2:06 am Why are the buildings called villages, when the campaign creators put several "villages" together to show a village?
I'd say, that depends heavily on the scale of the map. There are maps, where a "village" represents a whole city, a single village, a small hamlet or a single house in a real village or city covering most of the map. It's a game, after all, and not a thorough simulation of reality. It's the same question, if a single unit represents a single fighter, or rather a batallion of soldiers. Or what distance units can move in a single day. There's just no universal answer to this. It's totally up to the campaign designers and they're free to shape their stories as they wish.
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Re: Undead Names

Post by Eagle_11 »

Wight i had use as name for an lvl4 Skeleton.
shevegen
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Re: Undead Names

Post by shevegen »

The wights in LotR are probably more important than the average random wight in a wesnoth campaign.

I do not remember offhand but I think they had a backstory (been literally decades since I read LotR ...)

I always found it a little strange that common undead would have names.

Naming a skeleton wight is a bit confusing just as it would be naming a wight called skeleton.

> I'd say, that depends heavily on the scale of the map. There are maps, where a "village" represents a whole city,
> a single village, a small hamlet or a single house in a real village or city covering most of the map. It's a game,
> after all, and not a thorough simulation of reality. It's the same question, if a single unit represents a single
> fighter, or rather a batallion of soldiers.

I think everyone can see that it is a game and not a simulation of reality. Infinite arrows for bows for instance!
Or villages the size of units.

However had to the part of "a batallion of soliders", it has been suggested in the past to have more unit
types into the same aggregate hexagon and this has been mostly rejected for mainline campaigns. So I
am not sure we can call the single units as batallions in "default" wesnoth ... I'd still think it would be nice
to have unit types with animal companions or similar "add-ons" like a horse. All which could be bought
or perhaps gained in scenarios ... (I love the scenarios where you can level heroes with unique
abilities. That is a LOT more fun than not having this in main wesnoth campaigns... like that dwarf
that was riding on a bear. Fun idea! Even had some german-sounding name ... which I forgot... the
bear)

Perhaps for some addons ... actually, flexibility through addons could address all these issues. Wesnoth as
engine for other game types, like war-simulators on a 2D map. :D

It is probably a lot of work for campaigns ...

There are some interesting campaigns that really build-up a village or city. I liked the idea. Some where
you could go rogue-like and visit different parts of a city. Would be nice to see more of that.

A cool scenario was on a ship once, with clever use of decks and underdeck/subdecks in the belly
of the ship. I actually think that some of the add-ons are better than mainline wesnoth, but I also
understand that the main devs want to keep wesnoth simple, consistent and "well known" for
people playing it for the first time.
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Re: Undead Names

Post by otzenpunk »

shevegen wrote: October 23rd, 2018, 9:53 pm I always found it a little strange that common undead would have names.

Naming a skeleton wight is a bit confusing just as it would be naming a wight called skeleton.
I don't think Eagle_11 named a single skeleton 'wight'. As I understand it, he created a new character class of lvl4 skeletons, that did not exist before, for his campaign and called this 'wight'.
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