Big words!

[musashi]

As long as I can still read the fucking sentence then it's not a problem.

Like I said, the whole apostrophe soup thing happened for just a little while in the 'rinth (see what I did there?) and it got laughed at on the boards so much that it became like a running gag, and the people doing it probably got embarrassed and stopped because I've never seen another PC go crazy with the apostrophes like that since.

Writing "going to" as "gonna" or "doing" as "doin'" isn't the end of the world. Most people, even ESL folks ... know about gonna and they can fill in the g at the end on their own.

[BleakOne]

I just wanted to add that I don't actually do those sorts of accents myself with my characters, I just find it a little annoying when folks complain about that sort of stuff. If you can't understand them, ICly tell them that or put in a complaint, otherwise just deal with it.

[musashi]

Now if only we could make fun of dwarves enough to get them to start using capital letters and punctuation. 

[maxid]

Now if only we could make fun of dwarves enough to get them to start using capital letters and punctuation. 

Uh, it's character development.  that's how dwarfs talk.

[MeTekillot]

The rampant mis-spellings, lack of punctuation, turning "I' into "Ah" and "and" into "anna" with things of that nature, and rampant disregard for subjective emoting and the like is also part of character development for dwarves, if you didn't know.

[maxid]

The rampant mis-spellings, lack of punctuation, turning "I' into "Ah" and "and" into "anna" with things of that nature, and rampant disregard for subjective emoting and the like is also part of character development for dwarves, if you didn't know.

Zoooooooooooooooooom

Unless you were also being sarcastic, in which case that zoom is for me.

[Qzzrbl]

Does anyone here arguing this whole "accent" point really think you're going to change anyone's mind?

I mean, reeeeaaaaaalllly?

Alot of this is just getting ridiculous.

I also see many posts arguing against typing out one's character's accent use examples like this:

"H' 'm l'w-cl'ss, ' 's' 'p'str'ph''s t' r'pl'c' 'v'r' v'wls."

In all my time of playing Arm, I can't say I've ever seen it get so bad I couldn't understand what was being said.

Really though, if you can't understand what another character's saying, if it's so unbearable that you just can't figure it out, tell 'em to lose the mush mouth and speak the highlord's Sirihish-- play it out like your character would react.

This is a role-playing game, after all.

[maxid]

Qzzbrl, we have threads on how Zalanthans wipe after taking a shit.  It's the GDB, what did you expect?  Any silly minutia is up for scrutiny.

[Qzzrbl]

Qzzbrl, we have threads on how Zalanthans wipe after taking a shit.  It's the GDB, what did you expect?  Any silly minutia is up for scrutiny.

O rite....

Carry on then.

[Barzalene]

Somethin' 'ells me we'r gunn be seein' a lot mer' folk talkin' wit' bad 'cents n-game.

Oh yikes!

I love the various accents that people use in game, but I too want to be able to decipher them without my decoder ring.

[musashi]

The rampant mis-spellings, lack of punctuation, turning "I' into "Ah" and "and" into "anna" with things of that nature, and rampant disregard for subjective emoting and the like is also part of character development for dwarves, if you didn't know.

I thought you were talking about a certain tribe of elves up until the end there 

[Booya]

If the dropping of the g, and words like 'gonna' or 'fixin' etc. aren't meant to identify with a southern united states accent, despite all of them directly relating and conforming to one, then where did they come from?

It's actually very common in other English-speaking nations to not annunciate every syllable clearly and precisely, and have certain 'twangs' on some sounds. If you want to show this through talking (in a unarticulated, lazy slur) EVERY  time your character speaks, go for your life. Myself, I find it less clunky and more evocative to just show it through word pattern sometimes. If that breaks your immersion and causes you to pigeon-hole me as a bad roleplayer, excuse me if I don't give a shi'.

Also, i'd be very hesitant about dumbing down for ESL speakers playing the game. In my experience , and especially with those that are playing a game like Arm, they probably have a better grasp of the English language than some native speakers.

 And, why do people feel the need to invent an accent unsupported by the code/documentation?  I still have yet to see an answer to the fact that accents, like languages, are coded into the game except 'BUT I WANT TO!!!!'

Actually, a number of us have pointed out the limitations of the code when it comes to portraying the wealth of accents and nuances of speech that happen IRL. Nevermind if you add alcohol into the mix. If you don't have experience of this and therefore disbelieve it, maybe you should travel a little bit, and listen.

You do have a point that two characters from exactly the same background in Menos might portray the same accent differently, and if this non-conformity annoys you and gets you blowing so much smoke out your ears that it ruins your enjoyment of the game, bad luck.

Though to be honest, it might say more about your tolerance for people playing in a different syle to you, rather than the abilities of the other player in portraying their character.

Really though, if you can't understand what another character's saying, if it's so unbearable that you just can't figure it out, tell 'em to lose the mush mouth and speak the highlord's Sirihish-- play it out like your character would react.

This is a role-playing game, after all.

This! When I was still settling into one of my character's way of speaking, I did a particularly ridiculous set of contractions, something -like-: Ge' ou' o' 'ere' o' els' i' i' no' up t'me...

The character I was speaking to immediatly picked it up and ridiculed my character for it. Fair enough! I mean, wtf must that sound like? It had me laughing RL at the time, it's getting me laughing now, and was all handled totally IC.

[Barzalene]

When I visited England I met some guy from Birmingham who actually talked that way. I couldn't understand a bit of it. Our conversations would go: I's th b'n me life!
What?
I's th b'n me life!
What?
I's th b'n me life!
What?
Etc.
A simple in English accented English would not have been sufficient to describe this.

[Booya]

Yup. It sounds bizarre and hard to decipher if you're not used to it. But it's realistic.

I'm expecting Maxid to argue that he should be able to understand it and it not to sound unintelligible if he was also from that family and exact area of Birmingham. Which is true.

[musashi]

So Booya's the one who started the apostrophe soup gag ... >_>

[Kalai]

Heh... mumbled speech and trouble with auditory processing are a rather common trait of my family...

So... it's fairly common to wind up with a situation along the lines of ...

First: *tries to say* I want to do some sightseeing.
Second: *trying to parse what the other has said* ... You want a dancing wallaby?



We also follow the great English-language tradition of incorporating a couple suitable foreign words for concepts that just work better in it, which is a little tricky to do codedly since I'm not sure what concepts are better represented in languages I know only three words out of IG.   Or how to indicate I'm adopting them.

[X-D]

So it is ok to emote how you are hitting the tall muscular man in the neck for unspeakable damage (which is codedly self-explaining), but not to spell out how the rinthi accent (which, in the same way, codedly explains itself) you have sounds?

Yes, because it is not possible to set an emote to each of your swings. The code only gives a generic message, The swing landed here and did so with this force. You can then..before or after, tell us what happened before it landed, Did your PC spin to make a neat roundhouse with the sword? ETC. In language the code tells the language and accent AND you have the ability to add in mannerisms etc directly into every say/tell/ask/whisper and shout.

As far as not saying its bad RP, well, you did say it was epically failing, which I thought was pretty similar to 'not good RP'.

No, in fact, many of the people who I sadly have to ignore because I cannot understand what the PC is saying are quite good roleplayers, which is why it annoys me enough to even post. I don't want to ignore them.

The epic fail is the thought that it is a creative addition to the game, which is not equal to ability to roleplay.


As I, Maxid and others have said...you have the tools in game to TELL me what the accent or style of speech is...USE it, don't show me, I'm not even going to look for my decoder ring.

But if you do "tell amos (in a broken stuttered manner) Hello Amos, How was your hunt?" I WILL go along with it, that it came out in a broken and stuttered manner. And no decoder ring needed.

[Bacon]

I find it much more immersive if done correctly to type it out rather than use a say emote. Plus, you can use combinations of the two to really flush it out.

say (in a high pitched voice) Wha's yer fuckin' problem 'ere?

or

say (in a high pitched voice while speaking improperly) What is your fucking problem here?

I prefer the first one by far over the second. You can tell me that your speaking improperly using say (speaking improperly) but I still read it and think it as "What is your fucking problem here?"

In the first, I'm reading it and thinking it the way it is intended to sound. That's much more immersive to me.

[Barzalene]

Is anyone rally advocating 2 over 1? Cause 2 just isn't the way we do it on Arm and won't be.

[maxid]

Is anyone rally advocating 2 over 1? Cause 2 just isn't the way we do it on Arm and won't be.

No, a few now and again is totally cool, even I, the biggest 'No apostrophe soup' proponent have admitted that that much is a-ok.  They're attempting to strawman me, because reading is hard.

Actually, a number of us have pointed out the limitations of the code when it comes to portraying the wealth of accents and nuances of speech that happen IRL. Nevermind if you add alcohol into the mix. If you don't have experience of this and therefore disbelieve it, maybe you should travel a little bit, and listen.

You do have a point that two characters from exactly the same background in Menos might portray the same accent differently, and if this non-conformity annoys you and gets you blowing so much smoke out your ears that it ruins your enjoyment of the game, bad luck.

Though to be honest, it might say more about your tolerance for people playing in a different syle to you, rather than the abilities of the other player in portraying their character.

This is the only part of your rant that actually addressed any real issue or point, so I'll focus on it.  I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the ad hominems, save to say that I have traveled extensively RL, and I'm not as mad as you seem to think, only enjoying the debate.  I have said, many times that people are free to play how they wish.  I am merely pointing out that doing so is counter to logic, and good Rp.  I will attempt to explain again, as a new arguer has stepped up to the plate.  What's most alarming is you actually -read- the arguments.  You just ignored their purpose and point.  I'll try again.

The purpose of an accent is to add flavor.  This is to indicate that your character is from Menos, or the north, or drunk, or has a partially clipped tongue, etc.  Utilizing the apostrophe soup method of portraying an accent does not do this, nor does any other attempt at altering the speech pattern with replaced half-words, soft sounds, and dropped vowels/ending consonants.  By your own admission, in fact, in the quoted text.  

So why are you doing it?  If it is not doing the job it is designed to do, why are you utilizing it at all?  I have yet to receive a valid answer to this (likely because there isn't one.)  The best I've gotten is 'well people in the past did it' which is an appeal to tradition, which is a logical fallacy.  

I'll state again, more plainly.  I do not care if you use it, it's a mild annoyance, but so are some other things.  It's a game, I can get over it.  But, it is demonstrably poor Rp, as it does not adequately get your point across, or add anything except an extra few moments to decipher what is attempting to be said.

Do you understand my points?  If not, I can explain in a different way, over and over, until you do understand.   I'll try one more time here, just to be sure.

There is literally no disagreement, I am following a trail of facts here.  

P1. Apostrophe soup/mimicking hick/cockney/etc. accents are utilized to signal the other person something about the character that uses them.  

P2. Without standardization, there is no method to understand and translate which signal is attempting to be sent.

Q. If there is no standardization, then apostrophe soup/mimicking hick/cockney/etc. do not send a translatable signal.

[Bacon]

Is anyone rally advocating 2 over 1? Cause 2 just isn't the way we do it on Arm and won't be.

Sounds to me that is exactly what Maxid and X-D are saying we should all be doing or not doing anything to make our pc's speech stand out at all. I find the way they think it should be done to be bland and less immersive although neither way is really wrong. It's just personal preference.

[Reiloth]

Is anyone rally advocating 2 over 1? Cause 2 just isn't the way we do it on Arm and won't be.

No, a few now and again is totally cool, even I, the biggest 'No apostrophe soup' proponent have admitted that that much is a-ok.  They're attempting to strawman me, because reading is hard.

Actually, a number of us have pointed out the limitations of the code when it comes to portraying the wealth of accents and nuances of speech that happen IRL. Nevermind if you add alcohol into the mix. If you don't have experience of this and therefore disbelieve it, maybe you should travel a little bit, and listen.

You do have a point that two characters from exactly the same background in Menos might portray the same accent differently, and if this non-conformity annoys you and gets you blowing so much smoke out your ears that it ruins your enjoyment of the game, bad luck.

Though to be honest, it might say more about your tolerance for people playing in a different syle to you, rather than the abilities of the other player in portraying their character.

This is the only part of your rant that actually addressed any real issue or point, so I'll focus on it.  I'm not going to spend a lot of time on the ad hominems, save to say that I have traveled extensively RL, and I'm not as mad as you seem to think, only enjoying the debate.  I have said, many times that people are free to play how they wish.  I am merely pointing out that doing so is counter to logic, and good Rp.  I will attempt to explain again, as a new arguer has stepped up to the plate.  What's most alarming is you actually -read- the arguments.  You just ignored their purpose and point.  I'll try again.

The purpose of an accent is to add flavor.  This is to indicate that your character is from Menos, or the north, or drunk, or has a partially clipped tongue, etc.  Utilizing the apostrophe soup method of portraying an accent does not do this, nor does any other attempt at altering the speech pattern with replaced half-words, soft sounds, and dropped vowels/ending consonants.  By your own admission, in fact, in the quoted text.  

So why are you doing it?  If it is not doing the job it is designed to do, why are you utilizing it at all?  I have yet to receive a valid answer to this (likely because there isn't one.)  The best I've gotten is 'well people in the past did it' which is an appeal to tradition, which is a logical fallacy.  

I'll state again, more plainly.  I do not care if you use it, it's a mild annoyance, but so are some other things.  It's a game, I can get over it.  But, it is demonstrably poor Rp, as it does not adequately get your point across, or add anything except an extra few moments to decipher what is attempting to be said.

Do you understand my points?  If not, I can explain in a different way, over and over, until you do understand.   I'll try one more time here, just to be sure.

There is literally no disagreement, I am following a trail of facts here.  

P1. Apostrophe soup/mimicking hick/cockney/etc. accents are utilized to signal the other person something about the character that uses them.  

P2. Without standardization, there is no method to understand and translate which signal is attempting to be sent.

Q. If there is no standardization, then apostrophe soup/mimicking hick/cockney/etc. do not send a translatable signal.

I enjoy doing it because I think it adds to the flavor of the world, and defines my character somewhat. I do not 'over do' it to the point where it is incomprehensible, and I emulate a RL accent to give it context to the playerbase. I use this accent on characters I wish to sound a bit less refined and perfect in their intonation, pronunciation, and speech patterns. It doesn't translate to the Way nearly as much, because I think psionics would be a little more pure, more of thought transmission. It seems that with a lack of standardization, or documentation, that you think it should not be allowed. I think the game would be worse off if people only used

'say (In broken sirihish) Thanks, Governor. I really appreciate what you've done for me today. Blessings on you and your family.

And that's my 2 cents. I respect your opinion, but disagree with it.

[Barzalene]

Each neighborhood in Brooklyn is like a little village in some ways. But even in the same apartment building where people were born in that neighborhood there were a wealth of accents.

[X-D]

Any extreme can be bad

Though, If you were to say that same sentence with a bit more explanation on what it is supposed to sound like, I'd translate it into what it is supposed to sound like easily as I read it...no complaints.

[Marauder Moe]

WTF people.

There's a simple "solution" to this "problem".

If you can't OOCly understand what someone wrote because they've written their character's speech with a heavy/additional accent, then your character can't understand it either.

Bitch about it in-game, not on the GDB.