Language Lessons

[Artenides]

Dont even get me started on the rp implications of why someone would want to learn some of these languages. Its now at a point that noone blinks an eye as certain heavenly or diabolical languages are spoken freely in language lessons in certain settings within arelith or Elves learning the hated Drow speak or vice versa in large groups for example. Of course again this could just be my view on things.

I feel the gamey aspects of learning 15 languages in a single lesson has been well covered, but this didn't get enough light

I know we're all playing characters outside of normal but it very often feels like very little is taboo, publicly teaching the entire vocabulary of hell should really raise eyebrows, yet very often it's shrugged off as "know your enemy!"

This really bugs me, too. My elven wizard found most of the language phrase books and as soon as I looted Abyssal, Infernal and Xanalress I dropped them in the bin. I feel like certain languages should be feared (remember when Gandalf refused to pronounce words in Black Speech?) and not taught openly. This would also create some fun rp opportunities for those willing to teach these languages secretly as well as for those seeking to learn them (Hey psst, wanna learn some fun words in Abyssal? Just be careful, the lesson tends to be very chaotic! ).

Mass teaching languages (6-8 at the same time) is just poor rp in my opinion (if not straight abusing the system). Picking up some progress accidentally while walking around is fine, but I don't see any justification for holding a language lesson in multiple languages. Imagine you go to school and your teacher would speak like this: "Today we will be learning about tres manzanas, der hoffnungslose Zauberer, és arról, hogy apprendre des choses est difficile". Good luck passing the exams.

This summarises it all:

Try not to game the systems on Arelith, focus on the story.

[Kuma]

this style of language lesson is informally banned in at least one guild that i'm aware of (ok, it's my guild)

that being said i can't think of a better solution for the system writ-large. i think the obsession people have with knowing as many languages as possible is bizarre. it's a strange element of minmaxing for roleplay that baffles me and i don't understand it.

don't go to them.

[Apothys]

Well said about various languages being taboo.

Personally for me there is no world in which elves would be learning Drow, not without some incredible rp reason and then those few ho had it would never utter it around elves or anyone really.. Also Drow learning Elven... come on... Lloth would be furious and strike you down, never mind speaking it in the hub in the presence of Drow or Hobgoblins.

Watching Paladins learn Abbysal and Infernal as well is quite surprising given the quality of some of the rp from them. Id almost consider speaking such languages akin to pure evil and tempting evil to emerge in the eyes of many, this is after all the language of devils and demons, Paladins should be all over stopping that? Again just my personal feelings on this.

I was quite trepid about mentioning languages when I first posted as I know there are a lot of people fine with the way the server handles it right now. Its good to see its not just me with concerns.

[Curve]

I think you can source a lot of that ‘learn the language of my enemy’ stuff to win over anything mentality. I really respect players that don’t try to squeeze every possible advantage out of every possible situation.

[magistrasa]

To be fair to the elven/Xanalress stuff - they're technically the same language. In p&p they're both simply "elven." Xanalress is just Shakespearean elvish, and anyone who speaks one should generally at least be able to get by with the other. Xanalress isn't one of the spooky evil fiendish languages, lolth didn't invent it or anything, I imagine most elven magi would probably want to learn it for the simple fact that it's as close as you can get to old school high elvish. I remember hearing that the main reason it was first added to the server is because Udos drow were sprinkling in canon Xanalress words and phrases to the point of being unintelligible so the devs at the time were like "fine we'll give you your special language, now please stop doing that" (of course I could be wrong, I wasn't there, but that's what I heard)

Just another way in which drow are demonstrated to be a primitive and unevolved society whose growth was stunted by centuries driven underground

Edit to add another thought: one of the things I really liked and found immersive about my experience with my first character on the server was that languages were treated carefully. Word got around amongst the drow about who was learning/teaching Xanalress, sometimes you'd get chewed out for speaking it brazenly in the Hub because "you might be training the ears of the enemy," and back in those days it was sorta possible to monopolize a language like that. I think I saw gnomes basically doing the same thing, too. Now it's pretty much impossible though, because Loremasters are in such an abundance and so many of them go out of their way to teach others the super special secret rare languages.

"When everyone is speaking abyssal......... no one will be."

[Red_Wharf]

Well said about various languages being taboo.

Personally for me there is no world in which elves would be learning Drow, not without some incredible rp reason and then those few ho had it would never utter it around elves or anyone really.. Also Drow learning Elven... come on... Lloth would be furious and strike you down, never mind speaking it in the hub in the presence of Drow or Hobgoblins.

Watching Paladins learn Abbysal and Infernal as well is quite surprising given the quality of some of the rp from them. Id almost consider speaking such languages akin to pure evil and tempting evil to emerge in the eyes of many, this is after all the language of devils and demons, Paladins should be all over stopping that? Again just my personal feelings on this.

I was quite trepid about mentioning languages when I first posted as I know there are a lot of people fine with the way the server handles it right now. Its good to see its not just me with concerns.

Drow just speak a different dialect of Elven, like magistrasa explained. In the end, they can all understand each other anyway.

Of all the Archons mentioned in the Monster Manual 3.5, we only see the languages available to the Hound Archon, which includes Infernal. If you check their stats, most famous Demon and Devil characters also speak Celestial too. Unless stated somewhere else, I think it's safe to assume that there's nothing inherently evil or good about speaking certain tongues. It's like Curve said, it's a "learning my enemy's language" kind of deal.

[Curve]

It may be that drow and elves can understand one another in lore, but in arelith it is not that way and we should go by wysiwyg.

[magistrasa]

It may be that drow and elves can understand one another in lore, but in arelith it is not that way and we should go by wysiwyg.

Sure? I'm just saying "Xanalress shouldn't be learned because it's immoral and inherently evil" is a bad and wrong take.

[Kuma]

I think it's fine and good to be suspicious about people learning Infernal or other languages like that. Our characters aren't demon lords or angels, they're people and people can have opinions that aren't the Correct Take. Doing so creates story.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

This would also create some fun rp opportunities for those willing to teach these languages secretly as well as for those seeking to learn them.

It is not fun. It's very frustrating. It feels OOC almost, there are a lot of groups so closed off that unless you're in their discord you're not going to get any RP. I've had a lot of disappointing experiences trying to do outreach in-game. But this extends beyond language learning and is a whole separate issue.

Personally for me there is no world in which elves would be learning Drow, not without some incredible rp reason and then those few ho had it would never utter it around elves or anyone really.. Also Drow learning Elven... come on... Lloth would be furious and strike you down, never mind speaking it in the hub in the presence of Drow or Hobgoblins.

Except in the game world there are frequent underdark attacks on the forest. It is perfectly reasonable for defenders to know the language of people who frequently are coming to try and kill you.



There's a lot of assumptions against other players in this thread, calling people bad RPers in a roundabout way, and it's pretty uncomfortable.

[Drowboy]

I have feelings about this stuff but I think, the best thing to do, in online, video game spaces, is to keep something in mind:

It doesn't matter. If people are doing something you don't like, you can always leave.

Just bail! If you aren't having fun in a video game just leave, you control the actions of your character, you control the buttons you press.

Press a combination of buttons that takes you to a fun thing.

[Curve]

Sure? I'm just saying "Xanalress shouldn't be learned because it's immoral and inherently evil" is a bad and wrong take.

I hear you. I even agree. I just think that people tend to not do this cool stuff that you spoke about,

Edit to add another thought: one of the things I really liked and found immersive about my experience with my first character on the server was that languages were treated carefully. Word got around amongst the drow about who was learning/teaching Xanalress, sometimes you'd get chewed out for speaking it brazenly in the Hub because "you might be training the ears of the enemy," and back in those days it was sorta possible to monopolize a language like that. I think I saw gnomes basically doing the same thing, too. Now it's pretty much impossible though, because Loremasters are in such an abundance and so many of them go out of their way to teach others the super special secret rare languages.

Also,

Except in the game world there are frequent underdark attacks on the forest. It is perfectly reasonable for defenders to know the language of people who frequently are coming to try and kill you.

I think this does make sense. What I advocate for generally is that just because something makes sense does not mean you should do it. Imagine how cool it would be if no elves spoke drow and vice versa. Imagine how cool it would be if that was a sacred language that when you were in tense situations, faced off with your mortal enemy that you could speak without being understood and so could they. Sounds pretty great to me.

These are just pipe dreams at the end of the day. I don't see but a rare few taking the less beneficial road because it only hurts, it never helps. Other than making better stories, in my opinion.

[Duchess Says]

I agree that the specialness of languages has been lost. Lots of players want to max out everything on their characters whether runic gear or language slots and now that everyone can potentially speak everything there's no point in switching to a racial or class language (with few exceptions like druidic that are actually exclusive) if you want to have a semi-private discussion in public. Likewise there's no camaraderie in say a human among elves learning elven because it's not a rare thing and takes no effort +especially+ with these regular language classes.

The genie is out of the bottle on this and I admit that since high lore used to let you understand languages they were never that precious to begin with but now languages seem almost purely for RP flavor, there's no real utility to them. Maybe they're still good to keep eavesdropping lowbies and new players in the dark I guess.

[Emotionaloverload]

I appreciate a lot of the concerns mentioned here but I feel that everyone needs to remember that we are playing a game. When things are unfun, people try to find a way to make them easy so that the unfun part can be out of the way faster.

This might be a cruel way to categorize the language learning system but it is how many players that I have spoken with feel about it. In RL language learning sucks; the fun part of language learning is being able to use words and phrases correctly to be understood or have a brief exchange. THAT is the fun part. The same is true of IG. The only difference is that in RL there are many ways to learn a language. You can study in through text, listen to it in a dry lecture, you can watch shows or movies in that language, you can muddle through speaking in that language, play video games in that language - you can do just about anything to gain exposure in your selected language and learn that way.

You cannot do that IG. You can stand around the Hub for hours or in a designated lecture until you learn the language OR you can struggle through IG interactions where characters often have to repeat themselves in common (and you cannot reliably use words in that language back without getting gibberish on even simple words even at high numbers like 70%). This is not viewed as great or fun which is why players choose to make it easier.

Languages have a lot of specialness in rp. In cultural and magic rp especially (in my experience). I do get the need to assume that people are doing things to min/max or to be butts but I feel like its more innocent than that. They are doing it because otherwise its boring.

Thank you

-S

[Apothys]

There's a lot of assumptions against other players in this thread, calling people bad RPers in a roundabout way, and it's pretty uncomfortable.

Oh sorry, this was not my intent, merely how I perceive the fantasy world should be. Again I'm sorry if anyone feels like I'm saying anything else.

[MissEvelyn]

I would love a command (-learn_language for example) that lets you choose which language your character chooses to focus on. So that they can only learn effectively from their chosen language, and make very little or no progress in other languages.

This command should have a cooldown of 1 IG day. This would represent your character focusing their language studies into one language at a time.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I would love a command (-learn_language for example) that lets you choose which language your character chooses to focus on. So that they can only learn effectively from their chosen language, and make very little or no progress in other languages.

This command should have a cooldown of 1 IG day. This would represent your character focusing their language studies into one language at a time.

This would be great coupled with the chosen language passively going up just by having a language book in your inventory, to represent being able to study it. Something like 1% per server reset, so people actively have to log in to raise it. It would take a long time to master and would still encourage finding other players, but it would be less of a complete brick wall if people can't find other players.

[ReverentBlade]

This thread is a nice microcosm that encapsulates everything wrong with the community. If you don't like the lessons, don't go. If you have an objection to the languages being taught, ROLEPLAY IT OUT instead of kvetching on the forums.

Note that this is a land where the adventurers invade hell, the abyss, and the underdark on a daily basis, and repel invasions from the same. The idea of taboo languages might hold water on the mainland, but that is not representative of the reality people face on Arelith. Sane people are going to protect themselves with knowledge of their enemies.

[MissEvelyn]

I would love a command (-learn_language for example) that lets you choose which language your character chooses to focus on. So that they can only learn effectively from their chosen language, and make very little or no progress in other languages.

This command should have a cooldown of 1 IG day. This would represent your character focusing their language studies into one language at a time.

This would be great coupled with the chosen language passively going up just by having a language book in your inventory, to represent being able to study it. Something like 1% per server reset, so people actively have to log in to raise it. It would take a long time to master and would still encourage finding other players, but it would be less of a complete brick wall if people can't find other players.

I'm so in support of this! What a great idea. This way, those who don't care to actively roleplay learning a language can still have progress that is represented in their character studying their book on their chosen language.

[Haroshia]

I would love a command (-learn_language for example) that lets you choose which language your character chooses to focus on. So that they can only learn effectively from their chosen language, and make very little or no progress in other languages.

This command should have a cooldown of 1 IG day. This would represent your character focusing their language studies into one language at a time.

This is what I meant by having it similar to how bard songs are taught.

[AstralUniverse]

I've had some good language related RP, where it felt like a teacher-student(s) and there was progression to the lesson and not just progression in my language knowledge percentage. Then there are also those times where people just try to gain percentages asap and just do language lessons of several languages at the same time (As in you'll speak -dr I'll speak -un, the other guy will speak whatever they want and we'll all get %s in whatever we got a phrasebook for) and that's a catastrophe of text I've seen a lot and if the system incentivizes this mess because it's more efficient then we need a change.

[Nitro]

This thread is a nice microcosm that encapsulates everything wrong with the community. If you don't like the lessons, don't go. If you have an objection to the languages being taught, ROLEPLAY IT OUT instead of kvetching on the forums.

*walks up to Bendir*
"Hey sorry, your 30-man language learning session is lagging the island, can you please disperse a bit?"

[Apothys]

This thread is a nice microcosm that encapsulates everything wrong with the community. If you don't like the lessons, don't go. If you have an objection to the languages being taught, ROLEPLAY IT OUT instead of kvetching on the forums.

I dont go and ive tried, Im Just trying to discuss if having a mass disco of multicolored text is the right way to do these things, obviously everyone isn't going to agree, so by all means would love to hear reasons why this method is the best way to do it rather than just saying people are being cry babies by bringing it up.

[LovelyLightningWitch]

I would love a command (-learn_language for example) that lets you choose which language your character chooses to focus on. So that they can only learn effectively from their chosen language, and make very little or no progress in other languages.

This command should have a cooldown of 1 IG day. This would represent your character focusing their language studies into one language at a time.

This would be great coupled with the chosen language passively going up just by having a language book in your inventory, to represent being able to study it. Something like 1% per server reset, so people actively have to log in to raise it. It would take a long time to master and would still encourage finding other players, but it would be less of a complete brick wall if people can't find other players.

I'm so in support of this! What a great idea. This way, those who don't care to actively roleplay learning a language can still have progress that is represented in their character studying their book on their chosen language.

It would also help characters whose backgrounds should definitely include a given language, but due to class spread - it doesn't.

(Like an elf living in Silverymoon probably speaking dwarven due to alliance with mithral hall, or a human in silverymoon speaking elven and stuff like that).

Loremaster kinda helped pick such languages up for me, but it was definitely a challenge figuring out the clash of origin vs actual language abilities.

[Apothys]

what if certain languages were locked behind alignments, class and background, i.e. Underdarker or Surface. Then people could use rewards to unlock languages they are not usually given access too. This would perhaps give Loremasters a bit more allure too. Just a thought.