The idea is quite simple: Use a Japanese MMOG to create language immersion.

If I had to name all places I've lived in the past, I would definitely had to add 3 months of Azeroth (WoW) to that list. While this sounds like the sad perspective of a gaming addict, think about it this way: You familiarize with locations, names of places, means of travel, and interact with a bunch of people in that world. In my memories, those 3 months of World of Warcraft have been quite similar to any other kind of vacation.
Now that I consider playing another one of those I want to combine it with language studies. I want to play a (possibly Japanese) MMOG with a Japanese client on a Japanese server.

First off, I'd like to hear your opinion on this. Secondly, some issues:
Sadly, its a fact that Japanese gamers don't care for PC games very much. Do you know of any MMO that has Japanese servers and/or some Japanese population?
Is it possible to connect to those servers from outside Japan? For many games delay won't be that much of a problem, but providers might not allow connections to servers outside the region.

If its anyhow possible, I'd like to avoid discussions about the meaning (or lack thereof) of playing those games.

FFXI...? You'd need a Japanese copy though. I guess there's always FFXIV, where you can change the language to Japanese even on the western versions, but yeah, I can't think of much else.

dizmox Wrote:FFXI...?

Yes, I obviously had this in mind.. no idea if there's anything else around. Do you know if you can connect to japanese servers?

Since you mentioned WOW, can i presume that you like Hack&Slay, in general? If so, there is a game called Conquer Online, pure Grinding, but lot's of people playing it. It is possible to connect there, and it's free to play for the most part. I don't know about the Japanese name of this game, but i do know, that it is possible to connect and play, from outside Japan. Another game, if you wish more interaction, and having to do with sailing, would be Voyage Century Online, also free to play.

This playing some MMO has it's merits, as it's a good way to practice your communication. But it's also a distraction, so you should be aware of that, so your actual study time doesn't suffer.

Edit: Also check Google. *click me*

hosino Wrote:

dizmox Wrote:FFXI...?

Yes, I obviously had this in mind.. no idea if there's anything else around. Do you know if you can connect to japanese servers?

The servers are international, but to play it in Japanese you'd need the Japanese version. I'm not sure how the billing would work out then. I know that it was possible to play the US version in the UK, because that's what I did.

To input in Japanese on a western client you need to some 3rd party plugin I think. Kind of silly that they'd bill FFXI as an international game letting you play with people all around the world but don't even give westerners the built in ability to input in Japanese. :/

For the hack&slay, not my thing.. and I doubt that it will involve a lot of communication.

Nagareboshi Wrote:Another game, if you wish more interaction, and having to do with sailing, would be Voyage Century Online

That is a Chinese game and I couldn't find a Japanese client. Are you sure there's a Japanese server out there?

Maybe you mixed it up with Uncharted Waters Online (Daikōkai Jidai Online) which looks almost the same, but is Japanese.

The only thing I remember about FFXI is "JP ONRY" parties. Also, a horrible abuse of the translator.

You can go to 4Gamer.net. It seems like every time they cover a PC game it's an MMO. I don't think you'll find something as grand as FFXI or WoW though, JP MMOs seem to be more casual and varied.

When they say "JP ONRY" they mean 日本語ONRY

hosino Wrote:For the hack&slay, not my thing.. and I doubt that it will involve a lot of communication.

Nagareboshi Wrote:Another game, if you wish more interaction, and having to do with sailing, would be Voyage Century Online

That is a Chinese game and I couldn't find a Japanese client. Are you sure there's a Japanese server out there?

Maybe you mixed it up with Uncharted Waters Online (Daikōkai Jidai Online) which looks almost the same, but is Japanese.

Yes, it is a Chinese game. No, i did not mix it up with another game. And in Conquer there is lot's of time to chat, thinking of vending at the market, power leveling, mining&c. And also during other activities, like sitting around in one of the cities, which are crammed with lot's of different people. And if you are joining a guild there is lot's of chatter going almost all the time. Here is the Japanese Version for Conquer Online *click me* But if hack and slay isn't your thing, then i doubt, you will much like it. ;-)

Also, you're gonna need a JPN proxy. Lots of MMOs are restricted to Japan citizens only.

FFXVI is currently f2p (I think) and allows you to set the game language (as well as the input method) to japanese even in the PAL version. The servers are international but you should probably look for the server with the most japanese population/active guilds. They have recently launched multilanguage forums on lodestone, so that may help to gather info.

Regarding FFXI (ex-player here), I seem to remember that you could start the game as a japanese client (and thus use the japanese IME ingame) even on the pal version (with a pal account) if you messed around a bit with the registry and downloaded the japanese PlayOnline. Might want to ask on blue gartr forums (google it) for details. As stated above, the servers are international, regardless of the client/account version you use.

I've thought of using japanese mmos for immersion in the past, and while I didn't really communicate much with the players there's still a lot of text (if you want to read it): npc dialogues, item descriptions etc, so it wasn't that much of a waste of time as it could have possibly become. But yeah, be careful
Some of the free japanese mmos I remember trying in that period:
Blade Chronicle
Master of Epic
Belle Isle
Ys Online
ドルアーガの塔
アラド戦記
三國志 Online
I don't remember having any problems playing them from outside Japan, but that was a lot of time ago and things might have changed.
For many of these games I can't really say much as I only tried most of them for an hour or so before getting bored (didn't really understand much at the time too, which didn't help), but Blade Chronicle was pretty good imho, and I actually had other players contact me for quests and party play on occasion, which didn't really happen on the other games.
Also if I'm not mistaken BC, 三國志 and MoE let you copy text from the chatlog, which makes it easier to look up words, in case you need to.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%8D%E3%83%...304&sr=8-1

Most people in this thread would probably get the same enjoyment out of this book that I did.

For those who like browser RPGs and are on Mixi, here's a good MMORPG.

I really wish they would bring out World of Warcraft out in Japan. I believe China and Korea have a version, but not Japan (it has to do with the difference in expectations and totally different, more developed market here). I think I would be super competent in Japanese by now if they did as the game can be used to practice reading, writing, speaking and listening (it has an in-game voice communication system, etc.)

Maybe one day...

Cranks Wrote:I really wish they would bring out World of Warcraft out in Japan. I believe China and Korea have a version, but not Japan (it has to do with the difference in expectations and totally different, more developed market here). I think I would be super competent in Japanese by now if they did as the game can be used to practice reading, writing, speaking and listening (it has an in-game voice communication system, etc.)

Maybe one day...

Japan already has a lot of problems with people who are not very confident, and instead of having a social life just play video games all day into adulthood. Let's keep WoW as far away from Japan as possible.

I also did a lot of research on MMOs at one point from memory. You can check here:

http://gamelist.mmosite.com/game/search.shtml for a list by area.

Also, isn't Perfect World a Japanese game?

https://register.perfectworld.com/pwiad9

From memory there are hundreds of games, but not all of them can be accessed outside of Japan.

Probably the no. 1 game would be [b]Monster Hunter[\b] online right now, but I can't remember if it is hack and slash without an talk or has a communication element as well?

Tzadeck Wrote:

Cranks Wrote:I really wish they would bring out World of Warcraft out in Japan. I believe China and Korea have a version, but not Japan (it has to do with the difference in expectations and totally different, more developed market here). I think I would be super competent in Japanese by now if they did as the game can be used to practice reading, writing, speaking and listening (it has an in-game voice communication system, etc.)

Maybe one day...

Japan already has a lot of problems with people who are not very confident, and instead of having a social life just play video games all day into adulthood. Let's keep WoW as far away from Japan as possible.

lol that happens too often nowadays

Tzadeck Wrote:

Cranks Wrote:I really wish they would bring out World of Warcraft out in Japan. I believe China and Korea have a version, but not Japan (it has to do with the difference in expectations and totally different, more developed market here). I think I would be super competent in Japanese by now if they did as the game can be used to practice reading, writing, speaking and listening (it has an in-game voice communication system, etc.)

Maybe one day...

Japan already has a lot of problems with people who are not very confident, and instead of having a social life just play video games all day into adulthood. Let's keep WoW as far away from Japan as possible.

I hear ya. I don't think WoW would make much of a dent to be honest. Plus, I know that Japanese guys and gals are way worse for the whole online thing, but living here you wouldn't really notice it. To be honest, I see more people reading than playing video games or anything on the train and only a few people I know even own a playstation or play online games (maybe it's just me, but I sometimes feel that Japan's social problems are more imagined than real - or are real but much overstated + of course, a lot of that lack of confidence people talk about is "lack of confidence in English" rather than anything else.) [I will go out on a limb, because I really have no idea, and say Americans are worse in terms of gaming addiction - although the gap between Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, British and American people probably isn't that great.]

I'll throw in my vote for FFXIV mostly just for ease of access as you can play in full JP and input JP from the get-go as opposed to the pain in the butt that was enabling JP support in XI.

Servers are international, and it is currently f2p and probably will be for quite some time (at least what from what I can see).

I will say though, that as former hardcore FFXI player, I find XIV to be very boring and unpolished. The game's made some great changes since it's release, but it's still got a LONG way to go before I'd seriously recommend it to someone.

Cranks Wrote:I hear ya. I don't think WoW would make much of a dent to be honest. Plus, I know that Japanese guys and gals are way worse for the whole online thing, but living here you wouldn't really notice it. To be honest, I see more people reading than playing video games or anything on the train and only a few people I know even own a playstation or play online games (maybe it's just me, but I sometimes feel that Japan's social problems are more imagined than real - or are real but much overstated + of course, a lot of that lack of confidence people talk about is "lack of confidence in English" rather than anything else.) [I will go out on a limb, because I really have no idea, and say Americans are worse in terms of gaming addiction - although the gap between Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, British and American people probably isn't that great.]

I actually think that Japan's problems are not overstated. I think that they are just more private and quiet, so they are harder to see in your daily life.

One example: people talk about the very low crime rate in Japan. Yet, Japan has a huge amount of organized crime, probably surpassing by a good margin organized crime in America at its peak. Most of what the yakuza does is basically legal, or done in such a way to appear legal or leave no evidence of crime. But a lot of it is very obviously illegal. An example is the sex trade. Since in Japan it's basically legal in Japan to pay for sex as long as it's not coitus, much of it is pretty much legal. But in reality a lot of people get vaginal sex at sex shops even though it's illegal. The far bigger problem is that a lot of the women in the sex trade are sex slaves, and the yakuza are pretty into human trafficking these days. The police don't have the power to deal with the yakuza, there's very little witness protection, a lot of the police are corrupt, and those that aren't know that if they mess with the yakuza their friends or family will be hurt. Murder by yakuza is often labeled suicide, and when a yakuza murders another yakuza it doesn't even make the news (mostly because a large percentage of the yakuza are not racially Japanese).

In a more general way, people generally don't let on about their problems in public. In public in Japan, you generally don't express your real feelings or problems at all. You act as if everything is fine. Because of that it's very hard to know about what private problems a person has.

I mean, a lot of people who play video games all day literally NEVER leave their home--their parents just throw money away taking care of them and cooking for them even as they get into their thirties. So of course it's not a public problem. People TALK about video games more in America, but that doesn't mean they play more.

According to my local internet cafe http://lineage2.plaync.jp/ is 日本人気No.1オンラインRPG

I don't know if it's what you guys are talking about? I only understand about half this thread tbh :$

This is the cafe - http://www.airscafe.com/ they have more stuff there...

caivano Wrote:According to my local internet cafe http://lineage2.plaync.jp/ is 日本人気No.1オンラインRPG

I don't know if it's what you guys are talking about? I only understand about half this thread tbh :$

This is the cafe - http://www.airscafe.com/ they have more stuff there...

Don't forget my method is the no.1 best way to study Japanese. Also the guitars I play are the no.1 best guitars to play. And the water I drink is the no.1... you get the idea. Can't trust claims from ads. d:

well some countries have advertising standards, I have no idea about Japan...

If you google 人気オンラインRPG you can find a load more No.1's