Community Feedback Request for New Tier Titles -- (Dev)

I believe the "Royal" prefix works well for the lower tiers. For the upper tiers, I would give the new backers the current titles and rename the titles for the KS backers as follows:

TIER KS Campaign New Backer

Developer Royal Adviser Tinkerer
Citizen First Citizen Citizen
Edelmann Royal Edelmann/Edelfrau Edelmann/Edelfrau
Knight Baronet Knight/Dame
Lord Viscount/Viscountess Lord
Baron2 Count/Countess Baron
Duke Marquess Duke
Lord of the
Manor Grand Duke Archduke

 

+2 on the Edelmann to English, It creates a faulty parallelism of sorts.

 

You could also have the option to add a symbol or use colored text to show a difference.

Examples: Crown symbol in front of Lord of the Manor.
Sword and Shield symbol in front of knight
Paintbrush in front of Artisan

 

For those of you unaware Knight+ do get the titles knight and either sir or dame.

So you either need a different title for for the sir part.. such as Field Marshal Sir Mishri Thandilis Orc Slayer.
or one that will work with both. Knight Field Marshal Mishri, Knight commander Mishri, Commander Sir Mishri... etc.

(achievements unlock slayer and other name suffix) so you might want to keep that in mind with suggestions.

 

Marquis, near the top, but not at the top.
High Protector could be on Knight level.
While we are at it, Paladin of could also be used.

 

@Sir Mishri : yea the suffix might be needed for achievements.

Then I'd say either a symbol in front of the title or differing color text per tier. Dark Purple for Lord of the Manor, maybe Blue for Knight, Orange for the Dukes, etc.

Just throwing some other options out there.

 

I think it's an excellent idea to give Kickstarter backers the option of a slightly more 'esteemed' version of their title. Royal sounds good and I'd be happy with that. I don't like 'High' because 'High Knight' just sounds silly.

One thing I would say though is that whatever you choose, EVERY pledge tier should get an alternate title not just the lower ones. If you're going to do something, do it all over. I think my favourite is 'First' out of the ones I've heard so far as it is an obvious nod to early pledging and sounds like a rather impressive prefix without being too snooty.

First Lord, First Knight, First Citizen, First Pioneer etc etc...sounds good to me! But I'll be happy with anything you decide AS LONG AS every tier title gets something.

 

We really need our UK friends to weigh in on this, since they have an established honours system we can borrow from.

Personally, I only wish to comment on Knight, since that's where I'm at. I don't wish to be labeled a Templar or a Paladin. The could invent an order or orders appropriate to the story, equivalent to Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Thistle, Knight Bachelor. Or they could use existing ranks like Knight Grand Cross, Knight Commander, Officer, Member, etc...

Knight Commander for Kickstarter and Knight Bachelor for new backers, perhaps?

Something along those lines.

 

Personally I don't like the "Royal" prefixes but that's just me.

To give better feed back on this, I'd like to know how titles will work in game. I don't know that it's been shown yet. Are we talking prefix or suffix titles? Are we talking something completely separate from the name?

Examples of what I mean:

Separate of name would be something like:

John Doe
Knight

Prefix of name:

Knight John Doe

Suffix of name:

John Doe, Knight

Knowing how they will actually work in game will help in determining what might sound good and what might not.

Examples:

Royal Citizen John

vs.

John, Royal Citizen

More complete formal titles:

Sir John Doe, Knight of Brittany (where the home is)
Lord John Doe of Brittany

Of course the above are long and would not likely look good in game, which is also why things like "Royal Whatever" might be too long.

But if it's going to be a prefix for Kickstarters, and that's the feedback you truly want, then I think First is a great way to do it.

 

For a couple of reasons, I'd like to just open the idea that it's not strictly linear.

1) In the old AD&D books, you had a title associated with your level. So as you levels up as say a mage, you'd get a more cool mage sounding title. So perhaps rather than just nobility titles, people would be enticed by a set of titles that made sense for classes/professions.

2) It would be nice when people pledged to give them some kind of non-binding vote on what sort of stretch goals they'd like unlocked. Was the huge KS push at the end because people really wanted the 2m PvP goals? Or was that just a coincidence. We don't know for sure.

 

For Knight, as per my previous thread, I think that Sir or Dame make a great deal more sense than the word Knight. One Forum participant says in this thread and in the other that Sir and Dame are already slated to be options for the Knight title. But I cannot find any other reference to this in back messages from anyone else or conferences. If it is true (and I hope it is) I suggest that the tier level explanations be updated to officially include this info. Thanks!

 

Elder Lord / Lady

 

tl;dr: at the bottom. :-/

Sir Maximusas: I like this list. I'm going to post what wiki has of the British noble titles, which is pretty close to what I've posted before and what Maximusas has here.

Gunga din: I also second this idea, mostly because I also suggested it in an earlier post. :-D Real heraldic titles are associated with plots of land in British nobility such as the Duke of Cambridge etc, could be tricky in SOTA though.

The easiest fix would be to simple have (e.g.) "Order of the Dragon" as the suffix.

One "problem" with noble titles is that some are strictly Royal (by bloodline / marriage) while others can be granted to non-royals. In the following list, everything from Prince upward is Royal (Archduke I'm not 100% sure since I can't recall a British example of it). Also note that it is a slight simplification of wikipedia:

King / Queen, Grand Duke / Duchess, Grand Prince, Archduke, Duke, Prince, Marquess / Marquis
Margrave, Count / Earl, Viscount, Baron, Lord of Parliament, Baronet, Knight / Dame, Lord.


If we ignore the royalty tradition for Duke titles (I wish to avoid King / Prince, they are too royal imo -- i.e of RG's actual family) then I propose the following, I'm also taking the liberty to rework the ranks in a way that I think is more logical (imo). I'm also assuming that pledge level provides a greater rank than whether you are KS or not (that is implicit from the link).

First I'll rework the old titles (from KS) then post the newer titles, then to be explicit I'll put them together in order or precedence.

Old title - becomes -> New title

KS LOTM -> Grand Duke
KS Duke -> Duke (doesn't need to change, see new titles below)
KS High Baron -> Earl
KS Baron -> Count
KS Lord -> High Baron
KS Knight -> Knight Commander
KS Citizen -> Noble Citizen

As the first decider of rank is pledge amount then whether you are KS or not, I only refer to LOTM (etc) here in order to denote the dollar amount of the pledge.

post-KS Ranks:
p-KS "LOTM" -> Archduke ($10k or whatever the new amount is)
p-KS "Duke" -> Marquis ($5k)
p-KS "Baron" -> Viscount ($3k, assuming no 3.5k level)
p-KS "Lord" -> Baron ($1.5k)
p-KS "Knight -> Lord

p-KS Citizen -> Citizen


tl;dr:

___Altogether___:
Grand Duke / Archduke (10k)
Duke / Marquis (5k)
Earl / ---- (3.5k, a KS only level imo, and notice it puts Count / Viscount in _logical_ order too)
Count / Viscount ($3k)
High Baron / Baron ($1.5k)
High Lord / Lord($750)
Knight / --- ($550 -- previously Edelman, not really a KS level? - otherwise use Knight Commander / Knight)
Noble Citizen / Citizen ($500)


I think that does a good job of iron out the inconsistencies and provides a logical order for KS and post-KS titles.

 

I like the Royal for Citizen and below.


For Knight I like the Celtic style: Knight of ______ (Let ____ be named)

or

Knight Grand Commander was another used in real times (level above Knight Commander).



LordG

 

@Thoth - one of them said in a chat that all three titles would be available - Knight (because they had already stated it) and Sir/Dame. Agreed, the list should be updated to show that.

 

http://image.gamespotcdn.net/gamespot/images/2010/278/reviews/960613_20101006_screen010.jpg

You see in this image that shield in front of the player's name? Same principle but instead of a shield you could put a different icon depending on the title.

So a Crown for Lord of the manor , Shield for knight, Open Book for Curator. Something like that.

 

Either way - for Knight there should be Sir/Dame AND Knight _________.


LordG

 

During one of the dev chats about the overarching story, Tracy and Richard spoke about how players in the game are essentially ?not of the world?, and how many NPCs are cognizant of this, and in some cases down-right suspicious.

I think there needs to be a bridge between the practicality of recognizing generous donors and supporting a rich story. In other words, if ?tier titles? are to be used in-game, I think that there should also be a backstory that supports them: Why are some of ?visitors? regarded with such prestige that they have a royal title bestowed upon them? Did they partake in a siege and were knighted for bravery? Are they decedents of royalty? Did they somehow make a significant contribution to society?

 

Personally, I think here are many good ideas for all the titles above. I can arrange myself with the prefix "Royal" everywhere with one exception: For the german words Edelmann and Edelfrau is this prefix very unlucky chosen. Because "royal" is even from the nobility, it doesn't fit to describe Edelmann/Edelfrau even more noble then they already are. If you want this tier really in german words and want to give them a higher grade, I recommand the prefix "Hoher" for Edelmann and "Hohe" for Edelfrau.

KS Campaign:
Hoher Edelmann
Hohe Edelfrau

vs.

New Backer:
Edelmann
Edelfrau

The good things are, that this tier is still in german and it use a german prefix which fits these titles way more better and realistic then royal.

 

Hello, and here it goes - Royal citizen = it does sound awkward(imho), how about Distinguished Citizen or Citizen of Honour(Honored Citizen.
With Knight/Lord/Duke how about just letting player choose the X in Knight of (the) X(1 word)(For KS people) or if that will be a feature by default here are my 2 cent :
1)Could use Honored with K/L/D/B too.
2)Could use player individually invented additive(s)(!)(changeable) (for KS(ers)
3)Can use - Divine, Virtuous(or -less , Benevolent for K/L/D/B
4)Could morph the KS titles
Citizen -> Conscript,Freeman
Knight -> Paladin, Templar Liege,Viscount
Baron -> Magnate,Dynast
Duke -> Earl,Sovereign
Lord of the Manor -> Keeper ^

Ultimately Its your choice but if it would be mine id go with No. 2 in all honesty. )

Cheers
Avator