I just recently read a review of the new massive online RPG, Final Fantasy XI. Here it is, if you’re interested: http://rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff11/reviews/ff11strev1.html
Meh, I never liked MMORPGs anyway, and I think I’ll skip this one, but that is beside the point.
The part that intrigues me, is this paragraph:
Now, THAT is interesting.
Does anyone here play this game? Have they seen this firsthand?
Can you imagine the day when ethnic, cultural, or simply geographic rivalry is bred in an online environment? The internet has long been attributed to bringing the world closer together, but we could begin seeing groups that normally have little or no contact with each other suddenly finding bitter points to quarrel over.
Does familiarity breed contempt when middle class American teenagers suddenly find their fantasy world to be filled with a Japanese population that is already well entrenched in the game environment, who they cannot even communicate with?
Will World War 3 start with the assassination of Archduke S3ph1r0TH66, by a level 32 Ninja with a trainer program?
And perhaps the most important question of all: Am I being astonishingly over-dramatic?
Well, I do see some nationalist/racist tensions on B.Net with the game Starcraft - mostly between Koreans (Starcraft being VERY popular in Korea, to the point where it is broadcasted on Television, and has serious professional leagues; I have even heard of a couple Americans who have gone there to play professionally.) and other groups.
Anyone ever played Lineage, that South Korean online game? I remember suddenly getting a call for all Americans to go to the south side of the village and seeing a massive battle between Americans and Koreans. I just stayed on the sidelines and grabbed the loot that the people dropped. Hey, I was neither American or Korean, so the fight had nothing to do with me.
That’s right baby, we’re the Swiss of the Internet. We’ll take your gold and badmouth the Koreans to you, then we’ll take gold from the Koreans and badmouth you to them. Everybody wins! Except for the Americans and Koreans, I mean. Okay, only the Canadians win.
I may also have stabbed a few people in the back when they were busy fighting in that battle. No worries, I was an equal opportunity backstabber. Yanks, Koreans, Aussies, Gerries – it’s all good. The important thing is, my level went up. Yeah.
PS
It was a wild melee with lots of stuff going on, so I guess everyone just assumed it was a cowardly dog from the other side that was being such a bastard. Ha, you always gotta look out for the Canuck, they use their teeth, you know.
I’ve been playing FFXI regularly, and especially at odd times, when it’s more likely to encounter Japanese players than Americans. I can speak just enough Japanese to explain that I can’t speak Japanese, then to say ‘thanks’ and ‘sorry’ and what not, so I’ve always gotten along fine. Usually they respond to “I don’t speak Japanese” (in romanized Japanese) with something universally understood, like “ok : )” and then we either leave each other alone, or watch each other’s back to make sure no monsters sneak up on the other. My experiences haven’t been at all negative. Of course, I’ve noticed a lower level of brattish behavior from American players in FFXI as compared to other MMORPGs I’ve played too… maybe I’m just on a good server.
I haven’t found any resources I’d describe as ‘limited’ thus far other than monsters, and the more other players are seperated from me in level, the more monsters for me… so I don’t understand why anyone would be upset about the Japanese players getting a head start. It’s not like they’re claiming things that later American players won’t be able to get.
For a long time Everquest didn’t have any regional servers either, everybody from everwhere was just lumped together. It didn’t seem to create too many problems, most of the Asian players I ran across seemed nice enough (in their actions anyway, since I have no idea what they were saying).
The biggest rivalry it had was probably between the American and French players, occasional mutual rudeness erupted. For the most part though, everybody was pretty civil. The only people I knew who really pissed me off were my fellow english speaking players (which might be because I did know what they were saying).
I used to play an obscure online game that started in Korea. Apparently it wasn’t so obscure in Korea, however, and the company created an American game. Each game was just all one big server, so the two games were totally separate–each with their own advances, patches, GM’s, programmers, etc. The Korean version was much older than the American versions, and–I don’t want to sound like an ugly American here or anything–but the Korean players who came to “our” game (mostly for something new and because the Korean version was very crowded) were REALLY obsessed. Not that the Americans weren’t–but the Koreans were power-players in a major way, used to having extremely high stats in their own game, and having had a lot of time to find their way around in the Korean version. So they advanced really, really fast, and it created a lot of resentment among the English speakers. Really, it was kind of fascinating, cause it was like a mini-version of the USA, with the Asians becoming successful and all the resulting xenophobia and “they took our jobs!” kind of thing from the not-very-well-off natives. But depressing. Especially when I found myself reacting that way. I know it was definitely time to take a break then…
Okay, that was kinda a hijack, but… yeah. Racial (national? I didn’t see a whole lot of racial slurs, really) tension happens. I don’t think it means that we’re about to engage in another Pearl Harbor, however. Even in Japan and Korea, we’re all just nerds. :o
I tried the FF XI for a bit, and I loved the Japanese player. Every so often I would be getting my ass kicked by a snake or something and a lvl 40 guy would run by, heal me, mutter something in Japanese, bow, and keep trucking along. I relied on emotes and >< smilies for most of my communication with these saviors.
