Game News The New World Update #24: The Wasteland

[Vault Dweller]

I agree that it's the best approach but nothing really came to mind when I had to name the area and I couldn't sit on it for days.

 

[Zed]

since i stirred the cauldron i guess i owe exposing myself to scrutiny

off the top of my head
The Deep Rust
Solitude
Decay Hold
meh, pretty typical MMORPG zone names

if it's remembered for mutiny and mutineers, maybe something like mutineers' depth, mutineers' hold? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutineers'_Moon )

maybe something ironic & fun like The Glory Hole

 

[Haba]

Probably not something that can be forced. I find industry jargon rather inspirational.

There is a certain consistency to it, once you start getting more involved.

Like in your case, the location outwardly appears to be one thing. It has a fancy name that isn't relevant to the dwellers anymore. But what kind of meaning does it have for locals? Scavenging location, tempting but fatal. Maybe combination of how it looks and how it is? Are there other slang terms relevant to it? Etc.

To oilfield workers for example, "Fish" is a drill string that has fallen down the wellbore. And "fishing" obviously is the act of using certain tools to retrieve a "fish". Now if you explorate, you end up with tons of "fish" and "fishing" related terms that you can apply. Like "fish farm" etc.

 

[Daedalos]

The Derelict
The Chasm
The Maw
The Breach

 

[Lithium Flower]

Yes let's all submit proper nouns for VD to critique. This is very productive for everyone involved. Perhaps start a dedicated thread in the ITS subforum as well for maximum productivity.

 

[Tigranes]

The + [Desolate adjective] + [Cavernous noun] combination (or just the noun) is going to be awfully generic, and we might as well stick with wasteland over anything of that sort, none of it is ever going to sound any good.

Haba seems to be on the right track - what kind of name will the locals come up with to describe their own lived relationship to it? It's not going to be anything ostentatious or abstract, it's going to be part of the industrial, patchwork, scavenger lingo. I don't know if you've been planning on the locals sporting any particular jargon.

It's easier on Earth because you can have names like Oymaykon, one of the coldest and most inhospitable yet inhabited areas, simply meaning 'unfrozen water' in Russian.

Another route is to look at terms used in, say, abandoned, unfinished buildings and projects re. engineering, etc., giving it a skeumorphic touch - we might imagine, say, a postapocalyptic community using names like the Granary even though any form of grain production is now out of the question. A 'Brownfield' is apparently land previously developed for use and now no longer, though it doesn't have the right sound.

 

[Alienman]

The RPG Codex.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The + [Desolate adjective] + [Cavernous noun] combination (or just the noun) is going to be awfully generic, and we might as well stick with wasteland over anything of that sort, none of it is ever going to sound any good.

Haba seems to be on the right track - what kind of name will the locals come up with to describe their own lived relationship to it? It's not going to be anything ostentatious or abstract, it's going to be part of the industrial, patchwork, scavenger lingo. I don't know if you've been planning on the locals sporting any particular jargon.

Since nobody lives there or nearby, there was no relationship and thus no need to describe it. It was simply left alone and forgotten until the demand for power cells drove the first scavs there. These scavs knew that it was Mission Control a 100 years ago or so but it was long before they were born so they'd have no reason to refer to it by its old name. To them it's nothing but some old wreckage with ancient corpses that can fetch good money.

 

[Bohr]

To them it's nothing but some old wreckage with ancient corpses that can fetch good money.

Luxor

 

[Abu Antar]

I feel like it should have something to do with what happened. I'm not saying the Wasteland doesn't work, but it doesn't tell me anything. The name should tie in with the ship and historical happenings.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Why not just call it what it is? These people know they are in a ship right?

 

[Jack Dandy]

I'm personally partial to "Names that stuck out of sheer accident". Something like how the "No Vacancy" sign in Fallout New Vegas lead to the town of "Novac".

So how about something ominous like "Miscon" or some shit like that? The only intact sign in the entrance to the area took so much damage and gunfire, and only these letters remained.

 

[Bohr]

Why not just call it what it is? These people know they are in a ship right?

Yes, I'm not sure why the original name has to be discarded either, seems reasonable that some aspect could remain even if there was an "LA" style colloquial abbreviation to "MC" or something.

Names can stick around long past their original meaning and relevance. At Knightsbridge in London you can't even see the original river, let alone a bridge or knights, and when one lives there it just becomes a name and one doesn't really think of those things at all. But the origins are still clear.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Since nobody lives there or nearby, there was no relationship and thus no need to describe it. It was simply left alone and forgotten until the demand for power cells drove the first scavs there. These scavs knew that it was Mission Control a 100 years ago or so but it was long before they were born so they'd have no reason to refer to it by its old name. To them it's nothing but some old wreckage with ancient corpses that can fetch good money.

So it’s also a tomb/mass grave and the scavengers are grave robbers—that opens up some interesting possibilities. Are there many other areas of the ship filled with frozen corpses?

If it was the officers’ Alamo, should the pro mission faction kind of venerate the battlefield like they do in Texas? Maybe that kind of sentimentality has no place on a decaying colony ship, but then again people are stupid.

Not worth obsessing over now; you’ve got years. It’ll probably come to you when you’re thinking about something else.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Declination Station
Rusty Roomsies
Shiny Searchhole

 

[screeg]

How about The Wound instead of The Wasteland?

The Chasm
The Maw
The Breach

The Wound or the Maw are both big improvements over Wasteland, since that word has been done to death (to death to death). The Decline might work.

Now Deadfall sounds like an A+ winner to me. It suggests threat, vertical space, decay and it's just overall creepy. Right away it's a place RL me doesn't want to go. As a bonus, you're not going to use the word in other contexts.

The fact that it describes wood and trees is 100% irrelevant. "Wasteland" describes a horizontal plain, with a dirt or stone foundation, outdoors under wide open sky, so by that logic you're not allowed to use it either.

 

[Alienman]

The Wound sounds cool as hell. You know it has some history to it, something that was normal and functioning but now is just an open and infected sore to the population. Wants me to explore the place as well. I would want to know what is was, and what was lost when it collapsed.

 

[rohand]

http://www.seventhsanctum.com/generate.php?Genname=advname

 

[Vault Dweller]

The Wound is a fantastic name that would fit Mieville's The Scar perfectly. It makes me think of a wound in the fabric of reality but not of gutted decks inside a spaceship.

 

[MRY]

The Dead Zone?

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

These scavs knew that it was Mission Control a 100 years ago or so but it was long before they were born so they'd have no reason to refer to it by its old name.

Sure they would - that's it's name and they knew that. Why would they come up with a new name when one already exists?

Scav 1: "Hey buddy, want to go scavenge The Wasteland?"
Scav 2: "The what?"
Scav 1: "You know, the old Mission Control"
Scav 2: "Oh. Why didn't you just say that?"

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

The RPG Codex.

Participation Awards
Retardo Land
Prosperland

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

The Wound is a fantastic name that would fit Mieville's The Scar perfectly. It makes me think of a wound in the fabric of reality but not of gutted decks inside a spaceship.

Maybe it's not such a bad thing for the name to have a pseudo-metaphysical connotation. It's not just a physical wound, it's a wound in the social fabric of the ship. And you could name one of the mutants in it an Avanc, which would be priceless.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Now Deadfall sounds like an A+ winner to me.

Simply "The Fall" would be much better.

 

[Daedalos]

I like The Breach. Because mission control was breached by mutineers, forgotten about, and now is unsafe and dangers lurk.

That or The Maw, as in, something that swallows you, and wont let you out, and will devour you metaphorically