Default Name for The Hero

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Which default name is best?

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kylekrack
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Default Name for The Hero

Post by kylekrack »

I'm torn on what to have the player see when they get that initial "Name the Hero" prompt. I'm not really giving them any introduction to the character. I want to give the player freedom on who they play as. Should the default name be something cryptic, something predictable, nothing at all? I figured you guys would have more insight than I would on what's more appropriate.

I'd prefer the name be gender neutral. I'm giving choices between female and male playable sprites.
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guo
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Post by guo »

Is the "name" used before the player can change it? If not you could just use "Player".
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kylekrack
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Post by kylekrack »

guo wrote:Is the "name" used before the player can change it? If not you could just use "Player".
The player sees the name for the first time when they're asked to change it. To answer your question, no, it is not used before that.
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Nathan Karr
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Post by Nathan Karr »

I usually went with Dana for my generic gender-neutral protagonist name, though Alex, Kyle, and Ashley also work pretty well for that.
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FnrrfYgmSchnish
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Post by FnrrfYgmSchnish »

I'm leaning toward "no default name," or maybe a name of your choosing for the male and female versions of the character (or the same for both, if the name is a gender-neutral or made-up one.) Though I'm guessing if you go for the "no default, just a blank space" option you'd want to include some scripting that prevents someone from just leaving the name blank, assuming the engine lets you do that by default.

If you wanted to get slightly silly with it while also encouraging people to come up with their own names (and not just leaving the name blank), maybe something like "Noname" or "Someone" could be the default name. XD
I usually went with Dana for my generic gender-neutral protagonist name, though Alex, Kyle, and Ashley also work pretty well for that.
I've never heard of a female Kyle before...
Last edited by FnrrfYgmSchnish on Mon Sep 05, 2016 1:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Nathan Karr
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Post by Nathan Karr »

FnrrfYgmSchnish wrote:
I usually went with Dana for my generic gender-neutral protagonist name, though Alex, Kyle, and Ashley also work pretty well for that.
I've never heard of a female Kyle before...
I saw it in a review of a movie about a decade ago or a little more, then looked it up in a book of names and saw it actually was listed as a name for girls. Sacsha and Adrienne have the same pronunciation as Sasha and Adrian but different spellings so that wouldn't work out as well.

Finding out that Sacsha and Kyle could be male and female names respectively gave me an idea to mage a gender-swapped parody of Timestream Saga back in the day, but I never went through with it.
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kylekrack
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Post by kylekrack »

I usually went with Dana for my generic gender-neutral protagonist name, though Alex, Kyle, and Ashley also work pretty well for that.
That's a good idea, I'll look up gender neutral names and see what comes up.
Though I'm guessing if you go for the "no default, just a blank space" option you'd want to include some scripting that prevents someone from just leaving the name blank, assuming the engine lets you do that by default.
Yeah, that's the main problem I had with it. I just checked, and it turns out the OHR will allow you to input a hero's name as empty. On top of that, I feel like this may leave the player a bit confused if they don't realize the game is asking them to use the keyboard (which I can easily imagine happening).
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Ichiro
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Post by Ichiro »

In Dark Planet, I just use the player's job title as a default name.
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