More regen names!

[beefheart]

Hiya. I've been a big fan of the series since playing ICC 2 at my mate's house when I was very small and had no idea how cricket really worked and got tonked by an innings every game.

Anyway, I have a small complaint, or suggestion at least.

I completely understand the relatively slow pace of match engine / feature improvements for such a small development team, and I've never felt cheated paying full price for the game (which I have since 2007ish).

But one very small adjustment which could massively improve the suspension of disbelief/immersion which, excuse my ignorance if i'm wrong, would take very little effort is just a bigger pool of names for regens. It sounds so bloody petty but it does my head in seeing the same surnames year after year after year. I think on one game I had about 4 different players called "golley", and on 2017 i've already seen about 3 "seaman"s.

Sorry for the moan, I bloody love the game other than this silly issue. ta

[Maccy]

Same. I find some names tend to be better than others too. In '15 there was always a top drawer Chai that would appear and make it into the England set up. Maybe that was just a quirk for me and names aren't tied to skill, anyone know?

[Sureshot]

Names definitely not tied to skill.

We improved the New Zealand regen names this year with the help of a couple of testers/forum users.

I also went through the English names trying to remove some older names that, to me, just sounded a bit wrong. Also update WIndies regen name lists, given the addition of that system this year. We've also been repeating more common names (not Golley or the former Arsenal keeper's kids!) in the files more this year.

Do you find them better/worse in some countries than others? Sounds like you're both in England?

[Michael H]

A good job has been done with the new WI list, in my opinion. But SA and Zim regen names often come out a bit odd - mixing a black African forename with an Afrikaans surname, for example.

[Raver]

Thanks Michael. Graham and me took quite a bit of time researching those names.

[Sureshot]

A good job has been done with the new WI list, in my opinion. But SA and Zim regen names often come out a bit odd - mixing a black African forename with an Afrikaans surname, for example.

Yes, the names are randomised so you can get first and surname mixing up between backgrounds.

Going back to the OP, we have 830 surnames for English players on the list.

[GRAB]

Hi, as a South African, I just bought 2017 having last bought 2005... (Which I have played until 2070's as SA!) Being able to play as a South African team is mostly joyous, even if, as the Warriors (I'm a PE boy), we are predictably shocking... However, I made a custom surname database for South African surnames of about 500 names, which I introduced into ICC2K5 by editing the .lst file. In that version, international players got no first names, so I manually edited them in each season myself (and also for another teams' international players...) If you would like my help making an SA name generator, I'd gladly do it for the joy of an improved game experience. I'd say the best way is to divide names into the 8 biggest ethnic groups (by cricket players): Anglo, Afrikaans, Cape Coloured (some overlap with the first two in terms of names, but not total), Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, Sesotho, Indian. You could even generate per province. Cobras and Warriors - Anglo, Afrikaans, Cape Coloured, White (& Indian for Warriors). Dolphins - Anglo, Afrikaans, Zulu, Indian. Knights - Sesotho, Afrikaans. Lions - pretty much all I guess, except Coloured. Titans - Tswana, Sesotho (Sepedi actually, but pretty similar), Afrikaans; fewer Anglo and Indian (Moonsamy!)...