Request for crowdsourcing help: procgen market item names (huge update 4/10!).

[Draco18s]

Speaking of plural nouns, I've added a few entires along the lines of "{GenericNoun}s" and just pluralizing using a static "s."  I recognize that it isn't perfectly accurate, but that writing something that's accurate is HARD in English.

Also, we may want to trim the list of generic noun/verb/adjectives.  "Attempt" is in both the verb and noun list, for example.  The noun list also contains "Apple" and "Apples" (along with "Ball"/"Balls," but just "Bath").  The lists are staggeringly huge, however.  The GenericVerb list goes down to row 1013! (Speaking of, I'll just trim the 30 or so empty rows after it, its unlikely they'll be needed and tend to slow my browser down when the sheet gets unnecessarily big)

[ptarth]

On the other hand, I'm also not sure what the secondary sexual characteristics of the Spire are either.

Who told you they have two genders? .....

Secondary sexual characteristics refer to not the number of genders, but the nonprimary sexual characteristics. Typically easily identified visual characteristics believed to be used in mating rituals. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_sex_characteristic

Alternatively, where to post this kind of books?
"About {OtherRacePlural} Sexuality"
"Concerning {OtherRacePlural} Reproduction"
"Courtship Rituals Among the {OtherRacePlural}"

NonFiction_Science? Broadcast_Education? Periodical_Entertainment?

... add RaceTypesPlural...

I added the columns and started the process. I've been checking that the source word is singular (or converting it) and then pluralizing the new lists. If someone wants to finish the job, I'm not going to complain.

[Draco18s]

By the way, don't be afraid to leave comments on entries to make it clear your intent, especially if you're trying to correct an entry to fit a new schema.

I had added "{RaceName} Xeno{Science}" yesterday (before we had our-race / other-race distinctions) and found it as "{OurRace} Xeno{Science}" a few minutes ago.  "Xeno" means "other" or "foreign" and typically when dealing with the sciences it refers to the science of aliens.  So I had to correct it to "{OtherRace} Xeno{Science}" and I was pretty sure I'd made that same correction last night as well: It's a publication from one race about a foreign race.

I had to do a similar thing to the materials list, where someone shoved all the generic materials back into the separate "structure materials" list I'd made to make the distinction between "it's made of something" stuff and "it stands on its own" stuff.  Yes, it allowed for a cleaner use of the "structure adjectives" (fiber, composite, alloy) list, but completely broke the point of a separate list.

Mystcraft has several material types, because any given structure can only be composed of materials that make sense for that structure.  You can't make lakes out of solids, crystals out of wood, or floating tendrils of sand, and that was the distinction I was trying to make so we don't end up with "Gas Buckles" and "Water Armor": {AnyMaterial} contains {StructuralMaterial}, not the other way around.

[x4000]

I totally agree with the problem of pluralizing the nouns.  We may need to have separate lists for singular and plural nouns, much as that pains me.  Because just putting an "s" on the end is going to lead to endless bug reports, I just know it.

In terms of trimming those lists of nouns and so forth, I'm all for it.  There is definitely some unneeded stuff in there, and we have plenty of items that volume of stuff isn't as important as quality of stuff at this stage (in those particular lists).

[Draco18s]

New columns added for the GenericNouns and GenericNounsPlural, leaving the old one as LegacyNouns (with a back-reference for legacy support until the new columns feel full).

Pull anything that would make a good noun object from Legacy and drop it into GenericNouns and then Pluralize it in GenericNounsPlural.

Note any existing usage, such as the TV show "The {GenericNounPlural} Beyond" (which I created the other day as a kind of reference to the game title, e.g. "The Stars Beyond") and "Journey To The {RacialPlace} Of {GenericNoun}" e.g. "Journey to the {City} of Gold."  Some won't make the best sense, but at least we can avoid the really weird ones like "The Baby Beyond" and "Journey to the {City} of Expert."

Added emotion noun/adj/adv columns.  Those words were under the GenericNoun and I'm sure someone will find a use for them, likely philosophy.

[ptarth]

I made all LegacyNouns singular and all LegacyNounsPlural plural. I don't want to do that again. 

Also, I've been adding thematic noun label lists for various things, (e.g., rocks, insects, etc). The initial idea was they would be useful for flavoring items, e.g., the Thoraxians have Mantis Assault Vehicles and use the Mosquito Air to Air missile system, while the Spire use Marble Defense Drones and Obsidian Ionic Plasma Weapons. I see they've already been used for other things, which is fine. I was attempting to fill in more lists to characterize our races.

Acutians Nicknames: Business Buzzwords (Synergize, Merger, Alignment, Generation, Organic Growth, etc)
Andors Nicknames:   Zen or Buddism
Boarines Nicknames:    Movie Monsters
Burlusts Nicknames:    Russian, Mafia, or Animal Predators
Evucks Nicknames:   Bacteria, Virus, or Parasites
Fenyn Nicknames:   Mammals
Krolin Nicknames:     Crustaceans, Marine Animals
Neinzul Nicknames:   Swarm
Peltians Nicknames:   Birds
Skylaxians Nicknames:    Moralities
Spire Nicknames: Light
Thoraxians Nicknames: Insects
Yali Nicknames:   Religious Zeal
Zenith Nicknames:  Organic Chemicals or Cellular Mechanisms and Parts

Also, since I keep forgetting, the planet is called: Ivoria
Anyone want to help me fill in the gaps with nickname themes if not lists?

Also, Draco's work with Materials got me to thinking that we could further distinguish the Races by Materials they use.
For example, the Peltians would be working with fibres and iron, whereas the Skylaxian would focus on Nano-Forged Carbon and Plascrete,etc.
Thoughts?

[x4000]

Whew, wow!  That's a quite impressive feat.  I am happy to work with nickname stuff as needed in terms of coding it in.  Just let me know!

[Captain Jack]

Anyone want to help me fill in the gaps with nickname themes if not lists?

Tomorrow, sure. Work and socialization today.

[ptarth]

I've been cleaning up the lists, working on conjugation agreement, tag correction, and other maintenance.  To do so I've written up a script similar to the one Chris is using to generate items and used it to generate items. It is mostly done, but it sufficient to generate some check lists that are slightly less intimidating the ones Chris has been posted. Here is a list of things that I've got on my list of things to do. If anyone has time and wants to contribute, but doesn't know where to start, here is good.

To do List

• Create {GenericVerbRegular}. To make it easiest, just those that you add suffixes and no other changes to the verb.
• Fill in for Information in the Race Flavor Tab
• Add Name System for tLF races.
• Propose naming system for new races.
• Add determiners (i.e., The) to {RacialPlace} Tags were appropriate
• Check to see if {RacialPlace} should be {RacialPlacePlural}
• Check conjugations on new output list. Generally 'The' should be used over 'A'. This is because we don't know if the next phoneme will start with a vowel or consonant.
• {GenericVerbInfinitive} and {GenericVerbPast} allow some more option for frame creation

Chris's List

• Issue Decree To Avoid or Add the backend for {RacialPlacePlural}
• Issue Decree To Avoid or Add the backend for {OtherRacialPlace}
• Issue Decree To Avoid or Add the backend for {OtherRacialPlacePlural}
• Issue Decree To Avoid or Add the backend for {RacialNickname}
• Issue Decree To Avoid or Add the backend for {OtherRacialNickname}
• Issue Decree To Avoid or Add the backend for {OurRacialVerb}
• Issue Decree To Avoid or Add the backend for {OtherRacialVerb}

Questions

• Will {{OurRacePlural}Adjectives} work?
• If it does, then we can do RacialSpecificForms very easily. We either have {{OurRaceSingular}MarketItem} as the default for each Market item, or we include {{OurRaceSingular}MarketItem} as the first entry for each market item. That would reference the individual race's specific Market Item Frames.
• How do you feel about adding a ABORT check? That is to so a setup so that if the generation process finds ABORT as a value in a string, it rejects the entire form and tries again from scratch?
• I was thinking about "Baby's First Book" and imagining it would be amusing to see "Youngling's First Plasma Cannon". To get it to work we'd need to do {{OurRaceSingular}Youth}'s First {Military_PersonalWeapons}}. However, this might not work for the Nienzul (They don't get much of a childhood) so their list of Youth Forms would include the ABORT tag. This way the item wouldn't generate.

[Draco18s]

Emotion list filled in.  There are probably some emotions (derived words based on the more pureized form) missing, but the spectrum is broadly covered, pulled from the Plutchik Wheel.  I had a devil of a time conjugating all of them to adjective and adverb forms, most notably with "terror" because "terrific" is wholly the wrong meaning.  In the process I learned more about English, which I will promptly forget later (such as the "-able" suffix).

Also added a few more words to the generic noun list.

[wwwhhattt]

This is a reply to something on the "Philosophy (consider checking me out!)" sheet - having a conversation there looked like it would become a bit convoluted, layout wise. The first three lines are from the sheet:

"Not A philosophy expert by Any means - what qualifies As social/trivial philosophy?"
"I'd've thought of trivial philosophy as pop philosophy - catchy titles should work"
"Problem being this changes with the ebb and flow of time. Todays established philosophy is tomorrow's triviality."
"Understanding trivial as pop was looking at the difference between serious and trivial as a difference between the target audience. So the content could be the same, but it would be presented differently (serious for academics, trivial for the casually interested)."


On a disused note, I was thinking of using {WeaponModificationAdjective} {GenericEmotionNoun} for trivial philosophy, but it's hard to imagine the Andors or Peltians having much interest in military stuff. Armour-Piercing Acceptance would've been fun.

[Draco18s]

On a disused note, I was thinking of using {WeaponModificationAdjective} {GenericEmotionNoun} for trivial philosophy, but it's hard to imagine the Andors or Peltians having much interest in military stuff. Armour-Piercing Acceptance would've been fun.

Actually, that sounds awesome.  I don't care what race writes that book.

[ptarth]

As I see it, there are two immediate options.

• Add RacialSpecific columns for everything. Have each Tag contain referents back to the RacialSpecific data.
• Problem: Chris might hurt us.
• Add a Heavy Hand of the Forum tab, with specific RacialTags and definitions that will be either ignored, or added in via direct injection to the generation pool.
• And done

Also, while people are around, can you guys take a look at the RaceFlavor tab and see if you can add any details. I've been trying to flesh things out since Chris wanted more racialflavor, but I've come to the conclusion I know very little about the races.

[Draco18s]

Every time I go into this sheet I find I need/want a new collumn. XD
I just added GenericVerbPresent, to complete the infinitive, past tense, and generic, which resolves the issue I created by doing "{GenericVerb}ing"

But now I find that GenericAdjective comprises two or three different types of adjectives!  That is: some nouns have two different adjectives associated with it that have very different meanings: an object that causes that descriptive, an object that is that descriptive, and an object that can be the descriptive.

E.g. "the distracted guard" vs. "the distracting gaurd" vs. "the distractible guard"!

[wwwhhattt]

Would it be possible to use item names in the names of other items, for instance 'The Use Of {Generic Adverb} {Racial Adjective} {Military_BannedWeapons} In {Broadcast_Education}'?