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German Chat


Volin

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Hey all,

we already had a large percentage of German players, but since it's going through the roof at the moment, I think we have a very urgent need for a German chat.
I'm not so much interested in having a way to talk German in-game, but more in finding a way for the non-Germans to escape all the German chatter.

I can understand that people who have to permanently follow conversations they can't understand feel left out and that's rude.

We might also need to spread the little-known knowledge about the feature of how to leave and rejoin chat channels. But I'm not quite sure how that can be done.


What do you think?

Edited by Volin
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In general, I'm in favor of this decision. Also, not because I want to have a place to speak German in, but because I think games should not be dominated by a non-english language if we want to make it accessable to everyone, not only speakers of that language. I've seen this happen in many other games (*cough* CS:GO and Dota 2 *cough*) and it tends to lead to more toxicity in the community. Even though I am a German native speaker as well, I do not want this to happen.

One thing we have to be careful about though, is to not make this split the playerbase into several sub-communities, which are separated by language. Our playerbase, especially the non-german part, just isn't large enough for that.

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The goal is to keep our small community together.

However, if in addition to /trade /strategy /beginner we have /deutsch, and every player can use /leave deutsch command, I would not be against. All German community contributors would still stay on all English chats anyway.

Giving every single chat in the game it's own German version would be very problematic - German players would need to choose which languange they want to speak in game, and loss of hundreds players from English chats will hurt.

 

Also current state of the game motivates me to learn German -/-

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1 hour ago, Dallarian said:

Giving every single chat in the game it's own German version would be very problematic

it was meant more the way you described, a single chat the non-germans can leave

 

1 hour ago, Dallarian said:

The goal is to keep our small community together.

I think that the possibility to reduce german language in all global chats would help to this aim. I got the feeling that some are really pissed about the chats beeing flood in german, and I can even understand that a bit, the people feel excluded.

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More feedback:

After recent increase in current players... well... they all came from one country. Let's say it's no longer quality of life, but an actual problem - chat is flooded in Deutsch, and it feels atleast weird.

Individual channel would:

  1. Decrease speed of other chats, to help English users communicate with each other (majority of messages are currently german).
  2. Allow relevant area for those who speak German only, where they can ask for many things, without "blocking" other channels.
Edited by Dallarian
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I agree with this topic completely.
The Region chat should be visible by only the players from a specific region (chosen in the option menu)
Or we should have an option to translate everything in chat automatically to English from the reader side of view (not the writer's) if the option is checked.

Anyway, Devs should fix things fast, because some players have started adding non English speakers to their block list, which will just split the player base, and will make Trade and Looking For Expert Groups harder for everyone.

 

And even if we all know about the rule 1.1
"Speak English only on the Forums and Discord Server. You can speak any language in-game."

Devs should add: but speaking English in General chat, Beginner and of course Trade will make it easier for everyone.

Edited by Madmax7
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I just think it's flat out rude spamming the chat in german when you are 100% aware that there are non-german players present. You can expect someone to be able to speak English even if it's just for a couple of words, that's not the case at allwith German. If you want long chats you can always whisper each other or group up.

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4 hours ago, Demiron said:

I just think it's flat out rude spamming the chat in german when you are 100% aware that there are non-german players present. You can expect someone to be able to speak English even if it's just for a couple of words, that's not the case at allwith German. If you want long chats you can always whisper each other or group up.

thats exactly the problem I meantion in another topic. aside from contradicting yourself because it would suggest they dont speak german but also in eglish (despite the same being true for english, not everyone speaks it and "couple of words" is not enough to have a discussion of any form) the "solution" of grouping up or whispering just dosnt generally work

a) whispers work only between two players

b) often people still write in chat, be it to look for groups or ask/respond to questions while they wait for a map to fill up. you expect me disband my group to have a discussion?

and "spamming" is not the case if there is a discussion happening, otherwise everyone else would be spamming the chat in english.

when it first came up I thought "eh, I dont feel the need for a german chat" but the more I read it forums or ingame I feel the german chat is less needed for everyone else to be "save" from the germans but the germans be "safe" from everyone else.

Edited by Mighty_Rathalos
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1 hour ago, Mighty_Rathalos said:

thats exactly the problem I meantion in another topic. aside from contradicting yourself because it would suggest they dont speak german but also in eglish (despite the same being true for english, not everyone speaks it and "couple of words" is not enough to have a discussion of any form) the "solution" of grouping up or whispering just dosnt generally work

a) whispers work only between two players

b) often people still write in chat, be it to look for groups or ask/respond to questions while they wait for a map to fill up. you expect me disband my group to have a discussion?

and "spamming" is not the case if there is a discussion happening, otherwise everyone else would be spamming the chat in english.

when it first came up I thought "eh, I dont feel the need for a german chat" but the more I read it forums or ingame I feel the german chat is less needed for everyone else to be "save" from the germans but the germans be "safe" from everyone else.

Anywhere you go in the world the globally accepted language is English aside from a few exceptions. The forum is in English, Discord is in English, the patch notes are in English, official streams are in English. Not German. You MAY have the option to switch to German but it's not always the case. Meanwhile English is default everywhere. So yes, you are expected to be able to talk in English not just by me but the majority of the world.

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32 minutes ago, Demiron said:

Anywhere you go in the world the globally accepted language is English aside from a few exceptions. The forum is in English, Discord is in English, the patch notes are in English, official streams are in English. Not German. You MAY have the option to switch to German but it's not always the case. Meanwhile English is default everywhere. So yes, you are expected to be able to talk in English not just by me but the majority of the world.

and how many of the things you listed are required for the evryday life for people who live in Germany, Austria or german part of Switzerland? if your guess was "none of them" then congratulations.

there is no "need" to understand or speak english if you dont live in an english speaking country. none of those things are also required to play the game. Even if the game did not have a german client, understanding descriptions can be done with base knowledge of english, proof for that is a friend of mine who I played alot of games in english who can understand descriptions of attacks but because he never had full clases of english could not have a conversation in english.

so if you really believe the world expects you to speak english you have a very narrow mind. yes it brings alot of advantages with it but is neither required nor expected

Edited by Mighty_Rathalos
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18 minutes ago, Mighty_Rathalos said:

and how many of the things you listed are required for the evryday life for people who live in Germany, Austria or german part of Switzerland? if your guess was "none of them" then congratulations.

there is no "need" to understand or speak english if you dont live in an english speaking country. none of those things are also required to play the game. Even if the game did not have a german client, understanding descriptions can be done with base knowledge of english, proof for that is a friend of mine who I played alot of games in english who can understand descriptions of attacks but because he never had full clases of english could not have a conversation in english.

so if you really believe the world expects you to speak english you have a very narrow mind. yes it brings alot of advantages with it but is neither required nor expected

I don't know, maybe most people working in catering? Lodging? IT? You can insert almost any profession here and it still will be true. The only narrow minded person here is you, believing we are living in the middle ages where german people only speak german and nothing else. I could pack my stuff, get to Austria tomorrow and I'll be greeted by English speaking personnel in the first, second and third hostel I decide to stay in.

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59 minutes ago, Demiron said:

I don't know, maybe most people working in catering? Lodging? IT? You can insert almost any profession here and it still will be true. The only narrow minded person here is you, believing we are living in the middle ages where german people only speak german and nothing else. I could pack my stuff, get to Austria tomorrow and I'll be greeted by English speaking personnel in the first, second and third hostel I decide to stay in.

of course you will find alot of english speaking people.

But a) do you HAVE to work in those professions? no. there are plenty of profession where english is not required. heck there are alot of professions where you technically dont need to communicate one bit while on the job.

b) while IT will require english, catering does not. There are plenty of retaurants, especially in smaller towns where I was orignally from where maybe one of the staff speaks english. Friend of mine works at a gas station with total of 5 staff and he is the only one who can speak english, his friend and their dad dont speak english and the other two barely enough to say the numbers for the price in english.

heck in MANY countries there are foreigners who settled their for many generations now without even knowing the local language. Germany is no exception to that and I doubt, wherever you live, that this is not happening in your country as well.

it is in no way a requirement to speak english. and just in case you didnt notice to try to mirror the narrow mind to me, I am communicating with you in english with no issue, I understand its importance but unlike you, dont believe there is any force out there that requires anyone to have an understanding of the english language or any foreign language for that matter.

You are forcing others to do smething that can be considered out of their way so you feel better. why do they HAVE to learn english just so you can feel better?

Edited by Mighty_Rathalos
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2 hours ago, Demiron said:

I don't know, maybe most people working in catering? Lodging? IT? You can insert almost any profession here and it still will be true. The only narrow minded person here is you, believing we are living in the middle ages where german people only speak german and nothing else. I could pack my stuff, get to Austria tomorrow and I'll be greeted by English speaking personnel in the first, second and third hostel I decide to stay in.

cough cough chinese

@Mighty_Rathalos, we, or atleast people with believes similar to mine, don't have problems with people speaking German. There are people using French, Russian, Polish, Hungarian and more across in-game chat. We have no problem with that, one message from time to time is fine.

Demirion probably misrepresented a few concepts. While English is official internation languange, and languange of science, it's not important aspect of discussion.

 

The thing is, English is international European languange, and the project gathered 60 000 people capable of speaking it. After a very nice effect, which is increase in popularity and activity of the project, we got very active 21 000 people, who take ~60% of server's activity (roughly, it's difficult to say whether more people found time to play after Christmas period from those who registered, or it's pure increase by new players). In a situation where there is large amount of German players, conversations in German appear to be pretty long - and while some people understand it, in the same time it breaks English languange discussion, and frustration arises - as shown in "Growing community. Growing diversity. Growing language barrier. Growing Concern." thread.

 

I could carry on a few hours long discussions on global chat in Russian or Polish, but I would not find it proper - therefore when I speak using those languanges, I use private chats. Chats are a common good of all players, and with two large majorities (international and German players) there is conflict of interests. As you have nicely spotted:

"a) whispers work only between two players

b) often people still write in chat, be it to look for groups or ask/respond to questions while they wait for a map to fill up. you expect me disband my group to have a discussion?

and "spamming" is not the case if there is a discussion happening, otherwise everyone else would be spamming the chat in english."

 

Therefore idea behind German languange in-game chat is to allow German players carry discussions, while not interfering with English (international) part of the community. While large majority can be Germans in the project, please keep in mind that only a few Devs have such background, and neither them nor other players want to be put on side.

Please do not assess it in terms of feeling better, or anything like that. We just want to peacefully coexistent. However, you may come across frustrated people who are overwhelmed with anger. I cannot influence that, but I am sure no steps in direction of discrimination of German players will be taken.

@Demiron I understand your feelings, however going off-topic drags us away from why we gathered here. Please do not go further into this direction.

 

PS. I will probably regret writing this thing tommorow. Sorry everyone. However, I believe my intention was pure. Misunderstanding can easily lead to conflicts, therefore I wanted to describe thought process in a more detailed way, to relief all concers. I believe I understand needs of German players, but I may be wrong at that.  Also I probably wrote some trash.

 

Edited by Dallarian
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8 hours ago, xs0ulLess said:

I don't like Germans anyway

You should have read the RULES:

[GLOBAL RULES]  - 1. No Inappropriate Content 

Offensive in any way (Racial/Ethnic/Country-based)

-

People like you should be banned from the game for life

-

In-game chat is not flooded with German chat. You all overreact.

From time to time someone asks in German. Which usually goes away very quickly. That is a big problem? LMAO I don't think so #facepalm

This thread is embarrassing.

Take a chill pill.

Edited by Germansa Rebetter
rules link
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16 hours ago, Madmax7 said:

Anyway, Devs should fix things fast, because some players have started adding non English speakers to their block list, which will just split the player base, and will make Trade and Looking For Expert Groups harder for everyone.

I doubt it can make trade or LFG any harder because less than 1% of player base acts so weird.

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7 hours ago, Dallarian said:

[...]I could carry on a few hours long discussions on global chat in Russian or Polish, but I would not find it proper - therefore when I speak using those languanges, I use private chats. Chats are a common good of all players, and with two large majorities (international and German players) there is conflict of interests. As you have nicely spotted: ]...}
 

 

[...]Therefore idea behind German languange in-game chat is to allow German players carry discussions, while not interfering with English (international) part of the community. While large majority can be Germans in the project, please keep in mind that only a few Devs have such background, and neither them nor other players want to be put on side. [...}

well I myself agree with the first statement. I do not find it proper but I am capable of speaking english as I started to talk to people while learning english in school and use it in my profession as well. I always speak in english when there is just a slight chance of people notunderstanding german.

and well because of the ongoing situation (despite not feeling that the german conversation drag on in any way) I agree now that a german chat might be a good addition. At first I was against it because it might divide the playerbase in some way but now it seems not having it will do that as well. Wether it is bcause of discriminantion or sheer annoyance doesnt matter but it is clear that it does.

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Guys, alot of good discussion so far, but please keep it civil or we may need to close the thread if it gets out of hand. A reminder too that Memberating: "acting as a moderator and publicly pointing people out to the rules" is also forbidden. In the meantime, I will reach out to see what the devs have to say about this topic.

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On 1/16/2021 at 12:16 AM, Demiron said:

I don't know, maybe most people working in catering? Lodging? IT? You can insert almost any profession here and it still will be true. The only narrow minded person here is you, believing we are living in the middle ages where german people only speak german and nothing else.

That's completely off. I'm german, live in germany and know a lot of people who don't speak english at all. Or any language besides german. To illustrate my point a bit: My former employer regularly hires people for junior positions that require some basic english skills, so a very simple test of their english language skills is included in the hiring process. About 50% of the applicants fail miserably. They're not able to translate a small email (5-6 sentences, plain english with only a few technical terms - relevant to their job - thrown in) or write one by themselves. They struggle in a 2-3min verbal conversation in english, being asked basic questions about their CV. Most of them had english lessons at shool for at least 10 years and are twenti-somethings, so their english lessons are still somewhat recent. The human ability to be ignorant is amazing.

It gets worse when these people get older. They don't watch movies in english, don't read english texts, don't play games in english, don't work in jobs that require english (because their english was not good enough to get hired ...) so what little english skills they had withered away. Most jobs don't require english, so they can get away with it. At my current and past employers, mostly medium sized companies in the manufacturing industry, english was not required for about 90% of the jobs. Departments like marketing, export, engineering or it definitely require some english skills, but production, warehouse, cleaners, canteen, internal administration ... ? None of them require any ability to communicate in english and most people working there don't have any. To further illustrate: A software in use by the company got an update, about 2 years ago. The software is localised, almost everyone uses the german version, but due to an oversight the localisation for a little message box, telling the user that an update has been applied in the background and they should save their current work and restart the software, stopped working. I, working in IT, was on tech support duty that morning. I started my shift at 9 and had gotten about a dozen calls from people - who had seen the very same message box in german multiple times without any problems - by 10. They did not understand what was asked of them and how to proceed.

tl;dr, so far: Many people in germany are not able to communicate in / understand english, especially if they don't usually need it for work or personal interests.

But that's on them. They should not expect anyone to accommodate for their screwed up education. That's basic decency: I don't show up in a danish community and expect them to be happy with me talking german - even with many danes being able to communicate in german. That sense of decency is completely missing from the german crowd that's currently joining the community.

Edited by Danol
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2 minutes ago, Danol said:

That's completely off. I'm german, live in germany and know a lot of people who don't speak english at all. Or any language besides german. To illustrate my point a bit: My employer regularly hires people for junior positions that require some basic english skills, so a very simple test of their english language skills is included in the hiring process. About 50% of the applicants fail miserably. They're not able to translate a small email (5-6 sentences, plain english with only a few technical terms - relevant to their job - thrown in) or write one by themselves. They struggle in a 2-3min verbal conversation in english, being asked basic questions about their CV. Most of them had english lessons at shool for at least 10 years and are twenti-somethings, so their english lessons are still somewhat recent. The human ability to be ignorant is amazing.

It gets worse when these people get older. They don't watch movies in english, don't read english texts, don't play games in english, don't work in jobs that require english (because their english was not good enough to get hired ...) so what little english skills they had withered away. Most jobs don't require english, so they can get away with it. At my current and past employers, mostly medium sized companies in the manufacturing industry, english was not required for about 90% of the jobs. Departments like marketing, export, engineering or it definitely require some english skills, but production, warehouse, cleaners, canteen, internal administration ... ? None of them require any ability to communicate in english and most people working there don't have any. To further illustrate: A software in use by the company got an update, about 2 years ago. The software is localised, almost everyone uses the german version, but due to an oversight the localisation for a little message box, telling the user that an update has been applied in the background and they should save their current work and restart the software, stopped working. I, working in IT, was on tech support duty that morning. I started my shift at 9 and had gotten about a dozen calls from people - who had seen the very same message box in german multiple times without any problems - by 10. They did not understand what was asked of them and how to proceed.

tl;dr, so far: Many people in germany are not able to communicate in / understand english, especially if they don't usually need it for work or personal interests.

But that's on them. They should not expect anyone to accommodate for their screwed up education. That's basic decency: I don't show up in a danish community and expect them to be happy with me talking german - even with many danes being able to communicate in german. That sense of decency is completely missing from the german crowd that's currently joining the community.

Ok, I've gone off-rail. Let's stick to Battleforge, or on a larger scale, to the Internet. Chances are, you are young (before your 40s), you play games, you watch streams and movies, you play with people from other countries. Unless you're really young there is NO WAY in Hell that you don't encounter English on a daily basis. You just decide not to use it because it's more convenient to talk in your native language.

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1 hour ago, Demiron said:

Ok, I've gone off-rail. Let's stick to Battleforge, or on a larger scale, to the Internet. Chances are, you are young (before your 40s), you play games, you watch streams and movies, you play with people from other countries. Unless you're really young there is NO WAY in Hell that you don't encounter English on a daily basis. You just decide not to use it because it's more convenient to talk in your native language.

At first it's a decision not to use english, but after a few years of doing so they just can't use english anymore, because language skills that are not used will be gone soon. Again, most of the applicants to our junior positions are in their 20s and they struggle with basic english. They use only the german speaking internet, watch localized movies, streams in german, don't play with people from other countries (or games that don't require communication to play together, or have german communities ...).

It is incredibly easy to not encounter english on a daily basis, so easy that I would say it's the default option for most. Movies, series, books etc. usually get translated to german, websites usually offer localized versions (based on browser language or some other way of detecting the users language) upfront, search engines filter content based on language etc. - and there is always the option to use google translate.

Encountering english on a daily basis, even if you're young, gaming and using the internet, is a deliberate choice: To join english speaking communities, not to wait for localized versions of movies/books/whatever, actively include english search results, try to talk to english speakers, choose a job or secondary education that requires english ... .  You have made this decision, but most people have not and never will. Chances are the people you hang out with have made this decision, too (overlapping interests and tendency for similar educational backgrounds in social groups and so on), so maybe you're suffering from confirmation bias? If I'd look only at friends, family and people I'm gaming with, well, yeah: Everybody can speak english, no problem. But that's a very biased selection of people.

Edited by Danol
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Just to reiterate the dozen of times this was suggested before, and I still think this is the case and will be for a while - there is not enough players to start splitting the community into languages, regions, hair color, or whatever really. Maybe once the player count is ten times of what it is now. I think someone said it before but right now we need all the people at one place to lower LFG times, trade offer times and generally all means of any player chat interactions.

Don't split the community. Speak english like we all do. It's really just common courtesy on an english server, no matter if the biggest chunk of players is German. Definitely against this idea.

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7 hours ago, anonyme0273 said:

Speak english like we all do

Love the idea really, but sadly brings me to the opening post. As many pointed out perfectly here, too many of us germans live a bit too much in our german bubble.  

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On 1/16/2021 at 11:02 PM, Volin said:

Love the idea really, but sadly brings me to the opening post. As many pointed out perfectly here, too many of us germans live a bit too much in our german bubble.  

I understand, and @Dallarian made a good point too. Sadly though, there is just two options

1 - you make a german general chat. I am pretty sure it will become a german LFG, trade, beginner, strategy and all the other chats in once, so that means virtually all germans will suddenly be in their own separate chat. If they don't speak english in the first place, not much changes, as they wouldn't likely partake in the current chat anyway. BUT, when a guy has an LFG to a map with all german players or mixed players, I believe they will choose their native speaking peers over anyone else for convenience, thus you just split the community. Not completely, as I originally believed, but to a significant part that, I will stand by this, is not viable at this point.

2 - things stay as they are. I hope and believe most people speak at least basic english and if not, they can go voice with other german players, settle things via whispers or closed groups. It's not a requirement to speak english in life, but as things are now, the game server is purely english. I'll keep advocating to keep the existing chats an english only place so that a majority can understand, not just the biggest minority. Let's not change things for now and perhaps revisit this when there is a lot more players, then it could be beneficial both ways, but for now, my opinion is mostly unchanged.

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This new development is kind of expected since a lot of big German YTs went back to BF/skylords for nostalgia due to its recent release.

I would like to have an inclusive game environment where everyone is welcome.

I like the idea of a new chat channel, but as stated by MrXLink:

1.1. Language
Speak English only on the Forums and Discord Server. You can speak any language in-game. 

_______________________________________________

Are there numbers / statistics of playerbase by country?

 

Edited by crazykone
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