PlaneShift
Gameplay => Wish list => Topic started by: kastirin on October 04, 2004, 11:38:16 am
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An odd idea, but very easy to code: How about giving different races a slightly different font for their chatting text, to indicate different sounding voices/accents? Just a little idea to add to the roleplaying experience.
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I like this idea. If you were to actually hear the voices, you would most likely be able to tell what race someone is by the characteristics of their speech (Ie. Enkidukai putting more stress on Rs and Ss). Unless they\'re skilled in disguising their voice. But since chat is in text, the different text fonts would be useful.
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Trying to read a chat full of different text fonts would give anyone a headache after a few minutes. It would be hard to read and just annoying for most.
Accents are easy to roleplay, if one wishes.
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I think this would be en excellent optional idea then...
One that you would be able to choose the fonts for a verity of things like race etc. however not a top priority... maybe this will get dug up in a year or two maybe? 8)
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Perhaps they could just implement different languages, and then one \"common tongue.\" That way if you want to talk to your enkidukai kin, you speek in enkidukai and only they (or those that have learned the language) can understand it.
Imho font should just be one general one all across the boards with the ability to change text color for different things (chat, shouts, emotes, server messages, etc.), to keep things relatively simple.
:emerald:
edit: fixed the spelling on enkidukai
:emerald:
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But I think everyone in Yliakum speaks English for some od reason, except for some who don\'t IRL...
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I think that that would be a great idea!
Oh, also it kinda stinks that in the chat box you know who is talking even if you do know the person (never met him). It should only say what race the person is and his gender. It adds a level of realism...
This is what we have,
Coga shouts: Hi!
This is waht I propose,
Male Eukidai shouts: Hi!
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Well sort of,
Actually IRL you can see who is talking, but in the game, you have to search all the players around you to see what race/gender they are... but you need the names because then you would get:
Male Eukidai 1:
Male Eukidai 2:
Male Eukidai 1:
Male Eukidai 134:
etc. unfortunately it can\'t be totally like IRL :(
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Me: Perhaps they could just implement different languages, and then one \"common tongue.\" That way if you want to talk to your enkidukai kin, you speek in enkidukai and only they (or those that have learned the language) can understand it.
Zeraph: But I think everyone in Yliakum speaks English for some od reason, except for some who don\'t IRL...
Sorry, didn\'t explain that, if you don\'t know a language and someone speaks in it, the letters would be all randomly jumbled so you can\'t read it:
\"Hey, how\'s it going?\" becomes \"Okl, wer\'h lk lkpox?\"
and as you get better at the language less letters would be jumbled:
\"Hey, how\'s it going?\" becomes \"Her, hapx ig gonsg?\"
and obviously, when you master the language it would appear normally.
When it comes to the names displayed for speech, I say we just show the names. I think it would be a good idea for some sort of tag to be made, so you can do a command , say, /roleplay and you will be tagged as roleplaying. This would show your name in a different color, so others know to roleplay with you, and could perhaps not show your name, race, gender, or whatever. That way people can have a normal conversation if they want, and others can roleplay if they want, and no one gets mad at the other for being out of place.
:emerald:
edit: fixed the spelling on enkidukai
:emerald:
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that sounds a little like the al-bhed thing in the final fantasy x games. in your idea is there a centralized language that everyone knows?
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Yes, \"common tongue\" would be regular english (or whatever language you speak in rl) and would appear normal to everyone.
It is very similar to the al-behd thing in FFX, but the al-behd had set letters for each letter in the message. My version would be random, so each player would receive a different jumble of letters based on their skill, even if they had the same amount of skill in the language (unless they had both mastered the language, obviously).
:emerald:
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It would be interesting to have near the name a small icon showing which race and gender the player is.
If implemented the different languages another icon so you known in which language it is.
An example how text whould appear using smileys where the icons.
Then random character jumble adds an interesting feature as it would allow also finding items with text in some ancient language that you would need someone which can understand it (and you trust to give the item to) to translate, but the jumble would then need to be calculated from a hash of the text and some player id or something similar so you could not find the correct characters by reading the same text 20 times to get a different jumbled text each time.
Also adds options like guild specific languages, at the price of the members to need to spend time in learning that language, which should be a high price if you consider that being easy to learn would make players outside the guild being able to learn it too, or if the language is complex, the members would need to spend long time to learn it, so not all guilds would want an own language.
I\'m not sure about the usefullness ti the game itself of the guild specific language, probably it\'s better only common, race specific, and a few ancient languanges for rare items.
Each player would start with a 100% on their race\'s language and the
common language.
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guilds have guild don\'t they? that\'s sufficient...
I like the languages idea, it will be like D&D...
Everyone speaks common, some classes know undercommon, wizards know draconic etc..
It would also be like Star Wars Galaxies with Wookie Speak.....
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\"Voices\" and accents can be easily RolePlayed. Different ways of speaking and emphasising certain aspects of the language can be picked up and learned with little effort.
I completely adore playing characters with marked accents, or with a noticeable twist in their speech (Overly complex like a Renaissance fop, or excessively simple like the Half-Orc next door with an intelligence score of -3 ;)). They tend to stand out due to people being subtly encouraged to focus on the text a bit more. But I do not think it would add much in game depth to force everyone to type constantly and permanently with an accent. In fact, it would drive them bonkers.
And I do not think a code for an accent is particularly feasible, it would necessarily be limiting and unrealistic due to its mathematical nature. A language, on the other hand, is more resembling of an organic entity of its own, and does not respond to such firm structures.
If you want to play the Dwarf with the stereotypical accent, more power to you. \"How be ye, lad? Thet would be good, aye! Oy, we gots ta help tha others!\". Or come up with new and different accents for the other races.
Racial languages, however, are an entirely different issue, and the developer team should consider if it is in theme to welcome their presence. Given the heterogeneous origins of the different cultures, it would not be far fetched at all to build a language system.
I have seen in a few online roleplaying games a different method that instead of scrambling letters according to a skill level, it handled the code much differently.
Each letter of the alphabet would receive a \"difficulty value\", that is, the difficulty to recognise the sound. Vowels and the most used consonants would be set to a lower difficulty level, whereas more esoteric characters such as \"x\", \"k\" or \"w\" (for example) are not as easy to pick up for a language student.
What the skill rank in a determinate language does (Say, Language: Elven = 30%) is to set a maximum of comprehension for the difficulty of a word. With 0% having a comprehension level of 0 and 100% an infinite value (You understand everything fluently).
So...how do you decide on the difficulty level of a word? Simple: You add the values of the individual challenges of each character (We will call that value DC from now on, for Difficult Challenge).
Example:
My character has 35% proficiency in the Dwarven tongue.
35% equals the ability to comprehend words with a DC equal or inferior to 20.
Well, let\'s see how that works.
Let\'s take the word \"Hello\". Supposing that the letters have the following DCs:
H = 5
E = 2
L = 3
O = 2
Then the word would have a DC of (5+2+3+3+2) = 15
My character would not receive the word scrambled, he would understand the meaning.
However, if a Stonebreaker comes up and says \"Morning!\"
M = 4
O = 2
R = 4
N = 5
I = 1
G = 6
Then the word has a DC of (4+2+4+5+1+5+6) = 27
The sounds are too complex for my character to understand.
Of course, the code would do all the math automatically, and filter in a blink of an eye which words we understand and which are way too difficult for our characters\' intellect.
It may seem a bit complicated at first glance, but the code is simple, and effective. It does not scramble random letters (which often results in awkward and unrealistic lectures), in opposition it filters complex words from more common ones depending on which letters compose them.
What do you do with the words that are NOT recognised, you say? Well, it is even simpler. The staff comes up with a list of say...fifty to a hundred sounds typical of the language. For example, we want the Elven language to sound very melodious and easy to the ear. So we propose sounds such as:
aelrir
moriebendir
salieras
leliomen
orie
ad
Etc, etc, etc. After we have a good number of made up words in the pool, we simply ask the code to randomly replace the non-recognised words for one of the fake words. I assure you, reading a scrambled text composed of only 100 words has enough variety to look realistic.
Anyway, that is my proposal for a language system. Do not ask me to write it any tidier and in detail than this ;) I am no coder, so this is as far as I can go.
- Golbez
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I like this idea Golbez, only thing we need to do, is find someone to devise this code...
A question: If an Enki was to speak err Enki-speak... and they were surrounded by 50 or so Ylians, each with varying levels of Enki-speak... wouldn\'t that put great strain on the system?
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According to the coders I know and have talked to, and their confidence in the simplicity of the system, the needed calculations are so negligible that it should not be much of a problem.
Most likely the code would not be processed by the server, but by each individual client.
- Golbez
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Originally posted by Adeli
A question: If an Enki was to speak err Enki-speak... and they were surrounded by 50 or so Ylians, each with varying levels of Enki-speak... wouldn\'t that put great strain on the system?
Actually no, it would most likely be client controlled. so it would be processed by the user\'s computer & not the server\'s computer, the server just has to tell the client \"This is 90% Enki Speak your Char has 45% Enki Speak \" & the client will calculate the garble or whatever. I\'m sure the message given by the server client would be much shorter however... this would factor in the ability of the speaker as well...
I also think that every Char (When you create your Char) should have 100% in English(since it\'s what we speak) & 50% to 100% in whatever race they are. then you can have a choice to speak in your native tongue or English(whatever this is called by Yliakum people) then certain quests could be given in different languages & you ether need a translator or you need to learn the language yourself.
Very nice Golbez! I think a system like this would make RP allot more interesting & fun! A Big Thumbs Up!
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Well, it\'s nice to know that it\'s negligible. I really like this idea.
/me attempts to summon a dev with know-how to this thread
no luck... sorry
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Nice to hear some feedback. Thanks :)
I like the idea of different languages that was brought up - but I suspect that languages and accents belong in the realm of mods/plugins/add-ons. Even if CB were to be released tomorrow there are far more integral parts of the game that need work.
This is a wishlist though, and perhaps someday someone will create an approved mod for these features :D
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I would just add a little thing. Common words should have almost all the time the same alternate form, at least in the same session.
If a character hear a word and the player guess what it means and remember its meaning, I think the character can do it too. It demands only an effort of the player to search where he saw this word before.
If we got the sentence: \"Did you see the green tyranosaurus rex killing the other green tyranosaurus rex with the legs of the dead red tyranosaurus rex?\"
We should read something like: \"Did you see the jiki loumbadorth poer ginith the other jiki loumbadorth poer with the legs of the dead red loumbadorth poer?\"
Ok, it\'s a ridiculous sentence, but it\'s only to show that we can understand that the person speak of something doing something on another thing like it with the leg of a red thing like it. Sounds weird, but we can have an idea of what the other said.
What is interesting too is the possibility to speak slowly to be understood. We can say: \"Did you see the gre en ty rano sau rus re x kil ling the other gre en ty rano sau rus re x with the legs of the dead red ty rano sau rus re x?\" It\'s not much more easy to understand, but it would works.
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You could also have phrasebooks that translate a few -gucommon words, also this creats a new skill, linguism. the ability to learn a new laungage fast, or instinctivly guess it