Chinese WOW players speak out
On being discriminated against.
Chinese World of Warcraft players are being discriminated against by English speakers who assume they're all gold-farmers, according to reports on Chinese-language website Tales of Warcraft.
More than 7,000 posters on the site's forum claim they have fallen victim to the problem, which is said to occur when Chinese players attempt to join groups. Apparently there is a common belief among English speaking players that most non-English speakers are gold farmers and are only playing for commercial gain.
As a result, players are asking anyone who wants to join a group to type one or two sentences in English. If the sentences contain spelling or grammar mistakes, the player is rejected. Since you have to join groups to complete certain quests in WOW, this is presenting many Chinese players with a serious problem.
Mark MacKay, owner of the WOW Gold Price List website, has condemned this practice in a statement which reads: "Over over 1.5 million World of Warcraft players are from China alone, with the majority of these players being non-English. While their has been recent publicity about the gold farm factories in China, it by no means justifies thinking that every Chinese or non-English speaking player is a gold farmer."
MacKay doesn't have an instant solution to the problem, but says that English-speaking WOW players should "Keep a more open mind and trust people a little more.
"This would go a long way to bringing some racial harmony to World of Warcraft and the world in general."
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Comments (47) Latest comment 4 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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Is it April 1st already?
What utter bollocks. If that were the case, no-one would ever get a group, as I can count the number of WoW players I've met who can formulate a grammatically-correct sentence on the fingers of one hand.
And why are you providing a link to a gold-farming site, eh?
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This system exists for scammers on dating websites and could be adapted to such problem.
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If rejection is just based on a player's command of the English language, then you can't claim that this is specific anti-Chinese discrimination. I play on Aggrimar and I can tell you that half the players would fail the test (English native-speakers as well as "foreigners"
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I don't support the discrimination though, it's silly. Obviously most Chinese players aren't gold farmers.
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And they're not just farmers... they're also ninja's too...
No doubt Blizz will eventually build an Asia server farm given the no. users from that region and better access to new markets without everyone long routing to European or US farms.
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Hahaha. 99% of all people on the internet can't structure a decent sentence to save their lives.
Hell, I would bet that Chinese people are actually better at English than many English/Americans.
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Nuff said...
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17-Jan-06 12:01:50
Wait. If there are 1.5 million of them, how come they have trouble finding groups? They don't reject each other, do they?.
Exactly!
The annoying thing is that they don't speak English, not necessarily the gold farming.
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Glod Gloddson perchance?
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'Cos people are dicks and like to blacklist people who just piss them off.
The funniest thing when people bleat about gold farmers is in one breath someone will be grouping all Chinese together as gold farmers and in the next, asking were the best place is to farm gold "'cos I needs my epics!".
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Their?
Mark MacKay is obviously a Chinese gold farmer - don't let him in your group!
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I'd also heard it wasn't just weedling out Chinese players, but anybody who couldn't speak english.
So personally I don't see that they are doing anything wrong.
Ceatlan.
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if there are 1.5 million chinese playing wow why don't they go join all chinese group to battle larger monsters.
so mark makay why would english speaking me wanna join a german speaking server for instance. "anyone wanna party?" "spekken die deutch" or whatever. "oh its not fair noone speaks english"
so don't say its unfair on the chinese. go play japan server see how long b4 u get bored
so how do u get someone to type something correctly. surely if u type a sentence u want someone to say they just copy it lol
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From what I hear, it's not the gold farming that's a problem, it's the item farming - 20 people waiting for a mob to respawn so they can get the unique item it drops which is needed to make a suit of armour or whatever (I don't play, but I know people who do) is many times more annoying when you realise that some of those people only want the item in order to sell it for cash.
Although I imagine these people would quit complaining if they had enough spare money to be able to afford to buy the item off them
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I know, it's exactly the point I'm making. That some idiots in game go to their favourite cash-well, see someone else also trying to scrape together some coin for an item and start screaming about gold farmers. They figure that anyone playing the same area for an extended period must be a gold farmer (despite their own intentions to do the same) and all gold farmers must be Chinese.
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The Chinese are running on their own WoW servers, so how is this an issue? Surely all the other players on their servers are chinese also :/
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im sure if blizz saw this as a problem, they'd create a new server and let all chinese people migrate there...
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But some people are always going to be dicks. What can you do?
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so how do u get someone to type something correctly. surely if u type a sentence u want someone to say they just copy it lol "
Bet you have trouble grouping!
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I don't see many of them in WoW sadly. But I certainly wouldn't discriminate down to their language. They are playing the game too, and the majority play it for fun. I won't let a small minority of sell-outs sway my opinion of some good players.
BTW, money farmers are not always Chinese. There are plenty of American freelancers who make a living from farming in-game currency...
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You see, I am Engrish.
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I thought there were more chinese than anyone else, how can they not find a group? their country's got the biggest population :S
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Really? Here's one for you mr mckay. You and everyone like you shuts down their sites. Problem solved. Instantly.
What's the point of buying gold in the game anyway? Doesn't that sort of defeat the object a bit? Why buy a game and pay a monthly subscription to then pay more money so that the game's not a challenge?
Pointless. It's like cheating on an online FPS game. Well done. You cheated and won a game which is now meaningless. Big man.
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anyway what about all the out of work UK goldfarmers these cheaper chinese's worker's have put out of work due!?!?!?
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2. I cannot believe that you actually support gold farming by posting a link to such a website and writing such a benevolent article about gold farmers in general.
I am not sure whether this is a send-up or just poor form.
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But currency farmers are not all chinese. While it is true the chinese workforce are cheap, there are many other workforces across the globe who make a living from this kind of thing, in numerous MMOG. That's what bugs me. A currency farmer is a currency farmer. End of story.
It's unfair to just paint all Chinese players with the same brush...
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* Maybe he or she wants to play with his or her friend who lives in America.
* Maybe he or she wants to play on a more/less populated server.
* Maybe Americans/Europeans are better roleplayers or otherwise generally play more in a style he or she likes.
* Maybe he or she has a nighttime job, and can only play when Americans are generally awake and playing.
* Maybe he or she hopes to move to America or Europe someday and is using the game to also help practice English. (Two birds with one stone!)
* Maybe he or she just likes Americans/Europeans. I know I always think it's pretty neat when I get in a group with a lot of foreigners, and often, I ponder the possibility of trying out a foreign server.
Very good points made by "KingSkippus" at Slashdot.
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They have dedicated chinese servers. They should use them.
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actually, over 200+ wow servers in china,we have the best wow server on the world.
as such,we reject english player if english player will group with us,we will ask them two question,if the answer with any spelling or grammar mistakes,we will reject them,haha.
example:
if a english player can't understand follow sentence,we will reject them:
stsm,need zs,74,xd,dz.
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* Maybe he or she wants to play with his or her friend who lives in America.
right, for one guy he'd play on a server where he understood nobody else.
* Maybe he or she wants to play on a more/less populated server.
No reason not to play in china. They probably have overcrowded and ghost town servers just like we do.
* Maybe Americans/Europeans are better roleplayers or otherwise generally play more in a style he or she likes.
Hahhahahhahahahaha. How can he participate in our playstle or roleplay if he can't speak english at all?
* Maybe he or she has a nighttime job, and can only play when Americans are generally awake and playing.
and how is he going to play with them if he can'T talk to them?
* Maybe he or she hopes to move to America or Europe someday and is using the game to also help practice English. (Two birds with one stone!)
that's why the only phrase he knows is "party me thx"
* Maybe he or she just likes Americans/Europeans. I know I always think it's pretty neat when I get in a group with a lot of foreigners, and often, I ponder the possibility of trying out a foreign server.
yeah I guess, at least he doesn't understand the insults flying his way.
If they only speak mandarin (and I got a few quick phrases to tell a chinese only able to speak mandarin from someone that just doesn't talk at all) and play outside china, they are gold farmers. There are a few chinese players like your examples on my server, however they all speak english.
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Not that anyone cared to find out, but you can't play on Chinese servers without having a Chinese service provider. So, if someone was studing in Europe, he would be forced to play on the European servers if he wants to play at all. I've talked to several people who play on American servers but have diffculty communicating because the study or work in the US.
People play on servers for different reasons and I personally know a lot of people for whom the reasons Zero_ cited are valid. It's just easier to dismiss them because it's easier to be ignorant than tolerant. To assume all Chinese are gold farmers is like how Americans assume all French are rude, all Brits have bad teeth, and all Germans are Nazis. That cover all the European stereotypes you guys don't like?