Why is suddenly every npc in the new chapters shortening Kralkatorrik's name?

Didn't know if this should be posted here or not but, just played the newest chapter in the living story and was rubbed all the wrong way by how throughout the entire chapter Everyone simply said Kralt like he as a friday night joke villain. Every npc referred to the ED's by their full given name until just now. As a gamer sure shortening the name and what not to make typing or convo's quicker, but when something is literally the possible cause of the worlds destruction you don't start cutting down its name all out of the blue. And then suddenly I'm just hearing people go Kralt this Kralt that. Never remembered Zhaitan being called Zhai or Mordremoth Mordr.

Did the dev's simply shortened it for the sake of not having to say a long name every two seconds?

Opinions?

You didn't call Mordremoth "Mordy"? Must be just me.

You couldn't have heard them all calling "Kralt" anyway because his name is "Kralkatorrik"; i.e. "Kralk". Though sometimes he goes by "Special-K".

On a serious note, it's not implausible. The world's ending, is there really time to be a..l about formalities? He's got an awkward name. Who wants to repeat that mouthful all the time. As somebody with an awkward name in RL I know how that feels. Also, I can imagine them calling him by his nickname to be derogatory, or joking in the face of armageddon as a way of lightening the otherwise soul-crushing dread. Happened on Buffy all the time.

I would say a mix of the writers referring to him as Kralk during normal discussion all the time and the name being dropped a lot.

Thank you, thought im the only one who thinks this is strange. Sure some characters may call him like that, but not nearly everyone...

Taimi can call him like that, it works with taimi, but the others? Im not sure if i remember it right but didnt even Rytlock call him Kralk? I dont think he would ever give him a name like that. Kralkatorrik killed one of his close friends.

Didn't Taimi call Mordremoth "Mordy"?

As the others have said, much of the shortening may be done by pact soldiers, who already took down two elder dragons. The elonians may have picked up the habit of shortening it down in the sanctum, where everyone comes together, because of its protection from the brand and, obviously, to bask in the light of lord Faren.

On the other Hand thats why it works with taimi. she is not that fixed on names and uses "cutening" nicknames all the time. right poobah?

i dont mind the DW members using a short Version, well dunno why but kasmeer and marjory would feel kinda weird for me.Rytlock is a soldier. soldiers LOVE their shortforms so it is fine for him ;P

ist more weird when those random statistic npc would refere to him that way cuz they are usually the terrified powerless scrubs that do not dare to do so

I think this is more or less the writers incorporating player short-hands into the vocabulary of Tyrians. During Season 1, we began seeing NPCs referring to Lion's Arch as LA and Divinity's Reach as DR (this being no different than us calling Los Angeles LA and New York City NYC). People in reality have a long-standing habit of abbreviating and short-handing things, so it's only natural Tyrians would too.

Players never shorthanded Zhaitan as "Zhai", and Mordremoth's shorthand was "Mordy" which WAS used - by Agent Zrii and later by Taimi. Mordy probably didn't get used more because it didn't really fit the feel of Heart of Thorns (plus Zhaitan's entire plot was designed before players began short-handing dragon names). Kralkatorrik has a common shorthand because it's a hard name to remember to spell, and if players have issues, Tyrians no doubt will. So it makes sense they call him Kralk - at least they didn't go with Kralky.

And it's Kralk, not Kralt.

I'd say because tyrians got tired of pronouncing kralkaralatolritarik

(disclaimer: I am aware it is not correct spelling, I have written it this way for purpose in exaggerated twisted form to underline the point)

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:I'd say because tyrians got tired of pronouncing kralkaralatolritarik

(disclaimer: I am aware it is not correct spelling, I have written it this way for purpose in exaggerated twisted form to underline the point)

Point taken but i'd love to hear ya saying what u wrote down there.. or maybe u will just stick with krally?

@norbes.3620 said:

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:I'd say because tyrians got tired of pronouncing kralkaralatolritarik

(disclaimer: I am aware it is not correct spelling, I have written it this way for purpose in exaggerated twisted form to underline the point)

trying to say it out loud creates even more tangled abominations :D

It only rubbed my the wrong way that I called him Kralk. Or even Kralky, idk, I refuse to remember. I would never do that. PC should keep more neutral expressions.Am I the only one who has no problem remembering and pronouncing the name? Then again I'm German, we love long words with hard letters.

@deatine.2498 said:It only rubbed my the wrong way that I called him Kralk. Or even Kralky, idk, I refuse to remember. I would never do that. PC should keep more neutral expressions.Am I the only one who has no problem remembering and pronouncing the name? Then again I'm German, we love long words with hard letters.

Nah, seems simple enough to me, given how many times it’s spoken during the game.

I personally blame the Vigil. They likely started calling him Kralk for practicality and brevity's sake (maybe after Taimi did it, maybe the other way around, maybe parallel evolution), and it caught on.

@Ithirahad.5132 said:I personally blame the Vigil. They likely started calling him Kralk for practicality and brevity's sake (maybe after Taimi did it, maybe the other way around, maybe parallel evolution), and it caught on.

seems legit .. soldiers tend to use short versions

There was a disturbing Gen Y tendency to shorten names to anything but the first syllable (cf. "Tori" for "Victoria", "Topher" for "Christopher", etc.), so we could conceivably shorten "Kralkatorrik" to just "Rik". Faster to type, the only possible misspelling is "Rick", and it's less likely to be misheard as "Rit" by the OP or anyone else.

Plus then we could have lengthy discussions about Rik and Mordy.

Joking aside, I don't see how "Kralkatorrik" is difficult to spell. It's spelt exactly the way it sounds, there is no alternating "K" with hard "C", the only stumbling point is the double "R" at the 3rd/4th syllable. Even spelt with one "R" it's obvious what is meant.

These things have threatening names ("Zhaitan" is an alternate form of "Shaitan", the basis of the Hellenized "Satan"; "Mordremoth" appears to be the French for "bite" coupled with a Hebrew word for "death"; "Kralkatorrik" may be completely fabricated but reminds me of "Krakatoa", whose eruption was one of the most significant disasters of the last two centuries), and shortening them just seems unnecessarily cute and belittling. Not that anything I ever say is going to change anything in this game.

And yes, the only reason I posted was to make a bad "Rick and Morty" joke.

@"Sargoth.8104" said:Plus then we could have lengthy discussions about Rik and Mordy.

XD

And yes, the only reason I posted was to make a bad "Rick and Morty" joke.

No other reason needed. :)

Oh please, let Aurene be a short version for a real dragon name.

@"Kura.9368" said:Didn't know if this should be posted here or not but, just played the newest chapter in the living story and was rubbed all the wrong way by how throughout the entire chapter Everyone simply said Kralt like he as a friday night joke villain. Every npc referred to the ED's by their full given name until just now. As a gamer sure shortening the name and what not to make typing or convo's quicker, but when something is literally the possible cause of the worlds destruction you don't start cutting down its name all out of the blue. And then suddenly I'm just hearing people go Kralt this Kralt that. Never remembered Zhaitan being called Zhai or Mordremoth Mordr.

Did the dev's simply shortened it for the sake of not having to say a long name every two seconds?

Opinions?

I take that shortened version of his name like "You-know-who" from Harry Potter. People are starting to be scared of Kralkatorrik, so they even fear to call out his name. I'm kinda scared to the bones when I think about Kralk.

Kralkatorrik can be the best villain that never spoke a word.

@Sargoth.8104 said:Plus then we could have lengthy discussions about Rik and Mordy.

you mean Rik and Mothy ;)

@"Nogothanc.5014" said:Oh please, let Aurene be a short version for a real dragon name.

I still hope Aurene is just the "normal people" version of her name. Her family also has actual dragon names and more commonly used "sparkly" names.If I remember correctly:Glaust = GlintVlast = Gleamso possibly:??? = Aurene

@deatine.2498 said:

@"Nogothanc.5014" said:Oh please, let Aurene be a short version for a real dragon name.

Unfortunately, Aurene is the name she told the Commander through their telepathic connection.

@"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:Unfortunately, Aurene is the name she told the Commander through their telepathic connection.

and who said vlast didn't want to be a gleam when he was her age? ;)(I mean only source ingame I am aware of wehave on this issome "random" girl in the desertclaiming that it was bards who gave him "gleam" name, and his real name is vlast - but she was not around when vlast was hatchling and we can safetly rule out girl being omniscient, so this could be just as well a case of story made up by adolescent vlast to cover "childhood mistakes" ;) )

Aurene may come from Latin word Aurum, meaning gold. We met her in the golden city of Tarir after all.

Considering a lot of the people talking about Kralkatorrik are soldiers I'm mildly surprised they shortened it to Kralk and didn't invent a TLA.

Although they're not remotely the only ones to use acronyms or abbreviations, it's extremely common in all types of specialist field. I work for a conservation organisation and I have a 3-page document of just the acronyms used in my department. (And once caught myself saying something like "When the VBRV sends the RRF copy HLBIRS and send it all to NE, and PHA for DEFRA" - and if you could translate all that you'd know exactly what job I used to have and what kind of case I was dealing with.)

Basically people shorten words and terms they use a lot, especially when they're in a hurry. It's not a new thing and although it does sound a bit odd at first to hear an NPC saying Kralk I don't think it's out of place given they generally use modern English. If this was Ultima Online where NPCs were all "greetings friend, where hast thou been this fine day?" it would be very odd, but Tyria isn't really like that.