This is going to sound like a very minor issue to most people, but it matters to me and I don't expect that anyone else would bother to bring it up. I hope that in explaining the issue I don't come across as though I'm making some kind of demand or insulting people who feel differently, because that's not my intention.
When Everquest launched, and at least for the entire length of time I originally played it (until around the launch of Gates of Discord), the game always correctly made the distinction between "Faction" and "Faction Standing". A Faction is a group or organization, and Faction Standing is a character's standing with that faction: how the faction feels about the character.
Players would often use the terms interchangeably and it eventually became far more common to only see statements like "I gained faction" or "you'll lose qeynos guard faction for that". This grated on me because it doesn't feel like ordinary player shorthand (like calling NPCs 'mobs' for instance), but instead reads like nobody realizes what the word "faction" means. I feel like "Standing" would have been a much better abbreviation for players to use if they had understood what the words meant. At any rate, nobody can control how the players are going to talk to each other so I tried to just get over it and was content that at least the developers and game itself were using the terms correctly.
Some years later I came back to Everquest, like one does, and found that this is no longer the case. For some reason this made me really sad. It was a minor thing but it contributed to the overall impression I had that development had changed from being about the construction of a world in which players have adventures to being about developing content for gamers to consume. The language with which a world describes itself had been replaced with the jargon that gamers use for mechanics.
Tonight I was looking at the Pantheon class pages and saw the following: "Lyrith’s Grace: Enchant a target’s mind to judge you more amiably, increasing your faction with them to the next rank."
The way a game talks about itself plays a large role in how I feel while playing it. I'm really hoping for a game that challenges me to gather a party and explore the depths of a forgotten dungeon, not one that tells me to do sick dps to earn epic loot.
oh gosh I know where you are on this.
I compare it to the folowing: Where I work, the thing is called "money market deposits". in the business, it is shortened to "Depo's". There are those who are new who were in charge of running something and to whom were listened to. when they typed in "depo" in word or email it came back with the correction "Depot" as in Bus or Train. It is not "depot". But they used "Depot" and now it has been some years and even higher ups call it "Depot" when its "Depo's" meaning "deposits" which is short for money market deposits. And as much as I have tried to gently tell the orignial perpetrator who is now elevated, it cannot be undone.
Very much like the Astronomists discussing a "completely collapsed gravitational object" and coming up with "Black hole" because completely collapsed gravitational object was a mouthful. Or the same astromomists these days accepting "yeet" to refer to the slingshot effect of a platenary object orbiting a star that is being caught in an event horizon- or the classic 2 ball experiment where a small ball is stacked on top of a larger ball and both are dropped? and the smaller ball shoots off much higher? the small ball is the planet, the large ball is the sun its orbiting and the ground is the black hole/event horizon. The small ball or planet gets "yeet" ed. <- true! they are using that term to explain that particular thing- amongst themselves. I hope any kind of planetary gravity assist will make its way into the general parlance as yeet.
But to the OP's point thats the fun stuff, the irritating stuff is as mentioned, or like the character map key being buried, or the X being moved to the right on your sindows screen, or the pop up notifications always appearing on the lower right where all your important gaming stuff is going on. Some IT dev made those decisions wrongly, they are not the kings. They need to bend to the will of the common person not their own whims or the whims of their friends. Like using 'faction" instead of standing.
You cant end a sentence with a preposition! "Do you want to come with....?" WITH WHO?!?~! wait, actually, thats ok now. Although it sounds filthy on the tongue.
Language evolves, rightly or wrongly. Whatever is used the most always becomes the standard this applies to spelling and diction. Such is the reason for differences between English and American-English. You might not like it, but Canute didnt hold back the tide either. Basically, humans are lazy and in general, they will always go for the easiest option.
Language evolves, rightly or wrongly. Whatever is used the most always becomes the standard this applies to spelling and diction. Such is the reason for differences between English and American-English. You might not like it, but Canute didnt hold back the tide either. Basically, humans are lazy and in general, they will always go for the easiest option.
This isn't a language prescriptivism issue. The population of Everquest and Pantheon servers is not going to change the meaning of the word "faction". That said, if there was a shift such that "faction" became an accepted word for "reputation" or "standing" throughout our culture I would accept that dictionaries should supplement their existing definitions. But just because something is accepted as part of the English language it isn't a given that it should be used that way in a particular setting or context.
Additionally, this isn't about trying to enforce how players talk to each other. If you think the game should just talk to players the same way they talk to each other, we'd end up with a game where dragons are saying "Foolish Mortals! Even if you time all your cooldowns to maximize DPS you won't be able to beat my enrage timer!" That's not the game I'm looking for.
This also isn't about humans taking the easiest option. If you look at Manouk's example with "money market deposits", players saying "faction" is equivalent to having abbreviated them as "moneys" or "markets" instead of shortening "deposits". "Standing" would be the equivalently sensible way to shorten "Faction Standing".
You cant end a sentence with a preposition! "Do you want to come with....?" WITH WHO?!?~! wait, actually, thats ok now. Although it sounds filthy on the tongue.
I'm pretty sure this was never actually true for English, there was simply a period of time in which many academics tried to enforce Latin grammar rules on English and a lot of people still haven't gotten over it.
I agree with the OP in all respects. The description should not say "increasing your faction" It should say "improving your standing". Improving your reputation would also work.
One side point. NPCs should talk as if they were real people in a real world. But the OP is describing a spell description. That is, properly, a communication from a game developer to a game player and should be worded with clarity in mind not immersion. Clarity to players that may know nothing about the world yet - that may not have even seen the character screen yet.
Despite this I agree with the OP fully. Improving your standing is more accurate. It is just as clear to old-timers that understand quite well how "faction" is being misused. And it is clearer to new people without the background enabling them to instantly understand this misuse of language.
dorotea said:I agree with the OP in all respects. The description should not say "increasing your faction" It should say "improving your standing". Improving your reputation would also work.
One side point. NPCs should talk as if they were real people in a real world. But the OP is describing a spell description. That is, properly, a communication from a game developer to a game player and should be worded with clarity in mind not immersion. Clarity to players that may know nothing about the world yet - that may not have even seen the character screen yet.
Despite this I agree with the OP fully. Improving your standing is more accurate. It is just as clear to old-timers that understand quite well how "faction" is being misused. And it is clearer to new people without the background enabling them to instantly understand this misuse of language.
This is a good distinction that I failed to make, thank you. I haven't seen any evidence that Pantheon would do something like have NPCs or in-game lore use out-of-universe language, but Everquest actually does with items like "Locked Faction Potion". Since I work in the games industry, VR sadly wouldn't allow me to participate in pre-alpha so I don't actually know what happens in game, and can only express my concern based on what I'm able to see on the official site.
We all prefer the things that happen in our language. Our favorites use our favorite words and actions in the way that we would use them.
Unfortunately, VR can only choose so many when it says "target audience". They will need to word things in the way that their target audience would.
Have you noticed Mountain Dew's "gamer fuel"? Why do they not call it "energy drink"?
OP brings up a point here that is much more deep than I think most realize.
Familiarity is important. As OP mentions, simply seeing something worded differently than he would word it caused him to feel actual negative emotions towards the game he was playing.
OP also mentions that the new wording for "faction" probably does make new age gamers happy.
VR must choose who they want to create the most familiarity with, even down to the words they use to describe abilities.
This is why marketing is hard.
Does their target audience use new age terms like "sick, dps, epic" or old age terms like "depths, explore, dungeon"?
Only VR can decide. Currently, they seem to be trying to market to both. How well will that work? Who knows.
This is not "English and the proper way to use it". It is "The target audience's favorite way to word things and how to use those words".
Carry on with your conversation. Just my two cp.