More Name Variety in Existing League

[silverwolf]

I'm 10 seasons into an online league and am looking for more name variety. I've spent a while looking at all the great work done here by Questdog and others, and think I understand how all the name files work.

I don't really feel the need to mess with the world_default.xml, I just want to change the mix of first and last names for the American and Hispanic players.

Whenever I replace the names.txt file with any other version and re-import it using the Database function "Re-import Name and Ethnicity" database, then generate a draft class of less than 200 players, I always end up with many guys with the same first name - like 10 "Caleb" and 5 or more "Dave".

I tried another experiment, where I changed the Ethnicity 0 first name list to just 10 names, all with the same weight, like:

A.C.,20,0
A.J.,20,0
Aaron,20,0
Abe,20,0
Abel,20,0
Abner,20,0
Abraham,20,0
Abram,20,0
Ace,20,0
Bob,20,0

and left the rest of the file the same. Out of 192 players in a draft pool, I get about 36 named A.C., 36 named A.J., and 36 named Abe. None of the other 7 names are used at all. The rest of the pool seems to be coming from some other ethnicity, and the names are pretty random. How come the game doesn't pick from the 10, but only takes a few of them?

I've seen hints that importing a new name database really just doesn't work in some OOTP files, but wondering if anyone has any clues how to make this work.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by silverwolf

Out of 192 players in a draft pool, I get about 36 named A.C., 36 named A.J., and 36 named Abe. None of the other 7 names are used at all. The rest of the pool seems to be coming from some other ethnicity, and the names are pretty random. How come the game doesn't pick from the 10, but only takes a few of them?

I tried something similar and came up with some odd results as well. There are actually a couple of extra steps that you need to take in order to make the re-imported names databases "stick."

I first set the name and ethnicity values so that the game should have only created players from the US and from the "39-Historical US" nameset. Then I edited the "39" first-name database so that there were only ten first names - Abel, Ben, Charlie, Dave, Ed, Frank, George, Hank, Ignatz, and Jack. I then created 100 free agents. Sprinkled among the Abels and Bens were some guys named Martin, Ralph, and so on - names that certainly should not have been created. It was as if the game was still remembering some of the names from the default settings. So I quit the program, restarted it, and tried again. This time, the game created only players with the names that I had listed.

So apparently it is necessary to restart the game after re-importing the names databases. Otherwise, the game will still draw names from random namesets, regardless of your settings. In addition:

1. Make sure that the ethnicities values are set the way that you want them. For instance, if you want all of your players to come from the US and you want all of them to come from one nameset (e.g. the "0-Modern US" nameset), make sure those values are set in the nation editor (otherwise, they'll be set to the default values).
2. Make sure that international free agents are set to "none" in the "Fictional Player Settings" page.

[silverwolf]

Thanks for the suggestion. A few experiments had me hopeful that just importing the name+ethnicity file, exit, and re-start would be enough, but it's still not working quite like I expect.

With a small sample of US Modern first names and equal weight, 2/3 of a 192-player draft comes from that list, and it uses a few of the names but not an even amount. The other 1/3 of the names don't come from the list I specified at all. This is even when I set United States to use 100% US Modern names.

There's no doubt it did better when importing then exiting and re-starting, but there still seems to be some residual name information in the file.

Two questions:

1. Is it necessary to re-import world.xml when importing the names+ethnicity files?
2. What would setting International Free Agents to on or off have to do with the names in a 100% US draft pool?

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by silverwolf

1. Is it necessary to re-import world.xml when importing the names+ethnicity files?

Well, it shouldn't be, but then it shouldn't be necessary to restart the game after reimporting the names databases, so anything's possible.

Originally Posted by silverwolf

2. What would setting International Free Agents to on or off have to do with the names in a 100% US draft pool?

I'm not sure I understand. If you create players for a draft pool, they're created as free agents. So if you haven't set international free agents to "none," there's a chance you'll create some international free agents. Unless there's some other way of creating new players that you're using and that I'm unaware of.

[silverwolf]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

I'm not sure I understand. If you create players for a draft pool, they're created as free agents. So if you haven't set international free agents to "none," there's a chance you'll create some international free agents. Unless there's some other way of creating new players that you're using and that I'm unaware of.

The amateur draft class (without feeders) seems to have a different mix of countries. Since the league is based in the US, it's set to something like 93% US, 3.5% Puerto Rico, and 2.5% Canada. So with 93% US, I would expect to get everyone listed as from the US with first names from the US (Modern) list I added. Here's the screenshots I assume control the amateur draft pool:




But it just doesn't work, even with re-starting. 1/3 of the names still come from some other list, I have no idea which one. Even if there are *some* international guys, it shouldn't be 1/3 of first names from a mystery list.

Any suggestions on how to get the devs to see this and maybe really fix it for OOTP17? File a regular support ticket?

[joefromchicago]

Silverwolf: Apparently, this is a known bug. The developers are aware of it, so there's a chance it'll be fixed in the next version of the game. Thanks for highlighting it.