So, one of the things that I liked about old EQ, that sort of went by the wayside somewhat, was languages and their addition to immersion. For instance, just about everyone knew the common language, but each race had a language as well as some classes. With enough work, you could learn a language from soneone else that spoke it.
I, for one, would like to see this make a come-back in Pantheon.
Kalok said:So, one of the things that I liked about old EQ, that sort of went by the wayside somewhat, was languages and their addition to immersion. For instance, just about everyone knew the common language, but each race had a language as well as some classes. With enough work, you could learn a language from soneone else that spoke it.
I, for one, would like to see this make a come-back in Pantheon.
I had the idea that maybe language skills could be leveraged in the perception system.
The languages were almost useless save a few quests that needed you to learn something like elder dragon. And besides most people just sat around spamming group chat until it was maxed.
The only way this would work is if they were able to find an interesting way to weave them in.
Porygon said:The languages were almost useless save a few quests that needed you to learn something like elder dragon. And besides most people just sat around spamming group chat until it was maxed.
The only way this would work is if they were able to find an interesting way to weave them in.
I agree that execution in old EQ was lacking. I suspect that there was originally an idea for them and they ran out of time to implement it properly.
I can think of alot of ways that languate could be implemented properly in Pantheon. For instance, part of quests. Work with vendors and NPCs of other races/classes. Things like that.
In addition, I think that languages should be a shade harder to learn than spamming chat, as was stated earlier.
Let's think about how languages can help accomplish some of the core objectives. Making the world feel large. Slowing progress so that you cannot do everything too fast.
Soppose the Butt Cheek mountains are home to a race whose language you don't know. Let us not learn the language in 5 seconds from a book as in EQ2. Let us not learn it by spamming chat - totally unrealistic that isn't how one learns a language.
Hypothetically, assume there are two ways to learn the language. Take an expensive and intensive training program and learn the language over X hours /played. Until you learn it, there are severe restrictions on what you can buy or sell in Butt Cheek and what quests if any are available. You may even be kill-on-sight with the training needing to take place in another area.
This may or may not slow your progress to maximum level but it most certainly will slow your ability to do things in Butt Cheek. Now assume things work this way in 10 different racial areas and it definitely will slow overall progress. Exactly as desired.
Alternatively, you learn the language through X number of interactions with the locals, no more than Y of which may occur the same day. Until you learn it, opportunities are limited, prices are high for what you buy and low for what you sell, etc. You may be kill-on-sight with the "interactions" needing to take place elsewhere.
Or maybe for any of this you need to do a quest or action to earn the trust of a Butt Cheek local. Once you have that trust you are not KOS and can start to learn the language. Maybe the local needs something done and can communicate - poorly - in your language. Maybe the local is a prisoner of local hostiles and you can rescue him or her or at least communicate his or her plight to other Butt Cheekians.
dorotea said:Let's think about how languages can help accomplish some of the core objectives. Making the world feel large. Slowing progress so that you cannot do everything too fast.
Soppose the Butt Cheek mountains are home to a race whose language you don't know. Let us not learn the language in 5 seconds from a book as in EQ2. Let us not learn it by spamming chat - totally unrealistic that isn't how one learns a language.
Hypothetically, assume there are two ways to learn the language. Take an expensive and intensive training program and learn the language over X hours /played. Until you learn it, there are severe restrictions on what you can buy or sell in Butt Cheek and what quests if any are available. You may even be kill-on-sight with the training needing to take place in another area.
This may or may not slow your progress to maximum level but it most certainly will slow your ability to do things in Butt Cheek. Now assume things work this way in 10 different racial areas and it definitely will slow overall progress. Exactly as desired.
Alternatively, you learn the language through X number of interactions with the locals, no more than Y of which may occur the same day. Until you learn it, opportunities are limited, prices are high for what you buy and low for what you sell, etc. You may be kill-on-sight with the "interactions" needing to take place elsewhere.
Or maybe for any of this you need to do a quest or action to earn the trust of a Butt Cheek local. Once you have that trust you are not KOS and can start to learn the language. Maybe the local needs something done and can communicate - poorly - in your language. Maybe the local is a prisoner of local hostiles and you can rescue him or her or at least communicate his or her plight to other Butt Cheekians.
I like this idea. Another way that this could work, in addition to what you've said is being unable to read certain items/scrolls/signs, so you are unable to utilize them in whatever fashion you need to, which may be for a quest or what have you.
I have a hard time thinking of a way that languages can be implemented without just feeling like they are a time sink. And in a game centered on grinding the extra timesinks need to be limited.
What was described up above almost feels like "daily quests" in wow. I know I can only learn x amount if the language today so I go complete my tasks and move along.
I think, as much as the idea is interesting. I would rather see them spend this time making the perception system better than its already going to be, as opposed to adding a "side quest" for languages.
dorotea said:
Let us not learn it by spamming chat - totally unrealistic that isn't how one learns a language.
Well this is actually the fastest and best way to learn a language and speak it fluently without accent . It is actually so easy that all babies do it - a chinese baby has just chinese spammed around it and BAM , it starts to speak fluent Chinese :) Obviously it takes some more time to learn the finer points but the bulk is just spamming .
More generally I think that the language idea (like in EQ) is a very nice idea but there has never been enough manpower in any game to implement it . As Pantheon will already have enough work to implement trade skills for release , I expect that there will be nothing concerning languages . But in an ideal immersive MMORPG languages should of course be part of teh game play because communication is one of the most important things .
Porygon said:I have a hard time thinking of a way that languages can be implemented without just feeling like they are a time sink. And in a game centered on grinding the extra timesinks need to be limited.
What was described up above almost feels like "daily quests" in wow. I know I can only learn x amount if the language today so I go complete my tasks and move along.
I think, as much as the idea is interesting. I would rather see them spend this time making the perception system better than its already going to be, as opposed to adding a "side quest" for languages.
In Pantheon, from what they have said, there are no "daily quests". In Pantheon, quests are part of a perception system and aren't necessarily required to level up or get gear. They are more of a 'story line than the nonsense quests in WoW and modern MMOs. In fact, if you don't work on your perception skills, you will miss the majority of the quests, unless they make drastic changes to the quest system. Languages, in my opinion, go hand-in-hand the perception system. If you can't understand the language, you can't perceive what they are wanting you to do. Given that the devs have said that they are building a world, it doesn't make sense to build something where everyone speaks the same language all of the time. For those times, in the game, where a basic understanding is "required" amongst the races, that's where a "common" language comes into play in addition to racial and class languages. Ad an example, most Orc vendors would probably speak common. Your average Orc chicken farmer might not.
Deadshade said:dorotea said:
Let us not learn it by spamming chat - totally unrealistic that isn't how one learns a language.
Well this is actually the fastest and best way to learn a language and speak it fluently without accent . It is actually so easy that all babies do it - a chinese baby has just chinese spammed around it and BAM , it starts to speak fluent Chinese :) Obviously it takes some more time to learn the finer points but the bulk is just spamming .
More generally I think that the language idea (like in EQ) is a very nice idea but there has never been enough manpower in any game to implement it . As Pantheon will already have enough work to implement trade skills for release , I expect that there will be nothing concerning languages . But in an ideal immersive MMORPG languages should of course be part of teh game play because communication is one of the most important things .
Not exactly.... In real life, "immersion teaaching" for languages are done within some sort of context. You don't jsut sit around saying random words and phrases and someone learns the language. The words and phrases are said within a context. For example, holding up a ball and saying the word for ball. Pointing at a fast moving object and saying, "That object is moving fast." So there is a limit to "learning by spamming" in the real world. In the context of in-game, sitting around saying, "When the dog runs around the banana eats a flapjack." with no context is just a bunch of random words with no context or meaning. That's where "learning buy spamming" in-game is just junk.
dorotea said:Alternatively, you learn the language through X number of interactions with the locals, no more than Y of which may occur the same day. Until you learn it, opportunities are limited, prices are high for what you buy and low for what you sell, etc. You may be kill-on-sight with the "interactions" needing to take place elsewhere.
This is about the only thing in the post I would grumble at. The X and Y. Way too close to dailies and daily caps for my taste. Perfectly fine with farming local mobs that have pelt turn ins (yes, a task for example) to a local trapper, a Flatulite that only speaks ... in Flatulegen. You slowly learn his language as you interact with him. Nothing says you have to interact with an NPC either. If someone has mastered the language, have that PC have the ability to tutor or something.
From Aradune:
"In most cases, players want to be able to communicate with other races without having to learn a language first. That said, in an RP/hardcore server we might enforce language barriers. The trick is to come up with a system where you can learn other languages over time that can't be artificially accelerated by just having someone spam you with a different language. Any ideas on how this might be accomplished?"
(Source: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2769/in-game-languages/view/page/2 ;)
Also see:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3102/languages
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2656/languages
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4349/race-languages
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3185/regional-and-factional-languages/view/page/1
Kaloc's Idea and Dorotea's mechanic makes sense to me. I see the idea divided into two parts. I think doroteas idea is perfect for Monster NPC races, like Ratkin or Orc maybe? where it is complicated and invloved. But like any dungeon crawl will take a longer time to get max fluency to be able to talk to the head honcho of Butt cheek
Howerver I think there should be a different mechanic for Player races. Initially I thought of time spent grouping with another player race would secretly flag a character so that when they go into town they have slightly higher faction, but I then thought this could be abused by having racial player characters hanging out near the city and selling group time. I am trying to think of a way to share faction or rather getting enough faction to even start questing or building faction with the residents. Maybe spamming language but up to 20pct is a short cut and allows basic ability to talk and some words are garbled but it would be enough to start a long quest line for faction where you learn the language along the way.
Bazgrim said:From Aradune:
"In most cases, players want to be able to communicate with other races without having to learn a language first. That said, in an RP/hardcore server we might enforce language barriers. The trick is to come up with a system where you can learn other languages over time that can't be artificially accelerated by just having someone spam you with a different language. Any ideas on how this might be accomplished?"
(Source: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2769/in-game-languages/view/page/2 ;)
Also see:
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3102/languages
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/2656/languages
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/4349/race-languages
https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/3185/regional-and-factional-languages/view/page/1
Player-to-Player communication is different than Player-to-NPC communication and quest communication. That's kind of the point of havinng a Common language and having racial/class languages on top of that.
Let's maintain different languages for different races. I support Kalok's approach of having A FEW npc's that speak common language. This will allow for that window of opportunity for a player to either invest time in getting better at the local language, or just skip this language and move on to other content via this npc's other quests/hints/guidelines.
It makes sense that not every npc in the world speaks the common language and that you can't buy a language primer and learned the language that easely.
The way I see it, all language can be learned, if it's not atypical to your own race faction standing against the one you're trying to learn. (If you don't have a tongue, you can't pronounce certain sounds for example, or when you're a demon you can't learn the language of a light celestial being). So every race has it's Lore-opportunity to provide the players the option to go through that kind of "questline"/languistic progression and learn that certain language. The manner of how you learn it can totally differ from one race to another. For example: woodtrolls could use scribblins on bark or symbols and you provide content around that, while underwaterfolk might learn languages by learning how to vocalise/produce sound under water or by use of vibrations.. again with apropriate content surrounding these things. A city of elves might use scribes or ancient teachings and you'll be learning a language by going/experiencing their history. This by visiting different places in that region that hold value to the elves. Or a race that has limited facial expressions or no sound box (Scar? :p) might speak through gestures instead of actual words. And that's another way of language learning. This could be filtered later on, when your perception is better by textbox translation for example. Not every race needs to be articulate and speak in full sentences.
On a RP server, player to player communication could be restricted only to those with common language knowledge. Those that don't will have to learn if they want to group or interact with other players.
Bazgrim said:From Aradune:
"In most cases, players want to be able to communicate with other races without having to learn a language first. That said, in an RP/hardcore server we might enforce language barriers. The trick is to come up with a system where you can learn other languages over time that can't be artificially accelerated by just having someone spam you with a different language. Any ideas on how this might be accomplished?"
The problem with the highlighted text is that if VR continues to cave to "what players want" we are going to get WoW. It's already getting bad now. Just wait until launch and a couple of hundred thousand FTP hit the servers.
Players want..
Instances, Fast Travel, there class to be able to heal and tank and CC and DPS. They want an abundance of instant gratification.
What we need is to be "In THEIR world" not ours.
Zorkon said:Bazgrim said:From Aradune:
"In most cases, players want to be able to communicate with other races without having to learn a language first. That said, in an RP/hardcore server we might enforce language barriers. The trick is to come up with a system where you can learn other languages over time that can't be artificially accelerated by just having someone spam you with a different language. Any ideas on how this might be accomplished?"
The problem with the highlighted text is that if VR continues to cave to "what players want" we are going to get WoW. It's already getting bad now. Just wait until launch and a couple of hundred thousand FTP hit the servers.
Players want..
Instances, Fast Travel, there class to be able to heal and tank and CC and DPS. They want an abundance of instant gratification.
What we need is to be "In THEIR world" not ours.
Actually, you are incorrect. Most players do NOT want what you claim that they want.
Kalok said:Zorkon said:Bazgrim said:From Aradune:
"In most cases, players want to be able to communicate with other races without having to learn a language first. That said, in an RP/hardcore server we might enforce language barriers. The trick is to come up with a system where you can learn other languages over time that can't be artificially accelerated by just having someone spam you with a different language. Any ideas on how this might be accomplished?"
The problem with the highlighted text is that if VR continues to cave to "what players want" we are going to get WoW. It's already getting bad now. Just wait until launch and a couple of hundred thousand FTP hit the servers.
Players want..
Instances, Fast Travel, there class to be able to heal and tank and CC and DPS. They want an abundance of instant gratification.
What we need is to be "In THEIR world" not ours.
Actually, you are incorrect. Most players do NOT want what you claim that they want.
Here in a pay to play forum you are correct. I was a supporter and quite active in the Free To Play Landmark/Everquest Next Forums and there you would be incorrect. The overwhelming majority wanted all those things. Even simply running to a spire to teleport was too much for most.
I silently read through these forums for quite some time before I finally pledged because I seen the difference in supported and FTP attatudes. Once Pantheon launches (10 levels of FTP) or even opens the forums up to non paying members we supporters will be grossly outnumbered.
Zorkon said:Kalok said:Zorkon said:Bazgrim said:From Aradune:
"In most cases, players want to be able to communicate with other races without having to learn a language first. That said, in an RP/hardcore server we might enforce language barriers. The trick is to come up with a system where you can learn other languages over time that can't be artificially accelerated by just having someone spam you with a different language. Any ideas on how this might be accomplished?"
The problem with the highlighted text is that if VR continues to cave to "what players want" we are going to get WoW. It's already getting bad now. Just wait until launch and a couple of hundred thousand FTP hit the servers.
Players want..
Instances, Fast Travel, there class to be able to heal and tank and CC and DPS. They want an abundance of instant gratification.
What we need is to be "In THEIR world" not ours.
Actually, you are incorrect. Most players do NOT want what you claim that they want.
Here in a pay to play forum you are correct. I was a supporter and quite active in the Free To Play Landmark/Everquest Next Forums and there you would be incorrect. The overwhelming majority wanted all those things. Even simply running to a spire to teleport was too much for most.
I silently read through these forums for quite some time before I finally pledged because I seen the difference in supported and FTP attatudes. Once Pantheon launches (10 levels of FTP) or even opens the forums up to non paying members we supporters will be grossly outnumbered.
By the time the "free to play" as you call it, happens, the game will be "finished" and the mechanics will be what they are. The devs have already said that his game isn't for those "attitudes" tht you outlined. This is an "old school" MMO. So, outnumbered or not, they won't have much, if any, sway over the direction that the game goes. The game is not intended to appeal to everyone and won't.
Porygon said:I have a hard time thinking of a way that languages can be implemented without just feeling like they are a time sink. And in a game centered on grinding the extra timesinks need to be limited.
*snip*
Heres one, spells and skill books we find in the world will be form difference races etc I am sure. Perhaps you need to learn the language of that book before getting the skill etc.
Also take away Common Tounge and bam, now all languages are needed and people can actually make money off teaching them to others.
Cool special ruleset server, no common tounge at least as stated above.
Porygon said:I have a hard time thinking of a way that languages can be implemented without just feeling like they are a time sink. And in a game centered on grinding the extra timesinks need to be limited.
What was described up above almost feels like "daily quests" in wow. I know I can only learn x amount if the language today so I go complete my tasks and move along.
I think, as much as the idea is interesting. I would rather see them spend this time making the perception system better than its already going to be, as opposed to adding a "side quest" for languages.
In addition, you could call ANYTHING in an MMO a time sink, including the neex for experience to gain levels......