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DISCLAIMER: The following is not meant to endorse any racist or offensive behaviour ever.

Recently I came across some articles of a well-know multiplayer videogame, where it is possible to read that a lot of players from other countries have become exasperated with the presence on their regional servers of people coming from a particular abroad region. Leaving aside all the rants about cheaters/hackers, I would like to ask about another aspect of the fact: while I do realize that teamplay with people who cannot even speak English (I'm no English-speaker native speaker either) can be very hard and sometimes frustrating, I also do realize that it's a videogame, therefore I mostly let these guys have their fun.

Considering that:

  • I'm talking about team games
  • It is possible to not let people in and fill empty team slots, but these non-English-speakers leave the team open anyway
  • No communication leads to a somewhat frustrating game for everyone
  • Having less people in your team than the other makes the game much more difficult
  • It is very possible that them not speaking English is a cultural problem (not being able to attend to a language course for example)
  • They join a regional server, whose region is far from theirs

How can I make them aware that the presence of people not speaking an international language results in a worse experience?

Noldor130884
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    There's no such thing as *abroad* on the internet. – gerrit Feb 21 '18 at 14:03
  • I wonder if this fits better on [communitybuilding.SE], if reformulated appropriately. – gerrit Feb 21 '18 at 14:04
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    Does the server have guidelines, set by the owners/administrators/hosts of that server? Do they say anything about languages allowed? Or is this purely some of the players on that server complaining? – Erik Feb 21 '18 at 14:05
  • First of all, you might want to read [this](https://interpersonal.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2355/1599), questions on etiquette/netiquette are okay, but we'd rather not see questions asking whether something is rude... I also agree that each server might have its own netiquette, so what game are we talking about? – Tinkeringbell Feb 21 '18 at 14:18
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    @Tinkeringbell from what I gather it's most likely PUBG and the whole issue with chinese players on the US/EU servers. – Suthek Feb 21 '18 at 14:23
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    We aren't really here to tell you if things are "considered rude". That would be cultural and opinion based. – JMac Feb 21 '18 at 14:31
  • A couple of answers to your comments (even if the question has been put on hold): Gerrit you are right about the "abroad" thing. Still we are talking about regional servers. Erik no, as far as I know you can't be penalized for not speaking a language. Tinkeringbell, yeah I realize that it's kind of a strange question, but as a matter of fact I would try to understand exactly whether the majority of people is right or if the problem is just a rant. Suthek I omitted the game name and the nationality to avoid a biased approach. AndreiROM I get that, but it would be frustrating for *everyone* – Noldor130884 Feb 22 '18 at 06:38
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    @Suthek the same is true for Dota2 and EU-West servers, and many other games. – Mafii Feb 22 '18 at 08:08
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    I'm sure there is some interpersonal element in the question, but with the specific medium involved there is no opportunity for non-verbal communication, nor is there any way to suggest a verbal approach. I think the answer would be better coming from an expert gamers point of view. – Astralbee Feb 22 '18 at 09:40
  • Is there anything keeping you from leaving a team quickly once you realise you've run into another bunch of non-English speakers you can't communicate with? Is there anything keeping you from starting your own team and possibly even kicking out everyone who doesn't communicate? – AllTheKingsHorses Feb 22 '18 at 10:49
  • Astralbee yes, at the moment there is no opportunity for non-verbal communication, but it seems somehow that *some behaviors* (e.g. streamers making fun of some people) do influence the community. What I meant to say is that there *are* channels for dialogue. @AllTheKingsHorses well for starters there is an annoying wait time before you can play again. You could lose points too. You *can* start your own team (if you have teammates), but if you want to play in a team with random people, 80% of the time you will encounter the problem I'm talking about. There is no way you can kick people. – Noldor130884 Feb 22 '18 at 11:11
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    What methods of communication are available? An interpersonal solution requires that you can talk to them in some way, if they're unable/unwilling to talk then, whilst your situation is doubtless frustrating, I'm not sure what you can do but I don't think the solution is an IPS one. – Lio Elbammalf Feb 22 '18 at 11:13
  • Well you can speak with people who do speak English and still come from that area, you can use the internet to reach them in some way... I'm not really frustrated, because - let me make it clear - it still is a game, but I would like the community to understand them better and for them to understand the community better. – Noldor130884 Feb 22 '18 at 11:18
  • I'm honestly tempted to move this to Arqade. My understanding is that they do address this sort of situation. They would also be able to suggest non-IPS solutions. What is the difference between someone being unable to speak English at all and being able to listen but not interact due to anxiety? Or someone who can't hear who wants to play the game? – Catija Feb 22 '18 at 19:48
  • Do you have any accurate method for determining in specific instances that these non english speaking players are actually in a different region? – Jesse Feb 23 '18 at 01:35
  • @Catija If you think it's best, please do. Believe me when I say it is not about anxiety in this case. Hearing-impaired players would be even in disadvantage, because the whole game revolves around sound mechanics. Jesse oh yes. You can *definitely* recognize their language or name. Plus a ton of them likes to boast about their nationality. – Noldor130884 Feb 23 '18 at 06:27

2 Answers2

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I am a gamer myself, and I know exactly where your frustration is coming from.

Sadly, there is nothing you can do about that.

Talking/chatting with them will not achieve anything, because they do not speak your language.
Using Google Translator to translate a rant is techincally possible, but in practice they will just laugh at you and call you a flamer.

The problem lies in the setup of the game itself that allows people to join Servers that are not in their country.
The developers of your game are very aware of the problem at hand, but there are many many other reasons why they decided to build their server-setup / game design like this.
These devs are the ones who are responsible to prevent your problem before it happens by changing the game architecture.

Until they do, there is nothing you can do to stop people from joining foreign servers. It will keep happening if they are able to do it.

These people have their own reasons why they would choose to play on a foreign server. A random, angry dude (which is how you are seen by them) is not going to stop them from doing it further.

The only way to be sure to avoid these annoying players is joining the game with a full party of friends. But I know that you can't do that all the time. So when you play with foreign players again, mute them and use communication with the other english speaking teammembers.

Most games that apply to your description also have non-verbal ways to communicate like a chatwheel (predefined sentences that will be translated to each player's own language), pinging on minimap and the like. Be sure to use those to communicate with your muted "friends".

kscherrer
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    "call you a flamer." - which would, incidentally, be absolutely appropriate. – Peter Feb 22 '18 at 19:51
  • @Peter Why would you say that trying to make people aware that they're ruining the game for others is related to flaming? It would be if you begin insulting them or making fun of them in a racist kind of way, which *incidentally* is not the answer I'm looking for. – Noldor130884 Feb 23 '18 at 06:31
  • @Cashbee thanks a lot for the answer. Looks like the problem is a non-trivial one. I'm very sorry, though, to notice that situations like this promote anger towards people coming from certain countries and nothing can be done about it at IPS level. – Noldor130884 Feb 23 '18 at 06:38
  • @Noldor130884 telling your teammates - before you even started the game no less - to leave and play somewhere or something else, no matter how nicely you say it, is the very definition of flaming. – Peter Feb 23 '18 at 09:46
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You really can't. One's spoken language (which is usually tied to nationality) can be a sensitive topic. Many people will subconsciously take bringing up the language barrier as an insult to their language (and perhaps even nationality) and make them aggressive.

Also, telling them that their language barrier is an issue is like saying, "Stop playing the game you like because you don't speak English." It will most likely make the other player resent you and make the situation worse. They may even resent English speakers even more after a situation like that.

It's unfortunate that the lack of communication in games where being able to communicate can give you a HUGE edge and win/lose you games. But the key to gaming is to not let these situations get to you. You notice the situations with non-English speakers because they're more obvious, but similar situations happen all the time with English speaking teammates who are just uncooperative: language is just one barrier in team play.

But if you do want to communicate something to them, I would avoid "calling them out" and instead trying to learn a little of their language to improve communication. I personally had a situation in which I was matched with a Chinese teammate in PUBG and wanted to communicate with him so I simply looked up some key phrases like "stop", "go", "careful", and even "thanks" in order to more effectively communicate with them. It worked wonders and turned into a good memory among my friends. It's a difficult process but if you have the time to construct a shared language it can do a lot to improve your games and even your own team play skills.

Arthas
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