A new colony has opened up in Antares recently - Gryphon's Peak, maintained by the Glitch. I liked it a lot, personally - it brings something to the table that is unique from what we currently see amongst the current colonies - a Glitch castle, up in the mountains in a very defensible position. Sounds awesome? Because it is. However, something that bothered me a little was the use of prefixes by the owners of the colony. Instead of emotional responses that are common in-game ("Pride", "thoughtful", "disgusted", etc...) they all used prefixes that determined what they are about to say ("statement", "query", "explanation", etc..."). I brought my concerns with the members there, and after a brief exchange I was told to bring it over to the forums. Respecting the fact that we were there for RP, I dropped the issue, did a nice little bit of RP with the folks over there and eventually left. Now, I wanted to express my thoughts on Glitch prefixes. First off, as a disclaimer, I know that "statement", "query" and other prefixes are used in-game in Starbound, and as such they are valid to be used. However, they are typically used in flat sentences where little emotion is conveyed (Statement. A bench). What I saw in Gryphon's Peak was a large use of the 'flat' prefixes even in situations where a deeper emotional response could work. This is what my opinion on the subject lies: we can do better with prefixes for the sake of lore and for a better RP experience. To this, I'm creating this open discussion for everyone to pitch in their thoughts on the matter. ICly: Why would Glitch use emotional prefixes? In-lore, the Glitch are androids built by an unnamed advanced alien species to analyze the rise and fall of civilizations. For that, they built androids, but the androids had to simulate life as closely as possible as they advance their civilization throughout the eras. As such, these automatons eat, drink, sleep, think, daydream, get in relationships, develop motivations and personalities... Mimic life as closely as possible while keeping then unable to realize they are, themselves, androids. The Glitch are the automatons with a fault in their development which confined them to the medieval ages for thousands of years, never able to progress past it and stalling their own development. Now, with that in mind... The Glitch are meant to mimic life as closely as possible, while they are themselves unable to realize they aren't biological creatures at all. Now, then, how can they express their emotions with robotic heads? They cannot. I imagine they most certainly use body language to simulate expressions, but facial and voice? Something else was needed to allow the Glitch to communicate effectively with each other (they can only talk in binary, remember. Very little room to express thoughts and feelings with ones and zeroes). The answer is simple: the prefixes. The glitch would preface every sentence with one word that would convey their thoughts and emotions about the situation, allowing fellow Glitch to take it in and simulate life as closely as possible once again. We see it in-game: "Pride. The flag of the Glitch. Outcast or no, we all turn to this flag." So... what about the non-emotional prefixes? Like I said above, they are used mostly in scenarios where an emotional response is non-significant, such as simply observing a bench. There is still a lot of personality demonstrated, though, even with other common objects such as a sleeping bag ("Sarcasm. Oh how wonderful"). OOCly: Why should the players bother with emotional prefixes? So, we now have two train of thoughts. Your glitch can use the 'flat' prefixes ("statement", "observation", etc...) that are used in-game and are part of lore, or he can use 'emotional' prefixes ("thoughtful", "elated", "paranoid", "horrified", etc...), which are also very prevalent in-game. Why prefer one over the other? Particularly when one is far more universal and simple to use? Why bother with so many adjectives when only a handful of words can be used for everything? The answer is simple: immersion and overall higher quality of role-playing. I'll give a simple explanation with my glitch character, Nano, whom has sadly been seldom used. Now, even if you know who he is pretend you have no idea about the character's personality. Let's start with simple, flat prefixes: What can we see? Nano is clearly irritated that Bastion has brought in a so-called 'defective' to their ship, the Hyperion. So, it works, right? Well... what if we went a little further and chose some more descriptive prefixes? The use of new prefixes adds an extra layer of depth to the character: he's acting less mechanical and more like a brat. To top if off, the sarcasm in his statement is made abundantly clear now, whereas before it wasn't quite the case. This makes the character more believable, more interesting and more dynamic as a result. ADDENDUM: One of the folks at Gryphon's Peak said that having all Glitch speaking the same way would be the same as forcing all the Florans to be bloodthirsty killers. First, that is a logical fallacy: A false equivalence. One is a cultural thing amongst the Floran that can vary individual by individual. Another is the 'biology' (construct) of how the Glitch are built. The correct equivalence would be the speech patterns of the Floran and the prefixes by the Glitch, and more-or-less the consensus is the same - exceptions are fine, if given a very good context for them. You -can- have your glitch with a unique speech pattern, provided you give a solid explanation for it. Conclusion There is talk every now and then talk about "plantsuits" and "feathersuits" which describe characters that act like humans despite being of a distinct species that should have its own unique behavior. Something that bothered me was seeing Glitch that are less "android mimicking life" and more "robotic". Using the 'flat' prefixes creates a more "computer"-like character, rendering nuance and a unique personality harder. Is it possible to use a character with flat prefixes and make them unique and interesting? Of course you can! Make an unnerving Glitch who is hard to read even for his own kin that manages to hide his own emotions and keep everyone on their toes. Should everyone do that? I don't think so. To do so would mean many Glitch that just end up sounding and acting very similar to each other. I'm not trying to stifle creativity here: I'm trying to open doors to show how diverse you can make all of your Glitch characters act while refusing the bland prefixes. Go nuts, go meshuggah! This is all my take, at any rate. I'm open for discussion here from everyone present. Cheers, folks.
It's mostly down to individual's laziness, but John M893-CV is just so much of a monotone speaker that he doesn't show much emotion in his prefix, resulting in Cpt. Obvious quotes like: "Greeting. Greetings", "Statement. That's a door.", "Observation. It's raining.", "Stating the obvious. Space-bear s**ts in the woods." Closest thing to emotion you get out of him is "Sarcastic. Jumping this pit is a great idea." But this stems usually from my own inability to type fast, resulting in me usually slapping "Response" in conversations because I don't want to slow it down further with thinking of a more creative prefix.
You can still work a few things out with regards to being a monotone speaker. "Flat", "dull", "uninterested", "nonchalant", "dry", "bored". I understand where you're getting at, but as a member - and leader of a Glitch faction - folks are going to look up to you as an example of how to play a Glitch. If you can just add a few extra prefixes for your character to set up a good example just so they know how to make their own more interesting... It would be an excellent start.
I don't know. This was a discussion I spotted when I was reading up how to speak like the Glitch clearly. On the wiki, it describe them played similar to that of HK-47 of Star Wars. But unlike HK-47, the Glitch do not convey emotion in their voice, and use emotional prefixes unlike HK-47 (who begins with Statement, Observation, Clarification.). Because of this, the starbound community dubbed the Glitch much more similar to the Elcor of Mass Effect 2 who speak with emotional responses heading their sentences. I believe that the Glitch are a combination of HK-47 and the Elcor, so it should allow them lee-way but leaning more towards the Elcor. It gives someone the tools to supply everyday talk and use the emotions when they're needed. For me when I play the Glitch, it comes down to the fact that I can't pull emotions very quickly. Especially on the spot. A lot of the times, one slows down thinking of appropriate emotions to use. Along with that, a lot of the emotions that come to me can come off really, well, off. Like using something like "Nostalgic" for trying to remember something because it was the first thing I can think of for remembering something. Or if the Glitch is more comical, words describing how they're joking can come off weird too. It's one thing to suggest words and another thing for someone to actually know when to use them. I keep a list next to me of usable emotion prefixes and actions, but even that still keeps me slow.
In lore, Glitch do not even use prefixes when speaking to other glitch, but this is something that would bother me as well, being a detail oriented roleplayer. There are times where flat prefixes are ideal, but there should be a good mixture of the two.. not just one or the other.
http://community.playstarbound.com/...g-for-some-tips-on-how-to-glitch-speak.65076/ This was the thread I read. They also mentioned this. The one guy had a reasonable explanation too. If a non-glitch, who expresses emotion in voice, added prefixes of emotion on top of their words, it would confuse them. The glitch would communicate to each other without them because they can understand their Glitch language and the emotions it conveys. The glitch speaking to the non-glitch trying to talk like them would probably be like "Whoah I'm describing my emotions because you don't know what I mean unless I tell you. What are you doing?" But if we dive deeper into lore, there's Platinum Ace and Hewlett Deckard, historical Glitches. Both of them are Glitches that have completely broken away from the hivemind to the point where they choose not use prefixes. I think that's weird, but I don't see where it says it's not possible. The creators programmed the Glitches with set things to make artificial beings; emotions, body, and language. If they broke free, chances are they chose not to accept the fact that they had to use prefixes. It's evident in their codex entries. Kind of. It's very confusing. Certain notes conflict with one another. I just thought it'd be nice to present the idea that prefixes are chosen by the Glitch.
The lore is kind of a mess =[ I guess I might be wrong about the Glitch naturally using prefixes amongst themselves, but I still stand that using good, diverse prefixes should be encouraged for the sake of enrichening the role-play experience and separating the Glitch from "human robots" to become more "androids attempting to simulate life". Also, in-game you are far, far more likely to meet the emotional prefixes than the flat ones. This should be some indication that we're better off using those in our characters, right?
I don't think that's the case. If Glitch use the prefix to subconsciously convey the tone of their voice, I'm leaning towards the explanation that they DO use the prefix in conversation with one another, but they don't hear it. Example 1: Context: Two Glitches are arguing. This is a non-Glitch's perspective who happened to overhear it. Glitch 1: "Furious. You owe me 5 chickens from that chicken-coop fire." Glitch 2: "Scared. I will have replacements by next week, I swear." Example 2: Context: Same as above, but from Glitch 1's perspective. Glitch 1: "You owe me 5 chickens from that chicken-coop fire!" *His voice has a more intimidating tone, but it's only noticed by other Glitch* Glitch 2: "I will have replacements by next week, I swear!" *His voice sounds like he's about to produce a brick from his backside out of fear* Admittedly, I have no lore to proof the above, but that's the explanation I've gone with for a year.
On the contrary, you are not far and what is better there IS lore to prove the above statement. "The Prefix Problem": http://starbounder.org/The_Prefix_Problem
Yet they use prefixes when talking to the player character if you visit a glitch village as a glitch. Even in the dialogue specific to the glitch player character. It's a discrepancy in the lore but them using it all the time is more interesting I feel. Glitch are also unaware that they are using prefixes and get confused when a non-glitch tries to use prefixes.
This might be different for free minded Glitch. They don't have the Hivemind to allow them to pick up on one another's emotional state. They are as individual as an organic and another Glitch. Of course it's also possible that they are simply capable of picking up on some non-verbalized concept that organics aren't, but if Hiroki's assumption is right, then the Glitch depend on their programming, which means that being separate of the Hivemind, they'd no longer be able to depend on that. Beyond this, no matter how much you argue 'Emotional Prefixes aren't necessary.' you will always have two issues. Repetition and laziness. Saying 'Statement: this is a statement.' or 'Question: is this a question.' or 'Statement: I see a bird. Observation: It is pretty. Command: Kick its ass.' are all redundant as hell. We know it's a statement, we know it's a question, we know it's an observation. To use the same four or five redundant prefixes over and over and over again is just being lazy, whether or not it's canonically acceptable.
I agree that it is a matter of laziness to use flat prefixes such as Statement, Question, and Observation. It is an issue that all Glitch players including myself should attempt to avoid whenever possible. It is a gradual thing though. Because players are naturally lazy and no one wants to slow down rp. We just kind of have to hope that the Glitch players learn more emotions I suppose.
