I've seen some dialogues in the most recent Twitch stream and saw enotikons being used. Why? What're they supposed to denote?

If you're talking about the lines that connect some letters like so: then  they are typographic ligatures and they're there to make the writing look old tymey and cool. You can read more about them here: http://opentype.info/blog/2012/11/20/whats-a-ligature/

 

They can be turned off in the options menu if you'd rather play without them.

So, it's just about looking cool?

 

That explains why I couldn't hear a difference between " s⁀t " and normal " st " and why those enotikons appeared in both the descriptive text and actual dialogue. I assumed that since one of the designers is focused on culture, then ⁀ meant something.

Edited January 16, 201511 yr by Magnificate

Yep. The st and ct ligatures aren't much used in modern typography (I've got a newspaper that does it in its weekend extras), but fi, ffi, fl are pretty common, and fj and ij in certain languages or fonts. If you take a look at this article promoting LaTeΧ, you'll see it compares MS Word's inadequate handling of ligatures:

 

 

to how Latex does it:

 

 

and it includes images of other, optional ligatures, like ct and st:

 

 

The thing with ligatures is in the way printing used to be done, with metal blocks, a ligature would be a single block rather than two separate character blocks:

 

 

So it both looks good, and lets you use fewer metal blocks when printing common character combinations, i.e. if you didn't have any fi ligatures you'd have to have more f and i blocks to compensate, or possibly do something else, more complicated, to get all the letters onto the page.

 

Next up in the history of printing: Why do we use the terms "lower case" and "UPPER CASE"? Were the upper-case letters stored in a case above the lower case ones?

Next up in the history of printing: Why do we use the terms "lower case" and "UPPER CASE"? Were the upper-case letters stored in a case above the lower case ones?

I would have guessed that upper and lower case existed before printing, is that not true?

So it both looks good,

Doesn't. Thank god there's a way to turn them off.

First impression: "What the hell is that!? Why is it in there? There it is again! What is that!? Odd!"

(reads this thread)

Well... that's... actually p. cool never seen it/known it before.

I thought it was a bug xD

Yeah, that bothered me too. Especially with all those accents over names, I just have trouble imagining how all that sounds.

I like it. Suits the medieval periodisation.

Make that mediævil...

 

Next up in the history of printing: Why do we use the terms "lower case" and "UPPER CASE"? Were the upper-case letters stored in a case above the lower case ones?

I would have guessed that upper and lower case existed before printing, is that not true?

 

Sort of! While miniscules were invented before printing, I doubt the terms based on the word "case" saw much use before Gutenberg.

 

 

So it both looks good,

Doesn't. Thank god there's a way to turn them off.

 

De gustibus non disputandum est. B-)

Yeah some ligatures like the fi are cool and look nice.  The ct, not so much.  If they didn't go all out with them I would be okay with it but ligatures are not a medieval thing, don't really fit thematically if you ask me, and look bad in a digital format.  I will be turning them off k thanx bai.

Next up in the history of printing: Why do we use the terms "lower case" and "UPPER CASE"? Were the upper-case letters stored in a case above the lower case ones?

I think that might actually have been the... case. 6_u

I think they add a neat touch

ligatures are not a medieval thing, don't really fit thematically

Well no, they didn't have printing presses yet. They did have books and manuscripts, and if you think stuff like a ct ligature adds unnecessary flourishes and break immersion, I can only assume you would prefer for the text interface to more resemble this:

 

 

which we can all see is very spartan and has no decorative frills. :^)

 ligatures are not a medieval thing, don't really fit thematically if you ask me

 

Well PoE isn't really a medieval setting, it's a renaissance setting. So I don't see the problem.

I don't mind ligatures in PoE, but I found decision to use them bit hilarious considering that in world of PoE printing press has not yet be invented (if it ever will) and this was one of the description points that Obsidian gave us during kickstarter. 

 

Just came by to say this is the best thread title ever. Compelled me to click, that's for sure.