[Helpfiles] Speaking/Language and List of Languages

[Areia]

This post is half suggestion, half correction. Sorry if two posts would have been preferred, I figured the two were closely enough related. First the correction:

The Speaking/Languages helpfile reads in part, "To speak your native tongue, type 'speak' alone."

This is inaccurate, at least on my end. 'speak' with no arguments displays the language the PC is currently speaking and doesn't change the current language at all.

And for the suggestion...

One somewhat common set of questions I see on ask and other channels has to do with which language corresponds with which color quotation marks when spoken. For example, I know Common shows as green, Elven as light blue, gnome as also green, etc. But I've don't know nearly all of them and never been able to find a complete list of these. So, is there a list somewhere that I could point people to? And if not, I'd suggest, if possible, maybe color coding the language names in the List of Languages helpfile to describe these.

I hope that makes sense. Thanks for reading.

[Yemin]

Thanks for pointing this out. If no one gets to it in a week I'll crack my knuckles and trudge through the ol' vipmud color tags.

*weeps softly.

[Kielar]

Here is how a harnic mud I used to play handles the language thing. It makes it a little more obvious when I'm speaking one language and they are speaking another so we can match up ... or not.

say Hello all
You say in Harnic,
"Hello all."

<Unhurt/S6/P6>
speak jarin
You begin speaking Jarin.

<Unhurt/S6/P6>
say Today is a good day.
You say in Jarinese,
"Today is a good day."

<Unhurt/S6/P6>
speak harnic
You begin speaking Harnic.

<Unhurt/S6/P6>
tell innkeeper Anything going on today?
You ask a strapping, greenish-eyed man in Harnic,
"Anything going on today?"

speak
Possible choices are:

Harnic, Sindar, Ivinian, Kath, Gargun, Jarin, Khuzan, Tulwyn,
Jarind-Adaenian, Jarind-Peranic, Jarindi-Nuthelan, Emelani-Pharic,
Jarind-Harnic, Kamakin, Azeryani, Karuia, Oldi-Jarinese, Emala,
Hodiri, Orbaalese, Emelryni, Trierzi, Dalkeshi, Hepekerian, Shorka,
Ormauk, Besha, Azeri, Surikal, Ivashi, Gozyda, Chelni, Pagaelin.

[Harvin]

1. About correction

If you are a half-elf, half-orc, half-drow, half-<half>... then how do you define your native language? I would assume that it is determined by hometown. But then again, some towns are multi-race/multi-cultural towns. I would go with the option that the player him-/herself decides what is his/her native language and then simply set 'speak <your_language>'. And about that help file - slight sentence correction and its fine

2. About suggestion

IMHO color coding the languages and putting the language colors list as a help file or anywhere else, would simply spoil the fun and remove the thrill of unknown. "Aha, the quotes are blue, so I should learn sylvan (for example)." - Nope! For that little mystery we have the description given by look command. But, as said, that's my opinion.

Good question and hoping for a reasonable brainstorm

[Vaemar]

Also if you don't know the language the quotes appear the default green. It is only if you learn it that you will see the quotes of the right colour, i.e. for example pink for halfling.

Personally I think a nice system would be one where the language spoken currently is not highlighted in the echos, which was the system used in other muds I played. Seeing the language after every say would be in my humble opinion ugly and redundant.

The system I am used to works like this:

(speaking common)
say Hello!
You say 'Hello.'
An unremarkable male human asks 'How are you?'
A scrawny female rock gnome says in gnome 'Hey there.'
A hulking male mountain orc says in orcish 'Bwargh'

(speaking gnome)
say Hello!
You say 'Hello.'
An unremarkable male human asks in common 'How are you?'
A scrawny female rock gnome says 'Hey there.'
A hulking male mountain orc says in orcish 'Bwargh'


(speaking orcish)
say Hello!
You say 'Hello.'
An unremarkable male human asks in common 'How are you?'
A scrawny female rock gnome says in gnome 'Hey there.'
A hulking male mountain orc says 'Bwargh'

There are however two problems with this:
a) How do you handle unknown languages? In my past mud unknown languages were eventually replaced with some general adjectives. So for example dwarven and orcish appeared as "guttural languages" to those who did not know them. It could only be assumed, by looking at who spoke them, which language they were. I.e. dwarven if spoken by a dwarf, orcish if spoken by an orc.
b) In truth say is not used so often by the playerbase of FK and there is no way to add this to smotes, which do fine right now with the coloured quotes. So while the system can definitely be improved I don't see it as a very pressing matter right now. But it is still nice to point out some options for improvement at least.