Arcen Games

General Category => AI War II => AI War II - Kickstarter Reward Questions => : x4000 December 19, 2016, 12:17:04 PM

: Thematic names?
: x4000 December 19, 2016, 12:17:04 PM
When you say thematic planet names, what sort of thing do you consider thematic or non-thematic?

I'm guessing that calling the planet "Mr Leet's Awesome Planet" is likely to get the non-thematic label, while "New Murdoch" is probably a fairly safe thematic, but whereabouts is the dividing line?

Honestly it's one of those "we know it when we see it" things.  It's super hard to generalize about creative content like that.  I can tell you that if we think something is unthematic, we'll work with you and let you know.

To some extent: if you think it's thematic, you're probably right.  If you're not sure if it's thematic or not, then feel free to run it by us.  We don't bite. :)

Mainly the question to ask yourself is: "If I saw this planet name in one of my games, would I go 'somebody was goofing off with their planet name reward?'"  If the answer is yes, then that's probably not thematic. 

But there's a whole range of planet names where you might think "oh what a cool name!" and it's still thematic.  I can't think of the best examples right now, but something like "The Restaraunt At the end of the Universe" is pretty cool obviously, though copyrighted and only slightly relevant.  "Bob's Hole Of Murder" is probably not the best, but "Lord Tarkin's Murderhole" is probably okay or close.  I dunno, that's a toughie.  "Murderhole" and "Pit" and the like would be easily something that fit.
: Re: Thematic names?
: Lord Of Nothing December 19, 2016, 01:01:48 PM
Honestly it's one of those "we know it when we see it" things.  It's super hard to generalize about creative content like that.  I can tell you that if we think something is unthematic, we'll work with you and let you know.

To some extent: if you think it's thematic, you're probably right.  If you're not sure if it's thematic or not, then feel free to run it by us.  We don't bite. :)

Mainly the question to ask yourself is: "If I saw this planet name in one of my games, would I go 'somebody was goofing off with their planet name reward?'"  If the answer is yes, then that's probably not thematic. 

But there's a whole range of planet names where you might think "oh what a cool name!" and it's still thematic.  I can't think of the best examples right now, but something like "The Restaraunt At the end of the Universe" is pretty cool obviously, though copyrighted and only slightly relevant.  "Bob's Hole Of Murder" is probably not the best, but "Lord Tarkin's Murderhole" is probably okay or close.  I dunno, that's a toughie.  "Murderhole" and "Pit" and the like would be easily something that fit.

Okay, that makes sense, thank you.
: Re: Thematic names?
: x4000 December 19, 2016, 01:05:01 PM
I'm glad that jumble made sense. ;)
: Re: Thematic names?
: Tridus December 19, 2016, 03:28:34 PM
Make a mercenary group called: "Ships Keith needs to nerf". See what happens. ;)
: Re: Thematic names?
: Draco18s December 19, 2016, 03:47:11 PM
Make a mercenary group called: "Ships Keith needs to nerf". See what happens. ;)

Ha!
I really think it should be "Kahuna Wants" (or "Kahuna Abuses") rather than "Keith Needs" but it did get a chuckle.

In terms of planet names, I'll probably submit "Sacrificial Victim" although I now need to go through and make a list of best ones (like "The Precise Nature Of The Catastrophe") and pick one appropriate for both a planet and the theme.
: Re: Thematic names?
: NichG December 19, 2016, 06:47:39 PM
In terms of naming things, AI... Ever since I saw that reward level, I've been wanting to inflict an AI called 'backprop' or 'gradient descent' on everyone. Have to figure out what that means in terms of the AI traits and authoring tools though.
: Re: Thematic names?
: Lord Of Nothing December 19, 2016, 07:01:05 PM
In terms of naming things, AI... Ever since I saw that reward level, I've been wanting to inflict an AI called 'backprop' or 'gradient descent' on everyone. Have to figure out what that means in terms of the AI traits and authoring tools though.

Now that is truly evil.
: Re: Thematic names?
: carldong December 21, 2016, 07:09:48 AM
In terms of naming things, AI... Ever since I saw that reward level, I've been wanting to inflict an AI called 'backprop' or 'gradient descent' on everyone. Have to figure out what that means in terms of the AI traits and authoring tools though.

AI Trait -- Stochastic Gradient Descent, make the AI decision making exponentially faster, but controls its ships terribly. Attack? INSTANT REINFORCEMENT. Fleet wipe? Reprisal RIGHT NOW! However, it takes 3 times more ships to beat you down due to inaccuracy.

OK, SGD doesn't really have that problem, in real life.
: Re: Thematic names?
: YoukaiCountry January 04, 2017, 01:21:48 PM
Hmm, trying to come up with something for my planet name. I'm bad at this kind of thing!
I'd probably find it most fun to have something with Youkai in it, if it's possible for that to be thematic.
Actually, would simply 'Youkai' work?
: Re: Thematic names?
: Draco18s January 04, 2017, 01:41:51 PM
Actually, would simply 'Youkai' work?

Seems fitting to me.
: Re: Thematic names?
: NichG January 04, 2017, 01:47:46 PM
Went with Hekaregium for my planet name, which was a space station from a tabletop campaign a few years back.
: Re: Thematic names?
: Draco18s January 04, 2017, 02:23:46 PM
I went with "Just Fine Till You Came Along" although I had a hard time picking that over "Sacrificial Victim" and "Hence the Fortress"

I might've gone with "Someone Else's Problem" if I felt like spending the moolah on Bronze Merc and making a merc squad named "Someone Else."  But I don't think I can justify the $70 right now.
: Re: Thematic names?
: x4000 January 04, 2017, 04:06:10 PM
Those are all hilarious and awesome. :)
: Re: Thematic names?
: Draco18s January 04, 2017, 05:23:10 PM
Those are all hilarious and awesome. :)

I made a short list from the Culture series, they were all really good.  The one I went with was slightly modified (original is "Fine Till..." rather than "Just Fine Till...") while I also had "Spare Parts" which was made up based on the craft named "Sanctioned Parts List." Though I did have a friend say something that made the top-five.  "Just a Smudge on the Sensor Screen." I was never quite happy with it, though. "Sensor Screen? Sensor Display? Sensors?"

Anyway, now to go submit an alt-planet-names list for the whole series over on AIC's board (https://forums.arcengames.com/ai-war-classic-mods-modding/altplanetnames-from-the-culture/). ;)
: Re: Thematic names?
: madcow January 04, 2017, 06:45:36 PM
If we want to change the name after we submit our questionnaire can we do that, if so how?
: Re: Thematic names?
: z99-_ January 04, 2017, 07:37:31 PM
And would it be possible to see a list of planet names that have already been submitted?

I'm thinking about how funny it would be to have a number of Murdoch variations (Old Murdoch, New Murdoch, New New Murdoch, Other Murdoch, Not Murdoch, *DEFINITELY* Not Murdoch (that would be an outer rim world for sure), Hcodrum; maybe some Spire themed ones like Dark Murdoch, Shadow Murdoch, Gray Murdoch; I could go on ... ), but I feel like that would only be fun if we could get at least few people to do that.
: Re: Thematic names?
: Fox Soul January 05, 2017, 03:20:35 AM
If we want to change the name after we submit our questionnaire can we do that, if so how?

I believe its just based off your email, so if you go to https://aiwar2.backerkit.com/backer/review then you might be able to see it. I see an option for edit question under "pledge items."

Edit: Just checking my email now, the confirmation email had a link for "Update Your Answers"
: Re: Thematic names?
: x4000 January 05, 2017, 10:25:48 AM
Once the surveys have been locked down -- thus releasing your game keys to you, so I've been doing that as the surveys come in -- it won't let you change your planet names.

I think what I'll do is make some sort of data import that has your existing submission on it when we send you further surveys for other creative stuff.  Basically if you just have the planet name one, it would be a "last call to make sure this is what you want" sort of thing.  For those who have other creative things to put in, we'll work that out either via email (if it's one of the ones that requires a ton of emailing like the art design ones), or via a survey that's collecting all that information.

Honestly I'm pretty disappointed in the way backerkit is so inflexible with only having one survey and only letting you edit it until things like your tier are locked down.  I really would prefer a lot more flexibility there, but we have our own survey software that we can use to get around that.

Same with things like the names that other people have already submitted: I can easily dump that to a public list that folks can see, sure.

With all of those things, I'd probably like to wait a month or so, though -- we still have about 1000 surveys that haven't even come in yet, and I'd rather do fewer exports of the data rather than more, just to save time all around.