I'd like to address an issue

[jomtukes]

Hey so I joined this server about 4 days ago, it's my first time roleplaying on GTA V and I've already raked in like 22 hours, safe to say I'm already addicted, this server is great. I played ls-rp beforehand and this server brings back the nostalgia of sa-mp while also bringing in something fresh which has fully got me hooked.

One thing I've noticed that is starting to annoy me a bit is the amount of characters that seem to know a second language (specifically Russian)

I play a Russian character with my friends and the RP is great fun, but we tend to get in situations with people where we may insult someone, or say something in Russian and then that other character will suddenly know how to speak the language, the roleplay has then fully changed and we're in a completely different situation, one that I feel like we shouldn't be in. Don't get me wrong there are new people coming in that may not understand the rules properly, and there are characters that may well know Russian. But I feel like 80% of the situations we get into,  the other person speaks Russian!

This is at times powergaming, whether they know it or not. I had someone tell me their character knows Russian because their friend ICly taught them it. Ok well I have a friend that's turkish, I don't know a word of the language, so that reason doesn't make sense to me, there have been other silly reasons I've had too.

I just feel like this should be specifically addressed somehow.

[Helm]

This is certainly a issue that I've seen on here a certain number of times. I've had a lot of fun roleplaying with characters whose language my character cannot speak, so I don't see why it's such an issue. It can provide a fun obstacle for you to overcome in roleplay.

 

Realistically, I can see a large number of characters in this city speaking Spanish as a second language, but other languages would be much rarer. 

[Sergi]

If you feel they've powergamed you can always report it. I do agree however with you, there's a lot of sub-par roleplayers who coincidentally speak fluently the language you choose to use IC for their own benefit.

[Guest]

I learnt Russian language 6 years at school. Still barely understand some popular words but nothing more. A trait for a specific language is either there from the start or there better be hundreds of lines of /me's about learning the thing.

 

Its not a youtube video on "how to use a power drill", its a whole language.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Guest

[Westen]

1 minute ago, Tr1bal said:

I learnt Russian language 6 years at school. Still barely understand some popular words but nothing more. A trait for a specific language is either there from the start or there better be hundreds of lines of /me's about learning the thing.

 

Its not a youtube video on "how to use a power drill", its a whole language.

I've been learning Russian consistently for a few months now and I can still barely understand fluent speakers. How these people with seven languages and 3 degrees have time for this stuff, I'll never know

[KV]

I've taken several years of Spanish and while I can pick out a lot of things in text, I can hardly understand anything that someone fluent is saying - and this is even with a Spanish speaking brother in law lol. 
 
That said, I have always had more fun when my character has no idea of the side conversations going on around them that are in another language.  Maybe that's just a personal preference there.  

 

Edited March 29, 2019 by KV

[Ketamine Kowboy]

Yeah, gotta agree on this one. 
If you don't have any reasoning behind your character speaking another language you shouldn't roleplay speaking it. Fair enough if someone's an immigrant or has parents from an immigrant background, or grew up in a large immigrant neighbourhood where the language is spoken often so they would have been able to speak it as a child, in some cases learn a language as a part of their school education. As of now, some players are roleplaying speaking fluent Russian, Spanish, Japanese, and Latin, it's honestly dumb.

 

Edited March 29, 2019 by Lmao

[Gerda]

Pure MG. 

Russian is very hard language to learn. If character is not a migrant from slavic country or linguist, chances that this character knows Russian are close to zero, even if they had Russian friend. (I got friend who I teach Russian and she study Russian in Uni - she still cant understand live speech after 2 years)

[VULn3R]

We all encounter poor roleplayers and the best way is to tell them in PMs that they might be PGing there, if they insist and bring up some foolish unrealistic reason for their PG, screenshot it and post a roleplay quality report against them on the forums. 

[Vash Baldeus]

2 hours ago, jomtukes said:

Hey so I joined this server about 4 days ago, it's my first time role-playing on GTA V and I've already raked in like 22 hours, safe to say I'm already addicted, this server is great. I played ls-rp beforehand and this server brings back the nostalgia of sa-mp while also bringing in something fresh which has fully got me hooked.

One thing I've noticed that is starting to annoy me a bit is the amount of characters that seem to know a second language (specifically Russian)

I play a Russian character with my friends and the RP is great fun, but we tend to get in situations with people where we may insult someone, or say something in Russian and then that other character will suddenly know how to speak the language, the roleplay has then fully changed and we're in a completely different situation, one that I feel like we shouldn't be in. Don't get me wrong there are new people coming in that may not understand the rules properly, and there are characters that may well know Russian. But I feel like 80% of the situations we get into,  the other person speaks Russian!

This is at times power-gaming, whether they know it or not. I had someone tell me their character knows Russian because their friend ICly taught them it. Ok well I have a friend that's turkish, I don't know a word of the language, so that reason doesn't make sense to me, there have been other silly reasons I've had too.

I just feel like this should be specifically addressed somehow.

There's one issue with your claim, some people have a back story about their character and they won't bother explaining a very long story in /b as to how they came about knowing X, Y or Z thing. For example the back story of my character is that her father an accountant who was forced to work with the Russian mob back in Chicago since she was young caused a situation where she was around allot of Russian speaking people who often had to babysit her along with their own children, in turn she was taught Russian in order to communicate with them, she doesn't know it fluently but knows enough to speak and understand it along with a very little reading ability.

 

You expect that NO-ONE else besides you know the language you use? That is a very bad assumption to make, I've had instances in-real life as I was a witness where two Russian ladies were speaking about a young man who they deemed illiterate/disrespectful for no reason since they tried to get ahead of him in a queue, he didn't look the part of knowing Russian at all, but he turns around and with minimal accent speaks to them in Russian leaving them in awe as he just stated they should not be so judgmental about people. The dude turned out to be half Russian, half Indian, he looked more Indian than Russian to be honest. But never think that in a group of people you are the only person who speaks X, Y or Z language. People have a story to them, same applies to characters which have a backstory to their lives which can tell how they came about knowing anything really.

 

So you come on here to accuse people of Powergaming? I agree that the 99.99% of the characters on the server can not know Russian all at once, but if you suspect a person for Powergaming there are Private Messages or in the worst case Admins to deal with such issues, Admins as a last resort since if the person openly and politely explains the backstory of how their character knows the information (with a logical explanation and detail) you suspect being Powergame I wouldn't try to void that from the get go, if they fail to do that, then I'd report and ask an Admin to intervene.

 

36 minutes ago, Gerda said:

Pure MG. 

Russian is very hard language to learn. If character is not a migrant from slavic country or linguist, chances that this character knows Russian are close to zero, even if they had Russian friend. (I got friend who I teach Russian and she study Russian in Uni - she still cant understand live speech after 2 years)

You forgot to mention if the person was growing up in a Russian community he/she might've learned the language while growing up. I personally know a few people who grew up in all Russian neighborhoods while they aren't Russian and they speak the language since they learned it from a very young age from the other kids and adults they don't know how to read or write (not all of them don't know) but they speak it, with accent but they speak and understand the language.

 

54 minutes ago, Lmao said:

Yeah, gotta agree on this one. 
If you don't have any reasoning behind your character speaking another language you shouldn't roleplay speaking it. Fair enough if someone's an immigrant or has parents from an immigrant background, or grew up in a large immigrant neighbourhood where the language is spoken often so they would have been able to speak it as a child, in some cases learn a language as a part of their school education. As of now, some players are roleplaying speaking fluent Russian, Spanish, Japanese, and Latin, it's honestly dumb.

 

Fully agree, my charter was growing up in a Russian environment due to her father's work, hence she knows the language as she was taught it.

Edited March 29, 2019 by Vash Baldeus