I generally enjoy playing with people from all arround the world. However, the expierence in the EU Timezone is generally horrible while the expierence during the US Timezone is way better.
If I host a game during the US Timezone I have no trouble at all to get people use some kind of voice chat which makes the GM Game so much easier and better.
In the EU Timezone you almost never get anyone to join voice chat because they are afraid of their english skills. I understand that. The problem right now is the chat system. It is horrible and barely deserves the name...and ofc if they won't talk to you they certanly won't write. So you try to compensate and write a bunch of of vignettes to make life easier and to get the story accross, which makes the whole expierence turn into graphic novel rather an RPG expierence.
Of course most players want to play rather to pause, read, pause, read. Especially since you cannot prepare vignettes without first pausing the game which again takes away from the expierence.
Then again all vignettes I write are in english so I notice instanly who actually reads them. I had players kill friendly NPCs because they had no clue what was going on. DO:S 2 is turning into a battle simulator on EU TZ. It is horrible. I try to tell players that they may use voice chat just to lisent to me narrate the story but most of the time as soon they hear voice chat they leave instantly.
On this forum someone else postet the question which game takes the crown NwN or DO:S2
Let me tell you how NwN did it and maybe Larian can take some clues.
When NwN 1 first launchen it had GameSpy implementet. So from the get go you had a social hub when you joined the multiplayer, with chat channels for English, Germans, Russians, Italians etc. Or Category chat channels. PvP, Roleplay, Combat etc.
It was way easier to find the right people to play with.
Also you could give your Server/Session Tags like Roleplay German or Combat English etc.
Another thing NwN1 had from the get go was a well implementet chatwindow. If the players said something their Charactername was displayed not their profilename. If the GM possessed an NPC the NPC name would show up not the profilname of the GM. It had chat bubbles over their heads of characters or the NPC, which helped alot and made the expierence better. I was admin/DM of two Persistant Worlds for 3 years in NwN 1. I lead Quest with 15-20 Players only using the Chat, only using Teamspeak to coordinate with other DMs during bigger Quests, so it is possible.
As it is right now, I barely host any games on EU TZ anymore. It just burns me out and it is too much trouble. For a simple adventure I wrote almost 40 vignettes and yet as soon they pop up some players press continue and I know they haven't read them because they can't speak the language. That is really frustrating. I'd rather wait for the weekend and host a game arround 3 am EU TZ and get some US Players than host a game on EU TZ just to have one or two players that want to play but don't understand the language. It is not fun for either players or GMs right now.
Last edited by Fandarin; 03/11/17 05:19 AM.
