Take 'US and Canada only' off the page

Grr, it's driving me nuts how many times I have to tell people to ignore that and it's only there because of keyboards?

Really folks, as a Euro it's not a big deal and it's something we all know about through other games etc! Turning away customers just seems a bit silly...

Pirate

It's mostly legal boilerplate. If you can play and pay for the game, Linden Labs doesn't seem to mind.

But their lawyers do when someone from a country whose jurisdiction they cannot reach into has a problem.

C'est la vie (oh look that's not from the U.S., maybe Canada )

Yes, its mostly obligatory legal stuff. In America, we need to put lawyers on that sort of stuff, otherwise, they start trying to change laws and the Constitution and stuff. Its like tossing a kitten a cat toy to keep it out of the fishtank.

How come no other online game has a problem?

How come I can subscribe to various US govt. libraries, US corporate services etc etc from overseas without a problem?

Pirate

Because the people in our country are retarded, and often will sue the first person they see "infringing their rights as an American."

That doesn't answer the question. If I can play EQ using US copies of EQ on a US server run by a US company why don't LindenLabs want Europeans?

Pirate

Ok, a possible straight answer:

EQ has the backing of Sony, who has the resources and cash to publish international versions of their games. SL, however is a product of Linden Labs, which is a much smaller company with limited resources.

I'm sure LL would like to better serve European customers, but there are probaby so many things that seem to have a higher priority which they are working on.

Again, they have to APPEAR to not support international subscribers due to the wacky US legal system. If your friends are still deterred, invite them over if you can, and give them a demonstration.

Perhaps because Sony is a global corporation, headquartered not in the U.S.?

As a small company, Linden Labs does not have the support resources available to do a full European launch. There are also much stricter privacy/data collection rules in Europe, which may be the point for the disclaimer. Other online games have rolled out European versions slowly,even if it is the same software - TSO was US/Canada only for awhile as well, and EA is a much larger company. The fact that they allow European players into the game has no bearing on what they decide to do from a legal standpoint regarding their product. If they want to list it as US/Canada only, that is their perogative, until they decide to do a European launch.

From a town hall a while back I also remember someone saying that they didn't wanted to test network connections from other countries before making it "officially" available so that quality of service is pretty good.

Support I could understand.

Legally I'd say they are still stuffed regardless of putting 'no euros' on the page or not. When they take payment they can check country and lock out foreigners if they wish then which invalidates their supposed legal purity.

Also, I believe the Data Protection Act and other similar Euro legislation can't apply to a US company. Cos.. they're in the US. If I do business with America I do so on your terms, not mine.

Pirate

You are right Cotton. LL is not required to comply with any of those European laws. BECAUSE it lists itself as American/Canadian only. The minute it 'opens its doors' to European gamers, it IS required to comply. LL will NOT turn an account away because it is from Europe. They are just protecting themselves legally until they are ready to attack multinational issues.

First, let me assure you, the decision to focus on the US and Canada has little to do with keyboards!

It is true that we're a very small team, and we're focused right now on making sure that the fundamentals are all in place -- the community has what it needs to thrive, there's fun stuff to do, and performance is continually improving.

To offer the best service possible to Europe and Asia requires localization (languages and cultural adjustments, plus keyboards!) plus strong customer support, and we're not quite ready to make that leap. That said, if anyone outside of North America wants to join SL, and do so knowing they may have performance or support problems, we certainly won't turn them away.

So here's a question for all of you as we think about international expansion...

Will the world be better served by offering areas of Second Life that are country specific (so you might cross the sim border and now find yourself in SL France) or by integrating everyone into the same world regardless of real world origin or language?

A small company like SL would probably benefit best by having everyone in the same world. I doubt there's enough people in France alone to allow for a self-sustaining SL France

LF

Certainly, I've made enough friends here that I'd be resistant to being pushed to a euro-specific version of SL...

Good luck with whatever you do...

No! Same world. If people want to group up by RL nationality, they already can. There's no reason to impose RL political boundaries on SL.

Do we HAVE to let the FRENCH in?

I think the sims should all be integrated, but if you are adding european sims they should be marked. Some of us really hate all the transatlantic lag and would appreciate the info on where they can go to have as much fun as the americans are having (30ms pings vs 300ms pings etc).

Keep us all in the same world please!! I've made too many friends from the US/Canada to want to be separated. People from the same geographical area tend to find each other anyway - if you play in the same time zone you tend to see the same faces around the place.

Thanks for the reply

Um, I would go for adding sims and specifying that they may be european or a certain language and then letting people buy just from that region for a while (or setting the hours up so there's less pressure from you Amis.

Splitting the world would kinda ruin it I think.



Pirate

Same world. And please avoid translating the client or anything into other languages. It will cause nothing but confusion. They tried that in various other games and it sucked. In Diablo 2 you couldn't trade items with people on battle.net, because they didn't know what you were talking about when you told them the german item names, because their client was in french, italian or english, and their broadsword was called "Breitschwert" on my client. Horrible.

In Asherons Call 2 it was worse, because even places had different names, so when somebody told you to come to this city, you'd stare at your map for awhile trying to find the city name that sounded most like the one from the english client.

Localization shouldn't go beyond time/date formats, time zones and keyboard layouts. Never languages. You'll have to learn english anyways, or you won't be able to communicate with a major part of the population, nor with the support staff, nor read the forums or anything.

The only other reasonable approach is what Sony Online did. Find a distributor for parts of the world like europe, give them their own, localized client builds, separate servers, basically a completely different game, where the localized players will never meet the US ones. Which sucks :)

I could be mistaken but I think what Robin may have been intending to ask was more like, "should there be a special sim for European players?"...and not really "should there be a totally different world, unreachable from the current world?"



Meaning either, "1) cross sim border, go to SL France", or "2) everyone in same world"...I don't think there's anything about a new SL dimension in there. That would suck anyway. Although I admit I do like the fact that there isn't people speaking non English languages in SL, for multiple reasons.

So..."Should there be a special sim for European players?"...even though I'm in the US...that sounds like it'd make alot of sense.

--IF it means the sim(s) are based in Europe and reduce lag issues.

If it's just a special sim where players talk another language, where the server is based in the US, I can't see much of a benefit.

Then I finally would have a sim all to myself!!

No, really - I would much rather the world to be one, integrated like it is now

Sim specific would be fun! Possibly with the use of a 'preferred' language, where English is always an escape. In real life, hands and feet are commonly used when short of vocabulary. There was a point here, but that could turn non-PG real quick... :-X

Keyboard issue is not just a keyboard issue as it is Windows' country setting. Actually, country has to be set to US International, keyboard depends on the use of a national keyboard. Country settings can be quickly changed per application from the taskbar. Maybe you can look into switching from U.S. specific to U.S. International (extended character set)?

National servers (if still thinking in that direction) - please be aware that international Internet connections within Europe are way slower than the connection of each European country to the U.S. E.g. the fastest connection across the Dutch/German border is thru the U.S. National servers may be helpful for specific countries to get more people in who don't feel comfortable communicating in English.

I'm with Ezhar in not translating the client (or limited), it's hard enough to explain someone inworld where to find a menu option. For Windows' calculator, click Start, Alle Programma's, Bureau-accessoires, Rekenmachine. Pop-up messages and help text could be translated.

Servers based in Europe will increase lag issues. It's the infrastructure of the Internet.