Make learning languages easier

[a french mans shirt]

I think learning languages should be somewhat easier, and accent learning seems fine, maybe make it slightly easier. Prioritizing wisdom to make this less difficult doesn't make much sense to me as anyone who gets immersed enough or takes enough lessons is going to be able to speak the language regardless given time. But a pc in this game could try and try for three years and never branch enough to say 'hello.'

[Jihelu]

I've never branched another language.
I've branched a lot of things.
Never once a language.
Yet I hear about people all the time going "Yeah I heard elf once and learned it"
Wtf is this.

[BrokenRomance]

What was really disturbing to me in regards to learning languages was I've played a character with a bard subguild and it specifically says they pick up accents and languages easy, yet despite being one of my longer lived ones the character never picked up an accent even when hearing one constantly other than her own.

Meanwhile another character had no such supposedly pre-existing ability to do so, and picked up another accent swiftly.

[Erythil]

There should be some coded way to make 'teaching' languages easier, imo.

It's way too arcane and difficult and chance-related atm.

[Jihelu]

As far as I know teaching languages works:
Once you have the skill.
Before that it just doesn't work.



There should be a way to be taught a language, whether a few times or by a higher chance, and have it appear as 'novice'.

[manipura]

For some reason I'm thinking that teaching languages (as in using the teach command with language) doesn't work.

It's a bit disappointing that you can't roleplay teaching someone a language and learning one is completely by chance.  Well...I guess you can roleplay it, it just doesn't make a difference.
I've had more than one character be in a position to teach a language and with one I spent a lot of time roleplaying multiple lessons with another PC and then got told it didn't matter because language skills weren't going to be given. 

[a french mans shirt]

teach does not allow you to teach a language, I remember not being able to give elvish to a fella.

I once had a human with extremely good wisdom who sat in the Gaj all the time when Tuluk was open before the war, and she managed to learn rinthi, northern and tribal accents in the first two RL months. Humans have a pretty wide range for stats, though. This sounds fast but there was a hodgepodge of folks at the Gaj at this time for some reason. And I know if I had a rinthi and wanted to be a secret rinthi, I could learn the southern accent within a couple of RL weeks as long as my wisdom was good for it. (Still an anti-wisdom person when it comes to learning languages.)

I branched a language once. I was a half-elf with extremely good wisdom who for literally thirty minutes listened to a couple of muls talking in mirukkim at the bar. It took almost that long, but I got lucky.

I don't believe in adjusting languages to be taught using the teach command, unless it takes you between three and eight 'teaches' and you do one per lesson. If this happened people who work for merchant houses could actually learn cavilish, and you don't suspect every human who can speak elvish of being a secret breed. A dwarf wanting to learn tatlum could actually do so, in clandestine meetings or by hiding and listening.

I also believe in not being able to actually speak in a language until you hit journeyman. Everyone who tries to speak before then sounds like a moron anyway. I think novice and apprentice should be seen as a learning transition. If you don't change anything about how its pronounced now and try to say simple phrases at novice or apprentice then no one will understand you.

[Raptor_Dan]

Well...I guess you can roleplay it, it just doesn't make a difference.

When a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear it? Yes, if you log it, and send in a request.

As for almost 90% of the rest of this thread, it seems like mostly anecdotal speculation on how the language code works, so I'm not even going to respond to that.

I do agree that learning languages isn't intuitive, and seems wonky, as I've had 'experiences' that back that up, though.

[manipura]

Well...I guess you can roleplay it, it just doesn't make a difference.

When a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear it? Yes, if you log it, and send in a request.

As for almost 90% of the rest of this thread, it seems like mostly anecdotal speculation on how the language code works, so I'm not even going to respond to that.

I do agree that learning languages isn't intuitive, and seems wonky, as I've had 'experiences' that back that up, though.

Well I'm basing what I said on the response I got from staff, after I logged lessons and sent a request inquiring about how someone could get a language codedly added.

Unfortunately as the code is at the moment, the only way for a character to learn a language is by hearing it. In the past we have offered skill bumps for roleplay in skills that lack any way to be practised. The classic example is 'backstab'.

At the moment languages don't fall under this criteria.

And what I meant by "it doesn't make a difference" is that no matter how many lessons someone has received, or how good those lessons have been...if requesting a language be added isn't a thing, then all your lessons really don't make a difference, because they person isn't going to learn that language unless they happen to learn it by chance, in the process of listening to you.

It's a little awkward, roleplaying that you've been regularly giving someone language lessons over the course of many game-weeks, up to numerous game-months even, and they are still unable to understand "Hello."  That's the sort of thing that makes me say it doesn't really make a difference.

[Riev]

When a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear it? Yes, if you log it, and send in a request.

Unfortunately as the code is at the moment, the only way for a character to learn a language is by hearing it. In the past we have offered skill bumps for roleplay in skills that lack any way to be practised. The classic example is 'backstab'.

At the moment languages don't fall under this criteria.

While I HAVE had things increased, added, etc over the years, the game no longer exists in a world where "If you do it in game, and its logged, it can be represented". Now your character has to have been around for <x> RL months, more than one or two logs needs to be in, you have to pray to the Guardians of the Watchtowers of the North five times daily, AND it has to be something so integral to your character/plots that staff break their rules.

Learning a language, simply because it 'can' be learned by everyone, is not something they'll just add. Ever. No matter how much work you put into it, no matter how many logs you've been through about sitting through lessons. Its an unfortunate policy.

Because languages are one of the few ways you can try to "be secret" about things you're doing. Spymaster? Spend years learning Mirukkim. Get a half-elf to teach you enough Allundean so you can spill details about something important that only some untrustworthy necker would understand. Gain the trust of a hostile tribe of dwarves because you had an "Uncle Murdle" who taught you everything you know.

[WarriorPoet]

Just to add to the pool here, I branch languages on the regular. I've never suspected it was difficult and I very very rarely play high wis characters. Just luck, I suppose

[Raptor_Dan]

@manipura

I can totally understand your frustration, I just guess I got a little defensive. I've played multiple chars whom people have paid for language lessons. Each time, it became immediately clear they only wanted me to talk at them periodically, using a certain language.

The roleplay makes a difference to me, I'm sorry that it doesn't make a 'coded' difference, but I'm the kind of player who, in a decade, has never fully branched a char. It's not that important to me. I play a roleplay enforced game because the roleplay is pretty much the most important part.

I'm sorry you're having such a frustrating time with languages.

[Refugee]

I've only learned a language once, on a low-wisdom PC's first time hearing elvish. 

I've put a lot of time into trying to teach others a language that my PC had mastered, many of which I would suspect had high wisdoms.  Without any luck at all.

It just doesn't make sense, with the way languages are really learned by people.

The way teaching a language is implemented now makes teaching RP awkward.  The best way I've found to do it involves saying something in the language and then repeating it over the Way.

[Riev]

The trouble is, you can RP it however you want, though giving the 'true' meaning of a word over the Way would make the most sense.

Unfortunately, since languages are not -given-, the only way to -really- learn one is to have someone just randomly speak babbling gobbled-gook at you every day for a while. Which makes no RP sense, and if you've been teaching someone for a month, and they can't understand the bendune word for sand... you're probably just going to give up.

[nauta]

I actually think the 'time to learn' a language and accent is already pretty fast, but I could just have high wisdom characters or something.

I wish that sweet spot where you kind of know the language but its a bit garbled were extended.  For the puzzle solver in me, this is the most fun, and it's also fun to speak with your speech garbled, but it seems that it only lasts a very short while: moving to novice takes a long time, but then novice to master is really really fast.

My quibbles with the system:

1. Teaching a language is boring!  I've worked around it once somewhat by using the buffer in my client to simultaneously 'psi' and 'say' what I type out, so we can actually have a conversation that's meaningful, but this turned out to be a bit of a headache.

2. Teach command.  You really should be able to 'teach' with languages.

3. Only learnable via PCs (and some NPC scripts).  I'd like a passive chance to learn allundean, say, if I'm idling at the bar in Blackwing, or vice versa, sirihish if I'm idling at Luir's.  Instead, I have to sit and wait for PCs to speak, or spend a lot of quality time with the elf NPC vendors.

[Malifaxis]

I've played a lot of high wisdom characters.  My high wisdom character pick up languages and accents like cats lick up milk.

I've played a lot of low wisdom characters.  Dumb motherfuckers never learn even that an elf is talking in another language.

You want to be smart, play smart.  Stop using wisdom as a dumpstat.

Languages are fucking fine as is.  They SHOULD be hard as fuck to learn.  They're a fucking language.  I challenge any one of you smart, savvy motherfuckers to go plonk yourself down in Sierra Leone and try to start conversing comfortably with the locals.  Let me know how that goes for you.

You're educated in a way that nobles in Zalanthas are not.  You have the big brains to handle tons of learning, because for most of you, you did that shit for almost 15 years straight... just power learning.  Now if you grabbed Rosetta Stone, you could pick up a new language in a few to several months. 

But plonking you down alone in Sierra Leone is the equivalent of a Zalanthan noble receiving personal tutelage in a different language, IMHO.  The noble would have that tutelage, but there would still be tons of factors in play that would make it difficult to learn... the least of that being the fact that, deep down, the noble may think that learning the language of such a sub-race is *wrong* because it demeans or lowers them.

[Riev]

Which makes sense, Mal, and I think would be also partly mitigated if the learning of a language was noticeably easier, but the skill ticks/timer were offset a bit. So you spend a -much- longer time sounding like a stupid tourist, learning a language, making someone a "master" of Allundean outside of an elf who was -raised- to speak it, a rarity. Make it go up like combat skills :3

[Armaddict]

Eh.  There's a bit of randomness that is not really desirable as far as establishing consistency or reinforcing the idea of semi-realistic roleplay.

I've had two elves who instantly picked up Tatlum the first time they ever heard it.  Then I've had multiple high-wisdom characters who -wanted- to learn other languages, were constantly exposed to it, and were even being taught it in some cases, where it never popped.  This is not something where I tried for a few days and got frustrated.  I mean long-term characters, where they spent IC years being exposed, and it just never even started to come despite them picking up languages they didn't want to learn.

I think that while the code is understandable in its motivations, there's some definite tweaking that can be done.  Perhaps make the 'random pop' far less likely, while making that constant exposure lead to increasing chances of that random pop happening over time.  It would be another modifier for a pfile to keep track of, but shouldn't lead to much of a memory sink.  The insistence on randomness for it is kind of counter-intuitive to other themes of the game, though, and ultimately just frustrating when common sense points in the other direction and you can't do anything about it.

[Delirium]

^ that.

[manipura]

@manipura

I can totally understand your frustration, I just guess I got a little defensive. I've played multiple chars whom people have paid for language lessons. Each time, it became immediately clear they only wanted me to talk at them periodically, using a certain language.

The roleplay makes a difference to me, I'm sorry that it doesn't make a 'coded' difference, but I'm the kind of player who, in a decade, has never fully branched a char. It's not that important to me. I play a roleplay enforced game because the roleplay is pretty much the most important part.

I'm sorry you're having such a frustrating time with languages.

I think we all play this game because of the roleplay, you probably aren't unique in that regard. 
The roleplay makes a difference to me too, but what is frustrating is when the code doesn't support the roleplay.  Or worse, when the code invalidates the roleplay.  By invalidate I mean...when I give language lessons in game, talking about the sounds of the language, the way the words go together, the way one's mouth should be shaped to produce different sounds, etc... And I do this, in combination with speaking the language, once or twice a RL day for three weeks straight and the person essentially still can't understand "Hello"...that is where my frustration comes from.  The code simply invalidating whatever roleplay you've been doing.  Speaking a language in game isn't something you can pretend to do to support the fact that you've been learning it.  You just can't even attempt a language that you don't 'have'. 
I don't think that wishing that the code supported your roleplay makes someone the kind of player where the code is most important.  It's sort of the opposite really, wanting to be able to roleplay something without the code poking you afterward and saying "Nope, this isn't happening."

And I'm not actually having a frustrating time with languages, thank you for the concern though. 

stuff and things

I've played a lot of high wisdom PCs too and I think I've picked up a new language once.
I've known characters (wisdom unknown but probably not prioritized) to 'learn' a new language after hearing it once.  I've known others (wisdom presumably prioritized) who heard my PC speak a different language on nearly a daily (game day) basis for five or six game years...and still never pick up that language.  One of those particular characters that never learned from my PC in years of hearing a language, picked up a -different- language after hearing it a handful of times.  The sheer randomness of how you pick up languages in-game is what doesn't make sense.

No one is really saying that you should be able to plunk down in the middle of the wilderness and be fluent (master) in a new language, after hearing it a few times or having a few lessons.  But if I hear someone speaking a language every day for five years, I would think I could start to pick out a couple words (novice).

There are also languages in game that are closely related to other languages.  I think it would be realistic that someone who is a native speaker of one of those languages would have an easier time picking up the new one, since they're in the same language group/family, but that isn't the case.

[Feco]

I'm pretty sure I popped Cavilish, once, after hearing it for the first time.

[Pretentious]

If your PC is engaged in RPing language lessons consistently over an ICly significant amount of time, that seems like something worth putting in a character report to try and coordinate with your ST on.

Without getting into specifics, I have had meaningful communication with my staff through character reports on this issue before.

[Ath]

If your PC is engaged in RPing language lessons consistently over an ICly significant amount of time, that seems like something worth putting in a character report to try and coordinate with your ST on.

Without getting into specifics, I have had meaningful communication with my staff through character reports on this issue before.

This is very true.  It doesn't hurt to put into your reports that you're teaching someone a skill, any skill for that matter.  If the roleplaying is there, it's more likely to assist if you wish to ask for a skill bump to be applied later.  Once again, our game is a focus on roleplaying, and good, realistic roleplaying can be rewarded in other ways.

[Armaddict]

If your PC is engaged in RPing language lessons consistently over an ICly significant amount of time, that seems like something worth putting in a character report to try and coordinate with your ST on.

Without getting into specifics, I have had meaningful communication with my staff through character reports on this issue before.

This is correct.

However, this is also an instance of where code can be modified, as with many other areas of the game.  The proper response to code that is not functioning in a consistent or beneficial manner is not to just circumvent it, at least not in the long term.

The entire purpose of bringing it up is because this is one of those instances where...

The roleplay makes a difference to me too, but what is frustrating is when the code doesn't support the roleplay.  Or worse, when the code invalidates the roleplay.

This is a place where the 'laws of physics' of the game, the code, are not behaving in a way that is conducive to actually creating a good formation of 'how things work'.  In other words, when you have to come up with an IC explanation for how the code works, but then roll your eyes upwards in disbelief in how you just had to explain it, that's an indicator of code being worthy of a second look.  There are other areas where this exist as well, and some of them are less black and white in my mind due to interpretation and such, but the above has been the short term fix for a long time, and to be frank, a somewhat unreliable one that doesn't really address the 'random pop' oddity that is the current code.