Wayfinder does more harm to new german players than good

[Ekkagaddon]

I moderate one of the biggest hardware forums in germany and the announcement of a german client with a german server got many people to download the client and try the game. The result was, that most of them quit playing after a few levels. There is simply no way to quest in a german only group. 80% of the servers population doesnt speak german. The german client itself is useful but baffles new players with incomplete translations. Almost all the questnames are still english. So are the dungeon entrances. The game is already very hard to access for a new player. I think the germany strategy has to be reworked right now.

Another pointer for a rework of strategy is the wayfinder population numbers.
The server is pretty much dead. It is simply impossible to find a group for certain quests. Three nights ago, i had a lfm for von5 up and realised, that only 5 other Players from level range 8-11 are online right now. At 20pm main playing time here in europe. That means i wouldnt even be able to get a full group for any p2p, because one of these guys wouldnt likely have the pack.

[lhidda]

I learned from german part of forum that many germanspeaking players are switching. Many transfers are not completed yet and will be completed soon. Keep the faith. I will stay in Khyber. Not gonna pay for a service which should be free of charge.

[grayham]

Other than one unverified statistic (80%?!!!!), everything in your post can be explained by teething troubles for a new server. Transfers take time, and many German players are still deciding. It's a domino/snowball effect. As mentioned, keep the faith. In the mean time enjoy the relatively unspoiled economy and absence of "OMG n0 NuuuBZZ" lfms.

[Ekkagaddon]

possible that the population with grow. But not in NEW german players. The only thing it will accomplish is switching players from one server to another.
It is not my concern if wayfinder lives or not. My main is on Khyber and he will stay there. I just made a toon in wayfinder to help new players on my forum to get things going. And almost all of them quit. Thats pretty sad if you take the ad campaign from gamescom into account. Turbines germany strategy is about to fail due to a horrible german client and lack of support.

grayham 80% is a number resultung from my own gutfeeling. I leveled to levels 19(tranferred a lvl17) and 12 (from lvl1) and never had a group that used german in the party or voicechat. Sure there were many germans but there is no way to be able to talk in english when 3-4 out of 6 players in your group cant understand it. Its no problem for me, but most german players who were interested in ddo before the german client already spoke english. Many new german players simply cant or feel uncomfortable doing so.
Other than you are right. The playerbase is very casual friendly. You almost cant find any "know it, byoh, only TR" in any lfm. But it still does more harm to new players than good. You have to hook a new player in the first 30minutes to keep him playing. And the new "germany" strategy doesnt do that right now.

[Satinavian]

You mentioned Von 5.


No "new" German player should be able to do that already. Most real newcomers need a week flowersniffing in Korthos, exploring basic rules and gamefunction and at least the same time in harbor. And usually w have rerolles before reaching lv 7. And alts to play around with different party roles.

The only mid- and high-level people come from other servers either via transfer or newly created and levelled fast due to superior game-experiance.

In addition after the new server start we had the usual bulk of English-speaking TP-farmers, who left some standards in the lfm etiquette. That at least should be over by now.




And why are we writing English in the Wayfinder-forum ?

[Ekkagaddon]

No "new" German player should be able to do that already. Most real newcomers need a week flowersniffing in Korthos, exploring basic rules and gamefunction and at least the same time in harbor. And usually w have rerolles before reaching lv 7. And alts to play around with different party roles.

Actually if it comes to a reroll at level7, then the game is doing something wrong because that means that a player is not comfortable with the class or the role he chose at the beginning. Most people wont reroll. They will simply quit. In games, especially f2p games there is almost no margin for error. If you cant get someone hooked right away, the player will simply try another game. There are no investments in f2p games that incentivizes to give it another try. But this is another matter and has nothing to do with the client and the english speaking population.

The only mid- and high-level people come from other servers either via transfer or newly created and levelled fast due to superior game-experiance.

As i said. I reached level 12with a toon in about 5 days. Its possible even as a new player to reach that level in 23days. But this isnt the issue either. Right now it is not possible to play in german in pick up groups and the german translation of the client needs a rework. And this is hurting the effort to create a new playerbase in germany.

And why are we writing English in the Wayfinder-forum ?

Interesting isnt it? I chose english, because many users here on the wayfinder forums used it even in german threads. And i have the feeling that no officials are actually german speaking right now. Most of the replys are google translated.

[Tolero]

And i have the feeling that no officials are actually german speaking right now. Most of the replys are google translated.

This is incorrect. We have multiple native speakers on hand to review the forums. I myself am not a native speaker but understand what is written in German quite well despite not being able to compose grammatically correct responses. (I prefer to write the responses despite this because I want people to know that I am personally reading things as well).

[Shaamis]

I learned from german part of forum that many germanspeaking players are switching. Many transfers are not completed yet and will be completed soon. Keep the faith. I will stay in Khyber. Not gonna pay for a service which should be free of charge.

For those who do not want to pay for the cost of a transfer (I believe it should be 1 free/month or three months) there are some less conventional options.

I have, in the past, made a sizeable plat transfer from one character on khyber (my main server) for an amount on another server (equal or a ratio, your trade choice)

That allowed me to gain a good foothold on another server, to buy the base items needed quickly, and start leveling faster.

The only problem is finding someone trustworthy enough to do an unsecure transaction like this.

I suggest the ddo forums, so a forum name can be tracked, and deemed safe to deal with.

I am Shaamis on all servers, and even though I do not speak more than a few words of german, I was going to play on Wayfinder and see how fun it is to level from the start again.


Cheers

[Ekkagaddon]

This is incorrect. We have multiple native speakers on hand to review the forums. I myself am not a native speaker but understand what is written in German quite well despite not being able to compose grammatically correct responses. (I prefer to write the responses despite this because I want people to know that I am personally reading things as well).

Iam sorry i didnt mean to offend. The few post i read and my encounters with ddo support for me and two friends left me under this impression. My statement wasnt aimed to prove that you guys dont care. If you wouldnt, than there would be no way you would even tried to translate this hulk of texts into german. I just wanted to state that it simply is not enough right now.

[Sethvir]

sorry tolero, but its irrelevant if or not there are ppl that can understand german, IF the german ppl have the perceiving that there are no ppl at turbine that can understand what they are saying or can help them easily if they have a problem.

and the point is, thats exactly what ppl think. the op does have a very valid point. i will not go into details why, just that much: turbine is missing thoroughness in almost evry bit its doing (maybe except for that no reimburse policy...) and especially in evrything with the german related stuff.
germans are not THAT relaxed. they DO NOT think: heh, this translation is funny, give them some slack, they will fix it soon ...
at least not the vast majority.

[Zipwire]

I created a toon on Wayfinder to do favor farming. I noticed that there were very few toons online and only english was being spoken in chat. I decided to post an lfm because it is not so easy for new players starting out. I did get a few to join but they were not German speaking players. They were newbies just starting the game and had no idea they were on a German language server and that it was new.

They were asking if anybody even plays this game, so few players were online.

[Ugumagre]

Some weeks ago I made a toon in Korthos, to help new german players. I stayed 2 hours and I was exhausted afterwards (I usually do not play that long in a row). If more german player were doing this, I think we could "save" some people.
Anyway, I think it is too early to "condemn" the server. I think we have to wait one year or at least 6 months.

[Tolero]

Iam sorry i didnt mean to offend. The few post i read and my encounters with ddo support for me and two friends left me under this impression. My statement wasnt aimed to prove that you guys dont care. If you wouldnt, than there would be no way you would even tried to translate this hulk of texts into german. I just wanted to state that it simply is not enough right now.

Kein Problem, I took no offense. I am fully aware that I have a long way to go before I am conversational (not that it will stop me from trying). I also do not expect players to be forgiving or lenient on these points. We are aware that we have many improvements to make to enhance the experience for german-speaking and french-speaking players. If you have bad encounters with support or translations, please continue to tell us about them, whether that is in englisch or german.

[zwiebelring]

If transfer was free for VIPs plus a possible guildtransfer in a whole, I'd subscribe immediately, but right now, there is no reason to switch because our small german guild achieved what was intended: to gather german players.

a little off topic:
We switched immediately if the service of transfer was not an exceptional effort and otherwise insecure service, not mentioning the ridiculous price. Again, more important amneties for VIPs. I say this being a premium player.

[lhidda]

If transfer was free for VIPs plus a possible guildtransfer in a whole, I'd subscribe immediately, but right now, there is no reason to switch because our small german guild achieved what was intended: to gather german players.

Same, also stormglory tempest is a reason to stay. Thanks again, Shaoria.

[Satinavian]

sorry tolero, but its irrelevant if or not there are ppl that can understand german, IF the german ppl have the perceiving that there are no ppl at turbine that can understand what they are saying or can help them easily if they have a problem.

and the point is, thats exactly what ppl think. the op does have a very valid point. i will not go into details why, just that much: turbine is missing thoroughness in almost evry bit its doing (maybe except for that no reimburse policy...) and especially in evrything with the german related stuff.
germans are not THAT relaxed. they DO NOT think: heh, this translation is funny, give them some slack, they will fix it soon ...
at least not the vast majority.

We might be a lot more relaxed than you think.

I at least am always happy if some awkward translation suddenly is changed to a better version or if some mobs still named "NAME" get their proper name back. The only time when i used the English client was when i started crafting and missed my crafting tab on the character sheet. But that is fixed now.

Would have liked if the German server had had a better start though, but not sure what to do about. As lhidda and das Syndikat and zwiebelring and his guild i am a bit bound to my server.

[Beethoven]

80% of the servers population doesnt speak german.

Sure there were many germans but there is no way to be able to talk in english when 3-4 out of 6 players in your group cant understand it.

A game population where 80% do not speak German and ~50% do not speak English would be indicative of a playerbase that is neither European or American.

English is a primary subject at German speaking highschools since the 70s along with Mathematics and, well, German. Starting some point around the 80s many grade schools started include first english lessons. So, in a German demographic you usually only have two groups who are not able to communicate in /both/ those languages.

* People who completed highschool before the 80s (the 50s+ crowd); and not even that's necessarily true in all cases since many companies over there started offering free and voluntary (as in highly encouraged to take it) English classes.
* People (usually children) who have not completed at least the first couple years of highschool.

I leveled to levels 19(tranferred a lvl17) and 12 (from lvl1) and never had a group that used german in the party or voicechat.

That does not necessarily mean anything. There is a significant amount of German speakers who use English when gaming out of habit or personal preference. There is also a substantial amount of German speakers who like use the opportunity of playing online games to practice their English. Finally there is a large amount of German speakers who will switch to English if they alone have reason to suspect a non-German speaker is in their group simply to be polite.

What I believe to be larger issues with Wayfinder is:
* many German gamers already have established characters and guilds on other servers and see no reason or incentive to switch to a new, less active server.
* German gamers connect not only through DDO but there are numerous dedicated webpages and forums out there, so they may end up connecting with an already existing guild and join them on their sever (different than Wayfinder)
* German players may check out Wayfinder, see how small it is (in terms of playerbase) and then try some different (larger) server and stay there.

I agree with Grayham here though, these are common issues on any new server; in this specific case it might only mean Wayfinder will experience a slower growth than past US centric servers. Give it time.

[Kmnh]

I took a look at the wayfinder server this night to get my free favor from korthos

There wasn't a single lfm up :/

[Ekkagaddon]

Beethoven: You are right. In theory every german who went to school for 9 Years is able to speak and understand english. The reality is simply another. If you dont nurture a language skill it will decay and fade. For example my father had english as a major when graduating. Today he is still able to understand sentences, but has big problems to talk himself.

[MartinusWyllt]

... everything in your post can be explained by teething troubles for a new server...

Except for poor/incomplete translations to Deutsch for a server advertised as a German speaking server.