Races

[Jos Elkink]

The danger is that you have symbols that will lead to names. Like, 'the yellow people', which would be a little boring. I'm myself not yet convinced just random names is not the best way to go ...

And yes, Scuba, I thought I already agreed to your point about languages ...

[SCUBA]

And yes, Scuba, I thought I already agreed to your point about languages ...

Just whanted to explain this...

I don't get your point about 'chars spawning abroad'. What do you mean there?

Probably I made it way to long.

And now i probably will do it again.

Also no one should be 100% identifiable to a certain language group by the traits they possess, because people were saying that would make spying impossible.

These 'looks' would be inherited from the 'parents' (the two chars that you inherit your genes from).

SekoETC, it will be impossible to make unidentifiable that a char is from another language group. Or maybe not, if all language groups have atleast 4 different looks, then you cant tell if the char is from your or another language group, if you do not know all of your language group's looks, or that that specific look is from a special language group that you already know. If different language groups will have some characters with the same look as other language groups. As I strongly appose. When the logic of genes will be lost. So we will have a choice, genes or not identifiable language. Or if both, bad logic. At least would not my turkishborn characters like to be recognised as 'turks'. They feel and identify themselves as swedes, and would be very frustrated looking at themselves and see a turkish look.

[SekoETC]

There are hues to those colours. Even though in real life I think it would be possible to tell a Swede and a Turk apart, you couldn't tell a Swede and an Englishman apart unless they start talking. The point is if English was "blue" and Swedish was "green", then if someone was turquoise or jade you couldn't be 100% sure which language group they belong to.

And yeah, they would most likely start imagining that the colours are the exact skin colours. That's why I would like to use actual features that exist in real life. It would not be so that ALL Swedes had big ears for example. (I can just imagine someone pulling a pea up their nose and start screaming bloody racism), but that there was a higher chance for that to happen. Which would lead to the majority of Swedes having big ears. Ok, lets pull an even more surrealistic example. Lets imagine some Esperanto characters had a little tail. Other language groups would have a 1% chance of having a little tail but in Esperanto group, over half the people would have some sort of a tail. But you couldn't be 100% certain that if a newspawn born has a tail, they would also be Esperanto. Since if some language group had a concrete trait then if they go to war with another group, people would have it very easy to kill people without ever giving them a chance to talk.

[SCUBA]

Lets imagine some Esperanto characters had a little tail. Other language groups would have a 1% chance of having a little tail but in Esperanto group, over half the people would have some sort of a tail. But you couldn't be 100% certain that if a newspawn born has a tail, they would also be Esperanto. Since if some language group had a concrete trait then if they go to war with another group, people would have it very easy to kill people without ever giving them a chance to talk.

This is something else than Jos suggested. He said that the looks woudnt even mix at all. If one parent of yours had look 'A' and the other look 'B', the newspawn would get look 'A' or look 'B'.

As I understand the way Jos suggestion must be implemented with what has been written by him more in this thread. This is how it would work:

The letters representing some kind of traits. E. g. looks Siomish or a colour or a symbol or even have a tail.

English characters will have either look 'A' or 'B' or 'C' or 'D', maybe more.
Polish characters will have either look 'E' or 'F' or 'G' of 'H' ...
Spanish 'I' or 'J'...
...

--------------

Your system with many different traits possible among all languageses and with different possibilities to get. During implementation based on spawning place and language, and efter implementation, based on 'parents'. That system is far more complicated, possibly better, but not the suggestion here.

I like them both. But I prefere the one I described above and I think Jos ment.

[deadboy]

I really like this idea, however, I also really only like -Jos's- idea, which is pre-set names based on the islands, or preferably areas. All this dynamic naming and traits I don't like, I would just prefer looks North-Pok islandish, or looks Siomish or things like that

[wichita]

Alternatively, we could use symbols or colors or something to identify the race, so you can immediately recognize them, while leaving the actual naming dynamic. That is, you can set a dynamic name just as you can for the character or building, but you also see something distinguishing beforehand.

This might be the best way to work it in. The characters could have a "genetic code" visible with their gauge cluster. Language + Location + Genetic Variation -> xx - yyy - zzzz leaveing the question, "Are x,y,z alphanumeric, coloured, or symbolic?" Either way we go, someone will disapprove.



We already have the spawnpoints for each character stored.

We already have their language stored.

Language groups cannot currently mix genetically, right? That leaves xx simple for now.


So many other thoughts that I shan't throw into the fire until it cools down a bit more...

[Jos Elkink]

In the chat two things came up that I think are interesting to consider:

1) If language groups are always clearly identified by their looks it might emphasise already semi-OOC tensions between some of the groups. It might be more interesting if the racial and language distinctions are not so clearly the same. So one could imagine the Lithuanians and the Portuguese to be of the same racial group, as well as, for example, the Spanish and Germans, reducing it to fewer racial groups than I originally had in mind. It will create more interesting cross-cutting distinctions where you can either look at race or at language, but they're not the same thing.

2) One person in chat was worried that if racial groups are too small, they'll become too prominent in terms of social organisation in Cantr. Only when they are large enough will the dynamics be entirely different from, say, TBR or the MacGregors 'ethnic groups'. So you'd have a hierarchy of identifications rather than a programmed one whihc will become more dominant that hte existing ones.

Both, I think, are very good points. This would counter the point by Scuba about language groups and also the idea of splitting islands in multiple groups (like making Olip region different from the Seatown region). I think it's indeed a good idea not to make too many groups. So the English zone would probably be four groups (Cantr island; Pok island; K island; Aki island) and the Polish maybe three or so; and some languages would be grouped together.

EDIT: I was actually wrong about the genes. When you spawn a character, randomly two 'parents' in that location are selected, independent of language. So you can indeed inherit the genes, including race, from other language groups in the location.

[T-shirt]

So the English zone would probably be four groups (Cantr island; Pok island; K island; Aki island) and the Polish maybe three or so; and some languages would be grouped together.

I don't know much about the Cantr Geography, but I do know now that there are four settled English islands. I think this information might be common knowledge to most people, but it should not be revealed by the staff.

[Jos Elkink]

In general I would agree with you, T-shirt, but this particular fact is so widely known that it makes little sense to keep it secret. Characters, of course, still don't know ... at least, not most of them.

And there are more than four settled English islands ...

[Pie]

Yes, there are in fact, an amount of.... Over 4, below 156543

[Antichrist_Online]

Surly's suggestion of a gene code might be a better idea, with random area distribution at the start and let breeding take effect, but appearance wise, maybe random names for groups of islands might be a good idea, until something better is suggested.

[psymann]

Don't think that language should have anything to do with Race.

(comically enough) a lecture on "diversity" that someone I know recently went to, the woman giving the lecture said that a good idea for staff was to look at the name of their customers and work out from that that they should be treated in a different way applicable to their culture (apologies for really badly-made-up names here as I don't know the actual ones).

"For instance," she explained, "If the name is Esse Okinbowi, you would think that he is from Africa..."

She was cut off by another student: "But that doesn't really work, does it," said Ogi Uganbuyi. "Because people might see my name and get completely the wrong idea about my background."

"Ah yes," she explained further, "Well Africa is a big place, and there are various difference between different parts of Africa of course..."

"No, that's not what I meant," said Ogi. "I was born and grew up in Oxford."

I don't see how your skin/eye colour has the slightest influence on your language or vice versa.


Things to deterimine:

Language (comes from surroundings) - in theory, your character could spawn anywhere and would develop the language of that area. Since the player needs to know the language in order for the character to interact properly, it makes sense for a character to spawn in an area with at least 50% of the characters speaking the player's chosen language.

Race/Appearance (comes from parents) - once your two random parents are chosen, you appearance should be a mix of the two. I would suggest that you have an appearance for each island or group of islands, and have one "in between" option for each, and a "mixed" option.

Eg start with Blobish and Splotish. If a Blob and a Splot love each other very much, they might make a Blobsplot, who would be Blobsplottish.

If that Blobsplot partners a Blob, their child would be 75% Blob and 25% Splot, so they can just be called "Blobbish". After all, I'm technically 1/8 French, 5/32 Scottish and 1/128 Greek, but I think it's accurate enough to call be English. The actual ratios can be remembered by the game, so if that particular blob then partners a pedigree Splot later on, their child could be a full-blown Splot. Or something like that. If there are any flukes where the ratios are exactly equal on more than two Races, just call them "mixed" race.

Maybe - if you want to get really complicated - if you spend a year or two in Blobland, then your appearance will get gradually more blobby, so that someone who spawns with 60/40 Blob/Splot (close enough to be called Blobsplottish) might turn 62/38 Blob/Splot (far enough apart to be called Blobbish) if they live in Blobland long enough. But that might be a step too far!

Skills (come from parents) - pretty much the same as race - your skills are taken from your two random parents - though a bit more mutation can go on here to create more variety - which is, I think, what happens at the moment.


Ok, hope that makes sense. In other words, this is a very long way of saying "Race should be unrelated to language".

psymann

[Sicofonte]

I do like this suggestion.

psymann, xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

I do agree with psyman's system for managing the mixtures (being A, B and C pure races, you can be A, or B, or C, or AB / BA, or AC / CA, or BC / CB, or just X).



I have a friend who is 50% northafrican, 25% southamerican (Ecuador), 25% spanish, and she looks Greek... everyone thinks she is Greek, always.

I am almost 100% Spanish from Spain, or it is what I think, but people from the north of Europe thinks that I'm Argentine, and people from the south thinks I'm French or Gallic. Maybe, the celtic traits common in Spain were stronger on me -shrugs-

So...


Even when spawning a char among characters of a only pure race, there should be the possibility of having confusing look (with the problems that can arise from it if the father becomes insecure about his paternity...

[Jos Elkink]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with psyman on most points. I'm not sure about the mixed races, still, since the question is just where to make the cut-off point. You can imagine a message that someone looks like a mixture between two races, but a mixture between 4? 8? 16? ... It gets a little messy ...

[deadboy]

In general I would agree with you, T-shirt, but this particular fact is so widely known that it makes little sense to keep it secret. Characters, of course, still don't know ... at least, not most of them.

And there are more than four settled English islands ...

How would these fit in? Would the smaller islands like Shai be classed as their own race? Or as most of the smaller islands are inhibited by people who travelled from a main land would you figure out where most of them came from and name them like that?