So... what if we could name planets?

Heavy Johnson

Heavy Johnson
I took several months off from ED (exploration burnout). During that time, one of the games I played was No Man's Sky.

NMS has seen a lot of criticism, and some of it is valid; but the feature NMS has that I'd like to mention is the ability for players to name planets they first discover. The server has some sort of profanity filter, to avoid the obvious problem.

I enjoy this feature, since I can put my name on interesting locations I find. Some I've named after historical locations that fit; some are whimsical; and some were descriptive for others (Planet "Extreme Acid Damage with Giant Hungry Dinos").

Opinions on if this is a thing that might be worthwhile in ED?
 

Erimus Kamzel

Erimus Kamzel
Heavy Johnson said:
I took several months off from ED (exploration burnout). During that time, one of the games I played was No Man's Sky.

NMS has seen a lot of criticism, and some of it is valid; but the feature NMS has that I'd like to mention is the ability for players to name planets they first discover. The server has some sort of profanity filter, to avoid the obvious problem.

I enjoy this feature, since I can put my name on interesting locations I find. Some I've named after historical locations that fit; some are whimsical; and some were descriptive for others (Planet "Extreme Acid Damage with Giant Hungry Dinos").

Opinions on if this is a thing that might be worthwhile in ED?
Click to expand...


I don't think we'll see it in ED. A lot of people in the kickstarter paid a lot of money to have the privilege of naming systems, planets, and stations prior to the games' release, so I guess FD have to be very careful with this kind of thing.

I think the way they currently handle it works well, they are receptive to renaming systems and worlds in game if a community event there becomes significant, or popular enough to warrant it.

Although naming stuff would be a great acknowledgement and perk to explorers, it would take a lot of vetting by FD to make sure whatever people come up with fits FDs vision of how the want their gameworld to be perceived (I think they're very cautions on that, and rightly so).

If they opened it up without vetting, we'd see worlds named like "Planet Extreme Acid Damage with Giant Hungry Dinos...rarrrw!" :D:p

or "Billy's Boring Beige Ball #6,341,111" :x
 

Henkka77

Henkka77
In the name of realism, i dont want to witness the questionable creativism and "humour".
Naming planets doesnt add any gameplay value either as, people being people, tend to give silly names.
I prefer the random generated ones and really hope that we will never get the possibility to name planets.
 

damon8r351

damon8r351
Probably not a great idea, because then you'd find the planet named ButtsButtsButts. Or other things that break my immersion.

Although my favorite name in No Man's Sky was the star some guy named The Center of the Galaxy, found at the edge of the galaxy.
 

GunnerBill

GunnerBill
There's no doubt that this is an attractive proposition but the problem with allowing people... gamers to name planets is that they end up with names like:

Planet - "Extreme Acid Damage with Giant Hungry Dinos"

For example.

I don't mean to sound pious/pompous/whatever but something as important to us as a planet undoubtedly deserves better, or at least a very good reason why it should take it's new name "forever".

They way it works right now seems fine enough, perhaps the rate at which names are given could be increased but it needs sensible oversight and shouldn't really be too divergent to how (and what) names are given to places throughout the history of human exploration to date.

EDIT: Perhaps the right to name a planet could be part of a BGS mechanism. Whereby if you put the effort in to develop a plant/system you get to submit a name. Chances are also by the time you've done this you may also have thought of a decent name for it.
 
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Leif_Erikson

Leif_Erikson
If this was implemented surely every name would need to be vetted by FD when submitted otherwise we could get some offensively named worlds out there.This would put a strain on the devs when they should be concentrating on other aspects of the game to develop.

This scenerio reminds me of the time when I saw a commander named "golliwogbongodrums" (or something similar) flying around.Although it did make me chuckle at the time he had to be reported as there is a line between silliness and offensiveness !
 

Heavy Johnson

Heavy Johnson
With several billion planets, I think y'all are overestimating how many "nice" names you're going to be able to come up with. Most names are descriptive, and we just have forgotten their meaning. My home US state of "Connecticut" is from an Algonquian (native american) word for "long tidal river". If you think "Extreme Acid Damage with Giant Hungry Dinos" is that far off, you're just splitting hairs.

> saw a commander named "golliwogbongodrums" (or something similar) flying around.Although it did make me chuckle at the time he had to be reported

What? Is that offensive in some other language than English?
 

GunnerBill

GunnerBill
Planetary naming - It's probably something that could be community administered.

My home US state of "Connecticut" is from an Algonquian (native american) word for "long tidal river". If you think "Extreme Acid Damage with Giant Hungry Dinos" is that far off, you're just splitting hairs.
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Not really hair splitting because it wasn't named "long tidal river". That just sounds daft and probably if the Algonquian had colonised Europe they wouldn't have named anywhere Connecticut...

But you are right about the limit to originality in naming. Just look at the new world as discovered by the European Colonial Powers: some of the places founded were just named after European equivalents, some after the person that discovered them and a few more as a mash-up of the local name.

I think the bottom line is this. On one hand we could give CMDRs the power to assign a name to a planet. I don't think that is realistic. However the authority in the Elite Universe that would administer this would be Universal Cartographic's. I reckon they wouldn't entertain assigning a planet a name unless it was colonised but if they did I think they'd apply the same level of scrutiny to the naming as FDev do right now. And then even if the planet was named I also think that name could be changed were it to be colonised by the very people who settle there.

A bet they'd also charge a fee.
 
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Shinji Ikari

Shinji Ikari
Leif_Erikson said:
If this was implemented surely every name would need to be vetted by FD when submitted otherwise we could get some offensively named worlds out there.This would put a strain on the devs when they should be concentrating on other aspects of the game to develop.

This scenerio reminds me of the time when I saw a commander named "golliwogbongodrums" (or something similar) flying around.Although it did make me chuckle at the time he had to be reported as there is a line between silliness and offensiveness !
Click to expand...

What does that even mean?
 

Harry Hates Golf

Harry Hates Golf
Erimus said:
I don't think we'll see it in ED. A lot of people in the kickstarter paid a lot of money to have the privilege of naming systems, planets, and stations prior to the games' release, so I guess FD have to be very careful with this kind of thing.

I think the way they currently handle it works well, they are receptive to renaming systems and worlds in game if a community event there becomes significant, or popular enough to warrant it.

Although naming stuff would be a great acknowledgement and perk to explorers, it would take a lot of vetting by FD to make sure whatever people come up with fits FDs vision of how the want their gameworld to be perceived (I think they're very cautions on that, and rightly so).

If they opened it up without vetting, we'd see worlds named like "Planet Extreme Acid Damage with Giant Hungry Dinos...rarrrw!" :D:p

or "Billy's Boring Beige Ball #6,341,111" :x
Click to expand...

Pretty much on the point. Leaving the "Name the System/Planet" as opening ended would eventually lead to ludicrous (and dare I say obnoxious) names. And even if there was some sort of vetting, or censoring (like in NMS), individuals would get around it. They always have, and they always will. Yeah, "Billy's Boring Beige Ball #6,341,111" would give a chuckle at first to some, but after the hundredth time, it would get old (like the beige balls that they complain about).

There is nothing wrong with being able to personally name planets or systems on an individual basis, but the atmosphre/environment of ED really isn't suited for it. As stated in the above quote, the current structure of naming systems/planets works well, and (IMO) adds to the significance of the christening. If someone has the urge to personally name systems/planets themselves, they could turn to NMS to do that. That's why you have a choice. I still turn to NMS in between my sessions with ED, just for a change in pace. I enjoy both for different reasons, and would not want to start changing one into the other.

Perhaps others will not agree with me, but leave the current system intact. I think it would be for the best.

Kurama 1100 said:
What does that even mean?
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You mean "golliwogbongodrumes"? Think of Al Jolson in the "Jazz Singer".
 

Fyrd Judge

Fyrd Judge
I feel FD made a huge mistake and lost out on an endless source of income by not allowing Commanders who tagged planets to name them, BUT, in respect to the Kick start commanders i undersatnd why this cannot be done.
 

marx

marx
Did anyone happen to play Noctis IV? An old game that was well ahead of its time, and also about exploring and naming planets. As well as writing log entries for them. (The way this worked was that you could send in your data to the developer, and in the next periodic update, he'd include it.) I played this a fair bit, and I can confirm that soon enough you are going to run out of ideas. As such, you'll only want to name only a few planets, or you'll end up churning out low-quality names, maybe catalogue designations.

Personally, I dislike several of the curated names already in ED (looking at you, "Earth Expeditionary Fleet" system), but if it were taken farther, I fully expect we'd end up not only with "Planet McPlanetyface", but also "CMDR Bob B231-6".

I would like it though if FD extended the name generator to all of the inhabited systems. Seeing inhabited systems still named by the sector-generated method always seems off to me.
 

Strangepork

Strangepork
Heavy Johnson said:
I took several months off from ED (exploration burnout). During that time, one of the games I played was No Man's Sky.

NMS has seen a lot of criticism, and some of it is valid; but the feature NMS has that I'd like to mention is the ability for players to name planets they first discover. The server has some sort of profanity filter, to avoid the obvious problem.

I enjoy this feature, since I can put my name on interesting locations I find. Some I've named after historical locations that fit; some are whimsical; and some were descriptive for others (Planet "Extreme Acid Damage with Giant Hungry Dinos").

Opinions on if this is a thing that might be worthwhile in ED?
Click to expand...

there is a severe lack of Musk in this game.
 

Chrystoph

Chrystoph
On the flip side of the discussion, David Weber comments in the Honorverse that Landing or First Landing ended up being the most common name for planetary capitals in the Diaspora.
 
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