New Monsters vs MoO Monsters names

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Want to see some MoO monster names in FO?

Poll ended at Fri Nov 04, 2011 3:17 am

Yes
3
38%
No
2
25%
Maybe just a few...
3
38%
 
Total votes: 8

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eleazar
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New Monsters vs MoO Monsters names

#1 Post by eleazar »

I've been playing some Starbase Orion, which is a very MoO2-like game for iOS. There's a lot of familiar content, which sometimes triggered a nostalgia response.

While we can't have Psylons and Klackons in FreeOrion, it would be legitimate to have the same monster names since "Hydras" "Eels" and "Amoebas", etc. are dictionary terms, and used to describe monsters in thousands of fictional universes.

So far we've followed the example in using real words to describe our monsters: "Krill" and "Dragon", rather than "B'gorthian Snogwarbler"-- something i'd want to do anyway to make FO more accessable.

But i'm divided on weather it would be a nice homage, or simply boring to use some of the same names for monsters? I'm curious how some who played MoO a lot more than me feel about the MoO monsters. What monsters do you still remember with fondness and/or dread?

small print: this poll is just informal information gathering, and not binding.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: New Monsters vs MoO Monsters names

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

In case someone in the legal department of whatever international publishing company that currently owns the IP for MOO gets uppity, I'd rather avoid any explicit use of any content from the MOO series. If one or two monster type names in FO happen to reference the same animals as a MOO game, that's fine, but using a whole set, especially after specifically saying that's what you were doing, is worrisome.

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eleazar
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Re: New Monsters vs MoO Monsters names

#3 Post by eleazar »

We already have a lot more variety and personality than all the MoOs together in the behavior of our monsters. I certainly don't want to copy the MoO monsters. I want to see if players think they are worth paying homage to.

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Bigjoe5
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Re: New Monsters vs MoO Monsters names

#4 Post by Bigjoe5 »

I think we will probably end up having many more monsters than MoO2 did, so having all of their monsters as a subset of our monsters is probably fine, and won't even look like we're copying their monsters (since theirs have really quite generic names).
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MikkoM
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Re: New Monsters vs MoO Monsters names

#5 Post by MikkoM »

eleazar wrote:
So far we've followed the example in using real words to describe our monsters: "Krill" and "Dragon", rather than "B'gorthian Snogwarbler"-- something i'd want to do anyway to make FO more accessable.
You would want to do which one? Use real words or use those made up names? (Or possibly even divide the monsters into different classes and use real worlds to describe those classes, while individual monsters could have more exotic names?)

Anyway whatever the monsters are called, hopefully their appearances can be more varied and interesting than in MOO2, where a space dragon was always a classical dragon creature, amebas like their counterparts here on Earth etc.

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eleazar
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Re: New Monsters vs MoO Monsters names

#6 Post by eleazar »

MikkoM wrote:
eleazar wrote:
So far we've followed the example in using real words to describe our monsters: "Krill" and "Dragon", rather than "B'gorthian Snogwarbler"-- something i'd want to do anyway to make FO more accessable.
You would want to do which one?
The one i am doing, using real descriptive words whenever practical for monsters.

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