Arabic Rappelz, or Holy Shit A MMO Finally Went There

[mc776]

Sometimes a paradigm has to be ripped out of context and made to survive in a brand new, very different environment before true innovation can happen.

I never thought I'd live to see this.

More pictures here, with a warning to not fucking read the comments if you value your sanity.

A second element of localization also stuck out for me:

The example [Game Power 7 general manager] Mujahid gave me was that "the original story talks about three races and three gods, which is very odd to our culture. We had to modify that to make it about three nations and three kings."

A few years ago I would've seen this and laughed - but the last few years of better understanding how people work and several related encounters of my own I see the wisdom of this choice.

I'm an atheist (with a mandatory "but not one of those atheists"). I used to be, on and off, a fundamentalist non-denominational Protestant. Even now I feel an unconscious, highly unpleasant sense of unease when I have to deal with polytheistic and animistic spiritual belief systems that I simply do not get in a Jewish, Christian or Islamic context. (I don't know either way about how I'd feel in a Sikh or Baha'i context.) Even if intellctually I found this feeling to be a baseless vestige, it's unpleasant enough that unless I was deliberately trying to purge it I would find much better things to do with my day than to play a videogame that evoked it.

For what it's worth, most games do not evoke any such feeling, simply because I'm thoroughly aware that the producers do not take any of it seriously in the least and don't expect any more from the audience. But I am starting to get kavitykrunch's earlier objections to taking part in a Demon: the Fallen game. D:

Comments

[furikku]

The three nations-three kings thing gives me a happy for some reason. :3 Like not just the fact that they localized it, but the actual change in setup.

[mc776]

My instant reaction was that they're actually the same thing, it's just that the MENA players aren't assumed to be buying into the myths that the kings have manufactured for their own benefit. :V

[furikku]

I think that is part of it, actually. :D

I tend to be kind of :/ about goddy-type stuff, now that I think about it; even with Reliquary, I am actively avoiding anything about whether their god actually exists or Does Things. I do not care about that it gets in the way of people with interesting scars and occasionally superpowers!

[mc776]

My favourite Christmas movie is Miracle on 34th Street.

Throughout the movie it is entirely plausible an explanation that Kris Kringle is just a totally mundane crazy guy, as it is that he is in fact Father Christmas.

And that is beautiful.

[furikku]

I have not seen this movie, but the ambiguity is very nice.