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[YooperLaw]

After playing through Mass Effect 3 twice and listening to some of the conversations I've started thinking about a staple of (recent?) Bioware games. I only got into Bioware with KotoR and then the Mass Effect franchise (and later Dragon Age) so I don't know if previous titles used this system, but the key thing that, for some reason, keeps popping up in my mind recently is Bioware's use of the surname or title to address the player character.

In Mass Effect it's "Commander" or "Shepard", in Dragon Age: Origins it's "Warden", and in Dragon Age II it's "Hawke" or "Champion". Lore-wise it makes a lot of sense in most situations but after a while, particularly with companions/henchmen, it seems odd that they keep addressing you by your last name or title. These are people who know you very well and for them to use your title or last name seems a bit out of place at times.

Obviously this is due to game development limitations but I'm curious if people are so attached to naming their player character in Bioware games that they would care if Bioware picked a first name for you that could be used in conversations. I guess how much a person cares would largely depend on how much you roleplay your character but for me personally the first name is pretty much just a way to identify save files/careers (i.e. Jane Shepard I know is my Infiltrator in Mass Effect).

I'm just curious as to what other people would think about Bioware assigning a first name to the player character. This would allow more meaningful (and varied) conversations I would think but I can see how some people wouldn't like that bit of control taken away from them. As I said, I personally wouldn't care if they took that choice away from me but I could see how others would.

Alternatively, would people be opposed to a system where say Bioware provides a list of about a half dozen first names for each gender and then the game uses one of the names you pick? They obviously couldn't do a ton of first names due to budget/development reasons, but a small number could be feasible I would think. The vast majority of NPCs would still use the player's surname and/or title, but in some conversations (mostly with companions I'd imagine) the first name could be used to give more impact or immersion while using a minimum (?) amount of development resources.

Since Dragon Age III seems to be the next big Bioware project I figured I'd share my thoughts in this forum. Anyone else have some thoughts on this matter?

[David Gaider]

I imagine that while, for some, giving the character a first name wouldn't be a big issue, for others it would be crossing yet another line towards set protaganist. How much that first name is actually used probably doesn't matter so much as the idea behind it. Whether choosing from a list would amerliorate that, I'm not sure. For those who prefer to pick their own name, probably not... and those are the people you'd be trying to appease by creating that list in the first place, no?

I don't know. I find it tougher, in a medieval setting, to justify calling someone by a last name-- titles are easier, when they exist, but with close friends or love interests it seems a bit awkward even then. Nicknames would work, but that's not really very different.

Thoughts on the topic are certainly welcome.