Selection of Accent at Char-gen

[Fragmented]

I'd really like to see the ability to select your native accent (from a list of northern, southern, or tribal) available at character generation.
Perhaps you were born and raised southern, but decided to start in Tuluk to reflect having hitched a ride on a caravan to begin your
story. Perhaps you were always in Tuluk, but were raised by southern immigrants, and so have picked up their accent. I think this is a
relatively harmless thing that would make characters alot more customizable.

[Marauder Moe]

I don't think it should be an option for just everyone.

I'd be cool with adding "Southerner" and "Northerner" subguilds, though, that impart the respective accents.


EDIT: to elaborate a bit more, consider the cost of the in-game equivalent of having "hitched a ride on a caravan".  You must pay for:
*Proficient escort, likely a unit of Byn and you've no friends to help get a better group rate
*A mount, either bought or rented
*Possibly as much as a whole skin of water

While indeed there's not a lot of benefit to having a foreign accent, I feel like the cost of leaving your homeland should be reflected/impacted in your character generation "resources", so to speak.

Also, as indeed a foreign accent can be detrimental, I'd not want it to be something new players can choose lightly.

EDIT 2: And if you really want this now, I'd imagine it's not an especially difficult special application to get approved.

[RogueGunslinger]

I like this idea, and disagree with Moe pretty much entirely.

[Ender]

EDIT 2: And if you really want this now, I'd imagine it's not an especially difficult special application to get approved.

Or you could just make hitching the ride to another city part of the in game story.

[maxid]

I like this idea, and disagree with Moe pretty much entirely.

[Kismetic]

Nice idea.

[Harmless]

I personally like the hurdles one has to go through to get their desired accent in game. It forces you to make a difficult choice right at the beginning of character creation. It maybe requires cooperation from the beginning. These kinds of difficulties create plots right from the get-go, and form bonds and friendships. Importantly, they are also a golden opportunity for a raider to make an easy kill and get a shitload of rewards, which is an appropriate risk you need to take for this.

tldr: I agree with Moe entirely.

Too often I see challenges of this old-school game being requested for straight-up removal on code discussion. I feel this is yet another example of that, and it saddens me that so many people playing this game have lost their spine.

[Kismetic]

Too often I see challenges of this old-school game being requested for straight-up removal on code discussion. I feel this is yet another example of that, and it saddens me that so many people playing this game have lost their spine.

I don't think that's the case if you have written a background, let's say, that you grew up in Tuluk, but have spent the last five years working some angle in Red Storm ...  I mean, it's not incredibly important, and you could start in Storm, and "pretend" like you know the northern accent.  Or you could start in Tuluk, and "pretend" like you need to get back to Storm.  You can fudge a work around, or you can just have a choice in creation.  I predict the latter is less of a hassle.

The emboldened comment is needlessly inflammatory, and targets the majority of your peers.

[Kaineus]

I'm in Moe's camp, and not just because harmless is my brother.

A lot of people have backgrounds where they spend a good chunk of their lives in two or more regions. Once you let people pick one accent, players are going to whine about not having every single accent involved in their background. Snowflakiness begets more snowflakiness.

Making people have to work for their accents are [edit: is] totally valid. It also conforms to what you have to deal with in making a new character--you can't just start game as a perfect double-agent spy in the region you want to spy on. You have to work for it. If you want credibility (IE an appropriate accent) for more than one region in game, earn it. Play it out and get the accents. If your background leaves you dislocated, tough luck--you got a free ride there via your background, and now you want a free accent? In Zalanthas, very little should be handed out. If you think your character's circumstances qualify for special treatment, then special app like Moe says.

[Harmless]

Inflammatory as it may be, I felt the comment was necessary in my personal effort to discourage these kinds of ideas from even being suggested.

[Nyr]

You guys being turds on the GDB and in Teamspeak are exactly why we can't have nice things.  Self-edit yourselves or you will find yourselves on the receiving end of a ban. 

(edit to add:  meh, I'll edit it for you, but c'mon)

[Kismetic]

I think the ideas are born from a good place, often the player's desire to have more customization and have less limitation in backgrounds.  That doesn't make the world less difficult (carru are still carru, for instance), and if somebody skips that one spam-ride from Tuluk to Allanak, so what?

[hyzhenhok]

Two words: special application.

[Kassindra]

Two words: special application.

Was about to say; just special app.

[Kismetic]

Two words: special application.

Character Related    Special Application    3    12.94 days

I would count those words, but I'm lazy

[Malken]

There's a subguild that gives you tribal accent and Bendune. I bet in the past, some conversation sounding exactly like this one popped up.

"If you want tribal accent and Bendune, just special app it."

But now we have a subguild that gives you exactly that, so why not have one for northern and southern accent as well, if someone really wants it?

Could just add a couple of minor skills to each as well and make it two brand new subguilds. No big deal.

Northern subguild: Comes with northern accent, lumberjacking to journeyman max and some minor haggling skill.

Southern subguild: Comes with southern accent, stonecrafting to journeyman max and some minor listen skill.

[Nyr]

To comment on the actual idea, it's definitely something we are aware of:

There are a few minor "flavor" things that do not affect the gameworld and balance so much but do require staff intervention to set it up.  Among these:

changing starting accent to another accent
being from place X while starting in place Y
changing language proficiencies when half-elf (a background might affect this)

Until we have a solution in place that is automated, we would prefer that players use special applications for any roles in which they require those sorts of setups.  We may change policy on this and not require a special app, but for the most part, we've held to requiring special applications for any roles requiring staff intervention in order to set it up to the player's specifications.

There would have to be some additional consideration for balance that I didn't consider as carefully when I originally posted that, which is where the coded stuff and the overall concept may get bogged down.  I think most of it could be handled by CGP in that system.   Special applications could still handle the odd cases of stolen gypsy baby from Allanak that got spirited away to Tuluk and snuck into a Tuluki crib to replace a Tuluki baby that was then sent to the gypsy baby orphanarium.

[Kismetic]

CGP would be perfect!  Man, those are gonna cut down on so much staff work.  What're you guys gonna do then, sit around and smoke cigars? 

[Fragmented]

Never considered that I might be spineless for wanting to be able to select which accent my character speaks with, but alright.

As for making the transition in game, I certainly support this as an option. But if we can stretch our imaginations and imagine that
Joe Nobody starts the game with a waterskin, a shirt on his back, pants, boots, a backpack and.. oh yes, a thousand coins (roughly),
then I think we can stretch our imagination a bit to assume Joe spent some of his hard earned/won fortune on that initial ride.

I don't (personally) find it very attractive that if I want a tribal accent, I must pick a subguild with everything else it implies to have it,
or actually be a tribal character. My wife sounds disturbingly like a west texan, but has never lived in west texas. She just has three or
four friends she gabs with constantly who are from there. I appreciate the feedback from those who shared it, inflammatory or not. Was
just throwing out an idea that I personally would enjoy seeing brought into the game.

I will personally never feel like waiting possibly 30 days (or more) for a special application, just to be able to start in Luirs and not
-automatically- be called a Northie if I go down south. 10 years ago, this was easily handled by wishing up and asking for an accent
change. I can't think of one time in the three or four times I requested this I was ever denied (except to be told I'd need to ask again
when someone of sufficient power was around to do it). I understand the regime has changed hands, and things are handled differently.
I respect that, and I respect Nyr's decision. Thanks.

[Case]

Edit: Actually read Nyr's post!

[benegesseritwitch]

Fyi, this is very strange, but I just checked the "Accent" help file and it looks like it still has this old language in it even though I swear it had gotten changed to reflect current policies: http://armageddon.org/help/view.php?name=Accent

The text I'm seeing right now:

Accent                                                                  (Spoken)

  Accents are a manner of speaking characteristic of a region or city. On
Armageddon, when a character chooses a starting location in the Hall of
Kings, they are given the virtual accent of that location. This means when
they speak, people from other regions may be able to tell which region they
are from. Using region specific words and slang is still highly encouraged,
but this feature gives a coded indication of where someone is from.

  If you have in your background that you are from one region, but are
starting in another location, you may be able to get an staff member to
change your accent after entering the game by changing your objective to
indicate that you would like your accent changed, and what region to change
it to.



Notes:
  Knowing how to convincingly speak with a foreign accent (i.e. an accent
different from your character's regional accent) is a special ability which
can only be learned by listening to those who speak with the accent better
than your character.  Similar to learning a language, the learning curve is
extremely steep at first, so that one will require a very long time to
finally understand the basics of an accent.

Recognizing a foreign accent and being talented enough to convincingly
speak with that accent are completely different.

A thorough understanding of the fundamentals of a language are required
before one can make out the subtle nuances of an accent.

Edit: I got there by going to the main site, clicking on "help files" then clicking on "Accent" in the menu list.

[a french mans shirt]

Idea.

traveling trader subguild: northern accent, southern accent, haggle, value

allanaki refugee subguild: southern accent, direction sense (seriously though, without that how will they have gotten somewhere else?), stoneworking

I honestly believe that all city folk should have allundean and mirrukim and sirihish to have just branched, on chargen, in addition to the language(s) they already know fully. They've lived long enough at the minimum ages which are allowed to be able to recognize any of the three when spoken in strings of more then three words. And to make it impossible for people to try to speak languages until journeyman, they're impossible to understand until then anyway.

[Kismetic]

If you want to lump them into subguilds, just make Rebel now have northern accent, and toss southern accent into something appropriate, like whatever subguild represents dirt poor asshole.

[musashi]

like whatever subguild represents dirt poor asshole.

mercenary

[Malken]

like whatever subguild represents dirt poor asshole.

mercenary

I was going to say bard but yeah, that'd be northern.