As many of you may be aware, the naming procedure for Orcs was recently changed to be "randomized". What this means is that there is a list of Orc Prefixes and Suffixes, and one from each list is chosen at random and then put together to make a new name.
While this adds greatly to the immersion and cuts back on code a few bytes, there are a few inconsistencies I have noticed.
Changes
Under the current system, there are suffixes of
Push
Maggot
Scum
and
Stink
Although others have some inconsistencies when paired with certain suffixes, these in particular are far too Westron-sounding to be used as Orcish names. In addition, they create some very crude names in some cases, as in Stinkmaggot or Scumbag.
To rectify this, I propose changing Push- to Pras(z)h-, Stink- to Sikh-, Scum- to Gar-, and -maggot to -mug. This would replace the Westron names with more Black-Speechlike affixes.
Removals
The suffix -snaga is currently available, while in actuality, that was only given as a title to slaves. This could possibly be changed to another suffix, but it most certainly should not be a possible name
To Mevans: A part of this suggestion was planned to deal with duplicate names, as many affixes appear on both lists. However, upon testing my theory, no Orcs with duplicate names appeared. Is this just coincidence, or does one of the functions in LOTREntityOrc prevent this?
I think we should keep Scum so that we can kill the little orc Scumbags. In all seriousness, though, this sounds good to me, and if there is not a duplicate-checker there should be.
Don't forget Shagrat and Gorbag, though. Those names are crude and English-derived: "shag" "rat" and "gore" "bag". I don't think this is too out of place. And if you're not seeing any duplicate names, that's just because you haven't spawned enough Orcs. Since it's random numbers, there is nothing to stop you seeing duplicate names eventually, and indeed this will be the case with all NPC names.
LOTRMod wrote:
Don't forget Shagrat and Gorbag, though. Those names are crude and English-derived: "shag" "rat" and "gore" "bag". I don't think this is too out of place. And if you're not seeing any duplicate names, that's just because you haven't spawned enough Orcs. Since it's random numbers, there is nothing to stop you seeing duplicate names eventually, and indeed this will be the case with all NPC names.
I often have at least three Orcs with the same name per hundred.
LOTRMod wrote:
Don't forget Shagrat and Gorbag, though. Those names are crude and English-derived: "shag" "rat" and "gore" "bag". I don't think this is too out of place. And if you're not seeing any duplicate names, that's just because you haven't spawned enough Orcs. Since it's random numbers, there is nothing to stop you seeing duplicate names eventually, and indeed this will be the case with all NPC names.
Recneps wrote: It could retry the name-generating code each time suffix was equal to prefix.
Oh, I misunderstood. I thought the post was about seeing two spawned Orcs who had the same name.
A portion of this post was about that. If there isn't a code in there that tests if the names are not equal, perhaps there should be. An orc named "Bagbag" is particularly un-orcish.
