Zeal is based off of Austrailia?

[FouCapitan]

If not, could you imagine Nazi Germany wielding magic? Egh...not good.

Well that's pretty much the plot of Hellboy right there.

[Bigvinu]

Actually accents can be manipulated at a young age. For example, the child of immigrants will usually have a flawless accent but the immigrants themselves will have a hard time having a "proper" accent. Strictly speaking, accents would be influenced by what the child experiences at a young age.

[Foxx]

ooohhh.... design changes since last I was here

anyways, who says that the people of The Kingdom of Zeal has an Australian accent?

Accents change due to not only the geography, but also to the people who live there...

In that regard, you must know that Australia back in the day was used as a prison for convicts. Convicts were sent there from the British Commonwealth back in the 18th and the 19th Century.
So in essence, Australia was "built" from poor people, the undertones of which you can find today in the common Australian accent. If you listen to anyone speaking w. the Aussie accent (Croc Dundee anyone?), you can hear that it's less formal than the ordinary British accent.

The KoZ, however is a place where the higher ranks of society lives, so i'd rather think they talk with a british-ish accent, while the ones on the ground, could in theory speak a less formal accent...

Also, as English is my second Language (Danish the first), and is mandatory from the 4th grade of school here in Denmark, I started learning the British accent, though while in 5th grade I had to move to Australia (at that time (1999) I was 12 years old and I knew a lot of English before I even went to school, still with the more british accent), though about a year and a half later, I spoke fluently in a complete Australian accent... Even my dad (in his late thirties at the time) started to speak with the Aussie accent and has done so ever since, so it's not always at a young age thet accent can be manipulated...

[mav]

In that regard, you must know that Australia back in the day was used as a prison for convicts. Convicts were sent there from the British Commonwealth back in the 18th and the 19th Century.
So in essence, Australia was "built" from poor people, the undertones of which you can find today in the common Australian accent. If you listen to anyone speaking w. the Aussie accent (Croc Dundee anyone?), you can hear that it's less formal than the ordinary British accent.

Indeed, and I believe it's one of the reasons that an Australian accent was chosen--to underscore Kid's rather brutish nature. But, as you said, it's highly unlikely that Zeal, an illustrious and lavish kingdom, would have such an informal accent. I too like to think they had a British accent...but then again, I like to think anyone formal in the series has a British accent.

Even my dad (in his late thirties at the time) started to speak with the Aussie accent and has done so ever since, so it's not always at a young age thet accent can be manipulated...

Hmm, very interesting...I was under the impression that you lose the ability to gain accents with age...even if you've been in the environment for quite some time.

[Foxx]

Even my dad (in his late thirties at the time) started to speak with the Aussie accent and has done so ever since, so it's not always at a young age thet accent can be manipulated...

Hmm, very interesting...I was under the impression that you lose the ability to gain accents with age...even if you've been in the environment for quite some time.

it mostly depends on the individual's interest in learning the accent, especially at that age... to be frank, my dad was quite eager to pick up the Aussie accent
Mostly, though, the border of accent learning lies at about 10-15 years of age if you want to learn it fluently without thinking how you talk and stuff...

[utunnels]

Talking about the accent auto generating system, the NA version really benefited from it a lot.
The JPN version used that, but sometimes they still had to make multiple dialogues for different characters to avoid grammar troubles.
For example, Nadia Bell scene, they made more than 10 different "who are those children...?".
And it seems there's a separate dialogue for Leena in the Fort Dragonia scene at the very beginning.

[xcalibur]

i havent read through the entire thread, but id say that Zeal is based on Atlantis and ancient greece.

for a long time, westerners/europeans saw the ancient greeks as being a great civilization which originated thier way of life, as well as ideas/science/philosophy... and they were a superior culture that existed thousands of years ago. Zeal also existed thousands of years before the present, and they placed a strong emphasis on science and philosophy. not only that, but in ancient greek tragic plays, the main character would usually be destroyed by his hubris/ego - and the ocean palace and attempt to gain immortality from lavos through the mammon machine can be seen as the ultimate act of hubris which brought destruction on zeal.

theres also a big influence from the myth of Atlantis - an ancient civilization more advanced than the present day, which was on its own island seperate from the rest of the world, and was catastrophically destroyed.