Is it just because Bioware wanted to give them a little "alien" touch with an alien language, but were too lazy to try to make voice acting in Cheunh (the Chiss language) so they took the Hutteese and now so many Chiss I meet on Hoth are speaking like Twi'leks -_- (some of the Chiss there speak Basic but not all of them)

 

The first language they are supposed to learn to communicate with the rest of the galaxy is supposed to be the Basic, I don't see the point in learning the Hutt's language, they don't even deal with any Hutt or any planet owned by Hutts...

 

It's like if every single alien was talking in the same "alien language" just because it sounds exotic or something. It makes no sense.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Evolvana

Oh, ugh. I was looking forward to meeting the Chiss on Hoth (playing a Chiss BH). I think I kinda expected them to speak Basic. :| Huttese?? When I look at Chiss names (pretty much the only bits of Cheunh I've seen), it doesn't sound like Huttese in my head. :/

The first language they are supposed to learn to communicate with the rest of the galaxy is supposed to be the Basic, I don't see the point in learning the Hutt's language, they don't even deal with any Hutt or any planet owned by Hutts...

 

On my SW when I encountered one of the Huttesse speaking Chiss, I had the option to ask him about this and he actually said that the majority of his duties had him in Hutt Space(or was it Outer Rim....or are those two the same? O.o) so he spoke Huttesse primarily as a result.

The Chiss actually do have dealings with the Hutts. In fact, you'll encounter a lot of people across the game who speak Huttese on the various classes. I encountered a noble of Alderaan who spoke it fluently just because it was so little used outside of the Outer Rim and Huttspace.

The need for a commonly understood tongue also is worth considering. The galaxy at large doesn't know Cheunh, so Chiss need to speak a common tongue that would be universally understood ie. Bocce, Huttese, Minnisiat, etc. They're not going to waste time chatting in the language of the Ascendancy when no one understands it.

Huttese seems to be the lingua franca of the underworld, so it makes sense that you find a lot of non-Hutts speaking it.

I understand they CAN speak Huttese, but in a base of Hoth, there was, what, 50% of the Chiss there speaking ONLY Huttese.

 

They should be able to speak basic in priority, right? when they speak only in Huttese they sound like uncultured aliens who don't even know something as simple as Basic.

 

That's how I see it. Chiss people are supposed to be more clever than that.

 

In the books of T. Zahn (Outbound Flight) the Chiss could speak Minnisiat to be understood by the humans speaking basic, but they didn't speak Huttese at all. But I guess it was too hard for Bioware to do voice acting in something else than Huttese and Basic, they didn't bother creating Minnisiat or any other alien language that would fit better.

 

I don't know, it bothers me to see a clever-looking Chiss girl officier speaking like a Twi'lek prostitute we can meet in Nar Shadaa... with the same kind of whiny voice...

Edited January 24, 2012 by Evolvana

I don't know, it bothers me to see a clever-looking Chiss girl officier speaking like a Twi'lek prostitute we can meet in Nar Shadaa... with the same kind of whiny voice...

 

Ignoring the perfectly legitimate lore explanations you're sweeping aside just because you would have liked it a certain way (including the possibility that Huttese is far more widespread than Minnisiat, which is a fringe trade language) I'd rather that than the cost of spending additional sessions to ensure we have a handful of Cheunh conversations in the game.

I agree that the similarities between voices can be a bit of an immersion-breaking annoyance. It's uncanny-valley freaky to me when two people of the same base class/gender show up in a flashpoint or group and have the same voice, and a little eye-rolley when I recognize that the same several paragraphs of Huttese in the same two or three voices, translated wildly differently each time and used for a lot of quest text. But, as a previous poster mentioned, I respect the enormity of the undertaking to do a fully-voiced MMO to begin with, and I'm glad that budget was allocated to things other than making sure every quest-giver was using unique dialog in each appropriate alien racial language/dialect in every cutscene.

look on the bright side, we don't have a universal translator to screw with plot

look on the bright side, we don't have a universal translator to screw with plot

 

I think you missed an "oh wait..."

 

Our PCs can actually understand every alien language spoken in the game. (Well, I haven't come across one that wasn't fully translated in subtitles yet.)

Edited January 24, 2012 by Zandilar

I understand they CAN speak Huttese, but in a base of Hoth, there was, what, 50% of the Chiss there speaking ONLY Huttese.

 

They should be able to speak basic in priority, right? when they speak only in Huttese they sound like uncultured aliens who don't even know something as simple as Basic.

 

That's how I see it. Chiss people are supposed to be more clever than that.

 

In the books of T. Zahn (Outbound Flight) the Chiss could speak Minnisiat to be understood by the humans speaking basic, but they didn't speak Huttese at all. But I guess it was too hard for Bioware to do voice acting in something else than Huttese and Basic, they didn't bother creating Minnisiat or any other alien language that would fit better.

 

I don't know, it bothers me to see a clever-looking Chiss girl officier speaking like a Twi'lek prostitute we can meet in Nar Shadaa... with the same kind of whiny voice...

 

I think you're missing the point. If most of the Chiss on one planet are talking Huttese, it's most likely because they've been placed in the same sector before being deployed to Hoth. One of the Chiss, as mentioned earlier, said the Ascendancy sent him to Hutt Space to serve and they got taught Huttese because that was the ruling language in that sector.

 

Now, following that logic, most people from his outfit and anyone else that served there would pretty much only know Huttese fluently, and if they get redeployed (as squads often do in times of war..) then they went as a unit where mostly all had limited knowledge with basic.

 

The actual explanation is that BioWare probably cut the budged for voice actors, but quite frankly, there is a logical explanation behind it. Well, far more logical than some of the other stuff around, at least.

I think you missed an "oh wait..."

 

Our PCs can actually understand every alien language spoken in the game. (Well, I haven't come across one that wasn't fully translated in subtitles yet.)

 

I meant the universe as a whole, there is a reason there are protocol droids. our characters are different, a little, as they understand basic, huttese, and a couple others...with the amount of languages and the trade routes, it's not surprising

The actual explanation is that BioWare probably cut the budget for voice actors .

 

That's probably the real reason. I find it really annoying considering there isn't really any explanation for it (at least not for so many). I had the option os commenting that it was strange when I first meet a Chiss on Hoth speaking Huttese but the reply he gave had nothing to do with the query. Which means the real reason is either lack of time or money (or motivation).

Is it just because Bioware wanted to give them a little "alien" touch with an alien language, but were too lazy to try to make voice acting in Cheunh (the Chiss language) so they took the Hutteese and now so many Chiss I meet on Hoth are speaking like Twi'leks -_- (some of the Chiss there speak Basic but not all of them)

 

The first language they are supposed to learn to communicate with the rest of the galaxy is supposed to be the Basic, I don't see the point in learning the Hutt's language, they don't even deal with any Hutt or any planet owned by Hutts...

 

It's like if every single alien was talking in the same "alien language" just because it sounds exotic or something. It makes no sense.

 

I found a questgiver who I questioned on this and he said him and a lot of the Chiss were stationed in the Outer Rim (probably kept them away from the general public as well in order to preserve the Ascendency). As a result, they picked up Huttese, the obvious assumption is it is because the Hutts have a strong powerbase there.

 

Edit: There are a few Chiss that speak basic, though they are usually really high authority figures and are in closer dealings with Imperial Intelligence or Imperial moffs and commanders.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Forgon