Absolutely this.
Or, if like rumour has it, it was changed because PVPers couldn’t act like darn adults, just auto-disable it in PVP areas.
There is absolutely zero reason that Common is not both-faction, in-game or in-lore. None whatsoever.
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I personally love the usage of languages, and I wish I could actually use more than just common/my language (outside the new furbolg one).
If anything allow us to actually LEARN other languages.
I think a few of you broadly interpreted what I said.
I did not say it is unrealistic and or uncommon for people to know multiple languages, or to learn Darnassian.
What is unrealistic that if I spoke gnomish with another gnome in Stormwind using [Gnomish], suddenly every human, night elf, dwarf and pandaren in the entire district perfectly understood gnomish and answered, that is what I saw happen, what I’ve had happen to me before when I manually put that infront of my messages with a smaller group, but ya know what I mean let me make it big cuz I am small.
It’s why I just stopped using the racial languages of my characters. Except sometimes my night elf.
While people misusing, metagaming or generally pissing on immersion really sucks, I think this is a topic worthy of having faith in people about.
Like, how fun isn’t it to see someone speak in a language you don’t understand - but because it’s not presented through the bad in-game filter you’re actually able to pick up on the fact they mentioned you by name in the middle of the sentence. I’d say it takes away as much realism as it adds to it!
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I doubt that still holds up to this day as with WM on there are plenty of FFA spots where you can be camped by your own faction.
There are plenty of cross language words that one could pick up and get the gist of a conversation in real life. I don’t see it any different in WoW. Do Night Elves have unique Darnassian words for every invention made by other races? Or for cultural specific things? Just like in real life they’ll probably borrow existing words and add it to their own.
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Personally I kind of like it. Not being able to understand a language being spoken by others is quite immersive for me. Like I don’t understand all languages IRL.
A way around it, is if they made it in game possible to learn a language like they did with Furbolg. You could even stop half way through so you’d only understand half of what is being said. Sometimes it’s helped create more rp I’ve been in as people translate, change some words, made some events go a bit crazy.
If I ever really was bothered (which I never have been), I’d interact with them in Orcish.
Agreed. There are many languages your character would/might realistically know.
Darnassian and Thalassian especially should be fairly close to each other.
On the opposite end of the spectrum I wish people would learn to respect the
< LOW > and < VERY LOW > tag. If people use that they probably don’t want your character to hear it from 30 yards away.
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Learning languages, and perhaps being limited which ones you can learn, would be a step forward in my opinion. Again, there’s no reason for Worgen not to know Darnassian. Though at large I still think it’s more clutter than anything else, especially if we get languages like Vulpera and Pandaren which are just… poorly made and feel more like a joke than real language.
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I completely agree with your post and I’ve ranted about this particular point so much.
In the end, RP is a fun social activity, not a historical reenactment, and it just isn’t fun when your chat log is filled with “[Darnassian] Edlyn rolallen naed” and you, on a non-night elf character, are just sitting there feeling excluded.
Lintian does point it out IC when she witnesses other night elves speak Darnassian at what’s supposed to be a conversation that includes everyone, including visitors of other races. And when I myself come on a non-night elf, sometimes I end up hiding a level 1 night elf alt in the bushes just so I can understand the conversation. People shouldn’t have to do that.
And yes, I recommend the RP Prefix addon wholeheartedly, and use it myself instead of in-game languages.
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I’ve sorted the language issue when in non-kaldorei company by adding to my TRP currently “speaks darnassian to other night elves” and left it at that. Why is it important to even note it? Because the language and what it represents is important to the character in question.
I posted this topic a while ago about a new addon. It doesn’t work like [Tongues] so this is an improvement and has full compatibility with TRP3 as it’s from the same devs.
https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/new-language-addon-released/468191
And a link to the addon itself.
https://www.curseforge.com/wow/addons/languages
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I would make limit of 3 or 4 languages to be learnable, (You don’t get to understand all langages irl either), with some races, customisations or classes having an option for more or for a specific ones. For example, average Draenei would know Draenei and Common, so the character would have 3 languages to learn, free to choose. With being an intellect focus class, (Priest, Warlock) - an extra 1 language, Mages 2. However if you would pick the red skin for Man’ari, you would have Draenei replaced with Eredun/Demonic and you would have to learn Draenei. Warlocks would have the ability to learn Demonic from the class and Spriests and Void Elves Shat’yar or how it is called. And ye, I agree with making Common the universal. Doesn’t Horde speak Common lore wise anyway? If not it’s still gonna be widespread. And don’t forget, there is a human in Redridge, who knows Orcish. I also agree with the Gibberish switch if you don’t want to understand other faction Common.
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Close. Shath’Yar. Or just call it Tongue of the Old Gods or Language of the Old Gods. Both are fine.
If Thrall spoke with Jaina etc. etc. etc. in same tongue, yes. But I doubt it would liked among some races to be spoke often.
In my take, my char is old dk, who took time to learn in their years of Scourge to learn Nerubian. Not saying they are fully fluent speaking of it, but it is passable tongue they can speak. From Orcish, Thalassian and Common added. They might struggle with Nerubian, how hard tongue it is
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I think there are times where it’s going to be fine for the people you’re with to start speaking another language that you can’t understand; it’s a natural part of life. In the same vein, I can’t fault people that only speak a specific language in-game.
That said, I do agree that Common really ought to be universal at this stage, and that players should be able to learn 2-3 (maybe 4 on a Mage?) languages on a character.
I’ve always found it a bit snobby to constantly talk in your own language so that other races wouldn’t understand it. I’ve (and quite a few other people) gotten it into a habit to simply put [Thalassian] in /s and just write as per usual, without letting another person read absolute in-game gibberish.
That, however, prompted a few new issues, when it was, in example, something another person didn’t like and wouldn’t most likely understand, which led to that same person learn the language on the spot and begin their immediate verbal retaliation with the whole “heh, kid…” attitude. It was and still is annoying, as it heavily relies on the person’s character’s continuity, without them breaking their own character and not use that as a great opportunity to attempt and dab on someone.
It took Blizzard 7 expansions to introduce Elixir of Tongues. For you to be able to learn language’s on the in-game level - we’d need WoW 2.
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If it’s anything like OW2? Please no.
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This actually used to be a thing…
Personally, I really enjoy the immersion of it, but at the same time, I enjoy the immersion of other peoples characters being able to learn my characters languages. For example other characters in my guild can icly understand Thalassian, so I have made it a habit to generally just manually type [Thalassian] if I know characters who can speak it are present. I still use the in game tool when I don’t think anyone nearby can speak the language, but I’m someone who is open to whisper translations of what I’ve said or just swap to putting [Thalassian] in for the sakes of easier rp for everyone involved.
I also relate to the feeling of being left out when everyone is speaking a different in-game language and I’m left without the ability to engage with the roleplay. It would be nice if you could set certain words as not being translated, as my character would definitely react to a bunch of Draconic with his name thrown in the middle several times.
Went ahead and installed the addon, and I’ll probably start using that over the ingame setting more often. Immersion of not knowing is nice, but immersion in inclusion is nicer.
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I think the best compromise would be to simply allow every character to have the ability to learn Common as a universal language whilst leaving the more exotic languages unique to specific playable races. In the case of shared heritage - such as Void Elves and Blood Elves - it makes sense for both to be fluent in Thalassian.
I also do not believe that there is anything wrong with people wanting to have private conversations in, say, Thalassian that non-elves are simply not privy to. Equally, I recall a fun scenario years back where my Blood Elf was passing through Forsaken lands and some of the locals were being all polite and friendly to his face whilst whispering to each other in Gutterspeak. As a player, I did not understand what they were saying and neither did my character.
It made the interactions more credible and immersive than it would have been if I were privy to the exact nature of the scheming going on in the background.
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It’s a matter of inclusivity, i default to writing [Thalassian] when other people are around more often than not.
Don’t really think there’s a right or wrong with it to be honest. Though i have to admit if there are fifteen trolls speaking their thang and like two forsaken. It can be incredibly isolating.
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