I like wisp, but it sounds too fantasy like to me. i've always liked glowies, but I agree that it dosn't sound a like a realistic name for somthing. i'll still probably call them glowies in-game.
if were trying to come up with a simple name like nymph, how about "midge"
If I would be a badass mofo toting a weapon and kicking alienass all day long I'd probably call them Ticks, Mosquitos ("Mücke" [<i>Mycke</i>] in german), Fleas or any other annoying small insect.
Or Bro (Bros pl.) since they are meant as recon for the aCom and govs are trying to pull a 1984 all over the world right now, plus they are the alien's little brothers too.
If you don't like Nymphs, what about Newts? Works on most levels. Marine-like colloquialism with derogatory connotations, insect/lizard themed, actual Newts metamorphose between 3 distint stages in their lives. It's also easy to say and has no extraneous y's. (Though I think Embyrs is great too. They are embryos, but you can hear a marine saying 'cr*p, there's embers[sic] everywhere.')
I liked the Shrimps suggestion that someone brought up.
Sparkely shrimps?! :D
I don't think the name Nymph works well because it sounds more like a medieval fantasy creature and not really sci-fi-ish. We need something to sound more insectoid, alien like, something that represents its role in the game.
Also something like "Sprawn" sounds cool. It's the spawning lifeform after all. Just try not to get sued by the guys who made District 9 :D
embyr is honestly the most clever name. I can imagine them floating around the same way embers float through the air from a fire. Very fitting name. perhaps without the y.
I'm down to calling them Nymphs but only if the hive is called the old one, at least by the kharaa. I'm down for calling them glares or flares, or glowers.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->glowing sack of alien sex juices<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> Marine: I need help here! I'm surrounded by glowing sacks of alien sex juice! *Comm drops a camera.*
Going by what the marines might call them... (i think this is the best way to name them) glowballs buzzers Flayrs (pronounced "flares"...no, it's not a poke at Flayra...ok, yes it totally is) zappers (easier than lightning bugs)
<!--quoteo(post=1702512:date=Mar 11 2009, 11:54 AM:name=Crispy)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Crispy @ Mar 11 2009, 11:54 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1702512"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah, it says used by 70-year-old men. If it's an outgoing slang term that most of the playerbase won't have even heard of or take offense at, I don't see the harm in using it. Besides, it's not like the glowies have minstrel facepaint or anything, if the word primarily means other things and has no obvious connection to this other, rarely used meaning, there's nothing to infer a racial slur any more than there is to infer the glowie is a US government agent.
Glowie (plosive-to-sonorant followed by 2 strong, open vowels connected via a voiced approximant) and Spook (plosive followed by prominent vowel sound followed by fricative) are more audible over the mic than the muffled gasp of <i>Nymph</i>, which uses a fairly low-key combination of phonemes.
If you're going for usability, the audio-recognition of the first two are much better. If you just want to please a bunch of Scientists, choose Nymph<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Outstanding post. It's a shame that it is buried in the rest of this board's flotsam. You are the only person to make actual arguments in this thread.
Audio-recognition is vital for communication. Nymphs just doesn't cut it.
I may be a lecher but, for me, Nymphs simply calls to mind Nymphomaniac.
I'm really surprised by the hostility to the word Nymph. When I think of nymphs I think of small floating, flitting things, something light and fragile. Add that to the fact that Nymph is an undeveloped lifeform, and it really fits far too well to cause so much trouble.
Maybe something fish related? they kinda look like something you'd see in a fishtank (or like those ghost piranhas in Ninja Gaiden 1...those are friggin' deadly)
or call them by a collective name, if they always appear in groups: the Swarm the School (back to the fishy names...if they can kill marines then you just got Schooled :P) the Legion the host
I looked up swarm in a thesaurus and unfortunately there's not much there that isn't more or less specific to what it's a swarm of (herd, crowd, school, pack, pod, murder, etc.)
Nymph seems to be the least pretentious and accurate name I can think of.
They look like nymph ant/termites a bit, being winged flying tforms which start new colonies (or creatures, in this case).
Embyrs seems a bit, as stated, s|_|P3|2 |<00|_ L3TT3|2Z syndrome. Kinda like how games and films use overly contrived acronyms, like you wonder whether or not they actually designed the acronym around the gun, or whether they just sat there for five years thinking of the coolest most pimped out acronym and then decided to build a gun so they could use it, except this time it's a name.
Although this is probably just me, I suck at naming things, I can do the super cool acronym stuff but I really really try not to, because it feels dirty somehow, I like the beauty of understatement, give something a functional name and make it bad ass enough so that it looks like it doesn't NEED a really fancy name. These things look badass, everything in NS does for that matter, so giving them names which scream 'trying too hard' would just tarnish it.
Maybe something fish related? they kinda look like something you'd see in a fishtank (or like those ghost piranhas in Ninja Gaiden 1...those are friggin' deadly)
or call them by a collective name, if they always appear in groups: the Swarm the School (back to the fishy names...if they can kill marines then you just got Schooled :P) the Legion the host
I looked up swarm in a thesaurus and unfortunately there's not much there that isn't more or less specific to what it's a swarm of (herd, crowd, school, pack, pod, murder, etc.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh but making up your own collective nouns is one of the best things about english, everything is allowed to have its own collective noun, so you can make them up.
'horn of platypusses' 'towel of cellphones' 'accretion of laserdiscs'
For these I think cloud may be more appropriate, the rest all sound too aggressive, but a cloud seems to fit the role, they spawn and fill hive rooms and I imagine they'd drift quite slowly around the place when not busy. Besides, 'hive cloud' sounds pretty neat.
Wanna hear my suggestion? No matter, I'll tell it anyway: Tracers. Those things kinda trace marines and stuff, don't ya think? And they glow like tracer rounds. I'd say that a marine might actually think of tracer rounds when he sees those things flying around.
Comments
I like wisp, but it sounds too fantasy like to me.
i've always liked glowies, but I agree that it dosn't sound a like a realistic name for somthing. i'll still probably call them glowies in-game.
if were trying to come up with a simple name like nymph, how about "midge"
Or Bro (Bros pl.) since they are meant as recon for the aCom and govs are trying to pull a 1984 all over the world right now, plus they are the alien's little brothers too.
Spooks sounds great.
You know you want it.
Marine: I got some Zits here!
Comm: Take this... *spawns soap*
Keeping it simple is the best way to go.
Hive Flies?
I liked the Shrimps suggestion that someone brought up.
Sparkely shrimps?! :D
I don't think the name Nymph works well because it sounds more like a medieval fantasy creature and not really sci-fi-ish. We need something to sound more insectoid, alien like, something that represents its role in the game.
Also something like "Sprawn" sounds cool. It's the spawning lifeform after all. Just try not to get sued by the guys who made District 9 :D
(wooo..! GLOWIES!)
Marine: I need help here! I'm surrounded by glowing sacks of alien sex juice!
*Comm drops a camera.*
glowballs
buzzers
Flayrs (pronounced "flares"...no, it's not a poke at Flayra...ok, yes it totally is)
zappers (easier than lightning bugs)
Glowie (plosive-to-sonorant followed by 2 strong, open vowels connected via a voiced approximant) and Spook (plosive followed by prominent vowel sound followed by fricative) are more audible over the mic than the muffled gasp of <i>Nymph</i>, which uses a fairly low-key combination of phonemes.
If you're going for usability, the audio-recognition of the first two are much better. If you just want to please a bunch of Scientists, choose Nymph<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Outstanding post. It's a shame that it is buried in the rest of this board's flotsam. You are the only person to make actual arguments in this thread.
Audio-recognition is vital for communication. Nymphs just doesn't cut it.
I may be a lecher but, for me, Nymphs simply calls to mind Nymphomaniac.
Oooo..
Thank you, my point exactly :P
Or we could call them.... SPARKLEES!
Used in a sentence:
" Ooohhh~ Sparklees! <3 "
and they shall make an almost unnoticeable sound "eeee~"
i dunno...
Maybe something fish related? they kinda look like something you'd see in a fishtank (or like those ghost piranhas in Ninja Gaiden 1...those are friggin' deadly)
or call them by a collective name, if they always appear in groups:
the Swarm
the School (back to the fishy names...if they can kill marines then you just got Schooled :P)
the Legion
the host
I looked up swarm in a thesaurus and unfortunately there's not much there that isn't more or less specific to what it's a swarm of (herd, crowd, school, pack, pod, murder, etc.)
They look like nymph ant/termites a bit, being winged flying tforms which start new colonies (or creatures, in this case).
Embyrs seems a bit, as stated, s|_|P3|2 |<00|_ L3TT3|2Z syndrome. Kinda like how games and films use overly contrived acronyms, like you wonder whether or not they actually designed the acronym around the gun, or whether they just sat there for five years thinking of the coolest most pimped out acronym and then decided to build a gun so they could use it, except this time it's a name.
Although this is probably just me, I suck at naming things, I can do the super cool acronym stuff but I really really try not to, because it feels dirty somehow, I like the beauty of understatement, give something a functional name and make it bad ass enough so that it looks like it doesn't NEED a really fancy name. These things look badass, everything in NS does for that matter, so giving them names which scream 'trying too hard' would just tarnish it.
<!--quoteo(post=1726592:date=Sep 9 2009, 05:29 AM:name=monopolowa)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (monopolowa @ Sep 9 2009, 05:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1726592"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->[in Zerg voice] SPAWN MORE GLOWIES!
i dunno...
Maybe something fish related? they kinda look like something you'd see in a fishtank (or like those ghost piranhas in Ninja Gaiden 1...those are friggin' deadly)
or call them by a collective name, if they always appear in groups:
the Swarm
the School (back to the fishy names...if they can kill marines then you just got Schooled :P)
the Legion
the host
I looked up swarm in a thesaurus and unfortunately there's not much there that isn't more or less specific to what it's a swarm of (herd, crowd, school, pack, pod, murder, etc.)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Oh but making up your own collective nouns is one of the best things about english, everything is allowed to have its own collective noun, so you can make them up.
'horn of platypusses' 'towel of cellphones' 'accretion of laserdiscs'
For these I think cloud may be more appropriate, the rest all sound too aggressive, but a cloud seems to fit the role, they spawn and fill hive rooms and I imagine they'd drift quite slowly around the place when not busy. Besides, 'hive cloud' sounds pretty neat.
/thread
So... Hive Sharks, anyone? Once your spotted by them you can count the seconds until a flurry of teeth is coming for you.