A reader once asked me what motivated me to learn Japanese because she figured that since I cover so many Japanese MMORPGs and follow their development and also know a lot about games from Japan that I must have learned the language. I thanked her for the compliment before correcting her well-meaning but incorrect assumption. My knowledge of written Japanese starts and stops with “that squiggly line probably means something” and managing to pronounce a handful of canned phrases with a hopefully non-terrible accent.
That having been said, as soon as Blue Protocol posted its benchmark, I downloaded it because I am not about to let a total failure to understand squiggly lines deny me the benchmark. I need to make a character, and if that means an hour of clicking before figuring out “that word probably means something related to eyes,” then so be it.
Other people are far more hardcore than I am. Not just the people who do, in fact, learn Japanese. Some people will install Japanese or Korean games before fan patches or anything and just muddle through. And still other people are more than content to wait until things get localized instead of muddling through a character creator. So what about you? How patient are you waiting for MMOs to be brought to your region?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
