Mon Apr 2 21:44:56 2007

At 4 o'clock PM, Day of Thunder, 17th of the Month of the Dragon
on the Theran calendar Tulien perished, never to return.

Race:	half-elf
Class:	healer
Level:	31
Alignment:	Good
Ethos:	Chaotic
Cabal:	None, None
Age:	75
Hours:	101

Oh, this really sucks! I know your comp died but JEEZE! *sigh* Excellent RP, had a lot of fun with you, and I was hoping to get to play the baby thing all the way through darn it. Guess it's a bad time to ask if Rayihn did remember you, thought that'd be kind of interesting and a pretty good chance for some Immteraction. I really hope you'll be back here soon.

Thanks for teaching me elvish and pointing me in the direction of the drow translator and for being my first wife ever!

Amin mela lle, Tulien

Neikarin Sethis

>Thanks for teaching me elvish and pointing me in the direction
>of the drow translator

Help language. :)

While I played neither of these characters it does makes me wonder why there are partial languages for both dark-elves and felar within the Lyceum if this is frowned on.

A bit of language to add flavor to dialogue is okay, especially if the context the word is used in gives clues to what it means. Talking exclusively or almost exclusively in... whatever... isn't.

If I use a made-up-language term IC, I'll couch it the way I would if I was using a foreign word (or more often for me, technical word, acronym, or jargon) in RL that I think is obscure to my audience. Err on the side of assuming the other players won't follow if you're going to go this route, and definitely don't overdo it.

Basically, it's fine to use as a "highlight", but we don't to make it so everyone has to have a Elvish-to-English dictionary on hand to have a conversation. We want the system to encourage conversation, not the reverse.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

If your elf comes to my elf and starts talking in the elven language, then by that standard I should automatically know it.
But if I don't know there is an elven language in the lyceum or several other sources spread around the internet then
basically you are speaking gibberish to an elf(who by all rights being elven should be fluent in the language) as an elf.
It just doesn't make sense without any sort of MUDwide standarization or some sort of language type toggle command, etc.

Just my thoughts,
Dex

Hey man I agree, my point was there are other language resources in the game, ie dark elf and felar having partial dictionaries within the Lyceum and else place. If you are going to have those in the game so someone could read and presumably use, then it is hard to have a rule that everything should be in english, just seems a little hypocritical to put stuff of that nature in the game and then say don't use them.

As for every elf knowing the language that is kind of dumb, everyone that plays this game is a human but the playerbase as a whole speaks many different native languages.

I understand the rule for a perspective of running the game as IM and don't question it, just the logic of having different language materials in game and then mentioning such a rule.

n/t

>Hey man I agree, my point was there are other language
>resources in the game, ie dark elf and felar having partial
>dictionaries within the Lyceum and else place. If you are
>going to have those in the game so someone could read and
>presumably use, then it is hard to have a rule that everything
>should be in english, just seems a little hypocritical to put
>stuff of that nature in the game and then say don't use them.

It's there for spice. You couldn't have a whole conversation with what's there.

>As for every elf knowing the language that is kind of dumb,
>everyone that plays this game is a human but the playerbase as
>a whole speaks many different native languages.

And they all need to speak English when they're playing CF, so who cares?

> It's there for spice. You couldn't have a whole conversation with what's there.

I think you can have enough of a conversation to make it difficult if not impossible to understand the meaning of what two people are saying. The point though is having those readily accessible sources muddies the issue, why are those alright and not a couple words from some other language that most people in game will not understand. I didn't want to belabor this it just seems silly when there is a rule like this that is contridicted by what is available in game. I didn't wright the sources or the rule just pointing out what makes it difficult to understand the logic behind it.

> And they all need to speak English when they're playing CF, so who cares?

My other point was in reference to Drex's all elves should understand then, and I don't think that is a criteria that holds any weight as languages do not develope in that manner.

I didn't want to belabor this it just seems silly when there is a rule like this that is contridicted by what is available in game. I didn't wright the sources or the rule just pointing out what makes it difficult to understand the logic behind it.

They're there because we don't mind if people use them as occasional "highlight" terms, couched as I explain elsewhere in the thread. Excessive use, or use outside of accessible context, just ends up making everyone around you have to work harder just to have a conversation.

This 'highlight' use is probably hard to pull off if English isn't your primary language. To be honest, I have trouble following your writing without a device like that appearing. It only 'works' well if you're otherwise easy to follow.

My other point was in reference to Drex's all elves should understand then, and I don't think that is a criteria that holds any weight as languages do not develope in that manner.

That made no sense to me. I don't know where you're going with it.

Derexal's argument is that if you're speaking "Elvish", any elf who doesn't have a role dictating otherwise should instantly understand IC. Conversely, some random orc in the room shouldn't.

In reality, if that elf's player doesn't have a dictionary handy, and the orc does, you'll get the reverse in both cases.

It's not hard to hard-code languages-- a lot of games have it. For example, if you have the "Elvish" skill, you see the text, otherwise you see "Jimbob says something in a language you don't understand.") The problem is that it creates a system where characters are encouraged not to talk with one another. We're happier with our assumed-common-language convention.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>My other point was in reference to Drex's all elves should
>understand then, and I don't think that is a criteria that
>holds any weight as languages do not develope in that manner.
>
>
>That made no sense to me. I don't know where you're going
>with it.
>
>Derexal's argument is that if you're speaking "Elvish", any
>elf who doesn't have a role dictating otherwise should
>instantly understand IC. Conversely, some random orc in the
>room shouldn't.
>
>In reality, if that elf's player doesn't have a dictionary
>handy, and the orc does, you'll get the reverse in both
>cases.
>
No, in reality, languages develope in small communities over long periods of time, there is no reason to think that in a large world such as thera there wouldn't be many languages spoken by each race. That was my point. There is no reason random elf number 1 needs to necessarily understand the language of random elf number 2 if they presumably grew up in different localities.

The reason I wrote any of these posts is that by providing these sources and having that language rule there is a contridiction. On one hand you say it is not allowed on the other you say here are some alterative ways to talk.

>The reason I wrote any of these posts is that by providing
>these sources and having that language rule there is a
>contridiction.

No, there's not. I'm done discussing this with you since you haven't actually read any of the other posts by Valg or I, because damn near all of them explain it.

I have read every post in the tread. Here is your rule straight from help language:

4) You may NOT speak in a foreign or made-up language. This is an English MUD and all communication forms, on all channels, will be English.

If you want to say it is OK to use foreign or made up words to "highlight" or to add "spice" that is your choice obviously, but that choice contradicts the rule. The rule states pretty clearly that ALL communication will be in english, not most must be, or that you can toss in a made up word here and there, but ALL. If you don't like some asshole like me mentioning something assine like this then don't write rules that contridict the way it is planned to be enforce.

Now a little apology, I never intended to write a half dozen post on this subject, or cause any grief or frustration. I had not read that rule till you mentioned it in your first post and thought it was odd beecause, I am both aware of and, am a fan of the in game languages that exist and have used them to no ill effect. I only wish to point of that it certainly can help to create some confusion, like here where someone used a language from outside the game, most likely without any knowledge that it is against any rule.

Next time I'll just shutup.

Recently, I played a character that had phrases that were in Dark-Elf language--I pulled the phrases off the internet, and added some things here and there to fit my character better. But after saying something like "The best dagger is the unseen one" to someone, I would also write it in plain english, so that they would get the drow vibe from me, and so they could understand what I was saying in the common language.

What Valguarnera and Daevryn are trying to get at is that you CAN use some phrases or certain words, so long as your phrase, or point, or whatever, is understandable in english.

A couple examples of this might be:

Dark-Elf -- Vendui, my name is so-and-so.
I'm pretty sure everyone in the game will understand what this means. "Hello, I'm so-and-so."

Or maybe you're a Felar and read some cool, hardass Felar speech, and you decided to use that as your warcry. Think Jules from Pulp Fiction. The quote from the bible he uses just before blowing MF'ers away.



Point is, don't get stupid with using words or phrases. They can be used, but use them tactfully. If every word out of your Elf's mouth is "Elvish", then players will probably not even talk to you. Which is counter-productive to the point of roleplaying, which is very likely your goal, since you're trying to get into the roleplay of an Elf.

If none of what Daevryn, Valg or anyone else says, makes any sense to you, then there is no hope.

>If none of what Daevryn, Valg or anyone else says, makes any sense to you, then there is no hope.

For crying out loud, I understand exactly what they are saying it's the fact that it contradicts the stated rule, that I broguht up the point at all.

>I have read every post in the tread. Here is your rule
>straight from help language:
>
>4) You may NOT speak in a foreign or made-up language. This
>is an English MUD and all communication forms, on all
>channels, will be English.
>
>If you want to say it is OK to use foreign or made up words to
>"highlight" or to add "spice" that is your choice obviously,
>but that choice contradicts the rule.

Maybe there's a misunderstanding here. "Speaking" a language does not mean saying a word from the language. In American english, to "speak in a foreign language" means to construct full sentences and have conversations in it. You can say words from a language without speaking the language. For example, I cannot speak Spanish, but I can say a few Spanish words. The word "speak" has a subtle difference in meaning depending on how it is used.

The rule is against speaking the language, not against saying individual words once in a while. Therefore, you are allowed to use a few felar or elven words, but you can't speak in felar or elven. Maybe that seems like a subtle or nonsensical way of saying it, but to native speakers this makes perfect sense.

Though I can imagine why. Now is the time to make my random-gibberish-speaking character just to make imms try to figure out what language I'm speaking. Never mind, I'm lazy.

Edited to add: What about the made up languages of Thera? Or OOC languages that exist in some form in the Theran universe? Chi-Gong Manual anyone? Isn't that in mandarin or something? Just don't add any rusky to areas and it'll be ok. Just kidding Ruskies, you are alright be me*.

Tac

(*) You don't play much (read kick my ass) during my time slot.

I didn't know it was against the rules either. Apparently ignorance is no excuse and I fess up to using the translator a few times, but it's not a constant thing... Last time it was because someone was being a pain.