Better localisation

Hey friends it's your favourite winner over here. In my day job I preach accessibility to my teams and localisation falls under that umbrella.

We just had a player join global and speak some Japanese. Kelsie had to explain the rules (as that's the role of staff) but it struck me as a shame that these are the rules; only English in global!?!?

Suggestion(s):


A. Allow players to set their language(s) in settings and give them a Global (English) / Global (Spanish) / Global (Japanese) or whatever they picked.

B. Ched forks out a few grand for a delightful piece of software that allows a (see translation) or automated translation-attempter like many sites have

C. Abolish the English-only rule. It's not a common issue at all as the player base leans into wherever their people are... but it shouldn't be a RULE to stop non-English. If global goes Klingon for half an hour then go for it!

D. shut up and leave it how it is

Since Bog already addressed point C, I'll just address the other two.

A. I don't really see what this adds... If it's to broadcast to people what language you speak, I don't really see how that differs from the nationality honour bars... If it's to translate the page, then this point seems eerily like point B...

B. There's really two main issues with this. One is that this confuses/encourages people to talk in their native language in public areas, which as mentioned, is not something we want. Number two is that there already exists software that automatically translates webpages (Google Chrome being one of them!), so there'd be a bit of redundancy with Torn adding that.

All in all, eh, it'd be nice if people could talk in whatever language they want, but yeah, no, not gonna happen.

~ E

Would it not translate back to the moderators native language that have preset to view text in, if such an undertaking were to be implemented? Thus, there would be no need for extra channels or additional moderation.

But then you'd need enough staff to cover every possible language. And if it's just "you're allowed to speak whatever languages we have the staff to cover" then it would be relatively frequently changing depending on the current staff, which would be incredibly unfair to the people who come in here and get told they can speak, say, French, and then two months later, suddenly Julie needs to take a break for whatever reason and now they're not allowed to because the only staff member that knows enough French to moderate is now gone.

Torn brings a unique perspective. By forcing users to communicate in one language, it allows for a shared experience as we have a common ground. Games that allow users to communicate in any language feel fragmented as the player base never becomes a community, it's more of an us-vs-them mentality broken down by language. I've never seen people from around the world come together like they do in Torn, it's actually heartwarming. Yes, some people can't participate because they don't speak English, but that's the cost for the community we have. It's all a tradeoff, and I feel Torn has done a good job balancing this one.

Cutting up the user base in languages without a forced "common space" will basically cut the population into pieces that never meet. This would kill the main strength of Torn.

I vote no.

Also... Torn may be legally liable for ANY content on the site. So if you create a faction where you plot RL terror attacks in Chinese, they might be sued for being an accomplice/facilitating terrorism. (Yes, jurisprudence does exist. No, I can't be arsed to look for it on this delightful Saturday morning).

So yeah, they need to keep control.