I got my book! It's super fancy and I can't read the cover!

[Blaque]

Seeing as I don't know how the hell to operate sending a PM, is it possible RichT if we could take this to there? I feel that I have probably come accross as overly critical and I wanted to kind of give better context and note some general background and my own feelings. I Just also think the thread is already derailed enough and folks would rather be translating.

And stuff.

[RichT]

It's in response to them being changed, yes. I personally prefer the rougher Mayan aesthetic, although I also like this cleaner, more fantasy one. I personally liked the rougher Mayan look myself since it seeme dmore 1) A style fitting the langauge of the titans and 2) Exalted to me is pretty big on being a setting that draws from many places, including culutres not often seen in fantasy. The Mayan look to the original Old Realm script was done if I remember correcty by GCG because of the Old Realm itself having a bit of a Mesoamerican motif, much in the same way the Realm today has the Roman/Chinese paintjob going.

I'll note I also tried to contribute to the translation, would still of liked the book and still think the more refined/gylphy Old Realm is interesting. I just am of the opinion that it also didn't need replacing and will at least for my purposes probably end up using both, since the old one I think looks interesting for stuff like illustrations of monuments or as decorations on weapons when I do Exalted-themed art, while the latter is probably better ffor iconography like banners, books and rune circles. It's like having a new font of the old language, which I find interesting.

And stuff.

Thanks for extrapolating. I appreciate you taking the time to give your reasons behind your previous comment. I'm not sure why the previous glyph set seems rougher to you; maybe because your first exposure to this new set is with them laser etched out of metal? I assure you, the drawn new glyphs are just as rough as the ones I originally drew back in the day. I felt then, and obviously do now, that I'd copied too many of the glyphs too exactly from the Mayan (I think) sources. Exalted is its own world, not something that directly sprung from mesoamerica, so it makes no sense that their earliest writing system would be so, so close to Mayan...but time constraints prevented me from creating them from whole cloth like I did with the brush script Exalted lettering. I felt like that cheapened the reality of the Exalted world, if that makes any sense. So that's why I did think it needed replacing, and why I replaced it. And the Mayan influence is still very plainly there, from some of the base symbols that stayed the same, to the stacking of those symbols to make words. But there are a lot more monster-y looking symbols there, reflecting better, I think, the Exalted world.

[Blaque]

I think that they're laser-etched is what made them look pretty different. THough I do think they have this "tighter" look to them that's not necessarily a negative. One thing I have had happen in trying to do Old Realm characters before was that while they're elastic, the blcok-layout thing they have gets pretty damned unwieldy at times, especially with the silouette some blocks have. So on some level making that work better would be nice.

The laser-etching and I assume vector-based shapes also helps. THe original ones i remember in Dreams look pretty hand drawn and loose. These look tighter, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for things lin art and depctions. And in any case, I think it does look a ways nicer here htan the mock-up did.

And stuff.

[RichT]

I think that they're laser-etched is what made them look pretty different. THough I do think they have this "tighter" look to them that's not necessarily a negative. One thing I have had happen in trying to do Old Realm characters before was that while they're elastic, the blcok-layout thing they have gets pretty damned unwieldy at times, especially with the silouette some blocks have. So on some level making that work better would be nice.

The laser-etching and I assume vector-based shapes also helps. THe original ones i remember in Dreams look pretty hand drawn and loose. These look tighter, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for things lin art and depctions. And in any case, I think it does look a ways nicer here htan the mock-up did.

And stuff.

And if this isn't boring/off-topic, this is a treat to talk about as the new glyphs are pretty much my only personal art contribution to EX3. I only _think_ the metal plate makers took my drawings and "vectorized" them. Pretty sure they did, at least. But what you're most likely going to see in a printed book are the same kinds of hand-drawn drawings as from back in the day when I did them because that's what I have here.

[Kim]

I really like the new ones.
Looking forward to seeing them in print.

[Piff]

Thanks for extrapolating. I appreciate you taking the time to give your reasons behind your previous comment. I'm not sure why the previous glyph set seems rougher to you; maybe because your first exposure to this new set is with them laser etched out of metal? I assure you, the drawn new glyphs are just as rough as the ones I originally drew back in the day. I felt then, and obviously do now, that I'd copied too many of the glyphs too exactly from the Mayan (I think) sources. Exalted is its own world, not something that directly sprung from mesoamerica, so it makes no sense that their earliest writing system would be so, so close to Mayan...but time constraints prevented me from creating them from whole cloth like I did with the brush script Exalted lettering. I felt like that cheapened the reality of the Exalted world, if that makes any sense. So that's why I did think it needed replacing, and why I replaced it. And the Mayan influence is still very plainly there, from some of the base symbols that stayed the same, to the stacking of those symbols to make words. But there are a lot more monster-y looking symbols there, reflecting better, I think, the Exalted world.

Am I reading this correctly, are you the person who created the originals way back in the dawning days of Exalted when dinos still walked the earth and JFK was president? That's really cool! I've always been interested in writer/authors that create whole languages, like Klingon and Elvish, and if you wanna give a quick play by play of how you pilfered all the mayan runes that would be really interesting.

[Zid]

Because there was no need for ANY criticism here. I don't care if he or everyone prefers the old glyphs, that's not the issue. The issue is posting about it in a thread that isn't about opinions on the look of the glyphs. When other Exalted fans tell you they don't post in this forum because they are afraid of being ripped apart, that they feel like anything here just gets hyper-criticized, then that is a problem and this right here is an example of it. I'm trying not to post this in a way that directly attacks anyone, but just look at the defensive behavior going on because I didn't just laugh it off but protested as a creator.

Welcome to the internet, Rich. Might I suggest that if you're going to pop into threads about your own work, that you first take some time to do some of the following activities:

a.) Work on your guitar fretting
b.) Walking barefoot outside
c.) Washing dishes with a course scrubber
e.) Ritualistic self-flagellation

All of these activities are known to thicken your skin. It'll help when you decide to poke your head into places where people specifically congregate to give their opinions about stuff you created.

[Fata-Ku]

Welcome to the internet, Rich. Might I suggest that if you're going to pop into threads about your own work, that you first take some time to do some of the following activities:

a.) Work on your guitar fretting
b.) Walking barefoot outside
c.) Washing dishes with a course scrubber
e.) Ritualistic self-flagellation

All of these activities are known to thicken your skin. It'll help when you decide to poke your head into places where people specifically congregate to give their opinions about stuff you created.

You haven't posted since 2015 and this is the post you choose to make? Telling Rich to flagellate himself?

Might wanna take a long look in the mirror there, buddy.

[Mister Lion]

I like them both.

I always liked that it was a pictographic language, as it seemed more reasonable to my 21st century mind that pictograms would be more easily lost.

I also liked that they were meso-American in original and feel.

I do like the newer ones just a bit more, probably because they look cleaner to me. Also, the changes that Rich made seem to follow a particular aesthetic, which gives a faint nod to the radicals of modern Chinese.

[hippokrene]

Can we possibly take the side discussion to another thread?

My enthusiasm for this one had dampened greatly since it became an argument about something unrelated to translating the text.

[ParanoiaCombo]

You haven't posted since 2015 and this is the post you choose to make? Telling Rich to flagellate himself?

Might wanna take a long look in the mirror there, buddy.

Let's take a moment of consideration before going into witch-burning mode. Let's break this down.

Hasn't posted since 2015. Hmm, I noticed a lot of people coming back here who haven't posted in awhile. Wonder wh- oh right new stuff, news and announcements. An atmosphere of something /actually/ happening. Then you go into a thread and see the owner of the company who will not go into detail about elements of that change getting offended by something he himself changed like it was his first fanfiction, and it was very light criticism at best. The post in response to all of this has an air of "I do not have time for this shit and I am done."

[RichT]

Welcome to the internet, Rich. Might I suggest that if you're going to pop into threads about your own work, that you first take some time to do some of the following activities:

a.) Work on your guitar fretting
b.) Walking barefoot outside
c.) Washing dishes with a course scrubber
e.) Ritualistic self-flagellation

All of these activities are known to thicken your skin. It'll help when you decide to poke your head into places where people specifically congregate to give their opinions about stuff you created.

Oh, the old "it's the Internet, grow thicker skin". Well, one word for that: no. That's a well worn excuse for bad behavior and it doesn't fly here.

The fact that this thread was not about giving opinions but about translating them is actually my point.

I'm going to ask the mods to close this one down, because folks are right when they post about this being a tangent to the main idea of translating the glyphs, and we'll start a new one with that topic.

[Prometheus878]

I... I don't even know what... what should... *sigh* What am I even doing here.

[Charlaquin]

Hey, folks. This thread has gone pretty far off the rails, so I am going to close it. By all means feel free to start a new thread and continuing the translation of the runes there; I think a fresh start would do this conversation good.