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[Triki]

To attract the attention of others, or to say the spell.

Exclamation marks can be used for logical separation between shouts and quiet conversation.

Vowels or inarticulate sounds can be used for situations when you need to call somebody for help, or scare off wild animals.
Volume determines how far you will be heard, or whether sleeping characters can hear you

Spells (randomly generated phrases) can be learned by reading books or in chatting.
Some spells require loud pronunciation (Say them away from seeking enemies).

I think it will be fun!    What do you think?

[weenog]

I think that's a goddamn nightmare to implement in any meaningful way, and even if it is implemented it will be a pain in the ass to use.  Either you can be restricted to a very limited set of keywords and combinations, or the game and thus Toady is forced to try to predict what the hell you might mean by any given freestyle input you might provide.  Not just you but everyone.

[Triki]

I think that's a goddamn nightmare to implement in any meaningful way, and even if it is implemented it will be a pain in the ass to use.  Either you can be restricted to a very limited set of keywords and combinations, or the game and thus Toady is forced to try to predict what the hell you might mean by any given freestyle input you might provide.  Not just you but everyone.

There can be only a few possible consequences:

1) If the typed text is totally the same as the "secret combination", then works magic.

2) If the typed text is different, it is taken as meaningless mutterings and attracts the attention of all who hear it.

[weenog]

I think that's a goddamn nightmare to implement in any meaningful way, and even if it is implemented it will be a pain in the ass to use.  Either you can be restricted to a very limited set of keywords and combinations, or the game and thus Toady is forced to try to predict what the hell you might mean by any given freestyle input you might provide.  Not just you but everyone.

There can be only a few possible consequences:

1) If the typed text is totally the same as the "secret combination", then works magic.

2) If the typed text is different, it is taken as meaningless mutterings and attracts the attention of all who hear it.

So what benefit does this offer over just having a generic Chat command and a Spell command that leads to a menu of spells known?

[AutomataKittay]

So adventurers get to behave like someone that can't hear terrorizing everyone?

As amusing as the idea is, ( and forgive me since I don't play adventure mode ) it don't seems to add much of anything to it, other than seeing what happens if you keymashes thing.

It'd probably make more sense to tie in the chat and spell to adventurer's memory and physical intactness statue.

[weenog]

physical intactness statue.

Reminds me of a D&D game where a group of bandits caught a low-level wizard spying on them, and after they beat the shit out of him they cut off his hands and tongue so he couldn't cast spells anymore.

[10ebbor10]

It might work for spells. Toady did have a system in place that automatically generated pronouneable words. (That's what created the dwarven/elvish language). If you attach a simple logic system to it you could have the game automatically generate a magic language+ spells on each playthrough.

[Triki]

I think that's a goddamn nightmare to implement in any meaningful way, and even if it is implemented it will be a pain in the ass to use.  Either you can be restricted to a very limited set of keywords and combinations, or the game and thus Toady is forced to try to predict what the hell you might mean by any given freestyle input you might provide.  Not just you but everyone.

There can be only a few possible consequences:

1) If the typed text is totally the same as the "secret combination", then works magic.

2) If the typed text is different, it is taken as meaningless mutterings and attracts the attention of all who hear it.

So what benefit does this offer over just having a generic Chat command and a Spell command that leads to a menu of spells known?

Your method also sounds good, but I do not think that creating two interfaces (for Chat and for Spell command) is better than one.

[AutomataKittay]

I think that's a goddamn nightmare to implement in any meaningful way, and even if it is implemented it will be a pain in the ass to use.  Either you can be restricted to a very limited set of keywords and combinations, or the game and thus Toady is forced to try to predict what the hell you might mean by any given freestyle input you might provide.  Not just you but everyone.

There can be only a few possible consequences:

1) If the typed text is totally the same as the "secret combination", then works magic.

2) If the typed text is different, it is taken as meaningless mutterings and attracts the attention of all who hear it.

So what benefit does this offer over just having a generic Chat command and a Spell command that leads to a menu of spells known?

Your method also sounds good, but I do not think that creating two interfaces (for Chat and for Spell command) is better than one.

Having a chat and spell command/menu is much simpler to implement mechanically, and don't involve players struggling to remember what words does what, it's friendlier interface-wise. Beside, what would your proposal be in, the DF languages which uses accented letters and pretty much impossible for me to type, or translation which probably would be too easy to use and defeating the idea of mangling it up?

Not to say the idea's bad, but it don't works very well in games that can have a mishmash of language for anything.

And sometimes what looks more complicated on surface actually turns out to be simpler to implement or much more flexible

[Owlbread]

Gandalf says "What's this?"

[GreatWyrmGold]

The biggest problem is getting the peasants to A. understand what you mean and B. react appropriately. Computer scientists are having trouble with getting one program to do that; imagine a hundred, each with different parameters, doing so for an infinitely larger spectrum of possible commands, along with cross-referencing everything in the raws and anything a player could want. Imagine doing this in a few seconds, on an average computer.
Even if Toady programmed something like this, it would either cause saying anything to take up inordinate amounts of time or your computer to overheat.
And don't get me started on typos. "Gello? What does that mean?" Or the eternal problem of getting ye flask. Or sarcasm. Or figures of speech. Or entity/creature/whatever names which match up with a word or phrase which tips the NPCs off about the wrong thing.

I think just being able to choose a command from a "chat" menu would be simpler. A few keypresses (say, Alt and C, then another couple for selecting the specific intent) would be all that's required, and you can account for differences in intelligence and social skill and such more easily.

[Triki]

The biggest problem is getting the peasants to A. understand what you mean and B. react appropriately. Computer scientists are having trouble with getting one program to do that; imagine a hundred, each with different parameters, doing so for an infinitely larger spectrum of possible commands, along with cross-referencing everything in the raws and anything a player could want. Imagine doing this in a few seconds, on an average computer.
Even if Toady programmed something like this, it would either cause saying anything to take up inordinate amounts of time or your computer to overheat.
And don't get me started on typos. "Gello? What does that mean?" Or the eternal problem of getting ye flask. Or sarcasm. Or figures of speech. Or entity/creature/whatever names which match up with a word or phrase which tips the NPCs off about the wrong thing.

Assign text to variable, and compare this variable with predefined constants.

Simple.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Oh, so you're restricting the text to a few, predefined things?

"Hi."
The shopkeeper looks at you oddly.
"I'll pay a lot for that sword."
The shopkeeper looks at you oddly.
"I'm going to kill you if you keep doing that."
The shopkeeper calls for a guard!

Seriously, do you have any idea how many sentences you could say, even keeping it to things that make sense?

[Triki]

Oh, so you're restricting the text to a few, predefined things?

"Hi."
The shopkeeper looks at you oddly.
"I'll pay a lot for that sword."
The shopkeeper looks at you oddly.
"I'm going to kill you if you keep doing that."
The shopkeeper calls for a guard!

Seriously, do you have any idea how many sentences you could say, even keeping it to things that make sense?

It means you want this system to not only be used for special purposes?

[GreatWyrmGold]

What kind of things would typing something in and checking to make sure that it's perfectly spelled so as to not elicit confusion, be more convenient than opening a menu and pressing a key?