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Growing community. Growing diversity. Growing language barrier. Growing Concern.


Fabry

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

Today i got told that i should refrain from speaking german (my mother tongue) in the in-game chat becouse some players would put me on their ignore list. That would make many key assets of the game (asking questions, trading, in-game lobby chat for coordinations, etc.) with said players impossible.

I have to be honest, altough i find that topic interesting (and kinda understandable), i find that suggestion very harmfull for the all in all playability and community of this game.

I myself preffer to speak english ingame becouse the english speaking playerbase is simply bigger in size. But, if people, who i speak the same language with (that maybe, dont speak good enough english to ask a question in english) ask a question in german, i will be answering them in full (in german).
Becouse if anyone, may it be english or german or wathever, needs help with something they shall receive it. That is what a healthy community is all about.

And the best part is: We cant do anything about the ever growing german playerbase. Two big YouTubers recently made Videos about this game. Plus! This game was and is still the favourite game of many german gamers.

If there really are players out there that cant stand hearing (or reading) other people conversing in other languages than english, then, to be honest, maybe i dont want to trade/talk/play with them.

I would love to hear everybodies opinion on this.

(sry for any typos. german guy with an engish major but still german)

Spoiler

I thought about language specific chats but i just cant stand the idea of dividing people per language (or race or color etc.). And trust me, I, as a german, know what im talking about ;) (PLEASE take this sentence as a joke. This is the internet.. So i think i should clarify that the last sentence was wrote with humour in mind).

879733554_Screenshot(8)_LI.jpg.921d2c745ac884449d84172ac2d7faaf.jpg

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Often there are important things to communicate regarding the strategy. 

If someone refuses to participate in a common language even if they are aware that the other person does not understand german, russian, etc than it is a big drawback to go in game 

It causes frustration which some people simply prevent by not playing with a person like this

Not only that, but you can say whatever you want about me in a langugage I wont understand, so I cannot tell for sure you are not flaming etc while I try my best to get in contact with you

This is not an issue for someone who knows multiple languages to just switch, but can be even more frustrating for some younger player knowing only 1 language 

 

 

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Woudnt be a simple and effective solution to this problem to just talk in anyones native tongue, inn whispering? Someone not speaking or understanding english can ask something in global or whenever but there is no need to answer in lets say german in the chat as well. 

Cause its true that its annoying to the majority having witnessed it first hand the chat filled in german in beginner, global and trade at the same time (no joking), propably cause there is no point in what channel you answer since everyone is watchable at the same time. Someone not knnowing or understanding the languege watching an entire discussion in it while trying to spot a WTS/WTB or whatever in chat just doesnt work out, so the extreme of him putting you in the ignore list is kinda understandable. And surely you dont want people to start using this solution freely as lets say you answer in German once, instantly be put in someones ignore list and then thats it you never trade with him again in chat.

And simply the endgame of people freely using their languege in chat and having a constant flood of English,German and add everyone elses language just makes people not look at the chat anymore. Just the same if you had to watch me talking with someone in constant Greek and having the entire server watch us

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I think understand your points of view.

48 minutes ago, Rankerz said:

This is not an issue for someone who knows multiple languages to just switch, but can be even more frustrating for some younger player knowing only 1 language

The sad thing is, there are still lots of young german people, even lots of teenagers and adults, that dont seem to understand english well enough to be able to make conversations with it. I think i will just try to make them (the german playerbase) aware of the problem and will have to see whats comes of it.

Maybe they can understand it better if someone explained it in their language.

But i still think that a chat filter, to filter for language would be usefull.

Edited by Fabry
Typos
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As pointed out in the other thread by @Dallarian, a /deutsch chat (if possible) would help alleviate this problem by having a place where Germans can, without judgement, speak German to each other. Anyone who doesn't want to speak it can simply /leave the chat like I do with trade. To make this even better it would be great if there was a command to permanently leave a chat group. Right now I have to /leave trade every time log-in and it would be the same for a /deutsch chat. 

For context. the old Battleforge had an entirely German server there were so many Germans, so a single chat seems acceptable without threatening to fracture the community.

Edited by WindHunter
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5 minutes ago, WindHunter said:

As pointed out in the other thread by @Dallarian, a /deutsch chat (if possible) would help alleviate this problem by having a place where Germans can, without judgement, speak German to each other. Anyone who doesn't want to speak it can simply /leave the chat like I do with trade. To make this even better it would be great if there was a command to permanently leave a chat group. Right now I have to /leave trade every time log-in and it would be the same for a /deutsch chat. 

For context. the old Battleforge had an entirely German server there were so many Germans, so a single chat seems acceptable without threatening to fracture the community.

"I don't use the trade chat. In fact I disabled it in the config files." - I do not know how to do that, but it's a possibility.

I wish /deutsch was a thing, however it's not trivial to implement, and Devs are working on stability of server first, so I am afraid every action will be postponed in that matter.

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Hey,

Sorry that you are potentially being discriminated for the language you speak, however, it seems to me the message you sent was not a threat or something rude. I can't say for sure if this is happening or not. I understand the point of answering in german, especially because it is much harder to translate ingame text (no ingame translation/copy message to paste in external translator option), as well as answering said question in public channels, because the community is so big, that there is a high chance it could benefit other (german) people.

Adding new language channels is never an easy decision, as apart from the effect on the community, we also need mods who could easily moderate the new language that are added.

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It's a massive problem that the Devs cant change the available chats due to not having access to source code. 
This problem wouldn't be much of an issue if we could simply have an english and german global. 

That said, co-op matchmaking with a language barrier is a bit of a pain, i dont mind other languages at all but if i cant communicate with the person I'm playing with that sort of kills my desire to co-op at all.

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well, I received the same whisper today and I partly agree with whats said above. I do speak in eglish almost all the time. To me, it often feels like second nature and consider it the way to go in a community of people mixed from all around the world.

That being said I know that even from other who went to my own school and even my own classes, that learning a second language isnt always easy for everyone (lets ignore those who simply dont want to) so it can always happen that people can only (comfortably) communicate in one langauge.

Also, while I agree that purposely speaking a different language to exclude (or even worse to insult) other people is BAD, this is usually not the case of whats going on. Someone starts a topic, whatever it is and that may cause several people to start a converation/discussion about it that the participants only have the open channels to talk in. Only other way would be they are forced to open a group for that but often I speak in channels while waiting for the party to fill.

I also agree with the mentality of "if someone asks something in german, I will answer in german" wether that is because they cannot, don't want to or just don't feel like asking it in english.

 

I dont see a problem if people write in russian either unless it is in a groupchat despite being capable of speaking in english because that makes discussing the map tactics difficult.

 

and if any of this makes me end up on peoples ignore list because they feel somehow harmed by me sometimes writing in german then I dont feel like those are the kind of people I feel like spending time with anyway because often, people who are triggered that easily are also not the most reliable anyway. I play this game for fun and nostalgia.

 

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so I took a bit of German in college, and went to Germany for a summer, and so I can understand it just a little when I'm seeing it typed out.  I'm a little fascinated, and not offended by it.

 

But here's the thing you gotta understand, IMO:

When someone puts you on ignore because they can't understand your language, it's not a judgement on you, necessarily.  It's not even saying they're upset at you speaking non-English. 

All it's saying is:  That person doesn't see any purpose in having you in his chat windows at this moment.  And those chat windows are INCREDIBLY cramped- you have to make the most of your space as it is.

So... I mean... I don't think it's being discriminated against.  I think it's a quality-of-life choice for that user, which has nothing to do with you. 

 

Now... understanding that... you have a choice about whether you're going to speak non-English or not.  There are pros and cons to both, as you've outlined already in your post :)  But no one has to "not" block you just for equality's sake.  

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Since the Region chat isn't working as intentded to, since we can't "leave" the beginner chat because we'd miss out on important informations, many players agreed on to use the Ignore option to keep the chat understandable.
From what I read in your screenshot, there is absolutely no anger, it's just something you might get aware of, that players may use this only option against non english speakers. It has nothing against you especially or German speakers. And it won't be used automatically, only in some cases.
It just seems like the only way found, waiting for the devs to create a better solution.
The best I can think of would be being able to choose a region in the Option Menu (or the Flag from the launcher), and only the ones who picked the same Region will read the same "Region chat".
It will be the best solution to keep the General, Trade, and Beginner understandable by everyone.

Edited by Madmax7
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20 hours ago, Fabry said:

If there really are players out there that cant stand hearing (or reading) other people conversing in other languages than english, then, to be honest, maybe i dont want to trade/talk/play with them.

That's completely besides the problem. I'm from germany and german is my native language, so I definitely can stand hearing or reading german. But i think it's incredibly disrespectful to join an international community and then refuse to use a language everyone else understands.

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If you know english but choose to speak German instead then you're knowingly and purposely making chat more unfriendly and useless for everyone who doesn't know german.

I personally block/ignore anyone who doesn't talk english because seeing non english in chat makes it useless. My native language isn't english yet I only type english because it's better for everyone involved, I can communicate with more people and if people happen to be observing chat they may get something useful out of it instead of people looking at chat and feeling left out or feeling it's useless seeing it.

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21 hours ago, Dallarian said:

"I don't use the trade chat. In fact I disabled it in the config files." - I do not know how to do that, but it's a possibility. 

I could make a short tutorial on how to edit the config files to disable the auto-join chat fuction.

Personally I don't use /trade and only get triggered by the frequent scammers in there, that's why I don't join it. You can also disable the auto-join for all other chats. 

@me if someone is interested, I'll be able to do it tomorrow and would link the tutorial here. 

Edited by Mynoduesp
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Disabling a channel will make us miss some important informations, especially for Beginners or General.
They could rename a channel General1 and General2, and we would agree that most players would join General1 to speak English, and General2 for other languages.
It won't have join nor leave the channel General2, because I'd have nothing to do on it.
It's not like leaving the channel Beginner, because many great infos are on it.

Edited by Madmax7
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Just repurpose any of the channels to allow for all languages to be spoken there freely. Don't like it? Leave the channel. 

Although, it might increase discrimination if English speakers push those speaking foreign just to that channel. Might or might not work, devs could give it a test run. 

Edited by Sykole
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To whom it may concern ( @Dallarian @Volin )

I've made a short tutorial on how to disable the autojoin chat function. If you don't want to autojoin any specific chat follow the easy instructions and be free from typing "/leave XY" in chat every time you startup Battlefoge.

Regards,
Myno

 

 

Edited by Mynoduesp
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  • 2 weeks later...
17 minutes ago, Mighty_Rathalos said:

so? and even if we were 80% of people here, the issue still remainds. its an issue for some and that can cause concern

Thats just an issue with most european countrys, alot of people are not to much into English. I was suprised the game doesnt have just /language tabs consider it has so many diffrent weird tabs.

 

EvE online runs on one server and has 30k concurrent player from all over the world, it has common Chat and also language based chats which are especialy used by beginners. I dont think it threatens the english community or unity of the community just because there are also players that dont interact in english with people.

 

P.s. i also said "funny" because someone said "people should talk in the common language" which would technicly be the one which is used by the majority :D

Edited by Sekij
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37 minutes ago, Sekij said:

Thats just an issue with most european countrys, alot of people are not to much into English. I was suprised the game doesnt have just /language tabs consider it has so many diffrent weird tabs.

 

EvE online runs on one server and has 30k concurrent player from all over the world, it has common Chat and also language based chats which are especialy used by beginners. I dont think it threatens the english community or unity of the community just because there are also players that dont interact in english with people.

 

P.s. i also said "funny" because someone said "people should talk in the common language" which would technicly be the one which is used by the majority :D

true, that games like EvE have this but EvE is also a game constantly in developement by the people having access to the source code and worked in a constantly changing environment. this game is a 10 year old reverse engineered game that handled multiple servers for the different regions back in retail. and wether having those channels in this one server is a good idea or not depends on who you ask.

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I've actually reached the limit for the ignore list, that's just how much german talking there is in beginner chat non stop, once it's possible having seperate chats for specific languages would help tremendously, as it stands I opted out of auto joining beginner chat because it's not so much beginner chat as much as it is German chat with 95% of the messages there being in German.

Also basing the common language on the server population is just silly, it would then just change whenever there's an influx of players from a different country, that's why English is generally the common language used on world wide games.

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