Leaving Tamar

[Matador]

To all who are interested:

After much thought and consideration I have decided to leave Tamar. My main reason for leaving concerns the massive disadvantages I have faced and lost out to in this game due to the language barrier.

This is a German game developed and played mainly by German people, and as such the forum (a main part of the game itself) is ALMOST completely German biased. Now, I can completely understand why this is the case and indeed I also understand that not all German players are in a position to translate their posts to English anyway (nor would they want to even if they could) but the consequence of this is that any English player in the game faces massive disadvantage.

At first I felt I could face this disadvantage, and tackle it as "an extra challenge", but my efforts have proved that this is not realistic.
Whenever I find a post which I know concerns me, I will make efforts to translate it via online translation tools. The translation is always poor but most of the time you can get the general idea of what is going on. This is fine, but unfortunately it is not always immediately obvious that a post does concern you, and since it would be impossible for me to translate and read all new posts in the forum, I have often missed important announcements that have directly concerned me and I have lost out as a consequence.

Recently another post in the forum that directly concerned me slipped by unnoticed because there was no obvious way of knowing it's importance unless you're a German speaker, and as such I have lost a tactical advantage to another player who of course speaks the language. This lost advantage has caused me to lose yet another massive opportunity in the game, and has been the final straw for me to be honest.

In short, I am not critising everyone for not making more effort to translate all their German posts to English. I completely understand that this is bound to be a German biased game due to it's origins and I accept that. Unfortunately though, as a consequence of the massive disadvantage an English-only speaker faces in this environment, I feel my game success has been based more on luck than skill.

I only see one realistic solution for English players, and that is for a seperate Tales of Tamar game to be created just for them. Then the German speakers would have their game, and we would have ours. I don't expect that Wolfen would want to do this, and so I feel I am forced to leave Tamar.

I have had fun playing and do feel it is a fantastic game. I wish Wolfen all the best with it's development and future success, and I wish all the current players all the best too

I will officially announce my leaving under testaments/last will (where I have left all my land to my only vassal) but I feel my post also has a place here for general discussion on the reasons for my leaving.

Thanks everyone, I'll keep an eye on this game's development and maybe see you on Tamar again in the future.

Baron Matador

[Garibaldi]

Greetings Matador,

I'm sorry to hear of your decision, but I do understand it. I too have tried to overcome this problem but find that it is getting harder, indeed almost impossible to keep track of what is going on.

You made for a good neighbour and I thank you for your friendship.

[Haymigga]

Farewell,

It's very sad to see such a player like you leave for many reasons.

First of all; you were one of the few true Amigans playing this game. Most of the people I have met in connection with the game, are playing on their big PC's... so RESPECT!

Also, you were the first player to help me & Lord Tamarian out when we joined the game some time ago. Most importantly, you spoke ENGLISH, which leads me to the final saddening perspective of your departure.

This game has GERMAN bratwürst written all over it. Poor translations, elements not translated at all leaves you frustrated - if you don't understand German. Luckily, I've had German in school, so I can keep up with the forum somewhat decently and also speak to fellow players on IRC channel, but for others who weren't introduced to the sheer greatness of German sausage culture as I, "unfortunately", was; I know this is a pain...

Anyway, maybe when/if more english people join up to play, the game will change official language into English, and do us all a favour

See you soon on AOS4 Brian!
Haymigga
Also playing on Amiga...

[Wolfen]

I moved thats topic, because its outtime. The tavern is only for intime.

I am sorry about the fact that we haven't got enough english players and i am personally disappointed thats you will leave my game.

Wolfen
game master

[Matador]

I am also dissapointed, and I am sure I will miss the game very much. But I cannot continue to devote the amount of time that I have done to the game when it is possible for me to be disadvantaged in such a way

Good luck and I will keep an eye on this game's development

Baron Matador

[Garibaldi]

I think a quick explanation is needed just to put this problem into some perpective.

The issue is not about having trouble with translating messages that obviously concern us, or about missing messages altogether.

It's about delays and the time it takes to do the job thoroughly. ToT is a fast paced environment and a delay of a single season in spotting a message can make all the difference, as it did in Matador's case.

It has been suggested that we either pay other players or find vassals to translate the messages for us. This is not practical and here's is why:

People doing the translations are not going to translate every message, so we would have to reply on their judgement as to which messages are and are not important to us. We would have to rely on their availability at any given time. We would have to rely on their loyalty to report messages when they might feel it is in their interest to keep us in the dark. That's a lot of control over one's own future to put into someone else's trust.

We were given the example of BlackAdder managing by paying Arnaut to do the job. This is working now for Lord BlackAdder, because his realm is still young and his interests local, and most of the threads of interest to him are either started by him or have his name in their title. This will become much more difficult if his interests become global.

Tamar is a world where success can not only be gained by sheer military might, but also by intrigue and - most importantly - by spotting and taking advantage of opportunities. A delay of a single season can mean the opportunity has gone. Secrecy is often needed, which means you can't tell a paid translator what sort of news to look out for.

It's getting hard for us English-only speakers, and while the German-speaking population on Tamar grows faster than the English-speaking one this will always be the case. As a simple example, it takes me approximately 45 minutes to get through a turn each day, not counting forum work or time spent in IRC. At busy times, keeping track of what happens in the forums can take another half hour at least. That's a lot of time to spend on the same game daily, for many months on end.

It has also been suggested that those who can write in both languages, however poorly, try and do so. While this would be much appreciated, it isn't very fair on all those people. I woudn't want to have to translate this whole little tirade into German if I could, that's for sure. I may even be tempted not to post it at all.

There is no easy solution. Indeed, I can't see an absolute solution at the monent, easy or otherwise. The ones discussed above are not practical, and having a separate game for each language is impossible.

However, it is important to acknowledge that there is a problem here. Tamar is getting increasingly harder for non-German speaking players, even when they make the effort to adapt. Matador's decision is understandable. I also took three weeks off recently because I simply found playing was too much hassle. When active and enthusiastic players like us start finding it a chore, then there surely is a problem.

Of course, if the situation was reversed, German-only speakers would be having the same problems.

[Matador]

I would also agree that it would be completely ridiculous to expect all German speaking players here to translate ALL their posts to English, and it would be selfish for us to ask that in the first place. I have tried to make it clear from the start that this is NOT what I am asking.

That said, topic translation is not a bad idea. As I have said, I've got no problems with carrying out translation duties myself on posts which I feel concern me - the trick is to find evidence that these posts DO concern me. Often the only thing I have to work on is the person who's posting and the place they are posting in - so if a player I have many recent dealings with posts "something" in declarations or even the tavern, I will translate it. Obviously this is not a fool proof soltution and hence our problem!

But if all TOPICS (as in the post header) in the declarations/tavern were translated to English then at least we are able to pick out what is important from there and act on it. Also I would suggest that posts regarding players leaving Tamar are not moved to "miscellaneous" - leaving Tamar IS an in-time discussion and is something that often has consequences for many people, and I feel it should be left in in-time discussion where it can be noticed and translated immediately.

I can't help but feel that even if Baltasar had been kind enough to translate his post to English (given that he speaks good English and knew it would directly effect me) it still would have gone unnoticed in the "miscallaneous" section of this forum. And indeed, any players who would wish to take advantage of my leaving may also miss out on the opportunity for this reason.

Any thoughts on that?

[Godefroy]

On 2003-09-07 15:22, Matador wrote:

... Also I would suggest that posts regarding players leaving Tamar are not moved to "miscellaneous" - leaving Tamar IS an in-time discussion and is something that often has consequences for many people, and I feel it should be left in in-time discussion where it can be noticed and translated immediately...

Well, yes and no. Leaving Tamar is of coures an intime topic, but this discussion is not. We are talking completely outtime, but you can leave an intime message in the tavern, testaments or declarations.
Try to do it really intime and do not speak of committing suicide as leaving a game, ok?

Kind regards,
Christian

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Godefroy on 2003-09-10 00:56 ]</font>