Hasn''t anyone seen the potential here?

Ok, we have a MORPG. Each player plays a caveman. Available to the player is a number of different grunts, screams and vocalizations. These are prerecorded and come with the game. They do not have any meaning associated with them.

Players cannot communicate with each other via chatting. They must communicate with the grunts provided them.

They will develop a language. Ultimately they will agree on grunts meaning certain things. Late newcomers entering the game will be like outcast strangers from another tribe. They must learn to assimilate the language which has developed among the veteran players.

A different clan in another valley will ultimately have a different set of meanings ascribed to the grunts. Because of their difficulty in communicating to to the other clan, trade will be challenging. Misunderstandings will happen. As a result, battles might happen.

There is no need for this to be hard to play or really difficult. The players will make use of the grunts available to them as they see fit. Provide perhaps 250 (or more) distinct grunts. The players will utilize the ones they want.

Imagine the possibilities:

Grog: Oogha boogha!
Krug: Ah grr uhn uhn.
Grog: Oyahoyah mmmgaa!
Krug: Hmm ohr ohr.
Grog: Brrk aghaa.
Krug: Vahbmha.

i like that... the idea of assigning grunts to mean certain things and having late-comers have to figure it all out for themselves... it''d certainly work well in a networked environment...

however, if you have any ai cavemen (would they really have the "i" part?) i think their communication should be based on emotions rather than complex and detailed utterances of grunts, oohs and aahs... as in the example i gave above "ooOOoo" would be a much better way of suggesting that a caveman is interested in something than "AAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!"... if you think about it in a real-world situation, the latter sound would scare the shit out of someone rather than make them think "nice, he likes my new tie"...

quote: Original post by bishop_pass
Imagine the possibilities:

Grog: Oogha boogha!
Krug: Ah grr uhn uhn.
Grog: Oyahoyah mmmgaa!
Krug: Hmm ohr ohr.
Grog: Brrk aghaa.
Krug: Vahbmha.

blimey... i never knew you could do that with rabbits! seems you really do learn something new every day... ...

PAULUS_MAXIMUS wrote:

quote: however, if you have any ai cavemen

I've decided to always try to create my designs without AI characters. Especially in an MMO environment, I don't think there's a real need for AI. Well, there will need to be some computer controlled life, but for now, let's keep that to the non-human beings that the cavemen can hunt (rabbits, deer, mammoths, sabretooth tigers).

BISHOP_PASS wrote:

quote: Available to the player is a number of different grunts, screams and vocalizations. These are prerecorded and come with the game. They do not have any meaning associated with them.

Yeah, that's what I was aiming for. Let players set the language rules themselves. Let different languages develop in different regions.
The individuality in voices can come from tone, pitch, volume, accent (for grunts?!), etc. Players could possible also stretch the prerecordings a little (or shorten it) to create a somewhat different sound and give it their own spin.

[edited by - Silvermyst on August 14, 2002 12:38:28 PM]

lol
make sure you post when the game is finished.. i gotta see this :D

But for separate languages to develop, you''d need to effectively isolate the different cultures.

Some sort of boundary that is hardly passable, like an abyss, cliff face, sabretooth tiger... home... with a pile of angry sabretooth that cant wait for the next hair-snack.

And don''t give new users a choice of where they can be "born" into, otherwise you''ll have most of the people going into the first "cave" in the list, and only more advanced players (or newbs who picked differently) will create new characters in the other caves. Unless you want that. It won''t help make new languages as much, but you could have more elite cave groups that know what they''re doing and may just catch up with the main cave. And it may just turn out that these players only came to the other caves in order to make their own language.

Also, you''ll need SOME sort of economy in this world. There won''t necessarily be money or any kind of (what''s that word that makes money money because you say so?) money, just goods (and maybe services of some sort, repair?). Grog would trade Krog a piece of antelope for a new spear he made.

What I missed in other MMORPGs would be to have your own home/hut/hovel. It would''t be occupying space on the main map, but there could be a dirt road to the non-existant house group, and you''d pick if you wanted to go to your home, or go to someone else''s home. Then you''d be inside the house, able to store your items/food because most cavemen didn''t have backpacks.

The latter may prove too much, but it''d be nice. Maybe you don''t start out with a home, but instead have to gather wood, a special item, whatever, to give to a NPC. Then you have a house.

Or a cave section.




-TSwitch

In the Clan of the Cave Bear series of books, the Neanderthals communicate mostly by using sign language with vocalization being used for personal names and emphasis. In my opinion, there''s a lot more to "caveman" communication than what Hollywood has led us to believe.

Depicting the caveman language as just a stereotypical series of grunts shows a distinct lack of sensitivity towards caveman culture.

Seriously, a MMO about prehistoric times is a great idea, but it should be heavily researched. A MMO version of the Flintstones (while possibly interesting in its own right) is probably not what you want.

Am I the only idiot that has a sig?

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-TSwitch

quote: Original post by Korvan
Depicting the caveman language as just a stereotypical series of grunts shows a distinct lack of sensitivity towards caveman culture.

Lighten up. There''s lots of gameplay possibiliites with grunts. And there''s many possible interpretatins of caveman culture from sterotypical to cartoonish to authentic, etc.

Each one is correct in the sense that it accomplishes what it intends to accomplish.

Grunting caveman may not be authentic. That''s beside the point. Austin Powers isn''t authentic either.