Naming Rights

Nova. Hollywood. Mittanigrad. System names with history. With meaning. Systems in EVE that you will never find on any map.

I’ve been sitting on this post for over two years, since February 2013. It was originally inspired by a tweet from Pandemic Legion to the effect that the only fun thing about taking sov was renaming the stations/outposts they were capturing. At the time, they were naming them for Game of Thrones spoilers.

I’ve been thinking off and on for two years trying to come up for a profound angle on this, but frankly it’s a pretty simple idea, and now that sov is under review, and there is an official named wormhole system (Thera), it’s time for this idea to come to the surface.

Simply put, given a very high bar of system ownership conditions, alliances should be able to rename a sovereign nullsec or wormhole system (of course these names can and should be subject to CCP’s naming rules). The default JXXXXXX wormhole and XXX-XX nullsec names are uninspiring and lend themselves to the vast undifferentiated frontier rather than to the very human drive to name and claim things that are theirs, populated and visible.

In the game this could potentially be done by having a “common name” attribute for the system that would differ from the “true” name of the system. This ties directly to a group’s need for ownership and symbolism of that ownership, which is a (good) goal presented by CCP for the new sov system. What better way to plant your flag and stake your claim than to name your new home?

On screen this could present as <CommonName> (<TrueName>), i.e. Mittanigrad (VFK-IV)

In the case of sovereign nullsec, this is a pretty simple proposition. Set a high bar for sovereignty level and length of time owned. Set a high bar for ongoing usage statistics that move the indices CCP is working on for sov. It is also a clear match or upgrade for the new “plant your flag” version of the TCU.

In the case of wormholes it is a bit tougher. When I originally wrote the post I thought that it would require moon-locking the entire system with POS for a similar time period, as well as a certain amount of site-running and kill activity. With the coming changes to structures, this is now a bit up for grabs but should be considered in CCP’s structure planning. Again, the TCU could address this without bringing weirdness to w-space if properly implemented (an item that does nothing but bring naming rights and a POS fuel bonus would be welcome).

And in the end, it would not be permanent. Humanity is built upon the ruins of past civilizations lost, with new names and new faces. If maintenance conditions passed, a slow timeout would begin – say, three months – and then the “common name” would reset and it would simply be its universal identifier once again, with only Dotlan’s record to tell the tale until the rise of the next overlord of the system.

I’ve lived in Hollywood for almost three years. Let us show it for all to see and know that this is no ordinary system they have stumbled upon.