Hi there TESTies, I've been wondering about this since I realised just how many people from all over the world are involved in backing SC:
I'm not an MMO player of any type so have no idea what's in place right now, how do current MMOs recognise global language barriers and help people of every language come together and play together? Do they even try?
Part 1) I believe the main barrier is language.
I know there are physics which mean servers are relatively local as we have now with US, EU and AUS servers, I get with this type of game it's just not possible to have one centralized server everyone from all over the world can play on, some people living on the other side of the world from the server would have lag so bad as to make it unviable for them, and that games themselves get localized into languages but once that's done, even with relatively local hubs, there will be multiple languages all plugging in to play in that same space which don't speak eachothers languages...
The US server, even if ignoring less spoken languages (why would you want to, but for the sake of argument) has 5 or 6 most popular languages under that Server alone. The EU server covers the European union which has 24 languages and that's not even taking into account non EU countries also covered by that server - For instance Norway, Switzerland, Monaco...
Rather than trying to rely on what may be the worlds most prevalent languages in English, Manderin, Hindi, Spanidh, French etc and trying to corale speakers of those into the same space, are there examples of MMOs which have attempted to solve language barriers with translation from speaker to speaker? I'm guessing constructed menu driven dialogue trees translated into loads of different languages may have been attempted, but limited to what has been built into those trees... but it's just a guess. Have you seen any existing MMO's trying to cover most languages especially in the modern era of autotranslation services?
Part B) A secondary barrier, perhaps less physically barring access to play but still impactful on the playspace social cohesion, may be cultural barriers.
For this discussion for examples we will use the fictional countries of "Taured" (taken from the urban myth https://www.historicmysteries.com/myths-legends/man-taured/863/) and "Null-Island" (A point on earth which is zero longitude and latitude and has no actual land mass, marked with a Bouy), and the practice of what foodstuffs one finds normal to go on toast. I'm not here to call out anyone out or endorese/condem any particular national norms, and I'm definitely not trying to start a debate about contentious IRL issues which may cause alienation amongst members of TEST.
If we decend into using actual examples of what some cultures do which your own finds unusual which may directly relate to and alienate any of the +20k members in TEST, I reserve the right to call you out and request you firstly edit your post to remove your reference and if you refuse, to contact moderation to have your post removed from my thread. Please keep it to toast, no matter how lame it is as an example. These are the rules of this part "B" of the conversation, you have been warned.
The Nullonian national dish is Baked Beans on Toast. Its crops are wheat, beans and tomatoes and their consumption of Beans on Toast is 50% higher per-capita than the next highest consumer of the dish. It is not just a foodstuff, it is a source of national pride. The population has a larger than average contingent of people with lactose intolerance making dairy unpopular there.
The Taurian national dish is Cheese on Toast. Its single crop is wheat, but has a huge dairy industry. Their consumption of Cheese on Toast is 50% higher per-capita than the next highest consumer of the dish. It's not just a foodstuff, it's a source of national pride. The population has a larger than average contingent of people with tomato intolerance making tomato dishes unpopular there.
Null-Island and Taured have 1000 years of unbroken war in their past but have not come to blows for just over 400 years and generally have a respectful (if not distant) diplomatic relationship, but both countries have longstanding ingrained steriotypes and opinions about the other which can and do cause real offence to their citizens when bought up, the Citizens of Null-Island referring to Taurs as "Cheesies" and the Taurs referring to the Nullonians as "Beanheads".
Even with translation services enabling free and easy conversation between players of all nations as if they both spoke the same mother tongue there lays here a risk cultural contentions could, even with such innovation and pulling down of language barriers, contaminate and spill over into the game space. Translation would still turn the Nullonian word for "Bean head" into the Taurian insult "Beanhead" and it would still turn the Taurian word "Cheesy" into the Nullonian word for "Cheesy" with the resulting arguments inevitable...
So how can SC help these things not surface and negatively effect the play-space with translation and thinking about it just with players sharing a common learned language... and a common learned animosity?
The game setting is a 930 years in the future, would just saying "In 2380 Humanity attained "Pax Humana" and learned to accept people are just people, they are who they are, you are who you are, and that's okay. If you want to play in this space you have to accept that's the space you are playing in and we will remove you if you act in ways different to that."?
But is removal from the game desired? Could making players agree any animosity in the gamespace has to be purely game related, like the Earth/Terra friction, be viable? What kind of actual in-game "punishment" could be inflicted upon persons bringing IRL contention into the gamespace...? Exhile to the fringe worlds through Reputation damage, their IRL reputation effecting their in-game reputation, perhaps, filling the fringe worlds with players who are more likely to act on animosity...?
Imagine the salt if players Spectrum Up Votes vs Down Votes effected their in-game rep, too! :-D
What do other MMOs do if/when this happens? Is it just one of those inconveniences of life?
Reminder again, please keep this part "B" of the topic about Taured and Null-Islands approach to their national dishes, their shared history and their offensive national steriotypes about each other
I'm not an MMO player of any type so have no idea what's in place right now, how do current MMOs recognise global language barriers and help people of every language come together and play together? Do they even try?
Part 1) I believe the main barrier is language.
I know there are physics which mean servers are relatively local as we have now with US, EU and AUS servers, I get with this type of game it's just not possible to have one centralized server everyone from all over the world can play on, some people living on the other side of the world from the server would have lag so bad as to make it unviable for them, and that games themselves get localized into languages but once that's done, even with relatively local hubs, there will be multiple languages all plugging in to play in that same space which don't speak eachothers languages...
The US server, even if ignoring less spoken languages (why would you want to, but for the sake of argument) has 5 or 6 most popular languages under that Server alone. The EU server covers the European union which has 24 languages and that's not even taking into account non EU countries also covered by that server - For instance Norway, Switzerland, Monaco...
Rather than trying to rely on what may be the worlds most prevalent languages in English, Manderin, Hindi, Spanidh, French etc and trying to corale speakers of those into the same space, are there examples of MMOs which have attempted to solve language barriers with translation from speaker to speaker? I'm guessing constructed menu driven dialogue trees translated into loads of different languages may have been attempted, but limited to what has been built into those trees... but it's just a guess. Have you seen any existing MMO's trying to cover most languages especially in the modern era of autotranslation services?
Part B) A secondary barrier, perhaps less physically barring access to play but still impactful on the playspace social cohesion, may be cultural barriers.
For this discussion for examples we will use the fictional countries of "Taured" (taken from the urban myth https://www.historicmysteries.com/myths-legends/man-taured/863/) and "Null-Island" (A point on earth which is zero longitude and latitude and has no actual land mass, marked with a Bouy), and the practice of what foodstuffs one finds normal to go on toast. I'm not here to call out anyone out or endorese/condem any particular national norms, and I'm definitely not trying to start a debate about contentious IRL issues which may cause alienation amongst members of TEST.
If we decend into using actual examples of what some cultures do which your own finds unusual which may directly relate to and alienate any of the +20k members in TEST, I reserve the right to call you out and request you firstly edit your post to remove your reference and if you refuse, to contact moderation to have your post removed from my thread. Please keep it to toast, no matter how lame it is as an example. These are the rules of this part "B" of the conversation, you have been warned.
The Nullonian national dish is Baked Beans on Toast. Its crops are wheat, beans and tomatoes and their consumption of Beans on Toast is 50% higher per-capita than the next highest consumer of the dish. It is not just a foodstuff, it is a source of national pride. The population has a larger than average contingent of people with lactose intolerance making dairy unpopular there.
The Taurian national dish is Cheese on Toast. Its single crop is wheat, but has a huge dairy industry. Their consumption of Cheese on Toast is 50% higher per-capita than the next highest consumer of the dish. It's not just a foodstuff, it's a source of national pride. The population has a larger than average contingent of people with tomato intolerance making tomato dishes unpopular there.
Null-Island and Taured have 1000 years of unbroken war in their past but have not come to blows for just over 400 years and generally have a respectful (if not distant) diplomatic relationship, but both countries have longstanding ingrained steriotypes and opinions about the other which can and do cause real offence to their citizens when bought up, the Citizens of Null-Island referring to Taurs as "Cheesies" and the Taurs referring to the Nullonians as "Beanheads".
Even with translation services enabling free and easy conversation between players of all nations as if they both spoke the same mother tongue there lays here a risk cultural contentions could, even with such innovation and pulling down of language barriers, contaminate and spill over into the game space. Translation would still turn the Nullonian word for "Bean head" into the Taurian insult "Beanhead" and it would still turn the Taurian word "Cheesy" into the Nullonian word for "Cheesy" with the resulting arguments inevitable...
So how can SC help these things not surface and negatively effect the play-space with translation and thinking about it just with players sharing a common learned language... and a common learned animosity?
The game setting is a 930 years in the future, would just saying "In 2380 Humanity attained "Pax Humana" and learned to accept people are just people, they are who they are, you are who you are, and that's okay. If you want to play in this space you have to accept that's the space you are playing in and we will remove you if you act in ways different to that."?
But is removal from the game desired? Could making players agree any animosity in the gamespace has to be purely game related, like the Earth/Terra friction, be viable? What kind of actual in-game "punishment" could be inflicted upon persons bringing IRL contention into the gamespace...? Exhile to the fringe worlds through Reputation damage, their IRL reputation effecting their in-game reputation, perhaps, filling the fringe worlds with players who are more likely to act on animosity...?
Imagine the salt if players Spectrum Up Votes vs Down Votes effected their in-game rep, too! :-D
What do other MMOs do if/when this happens? Is it just one of those inconveniences of life?
Reminder again, please keep this part "B" of the topic about Taured and Null-Islands approach to their national dishes, their shared history and their offensive national steriotypes about each other
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