not english...

[juniorike]

[Paprika]

I was a witness and i remember that was a private talk between two players. Not abusing/bothering other players.
IMO nothing bad and nothing to report.

[EJlol]

I dont see anything to report... just a normal conversation between 2 people...

[i]

Don't you like POLISH players?

Hey Platyna - he seems not to like polish players.


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[Sertraline]

The rule isn't "Speak English unless it is a private conversation that doesn't abuse or bother anyone else," it's "Speak English." Quit flaming the guy for properly reporting a rules violation (that, although many of us, myself included, may disagree with on certain terms, is still the rule).

[Paprika]

The rule isn't "Speak English unless it is a private conversation that doesn't abuse or bother anyone else".

It should be: im sure of it.

Because now is only one, open channel for chatting, so there is no way to keep private talks in secret. But we can learn to respect privacy of ohters: do we care what other players are talking about in private? Sure not. So its unimportant what language they are using, right? - unless they are talking directly to us.

As we may see, right now many players are following unwritten rule "Speak English unless it is a private conversation that doesn't abuse or bother anyone else". I saw today people talking private in german, portuguese and russian language (damned criminals). But nobody was against it: if im wrong, this forum should be full of "Not english!" topics. IMO this is a proper way to keep good relations in our small community: be not to strict. Law are for people, not people for law. Its a question of balance between rules and custom.

Rule "Speak English" is way too strict. It has no exceptions, therefore it should be changed into "Speak English unless it is a private conversation that doesn't abuse or bother anyone else", or soon we will see language gestapo in action.

(If somebody - just for fun - is talking to someone else in private:" Je t'aime mon amour" - should i report him? Because it was romantic for sure, but not english.)

Its time for change.

[Newbie]

This has been discussed before.

HERE

There will be personal channels or guild channels and you will be able to speak even Marsian there, untill this happen the language which is to be used on public chat on TMW official server is ENGLISH.

Take it or leave it.


Regards.

_________________
Zuzanna K. Filutowska
http://platyna.platinum.linux.pl
I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to worship me.

[Len]

There will be personal channels or guild channels and you will be able to speak even Marsian there, untill this happen the language which is to be used on public chat on TMW official server is ENGLISH.

Take it or leave it.


Regards.

And change is coming, but until that time follow the rules!

[Shaili (a.k.a. tds)]

This problem will be solved with TMW 0.1, which will implement private channels. Private talking won't be 'language sensitive' anymore, IMHO.

[fate]

Right now the rules imply that English is the canonical language of TMW. While that is certainly a reasonable premise, it wastes some potential for the game that might otherwise be exploited to (a) make the game more challenging (in the positive sense of that word), (b) turn it into an actual learning experience, and (c) attract additional content developers.

Please allow me to back up a bit. I have noticed that quite a few of the TMW players are multilingual, and I would be willing to go out on a limb here and suggest that probably the overwhelming majority of them are not native English speakers. I know for certain that there are sizeable groups of Portugese (in the Brazilian dialect) and German speakers and would not at all be surprised if there were more. In the current setup, these groups and individuals are asked to converse in English so that everyone (well, everyone who knows English) can understand everything that is going on.

However, I personally don't mind if I can't understand everything, and I know that many people agree with me (`at least in personal conversaion'). In fact, I find it quite charming when people use their own languages, and I try to pick up words and phrases on occasion. I therefore have a counter-proposal for the medium-term development of TMW: rather than restricting languages, sanction a multilingual environment by having dedicated but connected (!) regions in different languages.

Now, this proposal has some practical problems, both technical and organisational. First of all, each supported language will have to be supported by a dedicated community (of native speakers, presumably), but each of these communities must stay in contact with each other, to ensure that no language community `breaks' another language community. If community A expects potion P only to be accessible through a certain quest, then community B offering that potion in a shop may break the game balance. If community A states that king K1 is the ruler of the land, and community B states that king K2 is the ruler of the same land (where K1 <> K2), then this is confusing and detrimental to game atmosphere. Note that the first problem can be addressed mechanically (by restricting the expressivity of the quest/shop scripting language and performing standard program analyses), but the second requires organisational measures and plenty of communication.

Second, there are technical problems. TMW is not fully multilingual at the moment (some characters break in the log, though this may have been fixed in 0.1.x, but there also is no CJK support, e.g. via SCIM). Also, items and creatures that are implicitly named by the engine (Dagger, Snake) have different names in different languages. There are several possible solutions to this (name depends on where you found the object, name is enforced by personal language settings where possible, multiple names are shown where applicable, names are printed together with translation in default language if you have seen the same object in both your native and the current language etc.) that would require a policy discussion and coding, though. Finally, the `respawn point' of each player should probably vary, depending on which language they most identify with, thereby requiring an early choice on this matter.

So these are the problems. But what are the benefits? First, the game world immediately becomes more exotic. If you can't understand the local language (or only fragments of it), then you are up for more of an adventure (What is this? Is it armour? Can I eat it?). You may have to enlist the help of a local to understand a certain quest. And they might lie to you.

Second, the game becomes a learning experience. Racking up experience points until you're level 93 is fine, but that's not something that will help you on your CV or on your next trip to San Jose. On the other hand, knowing the Portugese word for `chainmail armour' might. (Or, well, the word for `beer', to pick a slightly better example.)

Third, there might (I dont' know for certain, of course) be additional content developers willing to take on the individual corners of the world alotted to their particular linguistic community. Rather than spending their energy and efforts on translating the entire game from scratch, setting up a separate server, and communicating the presence of that server, they could help more directly, allowing the world to grow (a) faster and (b) from more individual brains.

In summary, changing the current one-language setup to a multi-lingual, multi-cultural setup might enrichen the world substantially. While there would be organisational and implementation cost involved, the game might benefit considerably, becoming more challenging and deeper, and inviting support from more individuals.

Alright, this turned into rather longer a message than I had anticipated... sorry about that. So, any thoughts?

[Crush]

So you suggest that we actually have an english area, a portugese area, a german area and so on in the world where all the npcs and the items which are bought there are in the local language?

[fate]

Effectively, yes. The areas should not, however, be duplicates of some template area with only different names, but rather individual and distinct.

[Sertraline]

Rule "Speak English" is way too strict. It has no exceptions, therefore it should be changed into "Speak English unless it is a private conversation that doesn't abuse or bother anyone else", or soon we will see language gestapo in action.

(If somebody - just for fun - is talking to someone else in private:" Je t'aime mon amour" - should i report him? Because it was romantic for sure, but not english.)

I'm sure most anyone here who plays the game with any regularity agrees with you. However, if you follow the forum with any regularity, you'll also notice that this topic has been brought up time and time again and the rule, although absurdly strict, is not going to change.

When you permit others to break it or knowingly break it yourself, you are exercising your right to civil disobedience. But implicit in the idea of civil disobedience is that you accept the consequences of breaking the law you disagree with you should they come to you.

[Platyna]

First of all, I couldn't care less if something is romantic, cute etc.

Second, this rule is not strict, it relies on player's common sense feeling, if someone feels annoyed by the people speaking in foreign language, which is a gibberish for a person who couldn't underestand a word, and a person(s) persists in doings so, then they will be obviously banned (for a month of so). You can also enter some building if you wish to chat in your native language, other players can't hear you then, also you shouldn't speak your foreign language in a crowded chat.

Try to not be a mindless sheeps and think, it is the international community, we shouldn't be annoying to each other.

I am not going to ban these players. Also I don't care if someone is Polish or not, despite what you hear about Poland in the TV news, we are not nationalist freaks.


Regards.

[Habari]

the only English rule was made to stop people abusing other characters by speaking to them in a language they wouldn't understand , but if now we are going to have abuse by the other end , using the rule for racist purposes , i think maybe we should stop having rules and start using common sense to make justice , after all the mana world is a democratic game .
i undesstan it may be annoying not being able to understand , but why should you care for private conversations , the guy that posted the photo didntt he have better thoings to do?
I can speak 3 languages and i dont thing learning does any harm at all..
and rules are not strict obeying things like gods 10 commandments , just guidelines to help
people to life in societity please just respect people and dont turn TMW into a dictatorship..