Part 1. Name-Related and Other Questions
On the Authorship of Names
■ I created all the randomly assigned names for Towns in
HoMM3 (excluding Cove (which are excellent)). It’s been awhile since I created those names, but my creative process is still the same.
■ I created most of the Hero names, but not all of them. Some were carried over from
HoMM2. At least a couple were suggested by
HoMM3 Map Makers, and perhaps an unknown Game Tester. I don’t recall any fan suggestions.
■ I named Antagarich, and all of its nations, including Eofol, Nighon, Erathia, etc.
■ I named the continent, the nations, the towns, and most of the ‘in game’ Heroes. Everything else was touched by someone else (Christian, Jennifer Bullard, different Map Makers, etc).
■ Winston Boragus, Gavin Magnus, Finneas Vilmar, Eldrich Parson, Tralossk, Faruk Welni, Queen Catherine, and Morgan Kendal were not named by me. I know Xenofex was suggested by Christian, but I do not recall if he created the name. I named Antagarich, and all of its nations, including Eofol, Nighon, Erathia, etc.
■ Xenofex was a name suggested by Christian Vanover, but technically [Xenofex is] not an in-game Hero.
■ If I remember correctly, the sequence of events went something like this. We were midway through development, when I gave Christian the task of writing all the Hero bios.
At the same time, Christian was writing lore for the game manual, and the
HoMM message board hosted by 3DO (I could be mistaken about the latter). The names of the Erathian leaders naturally came about while he was writing the lore.
Christian created all the hero bios, suggested the name Xenofex, requested one of the Heroes be named Christian (for himself), and requested I name all of the remaining Heroes. In my mind, the names of the Erathian leaders are separate from ‘in game’ heroes.
[The following answer refers to the story told by Christian Vanover of the
Heroes of Might and Magic III development which can be read
here.]
■ My recollection of the event is as follows. If it differs from what Christian recalls, you will need to inquire with him.
While I had some Hero names suggested by the Astral Wizard community, Scott White, along with the Heroes carried over from
HoMM2, I still needed to fill out the remaining Hero names and biographies for our complete roster. Thinking I could pass the task off to Christian, one day, I caught him passing by my office. When I told him I needed 128 names and bios, he laughed, but agreed to do it.
A couple of days later, he returned to my office with a single sheet of paper. It had roughly eight heroes and their biographies. Almost immediately, he began laughing, telling me how he had no trouble with the biographies, but the names were terrible. This would be his famous line, “I’ll come up with 128 character bios before I come up with 8 good names.”
I looked over his work, and in my opinion, about half of the Hero names were useable. At this point, I struck a deal with him. I would create the Hero names, and he would create the biographies. Happily, he agreed, but requested one of the Knights be named Sir Christian, as he wanted a Hero named after himself.
I agreed as I thought it would be fun. It was this interaction which paved the way for the eventual addition of Sir Mullich.
From this moment, I would sporadically create Hero names, hand them off to Christian, and he would eventually return with their respective biographies. Along the way, there would occasionally be names offered by the testers, but their bios would be created by Christian.
This is in some form related to the naming of the eight leaders of the Antagarich factions, but I honestly do not recall any details regarding this subject. To my recollection, this was something Christian did on his own for his stories for the 3DO message board, but I could be wrong.
► A question regarding the first map of the Long Live the Queen campaign. Whereas in the Restoration of Erathia campaigns towns usually have no assigned names, unless those towns have a particular identity in the universe of the game – such as national capitals, when they make their appearance in the scenario – or they are related to the scenario objective, in this scenario all five towns are given their proper names (two of these towns feature in pre-release story by Christian Vanover, and, therefore, may be regarded as narratively predefined). It may also be noted that these town names exhibit a remarkable stylistic similarity to generic town names of the corresponding type, as if coming from a single set of names. Thus, this map looks anomalous in this regard. Is there some explanation for that? Was Christian Vanover its maker?
■ No real explanation, as I honestly don’t know. Christian Vanover and Dave Botan (deceased) made all of the campaign maps, and I trusted them to do their work. So, I can’t speak to the Town names in the first map of Long Live the Queen. As to the authors, I didn’t keep a list of authors when it came to campaign maps, but it’s more than likely Chris made this specific map.
■ There is a chance I had a spreadsheet... somewhere... with all of the map credits.
It would take some effort to unearth it, but I may do it just for a Fanstratics recollection story.
■ For the Campaigns (
RoE and
AB), each Map Maker was given a set of map specifications: Campaign Name, Scenario Name, Map Size, # of Players (human/cpu), Victory Conditions, Loss Conditions, Map Difficulty, Starting Options, Scenario Prerequisites, etc. Town names were never part of the specification. Town names were effectively left in the hands of the Map Makers, working under the assumption they would comply with any ‘lore’ requirements.
► Regarding your answer […], “Town names were never part of the specification. Town names were effectively left in the hands of the Map Makers, working under the assumption they would comply with any ‘lore’ requirements.” Does this mean that capital names were also created by campaign map makers? It also seems to imply that the world-building and the creation of the game’s lore was essentially a collaborative process.
■ To your first question, “Yes.” Capital names were also created by campaign makers.
To your second point, “Yes.” I basically set up a structure and boundaries for the Map Makers, and they were free to play within those boundaries... within reason. If I were to draft an analogy, I would say I created a moderately detailed outline, and the Map Makers wrote the chapters.
► Your words also seem to imply that even if there were several people, besides you, who suggested names for heroes, you still exercised editorial control over these names, so that you still determined what names in the end would find their way into the game. Do I understand it correctly?
■ This would be correct. I controlled the spreadsheet with all the Hero names and biographies. I had final say.
► [Could you provide any information about the seers’ names?]
■ Sorry. I have no information in this topic.
The External Circumstances of the Name Creation
■ It’s difficult to recall, but I would estimate I worked part time, on various names, over the course of October, November, December, and January [in the 1997-1998 period].
■ For each workday, when possible, from 1pm to 5pm, I closed my office door and tried to focus on rendering
HoMM3’s design. This would include working on Hero and Town names. This would also include whatever happened to pop-up and needed immediate attention. This would also include Wednesdays, and sometimes Thursdays, meeting with JVC. So, imagine a couple hours a week, over several months. In the end, I’d estimate the total number of hours spent was around 1 work week, 2 at the most.
[The following reply refers to the fact that the names Melodia, Piquedram, Astral, Straker were suggested by Phil McCrum as evidenced by the following entry on the Astral Wizard website:
Names I submitted for heroes as requested by NWC (see Crystal Ball Page): Piquedram (wizard); loves clockwork things. Lord Straker (knight); tough, ironfist in velvet glove, in your face to right a wrong. Melodia (sorceress); has a musical bent. Dune Rider (barbarian). Bone Dancer (necromancer); reeks of death and evil. GoldDrake (warlock); young, arrogant. Astral (wizard); dark red robe, dark purple pointy hat, paprika hair, good-looking but with touches of ‘Wonderland/Looking Glass’ eccentricism. (I just HAD to submit that one!) from Astral Wizard (AstralWizard@astralwizard.com).
—
Link, wish 826
and the fact that 3 out of 4 of these names (Melodia, Astral, Straker) top the list of heroes of their respective classes, thus suggesting a sort of priority given to them.]
■ I wouldn’t say ‘priority’. More than likely, I had those names on hand before I created the others. When giving them a ‘home’, it would be natural to start at the top of a Hero class list and work my way down, looking for a relatively good fit. Once I’d run out of ‘suggested’ names, I would proceed to create the needed additional names.
► It follows from the story-related posts by Christian Vanover on the 3DO Message Board, which were being published in anticipation of the game release, that many of the generic town names, used for random assignment, are actually names of settlements found throughout Antagarich. The town name “Stonecastle”, one of these generic names, is also the name of a town in the first scenario of the Long Live the King campaign. So, the question is: were those towns created first, whose names were then used as generic town names of the corresponding type, or were these names for every town type created first and later used by Christian Vanover in his narratives? Or is the situation somewhat more complex than that?
■ It is difficult to recall to sequence of events, but I suspect I created a limited collection of Town names for the pre-release Demo. Chris probably created his story related posts, from my initial list of Town names. Only later did I ‘finish the task’.
■ Town names were specifically created for randomly placed towns on the Adventure Map. While Christian used my town names for his posts [i.e., the posts by Christian Vanover spoken about in the preceding question], the town names were never created for Christian’s posts.
► In one of the pre-release screenshots (can be seen
here) there is a hero bearing the name “Rugard” with the portrait of Josephine. On another pre-release screenshot (can be seen
here) there is a hero with the name “Galdwyn” and the portrait of Sanya. How can these screenshots be explained?
■ My memory is really vague concerning these screenshots. If I properly recall, I suspect these screens were put together by Scott White (artist). I think he asked me for some Hero names, but I didn’t have any at the time. So, I told him to just give each Hero a good temporary name. Which he did.
► You said that the reason for the discrepancy between names in some pre-release screenshots and in the final version of the game is that the names were still not created at the time when these screenshots were released. However, there is another such screenshot, which can be seen
here, in which the hero with the portrait of Gerwulf has the name “2nd General”, while two other heroes have their names of the final version.
Also, as regards the
second screenshot in the question, there are some other pre-release screenshots (which can be seen
here and
here), by all appearances made within the same game (perhaps the previous screenshot belongs to the same version of the game, judging by the look of the interface and especially the resources’ graphics), which, however, in contrast to it, feature final hero names.
Should it then be explained as that at the time these screenshots were made, some heroes had their names assigned, while others did not?
■ I doubt some Heroes had their names assigned, while others did not. If I remember correctly, those pre-release ‘screenshots’ were completely fake. They were created entirely in Photoshop, and more than likely rendered by Scott White. He may have asked me for some Hero names, and I gave him something temporary which made it into the final game. It is also possible I told him to simply make up some names, and I kept them.
► In the various pre-release materials showing early versions of the game there can be seen town names that are not found in the final version, namely “Firebrand Castle” (Fortress, Castle), “Dreamport Castle” (Castle), “Miretown” (Fortress), “Wizard’s Vale” (Tower), “Forst” (Rampart). Were they excluded from the final version of the game for some reason, or were they (as most probably the first two of these town names) just placeholders?
■ Placeholders. More than likely, Scott White (artist) composed these images, and simply created the placeholder names.
► Also, some of the town names that can be seen in these materials are used for towns of different types than in the final version of the game, viz.: “Cornerstone” (Dungeon, instead of Castle), “Highcastle” (Stronghold, Rampart, Fortress, instead of Castle), “Castlellatus” (Necropolis, Dungeon, instead of Castle). Was there some reason for that?
■ Difficult to recall. I suspect I gave Scott White a collection of Castle Town names to use, but did not specify they were ‘Castle’ names. So, he simply applied them as he desired.
When it came to promotional materials, I didn’t pay any attention to the Hero or Town name continuity. For advertisements, it was strictly ‘graphical glory’ with the ‘text’ supporting the images. A Hero’s name was unimportant, where the Hero’s class (i.e. Wizard, Cleric, etc.) was important as it communicated the different classes as a ‘feature’.
The Creative Process
■ Overall, the structure I used for each created name was relatively simple and straightforward.
- Define the character/town/nation ‘Theme’ or ‘Trait’.
- Find an English word related to the Theme or Trait.
- Research the English word and its word origins.
- Could I find ‘old’ words to use or parts of ‘old’ words?
- Could I modify a word element with other syllables, prefixes, or suffixes?
- Can I pronounce the end result with relative ease?
- Does pronunciation infer a different spelling?
- Does the spelling generally indicate how it should be pronounced?
Overall, using this process, it took me a couple weeks to arrive at all the various names. In hindsight, I wanted more time to work in a fair number of ‘anagrams’, but time simply ran out.
One other item you might want to keep in mind. I’m American. In America, we have a vast collection of different people from different backgrounds. This makes ‘intermixing’ commonplace. For instance, you could have a 3rd or 4th generation family of Chinese descent, with a newborn boy named David Yee. Mixing cultures, and arriving at a new amalgamation, is a very American thing, and I believe it shows up in my work (subconsciously).
■ One of the things I enjoy most, is word creation via amalgamation of word parts or ‘syllable torquing’. This is most evident in the development of
Fanstratics (
Fantasy +
Strategy + Tac
tics). This was also something I employed with Antagarich and some of its nation names.
► Could you provide some information regarding what town names (and in some cases names of heroes as well) were patterned on?
■ I couldn’t tell you, in detail, what I was thinking at the time, but these should be rather logical.
- Castle
Plains. Strength. Holiness. Resurrection.
- Rampart
Forest. Nature. Enchanted.
- Tower
Snow. Exotic. Magical. Elevated.
- Inferno
Lava. Fire. Burning. Demonic.
- Necropolis
Death. Decay. Undead.
- Dungeon
Subterranean. Subhuman. Darkness. Hidden.
- Stronghold
Barbarian. Blood. Brutality. Offense.
- Fortress
Swamp. Slowness. Defense. Reptilian.
- Conflux
Natural elements. Air. Earth. Fire. Water. Balance.
■ Other than a character limit, and a basic theme […], there was no formal system for the names corresponding to each faction. If anything, it was all rather loose and informal.
► It seems that a significant portion of Castle town names exhibit roots expressing architectural notions:
- Transom
- Cornerstone
- Gateway
- Dunwall
- Whitestone (also, although you said that the town name “Claxtone” was derived from a family name, it may also be viewed as alluding to the word “stone”) (■ Agreed.)
- Highcastle
- Castellatus
There also may be noted the Castle town names “Caryatid” and “Plinth” in the first scenario of the Long Live the Queen campaign, which seem to conform to the same thematic principle.
Could you please say, what was the motivation there?
■ I would guess I started researching the word ‘Castle’, and wandered my way to the various other words on your list. For instance, ‘Castle’ leads to ‘Castellate’, which leads to ‘Castellatus’ (Medieval Latin for ‘fortified’).
■ I had a lot of names to generate, so one of the things I did, in addition to all the other things, was to ‘reverse look-up’ name meanings. For example...
- Coronius means ‘honesty, sacrificer, admirer’.
- Inteus means ‘capability, strength’.
‘Honesty’ could have easily been ‘Giltbert’ (I probably would have torqued this name into Gildbert or Beraht (bright) or Gildberaht (sacrificial light)) or ‘Gilda’.
‘Strength’ could have easily been ‘Alcaeus’ or ‘Alcides’ (both are difficult to pronounce).
In these examples, I searched for common terms like ‘honesty’ and ‘strength’ and found a list of potential names. Sometimes these names did not have clear origins, but still felt exotic enough to ‘fit-in’ with all the other names.
► Three Inferno town names: “Ashcombe”, “Ashden”, “Blackburn” are built by a model traditional for English toponymy (so that settlements with the names “Ashcombe” and “Blackburn” can be found in the territory of the UK). However, it is reasonable to suppose that the element “ash” in the first two names refer to the noun with the meaning of “cinder”, rather than of a tree species, which this element has in the system of English toponymy. In a similar way it may be supposed that the element “burn” in “Blackburn” should be related to the word “burn”, as in damage caused by heat, rather than to the word with the meaning of “stream”, which this element has in the English toponymy.
■ Your assumptions about Ash and Burn are correct. Ash meaning cinder. Burn meaning damage caused by heat.
► So, can it be considered a reinterpretation of the elements of traditional English toponymy and a sort of felicitous wordplay?
■ Yes. These are ‘Inferno’ town names, so they do play with convention. Overall, the goal is to drive home the common words ‘ash’ and ‘burn’, but they tend to ‘work out’ in their respective compositions. Blackburn can mean ‘burned black’ (i.e. a town burned black by fire, heat, etc.). Blackburn, as you point out, could also mean ‘black stream’, which could be envisioned as a burning town adjacent to a stream, filled with ash, and turned black because of it.
► In discussing the process you used for the creation of names you often refer to research involved in it. Could you, for example, explain what you mean, speaking of “meaning search” and “reverse look-up”, so that I could adequately comprehend your meaning here. Could you say something about the sources you used in your research?
■ The research tools available in 1998 are similar to the tools available today, but they are not the same. In my attempts to answer your questions, I try to trigger my memories by doing ‘research’ similar to my original approach. This basically boils down to searching prefixes, suffixes, word origins, a Thesaurus, and a baby name generator. Excluding Google search, my current list of sources are as follows...
Recently I have added ‘anagram’ tools, and may use them in Fanstratics.
Obviously, some tools are better and more dependable than others. A search could start with any of the above tools.
For instance, I could go to Babynames.com and input ‘fire’ into the ‘Meaning’ field. From the results, ‘Ignace’ jumps out at me. Inputting this name into Wiktionary leads me to the Latin word ‘Ignatius’. From there, I read over the etymology of the various languages, and from them I spot ‘Ignis’. From there, I read over the etymology of ‘Ignis’, and well... there are plenty of good choices. ‘Ignifer’ sounds like a good town name. Within ‘Ignivagus’ I like ‘vagus’. Could I pair Vagus up with another word, or a prefix, or a suffix, for a Hero name? ‘Chrono’ meaning time? Chrono Vagus? Chrono Vagus the time wanderer? Chrono Vagus the time traveler? And so it goes, one after another.
► As for the aspect of the meaning of the original roots and words, used in creation of names, on the one hand, your accounts of your creative process clearly indicate that you always have in mind some particular meaning at the base of names you create; on the other hand, you also say that you often employ form change of the original word; you also mentioned the use of anagrams in this process — operations that significantly obscure and make it hard to identify the original word/root and the corresponding meaning. […] I may suppose that your object there was not explicitly giving the meaning you had in mind, but probably to some degree to suggest it, and the audience was not always supposed to be aware of its presence.
■ I would agree with your assessment.
► From your answers it may be concluded that all names come from some preexisting name or some word. Can it be then surmised that every town or hero name (provided it did not originate from some other team member) can be traced back to a source of one of these types?
■ Excluding the Hero names suggested by the Community or the NWC testers, there are only a small number of Hero or Town name not derived from an existing language... in one form or another (i.e., nonsense names).
► In two previous games of the series there were heroes’ names of biblical or mythological origin (e.g., Jezebel, Rebecca, Atlas); in
Heroes of Might and Magic III, however, there are virtually no such names. Was it a deliberate decision to not use such kind of names?
■ Yes and no. It wasn’t a purposeful decision on my part to avoid Biblical or mythological names. I simply like playing around with word origins and creating amalgamated words, and this was an opportunity to have a lot of fun.
► Also, while in the two previous games of the series many town names included references to the universe of the previous games in the
Might and Magic series, town names in
Heroes of Might and Magic III do not use names of such sort. Was it also a deliberate decision?
■ Yes. This was deliberate.
HoMM3 was purposely set apart from the earlier games, as I was new to the company, and had little knowledge of what was occurring with
MM6. I wanted a clean break from what the
MM6 team was doing, so I didn’t need to worry about lore issues. After
HoMM3,
MM7 effectively integrated the game’s lore into the larger, ongoing storyline.
► Are there any hero names, other than “Christian”, “Sir Mullich” and [“Desslock” (for information on this name see the second part)], that were taken from members of the development team or some other real people?
■ I don’t recall any other such names. In general, I prefer to avoid using ‘secret’ names. If they are immediately recognized by the general public, it breaks immersion, and you tend to see a character as something other than intended. Sir Mullich is the best example of this. Very few people will look at Sir Mullich and see anything other than David Mullich.
► In cases where town names are composed of English words, should it be assumed that these name forms are nothing else but only representations of their actual names as they appear within the fictional world itself, as there seems to be no reasonable grounds to believe that English language is present in the world of
Heroes of Might and Magic III; in other words, such names are a translation convention, similarly to the way many names in
The Lord of the Rings are actually English calques of the names consisting of Westron elements (e.g., Rivendell — Karningul, Shire — Sûza, Grey Havens — Mithlond, Frodo Baggins — Maura Labingi) (as J. R. R. Tolkien wrote in the Appendix F II “On Translation” to
Return of the King, “I have also translated all Westron names according to their senses. When English names or titles appear in this book it is an indication that names in the Common Speech were current at the time, beside, or instead of, those in alien (usually Elvish) languages.”)? Could, then, names exhibiting elements of other real-world languages (such as Latin, Greek, German etc.) be taken as a translation convention of representing names consisting of elements of some other specific languages of the game world? The corollary of which is: if a name does not exhibit any identifiable with words of real-world languages elements, should they be considered as belonging to languages actually present in the game world?
■ I believe your question reads too much into
HoMM3’s final result. While I wanted
HoMM3’s names to be creative, I also wanted them to echo known languages in one form or another... if possible. When it comes to ‘English or other languages’ being used as a ‘translation convention’, I can honestly say the thought never crossed my mind. While I like the idea (it makes wonderful sense), I simply did not have the time to apply this level of detail to
HoMM3’s names. I must admit, it would have been nice to create what you describe, but to properly render such an endeavor would have consumed all my time for months.
■ Prior to
HotA, I believe I did mention, in an interview somewhere, how I used pieces of Latin, Old English, Old German, prefixes and suffixes, to make character and location names. Anyone willing to put in the necessary time, should be able to fashion comparable titles.
► What was the general concept you had for the Conflux faction, the realisation of which led you to the employment of a rather counterintuitive set of languages? What was the reason for the choice of these languages specifically?
■ For the Conflux, the overall ‘theme’ was the four elements: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. As to the ‘employment of a rather counterintuitive set of languages’, my approach was top down, not bottom up. I didn’t choose the languages, I arrived at the languages. I started with a common English word, then worked back through each word’s etymology, looking for inspiration. I went wherever the research led me, no matter how organic the process.
► From your previous answers I […] understand that […] the language affiliation of names was not supposed to bear any particular meaning.
■ Correct.
► I feel […] it is better to view these names [spoken about in the preceding question] as a translation convention, even if it was not the explicit authorial intent; for I do not know how to make sense of the whole picture otherwise.
■ I think you could view the names as part of a translation convention, but I would frame it as a very chaotic translation convention.
► Is it actually your original vision that there was only one language in use throughout the whole continent of Antagarich, probably the same that is used in Enroth and possibly the language is Modern English?
■ I can honestly say, what language or languages being used throughout Antagarich never crossed my mind. I simply did not have the time to craft the world in such detail. Perhaps my ‘non-answer’ is confirmation of Modern English as the singular language used throughout the two different continents.
► The understanding I get from your words [i.e., of the preceding reply] is that even if the information in the game has an implication that the language of Antagarich (as well of the whole planet) is English, it was, however, not the intended idea among the designers and it could be reconsidered if the question had to be decided upon at some point. Is it correct?
■ I would say your assumption is correct. It was not my intended idea, nor was it the intended idea amongst the designers, but if it was necessary, such a subject would be reconsidered.
► Is it […] true that there was no particular judgement on this issue among other people responsible for the development of the game’s background?
■ Correct.
► Do you know if Paul Rattner had any particular stance on this question?
■ Not to my knowledge.
► There is a quote from one of the Christian Vanover’s stories posted on the 3DO Official Message Board in anticipation of the game release:
The sound of a war horn was our first warning. Everyone was alert, and Korbac and Verdish began barking orders in assorted languages.
[it can be accessed
here]
which provides direct evidence that at least in Christian Vanover’s view there are actually numerous languages used throughout Antagarich. Actually, this quote aligns with the expectation I had concerning this matter that there is a common language, which takes its origin from the human population and which is known by most other intelligent races, but all other races have their own language which they speak among themselves; that is, a situation which is more or less a standard for traditional fantasy. Is this situation a possibility?
■ When Christian wrote this piece for the 3DO message board, I suspect he was just adhering to traditional fantasy stereotypes. So, to answer your question, “Sure. It’s a possibility, but I doubt Christian gave it much further thought, beyond the time in which he wrote it.”
► It seems that a significant portion of Conflux names are represented by the infinitive form of the verb (such town names as “Fleogan Mills”, “Froisan” – supposing it is related to the Old German verb “friosan” – and as it may be conjectured “Vluchton”; such names of heroes as “Monere”, “Grindan” and “Gelare”), just as in the case of town names “Castigare” and “Dolere” […]. What was the general concept that motivated such a method of name building? Why is such sort of names largely confined to the Conflux name space?
■ Your question assumes I gave more thought to the ‘name building’... than actually occurred. […]
As to the Conflux ‘name space’, please keep in mind, I was burned out from Restoration of Erathia, and slowly becoming disgruntled with New World’s management. At this stage of development, I wasn’t giving a great deal of thought to the Conflux Hero and Town names. If anything, I was playing ‘fast and loose’ with their creation.
■ When I am making these names, I don’t have a lot of time, and I need to make a lot of names, so I rarely concern myself with the ‘form’. My main concern is, “Can it be reasonably pronounced? Is there some implied meaning?”
■ While I was mildly aware of each name’s form, I never let it overrule basic utility. I needed to quickly create ‘pseudo-medieval fantasy names’, with some implied root to real world languages. If it looked good... and was relatively straightforward to pronounce... I went with it.
► As far as I was able understand from your answer to the question about the use of the infinitive form in names, the morphological features of the name sources were irrelevant for these names, as names in their final context — that is as used in the game — were not supposed to bear their original morphological meaning, these features were not supposed to convey some other specific meaning, and these forms should not be interpreted as any particular morphological form.
■ Correct... assuming I understand your question.
► Was […] [the] primary form of [names’] creation phonetic or graphical, with the other counterpart form based on [that] primary one?
■ Primarily phonetic, with a graphical secondary concern.
► Was there an established, canonical pronunciation […] for all […] names?
■ I had a ‘proper’ pronunciation in mind, but I never wrote anything down. Such an endeavor would have been pointless. Once I published a name... it was really up to the community to agree on a pronunciation.
Perhaps the best example of this is the arcade game
Galaga.
Galaga was a sequel to the arcade game
Galaxian.
Galaxian is pronounced... Guh-lak-see-uhn.
Galaga was supposed to be pronounced... Guh-laa-guh. However, most people do not pronounce it this way. Instead, of Guh-laa-guh, they say... Gal-uh-guh.
As a side note, after I published the name ‘Gelu’ (je-lu or jel-u), I found myself continually correcting the Map Makers, who pronounced it ‘Guh-el-you’ or worse... Gay-Lou.
► Did you have an original phonetic system […] according to which they should be pronounced, or did their pronunciation conform to the pronunciation in their source language […] or was their pronunciation confined to the English phonetics?
■ Generally, their pronunciation was confined to the English phonetics, but there were exceptions.
► Your statement, “I had a ‘proper’ pronunciation in mind, but I never wrote anything down. Such an endeavor would have been pointless. Once I published a name... it was really up to the community to agree on a pronunciation.”, to me comes out as counterintuitive. In the absence of the official statement on the pronunciation there always arises confusion and disagreement about the proper pronunciation […], as you yourself indicated in your answer. If the official pronunciations were available, it would preclude such cases. […] Is there not also a need for a pronunciation guide for internal use (you mentioned the problems with incorrect pronunciations within the team that arise when such a guide is absent)?
■ If I wrote ‘a pronunciation guide for internal use’... no one would read it. Attempting to ‘enforce’ proper pronunciation would create a lot of ill will (Gelu being a mild example), as no one likes being corrected when it comes to pronunciation or grammar. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to envision the rolling eyes and exasperated sighs from irritated team members.
► Can the pronunciations given by voice actors in cinematics be taken as official, canonical pronunciation that you had in mind?
■ Yes.
► Was race a factor in the creation of names of heroes?
■ Not really. It’s difficult to recall the process, but if race was a factor, it was a disqualifying factor. Meaning... this name doesn’t make sense with this hero of this Troop type... try using it with a different hero.
► How much do you think the names in
Heroes of Might and Magic III are characteristic of the fantasy genre as a whole; how well do they represent the general situation in the genre?
■ How well do they represent general situation in the genre? My goal was to be relatively traditional. Did I accomplish this? On some level, I would say ‘yes’, but I personally thought I could have done much better. Crafting a true ‘naming system’, rooted in world lore, would have taken at least a month, but as you point out, I needed to create a lot of names (bulk) in a very brief period of time. So, most of my work involved using forgotten ‘root words’ and ‘word mash-ups’. I think I generated all of the Hero and Town names in roughly one work week.
► Is it right to assume that the representation of universal fantasy naming conventions was indeed your intention?
■ I would say, “Yes.” My goal was to create names most people would quickly and easily identify as adhering to typical ‘fantasy’ conventions.
► Do you think that the name creation process you described can be taken as a common approach and considered a norm for naming in fantasy games?
■ I honestly don’t know. You would need to survey other fantasy game designers for their approach. To my knowledge, at the time when the
HoMM3 Hero names were created, most fantasy game designers improvised. Look no further than
HoMM1...
- Ambrose - Knight
- Arturius - Knight
- Dimitri - Knight
- Ector - Knight
- Lord Haart - Knight
- Lord Kilburn - Knight
- Maximus - Knight
- Sir Gallant - Knight
- Tyro - Knight
- Antoine - Barbarian
- Atlas - Barbarian
- Crag Hack - Barbarian
- Ergon - Barbarian
- JoJosh - Barbarian
- Kelzen - Barbarian
- Thundax - Barbarian
- Tsabu - Barbarian
- Yog - Barbarian
Do any of these names strike you as resulting from some form of research, or... improvisation? To my eyes and ears... improvisation.
► How would you assess the ratio of talent and skill required in the creation of names in fantasy works. That is, what do you think would be a more probable cause of less than satisfactory result in the name creation: the lack of talent or an inadequate amount of dedication and hard work?
■ In my personal opinion, I would say a lack of hard work (broadly defined) is the culprit. It’s a cliché, but genius really is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration (broadly defined). Ideas are cheap and plentiful. Execution is hard.
In the present day, in any endeavor, failure can typically be attributed to poor execution. What causes ‘poor execution’ can be almost anything: managerial interference, corruption, inexperience, poor funding, laziness, fear, etc.
Other Questions Concerning Names
► [According to one of the Christian Vanover’s stories] the town Marishen is an Erathian town [the passage in question reads: “The Kreegans moved so quickly that the human cities of Dunwall and Marishen, along with the elven city of Bath'iere, fell before any large force could be brought against them.”, the story can be found
here], however, in the game this name is placed into the pool of Rampart rather than Castle town names. […] Is there some explanation for this mismatch?
■ It’s got to be a mistake.
■ I suspect Christian simply made a mistake in calling Marishen a human town.
► The town name “Strongglen” is present in the set of town names of both Rampart and Stronghold factions. Was there a specific logic behind that?
■ This is a mistake. It was my intention for each Town name to be unique. I honestly never noticed this error until you pointed it out just now. It’s pretty amazing it slipped through testing and remains in the game after all of these years.
► What was the reason for the limit of 16 town names per town type? Were there some town names that were excluded due to this limit?
■ Because we didn’t want map makers going crazy with their map designs, we limited Towns to a maximum of 48. From this limitation, there were basically two avenues for creating town names.
One, create 48 town names for each faction, totaling 384 town names for
RoE or 432 for
AB. This is a lot of names and a lot of work. It can be done, but it would take a lot of time and effort, and both of these elements are always in short supply.
Two, create a large, but lesser amount of town names, covering a reasonable number of faction towns, which happen to be relatively interchangeable with the other factions. As we had 16 heroes per faction, I asked John Bolton for 16 town names per faction.
Were some town names excluded due to this limit? Yes and no. Initially, the number of town names was set as a goal. I then created town names to satisfy this goal. I’m sure some town names were created and discarded because I ultimately didn’t like them.
General Considerations about Name-Building in Heroes of Might and Magic III
► Do you consider this task [of creating the names for
Heroes of Might and Magic III] was a relatively minor part of the whole effort involved in the development of the game?
■ I would classify it as moderate. Most design elements required a week or two of caffeinated effort.
► How would you assess the work you did on the names in
Heroes of Might and Magic III now, a quarter of a century later?
■ Personally, I thought it was sloppy. In hindsight, given enough time and effort, I would have created a ‘naming system’ where each Hero name would have been constructed with a clear and reasonable meaning. Instead, given the production conditions, my only real choice was to adopt an impressionist approach. From a distance, it felt right. Up close, it was chaotic.
► Would you do something differently now?
■ Depends on the conditions. If I were working for another company, under the same conditions, I doubt I would change my approach, but I would explore the different ‘fantasy name generators’ online as they might be able to do the work for me.
► Is there anything that you would like to correct?
■ Off the top of my head, there is nothing I would like to correct.
► Is there something else of interest that you can/would like to say concerning the names in
Heroes of Might and Magic III?
■ Rarely is the creative process a sniper’s endeavor. It’s a lot of work, and a very messy process, more akin to a machine gunner limited only by time or the ammunition at hand.
Other Information not Directly Related to Names
■ The initial idea to follow Queen Catherine to Erathia was Paul’s idea. My contribution was her arriving and seeing her father’s kingdom in ruin, and questing to restore it.
■ After talking with Paul Rattner, I created the overall conceptual plot for
HoMM3. Soon thereafter, I presented it to JVC. As Jon could have rejected it, his ‘approval’ was effectively ‘determining the general direction of the plot’.
► [What was the hero you spoke of having been introduced with the use of graphics from the intro cinematic for its portrait in the Designer Diary (
here is the corresponding part)?]
■ I honestly don’t recall. Catherine seems to be the only logical choice.
► During the development of
Heroes of Might and Magic III, was the target age rating a major factor in the process of content design? Did you and the rest of the team feel constrained by it?
■ No. Not in the least.
► How different would the game have been if there had not been a necessity to comply with the rating requirements?
■ I doubt much would have changed. Perhaps some blood effects on the Battlefield. There was no real motivation to make the game ‘more adult’. All of NWC’s games, well before the rating system was created, were relatively tame compared other games at the time.
► Was there something that the design team had to abandon in order to conform to the age rating?
■ No.
► I may note, it seems to me quite surprising that the game was able to get ‘Everyone’ rating (
Might and Magic VI and
VII had the rating ‘Teen’).
■ Do not be too surprised. The ESRB is a flawed system, fashioned and implemented by a flawed organization, run by flawed people. It’s a CYA operation created to avoid direct government regulation.
► Was there some kind of universe guide (universe bible) used to maintain consistency during the development of the game? If there was not, how was the consistency maintained?
■ Universe guide? Not really. Each game as relatively isolated to itself. If there was any continuity to be maintained (i.e.
HoMM3 to
MM7), we had Paul Rattner, myself, design documentation, and the games themselves. Why did
HoMM4 take place on a ‘new world’? To avoid continuity issues.
► In the [Newsletter #12, August 2021] you mentioned a document you wrote with suggestions for the
Heroes of Might and Magic III. If you still have this document, is there a possibility of divulging it in some form? That would certainly be very interesting from the historical perspective.
■ I’m assuming you are referring to the ‘brainstorming’ document I wrote for my interview with JVC. I have no idea what happened to this document. While most of what I wrote was creative, it was not ultimately ‘in the spirit of
HoMM’. So, I discarded it.
► Was there a moment in the development process when the crystals had blue colour? Why was it decided to change their colour to blue and then back to red?
■ At one point, yes, Scott and I played around with the idea of the Crystal being blue, as to distinguish
HoMM3 from
HoMM2. In the end, we agreed it was more important to maintain consistency, and reverted to red.
► 5 out of 8 factions in the base game have designations that are more or less synonymous to each other (Castle, Rampart, Tower, Stronghold, Fortress). Is there an explanation for such a choice of words for them?
■ Originally,
HoMM2 did not have formal ‘factions’. Instead, a player had ‘heroes’ and their associated ‘towns’; Knight Town, Warlock Town, Necromancer Town, etc. As I was trying to maintain some continuity with
HoMM2, I tried to name the ‘towns’ using Castle-like synonyms. Thus, the Knight had a Castle, the Wizard a Tower, the Necromancer a Necropolis, etc. In hindsight, I should have pushed for a clean break and simply made factions, as I am doing with
Fanstratics.
► Shortly before the
Heroes of Might and Magic III’s release, Christian Vanover said the following on the official message board:
Well, here is an example of the cheat codes we were using for Heroes III:
Since JVC drives a Viper, the cheat for unlimited movement was VIPER.
Because of the movie, you could give yourself 5 archangels by typing MICHAEL.
You could also automatically win by typing HAPPYDANCE.
And so on, and so on. Anyway, as I mentioned in an earlier post, last week we removed all the cheat codes :(
The quote can be seen
here (February 16, 1999 entry).
This statement, in the light of the story you told of how cheat codes in
Heroes of Might and Magic III came to be, looks rather confusing, as it seems to contradict what you said on the subject. Do you know where Christian Vanover’s statement may have come from?
■ I don’t recall seeing this post, but I rarely had time to read Christian’s work on the official message board. As for the mentioned cheat codes, I only vaguely remember, but I suspect the codes VIPER, MICHAEL, and HAPPYDANCE were temporary codes. They were more than likely created by John Bolton, while he waited for me to deliver the ‘official’ codes referencing Monty Python and the Holy Grail. In the post, when Chris says ‘we removed all the cheat codes’, I suspect he was referring to the specific removal of all temporary codes, not ‘all cheat codes’ in general. I hope this makes sense.
[Greg Fulton’s comments on the article about the genesis of
Heroes of Might and Magic series by Digital Antiquarian.
Link to the article.]
■ - Most of the article’s background information was new to me.
- While I knew
King’s Bounty was heavily influenced by ‘Titan’, I did not know it was also influenced by ‘Bounty Hunter’.
- I vaguely recall one small conversation about NWC’s attempt to make ‘pencil and paper’ games, and how it was a miserable failure.
- One thing the article misses is the clear influence of
Civilization (1991) on
HoMM1 (1995). I believe the huge success of
Civilization pushed JVC to dump the approach of a singular ‘bounty hunting’ hero, and embrace the ‘world war’ mechanics portrayed in
Civilization.
► In
Heroes of Might and Magic III ogre magi possess an ability of casting bloodlust, although in
D&D they have no such or any comparable magic ability among their special abilities. At the same time in
Warcraft II ogre-magi have an identically named ability, which makes this coincidence peculiar. Were both cases based on some common source? Where did the ability to cast bloodlust come from if it is not in
D&D?
■ In
HoMM3, I gave the Ogre Magi the ability to cast Bloodlust, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Ogres and Bloodlust already existed in
HoMM2. Secondly, pairing the existing Bloodlust spell with the existing Ogre troops was a clear acknowledgement of my admiration for
WC2. Thirdly, because
WC2 was very popular, it was redefining various fantasy stereotypes. As I believed embracing popular fantasy stereotypes was an important aspect of
HoMM3, in this case, I designated the
HoMM3 Ogres could be magi, and Ogre Magi could cast Bloodlust... just like
WC2. […]
► So, that is the reason why orcs in
Heroes of Might and Magic III became green?
■ Yes. This was the specific reason I wanted the orcs to be green. Originally, NWC made their orcs
orange. I suspect this coloration was indirectly derived from
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977), where orcs were basically
pig-men. While pigs are essentially pink and white, orcs are supposed to be savage warriors, so this color scheme doesn’t make a lot of sense. So, in the end, I believe the artistic compromise was to make them orange.
► Do [Ogre Magi] possess also other magical abilities of their
D&D specification, even if they are not represented mechanically in the game?
■ Ogre Mages in
HoMM3 do not possess any other magical abilities.
► How important conformance to
D&D specifications was considered, in relation to races, classes, cosmology, workings of magic. Were content creators, especially those involved in writing, instructed to follow these specifications where they did not contradict previously established facts?
■ No. No specific instructions were ever given, at least, not by myself.
