Game News Guido Henkel's Deathfire is now Deathfire: Ruins of Nethermore

[theSavant]

I don't get it. "Deathfire" sounds like a heavy metal band (and by that a title only teenagers would choose), and "Ruins of Nethermore" sounds generic, dead and desolated already. Now you have a heavy metal band, wearing black T-shirts with skull prints, walking around in a urinated environment. Great. Why should anyone like to play this?

Sure you can say other game titles are unimaginative either, but they are more popular:
"Might & Magic", "Swords and Sorcery", "Wizards & Warriors" ... all of these can be associated to medieval fantasy - the more of it these titles are "timeless".

Nowadays a project can fail simply because of an uninteresting title! And to be honest all the suggested names suck. Does he not see this?

It's the same as as "Thorvalla" - it just sounded like *nothing* (the majority of people might have associated it with a plump peasant wife - even though it was a combined word of "Thor", "Walhalla", or similar from nordic mythology). I am not happy to say this, but it's just the way it is.

I'm not saying that a good title makes a good game, but if it starts with a unimaginative name already - or if someone presses to hard and desperate to achieve new word creations - the result will most likely suck. And that is exactly what happens. I hope he comes to his senses soon.

 

[Lady_Error]

By the same logic, Ultima is a bad title, because it does not directly associate with medieval fantasy.

 

[tuluse]

Deathfire is a bad name because it sounds stupid.

 

[theSavant]

Lady Error: Yes, I don't find "Ultima" a good name, as it's kinda meaningless.
Basically tuluse nailed it: "Deathfire" just sounds stupid nowadays.

It's somehow pointless to elaborate why, because it just is. If Guido does not realize this, the next (Thorvalla-like) fail has begun.

 

[majestik12]

How come Daggerfall and Darklands are okay names, and Deathfire is not?

 

[Maelflux]

How come Daggerfall and Darklands are okay names, and Deathfire is not?

Because it tries to hard.

 

[I_am_Ian]

Anybody care to explain the universal acclaim achieved by the strangely-named Underrail?

 

[Excidium]

It was cooler when only a select few were upset about the name of some piece of vapourware

 

[FeelTheRads]

Everybody is a name-whore these days.

 

[Monty]

Everybody is a name-whore these days.

Yeah, nomenclaturefags are taking over.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Nomenclature.. pfft. You sound like an intellectualfag.

 

[I_am_Ian]

Nomenclaturefags? For fuck's sake why not just namefags? I'm so sick of these damn sesquipedalianfags.

 

[Excommunicator]

I can't help but think he made the situation a lot worse by saying it was just a working name and then completely going against that by using it anyway. Now he likes it so much he's going to name the entire series that? (yeah good luck with that)

Where's the writer's instinct in all of this? My instinct is telling me "never use a term as bad as deathfire no matter how well you can explain it in game terms"

 

[Lady_Error]

The game is gonna be (probably) on the darker side, so Deathfire: Ruins of SoandSo is fine for that.