Tenians Language Chat Extension for select FG 3.0 rulesets

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Originally Posted by dr_venture

I directly edited the extension.xml file to have all of the languages (and spellings) represented - the elvish and orcish entries are thus:

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When you modified the extension did you give it a different name in the extension.xml and the .ext filename?

If you didn't use different names, can you check with the player who was having the issues and see if they have the unmodified extension installed?

I think that if they had a copy of the unmodified extension that it may have been using that and elvish and orcish would not have matched with fonts in base extension.

Just as an FYI - If you modify an extension from the base release, it's best to give it a different name so that players will download your updated extension rather than using the original extension if the names are the same.

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Originally Posted by Trenloe

Just as an FYI - If you modify an extension from the base release, it's best to give it a different name so that players will download your updated extension rather than using the original extension if the names are the same.

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Good point! I didn't change the name - I'll do that now. FWIW, Andraax was in the game and he mentioned that he had it installed, too, but he was seeing the languages correctly. That said, name conflicts may cause weirdness to abound, so I'll change the name and see if it clears up. I'll also see if the player who's screenshot I shared had the extension installed.

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Originally Posted by dr_venture

Good point! I didn't change the name - I'll do that now. FWIW, Andraax was in the game and he mentioned that he had it installed, too, but he was seeing the languages correctly. That said, name conflicts may cause weirdness to abound, so I'll change the name and see if it clears up. I'll also see if the player who's screenshot I shared had the extension installed.

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I'm not 100% convinced that this would cause all of the issues seen (it doesn't explain the unknown special message error), but it is good practice to change the name.

I still think this could be related to the player not downloading the extension correctly - as this would explain the missing font and the special message error.

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Originally Posted by Trenloe

Thanks for the pointer, I'm unable to recreate - could you provide some more info on this please? i.e. steps/mood commands used, etc..

Thanks.

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I wish I could. I wasn't the GM and thus don't know the settings he was using, nor is the game going anymore so we can't continue to experiment. It had an element of randomness since it didn't always affect the same player. Though one thing I know is that it didn't stop any messages from coming through. It just provided an error in addition.

I think I remember one of the players saying that all languages were translating for him while this was occurring. That's all I've got.

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Originally Posted by Trenloe

I've been thinking about the random character addition, perhaps over thinking? I think you're right that what I originally did made things longer than usual in my first attempt at the code. I may re-visit and add/subtract a few characters based on the length of the original word, so this could help to keep the length down on average. Perhaps something like words of 3 or less just have 0-2 characters added, words of 4-6 characters have between -2 and +2 characters, words over 6 have between -3 and +3 characters - this would result in the total sentence on statistical average being slightly longer (based off 3 character or less words being 1 character longer on average), but the longer words would have a statistical net length change of 0.

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Well, I was thinking something similar! I decided to keep it simple at first, but I do think it would be good to also reduce some words in length. Your scheme sounds like a good one. I'd kind of like to do it in one operation, though - with a single random number being scaled by the original word length to add or subtract an appropriate number of characters (down to a minimum of 1). Perhaps that's me over-thinking it!

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Originally Posted by Blackfoot

Checking for 'Tongues' and 'Comprehend Languages'? Does this look for spell effects on the character? That seems like it would be cool.

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I'm afraid not, Blackfoot - that's beyond my FG coding skills! As Trenloe said, it only looks in the list of languages on the Notes tab of the character sheet. I intended it mainly for characters who have permanent versions of these spells, but you could use it for impermanent ones, too, by adding the spell name to the languages list when it's cast. Just write yourself a note (in the spell effect on the Combat Tracker, perhaps) to remove it at the end of the duration!

This isn't as hard as you might think... lemme see if I can find the code... I was just working with it.

Code:

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local aCLangSpell = EffectManager.getEffectsBonusByType(rTarget, "COMPREHEND LANGUAGES", false, {});
local aTongSpell = EffectManager.getEffectsBonusByType(rTarget, "TONGUES", false, {});
if #aCLangSpell > 0 then
end
if #aTongSpell > 0 then
end

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Or something like that should do the job.

I have a humble request for the next release of this extension. Can you add a slash command called "/font <languageName> <text>" that will display the text in the language's font without the scrambling effect? This would be ideal for English-based languages that the player/GM wants to use a specific font when displaying. (Or just a player-side option to disable the scrambler.)

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Originally Posted by Nickademus

I have a humble request for the next release of this extension. Can you add a slash command called "/font <languageName> <text>" that will display the text in the language's font without the scrambling effect? This would be ideal for English-based languages that the player/GM wants to use a specific font when displaying. (Or just a player-side option to disable the scrambler.)

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Unscambled slashandler added to the development list.

There is the /fc <font> <text> options available now (fc = fontchat) but it does use the scrambler - the only difference is that it doesn't check for languages and do translations. Your idea was probably what Tenian had in mind when he originally made the extension, but the scrambling code has since been added across the board. I think there is still a need for /fc to still be scrambled - in case the GM wanted to speak in a specific font without any of the players having a chance to know it - i.e. it isn't a language in the list, but you need to specify a language (font) to get the text to display.

You wouldn't want a player side option to disable the scrambler as that allows a player to stop scrambling and use the copy/paste "cheat" to find out what is being said in a language they don't understand. The "cheat" was the whole reason for language scrambling.

Thank you sir.

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Originally Posted by Trenloe

You wouldn't want a player side option to disable the scrambler as that allows a player to stop scrambling and use the copy/paste "cheat" to find out what is being said in a language they don't understand. The "cheat" was the whole reason for language scrambling.

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While I could have been more clear on the player option, I meant that it would disable the scrambler on /font text, not /lang. This would allow the GM and players to use the /font for English-based fonts or the languages fonts and the GM to still use /lang with the guarantee of no cheating. Otherwise a player couldn't use a custom font unless the GM turned off the scrambler for all languages.

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Originally Posted by Trenloe

I think there is still a need for /fc to still be scrambled - in case the GM wanted to speak in a specific font without any of the players having a chance to know it - i.e. it isn't a language in the list, but you need to specify a language (font) to get the text to display.

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Perhaps I'm just too tired to understand this, but I thought you already implemented the ability to add languages to the list. A GM with a desire for a special language would just add one with a name no one has. I'm not seeing the need for /fc to be scrambled.

Of course, none of that matters if you're adding a slashhandler that would let the players manually type in unscrambled text.