=Read post below=
It's a repost, but wanted to make sure it got seen.

1.
Well, one, the person would have to be extremely anal to go through all word combinations.

Second, how about it ALWAYS looks like gibberish to someone not the race, like any dwarf listening to elf words gets it all garbled, but an elf sees it fine. This would fix any of this, and would allow only races to understand each other.

You could also make languages able to be learned by certain races, like a dwarf could learn some elvish like (50%) if he spent a long time with elves and like 1,000 gold or something. Then you could have translators...

I still like the idea of racial languages, and think if you make it look like random gibberish to anyone not of the race listening, it would fix this and allow for races to communicate.

2.
And I was hoping to see a marching dwarf army ;)

What about making towns more dynamicly to be changed. Like, see how fire ravages a town like Galadon 24-7 and nothing is done - how about make it damage the economy? Add some more wandering guards who try and put the fire out, and if something burns long enough, the prices raise because of need of repairs or gates are unable to be shut because of fire, etc.

Then people would actually care if it's burning in the room besides the little searing heat. If you want your precious potion of return, you save the wizard shop. And you could fight, newbies can do nothing against this but make it so people can empty water supplies in the room to help. It'd make town love a lot more important than just somewhere you recall to.

Also more towns that have a prison like Hamsah would be nice. I think Galadon is tired of being the city of blood.

3.
That's my point. I kind of stole this idea from hearing of Dark Ages of Camelot that each realm has a relic, and if taken, they don't lose anything, yet the opposing realm gets a bonus. That way it would never hurt those too young if it got taken, but you would want your relic to grant you power.

Even go beyond the orc village, but add relics to each town...then you could have town wars and alliances. Now THAT would be fun.

4.
Good
Always wanted to see a fire giant warrior learn things different then a gnome, not just be better at bashing.


Wise men talk because they have something to say,
Fools talk because they have to say something.
-Plato

Probably about 3-4 years ago, I suggested racial languanges...and the biggest reason they were shot down then, is the same reason they'll be shot down now. Lag. Lag. Lagaroonie. If everytime someone speaks (whether it's done by letter or word, or even just teh whole damned phrase) there needs to be a check to see if everyone someone in the room understands it...well there would be lag. I think the idea of racial languages would be neat..but not at the cost of lagging the game.

For you folks who want to have a racial language, my suggestion would be to pour through the Lyceum and start learning the languages we have in there. (soon there will be an arial language, if I can ever get off my arse and write it all down :P) I look at it as a bit more work on the player's end...but less lag on the whole.

Hey, you guys ever consider writing an official CF mud-client? Not sure on how good your coders are, but that would be a hell of a sweet deal. Consider that it could cut down on things like this greatly and sweep the lag from the server to the client where it could be handled much more efficiently since it would be split amongst the various clients. Prolly a crazy one, but its just a thought :P.

Why do we need this?


If we were totally bent on this being a possibility, we could use the tell command combined with emotes. People already emote they're muttering something to someone else when they want everyone to know they said something, but don't want them to know what. IMO the mystique of this idea is not heightened by coding something special for it.


Leave off the cosmetic changes and let's keep the gameplay changes coming.

>I still like the idea of racial languages, and think if you
>make it look like random gibberish to anyone not of the race
>listening, it would fix this and allow for races to
>communicate.

I somewhat dislike the idea of having racial languages added. I think that racial languages could easily become an excuse for characters to run around whacking people, and then just claiming not to know the common tongue. Think about how much people complain about being killed by someone who only says "me smash" and then think about whether adding racial languages will create a segment of characters who just never respond at all to anyone not of their own race, as a way of avoiding roleplaying. Not to say that all roles where the character doesn't know the common tongue have to be bad, just that I think there potential exists for this problem. I agree with you that racial languages really do add a lot of atmosphere, I'm just worried that it could backfire and become an excuse to avoid contact rather than to enhance a character's racial identity.

>Even go beyond the orc village, but add relics to each
>town...then you could have town wars and alliances. Now THAT
>would be fun.

It would... I think a small thing like this might be nice, but it shouldn't have too much effect. Not all players want to be involved in great political schemes, and if it becomes neccesary to care a lot about what your race's politics are doing, then some roles can get the shaft. Notably druids tend to be hermits, and thus forcing them to leave the woods to recover the elven relic from the orc camp isn't something they should be forced to do just for playing the class.

I completely agree that another major off-axis conflict would be great. By off-axis I mean not good/evil. There's magic/notmagic, and sometimes magic/nature but the big conflict is between good and evil. Which is fine, but as someone pointed out in some forum message I read, the existance of opposite alignments in a cabal can add some interesting roleplay elements to it.

-Valkenar the Newbie, Long-Winded Inquisitor, Poster of Uninformed Commentary.