Selection of Accent at Char-gen

[Maso]

tldr: I agree with Moe entirely.

[Jenred]

I miss the old-fashioned answers of "No - if you want your character to be from the South but live in the North, do it IC".
As someone said, the idea of cross-worlding shouldn't be so Common that anyone and everyone can choose what and wish combinations of language and accent they use.

[MeTekillot]

@Jenred: Why?

[Jenred]

Because it encouraged players to play through the developmental portions of their character.

[Rhyden]

I agree with Jenred. If your character can't actually travel the world after creation, how would you expect them to do it virtually?

[RogueGunslinger]

I'm not understanding you guys at all. You're really harping on a point that just doesn't make sense to me. It should be up to the player what portions of their characters life they want to live through. Not the playerbase in general who decides what's okay for some ones background or not. What you're saying is that you won't add in accents before chargen because you think it takes away the chance that someone will make the trip themselves. SO FUCKING WHAT.

I understand the notion of not adding it in because it can be special apped, why burden staff. But for some weird ass notion that other players aren't going to be playing the bits of their own character that you yourself would like to play? Wow. Talk about limiting what others want to do for incredibly selfish reasons. If someone wants a background that suggests they travel the whole damn known world all the time then they can do that. Automating the process behind accents is simply making something you can already do a little bit less frustrating.

Were all of you so upset when staff used to just change your accent on a wish-up before, to better fit your background?

[Jenred]

I'm not understanding you guys at all. You're really harping on a point that just doesn't make sense to me. It should be up to the player what portions of their characters life they want to live through.

Since when? Players have made this argument before, and the staff response was - if you believe something happened to your character that should've been covered prior to actually playing the character to apply for it in a special application (in the case of added skills, skill increases, etc etc.) It shouldn't be any different with wanting to know a new accent that your character, based off the generalized backgrounds associated with your starting city, wouldn't know.

It is selfish, and actually kinda overly entitled, that players nowadays think that they should just be allowed to do whatever with their character because its their character, despite how rare it would actually be in the game. There is not alot of documentation to support the widespread "growing up in one region and entirely resettling in another" aspect that this type of idea would support.

The game has parameters, precedents, and standards.
"I want to play my warrior with sneak, because as a child he was raised by elves. Why should /you/ or anyone else care? its my character!"
The reason is because the interplay of stats, skills, perceptions, etc, all do more than just "affect your enjoyment".
A character knowing another accent, while seemingly trivial, has gameplay impacts.

[Malken]

I agree with Jenred. If your character can't actually travel the world after creation, how would you expect them to do it virtually?

Why is your 32 years old ranger fights worse than the 15 years old warrior? Because of X.

Why is it that your character used to travel back and forth from point X and Y but doesn't anymore? Because of Z.

People make up excuses as to why their character is the way they are now, as opposed to what their background would portray in reality.

[Jenred]

I agree with Jenred. If your character can't actually travel the world after creation, how would you expect them to do it virtually?

Why is your 32 years old ranger fights worse than the 15 years old warrior? Because of X.

Why is it that your character used to travel back and forth from point X and Y but doesn't anymore? Because of Z.

People make up excuses as to why their character is the way they are now, as opposed to what their background would portray in reality.

CGP is being added to cover for this. I'd see no issue in using it to affect starting languages.
The issue is that players are abuse prone.
If you were able to roll up a 32 year old ranger, skilled in the ways of the world, adept in all his expertises, the average player would. Why play a novice anything? Players that would choose to be weak are few and far between unfortunately.
Given the opportunity to start out new or maxed, most would chose maxed.
The game is a MUD and a role-playing game - not a MUSH where you just play out any concept you want. The game has code, and progression, and all that. There is some flexibility, if you want to play a character that has a background of skill and expertise, you can special app it.

[Rhyden]

I agree with Jenred. If your character can't actually travel the world after creation, how would you expect them to do it virtually?

Why is your 32 years old ranger fights worse than the 15 years old warrior? Because of X.

Why is it that your character used to travel back and forth from point X and Y but doesn't anymore? Because of Z.

People make up excuses as to why their character is the way they are now, as opposed to what their background would portray in reality.

For the same reasons I can't say my character has several polygamous relationships, murders several people, while making 10k every time I log out.

If your character can't codedly do something, why should I believe they can virtually do it?

And traveling the world alone, hiring the Byn, or someone else isn't really that difficult. Who knows it might even be fun.

[RogueGunslinger]

I agree with Jenred. If your character can't actually travel the world after creation, how would you expect them to do it virtually?

Why is your 32 years old ranger fights worse than the 15 years old warrior? Because of X.

Why is it that your character used to travel back and forth from point X and Y but doesn't anymore? Because of Z.

People make up excuses as to why their character is the way they are now, as opposed to what their background would portray in reality.

CGP is being added to cover for this. I'd see no issue in using it to affect starting languages.
The issue is that players are abuse prone.
If you were able to roll up a 32 year old ranger, skilled in the ways of the world, adept in all his expertises, the average player would. Why play a novice anything? Players that would choose to be weak are few and far between unfortunately.
Given the opportunity to start out new or maxed, most would chose maxed.
The game is a MUD and a role-playing game - not a MUSH where you just play out any concept you want. The game has code, and progression, and all that. There is some flexibility, if you want to play a character that has a background of skill and expertise, you can special app it.

So you're afraid of people abusing what exactly? We allow special apps instead of just letting them do what they want because of trust in the players. Do you really not trust the players to pick an accent that realistically portrays their background or something? This is what I don't get. You've made two different arguments. One was that players would be cheating themselves out of the experience of traveling the world, as a matter of "progression".The other is that players can't handle the choice of which accent they should get.

Saying it's something one can "special app" is saying you'd let everyone do it if they had enough trust. I'm wonder why you think people need trust to pick their own accent.

For the same reasons I can't say my character has several polygamous relationships, murders several people, while making 10k every time I log out.

If your character can't codedly do something, why should I believe they can virtually do it?

And traveling the world alone, hiring the Byn, or someone else isn't really that difficult. Who knows it might even be fun.

The difference between what's in your characters background and what they do in the time you're logged off is so vastly different I don't really understand why you're making the connection.

Your hang-up is why not just make the trip across the world so you can have the accent you want in the place you want,"it's not that difficuly".  I'm saying who cares how difficult it is, lets just let people play the type of character with the type of background that they want to play.

[Malken]

For the same reasons I can't say my character has several polygamous relationships, murders several people, while making 10k every time I log out.

Hmm? Pretty sure that if you want to say that your character has several polygamous relationships, Staff will happily allow you to say so, the same goes with having murdered several people in your background.

Like RogueGunslinger, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say/prove with those examples..

Not really going to spend much energy bothering to debate this idea, though, because I have a gut feeling that Staff will eventually allow this.

[Rhyden]

Like RogueGunslinger, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say/prove with those examples..

I was refuting your own examples with hypotheticals from the opposite extreme. It's really not that difficult to grasp.

And no I don't believe staff will allow you to be a mass murderer in your background.

This really isn't worth debating, I've simply offered possibilities as to why it hasn't been put in place.

Currently if you want accent A but want to live in city B you have a few options: 1) DIY 2) Spec. app 3) wish up and beg staff to transfer you.

If staff allow characters to change their accent at or before creation, great. I simply think you're missing out on in game potential plots if you do so. Honestly I really couldn't care less, just my 2 cents.

[Jenred]

So you're afraid of people abusing what exactly?

...

Saying it's something one can "special app" is saying you'd let everyone do it if they had enough trust. I'm wonder why you think people need trust to pick their own accent.

The character concept, that would allow for a character to be raised in a specific region, moved to another, yet totally indoctrinated into the language of their new-area is one that is not common enough to allow all players to do it. The abuse possible is being able to quickly pick up mulitiple accents by essentially being started off in a region that speaks the opposite accent. You are then able to essentially "fit in" in either region, since accents are one of the primary means of judging someone's starting location - something that factors predominantly into inter-city tension roleplay.

Then you have the outlying situations of tribals and rinthis... "I was a Northerner, raised in the rinth, but I stuck with the north accent" - bazaar stuff like that that should really just be run by staff and not something left freely up to players to do just because "its their character's background". Or a tribal that was washed away to the south, but doesn't want to take the nomad subguild, etc etc.

Further, even if this one specific thing has no real high abuse factor, its a slippery slope towards the things that people have already been joking about here. The slope of "its my background, why do you care" is one thing, but when the code starts catering to it, its another thing entirely.

[Harmless]

To add meat to the "slippery slope" argument, let's say choice of accent becomes its own selection in char creation.

Next, people will want to be able to pick which city's starting shop they want to use. I want to start in Nak, but I want the Tuluki starter shop.

Or, maybe they want to be sure to get the Tuluki tattoos, because that's where they were born, but then start in 'Nak because they were an early immigrant there for some reason, but grew up in Nak, and so have the southern accent, but want Nak starter clothes, so that they can reflect having lived most of their childhood there.

In the end, you just have so many possible situations that might lead to a request of "change character creation so that I can automatically get my snowflake app X please" again, and again, and again.

Just do the special app.

[Kismetic]

I don't think anyone is advocating having accents be an automatic and free selection at creation.  Nyr mentioned something about possibly adding it to CGP.  I like the idea of getting an accent for 1 CGP.  It's an expeditious method that doesn't burden staff workload, and it doesn't have much potential for actual abuse that has a net gain.  Jenred's example of a rinthi doesn't pan out, why would a rinthi ever leave the rinth (and be in the Bizarre, teehee)?

[Jenred]

I don't think anyone is advocating having accents be an automatic and free selection at creation.  Nyr mentioned something about possibly adding it to CGP.  I like the idea of getting an accent for 1 CGP.  It's an expeditious method that doesn't burden staff workload, and it doesn't have much potential for actual abuse that has a net gain.  Jenred's example of a rinthi doesn't pan out, why would a rinthi ever leave the rinth (and be in the Bizarre, teehee)?

From the first line of this topic:

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.

[Kismetic]

Beyond the first few posts, most people have been considering the notion of either CGP or a subguild choice.  Both come at a cost.

[musashi]

I think I'm in the camp of "No we don't need it." but not because of any "it would cause abuse" line of reasoning.

I just believe that in general, travel between the two cities is suppose to be hazardous and rare for the bulk of the world's population. Most people who are born in Allanak, live, suffer, and die in Allanak. Even those who leave the walls to greb rarely stray further than Vrun Driath because of the wasteland that surrounds them.

So bearing that in mind ... I feel like the frequency of foreign born people in either city state or their sibling outposts, should be kind of rare. Not unheard of, but rare. So in that context, I think special app'ing for it is fine.

[Kismetic]

That line of thinking doesn't change the fact that people traverse from one city-state to the other in fifteen minutes.  How many times a day does that happen, do you think?  It's commonly understood that our characters are not most people.  You shouldn't feel obligated to play vNPC #325, and I doubt many of you do.

[musashi]

Up until you took over that life and made them a PC, they were in fact, vNPC #325. And thy likely lived an existence in accordance with the game setting instead of in spite of it. So I think it's still a fair point. When talking about chargen, not IG play after approval.

If you want their background to be exceptional and have them start out as out of the ordinary, right out the box, we already have processes in place for staff to consider and grant/deny that.

[Kismetic]

We already have a subguild with the tribal accent for this sort of "exceptional" background.  And CGP, I presume, was a concept created not only to give players more options, but staff a lighter load by automating the most common of special app requests.  So, really, there's no good, logical reason to confuse the issue, unless merely to be a hardass.

[musashi]

Comparing nomads to people who grew up in the cities is apples and oranges. That option at character creation is there so that people can elect to play a well-defined part of the game's documentation. Immigrants from one city to another as a normal commonly seen occurrence is not a part of the games documentation. For what it's worth though, if this were made into something you had to pay creation points in order to get I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it.

[RogueGunslinger]

I also don't think a single person would waste a CGP when they can just walk 50 rooms to get across the known to the same effect.

[Kismetic]

re:  musashi

I, too, am more a proponent of buying accents at 1 CGP.  Costly, if you consider that CGP would only replenish once a month, and most of you seem to die 2-3 times in that span.  And considering the other options available for CGP, it would be both automated (helping reduce staff work) and less common than other exceptional background options (extended subguilds, magick subguilds, and skill boosts).