Tin Star testing

We’ve already got Irish.

As I’ve said before, this era is not my forte, so I honestly do not know what ethnics could appear in the game. But if you need help with Latin backgrounds, I can help.

Chinese is good, Native is good, Mexican/Spanish probably good, British…not so Sure.

Allen, can you send it again, I don’t think I Got it.

Let’s see; the Chinese were certainly in California, as were those of Mexican/Spanish descent. There were also a few Pacific Islanders apparently, owing to the whaling trade. Indians… lots of different tribes out west. Washoe, Shoshone, Navajo, Blackfeet, etc…

The Shoshone Indians, in particular, had contacts with French trappers, mountain men of all sorts, Spanish Missionaries and so on. There were plenty of inter-marriages as well, including with the Mormons.

It comes down to what would make for an interesting story. Chinese (Or Celestial as they were called back then) would give a change of perspective. Same with Indian ancestry. Mexican roots would put a more subtle turn on things. Irish wouldn’t seem to contribute much that isn’t covered generally as the anti-Irish bias isn’t as prevalent on the West Coast at this time. Same with the British, excepting perhaps a bit of proper English that I really don’t want to duplicate code for.

Has anyone played a game, preferably a western, that does in fact develop themes based on ancestry?

No

Chinese background would be intersting, especially when combined with the lawyer background in the beginning.
I’d also play the native American background, but only if you’re in fact mixed race in that case so I can choose in the game whether to embrace, reject or find some sort of middle ground when it comes to understanding/embracing the native tribal culture.
I don’t know if I’d find Spanish/Mexican heritage background worth a separate playthrough if the differences are only very minor, but I guess that would all depend on how you choose to write and implement these things.

Good notions there Idonotlikeusernames. On my list to edit in are the following character possibilities:

Chinese (for which I could use a good name or two)

Indian ancestry

Heartless (Which will activate certain dialogue options when you kill x number of named individuals).

It may be a while before I get to this, however, since I need to keep moving forward with the story. Chapter 3 has sprawled more than I wanted and there turned out to be portions that need serious work.

And don’t forget the “might actually be dead” chapter. :slight_smile:

And the “kill the entire city” option.

I Can Provide Chinese Names.

There will be all those options and more once I get the story hammered out.

Zed- If you’ve got a good Chinese name to suggest then by all means, lay on. If you happen to know if it is a common name, which province of China it may be associated with, and of course if it denotes male, female or either, that would be a big help as well. My sources for Chinese names are rather thin.

Given Names:


Surnames:

Thank you Zed. That is a good place to start.

Looking at the list; does anyone see a Chinese name that possesses personal resonance? I’d rather not leave the selection to random chance or preference.

After playing this once… I’ll definately be checking in (:

Whatdoya Mean, Personal Resonance? Just pick something that rhymes with Mu Tanchu (Cough Fu Cough Manchu Cough)

I usually choose names that have personal meaning for me. People I’ve met or read about, characters from fiction, etc. Unfortunately, while I have met those of Chinese ancestry, they had Americanized their names and Joey, Winnie and David just aren’t going to cut it for this particular usage.

Not to worry though, I’ll figure something out.

Here’s a list of common Chinese surnames: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames
Stick with the Pinyin transliterations.

Also, here are lists of given names:
http://www.20000-names.com/female_chinese_names.htm
http://www.20000-names.com/male_chinese_names.htm

Because the lists above are only romanizations and Chinese is a tonal language without an alphabet, it can lead to some confusion over names that are written the same when romanized, but sound and mean completely different things in Chinese. For example, “Ping” as a name could mean “apple”, “even”, or “duckweed”, and they’re all pronounced differently!

Also, I’m not sure what you mean by “resonance”, considering the fact that I’ve never come across any two people with the same Chinese name. For example, my Chinese name is Zhixi, which is supposedly unisex, but people still mistake me for a boy sometimes! I’ve come across one guy whose Chinese name ends in “xi”, but it’s a different “xi” from my “xi”.

I hope that wasn’t too confusing. Basically, there’s no real “resonance” in full Chinese names as they are separated into 3 units. Just follow the resources at 20000 names for your given name and the wikipedia pages for the surnames. Remember, the surname goes BEFORE the given name.

Also, most of the Chinese workers in the 1800s were from Guangdong in Southern China, and thus most didn’t speak Mandarin as their native tongue. Their names wouldn’t be pronounced the same as we write it in English. For example, my Chinese name is Zhixi, because that’s how you pronounce it in Mandarin. However, I’m also from Guangdong, so I personally pronounce it as tsi-hei.

Usurper…