On a more serious note, if there is one type that takes the cake for me it’s got to be the language bubble-roleplayers. Those who exclusively have their conversation using the in-game language barrier, instead of say, posting Darnassian with brackets before their sentence, or something.
Now, you might think it’s ‘immersive’, but… It’s really not. The auto-generated words produced are an incoherent mess, and words that have confirmed meaning doesn’t even translate properly. (I’ve tried numerous times.)
Secondly, if characters of one race who speaks/understands the language of another, they won’t be able to keep up with the conversation, even when it makes sense for them to do so.
Drop the language feature, people.
It’s pretty flimsy.
Never! You will listen to my gnomish, and you’ll like it!
Everyone else gets to hear the stupid elven ‘‘Anu-dorah!’’, ‘’ ‘‘Andu-falah-dor’’, and ‘‘Elune-Adore’’. Then you too shall suffer with other languages you filthy CRETIN! >:(
You’re right. The language-roleplayers are almost exclusively elf players. Close second comes the draenei.
Don’t know if it’s even a thing Horde-side. They seem more of an inclusive lot.
I should probably mention that ‘lore’ phrases with translations to them I’m totally fine with, like ‘Achai hecta’ or ‘Elune’adore’.
It’s not really a problem I’ve had (as mentioned, it’s almost exclusively night elf players). I simply think the in-game language feature is more counterproductive than actually adding anything to the scene.
Even if players characters shouldn’t understand the conversation it doesn’t stop the players themselves from wanting to keep up with the roleplay. It just needlessly shuts people out from the narrative.
Darnassian, Shalassian and Thalassian are similar languages. Would be nice for the elves to get “broken” versions translated with the occasional word left untranslated or weird grammar/punctuation stuff, so elves could still understand each other with some difficulty.
The feature is, frankly, completely fine. The issue arises in Languagebois not emoting about their tone, stance, etcetera.
Not to mention that it works wonders against metagamers, as they are just as unwilling to roll a mage as the linguist RPers.
On one hand this could be slightly interesting, but on the other… I don’t think Shalassian belongs in that list. They’ve been split off for 10K years, I doubt it’d be at all recognizeable at that point.
Metagamers is a different problem that isn’t really solved through the language barrier. I don’t think characters should have to roll a specific class for their linguists to understand different languages, however. It could be reasonable to assume that, say, Gilneans who’ve spent a lengthy amount of time living in Darnassus would have picked up the language of the night elves.
In cases like that it just seems more inclusive for those players to drop the feature altogether and simply put emphasis on spoken language, through either an emote or with the use of brackets.
Admittedly though with #3 I think it’s worth remembering that people shouldn’t be immune to being corrected if they make an outlandish concept that spits in the face of lore. Particularly since we’re here to roleplay in Warcraft, not whatever bastardised version of the setting some people want to push onto others. Ranging from headcanon to the dreaded server lore.
Although, there are people who take the lore police thing too far. I think getting picky over surnames and what not just isn’t necessary. If it’s not impacting what’s going on and is pretty inconsequential then it can probably just be glossed over.
I just think it’s reasonable to politely correct someone if they do something like “My tauren is one hundred years old and was born in Bloodhoof” when Bloodhoof village didn’t exist more than some fifteen years ago. If only so they don’t make a fool of themselves further down the line. If people lose their over that then the problem is on them.
Not in full, no, but it goes a long way in my experience.
I dunno, just seems like a choice to make while creating a character. Do you want to RP one that can understand his compatriots when they speak in their native tongue? Cool, pop a mage. Almost any race can.
And if you don’t do that, well, you can always ask people to just PM you a translation. It only takes 2 seconds to repeat a message, after all.
Why does roleplay need to be super inclusive? If someone doesn’t understand Zandali for instance, they could (and do) ask me to speak in Orcish instead IC. I don’t really care OOC either if someone can’t understand what I’m saying, that’s kinda a weird problem.
Also this.
So often if you do [Darnassian] RP someone will just come up on their super linguist character and start knowing what you were saying, which can get irritating, especially when you often talk in your char’s native language for the opposite reason i.e. to keep the conversation private.
Edit: There’s also several easy to download addons for those who want to RP multi linguists and aren’t mages.
I’ve almost never seen this happen, so it seems we’re down to different experiences on the matter. More often than not, players who’ve used the function get super confrontational if you so much as request that they swap to common/orcish.
It’s not really a problem, per-say, it’s just not particularly necessary and, at worse, irritating when one party refuses to compromise.
Like most fantasy settings, in this one 10,000 years is basically 5 minutes.
Illidan would have gone non-verbal and insane (and not the kooky angry kind) within weeks of solitary confinement, let alone millennia. Night Elves would have gone through several technical revolutions instead of using the exact same tactics that they have.
For reference; 10,000 years ago, humans had only just started domesticating cows.
over that then the problem is on them.