Anyone else playing MMOs and online FPSes encountered people who react very angrily to any non-english chat? I realize some games and servers encourage English (or presumably “localized language”) chat for ease of communication, but… I see this quite often when there’s any amount of non-english chat in online games, and it’s always struck me as xenophobic and unpleasant.
Thoro
2
I’m not a native speaker of English myself, and I tend, even in groups where there are some members from my own country, to ask anyone speaking Norwegian to keep it to English out of simple courtesy for anyone who doesn’t understand it. I have a similar feeling about chat channels and the like. It’s an English-language game, not everyone speaks your language. It’s just a matter of being polite. And if you seriously don’t speak enough English to make yourself understood, how are you playing a game where all the text is in that language?
I won’t get all fired up about it, though, and anyone who seriously gets angry over it needs a chill pill.
Perhaps they should play on a server in a country where everyone else can understand them? Either their ping times are stupid, they are deliberately using another language (I consider it rude when people right in front of me stick to a foreign language, especially when I know they can speak English.), or they are living in an English speaking country and cannot speak english… and that’s only acceptable for so long.
I don’t mean any polite or reasoned requests, I mean the people who are apparently affronted by the sight of foreigner-talk.
Speaking English on primarily English servers is a good practice in general, but… to me it’s like shouting at someone on a bus for speaking Chinese, not like your two Chinese friends talking Chinese to each other while you three are hanging out. In the latter case you’re entitled to get a bit snippy with them for being impolite to you. In the former I’d find it shocking; who asked you to be the audio police?
kerzain
5
It never bothered me in text chat, and I’ve never experienced it in voice-chat. Having grown up in Los Angeles though, I can’t imagine it would bother me – unless I knew they were making fun of ME~! OMFG
This really seems like a P&R discussion, because it touches directly on politics. Regardless, this is the same crowd which only knows how to call people ‘fags’ and does so on an alarmingly frequent basis. You may be asking a bit much from 14 year old gamer mouth breathers, or at least reading things into the actions of people who probably can’t read at all.
I know what you mean, but I was interested more in the games forum’s experience of this.
The way I see it, if the game is mostly English (i.e. Game title, localization and it doesn’t have a specific tag to its server, like “PVP-Russia” or “PVP-Deutsch” for instance… ) then the General chat language should be English. As that is the language everyone knows how to say “f#?! you!” in, so it is easier to be rude to others that way.
Alternatively, you could play, for instance, APB:Reloaded on Obeya English server, and pick up a quick lesson in Russian, including a lot of bad words, since most of the General chat seems to be in Russian… Or World of Tanks where you see a lot of German in chat for some reason… and the moderators constantly asking people to speak in English.
If someone just spams with their jibber-jabber it is easy to put them on ignore… and if a lot do it, its easy to leave the channels (usually) or just ignore the chat altogether.
That said, I’ve mostly seen this refusal to speak English in General chat from Russians and Germans, but it could be because their English skills suck, or they are just very nationalist and think everyone should Sprechen the parlez. :-)
Aeon221
9
It’s frustrating when I run alliance ops on Perp and the French speaking part of the alliance outright refuses to chatter in English. I mean, it’s one thing when it’s just chat and smack, but you need to be passing back information on wtf you are doing in English.
But when it’s “hang out on ts” time, who cares, blabber in furriner til your tongue falls off.
Yeah, I’ve seen it, and I don’t like it (people yelling at folks for speaking something other than English). For one, I really probably don’t care what you are saying, so go ahead, speak Sanskrit for all I care. If you want to reach me, you’ll speak something I can understand, and if not, no skin off my butt. For another, the Internet is global. Yes, there are servers that are localized, and yes, if you really want to communicate globally in a game you should probably use the majority language, but in a lot of games–World of Tanks, for instance–about the only chat you have is global chat, so if you want to communicate with someone in your language, other people will hear it. I’ve never heard of people on EU servers saying ‘keep it to Danish’ or something like that, only Americans demanding people speak English. It’s arrogance, plain and simple.
ShivaX
11
I don’t care if other people say whatever in whatever language, but it bugs me when they’re on an English server and don’t speak any English. WoT comes to mind in that respect. But I realize they often don’t really have any other options since theres no Pacific server.
The Russians and Euros that do it kind of annoy me though.
If someone’s speaking something other than english in an english language game, they’re screwing with communication which hurts everyone, in exchange for personally being more comfortable or feeling special when you encounter someone else on the internet that speaks the same language with you. I can understand being upset over that - you’re not supposed to put yourself first, since you’re playing together. This is especially bad if it’s a team-based game, you’re just sabotaging your team.
If you’re looking for a pure gaming perspective, then “It depends.”
If it’s a general pubbie game where teamwork is a nice idea, but not really important, then no. I don’t really give a happy fuck what language people are communicating in. Try this in a game where teamwork is essential or at least very important, and I really think they need to join a different server or start using English. A player who is communicating in another language is indirectly having a negative effect on the team.
This isn’t arrogance, English is the Lingua Franca of the modern world, Danish is not. And it’s not only Americans - English is perfect to use even when none of the people speaking it are natives - because it’s so ubiquitous.
The thing is, rarely if ever do the “speak English!” complaints have anything to do with communication or teamwork. Sure, in a squad or team, you have to communicate (in English, French, Esperanto, whatever), but nearly all the time you hear people complaining it’s simply because they’re being chauvinistic. At least, that’s been my experience.
In what games has that been? I’d say that if it isn’t anything but an MMO where people are just hanging around, speaking in a language that excludes some of the players is detrimental. Sure, it’s cool that you share a language with some of the group, but you’re playing with everyone.
Most of the English chat even in a game like WoT is less “enemy at 11 o’clock low” and more “fuck I hate the nerf to the 76mm.” I have to assume that non-anglos speaking non-anglo are even less likely to be communicating vital tactical information in other languages, given that they probably know almost no one understands it.
Hmm. So when a non-English native (For instance, a Norwegian) asks people to use English in General chat, they are chauvinistic?
I’ve mostly seen the “Speak English” comments come after several lines of text in non English being spammed in the Global chat channels in the games I have played over the years… except for in APB:Reloaded, where I feel English speakers are in a minority :)
After a few years of Barrens Chat in WoW, or basically any other MMO released after, I must say I have mostly given up caring about the language spoken though, since it is mostly the same being said in all of them since 2006-ish.
For a few months after release of the game…
- “This is so much better than WOW! LOL!”
Then:
Or if the game lacks the bare necessities:
- “LF1 TANK/HEALER for <instance-name>”
No, not when someone is actually interested in communication–but then, I’ve almost never heard this. Virtually every time in my experience it’s American yahoos simply being yahoos. Again, if the purpose is communication, it’s entirely fine to try to get everyone to communicate in a mutually understandable language. But that isn’t the case, most of the time, in my experience.
Really, are you seriously suggesting that in most multiplayer games the chat is actually useful, and about the game? In what game is that, I might ask in turn? Again, I can only speak from my experience, but the vast majority of times I’ve played in multiplayer games (and this stretches back to hacked together Hellfire Diablo on dialup, and pay by the hour on Genie), virtually nothing useful is ever said in chat unless you’re in a specific team, guild, or group for a particular reason. General chat is universally crap.
