I Speak Klingon

[Decius]

No, not really. But that brings up a thought I had, are the Federation players able to speak to Klingons? Or will it show up as gibberish if we were to hail their ship or whatever? If that's the case, would player characters have the chance to learn other languages as a possible ability?

Example

Captain Wallace says, "Hey you there, you smelly Klingon!"
Kang says, "dur cha, calla walla walla bing bang"
Captain Wallace says, "what?"
Kang says, "Oompa loompa?"

Perhaps there can be degrees of knowledge for a language, like someone know's just 'some' of it. So it would be something like..

Captain Wallace says, "Hey you there, you smelly Klingon!"
Kang says, "dur me? calla you smell bing bang"
Captain Wallace says, "What? Something about a smell?
Kang sighs.

I think it would be sorta fun to have the language barrier, yet still have the opportunity to overcome it if your character spends the points (or whatever) to learn it. Or even if Cryptic uses the traditional method between sides of just not understanding each other, that's fine too.

[Xuth]

No, not really. But that brings up a thought I had, are the Federation players able to speak to Klingons? Or will it show up as gibberish if we were to hail their ship or whatever? If that's the case, would player characters have the chance to learn other languages as a possible ability?

Example

Captain Wallace says, "Hey you there, you smelly Klingon!"
Kang says, "dur cha, calla walla walla bing bang"
Captain Wallace says, "what?"
Kang says, "Oompa loompa?"

Perhaps there can be degrees of knowledge for a language, like someone know's just 'some' of it. So it would be something like..

Captain Wallace says, "Hey you there, you smelly Klingon!"
Kang says, "dur me? calla you smell bing bang"
Captain Wallace says, "What? Something about a smell?
Kang sighs.

I think it would be sorta fun to have the language barrier, yet still have the opportunity to overcome it if your character spends the points (or whatever) to learn it. Or even if Cryptic uses the traditional method between sides of just not understanding each other, that's fine too.

Hehe.. interesting version of Klingon :P

That could be fun.. if in a fight the universal translator broke down, or a special 'move' which dissables it? Making it more challenging.. similar to the disrupting communications idea to prevent bringing in help.

I do agree it could be fun, but the universal translator would always be present (just one of those things in ST they should really be following.)

[Syphus]

I have mixed feelings about languages. Namely opposing sides being completely unable to understand each other. In some cases I think it's awesome... I think everyone has run into an obnoxious -rick who you really wish you never had to deal with on the opposing side. However I've also forged some decent adversarial friendships with 'enemies'.

[Decius]

I do agree it could be fun, but the universal translator would always be present (just one of those things in ST they should really be following.)

I miss the days when they didn't have universal translators, where sometimes you would see the Enterprise crew struggling with the basic Klingon language.

However I've also forged some decent adversarial friendships with 'enemies'.
That's true, for that aspect its nice to be able to talk to your named and known enemy. I think the language learning option could be of use in this scenario for those that want it.

[SF_Tenaka_Khan]

If there were a language barrier, it would bypass a fairly standard piece of technology in the universal translator. I'm not 100% on how it works but it isn't confined to transmissions, I think there are means in place for people to understand eachother wherever they are, or at least in most situations. I'm sure this would be true 30 years after Nemesis.

EDIT: Didn't see Xuth's post, great minds! :rolleyes:

[Decius]

Basically, it boils down to the "should we be able to talk with our enemies?"

Since in some of the newer MMO's, usually it's not allowed. I'm wondering if STO will continue with that, and just make it so the Feds and Klingons are unable to communicate with each other, aside from emotes.

[Syler_Akeron]

From TNG on, the comm badges had UT's built in. Now before you say, "Hey, picard couldn't understand that alien guy on that planet and had to learn his language!!!11111oneomfg11!1!," he could understand his words. The alien was speaking with a different grammar.

[PattonJ007]

Yes we should be able to speak to our enemies. You know that the combadge every Starfleet Officer wears on his uniform has a UT in it?

Edit: Haha damn Syler beat me to it

[Syler_Akeron]

Edit: Haha damn Syler beat me to it

Beating people is what I'm here for. :p

[Futuristicdragoon]

I sure hope it's not like this for once. I'd usually agree that it's fun to have some language barrier but in this case, after they've been using universal translators for around 200 years, it'd pretty much make next to no sense why you couldn't tell what the other side were saying.

It'd actually bring a great new element into the game if you could talk to the opposing side. You could bribe them to not kill you if you're lower level and they are running low on money. It'd be a new profession... pretty much telling the other ship "if you don't give me the shipment of dilithium crystals you were taking to Vulcan, I'll destroy your ship and your mission will be over anyways."

I don't know. The bottom line is it wouldn't make sense if you couldn't talk to the other side. They've been doing it to near 200 years and would also have a collected dictionary of words from other races already. God knows we don't already here in the early 21st century. ;)

[Decius]

Yes we should be able to speak to our enemies. You know that the combadge every Starfleet Officer wears on his uniform has a UT in it?

Edit: Haha damn Syler beat me to it


Just saying that more recent MMO's remove the aspect of being able to speak to the enemy, to prevent the "HAHA I PWN YOU NUB!!!!11" and other post-death griefing stuff. I personally don't care though, either way. I'm just wondering what they will do.

[Futuristicdragoon]

They should seriously just make a leet race of ppl that control their ships from the basement of a house on earth. LMAO. Also refer back to my other post if you didn't get a look-see at that :P

[callsign11b]

I think this is a wasted point the time line has it 30 years after last movie UT have been canon 200 years.
The races that are in this game been talking for many many years. so language should not be a issue.
On the other side of the coin on PVE missions you may run into a unknown race with a unknown language that the UT can't convert if you are doing deep space exploration and part of the mission is first contact.
other than that can't see it being a big issue.;)

[Xuth]

I think this is a wasted point the time line has it 30 years after last movie UT have been canon 200 years.
The races that are in this game been talking for many many years. so language should not be a issue.
On the other side of the coin on PVE missions you may run into a unknown race with a unknown language that the UT can't convert if you are doing deep space exploration and part of the mission is first contact.
other than that can't see it being a big issue.;)

I like that idea, or (for the sake of gaming experience.) there could be 'leveled' universal translators which increase the length of word which can be understood. So as you level up you can understand more of the opposition? YES I know.. not terribly cannon but think about it.. pay for a well developed peice of technology and it works better.

[Futuristicdragoon]

I like that idea, or (for the sake of gaming experience.) there could be 'leveled' universal translators which increase the length of word which can be understood. So as you level up you can understand more of the opposition? YES I know.. not terribly cannon but think about it.. pay for a well developed peice of technology and it works better.

Makes sense in a way. This is a game and half the fun is getting around the obstacles. Plus, I LOVE it when I can work with opposing races toward the same mission or goal when I don't exactly know what they're saying. I think we all have done this many times on other MMORPGs.

[Sindahive]

Universal translator.

/thread

[willriker09]

The Universal Translator should still be around at this time. I will be upset if they break cannon in this game, feel free to add whatever you like, just don't take away what should already be there.

[igrokdou]

Just saying that more recent MMO's remove the aspect of being able to speak to the enemy, to prevent the "HAHA I PWN YOU NUB!!!!11" and other post-death griefing stuff. I personally don't care though, either way. I'm just wondering what they will do.

Funny if we can talk to Klingons, Gorn, whoever just fine - even those Darmok guys (the ones who talked in metaphors so the UT was pretty much useless) - but when some uses "leetspeek" it comes out as

ERROR ERROR Universal translater malfunction ERROR ERROR

"HAHA I PWN YOU NUB!!!!11" = Laugh laugh, I like shrimp!

[PattonJ007]

Last time I checked ... starships cant teabag people :)

[Captain_Intrepid]

No, not really. But that brings up a thought I had, are the Federation players able to speak to Klingons? Or will it show up as gibberish if we were to hail their ship or whatever? If that's the case, would player characters have the chance to learn other languages as a possible ability?

Example

Captain Wallace says, "Hey you there, you smelly Klingon!"
Kang says, "dur cha, calla walla walla bing bang"
Captain Wallace says, "what?"
Kang says, "Oompa loompa?"

Perhaps there can be degrees of knowledge for a language, like someone know's just 'some' of it. So it would be something like..

Captain Wallace says, "Hey you there, you smelly Klingon!"
Kang says, "dur me? calla you smell bing bang"
Captain Wallace says, "What? Something about a smell?
Kang sighs.

I think it would be sorta fun to have the language barrier, yet still have the opportunity to overcome it if your character spends the points (or whatever) to learn it. Or even if Cryptic uses the traditional method between sides of just not understanding each other, that's fine too.

Unless the Universal Translators (a Star Trek invention) have been disabled, there would be no need to worry.

[jhem99]

It's not fun if we all spoke a different language.
I personally hope UT is not implemented.

[Trekkie]

I would really like to see a complex system for languages in the game, but I think that in general all communication will be handled through a universal translator just to make things easier for players.

[Saladin_Class]

I speak Phaser

I bet you hear every word

[Silverspar]

Honestly, I despise that method. Supposedly it was Blizzard's attempt at making less griefing, but it really didn't stop anything. And funnily enough, someone found a program that cracked the language barrier and let people speak with other people from the other side in the game, but Blizzard didn't like that, so they made the text completely random.

[k.mpok]

The universal translator has been successfully used to interpret non-biological lifeform communication (in the Original Series episode “Metamorphosis”). In the Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) episode “The Ensigns of Command,” the translator proved ineffective with the language of the Sheliaks, so the Federation had to depend on the aliens’ interpretation of Earth languages. It is speculated that the Sheliak communicate amongst themselves in extremely complex legalese. The TNG episode “Darmok” also illustrates another instance where the universal translator proves ineffective and unintelligible, because the Tamarian language is too deeply rooted in local metaphor.

The episode Original Series “Metamorphosis” was the only time in which the device was actually seen. They were also apparently less perfect in their translations with Klingon. In the sixth Star Trek film, the characters are seen relying on print books in order to communicate with a Klingon military ship, since Chekov said that the Klingons would recognize the use of a Translator.

If I remember somewhere thruout my ST watching days they said that the UT was unable to translate Klingon and that instead the Klingons spoke English when communicating with other races.





As for the OP. I always liked the early EQ days where you could learn and switch between what language you knew. If knew a language you could not only automaticly understand it but you could /languge Klingon and then speak the language. Also you could teach other players the language by continually speaking it to them. Should they be different languages, yes. Should it be a magical barrier that can not be breached by the other side/ some other species, no.

[Debaser]

I'm all for the UT. As everyone else said, it's been used in canon for 200 years, that's reason enough.

The only thing I'm not looking forward to is the fact that you KNOW there's going to be all kinds of smack talk coming from both sides, I can see things getting ugly :eek: