The argument for the change is simple - to a significant number of english speakers, "Soul Shooter" sounds silly. The origin of the name came when the unit was originally created (around 0.6,0.7?). Every single thing about the unit was an small modification of the "bone shooter's" identity. The stats were simply additive modifications of the L2 unit, the graphics were simply a colorshift of the original unit, with a hood and cape added, and the name was simply a modification of the previous unit.
In groping around for a name, they simply changed the word "bone" to something that seemed vaguely associated with the undead, and which also was ... a noun. They would as well have called it "Ghost Shooter". The problem is that it no longer makes any sense; there's no reasoning behind the name, as there was with the level-2 unit. With the level-2 unit, the name had a double meaning; first, "bone" signified that the unit was a skeleton, was made of bones. Second, bone signified that the unit fired arrows made out of human bones. But "soul shooter" has no such connections - the unit is not an immaterial ghost; it's a very substantial thing, and it's open for debate as to whether it even has a soul or not. Furthermore, it does not shoot "souls" at its victims, and if it did, we should probably change the damage type. Honestly, the name sounds like something a 14-year old D&D nerd would come up with (mostly because, in this case, it was originally made by a bunch of 14-17 year old players, and not by the "core" development team). It's about as retarded as Napoleon Dynamite's "Liger". I'm not particularly attached to "aptrgangr", but I am adamant that we WILL change the name to anything other than soul shooter. Soul Shooter was not the creation of any emminent, scholarly mind, and has no inherent value in being kept. I would hope that our team is above being blinded by exposure/nostalgia-bias into clinging to bad nomenclature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere_exposure_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias As for aptrgangr, the arguments in favor of that specific name were: - it is no less appropriate than terms like revenant, draug, spectre, or wraith, all of which can have grossly different interpretations. - it fits with revenant and draug in describing corporeal "wights", and has connotations of "great warrior", which is good for a level-3. (Aptrgangr is actually an interchangable term with Draug - it describes a warrior returned from the dead). - though obscure, in every in-game situation where it is seen, the unit graphic is also present, which makes it completely obvious what the unit is, as far as videogame mechanics go. You see a big, scary, skeleton holding a bow; that communicates an enormous amount about how the unit behaves in-game. In fact, the player might learn a new word - both wesnoth and warcraft III were responsible for goading me into looking up the proper definition of "revenant". Even though I had no idea what the background of the term was, it was obvious from the unit image and description how it functioned in game. And being very unknown at the time, it gave the merest hint of dread, which is very desirable for an undead unit. Obscurity is relative - for any term, we can't guarantee that the reader will know it, since kids do play this game. And, so long as the unit has good imagery, it won't have a negative effect, because they'll know what they *need* to know to play the game. On Jul 22, 2007, at 2:42 PM, Eric S. Raymond wrote: > Nils Kneuper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> I wholeheartedly agree. Please revert to the old state again. > > The most convenient way to do this would be to reverse the change > in wmllint > and run it on mainline. I'm willing to do this -- I don't > particularly like > the new name myself -- but I'd like to hear the arguments for the > change by > whoever was pushing it. > -- > <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a> > > _______________________________________________ > Wesnoth-dev mailing list > Wesnoth-dev@gna.org > https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev _______________________________________________ Wesnoth-dev mailing list Wesnoth-dev@gna.org https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/wesnoth-dev
