i just wanted to say, as someone who's been to both zhangjiajie and guilin i made the connection immediately and was really excited about it (they're really amazing places to draw influence from!!! !!)

anyways tbh i would be more miffed if subeta came up with some terrible pseudo-mandarin name instead lmao there is no winning here

Well in theory some of the arguments are that it doesn't go with the Subeta lore, but then it is question the validity of how it happened. If it is Subeta lore and it is created by Subeta ideals then it can randomly show up and be okay because it is not based in logic or real life experiences but Subeta lore. Not only that but I keep reading and think of the Bermuda triangle. There might be islands in there, but the myth is that you will die or go into another Universe. Death and Spirits are a big part of many culture and using that mysticism to bring an island to life is amazing to me. Also on the map it might look super close one from the other, but in theory it can take days from one land to the next. If spirits are in fact covering the island and the caretakers within it it is easy to make the jump that no one was able to come in or out. (Just sayin')

Bonju achievement ftw. Now I miss my old username.

the real difference is that the people offended about it now are probably white sjw girls from tumblr

using a fake pseudo-chinese name is disrespectful to actual chinese people

Oh I don't care, I just wish things were a bit less predictable. The point, being made sarcastically, was that if the site is to base a new land off of a culture it should be surprising.

What's ouch is that the ghost scum may return to reek havoc on the rest of Subeta. They, and other forces that threaten to undermine Subeta, must be punished through fear. I have a solution that may solve the problem once and for all.

I took the lore to mean that the island was RECENTLY shrouded in mists, just as it appeared on the map for most of the plot - as a roiling sea of spirits and fog. There are many, many myths about islands that appear and re-appear in the ocean, fading into mist and becoming incorporeal. I assumed that Shengui Guo was grounded in the spirit realm until this event, and passed into our world when the rest of the spirits did.

We should kickstart you a name change, bro

Speaking of WoW, they also had East Asian lore that was planned but not released until much later, although most people were taken by surprise.

It's harder to make up variations of names given the short syllabled Chinese words, and also they will know the creativity behind the names, while for other languages the meaning is lost. Also the short syllabled words sounds very different from Latin languages where letters are phonically spelled out.

I suppose that's why some would be comfortable with the species Paralix instead of something like Hai-long (Sea Dragon).

Oh damn I forgot about the Ytiva thing. Though I don't know Subeta well enough to know when things were named, but anyway, I was trying to allude to 's point on like page 2 or something haha. Any readable name that's not Akladjieoplaskjf will likely be based on some actual culture or language or another?

Anyway, I'm just going to second Saint's last post since I don't really have much else to add :')

You can never satisfy this kind of people, so I just go and disregard them. They're not worth it.

Personally, what I want is a clear position from staff about real world references. I'm not even sure I give a damn about the land's name, all I want is a clear position.

Is Subeta its own bundle of cultures, with no Earth influence, or is it something more like a AU version of Earth. I'd really like a clear answer to this, so that I can know what to expect.

Congratulations! You have just adopted Bonju the Legeica!

There. Now Bonju shall stay with me forever.

This is the best thing that could have happened out of this thread

Need a sun potion or something?

Done. Just need a blumaroo morphing potion now. But no really, how didn't I think of this before. Thanks for the inspiration.

morostide's real life counterpart and inspiration is halloween not also morostide :P

Asian inspired things are clearly only owned by Neopets. Subeta needs to stop releasing anything because literally everything is inspired by the real world and how dare they not do something 100% authentically their own in every single way.

How dare.

Thanks for the answer.

Since 2009, I know Subeta wanted to be less attached to real world things, but like you pointed out, most of the holidays were at the base, reskinned versions of Earth holidays.

What I dislike is ambiguity. Now, things are clear and I guess I know what to expect, now.

Still best thing on the thread. A+++

someone needs a vacation >.<

This seems especially weird after the uproar a few months ago about those two Sacred Lands NPCs with Chinese(?) names.

I love the ideas that went into this new land, but the inspiration is so blatantly obvious that it feels out of place. That's a big part of why it feels so similar to Shenkuu and Pandaria. They use the same source material and don't do anything truly unique with it. (And for the record, I think Shenkuu is just Shengui with the spelling changed, so the two cities basically have the same name.)

I've always loved this factoid about the design choices that went into Disney's Atlantis:

Imagine if Shengui's lore had mixed in something like Dia de los Muertos, Hades and The River Styx, and other death-related myths from around the world. There was so much untapped potential there.