These days you can't get anyone to read anything on the internet unless it is in the form of one of those top 10 lists. At least that's what I heard. Well, no problem! I'm already a big fan of bullet points, and have been arranging my thoughts into lists for some time now. If I can bulletize, then surely I can top-ten-ize.
Top Ten Ways To Improve Your Goblin Dialogue
I don't claim to be an expert on writing dialogue, but for writing
Goblin dialogue, I am the premiere authority! That's the plus side of inventing weird junk--you automatically get to know more about it than anyone else. I'm ready to pass on my knowledge so that you can see writing words for Goblins to say isn't really that hard at all.
10. Avoid past and future tense. Mostly stick to the present.
9. Add "
s"
, "
um"
, "
sum"
, or "
zit"
to any word that seems too straightforward. And definitely throw some "
z"
's into words occasionally, i.e. "
Yes"
becomes "
Yez"
.
8. Goblins are emotional. They have strong feelings about most everything.
7. Establish a pattern of speaking with one phrase and then reuse the pattern. "
I gotsum crunchies for eat! I gotsum gurgles for drink!"
6. Words that suggest education or intelligence needed to get simplified or mangled up, i.e. "
We begin construction!"
could become "
We buildzit now!"
.
5. Goblins favor the visceral and concrete. "
I attack you!"
is improved by "
I gives you a toothing!"
.
4. Some complex thoughts will need a lot of expansion to be expressed by a Goblin. "
My philosophy is nihilistic"
obviously becomes, oh... jeez, hmm... "
You thinksum dis and dat, but does you knowzit? Heh heh. I deep thunkzit. I deep thunkzit long time! And I sezzit now, you don't knows nuddin, I don't knows nuddin, nobud knows nuddin. So wutza should I do? Goodstuff? Badstuff? Bleh. Nobud knows wutza goodstuff or badstuff. I jez be dosum wutz I wants!"
3. Add "
I sezzit!"
to the end of statements the goblin feels strongly about. Similarly, "
deysezzit!"
to other people's statements to which the goblin reacts strongly.
2. When the dialogue is getting too weird, put some of the words back to normal human speech. Goblin grammar isn't consistent, so you can "
cheat"
as long as it still feels Goblinesque.
1. Speak Goblin in real life for practice. Total immersion, baby!
Top Ten Reasons Why Doom Gets "Don't Ask" Award
"
Doom"
, by the way, is the handle of a forum user named "
Henri"
who's been here for a while. The top 10 reasons why he should get a "
Don't Ask"
award:
10. Because Doom almost has more rank points than posts! (1967 posts and 1955 rank points as I write this.) Now, I don't want to encourage people to get all munchkiny about these numbers, but it is interesting that he's accomplished a near 1:1 ratio after so many posts.
9. He made a bunch of holds that people really like:
Nightmare Dungeon, Fortress of Eternity, KDD First Level remake, Simon's Dungeon, Spider Well, and, of course, the award-winning
Beethro's Teacher.
8. He and Patrick Fisher made a DROD mod of
Wolfenstein 3D. I stopped short of putting it on the CD with
DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold because there were still some swastikas peeking through here and there.
7. Doom is an articulate and intelligent forum poster. When I read something he's written, it usually seems well-considered. I view it as neither good or bad, but merely interesting, that he very seldom starts a new topic. Nearly all of his posts are replies.
6. Doom made the first fan-made Wonderquest level,
Forest of Doom.
5. The guy has participated in... gasp...
nineteen contests. And that's just the official monthly contests.
4. He has the habit of providing "
supplementary materials"
. Like for the Angry Man contest he posted an image that clarified the situation. And for another example among several, he supplied a rather interesting graph of progress on
DROD: The City Beneath based on bar movements.
3. Doom has posted helpfully about a number of bugs he found in DROD. And not just to complain about them--he always gives good descriptions and sticks around to answer questions about the bugs.
2. Doom started and maintained the ever-popular list of confirmed TCB features.
And the #1 reason why Doom gets a "
Don't Ask"
Award...
1. Because he didn't ask!
Clearly the man deserves something for all of that. I try to specialize each "
Don't Ask"
award a little bit. Here's what I'll do: If Henri makes a reply to this post before December, perhaps to give an acceptance speech, I will mod up that post so that his rank points will be one more than his post count. I will further suggest that as a show of appreciation, everyone here continue to mod up Doom's posts for the rest of this month such that at all times he will have more rank points than posts.
Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Enter the Second Grand Audition
10. The deadline for entering is (as I write this)
tomorrow! (I'm actually going to ask Ezlo to change the deadline to be the end of the weekend, since I'm so late getting out this
Illumination newsletter.)
9. All you gotta do to enter is make a recording of yourself saying one of the audition lines. Easy!
8. If you've never entered a contest before, you'll automatically get 10 rank points, because everybody loves a fresh face.
7. You might win! In that case you get even more rank points and a real prize--like a free copy of
DROD: The City Beneath!
6. Even if you don't win and you don't get the 10-point rookie bonus, you'll still get contest participation credit. And if you are in 8 official contests, you can get a nice prize for that.
5. You always wanted to get on stage and bask in an audience's adoration, but never had the courage to follow that dream.
4. It's fun to make silly voices.
3. Ezlo will feel bad if you don't enter his contest.
2. It is still possible to get shoulder-tapped for a voice acting role in
DROD: The City Beneath. We haven't cast all the parts yet.
1. Your voice is a gift and now is the time to bring it forth for the world to receive.
contest info
Top Ten Posts on the Forum At This Very Moment
10.
Unintended solutions?
How do you feel about trampling all over an architect's puzzle design?
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=12753
9.
It's Just a Big Popularity Contest
Go to the last page of this topic for Patrick Fisher's final results of the annual
People's Choice awards.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=12652
8.
Don't Kill The Messenger, The Slayers Revenge, Beethro Is Getting Home, Beethro's Generic Quest, Catacombs, Jesse's World, Tar Superstar V.2, SSSlitherin Expert, SSSlithering, war12, The Murder Mystery
These are all the holds (level collections) that have been released since last month's
Illumination newsletter. Did Larry Murk overhype his hold with excessive preannouncements? You won't know until you've played it!
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewboard.php?BoardID=11
7.
Unlimited Undo: The Ancient Controversy
Should you be allowed to undo all of your mistakes? Even the unbelievably stupid and reckless ones?
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=9090
6.
Unlimited Art: Pilchard Will Do It For You
Okay, he might not be doing it for too much longer. Hurry and get your request in!
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=9982
5.
Karaoke Night
It's easy to make fun of amateurs, but hey, when was the last time you got up and sang a DROD song?
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=12498
4.
Make DROD Even More Old School
Coppro wrote a little program that outputs a text representation of DROD rooms.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=12435
3.
Google Threatens To Take Over Our Website
They can make a faster search page for our website than we can. I hate them.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=12501
2.
A Simple Plan for World Domination
It's about time people started figuring out what exactly I gotta do to be king of the world.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=12604
1.
An Invitation of Interest
Wow, another
DROD: The City Beneath leak! It's almost like someone is orchestrating them.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=12741
Top One Ways to End an Illumination
1. Man, it's been like two hours typing this. I gotta go use the bathroom.
-Erik
____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
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[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 11-18-2006 02:19 AM]
/dy
Then again, one could say that I merely provided a stimulus for others to make good posts. And it is dead last.
