Temporary Amnesia for the Good of Cantr

[nitefyre]

Crosshair's suggestion makes the most sense to me. Let the names that have no affect on gameplay thusfar, be the ones that are affected.

However, like usual, I believe that I'm the underdog in this argument. This is what I propose or rather, in some cases, make certain of.

The forgetting of location names is acceptable. 15 characters x average of 2 words= 30 words. Not that much of a problem.

However, I am against the forgetting of building names. I don't even think it should depend on extra signs and materials. It should just rely on the building names that are provided when it is constructed, with the possibility as it exists now, of changing it dynamically. The building will more likely than not have some resemblence to an "MWS Factory" at first glance, but when you're told it's home to the new "Spy Shop", you can change the name accordingly. After all, why should an owner bother to make a sign and spend more materials on a building when they don't need to (besides for businesses) for signs? Why should we have to go through 50+ buildings per characters in some cases, just to rename them to what they already resemble? In the end of this, you're going to have people frightened from Cantr from seeing 50+ "unknown buildings" on their building list. It's not user-friendly.

In conclusion, I am indifferent to the idea of forgetting the names of locations, even if I have lived in the area for 50+ years and making obsolete most of the maps that have been made since, though I am against the idea of introducing extra signs (to clog already crowded pages) and the unnecessary headache of forgetting building names. That should be left be.

[Nick]

making obsolete most of the maps that have been made since

You're not stupid, so I'm guessing you just didn't think that through.
I don't know why people seem to think that everyone is goign to change the name of their town all of the sudden.
Krif will still be Krif, etc.

[nitefyre]

making obsolete most of the maps that have been made since

You're not stupid, so I'm guessing you just didn't think that through.
I don't know why people seem to think that everyone is goign to change the name of their town all of the sudden.
Krif will still be Krif, etc.

Stop trying to poke holes in an argument that agrees with your situation, unless you want me to argue against you. Just because a town has used a town's name for a certain amount of years doesn't mean jack. How many names did Constantinople go by?

Does that mean I'm complaining? No. Name changes to maps would make sense, through history. However, as a mapmaker, if I would've known about this, I would've made all my maps merely geographical. Teaches me for not keeping the geographical versions of the maps.

[Nick]

But if I see an old map with Constantinople on it, I realise it is Istanbul.

[wietse]

The building naming is very easy. Just make it so that everyone sees the same name and everyone can change it.

That way names will always reflect the current owner and every building has a name and everyone know what building is what building.

no materials needed, and no forgetting needed also. Because you can retain the origional name until somebody changes it.

[Nick]

The building naming is very easy. Just make it so that everyone sees the same name and everyone can change it.

That way names will always reflect the current owner and every building has a name and everyone know what building is what building.

no materials needed, and no forgetting needed also. Because you can retain the origional name until somebody changes it.

This won't work, it's the same theory behind making town names dynamic but everyone keeping the default.

[Black Canyon]

Making building names dynamic without the option to make signs or some such thing will lead to a lot of "its the fourth building down on the list" since that is clearly the only thing which will remain somewhat stable (notwithstanding the addition of new buildings). In real life, I know where my house is no matter what I call if or what color it's painted. But in cantr if Joe Blow suddenly decides to change the name of my house to his, how am I to recognize it? Especially if I haven't been fortunate enough to have the means to build a lock yet.

In larger towns there can be 20 plus buildings at least. I'm afraid this will become the new pasttime of obnoxious newspawns..... going down the list and changing the name of every building to "YOU SUCK!" or worse.

So in conclusion, I can live with temporary amnesia and dynamic naming for towns, since landmarks have already been implemented. But I believe that amnesia and dynamic naming for buildings without the possibility for signs is a bad idea.

[Nick]

Jos already said that signs would be implemented at least 2 months before dynamic building names.

[SekoETC]

I just realized a problem. Even though you might not care about the names, the terrain type might matter to you. I have a character who's afraid of plains, so does this mean I'm gonna have to keep an eye on the dark green areas while travelling and turn back if I hit the light green? So much of work...

Could it be possible if instead of Unknown location it would say Unknown forest, Unknown Hills, Unknown grassland and so on? Since that info is already stored somewhere, it should be accessible.

[T.L.H.E.]

Nice idea Seko, I like it.

Anyway, I suppose this is better late than never. And I'm happy to see my radial naming finally has a use other than making it easier on me while traveling (so my explorers aren't totally screwed. Huzzah.)

Moving on though, I'd like to throw in all my favour for blanked out building names. That seems like it would be much less painful than not knowing location names... I mean really, who needs to know the name of every building in Doryiskom?

[Agar]

Nice idea Seko, I like it.

Anyway, I suppose this is better late than never. And I'm happy to see my radial naming finally has a use other than making it easier on me while traveling (so my explorers aren't totally screwed. Huzzah.)

Moving on though, I'd like to throw in all my favour for blanked out building names. That seems like it would be much less painful than not knowing location names... I mean really, who needs to know the name of every building in Doryiskom?

How about the owners of those mud huts for one? How are you supposed to tell which mud hut is yours? Everyone wandering through to "recognise" thier mud hut, something is bound to get lifted.

Untill signage for buildings is made, I will still oppose building amnesia. After signage, I will support building amnesia.

I like the Unknown {location type} idea. That would really make travelling more interesting and exciting, passing by forests and fields and such, rather than just "You see a faceless locale"

Good work Seko!

[Nick]

Untill signage for buildings is made, I will still oppose building amnesia. After signage, I will support building amnesia.

Again, Jos already said signs would be made well in advance before buildings turned dynamic.
Just how we got landmarks before location names changed.

[wietse]

The building naming is very easy. Just make it so that everyone sees the same name and everyone can change it.

That way names will always reflect the current owner and every building has a name and everyone know what building is what building.

no materials needed, and no forgetting needed also. Because you can retain the origional name until somebody changes it.

this will work, because it is not possible to keep a default name. everybody always sees the same name, only everyone can change it. So if i change it to house 1, you and everone sees it as house 1. The only problem is people changing names to often so that it gets confusing, but i think this will not happen as 'the owner' will try to hurt such people who changes the name of 'his house'

[Nick]

No, then I could mess up a town when I go to attack it by changing all the names of their buildings to cause confusion.
That bears no resemblance to being realistic.

[Sabsi]

Has anybody thought of the inflictions caused by this change for the smaller language groups?
It may be that on the English islands there are some people in almost every town but on the Spanish/German island for example there are many abandoned places because of the relatively small number of people living there. All existing non-graphical maps of these areas will be completely useless as nobody will remember which locations had which names and therefor nobody can use the maps anymore to travel to places with a certain resource.
For one of my characters the change will be a catastrophe because she is on a new and seemingly uninhabited island. She was part of a small colony on the coast of this island. After one woman from the colony traveled some parts of the island and gave a non-graphical map of these parts to the other people in the colony they got the knowledge of a place with a certain needed resource several locations away from the colony. My character traveled there together with two other characters to collect the resource and now they won't be able to find their way back to the colony as they don't have a graphical map, don't know in which direction they must head and will be lost.