Basil Fawlty (John Cleese) in "The Germans" episode of Fawlty Towers fashioned "(d)on't mention the war" to really mean "yes do, incessently" and "what is the buffoon going on about," depending upon your seat on that stage.
In a virtual world, where you parked your seat might also affect the client software you are using. For example, Eve-Online has started offering a German client for Germans to interact with the universe of Tranquility [FN1]. I have an English version. Neither version helps when it comes to communicating with each other: in the reaches of Eve-Online areas where German seems to be the first language, I am still at a loss for words.
None of this will help me make the fly-in from (e-)Boston to (e-)Keflavik this Sunday (see here) - my "Virtual Air Traffic Simulation Network" (VATSIM) simming skills are not up to it yet. Yet, the Germans I've encountered in Eve-Online might explain the odd sensation I had the other day looking into Microsoft Flight Simulator X...
In the Flight Simulator universe, modding aircraft (e.g. new models) and scenery (e.g. more detailed 3D textures/models for airfields) is as old as the hills. Yet the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator (version X) apparently allows developers to create a fuller range of simulated objects (see the SDK). For example, I read somewhere that one could create AI whales swimming off the coast of Nova Scotia.
This is a point that distinguishes a single player game from a multiplayer game client. In the single player game what I see is of no matter to you. Whereas, in the multiplayer game perhaps it might be. But not always.
If you are flying around in VATSIM and are able to see whales off Nova Scotia and your wing companion cannot, yes this is an inconsistency in the game world that separates you from him. However, since VATSIM is not about whale watching and it since it is also a world where one can participate with different versions of Flight Simulator with different sets of scenery installed, it is fair to guess that these differences don't matter. A cooperative player universe means that were there any gain from seeing those whales I couldn't use it against you.
This would be less true for other worlds where you and I may be in direct or indirect competition. Let's say you can mod up your client software in such a way that provides you with some advantage over me, is it unfair if I don't share it with you? If I were a hyper suspicious Eve-Online player I might want to have a look at that German client (humor).
I think I'll go whale watching instead.
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[FN1] See here:
REYKJAVIK, ICELAND - AUGUST 16, 2006 -- CCP, creator of MMOG EVE Online with 170,000
subscribers worldwide, will launch a German version of EVE Online at the Games Convention
in Leipzig, Germany, August 24-27, 2006. The German client will be the first localized
version of the EVE Online client on the Tranquility cluster. Visitors to the Games
Convention are welcomed to view the first showing of the German EVE Online client
in the CCP stand B05 in Hall 5 of the Leipziger Messe.
"We have been waiting for this moment for a long time to offer localized versions
of EVE Online, and this marks the beginning of a new chapter for EVE Online,"
said Nathan Richardsson, Senior Producer at CCP. "German is the first language
we offer besides English on our Tranquility cluster and we hope that the German
players will appreciate this new feature. A lot of work has been done to prepare
the EVE Online client for localization and we have plans to support other languages
in the very near future."....
If you have any sort of stopover in Keflavik then it's essential that you take advantage of the fact that it has the most relaxing passtime in the world: a regular bus service runs from the front of the terminal to the Blue Lagoon volcanic spas, a series of outdoor rockpools where you can lounge for a happy hour or so (you usually get a ticket free from Air Iceland on check-in). Take your own gear or hire some there with towels and the like. Even better in winter than summer, too!
[Insert something about virtual worlds here. Probably saunas in Second Life if you're brave.]
Posted by: Endie | Nov 24, 2006 at 11:52
It's probably not made clear in the article or the press release: The name of the universe is EVE or New Eden. Tranquility is the name of the main game server that everyone plays on (except for China, which gets their own server, Serenity), whereas Singularity (aka Sisi) is the public test server and a few other internal test servers have similar codenames (i.e. Entropy).
>Let's say you can mod up your client software in such a way that provides you with some advantage over me, is it unfair if I don't share it with you?
CCP's TOS thinks so. Player moding of the client is disalowed. This is probably true for most comercial MMOs.
Posted by: Elle Pollack | Nov 25, 2006 at 09:26
World of Warcraft supports modding of UI, e.g. see here.
Posted by: nate combs | Nov 25, 2006 at 09:32
You already have that german client: there is only one EVE client. Just switch over to german :)
Viel Spaß!
BTW: localized clients are a double-edged sword. On one side, they divide the community, on the other side they allow players to comprehend what's going on if they are incapable of speaking english.
But there's different approaches in localizing itself: translate ALL (like in WoW) or translate only item and mission descriptions as well as client messages (like in EVE).
The latter keeps the different players still somewhat in sync while the former completely seperates one from the other, creating entirely distinct communities.
Complete localisation would be utterly stupid for EVE where all players inhabit the same server. WoW provides plenty of different servers and so Blizzard is able to run language-specific worlds for german, french or spanish speaking players.
Despite being german, I play WoW (and EVE as well) with the english EU-Client. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to really use tools like thottbot.com or MapWoW.com. Because most items and Mobs as well as many locations have a completely different name if you play with the german client.
Some of these tools are available also in german but their content mostly is copied down and translated from the original english-language sites and therefore not as complete and up-to-date like their original counterparts.
Posted by: Dyardawen | Nov 25, 2006 at 11:15
Dyardawen>
You already have that german client: there is only one EVE client. Just switch over to german :)
-----------------------------------------
You're right - a number of langauge options including German are offered in my client. Its funny how as an English speaker I never tuned into the availability of these other options. I wonder whether this awareness (or lack of) is equally shared among all language groups. It sounds like from your description that other language player groups are more likely to be aware of and users of at least one other language localization (English).
Posted by: nate combs | Nov 25, 2006 at 23:47
Eve has very robout protection against client "hacks". Including blocking the font mods which ~25% of the community used until the "fix" of several months ago.
Funny, the devs stopped giving the resular monthly ever-higher subscription counts after that. One might even think that the default font was poor...
...Nah. Heh.
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | Nov 27, 2006 at 06:10