Keep the Shakespearean language. Your fans aren't stupid!

Story & Setting
#1

First, Devs, Grats on getting funded!

In the video, you (dev boss-man) stated that you’re doubting the choice of the old english, thinking it’d be too hard for the players to understand. In the same breath(well, video), you also said that you’re not beholden to any evil publishers to dumb the game down.

Don’t be an evil publisher. We can rise to your expectation. We can learn the old vocabulary to understand what the people are saying just from context!!! There’s also forums here where we can ask questions about something, if we simply can’t understand what’s said to us. Don’t dumb it down. Don’t make it contemporary language.

It’s so cool that you even employed old English–In fact, it was so immersively believable–I didn’t even notice the speech! It just sounded to me like the people would sound–and it was new vocabulary to me. I didn’t even realize it was properly researched old English until YOU BROUGHT IT UP! And I DID understand the conversations, because there was context to it. Please don’t tarnish what you have here. Don’t condescend to us. We get it…

I guess I’ve said it enough times, now…

Keep the old English, please!!!

46 Likes
List of mods that you want made! POST HERE!
#2

There’s actually an entire discussion on the topic already. If you want to go trough it and see opinions of the community, head over here -> Language style: Old or modern?

#3

I agree! Please keep it. The atmosphere was amazing with this old english.
I only want to beg you to make sure to have subtitles. This is really important. As much as I love things to be accurate you should still be able to understand what is going on. So keep shakespeare and make subtitles and everything will be fine!

8 Likes
#4

The old english is neither accurate at being old english, nor accurate given the setting. People actually weren’t speaking English in Bohemia at the time :stuck_out_tongue: And even people who were speaking english weren’t speaking like that. The entire thing just feels silly to me, there’s no accuracy to be had here, might as well go with modern english and not confuse people in the process

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#5

you are absolutely right :wink:
Nevertheless it would be accurate in a way like translated movies are today. When a movie plays in France and nobody speaks French but English, it isn’t accurate in the way of the language itself. But it can be accurate in the way of how they speak. So it is like you pretend to “understand” french.
Of course they didn’t speak english in this region. But anyway the medieval English gives you the medieval atmosphere. In the end it doesn’t matter which language it actually was as long as you can understand it and as long as it transmits the right atmosphere :wink:

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#6

Old English was around way earlier. :wink:
And of course not in Bohemia. :stuck_out_tongue:

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#7

Don’t get me wrong here with the word “accurate” guys. Probably this word was a poor choice. Let me correct it with “immersive” atmosphere.
I just think the game’s atmosphere profits even more from a - at least in our romantic understanding - medieval lannguage than it would when everybody speaks “normal” with lots of anachronistic vocabulary in it.

1 Like
#8

For complete authenticity they could hire some experts for old languages and have the voice actors speak like the people in Bohemia back then (either Old Czech, Old German or a mixture between those) and just display subtitles the whole time, but that would be a lot of extra effort :smile:

3 Likes
#9

I agree, no proactive “dumbing down”, please. :smiley:

#10

Yes, a couple of people think this is the way to go.
The player can choose to either play in

English (or one of the other common localizations: German, French, Spanish, Italian)
or
Authentic (native language of the characters with localized subtitles).

If you are interested, have a further read here: :wink:
http://forum.kingdomcomerpg.com/t/language-style-old-or-modern?source_topic_id=9537

#11

I cannot stress this enough: the language used in the video is not accurate. Not to the period, not to the ‘Shakespearean’ style they’re supposedly going for, not to any form of English that is or ever has been spoken. It is a fake, stilted mishmash of modern English and bits of vocabulary taken seemingly at random from different periods of history. I realise this may not be obvious to people who either aren’t native speakers, or whose idea of ‘Olde English’ is based on renaissance fairs and bad movies - but it’s still true.

If you want to see some actual period-accurate English, here you go:
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne…

Now if Warhorse really want to go to the ludicrous effort of writing all their dialogue in authentic Middle English, finding actors capable of speaking it properly, and translating it all into Modern English subtitles so that players can actually understand it… I’m actually fine with that. Seriously, I would be very impressed. But ‘faking it’ is not going to work. Since this game makes such a big deal about accuracy, it’s going to be played by a lot of people who are at least vaguely familiar with actual period English, and they are not going to be impressed with fakey Ren Faire dialogue.

IMO, the best solution is to use relatively modern speech but keep it as ‘neutral’ as possible. No modern slang, and use older vocabulary where appropriate (e.g. for words and concepts that aren’t used in modern English), but no self-conscious use of words like ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and ‘forsooth’ just to try and make it sound old-fashioned. But please, please, not the style of dialogue used in the livestream. I hate to sound harsh, but if someone were to ask me exactly how not to do period dialogue, I would pretty much point them straight at that video.

12 Likes
#12

I agree!
I’d definetly love to see some old english!
Let’s face it…a guy who purchases this game already isn’t the average gamer (in a good way), so it wouldn’t be frightened by the presence of a harder version of the current english language.
Using old english would create a much deeper immersion and also be a challenge for the gamer, to understand every character

#13

Yes, because the reason for me to play story-based games is to decipher what the eff is that guy trying to say :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes
#14

Old English would be nice for immersion, and would really make a difference with other games.

2 Likes
#15

I strongly support old English. It creates atmosphere.

3 Likes
#17

The sample dialogue just didn’t sound very good, and even Dan says as much. But, it’s just placeholder stuff. Shakespearean or otherwise, all that matters is that it sounds like it flows realistically without coming off as forced.

#19

Ok, then let’s use this


As someone suggested in the other language thread

Not that old but also not that recent.
Better to understand since closer to modern English but still archaic enough. :wink:

3 Likes
#20

In this case, it’s about 600 years. Besides, Bohemian population speaking poorly written and voiced old english - and I’m yet to see a videogame which would pull the archaic english feel well, by the way - feels wrong regardless.

I just don’t understand the argument about perceieved authenticity. The english using a bunch of archaisms might sound like a cool idea, but there are only minimal practical benefits to it, and a LOT of potential downfalls.

1 Like
#21

Actual Shakespearean English is also fine (though completely the wrong period), but again, they’d have to put in the work to get it right. I’ve heard Early Modern English dialogue written by people who did enough research to make it sound authentic, and it doesn’t sound like the dialogue in the video. I’m not opposed but I don’t really think it’s worth the extra effort

#22

Ok, you say Early Modern English now would be too far from what was shown in the video. Then maybe use Early Modern English sprinkled with some Middle English words here and there (in the vein of Modern English with “thou”, “thy”, etc.) to keep a more archaic vibe. Would also feel more natural because I don’t think there was some guy pulling a lever and all of a sudden all people were speaking another form of English. :smiley: So this would reflect that it’s a language in transition.

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