CCP Goliath
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Posted - 2014.10.22 14:08:52 -
[1] - Quote
I'm asking this only because I'm interested in words generally, and am likewise interested in the strong reaction to "blighted".
(Disclaimer: I have no skin in this name game, am not participating in the discussion that Paradox describes, I have no influence one way or the other over how items are named, and I don't feel strongly one way or the other about "blighted".)
Blight is a word used IRL mostly to describe plant disease, and secondarily as a general description for something that has been spoiled or damaged. What about it gives you such a strong "fantasy RPG" feeling? Is it the Undead Warcraft 3 sprawl thing?
CCP Goliath | QA Director | EVE Illuminati | @CCP_Goliath
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CCP Goliath
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C C P Alliance
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Posted - 2014.10.22 14:27:52 -
[2] - Quote
Adrie Atticus wrote:CCP Goliath wrote:I'm asking this only because I'm interested in words generally, and am likewise interested in the strong reaction to "blighted".
(Disclaimer: I have no skin in this name game, am not participating in the discussion that Paradox describes, I have no influence one way or the other over how items are named, and I don't feel strongly one way or the other about "blighted".)
Blight is a word used IRL mostly to describe plant disease, and secondarily as a general description for something that has been spoiled or damaged. What about it gives you such a strong "fantasy RPG" feeling? Is it the Undead Warcraft 3 sprawl thing?
It's the normal naming convention in fantasy literature and games, rarely used in sci-fi due to people usually connecting blight to plague, famine and disease. Even though many sci-fi writers (and tv series) drop the "Blight of the mankind" all the time, it's usually connected to loss, failure and death. It's not a bad word, just not really used in sci-fi, more in fantasy and high fantasy.
I think "Normal" might be the wrong word, but maybe "natural" might suit better? Doing some research I've dug up a few references to blight. We've got a location in The Wheel of Time series, a location in Worlds of the Imperium, some malfunctioning terraforming microbes, a T.E.S. disease, an alien race in DC comics, a Transformer, a baddy in seminal cartoon classic "Captain Planet" and of course the aforementioned WC3. This is around a 50/50 split to 75/25 split of fantasy/scifi, depending on your definitions of them both I guess. This leads me to draw the conclusion that it's a word that people think is cool, maybe even quite badass, despite its most common usage to be to describe bad potatoes 
CCP Goliath | QA Director | EVE Illuminati | @CCP_Goliath
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