Donmai

rename avatar_* -> player_character_*

Posted under Tags

nonamethanks

BUR #22762 has been approved by @nonamethanks.

Show

For some reason all these tags are called avatar despite nobody in the history of videogames outside of marketing teams having ever called their character "avatar".

Only untouched ones are avatar (sonic forces), avatar (eco) and avatar (holoearth) because they appear to be the actual names (I'm blaming vtubers for this mess).

I tried my best to find the right name for each of these but most don't have a specific name, so it needs a double check.

Reply
winterless CasualStan Red Terror LQ Mexiguy wispydreamer Cinnamon Toast sabisabi Asht avidbookreader Unbreakable Login to view Astolfo John Hopfield zetsubousensei
xcv450

Remove the Granblue one. Avatar is the actual name of a Primal Beast you fight against, which is the one on the tag.
For the actual player character/avatar of Granblue, see Gran and Djeeta, who already gor their own tags.

Reply
GreyOmega

Player character is a poor name choice, as a player character is literally any character a player controls. Avatar is much more reflective of a character that is a player-made player character.

Reply
nonamethanks

xcv450 said:

Remove the Granblue one. Avatar is the actual name of a Primal Beast you fight against, which is the one on the tag.
For the actual player character/avatar of Granblue, see Gran and Djeeta, who already gor their own tags.

Fixed.

GreyOmega4K said:

Player character is a poor name choice, as a player character is literally any character a player controls. Avatar is much more reflective of a character that is a player-made player character.

The problem is that some of these are never ever called avatar by their communities. I don't think I've ever seen anyone refer to the WoW PC as "avatar". A bigger problem is that they're often ambiguous due to the plethora of mobs and bosses called "avatar" in MMOs (see above).

Reply
sabisabi

In the Sonic fandom, the avatar is known as either Rookie or Gadget (specifically for the promo art red wolf guy).
Can't remember if I've ever heard a fan refer to him as "Avatar", but that's what the wiki calls 'em and so does the game. I would personally keep it as is because I don't think anyone would be able to tell what the hell a "playable character (sonic forces)" tag refers to.
https://sonic.fandom.com/wiki/Avatar

Reply
Damian0358

nonamethanks said:

For some reason all these tags are called avatar despite nobody in the history of videogames outside of marketing teams having ever called their character "avatar".

Only untouched ones are avatar (sonic forces), avatar (eco) and avatar (holoearth) because they appear to be the actual names (I'm blaming vtubers for this mess).

The reason why it's 'avatar' as opposed to 'player character' is to, on principle, take into consideration a range wider than just player-made characters. The main reason the avatar tags began popping up on masse is as a reaction to the previous trend of having MMO race tags as character tags (topic #19866), and just from the art itself you can't tell if the, say, Miqo'te or the Night Elf depicted is someone's player character or just fanart depicting some rando member of said race, so having a more neutral term, even if it is one that, while used for PCs, is used largely by marketing teams, is better in my eyes.

Of course, as I said back then, whether or not those tags should be called that is something that can be debated, like it is here, but that was the starting principle at least.

Reply
nonamethanks

Damian0358 said:
having a more neutral term, even if it is one that, while used for PCs, is used largely by marketing teams, is better in my eyes.

The problem with "avatar", as I said earlier, is that it's often used for mobs as well. First thing I get when googling mabinogi + avatar is this thing. For Lineage 2 google gives me this action. For Guild Wars there's NPCs with the same name. It's a terrible name for player characters.

Reply
LQ

BUR #24047 has been approved by @nonamethanks.

rename player_character_(guild_wars) -> player_character_(guild_wars_1)

Following up from topic #26496 to remove ambiguity with guild wars 1 and guild wars (series)

while this BUR was pending I separated the gw player character tag (not common across the series) into this tag and guild wars 2's entirely distinct player character pact commander (guild wars 2)

I'd move it manually but there's one post from a banned artist that I can't easily deal with

Updated

Reply
LQ avidbookreader John Hopfield Red Terror Login to view
c spl

Should Tarnished (Elden Ring) specify it's the player character in a qualifier?

"Tarnished" in the game actually also refers to a general set of NPCs: See here (fandom wiki)

I doubt it has confused anyone yet but I can see someone possibly incorrectly placing the tag on some NPCs like Roderika since they fall under this "Tarnished" classification. despite not actually being the Player Character. (some dialogue even indirectly refers to her and others as "Tarnished" now and then iirc)

even the fandom wiki has a qualifer to clarify it's the player character

Reply
gfz

c_spl said:

Should Tarnished (Elden Ring) specify it's the player character in a qualifier?

"Tarnished" in the game actually also refers to a general set of NPCs: See here (fandom wiki)

I doubt it has confused anyone yet but I can see someone possibly incorrectly placing the tag on some NPCs like Roderika since they fall under this "Tarnished" classification. despite not actually being the Player Character. (some dialogue even indirectly refers to her and others as "Tarnished" now and then iirc)

even the fandom wiki has a qualifer to clarify it's the player character

In the game, only the player character is addressed as Tarnished, other tarnished characters are referred to by their names, so I don't think it needs to be qualified. The elden ring wikis need to qualify it because they're making a distinction between the character and the group. In our case, we have the "character:" prefix which does the same thing.

Reply
1