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[Muddy Mudstone]

The "noun of verbing" pattern is annoying, because who speaks like that? If it's trying to sound olde-worlde, which Old English texts, even, speak like that? The only examples of the pattern I can think of outside of DF are "bag of holding" and "glyph of warding", which are both D&D.

There are special examples like "college of nursing", "professor of engineering", "try-it-yourself book of embalming", "standard of living" and "art of fly-fishing", but you can't just take any noun and verb and make a noun of verbing out of them. Here's the first three from some random word generators:

Aluminum of conserving
Liquid of simplifying
Server of activating

Clearly those should be "conserving aluminum", "simplifying liquid" and "activating server". I don't know what they are, but that's how the grammar should be. Then there's the pattern "(name) the (noun) of (verb)ing", which just makes it worse, particularly since the name might apply to an object and there are capital letters all over the place, somewhat at random. I mean it looks like this:

"Hi, I'm Steven Spielberg the Director of filming, and this is Dolly, the camera of Filming. We're here with Harrison Ford the actor of aging and George Lucas the Neck of Inflating, to make Crystal Skull, the Film of Sucking."

It's not a syntax of soothing.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Syntax needs to be cleaned up, I agree. I don't understand you people who seem to think it isn't awkward, when it is. Adventure mode is especially made difficult by the ambiguity in translated/untranslated names of places. I can't find a Temple to save my life unless I know the name of the untranslated site somehow, which the quest-givers conveniently never give to me.

'The Mooks of Durking' and "Aslandgathos" shouldn't be interchangeable and used as such by people in the world to name things, it should be one for in-game and another for legends mode. Think of the translations as 'old' written language of the races in question and it's a little easier to wave off for the sake of much improved access.

I didn't find the post to be as whiney as a lot of you think. He does have a valid point, the names can be far too long-winded for their own good, and the renaming suggestion only works for fortress mode dwarves, leaving you out if you're trying to make a civilization/god/entity be recognizable to yourself in logs or the game. But the issue isn't the name generation, it's the syntax that it's put in.

This needs to be moved to suggestions and the attitudes need to chill out, he's not being a jerk about it.

George Lucas the Neck of Inflating

Coffee+My shirt, hahaha.

[Yoink]

No to changing the names themselves. Just no.

But as for whether the dwarven or english name is displayed, well... If only one was shown for each dwarf across every menu, how would you check the english translation of a dwarven name, and vice versa?
I can sortof see how this would get confusing, (although it's never bothered me, somehow) but I like being able to see both translations of my dwarves' names.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I don't see why the names are such an issue. Until civs figure out how to name themselves after such things as geography, history, or pantheons, and ideally can change the name to correspond with changes in the civ, the current system provides civs with unique, memorable names. In addition, you can usually at least make a good guess as to the civ's race by the name--elves' are nature-based, goblins' are scary, dwarves' are usually associated with minerals or work, and humans' are pretty much all the leftovers, esp. those with something like "Empire" or "Confederation" in their names.

[Putnam]

I don't see why the names are such an issue. Until civs figure out how to name themselves after such things as geography, history, or pantheons, and ideally can change the name to correspond with changes in the civ, the current system provides civs with unique, memorable names. In addition, you can usually at least make a good guess as to the civ's race by the name--elves' are nature-based, goblins' are scary, dwarves' are usually associated with minerals or work, and humans' are pretty much all the leftovers, esp. those with something like "Empire" or "Confederation" in their names.

This can be modded easily, too, so there is a lot of room for flavor. For example: my saiyans have names based usually on food.

[daveralph1234]

"Hi, I'm Steven Spielberg the Director of filming, and this is Dolly, the camera of Filming. We're here with Harrison Ford the actor of aging and George Lucas the Neck of Inflating, to make Crystal Skull, the Film of Sucking."

It's not a syntax of soothing.

Wish I had room in my sig for that.


As for the translation issue, if you really wanted to, couldn't you just replace the Dwarven language file with plain English? It wouldn't help the syntax (which in my opinion is, while somewhat odd, pretty humorus at times), but all Dwarven words/names would always be in English.

[Particleman]

The "noun of verbing" pattern is annoying, because who speaks like that? If it's trying to sound olde-worlde, which Old English texts, even, speak like that?

Personally, I just got the impression that that was how the Dwarven language was structured, like how some languages put the adjective after the noun they're describing (like how a literal translation into English might read "the house blue" instead of "the blue house.")

[lorb]

1. I think this thread has at parts turned a little too hostile at the OP.

2. I'm fine with naming (and even the syntax) but as some have already pointed the inconsistency between dwarven and english names is annoying. If at least one of them where present all the time i would not mind the second being supplied on some occasions as well.