What's In A Name?

[Deleted3507349User]

My sister and I have been playing Skyrim since it's initial release. I play on a desktop PC and a laptop, and she plays on xBox. Bot of us have created countless characters in innumerable configurations. We've both noticed that there seemd to be differences between characters that couldn't be explained by race, perk distribution, magicka/health/stamina points, equipment, and so forth. Basically, a character would show a 'uniqueness' that didn't appear to be accounted for by known variables.

 

Naturally, our first thought was "we must be nuts". After much conversation we decided that although that may indeed be the case, there was still an undeniable variation we couldn't pin down the reason for. Now, we know that Skyrim has a lot of randomly-generated events, se we decided to perform an experiment. We created a stock Nord character named Erik on both of my machines and her xBox. Each of these were set up and played identically. All three of them showed a surprising LACK of weapon skill in both melee and archery. They weren't unplayable, of course, but all of them did less damage to enemies than one would normally expect. Essentially, they were the same character, so no surprises there.

 

Next, I created a redguard named Ziggy. I played him exactly as I played Erik, and he showed much better proficiency in damage dealt. Again, as expected, and easily accounted for by racial differences.

 

Now, here's where it gets interesting. I created another NORD identical to Erik, but I named him Ziggy. He dealt much more damage than Erik did using the same weapons and build. He only showed minor differences to Ziggy the redguard.

 

Deduction: While race, perks, build, equipment and so forth all affect hor a character plays (obvious and documented), WHAT YOU NAME A CHARACTER AFFECTS THAT CHARACTER. It would seem that the game engine uses a character's name to subtly influence a character's skill in various actions. Furthermore, it also appears that how you play a character during the initial Helgen sequence might be a determining factor as well.

 

More experimentation is obviously needed, so my next character will be a redguard named Erik to find out if he performs more like Erik the Nord or Ziggy the Redguard.

[Deleted3507349User]

Further confirmation of my theory; Erik the redguard performs significantly betther than Erik the nord, but not quite the same as Ziggy the redguard. Obviously the difference in race, in this case.

[AlienSensei]

Sounds intresting.

[alanarg]

Interesting information. Actually, I've read something similar about Fallout 3.

 

FO3 use kinda customization that detects your behavior in your first steps, to randomize some characteristics of your character.

 

Sounds funny and cool, it's a great way to make differences between other characters apart from the race selection and that stuff.