Some tips for what and how to name your Pandaren

With all the new furry hand slappers (monks) adding to the regular characters in World of Warcraft many players are looking for that perfect Pandaren name (yup, this adds from the post where I had no idea for a name – I still don’t).

Here are some tips:

• Please pick a name that is not overtly stupid. If you previously created a character called “Iownyoutoo” then you should read this first tip a few times. Let it sink in.
• If you pick the name of a real Panda living in a zoo, be prepared for it to potentially “retire” in your life time.
• Pop culture or odd references will get a good thrashing, and on the non-RP realms that seems fair an reasonable. I know a Hunter named Schrödinger who always used a Cat. Perfect.
• Anything involving beer, stout, ale, etc will be actually be suitable to the lore for a change. Alehound is still a crappy name, but given we have an official NPC called Stormstout there is an excuse to get a little left field.
• Names which combine quasi-roleplay themes are really cool, especially the two word combos: Thunderpaw, Powderkeg, Ironfoot, Raindancer, Firehammer.
• Don’t forget that the Pandaren lore is both heavily spiritual and also respectful of the elements, much in the same way that the Shaman and Earthen Ring is, so all the elemental based (earth, air, fire, water) names are up for grabs, with all the variations; Mountainsong, Firebrew, etc.
• Not a fan of the “bare” instead of “bear”, although if you’re an Australian and you want to really mash the lore into a blender then some “Koala” references might be really dangerous and fun.
• Silly is great when it’s openly so – Whoflungpoo – that means you!

There are resources already sprung up to help folks find that perfect name, such as (from the other post about Pandaren Monk names) these with a few extra thrown in:

• Brewslee, Tonypanda, Jackiepan, Bearhanded, Honeybadger, Fubear, Wotwentwong, Fumanpooh, Pandozer, Thelonious (mmo champion)
• Dancingbear (please don’t Google that with safe filter off)
• Some nice Roleplaying related names from the legit lore
• WowInsider added a nice page with some hints too, worth the read for the roleplaying aspects of Pandaren characters.

More creative and consistent names

Update: As this was published I noticed that the patch 4.3 name rules have changed too:

North American realms (excluding Brazilian, Latin American, and Oceanic realms) no longer permit letters with accents in character or guild names. Existing character and guild names with special characters will be unaffected by this change.

How many times have you seen these type of names?

Ãrthás, Ægigbird, ìcemage, lololas, undeaddeath, or ikillsunow. Iamatank (who is dps), pvpggodd, or any darn name which uses a keyboard crushing special character. It is a short step to bigtool7 as a character name, and most of the examples above are from actual toons.

Moons ago I wrote a small blogpost about naming a Death Knight, as at the time the Wrath expansion was announced but not released, and players were creating and reserving names left and right. It was done as a PSA type post so that (I hoped) the wow population would have less silly and unpronounceable names.

How’d that go? I saw no direct affect; but then didn’t really expect to see a major shift. I was more just standing on my soapbox yelling at the world (now we have twitter for that, and bloggers have multiple avenues to shout about the things that frustrate them)…and shitty names still frustrate me.

The characters like “Bloodelfdk” are still happily jumping around in WoW, and it seems that players are keen to use every special keyboard character they can when re-using names. I guess that won’t change much either.

It would be interesting to see an MMO which prohibited these type of names more, and if that rule had a significant affect on the player base. Would a restriction such as that hinder the growth of the game?

Take the SW-ToR game coming in December – can I create a character called DarthVedar? Hanssolo? Chewiebacka? Aaanakin?

These names are just as silly as Arthaaas and all the rest based on the Warcraft lore, and as ToR is based on story arcs and events, it seems something they might wish to consider – especially if the NPCs will be using the character names in some way:

Npc: The elderly noble rises from his ornate throne and says “We hail PrincisLayher, you efforts to force back the Imperial troops were a boon to my people. What would you ask of me as reward?”

Player: “dude epix, lol”

Npc: …{shakes head}

It breaks the story, and makes me a little sick just thinking of it.

OK what to do:

1. Valid Random Names – The random name generator in the character creation screen should not show you names that are in use. It frustrates me that a name is shown, might actually be useful, but is not available. As an armchair programmer this does not seem to be a huge issue, the list could be updated on batch, and then re-checked every day to ensure the error rate would be low.
2. Prohibit special characters – I know this affects some legit European names, but then you’re not playing yourself in Second Life, you’re playing Warcraft. Names like Redhand are far more lore worthy than Phîlll. And yup, it would wreck a huge amount of current character names, but hey – I hate those names so on this point I’m going to be inconsiderate of those players.

How the blog was named

Here is an odd distraction, formed into a blog post: How and why did you pick the blog’s name?

Typhoon was a nickname I was given at work about 10 or so years ago. I was a tech guy back then doing system admin and system engineer type work for a specialist software developer. The accounting team were initially thinking of calling me the Hurricane, but that was taken by the famous boxer – so Typhoon was the next best thing, or so they said.

I know it was probably meant to be a back handed complement, but I like it.

Many years later I was hunting for a blog name and thought that it would be easier to have a blog with a nickname than something tied to a specific topic; as I didn’t know where the blog would focus. I added the Eye of the Storm sub-title as a way to link the blog to the idea of a typhoon, but also to imply that the posts might be coming from within all the hub-bub.

It was strange when I started blogging that Blizzard announced the Eye of the Storm battleground about a week later, and they more than stole the thunder from the blog in favour of PvP. Such is life.

I saw this on the WOW Debutante blog, and thought it would be a good idea for a post which explains more about my perspective rather than a rant about gear, toons, spec, or updates.

Happy blogging.

Kids Guild Names

It tickles the dry and sarcastic part of my brain to think that an experienced player might get beaten into a bloody pulp by a 9 year old. I know that the under 18s playerbase is present and can deliver some very reasonable quality gameplay, and was pondering guild names.

I guess the question needs to be asked – is it a good idea to indicate that the player may be a child in the first place? Especially with a guild-tag? Probably something for their legal guardians to ponder, like everything else they experience in and out of game.

Some names might be:

• <Primary School Raiders>, an alternate of Old School Raiders.
• <My dad can beat up your dad>, just because its funny and an argument I hope still occurs.
• <Have Parents will AFK>, playing on the popular guild on my server called Have Kids Will AFK.
• <Picked Last at Dodgeball>, because these are the nerds of the future; but they’re still playing fun stuff like dodgeball, not serious sports.
• <Baby Teeth FTW>,
• <Mum Packs My Lunch>; don’t ask. This has very innocent meanings and very odd ones.

Happy killing.

NameScore mod

An outstanding satirical mod for Warcraft called NameScore, which scores characters based upon their name.

a) Because GearScore was not arbitrary enough. This will really set the cat amongst the pigeons.
b) Because I’ve been banging on about bad player names for years, but not seen this.

Pure excellence.

Malign of Nagrand – LFM NAXX 25, MUST BE GEARED, 5k+ GEARSCORE, 75+ NAMESCORE, 5K+ DPS, PST ACHIEVEMENTS.

I wish for an Oceanic RP server

The days where I can watch a conversation between Ipwnutoo, Leetlock, and loldruid are nearly over. Well I’ll still be watching them, but is makes my skin scrawl that players think these names are ok. C’mon seriously wow players, there has to be a line where you’re leveling to 80 and your name is a joke, consider a change. (begin soapbox)

I was grouped with some randoms leveling on an alt, and a Death Knight had a god-awful name. Something like Uberlicher. This guy was after basic help, asking easy questions, and it almost caused me a fit not to ask if Uber included use of WoW Head. The name alone was enough to make me not take him seriously. And his name is not even close to as specifically dreadful as Dkleet, lolsdk, and the rest that I actually see on the server.

Its like seeing ImSexyGod1123 in a web forum, and you know the poster has little imagination, plenty of time, and probably not a lot of sex appeal. Yes/No?

But what kills me is these names are ok on my server. The problem is actually mine. There are places for folks like me, and I think its on an RP server, not a general PvE server. Although if you’re an Oceanic player you’re straight out of luck; there are no RP PvE realms. A hundred or so servers, about 17 pure RP servers, a few RPPVP servers, no RP downunder to speak of. So the choices are get over it and play with the lol-leet-pwn-uber-qq, or re-roll, or transfer. Grrrr.

If an Oceanic RP realm was added, and open for transfers, I’d go. No more doing instances with toon names that should never have been bank alts, and certainly not 80s.

ps. Don’t even get me started on the real Oceanic trouble – meaning Oceanic servers in, near, or close to the Oceanic region. Talk about a Tab name on the realm screens that has no reflection on reality. (end soapbox)

Strange name lists

Damn me I’ve had some trippy toon names; and so so many damn alts distracting me. The only positive I see is that next time I have to make up a name for a pen and paper roleplaying character I’ll have a nice list to choose form.

Try this list:

• Taranthraxus – death knight on the PTR
• Deadwrong x2 – both undead rogues
• Xaurantis – pally blood elf, made to be hard to spell
• Swearigin – warlock blood elf, as a tribute to teh TV show Deadwood
• Augurer – undead mage
• Darri x2 – undead bank toon
• Renyr – no idea
• Sorrowblade – paladin blood elf, emo name.
• Arakai – human priest, should have been a night elf. Way too cool a name for a human.
• Aurac x2 – both mages
• Casserole – tauren druid
• Darru – another bank mule
• Diamon – Human Paladin
• Endeavour – night elf druid, because the guild name was teh same, and he could have a name the same as the guild.
• Erar – night elf rogue
• Ignis – gnome mage, fire mage too.
• Kurra – no idea
• Rill – human warrior
• Syru – blood elf death knight, because 4 letter names are hard to get.
• Varc – draenei shaman, and a druid too
• Arkham – human warlock, the Batman and/or HP Lovecraft reference.
• Erosion – undead rogue, because he kills slowly at level 3.
• Moonbringer – deleted, but a good RP name.
• Mortigen – draenei DK
• Nagarj – shaman
• Quendalon – nelf druid
• Roa – bank mule, bad because it gets ping’ed by my chat mod every time somebody talks about a Road.
• Tsr – bank mule (bad name unless you’re an old school gamer)
• Varganshi – unknown, but dont it just roll off the toungue.
• Wilhelan – I hated this name the moment I made it
• Yeira – draenei prest
• Zugamoty – was a warlock, and a ref for the DnD players
• Zym – love the 3 letter names
• Mannaburn – shameful name
• Silvertooth
• Trickster
• Unlock – more shameful than Mannaburn
• Embersil
• Lightdancer
• Lighthammer
• Sixthsense – undead rogue. Get it?
• Raze – a personal favourite
• Niveus – sounds like a hand cream

Bok Bok BGerk

A few mates created a guild – and proudly I was involved in both the signing of the charter and the stupidity that created the guild name.

Flee in terror of your new Chicken Overlords – “Bok Bok BGerk” has arrived.