A plea to increase the number of ethnicities

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by MUFC1878

The Onion? As in America's finest satirical news source The Onion?

It does demonstrate, through exaggeration, the difference in names though.

[BadluckinOOTP]

I'm still stuck on only enjoying modern MLB leagues that slowly shift into fictional, but I couldn't get a league going with any momentum this year because I was so unhappy with the name file. Questdog's is great, but unusable for the MLB quickstart that comes with the game. I was even circumventing the limit on Hispanic surnames, by editing all the international Free Agents and giving them more unique names.

Add in an awesome name file and I'm ready to rock on OOTP15.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Caporegime

It's not just the name files that are associated with this particular ethnicity that are problematic (they are), it's the broad brush that all Spanish-speaking nations in the world get treated with in the game that I'm primarily objecting to. Even Spain, which is obviously in Europe, will draw from this ethnicity 100% of the time, which makes no sense at all from an ethno-racial standpoint whatsoever.

You're still missing the point. It doesn't matter how ethnically or racially diverse a society is as long as the ethnic and racial groups all name their kids the same way. If "Jose Rodriguez" can be white, black, Indian, mestizo, or whatever, then there's no need for an additional name database (and ethnicities are handled by the ethnicities file).

That being said, I don't disagree with you: I think there should be additional name databases too. As I pointed out, FHM purportedly has more than 39 name databases. I'm not sure how the developers of FHM broke that barrier while OOTP can't, but it shows there's at least one possible way around the limit.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by MUFC1878

The Onion? As in America's finest satirical news source The Onion?

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Questdog

Questdog's Names for OOTP 14 adds African-American names to the mix.

But not in their own database. As I see it, you have three databases: 19th century, 1970, and current. African-Americans don't just have different first names, though, they have different last names too. Washington, for instance, is the "blackest" name in the US. That's not the case with whites. But in the modern names database (zero), Washington has a value of 375, while Smith has a value of 2425 and Johnson has a value of 1375. It's not enough, therefore, just to stick "Demarcus" or "Antwan" into the modern first names database, especially if it yields results like "Jamal Bernstein" or "Kwame MacGillicuddy." An African-American names database should have both first and last names.

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

But not in their own database. As I see it, you have three databases: 19th century, 1970, and current. African-Americans don't just have different first names, though, they have different last names too. Washington, for instance, is the "blackest" name in the US. That's not the case with whites. But in the modern names database (zero), Washington has a value of 375, while Smith has a value of 2425 and Johnson has a value of 1375. It's not enough, therefore, just to stick "Demarcus" or "Antwan" into the modern first names database, especially if it yields results like "Jamal Bernstein" or "Kwame MacGillicuddy." An African-American names database should have both first and last names.

In Questdog's Names, the African-Americans get first AND last names for themselves......

[shawa666]

And the french names file needs to be split in European French and French-Canadian.

[Caporegime]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

You're still missing the point. It doesn't matter how ethnically or racially diverse a society is as long as the ethnic and racial groups all name their kids the same way. If "Jose Rodriguez" can be white, black, Indian, mestizo, or whatever, then there's no need for an additional name database (and ethnicities are handled by the ethnicities file).

That being said, I don't disagree with you: I think there should be additional name databases too. As I pointed out, FHM purportedly has more than 39 name databases. I'm not sure how the developers of FHM broke that barrier while OOTP can't, but it shows there's at least one possible way around the limit.

No, actually you've missed mine...again. You keep obsessing over the name files exclusively when I've mentioned in nearly every single post that it is the ethnicities file that the name files are affixed to that is the primary focus of my request. The name files are only part of it.

Once again, it is the all-in-one approach of the "Hispanic" ethnicity that I'd like to see changed. Let me try and break it down this way. Here's the "Hispanic" ethnicity from the ethnicities file.

1,Hispanic,(african)300,(asian)0,(east indian)0,(caucasian)50,(hispanic)650,

Every Spanish-speaking country in the game draws from this in the game either exclusively or primarily. The "hispanic" ethnicity (given a weight of 650) is just as likely to generate a black face, white, or mixed race face. It's not nearly precise enough for the reasons I listed above, and for primarily monoracial nations like Spain & Argentina to draw from this ethnicity is patently ridiculous.

So, again, this is not just about the number of "Jose Rodriguez's" living in Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Peru, etc., etc., it's about the game treating all of these very diverse & different nations as a single cultural & ethno-racial entity.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Caporegime

So, again, this is not just about the number of "Jose Rodriguez's" living in Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Peru, etc., etc., it's about the game treating all of these very diverse & different nations as a single cultural & ethno-racial entity.

I apologize - I clearly missed your point. You're right that the ethnicities file paints too broad a brush for many nations. That problem, however, can be solved more easily than the name databases. For instance, change the Hispanic ethnicity to 100% Hispanic, then change one of the unused ethnicities to "Afro-Caribbean" or something like that, making it 100% African. Then copy and paste the Hispanic names (name database 1) over the unused name database and change the ethnicities of the Hispanic countries in the world_default.xml file to reflect the ratios between Hispanics and blacks in each country. You'll have a realistic breakdown of races while maintaining Hispanic names for everyone.

Of course, the problem with the limits on ethnicity and the name files are interrelated - there's one name database for every ethnicity. Ideally, these would be customized for every country and every ethnicity.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by shawa666

And the french names file needs to be split in European French and French-Canadian.

They already are. It's just that the French-Canadian name database (33) got lost in the shuffle somewhere around version 12. You can still use the French-Canadian database, you just need to make some edits in the world_default.xml file.

[Caporegime]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

I apologize - I clearly missed your point. You're right that the ethnicities file paints too broad a brush for many nations. That problem, however, can be solved more easily than the name databases. For instance, change the Hispanic ethnicity to 100% Hispanic, then change one of the unused ethnicities to "Afro-Caribbean" or something like that, making it 100% African. Then copy and paste the Hispanic names (name database 1) over the unused name database and change the ethnicities of the Hispanic countries in the world_default.xml file to reflect the ratios between Hispanics and blacks in each country. You'll have a realistic breakdown of races while maintaining Hispanic names for everyone.

Of course, the problem with the limits on ethnicity and the name files are interrelated - there's one name database for every ethnicity. Ideally, these would be customized for every country and every ethnicity.

Yeah, no biggie. And yeah, like you (great tip, BTW) I edit the heck out of the ethnicities/world_default file(s), replacing ethnicities as desired. The problem with that, as you astutely noted, is that every ethnicity is shackled to one name database, and even overwriting an existing ethnicity with another will not entirely remove all references to it in the game.

For example: If you were to replace every reference to "Swedish" with "Cuban" in the world_default file, Swedish will still be listed as the name of the ethnicity when you go to "Explore World" & select nation editor/language name origin. If there is any way to entirely eliminate all references to an existing ethnicity in the game I'm unaware of it.

[Caporegime]

Yeah, I know it's bad form bumping a thread this old, but so is repeating one's self over and over again. Besides, I have nothing to add to this ancient request, save for the fact that I still emphatically believe that this would improve the game for all the same reasons I stated above.

Having a singular "Hispanic" ethnicity to blanket a geographic region as large and diverse as Latin America, or even worse, an "African" ethnicity, that encompasses the whole of Sub-Saharan African shows a fundamental lack of understanding of both regions and their staggeringly diverse populations. Just compare the demographics of Cuba to Mexico or Argentina sometime if you doubt that, or even more startling, that of Nigeria to Congo and Zimbabwe.

Again, I know the this stuff can be easily edited, but when one thing gets added in this case, another gets subtracted. I think we can all agree that it's better to have more precision, not less, when it comes to something like this.

[jpeters1734]

thanks for bumping! This has long bothered me. Questdog's mod is great but, like others state, it's not ideal for mlb games and it can lead to glitches if you dont know what you're doing. An improved name file should come from the developer

[Questdog]

Originally Posted by jpeters1734

thanks for bumping! This has long bothered me. Questdog's mod is great but, like others state, it's not ideal for mlb games and it can lead to glitches if you dont know what you're doing. An improved name file should come from the developer

In OOTP 17 it will work in MLB games. The bug that prevented it before has been reported to be fixed.