COMMUNITY - FORUMS - NEW PLAYER QUESTIONS
Switching between languages

Here's another language question.

How will characters that know more than one language switch between them?

For example, my character knows Kypiq's and Brudvir's. She talks to a Janoa and then realize that they may not understand Denhort.

Does the character switch automatically to another language when it seems that the other party doesn't understand what they were saying at first?

Or do players have to learn to recognize another player's/npc's cues during conversation and then switch to something else either by clicking a button or something?


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12/10/2018 3:34:39 AM #1

I don't believe this has been covered in either the DJ on Communication or during the Chamber Bot session with Vye on languages (at least that I saw)

Doing a search for it didn't give me a solid answer, but people were under the impression they would be able to at some point.

It would stand to reason that you can as it is a big part of some cultures like the Kypiq's forest cant, but I cannot see a direct quote saying yes atm.


12/10/2018 6:37:46 AM #2

It's possible that 'understanding' the language might be innate to a point. At least once you actually know the language. As in, when it's written you'll see bits you recognise etc.

Speaking it, may be what you need to 'toggle' (ie. a button for swapping what one you're speaking.)

Hard to know until we get more information though.


12/10/2018 3:29:20 PM #3

What a great question!

I don't think it will be automatic... But I'm not a programmer so I have no clue how difficult to implement that would be. It would be cool though to just be talking to someone in Kypiq and have them look at you dumbfounded LOL! Or with that blank smile that people use nowadays... Moving on!

I imagine it like a slash command. In other games I've played, you could /common to speak in common and /<another language> to speak in that language. Maybe it'll be similar? Since most of our communication (outside of 3rd party voice chats) is typed, having a visual toggle or button might be immersion breaking IMO.


Hope it helps...

12/10/2018 4:49:50 PM #4

The plan right now is that you'll comprehend any language your character is fluent in, innately. When someone speaks Pyqsi you would just understand it, assuming you were fluent in Pyqsi of course. If you are fluent in more than one language, you will speak in your native tongue by default, but will be able to switch with a command (likely both accessible via UI and in chat via a command) to another other language you know. Once switched you'll continue to speak that language until you decide to switch back.

While it's certainly possible to create a feature where characters "detect" which language they know might be the best match automatically, we haven't really had a desire to take the process explicitly out of your hands like that, so far.

Hope that helps! :)


  • Snipehunter
12/10/2018 5:43:09 PM #5

Posted By Snipehunter at 5:49 PM - Mon Dec 10 2018

The plan right now is that you'll comprehend any language your character is fluent in, innately. When someone speaks Pyqsi you would just understand it, assuming you were fluent in Pyqsi of course. If you are fluent in more than one language, you will speak in your native tongue by default, but will be able to switch with a command (likely both accessible via UI and in chat via a command) to another other language you know. Once switched you'll continue to speak that language until you decide to switch back.

While it's certainly possible to create a feature where characters "detect" which language they know might be the best match automatically, we haven't really had a desire to take the process explicitly out of your hands like that, so far.

Hope that helps! :)

Yea, I'd prefer switching by hand, too. Otherwise, there cant be drama, because of people that - while understanding foreign languages - refuse to talk those. Like some french people I heard of :P And, if characters automatically switched, one couldnt speak with someone that understands you in a language a third person does not understand to tell him things the other shouldnt understand, because one would switch automatically. Sometimes, you dont want to be understood and it should be a choice to do that.


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12/10/2018 6:34:46 PM #6

If my vote counts, I think requiring the player to actually "recognize" the language being spoken and manually "flip a switch" so they understand/speak it adds much more immersion than simply having the game auto-switch over when it detects a language you know.


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12/10/2018 7:34:32 PM #7

Having characters automatically translate languages that they know is fine, but there should be some sort of display for what language I'm hearing.

Otherwise, I could hear Neran, but accidentally respond in Croçais, because to me it's all the same.

12/10/2018 7:53:20 PM #8

Posted By Marovec at 8:34 PM - Mon Dec 10 2018

If my vote counts, I think requiring the player to actually "recognize" the language being spoken and manually "flip a switch" so they understand/speak it adds much more immersion than simply having the game auto-switch over when it detects a language you know.

No auto switch for speaking, but no kind of switch for understanding either! One cannot choose to understand only one language being spoken if one knows many of them ;) Speaking is a choice, understanding is not.


12/10/2018 8:05:37 PM #9

Posted By mickdude2 at 11:34 AM - Mon Dec 10 2018

Having characters automatically translate languages that they know is fine, but there should be some sort of display for what language I'm hearing.

Otherwise, I could hear Neran, but accidentally respond in Croçais, because to me it's all the same.

Yeah, definitely. You would see something like: >

Snipehunter (In Neran): Yeah, but it's not like those crazy To'Resk can understand you, anyway.

Whereas someone who didn't know the language would see "Snipehunter: [some Neran gibberish]" where "some Neran gibberish" is the befuddled transcription of what you typed into the Neran character set.

Hope that helps! :)


  • Snipehunter
12/10/2018 8:09:16 PM #10

Posted By Kurko at 2:53 PM - Mon Dec 10 2018

Posted By Marovec at 8:34 PM - Mon Dec 10 2018

If my vote counts, I think requiring the player to actually "recognize" the language being spoken and manually "flip a switch" so they understand/speak it adds much more immersion than simply having the game auto-switch over when it detects a language you know.

No auto switch for speaking, but no kind of switch for understanding either! One cannot choose to understand only one language being spoken if one knows many of them ;) Speaking is a choice, understanding is not.

That is a great point. If you know the language, then you should just automatically "hear it" in a form you can understand.

Speaking, should be selected, just like you would choose what language to communicate in in real life.

I also like the idea of manually selecting what language you speak in because it could allow you to intentionally communicate in a language the people around you don't speak (that you know of).


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12/10/2018 10:23:32 PM #11

Posted By Marovec at 3:09 PM - Mon Dec 10 2018

That is a great point. If you know the language, then you should just automatically "hear it" in a form you can understand.

Personally I can't wait to see how this plays out with knowing only a few words, or at the very most, a middling vocabulary. How many words can you learn from hearing them often enough, in the same context? Will immersion-based learning even be a thing?

Darn, I wish I'd had these questions ready for Vye.


12/11/2018 1:18:29 AM #12

Oooh. I wasn't too far off the mark with my thoughts it seems!

I think it's definitely a pragmatic way of handling it. If you actually are fluent in a language, at least to me, feels like it would be silly for the game to force you to "switch languages" just to understand it.

Like in real life, people who are bilingual or multilingual (fluent) they do recognise it innately.

If it's just reading they understand, they probably wouldn't recognise if someone speaks it and visa versa. But if they know a little bit of either, they'd pick up on certain words in the way people actually do until their proficiency is higher.

Yet if they want to speak or write it them self, people still need to make a point/choice of which one they're saying or writing.

There are many ways of handling how many words are 'legible' to a person who's only learning or has limited knowledge of a language. Often it's words they hear the most often that they'll learn the meaning of initially, then expand out from there if they want more than just a 'basic' for haggling or travel purposes.

Some of the more common ones, people would likely 'pick up' easier than others due to simply hearing it more, obviously context dependant.

eg. Yes, no, buy, sell, help, come, go, shop, sleep, I, you


12/11/2018 3:46:46 AM #13

While on the topic of languages displayed and translation to the in-game languages, what sort of tolerance will they be for spelling or grammar errors. Also will the game use 'correct' English or Americian as will it be colour, armour etc or spelt without the "u" or will it recognise both.


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12/11/2018 3:59:04 AM #14

Posted By SilkyBazaar at 7:46 PM - Mon Dec 10 2018

While on the topic of languages displayed and translation to the in-game languages, what sort of tolerance will they be for spelling or grammar errors. Also will the game use 'correct' English or Americian as will it be colour, armour etc or spelt without the "u" or will it recognise both.

I kinda have a follow-up question to this, as I don't think that this can be answered with current knowledge.

Will full sentence spoken in English be translated and spoken in one of the fictional foreign languages in game when heard by someone who doesn't understand the language spoken.

For your question to make sense Silky, well lets use an example.

If 2 Dras were speaking, and a Kypiq came along that did not understand the language the Dras were speaking in game, would the Kypiq see:
1. Random gibberish or
2. What the two Dras are discussing, but translated into Lazu, the language spoken by the Dras?

It makes more sense to me that it would be random gibberish, which means that it doesn't matter the subtleties of the speakers spelling as it isn't being directly translated.


12/11/2018 4:14:05 AM #15

For the example... I expect it'll not specifically be gibberish, at least if we go by the Communiation journal.

One of the examples under "Getting Around" has this text:

The woman says: "Ail't het twe trait närd indayn thyu eroughddø herdä røtr. Vaen thyu rasch dä yrte ve dä erörstr taka dä deaerl erärs."

So unless we hear otherwise, that leads me to believe it'll be roughly translated into the chosen language. ie if a Kypiq who didn't understand Lazu that the two Dras were speaking, they'd probably hear it as Lazu without any words they understand sprinkled through it.