On Jul 22, 2007, at 9:34 AM, Benoit Timbert wrote: > While i understand why a new name for the level 3 skeleton archer > would be nice, > i find this change especially bad. And according to what i've seen > on IRC, a lot > of other developer tend to agree with me (through some don't really > care much). > The problem is the new name is inappropriate and by far inferior to > the old one. > An Aptrgangr is a more or less a sort of undead body that crushes > its victims. > So this name gives the idea that the unit is a melee unit, which is > especially > out of place on a ranged unit since it gives a false idea of what > the unit is...
This is a legitimate complaint; one of the problems in choosing any name for undead, is that, as far as I can tell, there simply are no names for undead archers in mythology, because there haven't been many "bow cultures" to give rise to one. We've had many cultures of warrior swordsmen; warriors who like the samurai identify so strongly with their weapon that it becomes an indivisible part of them. That is what is practically required to cause myths and legends of associated undead to arise. If there are any, they're _extremely_ obscure, which you've stated your opinion of. > Moreover Aptrgangr isn't a nice name, because it's very obscure : > - it's hard to spell correctly This is a legitimate complaint. > - very few people actually have heard of this name > - it's uninformative : if doesn't realy show what the unit is. > Informative names > are usually better. For example the "Soul shooter" name did clearly > show that > the unit is actually an archer. In my opinion, these are not legitimate complaints. The only information that's absolutely necessary is the basic weaponry of the unit, and that is provided by the unit graphic, which is visible in every single circumstance where the unit would be seen in-game. In fact it's _blatantly_ obvious from the unit graphic. Having an obscure name also makes the unit seem more strange, and by extension, more dangerous (c.f. fear of the unknown). I actually think that requirements like these degrade the quality of our game. They might make sense in and of themselves, but the gestalt effect of them is considerable; here's an example of where rules that make lots of individual sense have a ruinous gestalt effect: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4313772690011721857&q=ms+ipod +packaging&total=45&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1 > So please revert this change or find a new better names for this unit. I'm happy to come up with a new name, but we are changing the old name. Period. If you feel that a name I provide is inadequate, then provide something you feel is better. I'm very open to suggestions, and there's a weath of ideas to be mined here: _______________________________________________ Wesnoth-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev
