Poll: Does WoW need a language barrier anymore?

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  1. #1
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    Does WoW need a language barrier anymore?

    So here I am sitting in the middle of a roleplay server-wide event, now on this server there are far more Alliance than Horde. Now long story short a third faction in this event was made composing of races from both sides, but it wasn't until now that I realised how much of a pain in the arse this language barrier is.

    I'd really like to talk with friends and allies on the opposite faction, but because the experiment with forsaken knowing common in the beta was abused by PvP and general knobheads no Horde races can officially speak common in gameplay.

    Why should the barrier be dropped?
    1. There is no lore to support such, every race knows common in lore and there has very rarely been any Horde member that can't speak it to my knowledge.
    2. It makes communication a pain if you happen to have a group of friends on the other side, you can't just talk and go but instead have to add one another to Real ID or Battletag to talk as opposed to just talking and going on the fly. (Minor gripe in fairness)
    3. In large gatherings such as the event above, unless EVERYONE is in the same conversation it is very easy to miss out on information and it's just plain frustrating when the "enemy" faction are talking rapidly but you can't have one poor soul translate EVERYTHING through Real ID.
    4. No other MMORPG has one (Again, to my knowledge), Rift, Guild Wars 2 and other such games do NOT have a language barrier blocking any and all communication between enemy teams or factions. Inability to party up but last I checked Rift didn't have a language barrier, but I may be recalling wrong.

  2. #2
    Number one isn't true.

    Very few people in the Alliance and Horde can speak orcish / common (respectfully) fluently. The rest either know enough to shout death threats and communicate on a very base level, or they don't know any.

  3. #3
    Elemental Lord Spl4sh3r's Avatar
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    They should make is so outside of PvP it should be possible. As in battlegrounds and arenas you can't talk to the opposite faction :P

  4. #4
    The Lightbringer Hanto's Avatar
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    With the amount of players WoW has to any other MMO that has split factions, I believe a language barrier is necessary. I'm happy I don't have to see kids stroking their dominance over my alts when I get obliterated in any sort of PvP. The overall maturity of the community would soon become apparent if the barrier was dropped.

    As a second thought, if you have a group (large or small) of friends that are split between factions, that's dandy. There's third party technology that allows you to communicate regardless of who you're associated with in-game. If it's really that much of a pain, I'm sure downloading free VoIP software will be like Tylenol to a headache.

  5. #5
    Scarab Lord foxHeart's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Madgod View Post
    Number one isn't true.

    Very few people in the Alliance and Horde can speak orcish / common (respectfully) fluently. The rest either know enough to shout death threats and communicate on a very base level, or they don't know any.
    But pandas, jinyu, hozen, saurok, mogu, yaungol, and even the sha can all communciate with the Horde/Alliance with no difficulty whatsoever. I guess they were all taught common and orcish in school. lol
    Look! Words!

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Madgod View Post
    Number one isn't true.

    Very few people in the Alliance and Horde can speak orcish / common (respectfully) fluently. The rest either know enough to shout death threats and communicate on a very base level, or they don't know any.
    Pretty sure they can, I mean, the tauren and orcs back in WC3 could start communicating RIGHT AWAY. There was no fiddling with trying to find a language they both knew, just "Hi." "Hi. Sathp centaur?" "Sure!" and they were off. I always imagined common was just that, common. Or at the very least, the equivalent of english whereby most countries at least have it as a second language if not first.

    I do note though it is a fiddly thing, we keep seeing inconsistencies about it. But even so, how would organisations like the cenarion circle or the Argent Crusade work properly if the races did not have a universal language between them? Most of them are from Horde or Alliance races, yet they came together, again, right off the bat.

    Again though, it is a tricky thing. But I would enjoy maybe a quest or something to learn common or orcish, dependent on what faction my current character is on.

    Quote Originally Posted by foxHeart View Post
    But pandas, jinyu, hozen, saurok, mogu, yaungol, and even the sha can all communciate with the Horde/Alliance with no difficulty whatsoever. I guess they were all taught common and orcish in school. lol
    Exactly xD

    With the amount of players WoW has to any other MMO that has split factions, I believe a language barrier is necessary. I'm happy I don't have to see kids stroking their dominance over my alts when I get obliterated in any sort of PvP. The overall maturity of the community would soon become apparent if the barrier was dropped.
    No worse than any other MMORPG or, well, ANY multiplayer PvP game. And even then, I shrug it all off myself and toxic behaviour is reportable. Look at LoL for example, both teams can openly communicate with /all. While yes a lot of the time it's used to hurl abuse at the other team, such things are reportable and in many cases laughable. And lets not forget, LoL has the single biggest playerbase for any multiplayer PC game. More so than WoW I believe. ^^
    Last edited by mmoc21a935316c; 2013-02-05 at 09:04 PM.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Ranorack View Post
    Pretty sure they can, I mean, the tauren and orcs back in WC3 could start communicating RIGHT AWAY. There was no fiddling with trying to find a language they both knew, just "Hi." "Hi. Sathp centaur?" "Sure!" and they were off. I always imagined common was just that, common. Or at the very least, the equivalent of english whereby most countries at least have it as a second language if not first.
    Quote Originally Posted by foxHeart View Post
    But pandaREN, jinyu, hozen, saurok, mogu, yaungol, and even the sha can all communciate with the Horde/Alliance with no difficulty whatsoever. I guess they were all taught common and orcish in school. lol
    Welcome to gameplay, gentlemen. Warcraft III would have been MUCH less powerful of a story if they kept strictly to lore. Gameplay tends to overshadow lore for the sake of ease on the developers, and it has to in order for a game to work. Lore isn't really a core aspect of the mechanics of the game (talking raw mechanics here, not class flavor and the like, which does draw from lore). The big exception is of course this language barrier.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ranorack View Post
    I do note though it is a fiddly thing, we keep seeing inconsistencies about it. But even so, how would organisations like the cenarion circle or the Argent Crusade work properly if the races did not have a universal language between them? Most of them are from Horde or Alliance races, yet they came together, again, right off the bat.
    They learn common or orcish, depending on the race that is typically in charge of it. They actually have a reason to do so. A soldier of the Horde doesn't need to know common. His job is to kill his enemy, not have a conversation with him.

  8. #8
    People are frequently abusive to people on their own faction in PvP, it'd be absolutely awful if you could talk to the enemy.

  9. #9
    Scarab Lord foxHeart's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Madgod View Post
    Except with this language barrier, which in fact is lore made gameplay.
    I'm sorry, what? The forsaken didn't "magically" lose their ability to speak common when they joined the Horde and neither did the blood elves. Welcome to things that don't make any sense, "logically".
    Look! Words!

  10. #10
    No, it would be a terrible thing to do during an expansion that is supposedly really focused on the Horde VS Alliance conflict. If that were to ever be announced the forums would be flooded with "World of Lovecraft" posts. Not that Blizzard cares too much about the forums; however, it would be difficult to argue with anyone saying WoW received the "care bear" treatment after a change like that (among others). The Horde do not like the Alliance, the Alliance do not like the Horde. Why would each faction learn the other's language?

    Perhaps if they made it so that Mages, a class powerful in intellect could communicate with the opposite faction to an extent...even then there would be a shitstorm of "BLIZZARD LOVES MAGES OMGDHFJUJOJ!!!111!" The language barrier is mandatory...

  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Spl4sh3r View Post
    They should make is so outside of PvP it should be possible. As in battlegrounds and arenas you can't talk to the opposite faction :P
    Why not? You have always been able to face your own faction in arena, and you can talk to them. I don't see how there would be any difference if you faced the opposite faction?

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by foxHeart View Post
    I'm sorry, what? The forsaken didn't "magically" lose their ability to speak common when they joined the Horde and neither did the blood elves. Welcome to things that don't make any sense, "logically".
    Forsaken originally could speak common and therefore the language barrier originally kept to lore. However, it undermined the gameplay mechanic, and therefore consistency with the lore was lessened in favor of consistency of gameplay. They did the same thing with the sin'dorei because allowing them to speak common would break the mechanic.

    It's a lore-derived gameplay mechanic... but it's a mechanic now. It doesn't need to be 100% consistent with the lore. It was simply made with the lore of these separate factions having separate languages in mind.

    Again, blame the fact that gameplay mechanics overshadow lore.

  13. #13
    Mechagnome Darced's Avatar
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    I think this is becoming more of a question about "Lore" versus "Practical use." It's important for story, but not game-play, necessarily. The two are not one in the same, rather they are perspectives, favored ways of experiencing the game. This creates a dilemma, how will this rule of the "Language Barrier" progress? I suppose it will follow popular demand, what's more important in WoW? Story or Game-Play?

    Personally, I dig the barrier. It creates for us a mirror into our own world and how possible interactions could develop. In fact, I think there should be more differences; holidays for example. Not only would we have a specific celebration per faction, but this would isolate the opposing players. Increase individuality while magnifying human nature within a simulated environment. While this may create tensions it will also make the game feel more real. I vote for more differences and autonomy, view the player population as it once was.

    A World of Warcraft.

    This has some relation. Imagine under different conditions in-game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrupted_Blood_incident

    If people react to a simulated disease like this, imagine a harsher language or 'culture' barrier in WoW. I think it'd be interesting.
    Last edited by Darced; 2013-02-05 at 09:27 PM.

  14. #14
    agreed, and it should just be common through a /say. I mean we communicate with /e and /emotes all the time. We all understood Arthas when he spoke. I get the purpose but for as long as we've been these heroes working with all these factions and races we should have a common language skill by now. I feel like it should be a lvl 90 thing or at cap or after x amount of exalted reps as a reward. Or a reward from a rep that requires you to deal with both factions etc.

    I don't think the community would be worse for it. Win trading would be easier though.

  15. #15
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    Someone on the EU forums a while ago suggested some sort of RP flag function, essentially when you and another person of the opposing faction have it enabled you may communicate. But when you have it disabled, you cannot understand it. Don't see why this couldn't work, if you don't fancy being insulted by the enemy faction just keep it off. But when you want to talk either for gameplay or roleplay reasons then you can enable it and disable it later.

    Granted, people can still abuse it. But as with any trash talker, there's a lovely report button for them.

    I just don't see why it's needed to prevent trash talking, when pretty much every other multiplayer game deals with it just fine. And yes, there are times when lore must bow to gameplay, but it has worked the other way around in the past. I mean, it's why we're not just Blue VS Red, Halo style.
    Last edited by mmoc21a935316c; 2013-02-05 at 10:05 PM.

  16. #16
    Role-player Nonfictionless's Avatar
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    unfortunately the wow player-base is just too immature to do this. I personally don't see a need for the barrier and never have. In fact it was one aspect that made me fall in love with Rift. Especially now with the Defiants and Guardians being able to join groups, be freely in almost any location (save their main cities) and even be in the same guild. But then again with all the PvP I did there, I never once saw anything close to the childish, phallic-ish behavior you see from your own faction on WoW, let alone the other.

  17. #17
    common is just that common. its a language all races speak with ease.

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Ranorack View Post
    Someone on the EU forums a while ago suggested some sort of RP flag function, essentially when you and another person of the opposing faction have it enabled you may communicate. But when you have it disabled, you cannot understand it. Don't see why this couldn't work, if you don't fancy being insulted by the enemy faction just keep it off. But when you want to talk either for gameplay or roleplay reasons then you can enable it and disable it later.

    Granted, people can still abuse it. But as with any trash talker, there's a lovely report button for them.
    .
    Not a bad idea, but people will just auto disable it like the mature language filter. And Blizzard will have to investigate all the new complaints for smack talk. A customer service nightmare.

    Quote Originally Posted by krunksmash View Post
    common is just that common. its a language all races speak with ease.
    There is no language "all" races speak with ease. Common is simply called such since the humans just are way more people than their allies. Common just is the native language of most people. In Teldrasil in Lore common won't be common at all. Common does not describe ease of learning but simply the spread of the language.

    And as has been established, Gutterspeak and the inability of the bloodelves to speak common are are gameplay crutch, just to keep the language barrier intact. If you see how people even communicate on the forum after they had at least a log-on-and-type-post time to cool off, a langauge barrier in game is reasonable. Especially if you keep the teen rating of the game in mind.
    Last edited by Khorianas; 2013-02-06 at 05:57 PM.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Khorianas View Post
    And as has been established, Gutterspeak and the inability of the bloodelves to speak common are are gameplay crutch, just to keep the language barrier intact. If you see how people even communicate on the forum after they had at least a log-on-and-type-post time to cool off, a langauge barrier in game is reasonable. Especially if you keep the teen rating of the game in mind.
    Yeah, it would be off by default I should think.

    I still don't see how it would be much worse than the smack talk between teams on LoL and other multiplayer games. LoL is infamous for having a horrid community (And often rightly so) but it retained a teen/PG/12 rating as far as I recall. After all "Online experience cannot be rated" as every online game is labelled right by the ESRB rating is true. When a game is given an age rating, only the game is counted, not the community.

    And in honesty, I've often gotten worse abuse from my own teams than the enemies. Heh. So while I see a concern, if the feature was not enabled by default, there would be no sudden increase in smack talk in the world as many would probably keep it off. (I know plenty who didn't know about how to toggle the mature language filter for example). And even then, people just need to remember the ignore button too if some idiot goes spamming (And report, of course.) which also applies to my own faction already.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by foxHeart View Post
    I'm sorry, what? The forsaken didn't "magically" lose their ability to speak common when they joined the Horde and neither did the blood elves. Welcome to things that don't make any sense, "logically".
    My first question is why are you looking for logic in a game, a fantasy game no less..
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