Diary of Coppersocket

Last night I encountered a person who claimed themselves to have a "Duskwood" accent. Which I promptly 'asked' where they had got the idea that Duskwood of all places had an accent, which I got the response "All sorts of different areas have accents. I don't see your issue."

Which I promptly responded in the negative.
Now, before we continue this- I'd like to make something clear. This entire argument is petty, but after some thinking I realized this is worth bringing up on the forums. Partially to stomp out any sort of sympathy for this idiot.

The person responded with "Yes, they do. Just like IRL areas have accents."

Now, see. Here's the issue with that. In real life, things are different. Why are they different? Because Real Life is not a unchanging game world where accents don't progress beyond what the creators tell them to.

Me: "You're pulling that out of your ass, this isn't IRL."
Them: " Accents are real."
Me: "But Warcraft isn't. Duskwood does not have an accent."
Them: "I am not doing anything of the sort. Ignore accents if you want, but I find them a valuable RP tool. Also, you just lost much of my respect for you as a roleplayer."
Me: "Yes, I lost so much respect for calling out bullshit. I get that a lot, do what you want- but bullshit is still bullshit"
Them: "It isn't bullshit. And I think you'll find the vast majority of people agree with me."

There's a few things here I'd like to point, mainly the bottom parts. First let's take the last line of theirs: "I think you'll find a vast majority of people agree with me."
Yes, but a vast majority of people are also dumb. Why are they dumb? Because they don't think, or rather- they think in a way that benefits them rather than the way that is the actual case. 50 idiots thinking the wrong thing doesn't make them right.
Second, although offtopic: I don't give a fuck if people I don't care about dislikes me, or "loses respect" for me. If you don't like me you can either take it up with me and sort it out, or you can frankly go fuck yourself.

But let's stay on topic. Using an accent to signify your character is Not a bad thing, let's just get it out of the water. It sure as hell doesn't make you look original by any stretch of the imagination, but if it helps you in your RP then that's nice. The problem is that this person tied their accent to a location, a location where there is no accent.
But why does it not have an accent? Because, it's a game world. A game world that does Not follow sense or logic related to the real world. Applying these to WoW is dumb, because WoW doesn't have sense or logic. Especially not with it's accents.

There are certainly folk groups with accents, such as Goblins who have Brooklyn accent, or Gilneans who has a terrible "brittish" accent. But this isn't the case for all races. Gnomes, for example- does not have a accent. They have a high pitched voice, but their accent is not really any different from any human, this also goes for Night Elves- and Orcs.
This also goes for humans in general. Tirion, Uther, Arthas, Wrynn, Anduin, etc.
You may now say "But those are all high class people." Yes, but they're also some of the big heads of the Human society as a whole. Now let's look at Orcs. Orcs does not either, have a specific accent. They speak just as good common as Humans, with the same accent.

Are you starting to get the gist of what I'm talking about now? If not, let's draw a few lines.

Arthas, Lordaeron
Tirion, Plaguelands (Lordaeron)
Uther, Lordaeron
Wrynn & Anduin, Stormwind
Trollbane, Arathi Highlands
Orcs, Arathi/Outland
Night Elves, Teldrassil
Gnomes, Dun Morogh

Elves, who had no contact with human society until the third war- knew perfect common without accent.
Gnomes, who live in Dun Morogh and would've more likely have been influenced by their dwarven cousins- speak common without accent.
The entire continent of humans speak with the same accent.

What does this mean for characters WITH accent? It simply means that Accents are there for effect, they're there to tell you "This guy is a criminal" or "This guy is a pirate". They're not area specific, nor are they an actual "part" of the world. They're just there when they need to be. It uses game logic, because it is a game. It does need to make sense, or have reason.

If a character can pull off a cool accent with what he's doing then he'll automatically be more memorable (See Sean Connory, or Arnold)

I'll post the conversation in a spoiler below, blanking out their name and the timestamp.

Them: Actually, I have seen several people using accents as a way of identifying those they might have met for various reasons, or to start conversation.

Me: Irrelevant. That people Choose to use an accent isn't the same as claiming a location has one. These "accents" are often derived from scottish anyway.

I suppose this one is worth bringing up, although it's really offtopic. Why in the world are the entire Red Blades using a derived version of scottish? Why are criminal RPers so prone on it too? In fact. Why are so many people using accents these days? It's fucking more uncommon NOT to use an accent than there is to use one, if you want to stand out these days then just don't use an accent. It's really silly.

There's more points I could cover here, but I think mostly it speaks for itself. I'll add a note or so in the full dialogue, and you can make up your own mind if you "agree" with me, or not. Not that it actually matters if you do.

Spoiler:

Ending statement:
By all means, feel sorry for this person. I'm sure they'll let you ERP with them for it, while their guild mates shout Gunshot in chorus to you.

Let's quote something I wrote at the beginning:

Why are they dumb? Because they don't think, or rather- they think in a way that benefits them rather than the way that is the actual case.

Everyone does this. I do this, you do this. Everyone. I am not above anyone, even though I may put it like I am. That's simply the way I argue.

I can quite safely say I'm not a bad person. I'm a cunt who calls people out on things, sometimes these things are petty. But I'm not a bad person. On the contrary, I'm quite caring.
The question to ask then, is: What do I care for? Well, clearly not this person.
I bet some of you will now want to shout "You're a piece of shit"

Who knows what you think, because what you think is up to you. Now, have a nice day.

Quit being such a buzzkill, geeze.

Maybe he just used the non-existent accent to inform people of the fact that his character is from duskwood in a narrative way.

I only find accents bothersome if the writer doesn't know how written accents work. Sometimes you just see someone leave out random letters and replace them with a >'<, like they haven't considered what they just wrote would sound like when actually pronounced.

I've met some trolls that are especially bad at this.

Thelos wrote:Quit being such a buzzkill, geeze.

This is copper's personal "I rant about shit I hate" thread. We come here to watch him hate on things, don't we?

You get angry over the most useless things lmao. I'm gonna put a duskwood accent in all my MSP flags from now on.

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:I'm gonna put a duskwood accent in all my MSP flags from now on.

On your nelf pls.
But only while in tree form.

A tree with a duskwood accent.

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:You get angry over the most useless things lmao. I'm gonna put a duskwood accent in all my MSP flags from now on.

You mistake anger for amusement. I wrote this because I found it funny, I was laughing during that conversation.

Roleplay is a free and flowing thing, if someone wants an accent let them have an accent, accents are usually not bound to place but formed by the people on what is easiest to say or quickest to say.

As for accent of a specific place, well can't do much about that really. The guy should have added the accent into how he was writing instead of saying that he has an accent from Duskwood.

Last thing, accents do place flavor on a character, it is there to spice up the character and make him or her a bit more interesting and memorable. However, it is just to spice him or her up.

Remember, to much spice is bad and to little spice is boring like that time a friend of mine confused two gram pepper with two liters with pepper, now that was fun!

Actually, from my experience after having been the GM of the Cartel for about 8 times. Accents don't make your characters interesting. You do. Your execution of the character does. A poor character is a poor character, no manner of accent will make that character any less poor.

It's like describing your character as shady, it's fine that you do but if you can't execute it well then what the fuck's the point? Then you just end up looking like a tool.

Coppersocket wrote:

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:You get angry over the most useless things lmao. I'm gonna put a duskwood accent in all my MSP flags from now on.

You mistake anger for amusement. I wrote this because I found it funny, I was laughing during that conversation.

Just like the entire server is whenever you post in this thread.

Coppersocket wrote:Actually, from my experience after having been the GM of the Cartel for about 8 times. Accents don't make your characters interesting. You do. Your execution of the character does. A poor character is a poor character, no manner of accent will make that character any less poor.

It's like describing your character as shady, it's fine that you do but if you can't execute it well then what the fuck's the point? Then you just end up looking like a tool.

As I said, accents are just a bit of spice, you need more then that to make an interesting character. Like salat (background), Beef (character) and not to forget sauce (personality). Lets add a plate (Knowledge on how to write properly!) to that.

Ixirar/Kavalis wrote:Just like the entire server is whenever you post in this thread.

No, because the entire server doesn't read this thread so they can't.

Get yo facts right  

Edit:
Fair enough, Ariel.

Damn, you got me there, cowboy.

I may as well add, that the reason I even brought it up was because I was thinking about it a bit after the conversation ended and I though it was interesting enough to bring up. As it's not something important, in the slightest. But none the less so something worth of mention since it is something that's around us as Roleplayers on daily basis while we roleplay.

I'm obviously stepping on toes, and through it I make myself look like an ass. But I find enjoyment in it, so who cares in the end.

You're not really inviting to discussion though. You're just calling the Duskwood person an idiot and spending disproportionate amounts of time talking about how you don't care what we think of you.

Was this on Argent Dawn or on Defias, I can understand if you start barking on AD, but if it was on Defias I advice against doing it again as we have few enough roleplayers as it is. Bad roleplayers or not, they all learn eventually.

Good point. That's not exactly what I had originally intended as a message.

I think too differently from most I meet however so I don't really have anyone to ball my thoughs with. Due to this, it becomes more raw and unrefined, adding a lot of needless text or passive/direct hostility that does not need to be there- drowning out what I wanted to say in the first place.

Something I'll have to think about in the future with these posts.

Edit:
Ariel, I don't make the difference. I bring things up as they come. Besides; ignoring the bullshit that goes on on Defias isn't going to make it better. The best way for people to learn rights from wrongs are if people speak up about it. Not as offensively as I do, mind you. But at least mention that they don't agree with it and be able to back up Why they don't agree with it. Give them a carrot to work with.

Coppersocket wrote:Edit:
Ariel, I don't make the difference. I bring things up as they come. Besides; ignoring the bullshit that goes on on Defias isn't going to make it better. The best way for people to learn rights from wrongs are if people speak up about it. Not as offensively as I do, mind you. But at least mention that they don't agree with it and be able to back up Why they don't agree with it. Give them a carrot to work with.

I know that you don't care but I have to say it, you just gained some reputation, you are now promoted to Neutral in my book.

As much as the DB circlejerk might want to denounce you for your tone or w/e, you pointed out a gripe I've had with WoW roleplaying since the beginning, for pretty much the same reasons you said.

All interesting, but you're wrong. I don't think you understand what an accent is. I don't think you understand exactly what an accent is. Gnomes have a different accent from Humans through their pitch. That's a different accent.

Taking Humans specifically, all Human guards - by my knowledge - have the EXACT same voice. That's a game mechanic. We know this because cutscenes show varied accents. Jaina had a different accent to Arthas. Now, there is no voice actor that springs to mind to differ Duskwood from Stormwind. However, I think it's safe to assume it's a high possibility there's some difference. It might not be very different and certainly, it might not even be enough of a difference to be recognisable, but there would be some variation. Pitch, tone, volume, length of syllables etc etc all make up an accent.

Vaell wrote:All interesting, but you're wrong.

I also think you're taking the piss because you can. Then every goddamn person on this earth would have a different "accent".

Let's not start this, because nothing good will come from it.

Edit:
Also, Zaraj. I don't care about the circlejerking, what I care about is writing a message that carries the meaning I desire to carry out. But sometimes it gets lost in translation because I don't proof-check what I write or take my time to consider what I've written before posting it. I don't regret a word, but at the same time it didn't necessarily deliver the message what I had in mind.

I don't write these sort of things simply because I want to step on peoples feet, make people uncomfortable, or dislike me. I point them out because I feel there's a valid point to be made. Something worth noting when I call people out on these sort of things is that I always tell them that they're free to do whatever they want, and I won't do anything to stop them. I just want to make them aware that there's a clear fault in what they're either doing or describing.
I usually don't take this sort of aggressive approach to it either, because honestly I don't feel that it's easier to get through to people when you're acting on a ground where they understand that I'm not trying to look down on them.
"Then why not in this case?", once in a while I just go through with my urge to act like a complete cunt. Which is often what people see. They don't see the other part of it because it's far less interesting, or because I just don't communicate a lot when I'm Not putting up an offensive front. Unfortunately the aggressive nature in my approach gets the better of me when I try get a point across and the result becomes something like the last entry.

But hey, what can I say? I'm not a easy guy to deal with, I think we all can agree with that. If you happen to get on my radar you're in for a fun time. But not a lot of people do. Very few do, and those that do often do because of reasons they've created themselves.

Does this make me right? Absolutely not, I can be VERY wrong in what I say. But I act on spurs of a moment.

Spoiler:

I don't know about this. I'd assume that there is different accents, depending on where your character hail from. Not necessarily way different from the rest of the world, but maybe a tad. Why? Because that's how the real world works. I cannot argue the point you made about this being a game, with game logic. That's all fair. But then again. It's just a game, with restricted lore and info' about how simple things like this actually work. I don't -think- that Blizzard has ever stated that accents don't work similar to the way they do in Azeroth. And if this is the case, aintcha really just claiming that this isn't possible because there's no evidence that it is?

In my opinion, It's cool to spice things up, as you please, with small details like this. I've had characters with different Gilnean accents anyway.

The "big", if we can even call it a big issue. It's not. It's fucking petty, as stated in the main post: is that due to the fact there's no lore on it, claiming there is- is just as wrong as claiming there isn't. Sure, I can't say with absolute certainty that there isn't. But at the same time we have to take it by what the game gives us, and that's that there isn't one. I simply go by that, I don't force people to follow what I say, but I believe it's worth mentioning to people.

I do the same with people who has recolored their TRP, but that's for a more feasible reason. Anyone recoloring their TRP is a dick towards anyone using FlagRSP or MRP, as all they see is the color code.

This is just a petty subject that became a lot bigger than it needed to be, but as said before- it became somewhat interesting, thus the post.

Coppersocket wrote:The "big", if we can even call it a big issue. It's not. It's fucking petty, as stated in the main post: is that due to the fact there's no lore on it, claiming there is- is just as wrong as claiming there isn't. Sure, I can't say with absolute certainty that there isn't. But at the same time we have to take it by what the game gives us.

Yeah, I partly agree. However, the way I see it. If it's just small details, doesn't hurt role play or actually go against the game, I usually prefer to go with what creates more spice. I'm not saying that we should go with talking demon cows, just because there's no evidence claiming this to be impossible, but when It's within reason and actually positive for the role play (In my opinion anyway) this is something that players can come up with themselves.

Trp colours are fucking horrible by the way

Accents... It reminds me of something Rentarn once taught me about medical RP. "Does the game state anywhere that bacteria and viruses actually exist? No? Then let's not assume that's how diseases work in WoW".
This doesn't mean we can't RP experimentation where we clean wounds and medical equipment with alcohol and observe a decreased in infections. We RP it that way, and behold... nobody returns with infected wounds.
It does mean that we can't make it a rule OOCly and we have to keep in mind it's only a conviction at character or personal level. We can have our character promote this solution, because of IC personal belief only. Someone believing that disease are only spread to people of weaker spiritual state, and that faith can be the cure might be right as well. And in the magical world of Warcraft, that might genuinely prove true.

There are a lot of details we don't have solid proof on, and we have no alternative but to assume it is unknown OOCly.
I think accents are part of that. If Lore doesn't prove that an accent exists for a specific region, then we can't make it a rule that it does. That doesn't prohibit 10 people from talking a certain way and claiming "that's how they always talked and always heard people talk" back at home. It just means that they can't assume OOCly that this is the textbook definition of a Darkshire (or whatever regional) accent because there is no textbook definition of it.

Coppersocket wrote:I do the same with people who has recolored their TRP, but that's for a more feasible reason. Anyone recoloring their TRP is a dick towards anyone using FlagRSP or MRP, as all they see is the color code.

I don't know about FlagRSP (is it even still updated?) but I checked with someone using MRP only a few days ago, and it appears it's been updated to accomodate color coding; at least, he said he could see the change in color in my TRP class/name.