It's not about "realism", it's about suspension of disbelief. Those are two very different things and shouldn't be confused. It feels a lot more immersive if the names given to the fish are reflective of what the science community would call them outside of invoking latin. However people also have a point that most of these fish are brand new creatures, witnessed by the Degasi survivors and yourself for the first time. Thus I guess it comes down to whether the player character themselves are meant to be scientists who are capable of taking the longer view and aren't as likely to throw down generic descriptive names willy nilly.
Or y'know, you can have your cake and eat it too -- have two sets of names for everything, and make it sorta part of the narrative about a growing dissociation with the Alterra Corporation and its scientists. (or the culture you came from more generally) The PDA would insist on you using the proper names it came up with but you can refuse.
It's not about "realism", it's about suspension of disbelief. Those are two very different things and shouldn't be confused. It feels a lot more immersive if the names given to the fish are reflective of what the science community would call them outside of invoking latin. However people also have a point that most of these fish are brand new creatures, witnessed by the Degasi survivors and yourself for the first time. Thus I guess it comes down to whether the player character themselves are meant to be scientists who are capable of taking the longer view and aren't as likely to throw down generic descriptive names willy nilly.
Or y'know, you can have your cake and eat it too -- have two sets of names for everything, and make it sorta part of the narrative about a growing dissociation with the Alterra Corporation and its scientists. (or the culture you came from more generally) The PDA would insist on you using the proper names it came up with but you can refuse.
Put my thoughts into words better than I could, thank you.
Question: How do any of these totally alien species have identifiable names (to the character/player)?
There are no records of these creatures, so how'd they get named?
Solution: Get scientific. Place an emphasis on performing certain analyses and studies for each creature. As these tasks are completed, the data obtained auto fills the creatures biopic. As for naming the creature, leave the common name completely up to the player, but maybe have the AI help with the scientific name by creating a list of latin words players can choose from
Question: How do any of these totally alien species have identifiable names (to the character/player)?
There are no records of these creatures, so how'd they get named?
Solution: Get scientific. Place an emphasis on performing certain analyses and studies for each creature. As these tasks are completed, the data obtained auto fills the creatures biopic. As for naming the creature, leave the common name completely up to the player, but maybe have the AI help with the scientific name by creating a list of latin words players can choose from
I like the scientific analysis part, but having the player be able to name creatures seems like a useless feature. Also, scientific names are made from genus and family, not random latin words.
the PDA did boot up in emergency mode, so if the Degasi named them and left records on the animals for local PDAs. that would explain that, as one of the Degassi survivors was a scientist.
If what the developers said about wildlife having cysts on them, we could assume that they may not be genetically resilient to the disease, and can infer that they might not even be from the planet, but were on one of the crashed ships and escaped. Maybe they were already known about and named previously? This probably wouldn't work but it's an interesting theory.
Comments
Or y'know, you can have your cake and eat it too -- have two sets of names for everything, and make it sorta part of the narrative about a growing dissociation with the Alterra Corporation and its scientists. (or the culture you came from more generally) The PDA would insist on you using the proper names it came up with but you can refuse.
Put my thoughts into words better than I could, thank you.
There are no records of these creatures, so how'd they get named?
Solution: Get scientific. Place an emphasis on performing certain analyses and studies for each creature. As these tasks are completed, the data obtained auto fills the creatures biopic. As for naming the creature, leave the common name completely up to the player, but maybe have the AI help with the scientific name by creating a list of latin words players can choose from
I like the scientific analysis part, but having the player be able to name creatures seems like a useless feature. Also, scientific names are made from genus and family, not random latin words.