Game News Dragon Age Gets Its Own Languages

[Sol Invictus]

Tags: BioWare; Dragon Age

<a href=http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050325152336.htm>ScienceDaily</a> reports that <a href=http://www.bioware.com>BioWare's</a> upcoming RPG, Dragon Age, has gotten <b>three</b> of its own unique languages thanks to the hard work of Canadian linguist Wolf Wikeley. Wikeley developed four 2,500-word languages for two of BioWare's upcoming releases, the last of which is for Jade Empire, which closely resembles Mongolian.
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<blockquote>For the new game Dragon Age, Wikeley developed a 2,500-word language for each of three distinct languages and he laid the groundwork for a language spoken by non-human characters in the game.
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As a starting point, Wikeley used lists of character and place names and the names of equipment and tools characters in the games would use.
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"I was able to analyse those, and even if writers hadn’t been aware they had come up with a system I was able to abstract systems out of these words and incorporate them into the (new) language," said Wikeley.
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"The design team decided that it would be a great idea to have their non-English speaking characters or even non-human characters have authentic sounding fantasy languages. My feeling is that gibberish instantly compromises the entertainment experience because it is fake. I say it as a gamer and a film viewer. And movies especially – the Star Trek franchise has worked hard to give languages a sense of authenticity. The Lord of Rings movies did the same thing with Elven.</blockquote>
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I can sense a million nerds quivering with the joy of being able to speak the languages of Dragon Age. I have to hand it to BioWare for their dedication to the title and the setting of the game.
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The original news release can be found <a href=http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=6390>here</a>.

 

[Saran]

Ive seen very little about Dragon Age so far, but if they are going to this much trouble to lend the world an air of authenticity this just might be a pretty decent game.

Looks like its time to go dig through the internet to see what i can find out about DA.

(On second thought, ill do it tomorrow, jesus its late.)

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Flu de eaki aasadh anolpooa djailj jak!!

 

[Avin]

tchaca tchaca na butchaca!

 

[Sarvis]

Wow... this is very old news. It seems like it's even been on this site before!

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

There was a rumor of it awhile back. I remember people poo-pooing it saying it would cost too much and never happen. I always thought this would be something really awesome to implement into a game as to add to the immersion factor.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Wow... this is very old news. It seems like it's even been on this site before!

It was just a rumor. This is news.

 

[Sarvis]

These guys knew last February: http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/print.cfm?id=6390

 

[Sol Invictus]

Actually, they only found out today. See the: March 28, 2005 at the top.

February 24, 2005 was the date when Wolf got the job, dumbass.

 

[Sarvis]

God you're clueless...

When you see a date preceding an article it means that's the date the article was written.

For instance <a href="http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=6416">this</a> article was written on March, 7. And <a href="http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=6379">this</a> one was written on February 17.

The date at the top is just <i>today's date</i>.

 

[obediah]

This might be interesting if the dialog still wasn't going to reduce to:

1. Twefwe fwefwef f efcjun eriergij ( I can help you find the missing children. )

2. wefh wefkj jojfe iwjijeff! (I might be able to help your for 15 coin. )

3. iwef jiijf ef opiijiwgjoeirg (Evil flows from my very being - but I will safely return your children. )

4. fweoi (Me find children.)

 

[Arkan]

^Truth.

 

[Greatatlantic]

I say it as a gamer and a film viewer. And movies especially ... The Lord of Rings movies did the same thing with Elven

Not to put anyone down, but more to give credit where credits due. Tolkien was a linguist by training, and all but wrote the new languages for his novels. So the Lord of the Rings film makers had a pretty good blue print already. One of the more interesting tidbits, if true, is Tolkien took great pains to have no words of French orgins in the Middle Earth.

As for creating new languages, I don't see anything bad coming out of it, and probably some good things. But what I would really like to hear Bioware say is the game doesn't feature 80% of combat stats and 80% of game time spent in combat.

Also: No "ind-fay the our-fay elics-ray".

 

[Gus Nukem]

Flu de eaki aasadh anolpooa djailj jak!!

cheek cheek doftor neki pateri ntotpalakeri , diztavern pakotalakeri!

Mesta patena urb ... urb pakoteralame pakotchikatalame.

 

[Shagnak]

bukake bukake hentai felching ?
Translation: huh?

 

[Surlent]

Sooo does this mean now I have to play Bio games with their homemade dictionary in my hand to understand what the hell NPCs are speaking ?

 

[Sarvis]

Sooo does this mean now I have to play Bio games with their homemade dictionary in my hand to understand what the hell NPCs are speaking ?

Presumably if you character knows the language you will see it in english, or maybe get translated english subtitles or something.

If not, then you could probably translate it yourself with a dictionary... heh.

 

[Azael]

Sounds like a pretty decent feature to me, assuming this means that "foreign" characters will actually speak rather than repeat the same 2-3 sounds like in the KotOR games. Not the most important feature, but it's nice to see them put some effort into the setting.

 

[Saran]

First of all:

bukake bukake hentai felching ?

Cum, cum, tentacle underage schoolgirl rape, bukkake, bukkake, Gaiijin.

Secondly:

Flu de eaki aasadh anolpooa djailj jak!!

How dare you say that, i think you'll find that my mother is a very nice person, and no, she doesnt enjoy playing chess on a wednesday.

After taking a look at the dragon age site it appears as if this game might kick arse if handled properly, especially the way they intend to have a different story depending upon which background/class you choose, there is also mention of the ability to lead armys, but if this will turn out as nothing more than a brief minigame, or as a proper feature only time will tell.

Are there any websites that have a bit more info on the game?

 

[freelance]

Imagine if Dragon age spawns sequel after sequel and develops a rabid fan base ala Star Trek...
As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in made up languages and were suddenly retarded.

 

[Elwro]

I say it as a gamer and a film viewer. And movies especially ... The Lord of Rings movies did the same thing with Elven

Not to put anyone down, but more to give credit where credits due. Tolkien was a linguist by training, and all but wrote the new languages for his novels. So the Lord of the Rings film makers had a pretty good blue print already.

That's what I thought, too. But we have to pay respect to the film makers that they consulted the Quenya / Sindarin "experts" to check the pronounciation, iirc.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I can sense a million nerds quivering with the joy of being able to speak the languages of Dragon Age.

[in Conan O'Brien voice imitating nerds] Do not mock us, peon. We will get you for this! [/in Conan O'Brien voice imitating nerds]

 

[Volourn]

"It was just a rumor. This is news."

This is news. This is ancient news. It has been confirmed pratiucally since DA was first announced. There was an article along time ago in this galaxy about JE, for example, that discusses a new language that was made for JE and also disucsses 3 (at the time) new languages being made for DA. Sorry, bub, this may news, but it is anicent news.

Anyways, this whole language things means shit to me. To me, it adds absolutely NOTHING to the game just like fake languages add nothing for me in LOTR, SW, or ST.

In essence:

fgfg hhghfg vbcvcvbn hhhgh dfdssd!

 

[Ellester]

Imagine if Dragon age spawns sequel after sequel and develops a rabid fan base ala Star Trek...
As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in made up languages and were suddenly retarded.

I’m sure that’s bio’s intent. They want to make their own world with races and languages and make it into a franchise. And considering Dungeon Siege is going to be a movie; Dragon Age also has a chance to be a movie, as any game does. If this happens maybe we will have geeks jumping on Dragon age dressing up in their own costumes speaking the Dragon age geek speak. Oh wait we already have that with renaissance festivals.

Anyway, even though this is incredibly geeky (or old news, but new to me as I don’t follow the game), I still like it. It just adds to the background and character of a said race. This shows they are going the extra yard with their races, as apposed to just making dwarves as a character race selection and giving a brief synopsis of dwarves in the manual. It’s geeky but it has potential to help flesh out the Dragon Age setting.

 

[Slaytanic]

It may be ancient news that DA was getting it's own languages, but it's "new news" that their now completed. That's the way I see it.
Anyways while DA getting it's own languages isn't a bad thing and it does contribute somewhat to the atmosphere, I really think they should concentrante more on the gameplay, storyline and originality otherwise we'll be seeing another Kotor( aka masturbation without cumming ), although Kotor wasn't really that bad of a game but still, I really think it had great potential, same thing goes for ALOT of, if not all rpgs I've played lately. Fuckin shame.


Btw I'm new here, long time lurker but was too lazy to register till now , dunno what came over me.
So... hy.