Literacy

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Nov 05, 2006 10:46 am

Wandering about a typical alfa server, you see a plethero of signs, scrolls, books, messages etc etc.

How easy would it be to add a "check for literacy+language" script when examining any of these so that players of Illiterate PCs, or PCs who don't speak the language, cannot read them?

Gelcur · Post by **Gelcur** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:57 pm

Would be very cool. Would also be cool if you preface type in with <elven> that only others who know that language would understand it and others would just see something like "you hear an unknown language".

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 11:11 pm

I'm not entirely sure how much we can alter in the GUI at the moment. In terms of using the little examine button, what you ask might be impossibe. But it might not...

We were promissed an OnExamine event, but didn't get one. Ah well.

Intercepting and altering chat channel speak is more likely to be impossible*, and in fact I'm rather sure it is.

* Well, nothing is really impossible, but I've either not thought of an elegant solution, or the implementation would be a PITA to all players (such as requiring all speach be typed in a seperate GUI text box, or something).

Voersaa · Post by **Voersaa** » Sun Nov 12, 2006 11:41 pm

Super cool idea.

To bad that it wont work (I trust in Ronans judgement since I have no clue as to how these things are done).

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 12:08 am

I don't have time to look into a lot of little things like this (hell, I don't even have time to think about most of them). So if someone does and finds out there is a way to do it elegantly... let me know.

Grand Fromage · Post by **Grand Fromage** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:05 am

This can easily be left to RP, really... and it'd be so rare. All people with PC classes other than barbarian are automatically literate, and most everything other than books is going to be in common. Doesn't seem worth scripting.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 3:01 pm

I believe that this was possible to do with NWN1, but I'm not sure if it works with NWN2.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Sc ... il&id=1620

I never got around to checking it out, so I can't comment on how well it actually works.

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 3:13 pm

Nice, we'll have to look into it with NWNx4.

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:45 pm

why wouldn't you just RP illiteracy? We're supposed to be decent roleplayers here I thought...if someone's RP is so gimped they can't manage illiteracy, how'd they get in the door?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:49 pm

You can make the same argument for a hella lot that we are locking down with code. Just thought it was worth mentioning, didn't realise that there was no "OnExamine" function.

(seems a pretty stupid function for BW to omit, but hey)

And people actually go through threads on this board deleting information that is deemed "meta" so obviously it is clear that we are *not* trusted to roleplay ignorance of the facts.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:09 pm

It isn't just about trust though. This can add mystery to your gaming sessions and alleviate the need to keep track of what is/is not meta knowledge for your character. It becomes increasingly difficult to maintain this distinction as time goes by, unless you are dilligently keeping notes, which I suspect is rarely the case.

fluffmonster · Post by **fluffmonster** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 6:09 pm

My apologies for using the form of a question, let me restate: there is no reason someone who wants to play an illiterate PC can't do so just fine without scripting. There are lots of things far more important that we'll end up having to do without already because of the set-up costs. This isn't at all like the meta that mods try to purge from the forums. The "meta" of literacy is very different in that someone is actively choosing to be illiterate...why would they meta their way out of a situation they chose to be in in the first place?

I can appreciate the desirability of the immersion factor, but sometimes in imaginary games its just better to use your imagination.

ç i p h é r · Post by **ç i p h é r** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 7:10 pm

Well I don't dispute that there are more important things in the queue, but the idea is still worthy of being on our wish list. We're always going to be busy, so please don't let that stop you from offering up ideas.

The lion's share of the work here has, at least, already been done in creating a listener and parser that can be integrated into any module.

Also a point of clarification. The usefulness of this system extends beyond just those who choose to be illiterate. It's also useful to players who are exposed to a language they are not familiar with (this is not a "literacy" issue per se nor is it a conscious choice) and for logging player-player conversations (even tells) to evaluate cases of abuse, if/when necessary.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:13 pm

fluffmonster wrote:The "meta" of literacy is very different in that someone is actively choosing to be illiterate...why would they meta their way out of a situation they chose to be in in the first place?

Hmm, not really. They are chosing to play a barbarian - the fact that the class is illiterate is a drawback that they might well dislike.

Grand Fromage · Post by **Grand Fromage** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:35 pm

Mayhem wrote:
fluffmonster wrote:The "meta" of literacy is very different in that someone is actively choosing to be illiterate...why would they meta their way out of a situation they chose to be in in the first place?
Hmm, not really. They are chosing to play a barbarian - the fact that the class is illiterate is a drawback that they might well dislike.

And they can put a point into Speak Languages and fix that. They can do that at first level with NWN2, in fact.

As for your point that you can make the "just RP" argument with a lot of things, that's true. We should just leave it to RP rather than wasting time scripting where it's not necessary.