Naming Critters

Now, I'm not sure where to put this, but I had a thought. Seeing as many critters will develop entirely via auto-evo, many will not have a simple ingame name. I merely suggest that when the player comes into contact with one of these, they have the option either to give it a random name (Like Spore's random feature) or name it themselves.

That makes sense. Perhaps, once the species develops language, the random name generators could be altered so that they generate random names that fall in phonetic compliance with the language of the player species?

i dont even know how that could work, though

Xenopologist wrote:

That makes sense. Perhaps, once the species develops language, the random name generators could be altered so that they generate random names that fall in phonetic compliance with the language of the player species?

I'd say yes, but many will have languages so radically different that it's kinda silly to try for just the Earth-like ones.

Perhaps you could even give it a scientific name and a common name...?

IE Genus species

So I come across a large shaggy herd animal (Lets say a mammoth).
I name it (Pseudo-names)
Mammothii woolius.
Common Name: Wooly Mammoth.

After a while of playing I come across an evolved version of the animal, its mush smaller and faster, and its name has changed.
IE.
Mammothii minor
Common Name: (Either generated, "morphed" or Chosen by player)
(Species name could be randomly generated but perhaps selected on variables relating to the previous name and or the traits of the species)

I think that names should be randomly generated until the player chooses to name them. And that would allow them to rename them if they think of a new idea or learn something more important about them later. Eg, i might find a grey blob and call it "Grey Blob" then find out it tunnels, so i'd change it to "Tunneling Blobber" or something.

The player can give it a scientific name in the name box if they wish, and a nickname could just go in brackets. Eg. Mammothii Woolius (Wooly Mammoth).

Scientific Names should only be if the player's species that meets it has discovered Taxonomy. The Taxonomic methods of categorization would also be different for different sapient species.

GamerXA wrote:

Scientific Names should only be if the player's species that meets it has discovered Taxonomy. The Taxonomic methods of categorization would also be different for different sapient species.

But what if the player starts using the regular name field to add taxonomic information before discovering Taxonomy as a technology? Upon discovering Taxonomy, they would be at least a bit annoyed that they would have to go through and rename everything, if not also puzzled at why such a system of categorization had to be unlocked at all.

I think that whenever player encounters new species, they add into a list of unnamed species. That list could be viewed at anytime. However, there should be an option to automatically assign random names.

Quote :

The player can give it a scientific name in the name box if they wish, and a nickname could just go in brackets. Eg. Mammothii Woolius (Wooly Mammoth).

Agree. If players want taxonomy, they can just put it in the regular name box.

Commander Keen wrote:

I think that whenever player encounters new species, they add into a list of unnamed species. That list could be viewed at anytime. However, there should be an option to automatically assign random names.

Quote :

The player can give it a scientific name in the name box if they wish, and a nickname could just go in brackets. Eg. Mammothii Woolius (Wooly Mammoth).

Agree. If players want taxonomy, they can just put it in the regular name box.

Could taxonomy allow you to view a evolution tree of every encountered species (including name. It could have pictures generated somehow, maybe like how spore generates the PNGs)

The Uteen wrote:

Could taxonomy allow you to view a evolution tree of every encountered species (including name. It could have pictures generated somehow, maybe like how spore generates the PNGs)

That seems to be a better way to show taxonomy on a planet. The game will be keeping a record of evolution anyway, so making it visible to the player is only logical.

By the way, I believe the current concept is to store the associated data of every creature alongside a thumbnail PNG, the way Spore did. If that's the case, then it becomes even easier to display such an evolution tree.

The Uteen wrote:

Could taxonomy allow you to view a evolution tree of every encountered species (including name. It could have pictures generated somehow, maybe like how spore generates the PNGs)

Now thats a good idea.

The only thing I fear would be storing these pictures for every animal existing and for every of their ancestors, that would make your harddisk explode. Maybe having names only.

Quote :

The game will be keeping a record of evolution anyway

I hear this for the first time. Have you got any source?

Quote :

By the way, I believe the current concept is to store the associated data of every creature alongside a thumbnail PNG, the way Spore did. If that's the case, then it becomes even easier to display such an evolution tree.

Nope, .png format was discarded.

Commander Keen wrote:

Quote :

The game will be keeping a record of evolution anyway

I hear this for the first time. Have you got any source?

It's inherent to the way in-game evolution would work, if I'm not mistaken. Every creature is a version of its ancestor with some details changed. As such, the game would basically be piling up a list of forerunners behind every species as it evolved.

Commander Keen wrote:

Quote :

By the way, I believe the current concept is to store the associated data of every creature alongside a thumbnail PNG, the way Spore did. If that's the case, then it becomes even easier to display such an evolution tree.

Nope, .png format was discarded.

I must be running on an old piece of knowledge, then. Sorry about that.

Xenopologist wrote:

It's inherent to the way in-game evolution would work, if I'm not mistaken. Every creature is a version of its ancestor with some details changed. As such, the game would basically be piling up a list of forerunners behind every species as it evolved.

Amassing all creatures ever existing would lead to huge disk space problems, we want to avoid this as much as we can.

And no worries about not being up to date, it can be sometimes hard to get wanted informations here.

Commander Keen wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

Could taxonomy allow you to view a evolution tree of every encountered species (including name. It could have pictures generated somehow, maybe like how spore generates the PNGs)

Now thats a good idea.

The only thing I fear would be storing these pictures for every animal existing and for every of their ancestors, that would make your harddisk explode. Maybe having names only.

But! The game would only need to show the evolution of creatures that the player knows about, through either encounter or fossils.

US_of_Alaska wrote:

But! The game would only need to show the evolution of creatures that the player knows about, through either encounter or fossils.

Yes, but all creatures generated would still need to be stored because player might find them.

Anyone know how much extra space would a small (approx 50x50, doesn't need to be big) image of each organism (maybe about 100?), alongside relevant info (like name and when they first appeared) which would be stored as text take up?

Each organism... Are we planning for plants to be on it?

Best size would be either 64x64 or 128x128. I can't decide wich one would be better, because 64 seems too small and 128 too big (filesize wise).

Also, if you plan on including every organism (animals + plants) + their ancestors (taking into account they were periodically pictured at least 8 times) would give you quite high amount of images.
Let's say there's about 200 species total. 200 * 8 = 1600 pictures for just one planet. Creative players (with God mode) might easily end up with over 100000 images.

Commander Keen wrote:

Best size would be either 64x64 or 128x128. I can't decide wich one would be better, because 64 seems too small and 128 too big (filesize wise).

Also, if you plan on including every organism (animals + plants) + their ancestors (taking into account they were periodically pictured at least 8 times) would give you quite high amount of images.
Let's say there's about 200 species total. 200 * 8 = 1600 pictures for just one planet. Creative players (with God mode) might easily end up with over 100000 images.

That's a lot of images... Hmm... I really don't know what to do there other than ask everyone else for ideas.

We should reduce the frequency that the Organisms are cataloged, reducing the image size to 32x32 would also help but...

GamerXA wrote:

We should reduce the frequency that the Organisms are cataloged, reducing the image size to 32x32 would also help but...

That might end up being problematic. 32x32 doesn't show much more than a rough icon, and reducing frequency might give us pictures of totally different animals.

The truth is, if we really want pictures for ancestors, then we will most likely have to do it this way.

We could make it so that pictures are only displayed for organisms the player has directly encountered. It wouldn't completely eliminate the problem, but it might be a start.

Xenopologist wrote:

We could make it so that pictures are only displayed for organisms the player has directly encountered. It wouldn't completely eliminate the problem, but it might be a start.

Yes, if you only have fossils you would know the exact shape or the colour...

If you only ever encountered a species through fossils, they would have had to have been simulated, so everything will have had to have been, incase you discover their fossil. My spidey senses are tingling... This has been said before.

Even if you want to only display ones encountered, you still have to store them on harddrive.

Pezzalis wrote:

Perhaps you could even give it a scientific name and a common name...?

IE Genus species

So I come across a large shaggy herd animal (Lets say a mammoth).
I name it (Pseudo-names)
Mammothii woolius.
Common Name: Wooly Mammoth.

After a while of playing I come across an evolved version of the animal, its mush smaller and faster, and its name has changed.
IE.
Mammothii minor
Common Name: (Either generated, "morphed" or Chosen by player)
(Species name could be randomly generated but perhaps selected on variables relating to the previous name and or the traits of the species)

This is a great Idea, but I think all that should be assigned is the scientific name. A common name would be something that the player would have to make for the creature when they come into contact with them. Here on Earth there are several species with out a common name, take for instance any ancient fossil or even some deep sea creatures only have a scientific name.

So yeah just have it assign a scientific name base that is used all across the universe.