Howdy, Stranger!
Categories
- 6.2K All Categories
- 3.1K Everything Achaea
- 1.5K North of Thera
- 26 Archives of the Terraformer
- 257 The Matsuhama Arena
- 885 The Golden Dais of Creation
- 299 The Scarlattan Theatre
- 149 The Blank Canvas
- 2K Getting Help
- 412 General Questions
- 258 Quick Class Questions
- 1.3K Tech Support
- 313 Client Help
- 486 Curing Systems and Scripts
- 841 Off-Topic
- 255 The Wander Inn
- 586 The Universal Membrane
- 298 Class Discussions
- 298 Individual Class Sections
- 20 Alchemist
- 9 Apostate
- 30 Blademaster
- 9 Depthswalker
- 14 Druid
- 4 Infernal
- 20 Jester
- 19 Magi
- 34 Monk
- 11 Occultist
- 8 Paladin
- 7 Priest
- 29 Runewarden
- 18 Sentinel
- 26 Serpent
- 20 Shaman
- 9 Sylvan
Learning Languages for RP
Masaryk
Sangre Plains
I know there have been some discussions about language learning on the forums, but I wanted to get people's thoughts on this concept of Achaea.
Personally, I don't use different languages all that often in regular practice, but strictly from a role playing standpoint, I continue to learn them. I like to have my character place importance in continually gaining knowledge, and obviously language learning falls into this category. I'm curious if anyone else likes to pursue this, or if I'm just crazy in wanting to do this.
Currently I am fluent in 6 languages and pursuing my 7th.
0
Comments
I once started learning human for RP-related lessons, but never really followed on it. But yeah, you are not completely alone. I actually wish people employed racial languages more often.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
Tohran is currently learning Atavian for his daughter, and he learned Sireni for a former fiance. Not exactly a language he'd use, but it's good for the RP relationships.
Aye. I once learned Sireni for a lady friend and RP reasons. That was the first language I learned right after the language update was released, and I've been hooked ever since. Yet, sometimes I feel silly pouring 27k gold into each language lesson!
Well to get cheaper credits to sell for gold, I know a guy who's paying people 100cr per 5 globes they buy him.
Klendathu switches to Vertani when hunting in Tir Muraan and dwarven when hunting in Iskadar - got to insult your prey in their own language!
Anedhel speaks Tsol'aa with his closest friends!
(And is learning Atavian, which has proven to be fun(ny))
Kyriella learned Tsol'aa because it is her mother's race/language-- it's something special that they share now, and was a way of reconnecting with the childhood she had lost.
Sid is learning many languages, but not naming which. Mostly to eavesdrop
I enjoy languages in Achaea. They're a neat roleplay device that you can easily use to develop your character. The expense for learning several languages adds prestige to being multi-lingual as well (on top of the exclusivity of languages like Vertani).
Big fan.
Yeah. I really wish I wasn't dormant during the whole Vertani thing. Would really love to learn that language. Who knows, maybe they will come back?
I completely agree. Secretly I've always wondered if there was an honours line for someone if they learned all the basic (playable) racial languages (eh @Sarapis?).
Nobody will ever know. The cost to learn all available languages has been documented before and is genuinely astronomical.
(This is a good thing.)
Very true. They could always add something like "1 free language lesson" in the globes though. Who knows!
I've learnt a few languages, primarily for previous races I've been and reincarnated from, but I gave up years and years ago because bashing up the gold was too much effort back then. Nowadays the major thing stopping me from finishing off some is the travel required to reach the language tutors.
Not to mention that I'd probably just use my Gem of Hasty Transmutation to reincarnate if I had a particular need to speak a certain racial language now.
Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
If that means actually learning every language (excluding your current race's language), good luck gathering the 2.3 billion gold required.
For comparison, that's enough for a fleet of 300 fully equipped and crewed seastriders, plus a RL year of upkeep costs for all of them (at average wages and normal common rations), with ~78.5 million gold left over.
Damn it, @Sena. Now that you've done the math I'm torn between....
a. I've already spent so damn much, just do it!!!
b. I've spent how much already?! Omg, I could have spent that on so many other things!!!
Both options will inevitably lead to something like this:
An Azatlani sacrificial knife suddenly floats out of Bluef's inventory and makes a deep cut across her neck with its sharp obsidian edge. As she bleeds out, she manages to whisper, "Better to die a multilingual pauper than a misunderstood rich woman," before the blackness takes her.
Bluef has been slain by her love of languages.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
Some more math, since I have nothing better to do, and it's fun:
With that much gold, paying 8k per credit, you could get enough credits to buy every single artefact (including two of each DSL weapon, 6 artie pipes, 50 artie vials, two amnesia pets with everything, 14 artefact tattoos, and custom descriptions and reactions on everything). And then buy all of it again for someone else, plus another 100 flower pots for yourself. Or you could if there were that many credits for sale, you'd probably clear out the entire credit market before getting close.
In order to get that much gold within 10 RL years, you have to be averaging 630k gold per day for 10 years.
If the cost was split between every ranked player (logged in recently, level 30+) in the game, it would be about 1 million gold per person.
Based on what you've said (still at 27k per lesson), you're currently less than 0.04% of the way there.
I am starting to reconsider learning those languages
Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."
I want to become a language teacher! Charging 1000gp per lesson is already good income. Getting 3000 is daylight robbery, while 9000 is plain ridiculous.
Yes, I'm of the opinion that there really should be some kind of cap on the gold cost of a language. Learning any language your character does not know by default, is already just for RP reasons. Having to pay more in game for learning a language, than you would pay for an RL university study, makes no sense to me.
I have to admit, the break down of costs (which I think I'd completely ignored before because RP
) is pretty terrible. It creates a clear learning disparity between the haves and have nots.
If you aren't bashing consistently to earn that much gold each day or buying credits and converting them to gold, the cost is just exorbitant. I'm a dragon and I bash for a few hours everyday and I can tell you that it is not in my budget either due to the fact that there are so many other gold sinks I have to contend with already (ship costs, vial upkeep, ink upkeep, crafting costs, etc.) in addition to the costs of RPing support for your kids (buying them stuff for their gold sinks) and the like (fees to clans, fees to groups like the PoM so you can even enjoy sailing, etc.).
Sena inspired me to do some math on this. I figured out that with two racial languages left to learn, it will cost me something like 2,808,000. Language perfection or a new windcutter with 300,000 gold to spare? *sigh* Now I want to be a language teacher too (ooh, what if when you became transcendent in all languages you got to do that and could set your own price for language learning?).
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
So it seems to me the REAL problem is that we need more languages. #amiright?
New races = new languages. Let's see it.
Also, the fun thing about learning languages is that each lesson has an effect. It's a lot like learning skills as a newbie, back before everybody was immediately tri-trans. You'd set goals and be excited about the new abilities you learned that week or whatever from gold earned farming the hemp quest, just as you can measure the improvement in your still hilariously awful pronunciation of Rajamalan.
That lack of urgency and the progressiveness of learning really adds to the overall experience for me. I started learning human on Silas just before the race changes because I wanted to relearn my original (and superior) tongue because lol gem of transmutation, and casually bashing and fishing up the 81k per lesson was fun because I had an overarching goal that didn't come with the sleep-stealing, slavish obsession of bashing to dragon once you reach about level 92.
I really wish Achaea had a lot more of these casual, character development diversions, which is why I've always wanted some form of animal husbandry skill where you breed (chocobos) horses over a long period of time, with some impressive failures, until you finally have that legendary equine you've always wanted.
ETA: Maybe you could breed humgiis and enter them into the races for a chance to win much smaller prizes than the rewards for the promo races.
Eph has learned four languages, and will learn a fifth (Atavian, his original race,) very slowly once I can be bothered to bash/quest up the gold/travel to the tutor.
81,000 gold per lesson is going to be painful, and it's definitely the last one I'm bothering to learn unless something changes to the system.
Yeah, I had a good fight about it, like others before me. But everyone seemed to be okay with the soft cap on learning, also known as being impossible to do. The actual credit/gold cost to learn all languages to fluent was like 4 RL houses or something.
It's perfectly logical except that it means no mortal can ever become omnifluent. But since Achaea's racial languages are just a nametag and there's no system that caters to innate talent (like an affinity for languages), it'd just be a trophy.
There was a suggestion for traits to reduce learning cost or something, but that should probably be done in a pre-character creation phase. Allocate points to intellect, magic, fortitude, agility, etc.
Maybe in a different MUD.
Maybe now that they approved creation of an honours line for language learning they'll address the exorbitant costs. We may not see any change straightaway obviously because they have quite a bit on their plates atm, but the ability to learn every language and then complete a cool quest seems like it would only be do-able if learning every language was made a little more possible too.
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea
Album of Bluef during her time in Achaea