Cant (lingo, jargon...)

[Entropious]

One should also keep in mind the possibility of borrowing elements of various real-world culture and "transforming" them into a pseudo-English mimesis. Of course, you don't necessarily have to limit yourself to a particular nation, but can reach out to an entire "cluster": Slavs, The Byzantine Empire, The Holy Romane Empire, Oriental Arabs, and so forth.

 

However, I believe that in any game which seeks to be ambitious one element needs to be absolutely avoided: playing on stereotypes. So please, no Polish (or Polish-like) drunks, French faggots, English stiff-as-a-board, arrogant gentlemen, or funny-speaking Russians (In Soviet Russia, experience gains you).

[molarBear]

One should also keep in mind the possibility of borrowing elements of various real-world culture and "transforming" them into a pseudo-English mimesis. Of course, you don't necessarily have to limit yourself to a particular nation, but can reach out to an entire "cluster": Slavs, The Byzantine Empire, The Holy Romane Empire, Oriental Arabs, and so forth.

 

However, I believe that in any game which seeks to be ambitious one element needs to be absolutely avoided: playing on stereotypes. So please, no Polish (or Polish-like) drunks, French faggots, English stiff-as-a-board, arrogant gentlemen, or funny-speaking Russians (In Soviet Russia, experience gains you).

 

i think obsidian can do better than that but i would like the thiefling girls to speak a strong scottish accent like annah

[nikolokolus]

It's a nice enough idea to add flavor, but it seems like it would be a huge investment of developer time and resources to fully flesh it out. So for that reason I vote, "Don't care." If Obsidian goes way over their kickstarter stretch goals and makes something like 5 million bucks then I'm all for little touches, but this feels like asking for sprinkles when you're still short on flour and sugar for a cake.

[WDeranged]

I'd argue that patois and lingo are utterly inseparable from language itself, they're not just sprinkles, every culture in existence has had deviation from the established norm, in my country it's no strange thing for people living on opposite sides of a hill or valley to talk very differently.

[nikolokolus]

I'd argue that patois and lingo are utterly inseparable from language itself, they're not just sprinkles, every culture in existence has had deviation from the established norm, in my country it's no strange thing for people living on opposite sides of a hill or valley to talk very differently.

 

I'm talking about the practicalities of game development when it comes to developing a fully developed cant, or game world colloquial form of speech ... that's takes time and money, something this project isn't going to have an unlimited supply of.

[WDeranged]

I don't think anyone is asking for a fully developed cant, just something along the lines of Planescape: Torment would be be great

[nikolokolus]

I don't think anyone is asking for a fully developed cant, just something along the lines of Planescape: Torment would be be great

 

The trouble with that is, the TSR folks had already done all the heavy lifting on planescape lore before Black Isle got a hold of it. There wasn't much left to do.

[Badmojo]

It adds flavor so I said yes.

[sanian]

I'd think various slang would be a given. Multiple races, multiple 'kingdoms'. It'd be strange if there were no linguistic quirks of any kind.

[Ywerion]

It would definitely add more depth if added to. Just big NO to modern insults(f-word and... others). For A) We have a Witcher for constant f-words and grittiness, for B) In my humble opinion its just so unfitting. But, and that's a FACT, look at guy WHO is in charge of writing and narration, AND what level of brilliance in their narrations they always upheld in their games. So with slang/cant or without, it will be of purest of quality and I have no doubts about it.

Edited October 9, 2012 by Ywerion

[Amentep]

I don't think anyone is asking for a fully developed cant, just something along the lines of Planescape: Torment would be be great

 

The trouble with that is, the TSR folks had already done all the heavy lifting on planescape lore before Black Isle got a hold of it. There wasn't much left to do.

 

Of course the Planescape cant was lifted from older english phrases and idioms, so a lot of TSR's heavy lifting had been done for them too.

 

One complaint people have about the PS cant is that it can be gone overboard on - "I catched a skeg of that greybeard. After the well lanned man's serenade, the bally sod went to the ant-hill to wigwag with the jink monger about holdin' out on him. Berk's asking to bite the iron, if'n y'ah ask me..." and so on, so its always something you have to play carefully with.