Cyrylic alphabet support enabled only on specific servers?

[FIREk]

Now, before someone comes here and drops the discrimination card or something, I suggest that only European players take part in this thread. Unless, of course, hordes of Russian players also dwell on American servers.

I should make it clear at this point that it's not about cheating (which Russians are, allegedly, notoriously doing) or the people themselves - it's about chat spam.

I've heard of countless F2P games that are dominated by Russians, but have only experienced this in APB: Reloaded or, as I began calling it after a while, APB: Russian. ;)
I'm pretty sure it's not like 90% of the game's players are from that country, but when you look at District chat, that's the impression you get.
Russians dominate the chat with their crazy Cyrylic alphabet and after a few weeks no one even bothers to type anything in English. Both European APB:R servers have essentially turned into Russian servers, leaving little for us non-Russian folk to comfortably play on. :p

I don't mind people from different countries playing on the same server as me. Hell, I'm often ashamed when I see how my fellow citizens act in some games. However, Russian players are a very unique force in F2P games and I dearly hope most of that, should there be any language restrictions on some servers, they will prefer to play on their own ones.

Maybe the Cyrylic alphabet could be disabled only on Global and Local channels (anything publicly available), but enabled on /tell, /squad /platoon, /outfit etc. This stops their inevitable spam, but still allows Russians to both play on European servers, but also form their own outfits and play in squads.

The point is, I don't want the Russian people to be effectively banned from half of the European server, I just don't want to see their unintelligible spam everywhere. ;)

What are your experiences and/or thoughts on this?

[etheral]

If the russian players are the majority, then its only reasonable that their language be the dominant one. The same applies if the majority of players are German, or French, or what have you.

The fact that their cyrillic spam is unintelligible to you is irrelevant if the majority of the server are Russian speakers. You'll just have to man up and use private comms, like every other non-english speaking outfit/guild/whatever in a game dominated by english speakers.

That said however, after my experiences in Eve with Red Alliance I do agree that Russians seem to do things a little bit differently in MMOs than most others :P

[Talek Krell]

I'd say it depends on server pop/location, whether it occurs often enough to be an issue, and whether there even is a global anymore. And yeah if EvE is any indicator then the Russians certainly have their own way of doing things.

[NewSith]

I've been telling this for quite a while. There's a great difference between a F2P Russian community and a Sub-Based Russian community. Age group is the most common difference.

However prohibiting cyrillics will not be as helpful due to a magical thing called TRANSLIT(eration).

So instead of:
Привет, как дела, нубики?
You'll get:
Privet, kak dela noobiki?

That's the main reason I'm against F2P model. Buy to play - sure. DL and play - no.

EDIT: A good thing also that is in PS1 is that there iss no global chat for everybody. It really helps to keep immature idiots out of the chat. Independently of language and age.

[FIREk]

I don't have the numbers, but the feeling I got while playing APB:R is that most of the players were from Western and Central Europe. A lot of the Russians, even though they weren't not the majority, simply dominated the comms, because they could (and still can). ;)

I don't know how popular PS2 will be at the beginning, but if it's launch is big enough to sustain 3 or more servers in Europe alone, I think it would be best if the Russian gaming community had at least one for themselves.

Even if there were no mechanics to enforce this (like disabling their alphabet on public comms channels), simply adding "RU" to the name of one of these servers should convince most of them to play there, unless they have friends playing on the non-RU server(s), of course.
If I recall correctly, in the original APB Russian gamers preferred to play on Russian district, and the language in the comms channels was usually appropriate to the district (English, German, French etc.). On the other hand, there might have been less of them, since APB wasn't F2P before it got Reloaded. ;)

[NewSith]

I don't have the numbers, but the feeling I got while playing APB:R is that most of the players were from Western and Central Europe. A lot of the Russians, even though they weren't not the majority, simply dominated the comms, because they could (and still can). ;)

I don't know how popular PS2 will be at the beginning, but if it's launch is big enough to sustain 3 or more servers in Europe alone, I think it would be best if the Russian gaming community had at least one for themselves.

Even if there were no mechanics to enforce this (like disabling their alphabet on public comms channels), simply adding "RU" to the name of one of these servers should convince most of them to play there, unless they have friends playing on the non-RU server(s), of course.
If I recall correctly, in the original APB Russian gamers preferred to play on Russian district, and the language in the comms channels was usually appropriate to the district (English, German, French etc.). On the other hand, there might have been less of them, since APB wasn't F2P before it got Reloaded. ;)

You're honestly a lucky man not to understand what russian APBers are saying. Sadly I do. And that only strengthens my point and my position against my fellow countrymen.

[FIREk]

However prohibiting cyrillics will not be as helpful due to a magical thing called TRANSLIT(eration).

Yeah, I know however the inconvenience alone might be enough. ;)

Since you're obviously knowledgeable (I remember your thread about the Russian games expo), could you go into more detail how the Russian MMO community looks like?
The stereotype paints them as cheating, griefing dicks that typically form their own sub-communities in games, but I'm curious how this really works. :)
How different are the F2P and sub-based communities there, in practice?

You're honestly a lucky man not to understand what russian APBers are saying. Sadly I do. And that only strengthens my point and my position against my fellow countrymen.

My buddy's girlfriend knows some Russian and I've been brought to understand that they can be pretty vulgar and offensive. Is it more like "often", "always" or just "sometimes", though? We only asked for a translation if the person writing on District chat was someone we just had a mission against.

[NewSith]

Yeah, I know however the inconvenience alone might be enough. ;)

Since you're obviously knowledgeable (I remember your thread about the Russian games expo), could you go into more detail how the Russian MMO community looks like?
The stereotype paints them as cheating, griefing dicks that typically form their own sub-communities in games, but I'm curious how this really works. :)
How different are the F2P and sub-based communities there, in practice?

Just one picture and you'll get it. F2P is the crowd.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/online_gaming/1.jpg
http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/online_gaming/2.jpg
http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/online_gaming/3.jpg
http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/online_gaming/4.jpg

Also a note about:
"cheating" - It's just the fact that Russians rarely cheat to win, but rather cheat to CHEAT (???) That's why it's easier to catch them. But I do agree though, russians do that more often for some reason.
"griefing dicks" - That one is untrue, I mean it. I've much more often seen Americans and EUs griefing rather than Russians.
that typically form their own sub-communities in games - I would read a lecture about it but in 6 words: language barrier due to bad education

[Mirror]

Only english should be allowed in public chat channels. Players should be silenced for using anything other than english.

[NewSith]

Only english should be allowed in public chat channels. Players should be silenced for using anything other than english.

So you want to potentially silence every last newbie in this game that doesn't speak fluent english?

[Mirror]

So you want to potentially silence every last newbie in this game that doesn't speak fluent english?

In the likes of command chat/platoon leader/squad chat/broadcast/local. tells would probably be ok.

[FIREk]

Only english should be allowed in public chat channels. Players should be silenced for using anything other than english.

The occasional non-English line of text isn't a problem. It never was. There's only one group of people whose comms are an absolute flood, as I'm sure NewSith can confirm. ;)

Typically a noob will write something in their language and, within 20 seconds, someone will tell them that they should communicate in English. They may even do that in the noob's language, to break the language barrier.
(some will be assholes, though, and will continue to use their native language because they can, but they'll shut up eventually, once they get bored:p)

Some outfits will show their recruitment spam on public channels - a lot of them will be in German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish or whatever. And that's fine. It lets people who don't know English well enough find people to play with.

You can't do these thing if all non-English languages are outright disallowed. Luckily such a thing couldn't be enforced, though, so there's no problem. ;)

[NewSith]

In the likes of command chat/platoon leader/squad chat/broadcast/local. tells would probably be ok.

Well, one can't just whisper random people in his language hoping that they speak it and they're vets. Most obvious move is to ask for help in a public channel. That complicates things due to no-sanc thingy in PS2.

[Mirror]

Perhaps they could make it a requirement and put it on the box


Internet Connection required to Play
25Gb Hard Disk Space
4GB of RAM
Players must use English in the public chat channels
Video Card - 512MB

[NewSith]

My buddy's girlfriend knows some Russian and I've been brought to understand that they can be pretty vulgar and offensive. Is it more like "often", "always" or just "sometimes", though? We only asked for a translation if the person writing on District chat was someone we just had a mission against.

The ones to endlessly type in public chats are "always".

The ones to play in a mature group - something between "rarely" and "never". When I was in DoW for instance there was a rule saying "Vulgarities prohibited" Excessive strong language could get you kicked from the outfit. Independently of it being a player-to-outfit or player-to-non-outfit interaction.

Also well-minded russians rarely say anything in chat, other than gl, or gg.

[Sirisian]

So you want to potentially silence every last newbie in this game that doesn't speak fluent english?
No offense to non-native speakers, but that would be amazing. I used to play a lot of random games where you'd be put on teams with like Brazil players a lot so it was impossible to communicate. Forcing English doesn't really solve that so much since then they'd just not talk. :lol: However, when using English it would be cool to ban AOL speakers.

[Brusi]

um, how about if they provide the ability to mute non-english character sets? "I don't like it" isn't really the best reason to disable communication for a potentially large userbase... Is it?

[FIREk]

um, how about if they provide the ability to mute non-english character sets? "I don't like it" isn't really the best reason to disable communication for a potentially large userbase... Is it?

That would be even better, yes. :)

[Aractain]

I will only support this if there is a Professional Russian here to make sure this is done properly.

[Baneblade]

Wait a sec, Russian is the big worry for PS2 and not Chinese?

[LostSoul]

Wait a sec, Russian is the big worry for PS2 and not Chinese?

To be honest, if they get the mission design and the voice macro design in properly it would lower the language barrier that exists in the current Planetside.

With the mission system in I doubt there will be a [global] channel and more squad/outfit/custom chat channel setup and thus no " cr5s " shouting random hate over [global] in many different languages.

[Grimster]

Just one picture and you'll get it. F2P is the crowd.

<Images removed>

Also a note about:
"cheating" - It's just the fact that Russians rarely cheat to win, but rather cheat to CHEAT (???) That's why it's easier to catch them. But I do agree though, russians do that more often for some reason.
"griefing dicks" - That one is untrue, I mean it. I've much more often seen Americans and EUs griefing rather than Russians.
that typically form their own sub-communities in games - I would read a lecture about it but in 6 words: language barrier due to bad education

OMG that comic made me laugh so hard I almost started crying. :)

[bjorntju1]

Just one picture and you'll get it. F2P is the crowd.
comic here

And that is my main reason i am not a fan of Planetside 2 being F2P. I really hope it will be a boxed copy you have to buy in retail stores.

[Rbstr]

"I don't want to sound racist...but..." and its variations is a sure fire way to tell someone is about to be racist.
If you have a problem with people speaking languages other than yours in an internet game you have some issues to work out.
Really, your argument only amounts to "I don't like seeing those characters in my chat window". It really is the essence of a racist/ethnist/xenophobe-type argument. Any of your perceived russian gamer traits exist in the english speaking world and limiting in game chat really has no effect on that kind of behavior because they could just use private chat, or romanize the characters and chat in the open or private chat.

Unicode support all the way baby.

As far as cheating is concerned: They're subject to all the same rules any other player is.

I do thing F2P does enable the cheating element to some extent...but it's got nothing to do with what alphabet or region the cheater is in.

[Sirisian]

Rbstr, no one brought race or ethnicity. Me thinks someone feels guilty. :lol:

Unicode support all the way baby.
That would be hilarious if we had unicode character names. Can't remember the game I played a long time ago. It allowed any character name, even duplicate ones, so you were given a short ID number to communicate to specific people with.

Also we should allow this:





ZALGO҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐� �̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑͡… HE ̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̊ ̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎… ̔̕̚̕̚ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓ ̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿… ͡COMES!!!




What the European servers do is up to them.

[Traak]

It is so easy.

You receive ONLY chats, of ANY kind, in only the languages you select to receive.

If Tovarisch Dyachenko wants you to see what he says, he will have to do it after sending it using English letters.

If you want to see Russian and Mandarin, you will see those. Otherwise, no.

[Rbstr]

Rbstr, no one brought race or ethnicity. Me thinks someone feels guilty.
Read the first fucking line of the first fucking post.
Now, before someone comes here and drops the discrimination card or something, I suggest that only European players take part in this thread. Unless, of course, hordes of Russian players also dwell on American servers.

The thread's premise is to exclude specific groups' writing systems on that basis of those groups being annoying when talking in their native language or somehow more prone to aberrant behaviour than others. It's exactly an allegory to any number of other superficial discrimination schemes, racism included.

What exactly am I guilt of, besides calling it what it is?


Aside from that, you have a valid argument for exuding other alphabets: If typing is going to the the primary method of identifying objects/people and those could be named outside the bounds of some standard keyboard. A well designed game and chat system should make that a non-issue.
That was, however, not part of the argument until your post just now.
And eliminating character sets has nothing to do with the requirement of using English, specifically, to chat. As everyone knows you can write other languages in other alphabets.