[MUD-Dev] In-Game Languages

[Matthew D. Fuller]

On Fri, May 26, 2000 at 11:13:17PM +1000 I heard the voice of
Andrew Ritchie, and lo! it spake thus:
> 
> Thus, I wish to implement a system whereby scrambling takes place word by
> word, not letter by letter.  The longer the word is, the more likely it is
> to be scrambled.  Conversely, the shorter the word (presumably more common
> and easier to learn, although I realise that this isn't the entire truth),
> the more likely the word won't be scrambled. For instance, if Bubba had a
> 50% skill in Elven, and Buffo said (in perfect Elven):
> 
> "Climb to the summit of the glacier, and once there raise your eyebrows."
> 
> Bubba may hear:
> 
> "Blurh [to the] harken [of the] jucieni, [and once there] areni buun
> lubadani."

This is difficult as well, as a major barrier in learning another
language is not so much vocabulary (which is mainly rote memorization),
but grammar.  I pity the poor people who try to learn English, if only
for that reason ;).

Just a thought, but it brings up an observation; increasing levels of
verisimilitude require exponentially more work and resources.  How 'real'
do we really want to get?  Idiomatic phrases are another good source of
trouble; I recall reading a book (mostly humor) describing a translation
experiment where a computer took a phrase in English, translated it to
Russian, then translated the Russian back to English, to test
comprehension.  The input was 'The spirit is strong, but the flesh is
weak.'.  The output was 'The vodka is good, but the meat is rotten.'.

Do you want to introduce the possibility of erroneous translation?  A
mistake in a translation introduced as a random event could lead to some
really interesting disagreements.  Or as a result of several words that
closely resemble themselves, or words that have totally different
meanings according to context.  How about if the 'person' 'teaching' you
the language intentionally gives you wrong info?

Ooh, so many possibilities to screw with people here    :)


--
Matthew Fuller     (MF4839)     |    fullermd at over-yonder.net
Unix Systems Administrator      |    fullermd at futuresouth.com
Specializing in FreeBSD         |    http://www.over-yonder.net/

"The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is because I
      haven't figured out how to light the middle yet"



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