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XCOMUFO & Xenocide

Soldier Names


Mad

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A fan (Ian Lucas) has worked on the peoplenames.xml. I'll post it here together with his comments for review. If this is as good as I think it is, I would suggest putting it on the SVN.

 

I have looked at the code and as far as I can tell all it does

is to select a first name and last name completely at random

from the file.

 

I have therefore not spent much time on the continent/country part

of the database as I guess this will (or might) be something

for the future. Having said this I have added a few more 'probabilities'

and

would suggest that if it is used in future the number format should

be a percentage 0-100 as opposed to a fraction (easier to understand &

less characters).

 

I have added a lot more names in a lot more sections but it is

still 'work in progress'.

 

At some stage I feel the code will need to be looked at/altered if only

to take account of the soldiers sex (even for v1.0). At this stage whoever

looks at

it might consider including 'origin' and using firstname/lastname

combinations

from the same origin.

I notice from the code that where the expected 'tree like' data structure is

shown

there is no mention of the 'sex' group!? So this was possibly changed/added

as

an afterthought.

 

 

It seems to me that at some stage the question 'Where is this soldier from?'

will need to

be considered. . .

There are several possibile answers:-

1) (V.Simple) Who cares? Just use a random first & lastname from the DB

(almost as is, will still

need to consider sex). (V1.0?)

2) (Straightforward) Country of origin = 'origin' from first part of

peoplenames file. 'Origin' in file will

need to be updated to be = 'country' instead of origin. i.e 'Germany'

instead of 'German', 'U.K' instead of 'English'.

'Continents' part of file becomes redundant.

3) (Complex) Country = 'country' from 'Continents' part of peoplenames file.

This will then need to be tied

back to 'origin' using 'probabilities' to determine name. This is

presumably what was originally

conceived by the files creator.

 

Once again hope this has helped.

I will continue trying to get my head around C#2.0 and XMA and will

hopefully be able to help more in future.

 

peopleNames.xml

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OK, I've looked at peopleNames.xml and can see that Ian has done a lot of work.

And, while he has added a significant number of names, he's also deleted a lot as well.

For example, the Afrikaans group is missing 'Aba', 'Abate', 'Abay', and approximately 100 more. And the Arabic names sections have been removed completely.

I need Ian to explain explain why this has been done, before I can accept his changes.

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Namely there were some duplicated sections (Arabic &

Arabian) which I have consolidated plus at least one other duplication which

I deleted. I have also deleted names that seemed odd or peculiar (lot's that

did not fit with, I guess, our 'western' concept of what a name should be)

and some that seemed to actually have odd characters that were throwing the

text out (mostly Polish).

I have also added a lot in various sections (Dutch, Danish, French, Chinese,

English, etc.) and added an 'American' section.

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Guest Azrael Strife

Names that just "look peculiar" should not be deleted, but maybe corroborated?

 

In any case, the spanish section is disastrous, I'll take a look when I get some time and we have a more final version ^_^

 

edit: country names also need checking... on this Earth there is no "Belize" on South America, nor is there a "Venezuala" :P

Edited by Azrael Strife
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"Just to explain further the 'deletions' which seems to be the main concern

as far as I can see (I have also messaged Azreal separately and hopefully

appeased him).

When I first looked at build 0.4.1835 I got a list of soldier names that

looked like a who's who from Abu Dhabi along with quite a few other 'names'

that just looked plain weird (to me). This is what prompted me to start

looking at the file in the first place. I initially noticed several things,

namely the duplication of the

Arabic section (Arabian) and that there were a lot of similar names (Did we

really need 6 variations of the name Chie***? etc.), plus the unusual chars

in a couple of places (mostly Polish) that was completely throwing the text.

So a couple of thoughts: Ultimately what we want (surely) is a

representative selection of names from around the world, not a complete

dictionary of every name and every variation of every name that ever

existed. Do we actually need 7 variations of the name 'Jamelia' and if so,

for balance do we then add in 7 variations of 'John', 'Cheng', 'Jane' and

'Isabella' (e.g)??

While the selection from the DB is random, to get a balance we need a

balanced number of names from each country (Which if anything should favour

names from the 'contributing' countries to X-com?). To conclude, if I now

test 0.4.1835 with the new names file I now get a selection of names which

looks random and reasonable which presumably is what we want.

Obviously there is still some way to go but if people are happy for me to

continue adding names (esp. for those countries with none at present) then I

am happy to continue. If anyone has any names they want added (or

re-instated) then just send me a list. Send me a list for some of the

countries anyway (esp lastnames), I can look up a lot on the net but any

help getting that 'representative' selection is appreciated.

Regards (and keep up the good work),

Ian (DarthLuca)"

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  • 2 weeks later...
I apologize, I've been neglecting my duties as head of Prog.

I'll accept what Ian has done, and check it in the next day or two. Unless StaffSargeant or Darkhomb beat me to it.

Mad, please thank Ian for me.

 

Happy to beat you to it ;)

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I apologize, I've been neglecting my duties as head of Prog.

I'll accept what Ian has done, and check it in the next day or two. Unless StaffSargeant or Darkhomb beat me to it.

Mad, please thank Ian for me.

Wonderful! I'm writing an email right now!

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