Making EL more RL-like. Suggestion no. 1 - Languages

[Guest Vilwarin]

While I am playing the game I often do speak other languages than english. And sometimes, even if it's not in a dense populated area, nor it's against rule no. 14 (mulitilingualism) people ask me to speak english.

 

Can you imagine such a scene in real life? I can't.

 

I think multilingualism is one on the colours of multicultural, real life communities (like huge cities) and that's why I suggest adding this flavour to EL as well. And I do not mean just speaking there different RL languages more often.

 

As we all know we act to be 6 different races in EL world so why should we all speak the same language? Adding elvish, dwarfish, humanish (and so on) would not only make the EL more RL-like but also could multiply role-playing opportunities, add some skills you can learn and probably add even some more things we don't expect. (I just hope no problems).

 

How could it work? Consider such an example:

 

Every single race has it's own language and every in-game-character has it's language skilles.

(there could be just one skill, something like 'speaking languages' or set of skills like elvish, dwarfish and so on. or even those with subskills like listening, speaking, writing and reading if there's gonna be in-game-mail-system one day)

Then, in example, if elf listens to dwarves speaking he'll get the text mashed where how mashed it'll be depends on his dwarfish skills.

 

There is a lot of varieties depending on how much skills and subskill there would be. You can think about special beginings of strings for speaking freign languages. For example dwarf to try to speak to elf and say 'hello' should type '.e hello' where '.e' means he trys to speak elvish.

 

I was thinking how complicated it'd be and I'm almost sure that it could be just a small problem for programmers and not a problem at all for players when all this things would happend automaticly. You could even learn language like kids in RL, just by hearing it. So if you hear people speaking language you don't know (or even if you listen to language you already have some skilles in) you gain expirance points.

 

And if you think that will make it harder to start for newbies I won't agree 'couse Channel 1 had to be an exception to rule that such a mashing should work everywhere in game and more then, older characters, those able to help probably would already speak newbies languages.

 

Ok, that's it (more less). I'm waiting for your opinions.

[kl4Uz]

This is a really interesting suggestion Vilwarin. I like the idea of having different ingame languages.

 

But please consider the following few points:

EL hast a rather small community, it might be hard to find enough people that you can speak to in the beginning. Just imagine being a newbie on Isla Prima and all you hear is gibberish. You have no idea what to do, neither can you ask in the newbie channel because you understand only 10% of what the people in there are talking. I think that would be very confusing.

 

This doesn't mean your idea couldn't be used in one way or another. Just think of the readable books. There could be some books in ancient elfish or dwarfish (you name it) language and only by getting the knowledge how to read them, you could actually do that.

 

Or maybe that could be a prerequisite for reading some of the more advanced knowledge books. Maybe would make the reading of these books a little bit more interesting.

 

With regards,

kl4Uz

[Roja]

It's interesting but the Community is a VERY big part of the game. Not being able to speak with your friend just because he is an elf and not a human would be quite frustrating. Especially for new players!

[Arnieman]

Yeah - I mean, I speak English and a little German (not too good in German, shoulda paid attention in that HS German class). I respect the languages that other people talk in, but it does get a little irritating to me if I don't know what they're saying - like, when I walk into NC storage, at certain times, EVERYONE there talks Polish, and I don't understand a word of it, so I juts store and get out.

 

I think the reason for English being a prevalent language (over the rest) is that it is about the best learned language internationally... Which, about anyone who comes on the game can either find someone who speaks English, or can speak to them in a language they understand.

[Guest Vilwarin]

But please consider the following few points:

EL hast a rather small community, it might be hard to find enough people that you can speak to in the beginning. Just imagine being a newbie on Isla Prima and all you hear is gibberish. You have no idea what to do, neither can you ask in the newbie channel because you understand only 10% of what the people in there are talking. I think that would be very confusing.

 

I won't agree with that. Most of fellows play human, dwarf or elf so even with so 'small' community newbies can find a lot of people naturally speaking their language (so they won't hear only 'gibberish'. With some luck you could make such a mashing system that seeing such a gibberish newbies will new it by hear 'it must be dwarfish becouse it sounds like one')

 

Moreover as I wrote the help channel shouldn't be affected (as an exception) so anyone can get help there. Maybe you could make a story about a babble beam (so you can understand everything close to the beam, or maybe about babble fish you got it for a period of time.

 

I still belive you could try to find a way in wich you use my idea without confusing new player.

 

This doesn't mean your idea couldn't be used in one way or another. Just think of the readable books. There could be some books in ancient elfish or dwarfish (you name it) language and only by getting the knowledge how to read them, you could actually do that.

 

Or maybe that could be a prerequisite for reading some of the more advanced knowledge books. Maybe would make the reading of these books a little bit more interesting.

 

I havn't thought about that, but it seams to be great idea

 

It's interesting but the Community is a VERY big part of the game. Not being able to speak with your friend just because he is an elf and not a human would be quite frustrating. Especially for new players!

 

I do agree with you about the importance of the Community but I don't think it's gonna be a big problem for communications. It'll all depend on 'wieghts' of skills. It'd had to be done in such a way to work smooth. Not confuse newbies and give new opportunities for all players. It's why I've called it flavour not a problem

 

I'm sure that it'd be a chance to level the game's mmoRPg skill up

Edited February 26, 2006 by Vilwarin

[Aislinn]

I like the idea but only in the form of it being a more advanced skill to learn, not available to players until they've reached a certain ingame proficiency. The ideas of books to learn another language is a great idea. However you shouldn't not be able to speak/understand the basic english language when you learn the new ones.

 

This would be a good supplemental idea, not one to replace the common language now.

[irnotpro]

Arnieman it is irritating but (it's sad) but like 60% of polish players don't know english or speak it like : giev mi fri stof plx plx (villekpl the greatest polish newb and plxer and not only he)etc.. So for me it's better to hear polish i understand that gievs.. like polish (i don't get anything ;D)

 

 

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Ok.

They can take it on PM but some of them are so stupid and....and not only they,

but there is about 250-300 ppl from Poland in EL! Theyare very big part of our community.So i think they can speak some their language on local....but it is suck in situation like arnieman said ;(

 

Correct me someone if i am wrong

 

 

But personally i like this idea

Edited February 26, 2006 by irnotpro

[RolandR1]

its an ok idea but i dislike looking at alot of things i dont understand a word they are saying sry if its rude it just seems like spam... and also it would be VERY hard especially just for a game to even make up the language... i mean yeah the dwarves could be like dont say the first letter in each word etc... but that would be difficult

[Arnieman]

If it solves my problem, I could try to learn Polish...

 

...yeah, I have to admit, I'd rather hear them converse in Polish than to sit by helpless at the wholesale murder of the English Language. (And this is not aimed at the apologetic nonnative speakers; this is aimed at "native" English speakers who unapologetically can not or will not learn proper English!)

[Fox Lupine]

how about we don't actually develop seperate languages, but use this sytem anyway?

 

What if a player spewaks, and chooses to use a command like when you pm someone to specify a certain language. all players who can hear bvut cannot speak that language will just get "It's all gibberish" or "I can;t understand what he is saying". Something like that

 

This would allow for more tactical PVP, among other things

[TheComet]

here's an idea that could put this idea to use! Perhaps you can press a button or type in a prefix that makes what you say be in your race's language. IE: "#rl hey" (rl standing for racial language)

Could be useful in pk to give orders or just to talk in code XD

 

This way, chat stays normal unless that prefix is before it. Probably also be a good idea to disable it in public channel chat and also on IP.

as for learning the languages, perhaps you could read books to learn the language, and have 6 levels of each book to make your character more fluid in the language and understand more of what's said.

[Kedan]

Its a nice idea, and could work. I say we use it to increase role playing, so you would have a command that you can add to local chat to speak in a race language, so you would start the game and would be able to speak you race's language with use the command #race <message>, then when you learn other language's you can do things like #race elf <message> ad you could learn to basic's of the other language's from books (make them very long so not many people read them, and expensive) but to understand the language fully you have to practice it.

 

It could work by have a code that changes the letters to other letters for each race, and the book of the language makes you understand half the letters (which would come out in white, and the onces you dont understand yet come out in green or some other colour) then over time you will start to craac the code and work out what the otrher letters are and there will be a language window you can bring up which lists all the letters and then you can change them to what you think there ment to be. Ofcourse to stop people from giving away the code you would either have to make the code different for different people or have a way of locking the letters so you cant change them untill they have done something

[Vanyel]

I just wonder why Polish is an example. Not the point here.

I like this idea with Aislinn's and Kedan's suggestions. In most role playing games there is something like common language. The English is such.

[Arnieman]

I just wonder why Polish is an example. Not the point here.

Actually, kind of the point - I used real life language examples as kind of a "jumping point" to start from.

 

My point is this - ever hear a language - any language, that you just didn't understand, and you really hadn't that much hope of understanding? How did that make you feel? Me, if I don't understand what's being said around me, I start feeling quite uncomfortable, and in most areas I can think of, this ISN'T what we want newbies coming in to feel like - of course, we'd already made a presumption in the rules that everyone playing understands a common language to an extent.

 

I'm not against an ingame multilingualism, but where would be appropriate to use it? Not IP - that has to stay as a newbie haven, of sorts. I also would limit it in big "choke points", where people gather en masse (storages, Mira, etc.). Personally, I think if this comes in, maybe on Seridia, in any major settlement area, there should be messages if you try to talk in a racial language that says something like "You are in town now; you really should speak the common language."

 

Then again, maybe I'm a minority - maybe everyone wants to not be able to know if they are being insulted/cursed at/threatened by people.

Edited February 28, 2006 by Arnieman

[Zelse]

The thing about having elven,dwarvish etc languages is the TYPO's and at least 1/2 of EL players make mistakes or do typo's, and plus each language has a dialect, so lets say if an Orchan was trying to speak Gnome, it would have a certain dialect. There would also be certain dialects in real life, imagine a spanish speaking elf trying to speak draegoni to a german draegoni, talk about confusion lol. But on the books there can be Dictionaries for either ingame languages or real life languages. Final fantasy X had a system where a item would decipher a letter in the whatchamacallem people, cant remember but you knew what they were saying as you got more items, id go into more detail but im nearly done downloading EL!!! lol

[Finish_The_Fight]

I got an idea if any of this does happen.Or if it dosen't I put this as a suggestion.Why dont u put diffrent kinds of stats,levels,or certain kinds of books for each type of creature

[Vanyel]

The....

 

 

I got an idea if any of this does happen.Or if it dosen't I put this as a suggestion.Why dont u put diffrent kinds of stats,levels,or certain kinds of books for each type of creature

 

Impressive, after 4 months.

 

Oh well, either way can you explain what do you mean?

Put the stats, levels, certain kind of books where?

[Sheesh]

I got an idea if any of this does happen.Or if it dosen't I put this as a suggestion.Why dont u put diffrent kinds of stats,levels,or certain kinds of books for each type of creature

 

Wow, what a great idea...if it were not for the fact, that it has been suggested before, that there are books for several creatures, and that the a/d levels for creatures vary as to what the armour, weapons, and your p/c stats are. Seeing that there are way to many variables, its not going to occur. I strongly suggest that you use the "search" button and investigate these things before posting.

[Infamous]

is it just me or do we have these books already? (cyc fighting dwarf fighting troll fighting etc etc.)

[Mireille]

While I am playing the game I often do speak other languages than english. And sometimes, even if it's not in a dense populated area, nor it's against rule no. 14 (mulitilingualism) people ask me to speak english.

 

If it's not against the rules, simply ignore those people.

 

Arnieman it is irritating but (it's sad) but like 60% of polish players don't know english or speak it like : giev mi fri stof plx plx (villekpl the greatest polish newb and plxer and not only he)etc.. So for me it's better to hear polish i understand that gievs.. like polish (i don't get anything ;D)

 

Maybe they shouldn't be playing EL then and learn some English instead?

Edited June 23, 2006 by Mireille

[Thordin]

Maybe they shouldn't be playing EL then and learn some English instead?

 

Aren't you being to hard on them? They have the same right to play as you do. More so, one of the biggest and honorable guild is PL guild.

[Mireille]

Maybe they shouldn't be playing EL then and learn some English instead?

 

Aren't you being to hard on them? They have the same right to play as you do. More so, one of the biggest and honorable guild is PL guild.

 

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

[Thordin]

Even if they cannot speak english well, it don't denies their right to play the game. EL comunity has many subcomunities speaking different languages which help "english impaired" people to enjoy the game and take part.

[NitageR]

Not everyone know english..kk kill'em all if they don't know english and problem is solved thx

[vwpro]

mireille get a job