POLL: Cussing?

[ravenshrike]

"Milk drinker" was probably derived from the phrase "has milk in his veins" which means to be cowardly, weak, and easily (get ready for the pun) cowed. As far as invented insults go, you could do a lot worse.

Yeah, "milk drinker" was fine. The meaning was clear from the context, both words of the term are real, and it sounded like an insult from another time and place. Much like "smoothskin", it's the right kind of fantasy slang. The annoying made-up terms in SF and fantasy are the ones that sound like they were made up solely to sound cool. I can't think of any curse words that fit the bill at the moment, but the repeated use of "fal'Cie" and "l'Cie" in Final Fantasy XIII nearly gave me an aneurysm.

In fairness the words in most sci-fi are almost always minced oaths to get around censors. Take Farscape or Firefly for example. Firefly in particular had some particularly nasty cussing if you understood chinese.

[Eaglestoner]

Generally use it sparingly, and with purpose. However that one token character who profanes every second word can be quite amusing.

[Valka]

I'm leaning towards "a little here and there," not because I mind if a writer includes a lot of swearing, but because I'd rather see it less than to imply some sort of edict for a high quota of cursing just for the sake of it.

More interesting to me is how many people are strongly in favor of a lot of cussing because it would be "natural to the situation", and yet overt sexual situations aren't expected to be a part of game play. Not natural enough I guess...

[Crayon]

As appropriate as it is for the situation AND the character. Additionally, ensure that it doesn't dilute the main purpose of the dialog being delivered.

That said, if you've got David Milch on your team or Al Sweargen as an NPC character, go nuts.

[Charlie Quinn]

I trust the writers to get the tone set right. You know what you're doing.

[Hotdog]

Wasteland slang/lingo/cussing mixed with 80s slang/lingo/cussing mixed with the stuff we know would be nice

[rossrjensen]

I'm not really concerned too much with this topic. They handled it just fine in both Fallout games as far as I am concerned. However, I love the idea posted earlier about using 80's jargon, terms, insults, etc! Stylizing the game with a bit of a 80's theme would make a lot of sense considering the period in which the wars supposedly began -- it would make it consistent with the first game while also giving it a distinctive flavor.

I always loved the Mad Max found in the earlier Fallout games (the leather armor set always looked totally badass) influence and definitely think it needs to stay. But just as the Fallout games use a 50's theme, Wasteland could distinguish itself by doing the same with a 80's theme. Can you imagine if Wasteland 2 helped bring back terms like "buttmunch", "rad", etc. into mainstream vocubulary!

[snakeoil]

this cussing thing is a funny american perversion! fuck, its so ridiculous! its words! just words!

[Punky]

I'd imagine that the post-apocalyptic world is not a polite place. Cussin' all round.

[Orange Jus]

I'm kind of annoyed that the poll is leaning towards more. Too much swearing will just make it lose it's impact. I think Fallout: New Vegas did a really good job with it; some characters don't swear at all, other characters swear, but not excessively, and some characters just go off the chain. They only swore when it was appropriate for the character.

[Gumpo]

I'd imagine in general, the world would have a lot of fowl language in it, given the conditions of life in general and the setting. Everyone shouldn't drop f-bombs all the time, but the words we see as less bad but still worthy of censoring from our children should get regular use by most characters. Definitely have some that never or hardly never curse, but, i'd think most people would.

And i definitely like the thought of someone calling me a frell-fracking dickweed. fake curse words and throwbacks to 80s language are both welcome.

[Gearhead]

Just keep it realistic and don't arbitrarily add f-bombs in order to seem mature. It's easily recognized as a transparent attempt at covering up for poor writing talent (see ex. Fallout 3).

I agree completely. It's funny, though, that I don't recall it being too much an issue in FO3. Can you give examples? I noticed it more in FA2, though half of that was Myron.

And i definitely like the thought of someone calling me a frell-fracking dickweed. fake curse words and throwbacks to 80s language are both welcome.

ABSOLUTELY!!!

[LordLJ]

I picked the last option. I was thinking this meant there would be different dialects with many different kinds of insults, as well as the more traditional ones.

Planescape's use of insults like "Pike Off!", or more strange sayings like "Cutter".

[Gearhead]

For some reason, I'm reminded of a funny line from The Colonial Marines Technical Manual, where a marine's remembering his first day as a boot. A gunnery sergeant tells them to "get off the freakin' bus," and he kind of remarks on that being a fake non-swear word " that people use so as not to upset the god-botherers and Hubbard freaks. But the way Gunny says it, he sounds like he's going to personally pop open your head and spoon out your brains. So we got off the freakin' bus!"

[BentSea]

This is one of those things where I really want to see a mature game brought about in a mature way.. I want to see the vision of the developers on this point. If they can make it good, cool, or funny, I really don't care about the rating level of the content.