Cyrylic alphabet support enabled only on specific servers?

FIREk · 2011-09-25, 01:54 PM

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.

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 · 2011-09-25, 04:05 PM

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 · 2011-09-25, 05:13 PM

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 · 2011-09-25, 05:23 PM

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 · 2011-09-25, 05:24 PM

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 · 2011-09-25, 05:30 PM

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · 2011-09-25, 05:30 PM

Originally Posted by NewSith

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?

Originally Posted by NewSith

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 · 2011-09-25, 05:35 PM

Originally Posted by FIREk

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.

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 · 2011-09-25, 05:39 PM

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

NewSith · 2011-09-25, 05:47 PM

Originally Posted by Mirror

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 · 2011-09-25, 05:57 PM

Originally Posted by NewSith

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 · 2011-09-25, 06:00 PM

Originally Posted by Mirror

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

)

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 · 2011-09-25, 06:02 PM

Originally Posted by Mirror

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 · 2011-09-25, 06:07 PM

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 · 2011-09-25, 06:14 PM

Originally Posted by FIREk

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.