Hobbit League

[Malleus Dei]

Didn't that orc once play left field for the Indians?

[Rocky2367]

thats awesome how you put the hobbit names on the game. Is there a quick way to explain how I can do that as well? Thanks a lot.

[Solonor]

I do it player-by-player in the game editor these days, but when we first started up the league, I exported all the players to a CSV file, brought them all into a spreadhsheet, copied over their names with ones generated from various Tolkien name generators, and reimported them back into the game.

[Bobble]

Originally Posted by Rocky2367

thats awesome how you put the hobbit names on the game. Is there a quick way to explain how I can do that as well? Thanks a lot.

You can do it like Solonor says in the post above but I've generated a set of name.dat files for hobbit names. Trouble is that Tolkien only told us about relatively few (in OOTP terms) hobbit names. You need about 2000+ unique last names in a larger league so you don't get too many repeats, especially over time. I've had to make up as many as I've found and it's really barely enough.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Are they going to be able to sign any free agent Balrogs?

[Bonedwarf]

This is awesome! I hope you'll share some of your work after you're done. I would love to do a fantasy league like this, but lack the time and patience to do it. (Damn real life. Damn it to hell.)

[SandMan]

Another way of doing this would be to use the originator to change regular player names to the hobbit names and locations. Using the name generators on line I would say that you can probably have over 300-400 different surnames.

[Solonor]

It helps that we don't limit ours to Hobbits (or Tolkien, truth be told).

I need to look into the whole name.dat thingy. It sure would be nice if the game generated rookies with our type of names, so I don't have to rename them by hand. (I know there's instructions out there. I've just been too lazy to seek them out or try them.)

[Solonor]

OK, before Sandman starts on his originator crusade ...

I am going to look into using originator, but I guess I need to come up with a fantasy origins data file set, first. Looks simple enough, I guess. I'll give it a shot.

[Bobble]

Originally Posted by SandMan

Another way of doing this would be to use the originator to change regular player names to the hobbit names and locations. Using the name generators on line I would say that you can probably have over 300-400 different surnames.

Yeah, those first couple hundred aren't too hard to get but it's a bear trying to come up with the next 1800+.

I haven't used the originator. I just go right into the .csv file and hack around there. I don't think the originator is going to give me access to the player heights. After all, even Bullroarer Took was only 4'5"....

[SandMan]

Originally Posted by Bobble

Yeah, those first couple hundred aren't too hard to get but it's a bear trying to come up with the next 1800+.

I haven't used the originator. I just go right into the .csv file and hack around there. I don't think the originator is going to give me access to the player heights. After all, even Bullroarer Took was only 4'5"....

to do the heights why not just do a simple find and replace in notepad- finding one height and replacing with your option - or another option would be to have a excel spread sheet with a random foot and random inch column then just concatenate the two columns and paste in the players_general csv file. Remember to change to m-d custom format though before you import.

These options seem difficult but will save you A LOT of time...

[Bobble]

I'll have to see if I can be more efficient but what I did was convert the current player's height to inches, subtract 33, then convert back (and reformat). A 6'10" ex-Human would be a 4'1" hobbit.

[Bobble]

I'm still sorta stuck on a few points and I'm looking for some ideas. I've kinda decided that right now teams won't have mascot names. It will just be Hobbiton versus Oatbarton not the Hobbiton SmokeRings versus the Oatbarton Fireworks. That's more or less so I can get used to the teams without trying to remember was that the Dim Hills Smaugs or did I name Tower Hills the Smaugs.

But that means I'm kinda stuck for logo ideas. So far, I've gone with a very retro single letter deal (Detroit's Old english D kind of thing). But I think that could get old pretty quick. Any other suggestions?

[Bobble]

Of course, there are a few that are somewhat obvious:

[SandMan]

one simple way of getting a names list is to go to the Hobbit names generators on the net. Instead of putting your name into the form do the folllowing.

1. Using lahmans get a list of player first names.
2. Get a list of last names from lahmans

on the form for the hobbit name gnerator enter the first lastname and then the first first name. Just save the hobbit first name to a text file, enter the next lahman first name, not changing the last name and do this through your list of first names. This will give you a ton of first names. Then just do the opposite. Keep the firstname in the form and just go through all the last names. Keep the text for the last name and the location. I think that this will produce a lot of names. I spent about an hour just entering text into the name generator and I got 93 random last names and 87 random first names and 54 locations. So if someone was dedicated to this, they probably could come up with a good list of names and locations in about 20 hours.....

And about the originator...oh, forget it - I'll save this for another thread

[Bobble]

Interesting idea. For one of the generators that worked on the first and last character of the name provided, I just put in aa, ab, ac, etc. For one of the others that worked a different way, I put in abcd, bcde, dcef, etc. But......

Those random generators don't typically generate, they just pick from a list. You'll see lots of repeats if you keep at it. That list generally contains all the names you would have already gotten from Tolkein himself (Took, Brandybuck, Proudfoot, etc.). So once you get your 93, you're not really getting too many more new ones from it. Then when you go to the next name generator, it repeats all the usual suspects again(Bracegirdle, Cotton, etc.).

I have seen a first name generator that cooked up "new" names based on common hobbit syllables or word parts ("Fro" + "wise"). But alas and alackaday, nothing like that for surnames. So I just went ahead and did a lot of that myself for both firsts and lasts. The aforementioned Bandson Widehollow comes from names generated in that fashion (meaning you won't find "Bandson" nor "Widehollow" in Tolkien).

I certainly appreciate the help though, SandMan (a fine hobbit name if I do say so myself). If you come up with anything else, let me know.

[Bobble]

You know, sometimes it's like OOTP has a mind of it's own. I'm currently going throught the initial draft for my hobbit league and it seems like very few hobbit players were blessed with speed. Does DIPS account for leg length and foot size/hairiness?