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Total Members Voted: 69

[WillowLuman]

Why don't we just get language out of the way to begin with? We start with the vanilla words file, add to it, and just base our new languages on a single, unified file. I realize the rush of excitement in doing things from scratch, but finding and labeling every word, having a million word definition files with umpteen duplicates between them will just be a pain in the ass, no fun whatsoever. We'd have to spend months to get anything near as good as what's already there.

[Halfling]

What's already there is vast but has still been seen a billion times over. I for one am tired of my worlds always being called the same thing in different translations. Having new words that actually show up improves the novelty of the gameplay experience, and doesn't take long at all - my starting set took like two hours. Unified file is a good idea though.

I don't really get what you mean by finding and labeling every word. If you add a word, you label it and add it to symbols it's part of. If you create a new translation based on a working one, all the words are already there. If you want to use automatic tools you're out of luck unless they're flexible, if we've added new words, and if they are flexible like that then they'll work with a file full of new words too.

If you meant re-adding all vanilla's words, that's not a desirable goal for reasons above.

I can write a little script that you can use to configure a new language or add words, if that makes it more palatable.

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

Why don't we just get language out of the way to begin with? We start with the vanilla words file, add to it, and just base our new languages on a single, unified file. I realize the rush of excitement in doing things from scratch, but finding and labeling every word, having a million word definition files with umpteen duplicates between them will just be a pain in the ass, no fun whatsoever. We'd have to spend months to get anything near as good as what's already there.

Exactly my point.

my starting set took like two hours.

The starting set isn't that large, truthfully.

What's already there is vast but has still been seen a billion times over.

Welcome to language.

[Halfling]

You guys don't seem to realize that if we're going to add new words, starting with the vanilla language file would not help. Maybe it's a communication problem. Let's look at this more clearly:

Vanilla with added words:
- You are going to have a metric shit-ton of vanilla words with their usage tokens and then you add some to them.
- If you're going to make a new translation you must add the vanilla words AND STILL the new words and still "hunt them down". Doing this manually is impossible considering the vanilla word definitions' number. You're basically forced to use a random translation generator, and after that "hunt" and add the new words manually anyway, unless it's configurable - in which case you can use it to generate a translation for a new vocabulary as well.
- If you're going to add new words later they will still need to be added to all existing translations, regardless of whether you have the vanilla words, since you can't choose which translations get the new words.
- You are also never going to see any new words anyone adds because the vanilla word definitions file is as larger than a dictionary, making the whole effort pointless unless we collectively put hundreds of hours into it.

New, smaller vocabulary:
- You are going to have new words only, or when vanilla words are re-added, they can be defined to be used differently.
- Creating a translation manually is faster because fewer words exist. A procedural random translation generator will generate a full translation for this just as well and a fixed one wouldn't for either.
- The same difficulties with adding new words later still exist, but you're working with smaller files.
- Vanilla vocab is removed and new words show up and actually make the place and creature names.

I really don't see the advantage... unless your point is we should have all the same words as vanilla.

[StLeibowitz]

I think I'm going to have to weigh in on Halfling's side here - with a completely new language/languages, we'll actually see our words be used, and the languages can be as ridiculous or as serious as desired. Keeping the vanilla dictionary would essentially cut out one of the most noticeable changes.

The starting set isn't that large, truthfully.

Just going to point out: nothing is that large yet. We have halflings, ducks, and dogs, and however many dragons have been added (which I'll admit is a bit of an exception for "nothing"). We have one type of metal and Hell is made of ice, and all of it will probably change. The language files would grow as more modding occurred.

[WillowLuman]

What I'm saying is that we get the words used in translations out of the way now, so we don't have to go back and add them to every already defined language later. The words, more than anything, have the potential to become a colossal disorganized trainwreck that ruins the game for everyone. Why waste time telling the game that [WORD:FIRE] is a noun as well as a verb, when it's already there? And you can always determine which words show up in things named in your language using symbols, as many custom symbols (As in LANGUAGE_SYMBOLS.txt) as you like.

I'm talking about just leaving the english vocabulary which the game defines all the translation files from in there, because for many words we'd just be recreating what's in there anyway.

I know I for one don't want to deal with:

Code: [Select]

[TRANSLATION:CUSTOMRACE]

[T_WORD:FIBBLTYSNORP:rularuu]
[T_WORD:BIBBITY:clabble]
[T_WORD:CROOPAGA:cabbage]
Why limit names because someone forgot to remind the game that "stone" works as an adjective form? Why limit names to various combinations of "matches," "hovercraft," "eels," and whatever else we think to add ourselves when most people will also want to use "boring vanilla words" like "fire," "stone" or "dale" in their names?

[Halfling]

That's fair enough. Although...

>Why limit names because someone forgot to remind the game that "stone" works as an adjective form?

This is still going to happen. The vanilla words are not allowed to be used freely, instead they are limited to make place names look better I assume.

For example looking at the top, we have...
   [NOUN:ace:aces]
      [FRONT_COMPOUND_NOUN_SING]
      [REAR_COMPOUND_NOUN_SING]
      [THE_NOUN_SING]
      [REAR_COMPOUND_NOUN_PLUR]
      [OF_NOUN_PLUR]
   [ADJ:ace]
      [ADJ_DIST:1]
      [FRONT_COMPOUND_ADJ]
      [THE_COMPOUND_ADJ]

they don't have all the permissions they grammatically could at all, limiting stuff to being "of aces" for example.

As for

>Why limit names to various combinations of "matches," "hovercraft," "eels," and whatever else we think to add ourselves when most people will also want to use "boring vanilla words" like "fire," "stone" or "dale" in their names?

Well, so we can have names with "matches" "hovercraft" and "eels" show up more with ease. Also it doesn't really make sense and kind of hurts the atmosphere to have words like "griffon" or "lion" when nobody has added such yet. And if everyone agrees it should be different, for example when they want to say "realm" they may add "sphere" and "principality" instead of "domain" or "realms" and it just makes the game look a lot different.

Why not add a large number of different words initially? So that it takes less space and until someone misses those words, they can remain absent and we get to see "hovercraft" more, and have an easier time making our new language without that. But it's true, it does lead to more need to add words later if you want to say something that already was there... which on the other hand is also an opportunity for creativity every time. It's another one of these convenience vs. creativity issues, like abandoning vanilla mat templates, but I agree this one is less significant and there are more downsides to the creative option.

There's also a middle ground of using them but auditing the vanilla words once, removing stuff like "lion" and definitely ones like "beguiler" until missed but leaving some of the basic stuff in to get a larger starting vocab. Again the point of this is to improve atmosphere and make your custom words more common, which makes the appearance more different overall. Easy to do with a script, but not really delivering on the promise of deleting it all (but then and again that wasn't done completely anyway).

Anyone else have an opinion so as to what should do with this?

[Crustypeanut]

I'd like to join in on this as a modder!

Though to be honest, I'll probably include something simple but insane.. like Dwarven castes..  Examples include:

Regular Dwarves (Won't leave them out, though they'll be gaining two extra livers)
Badgerdwarves that enrage themselves at a pindrop at random animals
Spiderdwarves with a mild poison and webshooting capabilities
Frogdwarves that can swim!
Dragondwarves.. yes they breath fire, but are thankfully rare.
Stranglerdwarves with four arms!
Elephantdwarves with tusks and thick hides!

And finally.. Boozedwarves, morbidly obese dwarves with alcohol instead of blood, which sprays out and intoxicates their attackers, not to mention the ability to breath alcholic fumes, and inject alcohol through their bites!

      ^{[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:POISON:CREATURE_EXTRACT_TEMPLATE]
             [STATE_NAME:ALL_SOLID:frozen boozedwarf venom]
            [STATE_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:frozen boozedwarf venom]
            [STATE_NAME:LIQUID:boozedwarf venom]
            [STATE_ADJ:LIQUID:boozedwarf venom]
            [STATE_NAME:GAS:boiling boozedwarf venom]
            [STATE_ADJ:GAS:boiling boozedwarf venom]
            [PREFIX:NONE]
            [ENTERS_BLOOD]
            [SYNDROME]
               [SYN_NAME:boozedwarf bite]
               [SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:GENERAL_POISON]
               [SYN_AFFECTED_CLASS:NO_POISON]
         [SYN_IMMUNE_CLASS:NEVER_POISON]
                [SYN_INJECTED]
         [CE_NAUSEA:SEV:35:PROB:100:START:50:PEAK:100:END:600]
         [CE_DROWSINESS:SEV:35:PROB:100:START:50:PEAK:100:END:600]
         [CE_DIZZINESS:SEV:35:PROB:100:START:50:PEAK:100:END:600]}

Luckily for me, I think I have most of my old work I did on this.  Each 'caste' would have a bonus to certain skills in addition to their more extreme abilities.  I could instead do this for a secondary, unplayable Dwarven race if you guy's would prefer it that way. 

[Crustypeanut]

Hmm after reading the rules I guess my previous idea won't 'quite' follow the rules, so I'll come up with something else diabolical in the mean time.  Same general idea though. 

[Crustypeanut]

Alright guys, scratch my old idea entirely, I've come up with a better one - the Goblin equivilent for this world, as it were! And they're playable!

Vegipygmies!  Small, halfling-sized evil plant humanoids who primarily eat meat.  (Note I say primarily, because they will grow fleshy-meat-like mushrooms as well.

These Vegipygmies come in 11 different varieties.  95% of the population are female, and are of the same variety.  5% of the population are males, and there are 10 different types of males.  Some might breath poisonous gas, another might be fire resistant, and another might shoot webs, etc.

As a result of the low male population, Vegipygmies spawn young in bunches, and the females grow fast, becoming adults in 5 years, though reaching their maximum size (Still small) at 10 years.  Males take twice as long to grow, but live far longer.  Females only live 40 years. Males might live upwards of 300-500 years.

All Vegipygmies are made up of mostly the same materials.  They have tough, hide-like 'skin', leaf or moss-like hair, bark-like nails and teeth, highly-alcoholic blood that causes mild dizziness upon contact, and probably a few minor organs.  They have no bones.  Some males may differ in what they are made of.  All Vegipymies drop a special kind of plant upon death - Halfings prize these plants for their tastiness or quality, depending on the type.  Some are edible, some are cookable, some are brewable, some can be turned into dye or cloth, etc.  They do not give seeds, so are unplantable.  One type is highly poisonous, causing death upon consumption - though its tasteyness might cause halfings to eat it anyways.

Veigpygmies are cannibals and love meat - they'll butcher sentient beings without issue, particularly favoring the meat of Halflings.  They can extract marrow from bones, which they then eat.  They also will be able to extract the blood from domesitic animals and vermin.  They then can brew the blood with special types of plants into 'Blood Brew', a type of alcoholic beverage favored by Vegipygmies.  It is poisonous to other creatures.  They'll consume any type of alcohol, though, and can get by on water, though they prefer not to.

Most of the plants they can grow are brewable, but not cookable.  Only one type is edible, and it is more like a small, immobile animal with a very meat-like texture.  Most of the plants they favor are poisonous to other creatures.  They can also fish, if need be.

They live underground, much like Dwarves - They are unable to smelt metal.  Instead, they are able to 'grow' a specific type of metal - this is actually a type of mushroom that, when forged properly, can be made into weapons and armor that is similar in quality to iron.  They can also make weapons and armor out of wood and bone and to a lesser extent, stone.  They can make picks out of stone.

What do you guys think?  And yes, for those curious, I did get the idea name from the Pathfinder Vegipygmy.  Love those little buggers.

*Edit* Also, the reason I came up with Vegipygmies, is about a year ago running a homebrew Pathfinder game, I had an encounter where the players fought vegipygmies who were using halflings to breed their kin.  They also had infected stew fed to customers that caused Vegipygmies to burst from their stomaches.. Halflings need an archnemesis race!

[sculleywr]

You guys don't seem to realize that if we're going to add new words, starting with the vanilla language file would not help. Maybe it's a communication problem. Let's look at this more clearly:

Vanilla with added words:
- You are going to have a metric shit-ton of vanilla words with their usage tokens and then you add some to them.
- If you're going to make a new translation you must add the vanilla words AND STILL the new words and still "hunt them down". Doing this manually is impossible considering the vanilla word definitions' number. You're basically forced to use a random translation generator, and after that "hunt" and add the new words manually anyway, unless it's configurable - in which case you can use it to generate a translation for a new vocabulary as well.
- If you're going to add new words later they will still need to be added to all existing translations, regardless of whether you have the vanilla words, since you can't choose which translations get the new words.
- You are also never going to see any new words anyone adds because the vanilla word definitions file is as larger than a dictionary, making the whole effort pointless unless we collectively put hundreds of hours into it.

New, smaller vocabulary:
- You are going to have new words only, or when vanilla words are re-added, they can be defined to be used differently.
- Creating a translation manually is faster because fewer words exist. A procedural random translation generator will generate a full translation for this just as well and a fixed one wouldn't for either.
- The same difficulties with adding new words later still exist, but you're working with smaller files.
- Vanilla vocab is removed and new words show up and actually make the place and creature names.

I really don't see the advantage... unless your point is we should have all the same words as vanilla.

Honestly, Halfling, They do have you here. Since the language files are used, primarily, for place name generators, all that cutting the size of the language file will do is shorten the work of things like I would do, which is create a language file where every English word was replaced with the Japanese equivalent (something I plan on doing for my Vanilla game). Instead of wiping back to a baseline, you create a language block for people who would, otherwise, be interested in this modding adventure.

In addition to this issue, you also create an extremely repetitive name set in our "brave new world". Considering that many people create language mods which have nearly twice as many words as the language files on the vanilla game, this creates nearly three times as much work for people who want to have a language file of that size, because they have to do something that, most of the time, only professional translators have to do, which is write down both the in-game-language equivalent AND the English word itself.

Just coming from a common sense point of view, since the language files aren't really used in combat, events, or other in-game mechanics, and the focus of the modding is to create a new feel to the GAME, such a rule makes as much sense as Armok shitting out thousands of rose petals onto a bunch of dancing fairy goblins.

Instead of serving to entice people, you make it possible that someone might just decide to start a competing thread where that rule does not exist. To be honest, they would certainly attract more players AND modders, which would mean the death, most likely, of this thread, as the new thread becomes more complex and fleshed out. By the time you came up with a version as fleshed out as the vanilla DF, they could have a fully functional and complete version which makes the vanilla look like an infant in a stroller.

I would advise dropping the stringent rules about the icing of the game, whilst keeping the rules for the actual mechanics and races the same.

[WillowLuman]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for starting over with materials, but the LANGUAGE_WORDS.txt is unique. Do remember that you can still make your custom words more common by using custom symbols in your entity files. For instance, [SELECT_SYMBOL:ENTITY_NAME:SYMBOL1_HALFLING], a symbol containing the words you want your races using for their civ names.

Aren't the Treelords already arch-nemesis to the Halflings? Well, I guess a funnier enemy might by a race of giant, sentient hawks who prey on them. Thus potentially explaining why they live in holes.

[Halfling]

You guys don't seem to realize that if we're going to add new words, starting with the vanilla language file would not help. Maybe it's a communication problem. Let's look at this more clearly:

Vanilla with added words:
- You are going to have a metric shit-ton of vanilla words with their usage tokens and then you add some to them.
- If you're going to make a new translation you must add the vanilla words AND STILL the new words and still "hunt them down". Doing this manually is impossible considering the vanilla word definitions' number. You're basically forced to use a random translation generator, and after that "hunt" and add the new words manually anyway, unless it's configurable - in which case you can use it to generate a translation for a new vocabulary as well.
- If you're going to add new words later they will still need to be added to all existing translations, regardless of whether you have the vanilla words, since you can't choose which translations get the new words.
- You are also never going to see any new words anyone adds because the vanilla word definitions file is as larger than a dictionary, making the whole effort pointless unless we collectively put hundreds of hours into it.

New, smaller vocabulary:
- You are going to have new words only, or when vanilla words are re-added, they can be defined to be used differently.
- Creating a translation manually is faster because fewer words exist. A procedural random translation generator will generate a full translation for this just as well and a fixed one wouldn't for either.
- The same difficulties with adding new words later still exist, but you're working with smaller files.
- Vanilla vocab is removed and new words show up and actually make the place and creature names.

I really don't see the advantage... unless your point is we should have all the same words as vanilla.

Honestly, Halfling, They do have you here. Since the language files are used, primarily, for place name generators, all that cutting the size of the language file will do is shorten the work of things like I would do, which is create a language file where every English word was replaced with the Japanese equivalent (something I plan on doing for my Vanilla game). Instead of wiping back to a baseline, you create a language block for people who would, otherwise, be interested in this modding adventure.

In addition to this issue, you also create an extremely repetitive name set in our "brave new world". Considering that many people create language mods which have nearly twice as many words as the language files on the vanilla game, this creates nearly three times as much work for people who want to have a language file of that size, because they have to do something that, most of the time, only professional translators have to do, which is write down both the in-game-language equivalent AND the English word itself.

Just coming from a common sense point of view, since the language files aren't really used in combat, events, or other in-game mechanics, and the focus of the modding is to create a new feel to the GAME, such a rule makes as much sense as Armok shitting out thousands of rose petals onto a bunch of dancing fairy goblins.

Instead of serving to entice people, you make it possible that someone might just decide to start a competing thread where that rule does not exist. To be honest, they would certainly attract more players AND modders, which would mean the death, most likely, of this thread, as the new thread becomes more complex and fleshed out. By the time you came up with a version as fleshed out as the vanilla DF, they could have a fully functional and complete version which makes the vanilla look like an infant in a stroller.

I would advise dropping the stringent rules about the icing of the game, whilst keeping the rules for the actual mechanics and races the same.

I really have to appreciate well-written rebuttals you are making... If the majority of you feel this way, then let's rethink starting the language over. Sound up now, everyone who has an opinion. I'm not going to make it a poll because anonymous people shouldn't decide it.

Don't really care about a popularity contest mentality, as I'm sure if anyone wants to make a similar world where vanilla bodies and materials are used, it will be more popular and will kill this, but be so much less interesting. That said, I really don't want to hinder the creative effort by being a stickler about the "from scratch" stuff. It's facilitated by removal of materials... but maybe this would hurt it. Besides, it should be everyone's thread, not mine.

Suggest how we should go about making languages, please. We'll still face the problem with language words additions having to be added to every translation if they are added as turns go along.

[Rose]

Posting to watch

[Crustypeanut]

Hey Halfling.. I'm looking at the halfling raws, and since you added the [small] tag to his organs, you know they're untargetable in combat, aye? No piercing of the heart by a spear, for example.  Was that intentional?

Also noticing that they are unscarrable.. and don't have the 'functional' or 'structural' tags, though I'm not sure what those do exactly.