Rehaul For The Language System

[Boggle08]

I still think that having some kind of default language like TCB is necessary, just because a tower of Babel situation would contravene on Job Accessibility Requirements.

About partial understanding, though, I think the current system could use re-implementation, if and when the time comes. The current system randomizes letters, rather than words. And it's done without respect to simple or common words like "hello", "stop", "yes", or "no". My idea of a better system would pick words to randomize, rather than letters, and would also have a bank of common words that always go through properly translated. This way, people can properly grug out pidgin speak at each other.

Each race could eventually have their own different banks of common words, and different methods of word or letter randomization. 

[Lucaken]

This thread and the suggestion has come a long way from the Discord discussion it was spawned from (which is great!), and so I don't have as much to say as I was originally going to. One of my main points that I'd like to carry over, though, is the caution against going overboard, and the importance of accepting compromises. Just as an example, I don't think it would be realistic to expect new languages for minority factions like Dominian Unathi - I think edge-cases like that should be covered through accents (as they already are), as it makes for an easier workload for our already overworked developers. Things like mid-emote language changes could also help. If you are a Dominian Unathi, once again as an example, you might be able to select both Tradeband and Sinta'Unathi, then switch it up inside your sentence.

For planets, I think more push has to come from lore writers, and not the in-game systems. We all have our favourite planets, but since most of them exist within the confines of a greater entity, it's better instead to rely on a list of local phrases/sayings that players can pepper into their vocabulary. A great and proven example of this is the Eridani system, where players have found - I think - major success in evoking their culture by utilizing a couple of terms. I've seen particularly invested players do this on their own for other planets, with equally great results. I don't think every planet needs as extensive of a structure as Eridani, where the class struggle encourages it, but it almost always goes a long way.

Really, the only place I would actually add new languages would be major factions/races, and this applies to almost everybody but Elyra. I think it's easy to side-line because it is a very barren faction (not for long), but when compared to it's sister factions, the problem does become obvious. Sol obviously has Solarian Common, Freespeak accounts for both the Coalition and the Frontier, while Tradeband is linked pretty strongly to Dominia - leaving Elyra without a crumb. 

I also want to emphasize the importance of lore team collaboration here, particularly because just a couple of days ago, it was mentioned how Skrell are unable to choose Solarian Common as an option, and that this is something the teams knew about. It was a very strange incident because if you spend any amount of time looking over Solarian lore, the integration and acceptance of Skrell is well-maintained throughout. When poking further, the most responses I got were about language exclusivity to factions/races, and 'clubhouse mentality'. As in the discord discussion, I am not going to name names or cry drama (especially because there has been no official response on this yet, and I do not have all the facts), but I feel if we're going to aim to be more inclusive, the lore team should also try to be as cooperative as possible. Without that, I don't think this project will go over well.

Lastly, while it is great we're talking about this (and we should keep doing so), it's important to respect the time of all the teams as we are close to finishing one monumental project they have all worked hard for. I think it's best to start something like this after the NBT is up and stable.

[MattAtlas]

I think it is about time we add more human languages and open the shores up a bit more for everyone, to say the least, so I support this. However, TCB should remain obligatory for everyone.

 

[Karolis2011]

If someone developed this idea in to full spec sheet for developer like me to implement, I would try to work on it.

[Triogenix]

11 hours ago, Karolis2011 said:

If someone developed this idea in to full spec sheet for developer like me to implement, I would try to work on it.

what do you mean by this? like exact values for languages and how many points every species would get?

[Karolis2011]

4 hours ago, Triogenix said:

how many points every species would get

Yes, and other system points that need to be changed / kept described in list. Obviously some things like multiple languages per sentence might need to other places to be altered, like how cha messages are internally stored, as now I think language is just a extra data along the content, while in example for languages it would need to be stored mixed in with content, as content migth have 1 to infinite languages used in them. 

[Omicega]

In all honesty, I've always preferred Bay's system over ours for a variety of reasons. Their language code is very similar at a baseline level, but here Basic is forced to take up one of our three language slots, whereas on Bay you can pick whatever three languages you want, and if you didn't pick ZAC (their version of Basic) as a member of the ship crew it just gets added on later. The average Bay human gets an extra language over their Aurora counterpart on account of that. Furthermore, the partial understanding code is baked into every Bay language, human or not, whereas here it's entirely binary whether you understand something or not, with the exception of a couple of alien languages having some mutual intelligibility.

A full overhaul would be welcome, but even plugging partial understanding in and beginning to work it through all our existing languages would allow for more creativity here, IMO.

[Haydizzle]

To add onto this, it would be neat if individual languages could have individual accents to them that display for when you speak certain languages. For example, a skrell could have Traverse Nral'malic (if I even spelled that correctly), Europan Sol Common, Solarian TCB, and Solarian Sign Language. Unsure if that's a feasible coding suggestion, but would reflect on characters better than a unathi having a Wastelander accent through TCB, Azaziba, and Freespeak, or something.

[Carver]

13 hours ago, Haydizzle said:

To add onto this, it would be neat if individual languages could have individual accents to them that display for when you speak certain languages. For example, a skrell could have Traverse Nral'malic (if I even spelled that correctly), Europan Sol Common, Solarian TCB, and Solarian Sign Language. Unsure if that's a feasible coding suggestion, but would reflect on characters better than a unathi having a Wastelander accent through TCB, Azaziba, and Freespeak, or something.

I'd like that, very realistic.