Its an english language mud, deal with it. When people see french language or writting it disrupts RP even though there is a french speaking town. An invariably I see new players shouted down when they then try to speak spanish or german on the city channels. By putting in a french speaking town the divine introduced a blatent OOC element to the game like it or not.

Which IMHO was just pretty bad RP on the divines part. So if they added a football field and called the game spooter, would we all have to listen to people IC talking about spooter tactics and all the other OOC sports drivil when everybody knew they were talking about the OOC game?

Delport is kinda light on the french themselves and its in no way a hassle, only when players start speaking french on channels as a way to skirt the IC rules by saying they are from delport that it irks me.

I forget who posted about being able to post in Krokani but thats a good argument. If you posted a msg in a racial language that nobody could read what would the response be? It'd be keep it off the public channels since nobody can read the damn thing and the public and city boards are for common only writings, if nobody can read the thing then its not very public now is it.

If you like writing in french send private messages to all your french buddies but dont clutter the boards with junk 90% of the mud players cant read and couldnt care less about translating.

Oh, Roark is replying... let's see what he'll write.

Also, I consider Delportian as one of native human languages - who said there should be only one language per race? Even if humans don't get their racial one, that doesn't mean they all speak the same way.

My book has German in it... If I were to learn a second language then it'd be German or Italian because I like the way they sound. Yes, I actually find German pleasing ot the ear! (Mmmm.... German thrash metal...) Or maybe conversational Latin because it's cool, but it wouldn't be very useful.

Anyway... The issue of language is somewhat cosmetic. We can't be like Tolkien and completely invent languages, "Glomdoring" excepted. (Anyone up for a trip to Ered Avechna or Mor-Eryn?) I like using foreign languages, especially archaic ones like Latin, to give something a foreign feel but make it feel familiar, possible even undertstandable. Imagine if you were an orclach and you stumble upon ancient writings done in a language your ancestors spoke. By representing the text in something ancient like Latin (or even ye Olde English), the player IRL experiences: a feeling of antiquity, of vague familiarity with the symbols and words, possibly a mild understanding of some of the words. And those experiences are exactly what would happen if the player's orclach character would feel if he ran into the ancient tounge of the orclach. So I say it helps give realism if you view it as nothing more than a device or game construct rather than a literal thing.

Despite the fact we have players from all over the world, English is the first language for the vast majority of them and that's who gets catered to. So running into French text for the typical customer gives the RL feeling of running into a modern foreign language that perhaps the player has some familiarity with, maybe hears on a semi-regular basis or has friends who speak it. That again is exactly what would happen if someone from Celest wandered into a village that writes in another modern language, as opposed to the ancient example above. If French is your first language, sorry, but I guess you will just have to pretend experience this sort of feeling.

Actually, if you know the early writings and history of Eris then you might be able to figure out where the humans, and also Estarra, came from. And who exactly is that nameless son and two creator/destroyer sisters from the mythos?

What I find nice is that, with French, you have a language ready made for RPing with. What's not so nice, is that you need to know French to make that work. If it was just a few words of a new Delportoise language, it wouldn't have the same depth, or you'd be forced to create your own phrases, which could conflict with others. Much as I wish we could get someone to whip up actual languages for the races and towns, it's not going to happen. Tolkien did it, but it took a passion for language and most of his life; I doubt we can do the same.

See, I don't mind Delportoise. Because it's actually been put in by the Divine - we've been told what it is, with no questions. It's just when people randomly bring in another language and call it whatever they like.

And if we went around inventing completely new, Lusternia-unique languages for the villages, what benefit is that to you when you step away from the computer? You'd still have the language barrier to overcome, and you'd be spending the effort on something that you can't really use.

Yep, sounds like a good compromise to me.

My argument against having french IG is that it gives an advantage to people for OOC reasons. It's like if suddenly, to be a geomancer, you had to understand OOC geology terminology to even get along. It excludes or causes problems for people on an OOC level, because they don't speak french. Whereas someone who does, has an advantage dealing with delport IC. And don't say 'But it's not fair on french people that the MUD is in English'. A hell of alot more of the playerbase are fluent in English, and only a minority understand french. If this was something related to combat - Such as, speaking an OOC language, or knowing certain things, would mean you could fight, where someone who doesn't understand, just plain couldn't.. Then people would complain alot more.

It's supposed to be a roleplay environment. Trying to get us all to roleplay, banning OOC titles, etc, ooc on channels... And then sticking a bunch of NPCs in that speak french... Is just silly. Doesn't matter how you spin it, it's still a reminder of an OOC language. Latin, fine - That's a technically dead language, and anyone fluent in english can get a vauge feel for latin words. Everyone, is pretty much on equal footing with latin, and even then it only arises for names/titles/skills. Compare that to french being used in delport... And you're screwing a huge part of the player base over based on something they don't know OOCly, making it awkward for them to interact with certain NPCs... and worse, reminding them they don't know french, every time they see it used in game. I'd be much happier if delport used a language totally made up, or something very, very obscure. But as it stands... I avoid delport, simply because, to me, it really puts a big wrench in roleplay.

Personally, I think it's great that he posted in French and all that. More power to him. He took a chance to roleplay and went with it. Personally I don't speak French, but I know quite a bit of Spanish so translating the general idea for myself was easy. I know maybe not everyone can speak it, but if you were to speak in another racial language or something, your character wouldn't be able to understand it anyways. Not everyone is from Delport, so obviously they all won't know the language.

I really like that people from Delport speak French because I think it gives the town more...flavor, for lack of a better word. There's no other way to create the same atmosphere of something being foreign but not completely out there. If you make up everything, you'll just have another feeling of, "oh, random village." At least that's the way it feels for me when I go to, say, Acknor.

Gol, you do know there's a such thing as Google Translator, don't you? If you think your character should understand French, just go translate the French on there. You won't get perfect grammar, probably, especially if you try to translate a long post, but you'll be able to understand what it means.

As I mentioned... screws a huge portion of the playerbase over. No one who doesn't speak french, can roleplay being from delport. If someone is fluent in German, fluent in Japanese... They can't use that for roleplay. Why should one minority group get a chance no one else gets, when it could be made so anyone could roleplay being from delport?

Only if you let it be argued that all geomancers have to know about rocks and different kinds thereof and tectonics and all the rest of it, 'cause there's always google or an encyclopaedia to look things up on. Or Aquamancers have to know something about marine biology.

Your statement avoids a huge chunk of my argument. Having french ingame, no matter how many layers of gloss, or roleplay, you plaster on it, it's still french, and still a reminder of the real world. Suspension of disbelief is supposed to run at a comfortable level in a roleplay mud. After a while, you learn to tolerate common being english, and all the funky numbers. But if you recognise french without understanding it? The first thing you'll think seeing 'delportiese' is "Oh, They're talking french".

EDIT: And I chose the geomancers/geology thing for a reason. I have a minor interest in geology ((Studying it at A-level, possibly carrying it on as a degree)) and if to be a geomancer, you needed to be good with geology... Then, If I had a geomancer, it would be no fun. Simply because, it would remind me that I understand something OOC and whether I wanted to or not, it would be aiding me ICly. It would be like... forced metagaming. Which is why I don't understand those who speak french being happy about delport - It'd irk me no end if something I understood well OOCly was present IC, and I had no way to avoid it.

You don't have to speak french to roleplay you're from Delport. Perhaps Qaletaqa forgot it at first, but after intense study (I don't know the whole story, just making this up) it came back to him. Or maybe you really want to roleplay you're from Delport, simply pick up the quirky accents and phrases they say in everyday speech. You don't -have- to speak French in order to roleplay you're from Delport, but you can if you want to. If I felt like deciding to make my character from Delport right now, I wouldn't find any trouble it roleplaying it out and some of the phrases and sayings.

And as for all the other languages, well, I have no solution for that. I just don't feel that using French in a village, where the NPC's don't speak French all the time, isn't really excluding anyone, especially with... freetranslation.net (my translator of choice for spanish assignments.)

I hate repeating myself... But, whilst I do argue that having french IG excludes alot of people... My main argument is that no amount of gloss or pretty wording or roleplay, can hide the fact that what is spoken in delport, is infact, french. If a person has a warcry thats blatantly OOC, or does things, and acts, clearly OOC... No matter what roleplay they use, as long as it's obvious it's oocly influenced, it's gonna be branded bad roleplay. In my mind, Delports language is a similar case. To me, no matter what is said ICly, it's always gonna seem just plain dodgy to use an OOC language IC. And as for the argument, that a language can't be created... Look at the Noctusari on imperian, with their demonic language - With grammar, phrasing, structure, and a reasonably sized vocabulary. Or, look at the Ssylsin and Lamiran - I think both race clans, on imperian, have constructed some kind of language. It is quite possible to make up a rudimentary language, and flesh it out at a reasonable pace.

I think I would personally lean against using RL knowledge of French to claim one speaks Delportese. As I said above, I view it as "nothing more than a device or game construct rather than a literal thing". Using RL knowledge of French turns it into a literal thing. If someone starts speaking German and say's he's speaking the language of Roark's chosen people then I'll respond by saying it sounds like gibberish to me since that German is used in a literal sense rather than as a game construct. (I'm referring to my book's use of "ubermenche" untranslated as a literary device to have a certain effect on the reader that would be impossible if I used English and possibly silly or utterly unintelligiable if I just invented a complete non-sense word.)

Gol, I was only responding to the first section of your post, where you said that using French gives an OOC disadvantage to some players.

So if you know French then you don't know Delportese, but if you don't know French then it's impossible to speak Delportese. So now the entire playerbase is unable to be from Delport or speak the language. Why not just type in random words? That way no one gets an advantage (because regardless of how you feel, anyone who speaks French OOC is going to know what the Delportese said regardless of if their character should know or not) for something that has no relation to the game and you get to have a place where no player can understand what is being said instead of a small fraction of the playerbase getting to know.

I'd also point out that, as great as having a RL foreign language in the game may be, there is no IC way to learn how to speak the language which just makes the whole thing a further breach of the suspension of disbelief.

I don't think that's what Roark meant. I think what he meant is that it's bad to use OOC knowledge to claim to be able to speak Delportian if it doesn't make sense for your character to know it. However, if you know how to speak French OOC, and you want your character to be from Delport or something, then it's okay to use that knowledge as long as it makes IC sense to be doing so.

So if you have OOC knowledge of French then you can pick if your character knows Deleportese or not, but if you never learned it OOC then you don't get that choice at all? Fantastic, that really adds to the roleplaying. How about only people who can do magic IRL can be spellcasting archetypes? Or only people who know how to sword fight can play warriors? You can only lead a city if you're a mayor IRL?

Somehow I suspect that using French is less for atmosphere than it is a Diety wanting to get some use out of the French classes they had to sit through.