Fantasy Accents

[Kuzzle]

Well, I wanted to call it "Fant-Ak-Cents", but I didn't figure anyone would bother looking at it...

Anyway, I was just wondering why people always used a British accent when dealing with fantasy. Like in that hilariously adorable little song of Rics'... Unless you're British, or something. In which case, I just made myself sound like an ass... I mean, it doesn't bother me, I was just wondering why, is all.

Also, I was wondering if the People at Simu had said anything in regards to local dialects in Hero's Journey? Like, will the different races/cities have different mannerisms, or speech? If so, what will they be? Just wondering.

Now it's time for some wild speculation, if no solid info is available!

Yeah, I'm bored, but it's worth some thought... right? Like, do you plan on using an accent for any of your characters? I'll probably just go strait standard speech, and I know that might annoy some people, but it just makes things seem to flow so much better for me.

 

[Luciro]

Lots of room for localization in fantasy MMOs that's for sure. I run the gambit depending more so on my character's look rather than race. But I really got into the 'haytee ta'k' with my WoW troll.

 

[WatchMaker]

I'm a master of voices, so if I ever get big enough into guilds, you might here me talking silly over the mic.

 

[Andric]

As an englishman I truly wish non-brits would not try and talk in the 'olde worlde' English or the mangled atrocity of an accent that they think is scottish/dwarvern. The worst though is when they role play thieves and try to sound like 19th century Cockney's /shudder

 

[Daax]

I can sound like Don la Fontaine so won't that be fun in game to hear me narrarating.

 

[French Kiss]

I type out a french accent in CoH. It's...'ow you say? Tres bon! An accent (if done right) can add something special to a character.

 

[Luciro]

I like going with the surly types in CoV. I got a lot of rough characters so to say, but my dominator is all prim and pompus. I dunno, I say type at it. It's worth the character.

 

[frostydf2]

I'm not too big on accents unless it's over Ventrilo. So for me, it wouldn't be that big of a deal at all. It would be cool though if different races/city NPC's spoke differently to you.

 

[milamber]

Good question Kuzzle. But the real question is as frosty put it at the end. Different races and cities. WoW started off with a "Language" that you knew. I thought that would mean that you could learn new languages to interact with different races. It turns out that you can never talk to the Horde if you're part of the Alliance (or vice versa) and that each race understands every other race. How dumb is that? Why have a list of languages if you can't learn anymore?

I would like to see something where you can have an "archealogical" type of sepcialy where youcan learn about our predecessors (I think I spelled that right) in HJ and maybe clean cool spells and advanced technologies from ruins. That would be fun!

 

[Luciro]

I like those ideas.
EQ1 had a good language system. One could even learn none player race languages and read and listen in on convos you may have missed from, years before. Nothing like pretending to speak dragon.
WoW was going to have the languages be something more, but the most useful thing they could get out of it was stopping trash talking from either pvp 'side'.
Accents are usually used to help give backstory and use a known archtype/stereotype without going into much back story on a somewhat important character. Like the flying slave trader from Star Wars Episode I & III. Ya know, the guy who owned Vader's family. He talked like a hairy used cars salesman.. Bam, ya know instantly what to expect from the guy.
So even if they're done 'bad', that's a matter of opinion. Creating new ones for fantasy worlds and what not would be a tad difficult considering you'd have to explain each migratory movement for each people and explain how their early languages came about to the modern ones.
Just use what devices you have coming to you.
I like how folks enjoy the fact they can look how they want. But the rest of it can be laced with normalicy. Give me RP how I wish and play as I like numbers one and two please.

 

[Furtivus]

local dialects would be awsome in the game! Would really add to the story line