Levels of accents

[Drakios]

Hey, I wanted to talk about the accents we have ingame, most of them sound funny how they are but very often at least for me its extremly hard to understand what acharacter is even saying, I come from germany so im not used to most of the accents there and even the german accsent is really hard for me to read sometimes. I also would like to play a character with an accsent but everytime I do that I have a hard time because people dont understand me and I have a hard time to explain what I want. 
So thats why I got the idea if we could maybe make some sort of system that lets you choose how thick your accsent is, that for example a low level of it would just use some worde for example from the chav accent it would use stuff like the: Innit or Mate still but other things would just sound "normal".
I also think that could have some RP opertunities, if you wanna play a character that just came from a place were they just spoke with that accent when you would have a strong one, but if you maybe lived somewere else for a while you would have a weaker one.

I just personally would enjoy it much more to play a character with a weaker accent instead of the strong ones we currently have, but I know lots of people like the strong ones so that why I think to make a system for like  Low, Medium and High or something would be cool. 

Let me know what you guys think.

[Chasu]

I agree! I‘m German myself and was very excited when the German accent came out, though I quickly realized that - like basically all others - it could end up being rather hard to understand people. As funny as that is sometimes, it can get a little annoying in important situations. In the end, I just removed the trait and did the accent manually, which allows for some extra quirks hier and zhere.
I think there are two ways of implementing that low-mid-high accent strength system. The easiest one would be changing the probability of a given word being replaced with its accent version. The main drawback would be inconsistency: In one sentence, Mr. Schmidt pronounces “the” perfectly, in the other, it turns to a “zhe”. The other option would be making the list of replaceable words shorter, though that could end up being more tricky.

[Lefinch]

Coming in hot here with an entirely personal opinion: I think the end result of accents vs what people expect of them is vastly different.

I'm not saying they're bad, I would be very tempted to say they are bad and in fact to myself I've said "wow these accents are absolutely terrible" I actually don't think they are. The way they work code wise is really neat and I have to assume the intent in their design has always been: Create an almost parody of how people speak by taking pretty much any regional colloquialism in a fairly arbitrary fashion (the scottish one definitely feels like it's taken from every corner of Scotland it can rather than a regional version) They in short take as many dictionary swaps of genericized aspects of speech forms as possible. I think that's hilarious. I also think that for various reasons it's clear people want a "Accent-lite" variant, though I admit I think there's a simple solution there too.

I currently live about 30 minutes outside of Glasgow, and I lived in Yorkshire for a couple of years with a guy's accent so thick you could chew it like bread. They were not nearly as incomprehensible as either of our versions. I don't as a result think it's a skill issue, I think it's pretty intentional.

That's hilarious and I wouldn't want that changed. My personal RP way to do a more intelligible accent when I have done it is the old-fashioned MUD method: Fake it yourself by doing it manually. That works just fine for me, and I've seen the accent traits as a "funny option when I actually don't want to play a comprehensible character" but this keeps coming up so that doesn't seem to be a good solution for everyone.

I think Chasu basically outlines the solution but if you wanted to be really fancy you could do something like using the sing modifier for a "heavy" accent and make the default a lighter version. If someone wants to be extremely incomprehensible you just put a ~or¬ or symbol of choice on the front. Godspeed to them. I think most people probably want to be understandable in this social deduction game that heavily focuses on talking.

[Drakios]

eah, thats why I said levels of accents, so people who just love the very strong ones we have right now can keep them but others can have a lighter version, a personal thing that I add to that  is, I lived my whole life in germany, so I dont know a lot of english accens for example, I dont know how they sound and some are subtle, I watch mostly stuff online in english but I could never determine what their accent is from and readin an accent is even harder to do. 
Sure I could just write my own chav accent, but the problem is I dont really know how? because I havent heard it a lot, so I would basicly have to learn how to speak like that and also how to write the accent just so I can play the character like that, wich is possible for sure, but if people already put the effort in to make such accents it would be cool to use them, Im sure there are a lot of people who are not from germany and find the german accent funny, but damn its even hard for me as a german to understand it sometimes, and the way its written is also somewhat weird for me but thats a personal thing

[jan.antilles]

Ze best way to do an accent is to type it yourzelf. Zat vay it can be adapted on ze vly, and you can clarivy vhat you mean if you need to, zo you can be underztood.

[Lefinch]

That's honestly what I do, and what I'd continue to do with or without this change. It lets you pull the Pratchett's "Igor" routine of dropping even a complicated accent for clarity in an important moment. But I appreciate I've seen this discussion a few times before and wanted to go in with something hopefully constructive, or else I'm just going "hey do it manually" and I feel like a JERK.

I mean I am one, but that's neither here nor there. Drakios gives a good example with the whole "not comfortable doing it" I'd honestly say regardless of this idea don't sweat trying to do it manually a go: you can do it as softly or as hard as you like that way. For example, one of my character's accents is a very, very generic, very light southern accent. Literally all I do is use a few generic southern colloquialisms (I had to drop "hoss" as this caused too many confused comparisons to the actual HoS) it wasn't remotely consistent and 99% of the time was low effort. You can definitely change it up as you go along.

[Drakios]

I understand that, I just saw the trait accents as a way for me to have a character haven an accent, because I just dont know enough about these accents, and back than I thought "Hey cool thats an way easier way for me to have an accent without having to learn it", I tried to do like a british accent wich a character of mine but it stops at words like Innit, Mate and bloody hell

[Lefinch]

I think that works too! But I don't want to suggest that this isn't an idea to consider though too. I appreciate like you said that not everyone appears to feel comfortable doing it themselves and while I'm saying "hey don't worry too much giving it a try" I don't also think it means this is a bad idea at all.

[BadShot]

I would love being able to tone the Scottish one down for my Scottish lass, cause she does actually have a Scottish accent but I can't be bothered to type it out and the trait one is far too thick for my liking. (especially with some of the word swaps)

Im all for it personally, and maybe on the flip side be able to ramp it up higher for maximum inability to comprehend people