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[Meicchi]

Sigfried, I want you to understand I'm not idiotizing people because they are unable to talk english or any secondary language, but for being unable to simply read things in their OWN language. Which was the case.

If you ignore things you're acting ignorant. Just remember that we have these options on game_rules (which is the function used both in the beginning of the game and in the Constable Graf NPC):

Code: Select all

"English", L_English,
        "Deutsch (German)", L_German,
        "Nederlands (Dutch)", L_Dutch,
        "Dansk (Danish)", L_Danish,
        "Francais (French)", L_French,
        "Castellano (Spanish)", L_Spanish,
        "Svenska (Swedish)", L_Swedish,
        "Portugues (Portuguese)", L_Portuguese,
        "Polski (Polish)", L_Polish,
        "Italiano (Italian)", L_Italian;

Ok, let's only count languages in that the Bible was translated (though I'm not Christian): so we have 0.39% of the worldly spoken languages in this menu (It would be more ridiculous if I did the account using the over 6000 languages actually spoken). This is insufficient indeed. I quite miss some mid-east and eastern languages here, another european dialects, for example. But OK, in the worst case, we have here some of the most spoken languages around. For south-americans like me we have all we need (portuguese, spanish, and even a Guianian player would find french here).

Just talking about rules. Of course it would be very, very desirable if server content and wiki reflected these languages as well, but rules are the basic thing here. Still counting we have few languages, they do make sense for, say, more than 90% of the players I've seen around (I remind alexander being chinese and vian being japanese so they're not comtemplated for these languages for example. I'm sure we may have some more asian and mid-east players around. Curiously these two are always under the rules - surprinsingly?)

So yes, most of the players can read the rules, but they don't. I'm brazilian so I know brazilian people in-game or the most of it. I can tell for sure that since I started playing (quick search on Court forum right now) half (out of 8 ) of the players banned on the botcheck were brazilian and I knew 3 of them. Portuguese is there to be read in the rules at the beginning of the game even if you don't know you can read them again at Graf. How could I tell people aren't being ignorant to the rules? They are just doing "next/next/finish" or even giving a middle finger and typing ESC on that window. Now what is about the language? They do act stupid. And surely it's not because it lacks someone to tell them about the rules as well, they can always count on other experienced players.

As I did said we really lack some languages, we lack wiki translation (my bad indeed about portuguese wiki, but I'm only one there too and sharing a bunch of other jobs), we need to show rules in players' face more often (like my suggestion of showing after registering an account, unfortunately I can't include anything on main page or special pages on wiki). But we do lack sense as well.

[Siegfried]

Hi,

i think you did not fully get it. I'm not speaking of translating any content to any language or even supporting any language other than english in any way. English is the official language, and it should be kept this way. This also means that any official GM talk should in general be in english, which also includes the responses, which should be in english too.

Too the rules are in english. Rules are official, so they should be in the official language, which is english, and it should be expected that these rules are understood. Not understanding the rules is thus no excuse for violating the rules. The purpose of such an official language is that you have to rely on the fact that everyone understands it and at least can make a rudimentary conversation in this language.

But other than that, any smalltalk, may it be whisper or guild or just general is not related to any official talk. So for this purpose any language could be tolerated. A rule forbidding this is simply unnecessary.

Still a common official language is necessary. So this rule #5 could not simply be dropped, but should be adapted to what is really needed: English as the official language in any official case (like rules or GM requests and the like).

[Meicchi]

Well, you didn't understand me too. Never said anything about forbidding foreign communication.

Whatever, let's just be friends.

[Siegfried]

Well, you didn't understand me too. Never said anything about forbidding foreign communication.

Well, but that's exactly the problem. In practice communication in laguages other than english is tolerated most times. But that is against the rules. So anybody using such a language in public violates the rules. And any GM not banning such a person is violating the rules, too. This sounds like nonsense, and indeed it is nonsense. But so are the rules. Because of this i think that this point of the rules should be adjusted and limited to what is really necessary: Any official conversation/statement/anouncement.

Whatever, let's just be friends.

I'm honoured! And: This is definitely not meant as offense. I just want to help making the whole thing a little better.

And, to repeat that again: This is not meant as offense against GMs, who all do a good job. It is just that this point of the rules does make the job for a GM unnecessarily difficult.

Currently, according to the rules, when some players use f.ex. portuguese in public just for some smalltalk, they have to be banned, because this is violating the rules. If they are not banned, then (again according to the rules) the GM has to be banned, because then the GM violated the rules. I just want to fix this nonsense.