Official Language of Skullport?

[Raona]

Most of the mobiles in Skullport don't currently speak (or even understand) Darkspeak, which I believe is the language given to PCs starting there. Would it not make sense to have most PCs in this area at least speak, if not default to, Darkspeak? (I'm asking because I know almost nothing of this area, but noticed this as a source of frustration for new PCs there.)

[Selveem]

Realistically, there should be only a rare occasion when a character down there who is a resident (including NPCs) does not speak Undercommon (Darkspeak). It's the primary language of the Underdark and I doubt someone unable to speak it would live long enough to be considered a permanent resident.

[Lirith]

The last time I made a PC here (over a year ago before the race file changes), many of the NPCs didn't speak darkspeak. I couldn't tell you if it was intentional on the part of the builder or not.

[Brar]

It is very very very frustating for new pc when doing quests...
There is no reason for anybody down there to speak common as base language, most of its inhabitants does not speak it as a basis, think swifnebli, illithid, drows, myconid, insert any underdark denizen here.

And it is feels very dumb when an IMM try to do a roleplay with you and the mob he is incarnating is speaking common when you just got out of the training area to explore the city

[Duranamir]

Skullport is not quiet that homeogenous, there are quite a few dwarves, elves and even some gnomes and halflings. In my opinion every mob should however either speak common or undercommon (darkspeak). The really annoying ones are the ones that speak giant or other odd languages, how are you going to sell anything if you can communicate with your customers ?

Duranamir

[Selveem]

Skullport is not quiet that homeogenous, there are quite a few dwarves, elves and even some gnomes and halflings.

Tru dat, but I think we all agree they should all speak Undercommon. Anyway you look at it, for any character who would start there in D&D, they'd automatically receive Undercommon language.

[Raona]

Alrighty, on the area side of this - is there an easier way to remedy this than going through each PC OLC? Would a search and replace on the area file be easier, or is there something you can set to give all NPCs in an area a given language?

[Harroghty]

The area file would be the easiest medium to enact a change.

You would be able to search for "LANG" and just cut and paste for each mobile. Remember that there are two lines of language for each mobile: first, what he or she understands and, secondly, what he or she is speaking. I don't think everyone should speak Darkspeak, but everyone should understand it. Common sense ought to apply. A quest mobile for a low-level quest obviously ought to speak it, but a tavern-owner maybe just understands enough to make his sales and speaks his native tongue primarily.

[Raona]

Adrian reports that he has SVN up and running, but that in the area file for Skullport he's seeing, everyone speaks Darkspeak, and only Darkspeak. However, on the testport and the gameport, that is not the case. For example,
Name: female human oriest sharia weaver m21364
Vnum: 21364 [21352 on testport?!?] Sex: female Count: 1 Killed: 0
...
Speaks: common
Speaking: common

Can anyone square this circle? Oddly, VCS doesn't report any skullport area files as having changes...and for at least this one NPC, the vnum differs on the test and game ports.

Does anyone else have VCS access to a skullport area file and can confirm that the current repository version is as Adrian observed?

[Duranamir]

My version is technically Revision


Revision: 1938
Author: martin
Date: 11:00:01, 24 October 2010
Message:
Commited in-game by:Gorby, message: Corrected typo (clientell) in 21106
----
Modified : /trunk/area/lowerskullport.are

and

Revision: 1969
Author: martin
Date: 12:28:15, 27 October 2010
Message:
Commited in-game by:Gorby, message: Changed m21329 to class warrior so that he doesn't steal coin from those trying to train from him
----
Modified : /trunk/area/centportskullport.are

[Raona]

Ah! Those two changes are updates I made on the testport with OLC. Odd, though, that the languages don't correspond, then?!?!?