I don't think I even need to explain this. The Russians actually have their own server ,the UK doesn't. They go to EU west. And guess what? Most games are STILL full of people speaking Russian. I am by no means a racist, but when your trying to communicate with a team that DOESNT SPEAK YOUR LANGUAGE it is quite infuriating.

I just need an explanation, WHY?! They've got their own god-damned listing.

Also I think Valve need to add language preference matchmaking AKA only matching up with people who speak your language.

Hope nobody takes offense.

League of Legends used to have the exact same problem with Brazilians, and still to an extent has this problem with Spanish speakers on the NA server. I totally agree with you, its really difficult and frustrating to try to play a MOBA with people who don't speak your language.

Yep the Russians love themselves some EU West action. No idea why though.

Language preference would be great, since a lot of Dota comes down to communication with your team.

Yeah, I think this game absolutely needs a language preference. It boggles my mind that I queue on US servers, which one would assume is the fucking english speaking one, and I'm constantly matched with people who clearly don't speak a word of english. Well...they do speak english, but they conveniently can only become multi-lingual when they want to try and start shit.

I could see how someone might take offense to a suggestion like this, but playing with randoms is already an exercise in frustration without a language barrier involved. Not being able to communicate at all just makes things infinitely worse.

It's easier for them to find games at certain times if they use the EU West servers. I know this because Western Europeans loved using the US servers in Super MNC when I played that competitively and it pissed me the fuck off because they'd usually have outrageous pings and not be friendly about it.

If you had language preferences wait times for games would magnify by a great deal and that's something no developer wants. More time in lobbies means a failure on their part.

@TheFreepie:

This is what I understand about Russians and Brazilians, from people who hail from those countries:

In Brazil and in Russia, Dota is very popular. The original WC3 Dota ran on WC3 which was very easy to pirate so you could get the game for free, and the system requirements were very low so you could play it on pretty much any computer. This draws a lot of younger kids into playing Dota (more than in other regions just by quality of its popularity in the nation) so you get a lot of insufferable young'uns screaming obscenities. This causes some of the more well-mannered (and fun to play with) Russians and Brazilians to go to other servers so they don't have to suffer those assholes. This increases queue times on their home servers, so the insufferable assholes migrate as well. I have also heard reports that the RU and BR servers actually give worse ping than their EU and NA counterparts. That being said, many Russians and Brazilians seem to actually know enough English to communicate, but there are assholes who refuse to speak any English except "i fuk u mom noob" because those are the ones who make all the other Russians and Brazilians look bad.

I hope this clears things up. I only lump the two nationalities together because I've heard ridiculously similar stories from actual people who live there. I just feel bad because I've played with a handful of people from both nations and they seem like normal people, it is just that there seems to be (I can't say if there actually are, confirmation bias and all) more whiny, insufferable assholes that hail from their country than any other.

What I am trying to say is, to all of you normal Russian and Brazilian Dota 2 players out there; I'm sorry you have a bunch of dicks who share the same nationality as you. They are all giving you a bad name.

Thought that was amusing, once again I don't mean to be offensive. I'm not saying the Russian community is a bad one, I just wish they'd stick to their designated server or communicate in English. OR EVEN BETTER I wish Valve would make language preferences as stated previously, then this issue would almost certainly cease to exist. This is probably an issue with other nationalities but I'm singling out Russians as the most obvious because 1. There is a server specifically for them and 2. they seem to be the majority

Me and my buddy watched some "pro" streamer who happened to be Russian (And he was pretty terrible, not to mention anger management issues, but at least he was cussing in (butchered) English), and what I noticed was that in the matchmaking he didn't even select the Russian server, just the two EU ones. Problem is, everyone thinks they're too good for their server and go to the EU server, but then every single idiot is on the EU server. IP restrictions should seriously be put in place.

That's the character of Russian.

There are Russians playing on the Australian and US West servers so I have no doubt that the EU servers have a major problem with the same thing.

Maybe I can share some of my experience with you guys. I'm from Argentina and suffer something similar when playing, but in my case (as mentioned before) with Brazilian players.

The MOBA scene grew really fast in South America due to WC3 piracy and private servers (also mentioned before); this lead to DotA being very popular in the "cyber cafés" where people with low income would spend hours and hours playing locally, reinforcing all of the negative parts of playing the game. After some time passed and new MOBAs appeared, all this people grew up (at least in age) and even with the shittiest computers have been able to play the game. Keep in mind i'm not saying that it's related to having more/less money, but to how the community started around South America (comparing it to what happened in EU).

Heroes of Newerth implemented a system that blocks South American players to join other servers, the result?, tons of players left the game to LoL and DotA2, because for every asshat you encounter in a game there's probably a good player that doesn't wan't to play with them, so they go to US servers, increasing the waiting time for the rest (also mentioned before).

Now, the problem in the games is that a lot of people know very little english and are probably playing with Skype on, with one or two friends. They don't care aboutsaying anything to the rest, because they're "oh so good" that think that communication is useless, having their friends over skype they play by themselves and unless they're really good, you're probably all dead because the other team is a bit more organized. Tons of people play this way, in very small groups that know very little english and prefer to play with their friends, what if the rest of the team needs help?, well, they will think the rest of the players suck, curse a little an on to the next match...

If anyone has any questions on this subject I've been playing DotA almost since the beggining of the game in South America so maybe I can share some insight on the subject and the community!.

Because take, take, take.

That's the Russian way.

Lets make a server for homosexuals, women and black people.

Fuck y'all, God damn hypocrites. I happened to play with a group of Russians who were well mannered and spoke pretty good English. It was during Diretide so a while back but still. Just because you run into a few assholes you start to think that an entire nation of people is like that? Calling for segregation and shit. Like I said, fuck y'all.

I can testify that 90% of the games I played were full of Russians. 8% were full with Frenches and then 2% for everybody else. Gotta admit though, the games with Russian were the best ones. Quite funny when they tried to curse in English.

I am Russian, and it's quite easy to explain. Here in post soviet territories console gaming is not nearly a prominent as in the west, because it's very expensive. People owning a console are either dedicated "hardcore" gamers or rich folk. Because of that PC gaming is the hot shit over there, and while kids in the west play Halo or COD, kids in Russia play Dota, CS and other cheap competitive games. So people you see in those free to play games are mostly kids,and you tent to not notice other Russians who speak english or not speaking at all, and that creates stigma that all Russians are dumb flaming retards (undrestandably so).

And yeah, they choose Euro servers because queue time is much shorter.

I play EU West (or played I should say), usually around 4 or 5 games a day with 2 or 3 mates. We usually see no actual EU west people other than us, sometimes there is one but it's rare, the rest are always Russians or Ukrainians.

Why it's not cool...

They will not make even the least bit of effort to communicate, even if they knew english. Non-stop voip abuse in russian. Total selfishness and ignorance when picking and laining.

And they just effin loove to grief with chicken, it's like they're getting paid to do so.

Yeah I know...it's not every Russian, it's just at least 90% of who I've seen during my 400 games, and I'm not exaggerating even a bit.

I've played enough to see that pub games are just completely hopeless and pointless agony. I can only hope they do some geo-blocking so I can play again.

@BabyChooChoo said:

Yeah, I think this game absolutely needs a language preference. It boggles my mind that I queue on US servers, which one would assume is the fucking english speaking one...

Oh yeah? Why?

That's always the problem with these arguments and why they are always pretty funny, with americans whining as if US servers are somehow exclusive to the language instead of a region and complaining about some apparent lack of communication when really playing in pub games doesn't require that much complex coordination outside basic commands like those provided by Dota's quick chat wheel (the one you get when you press Y ingame.)

All in all this is just xenophobic posturing cause if you wanted some grand strategy bullshit you would be playing with friends anyway.

You know what's worse than people who don't speak your language? People who leave matches 2 minutes in. I play Super MNC pretty competitively. I'm usually the carry in the matches I play but no amount of me going 12-0 can salvage a 4-5. I can deal with someone not speaking my language. Fuck leavers.

@Detrian: You are so fucking beyond help that it's more than I'm willing to deal with right now. Congrats, you won an internet argument.

You guys make Dota 2 sound like a great game to play.

@Jams said:

You guys make Dota 2 sound like a great game to play.

It's not. I play it because I hate myself.

There were lots of weird Europeans playing Counter Strike back in the day too, speaking all kinds of nonsense. It's just one of those things you have to learn to deal with if you play PC games.

Raciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiist.

All of you people who keep saying "racist" and "segregation", it's really a HUGE issue. 
Play a good 5-10 matches and report back how many of them you were able to communicate with the other players on your team.

@ShockD said:

Raciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiist.

Say that all you like, but playing with idiots who have 350+ ping because they're playing on a server on the other side of the world, who constantly feed and who scream profanities at you in Russian whenever you ask them to do something does not make for fun times.

@ShockD said:

Raciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiist.

Say that all you like, but playing with idiots who have 350+ ping because they're playing on a server on the other side of the world, who constantly feed and who scream profanities at you in Russian whenever you ask them to do something does not make for fun times.

In Soviet Russia, Dota 2 plays you.

Language preference added to matchmaking. Now there is no excuse not to permanently ban anyone intentionally queuing for a language they don't speak.

I have this issue *sometimes* on US Servers (and even tonight with the new language filter). I don't even get why you'd want to play on a server if people won't understand you. I used to just mute them and move on. Now I'll start reporting, because there is really no excuse when you have a language filter in there. Communication is too important in this game.

But like I said, it's only sometimes. I play with friends most of the time, so it typically isn't an issue. It does get worse when I have to abandon a game for some reason and then have to play in low priority for a bit. But I honestly just don't play until that penalty goes away now.

But still, why even play on servers when you don't even speak the language? Not trying to be a dick. Just trying to figure out why you'd check that filter option rather than one local to you.

@TheFreepie said:

Thought that was amusing, once again I don't mean to be offensive. I'm not saying the Russian community is a bad one, I just wish they'd stick to their designated server or communicate in English. OR EVEN BETTER I wish Valve would make language preferences as stated previously, then this issue would almost certainly cease to exist. This is probably an issue with other nationalities but I'm singling out Russians as the most obvious because 1. There is a server specifically for them and 2. they seem to be the majority

As a fluent Russian, it absolutely kills my brain function to read this faux-Russian-English mix. Same with Singularity - the backwards R's in all the text took a full second or two to put into the correct context and read it correctly.

To everyone who thinks it's hilarious - FUCKING STOP IT. IT'S FUCKING WITH MY BRAIN.

@Vinny_Says: you r a nice etroll frined

Hello!

I have to say, play with russians 90% very fustrating.

They play like an idiot.

No teamwork, in captain mode they pick what they want.

Dota will be much better place without russians. :(((

The main problem is not with the language. Behaviour...

I know some good players from europe who play on american servers because russians

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/17/178515/2419751-tumblr_mej3caz9JR1rk0u1wo1_1280.png

http://i.qkme.me/3otxuf.jpg

Not even russians want to play with russians.

God, Russians are so bad. I've recently reported and insulted a couple of them some games ago, because, you know, when you are in the queue for US and pick the "English" language the last thing you're expecting is russians that can not speak english, and are of course, bad.

And when I started up my game, the thank you thing came up, and I was pleased to know that action was taken against them. However they also reported me, which led to me getting muted for 5 hours. This is so bad. Played a couple a games muted, and was tearing my head out. You can't chat at all, and the only thing you can use is the action wheel. How the fuck am I supposed to ask who is getting a mek with the action wheel? How am I going to tell Naga to NOT max out ensnare? Have any of you experienced this?

I don't see this as much as a problem with random matches. If some Russian requires some one to partner with some hero then they should build their party first because it doesn't matter if they speak English, French or Portuguese things are not going to go smoothly. Blaming it on your team is stupid.

oh poor russian.

@hungry's analysis is pretty spot on, at least for my country, Brazil. I even played my last 8 or 9 matches on the South American servers and it takes longer to find a match and the player base is full of quitters. I call bullshit in the whole segregation racism argument. It's not racist that you can to play a team based game with someone you can communicate and I think valve should add more language options to filter. Guess what? In those matches I played on SA servers we had English and Italian speakers and so far the most obnoxious player I found so far on a SA server was an English speaker. I guess people pick all options because all they really want is get a match soon. Nothing wrong with that and I don't think anyone here is actually suggesting region locking, just that some servers enforce language filters. I mean, I can't post in my native language here. Is Giant Bomb a racist xenophobe holocaust denier pedophile website?

Also I'd like to defuse a common misconception regarding Brazilian players actually knowing English but refusing to do so. I see this a lot in every "OMG teh BR" thread. That might be the case some times but it's not the norm. The average Brazilian gamer understand about as much English as the average anime fan understands Japanese. They know a handful of words but can't form sentences or truly understand most of what you write. Some do know a little English but are self conscious and afraid of being taunted for that.

Haha, I once did that being from the UK. Seriously, I could NOT get a game on the Europe servers, US servers were hit or miss with lag but at least I could play... I wonder if the population ever picked up, probably not

I know it sounds racist but its true, it seems like EU West is dominated by Russian children.

They are selfish and constantly accuse you of kill stealing. The amount of times the four Russians speak to each other in Russian but then break out the English to gang up and report me for 'kill stealing' or just generally not being good enough. I play always play support and am pro-activley nice and cooperative, I couldn't care less about K/D. But in a teamfight they expect me to get carefully ensure they get every kill, like with witch doctor apparently me using my ult or windrunner arrow in a team fight made me a noob kill stealer. (As you can expect me not helping would have resulted in nobody getting kills)

It just makes the game not fun, and its fucking ridiculous you can choose what server you are on, it should be automatic and sorted by language!!

EDIT: I know not all Russians play like that, but that's just my experience. My main gripe is the language barrier, which I think is fair enough in a team game that requires coordination.

It is, of course, because Vlad Borschtmaker on Gamebomb.ru runs a daily(ish) feature about DOTA.

I don't think it's inappropriate at all. It's better that there should be a language preference as part of the filters since communication is key.

Every game bar a couple with GB duders has been on EU West. Yeah, there's a lot of Russians on there.

So the fuck what?

I've played with plenty of people from all round the world who were assholes, whether they were Russian or not is irrelevant. I just don't want to play with assholes, I don't care where they're from. I wish the player reporting had a bigger impact than a very short time in a low priority queue; if that system were a bit more strict we wouldn't see any jackasses in the game.

@pingu44 said:

Every game bar a couple with GB duders has been on EU West. Yeah, there's a lot of Russians on there.

So the fuck what?

I've played with plenty of people from all round the world who were assholes, whether they were Russian or not is irrelevant. I just don't want to play with assholes, I don't care where they're from. I wish the player reporting had a bigger impact than a very short time in a low priority queue; if that system were a bit more strict we wouldn't see any jackasses in the game.

As an American duder I have issues mainly with players from South America (Brazil and Peru mostly) but I feel there is a enough parallel for me to explain the frustration.

1). Bad ping. Because they are geographically so far away from the server they are playing on they have a very high ping so even if they were the best player in the game they'd still be doing poorly.

2). Language barrier. In a sad twist it seems the only english a lot of these people can speak is to talk about how they fucked my mother. As dota insults go that's pretty standard but it is annoying when you are trying to communicate with your team (in a very coordination heavy game) and they can't understand you and/or refuse to speak in a language most of the team can understand.

3). Obnoxious attitude. This is particularly bad when there are two of them in the game. They will use the in game voice system to talk to each other in spanish/portugese and when you ask them to please speak english or to talk to their friends in a way that doesn't hamper team communication they flip out on you as if somehow it's ok I can't hear people asking for tp supports because these two idiots are talking about their day in their native tongue.

It's not racism because I don't give a flying fuck about those people out of the game, and it's not descrimination because our complaints are legitimately about team communication and coordination. It ruins the dota2 experience if I can only rely on 3 out of 5 of my team being able to communicate with me, let alone actually work together. Valve obviously understands there is an issue because they added a language barrier (which seems to do nothing), I don't understand why they don't just require people to play on servers located on their continent and then work out any issues from there.

Again I have to point out it isn't about "racism" but that someone who wants complex and higher team play is looking for it in the wrong place. If they need someone to work with in tight coordination, they got matched with 4 other players random, and none of them speak the same language what did that player really expect?

I really see this more as an issue with the cliche but often true "Spoiled Carry" who try to boss everyone around even though they are doing everything wrong as well. It happens to be that they do not speak the same language as well.

How is asking for an optional language filter in any way racist? It's preposterous to even suggest that's racist. You're racist.

@extomar:

That assumes

1). we are solo queuing.

2). We are objectively bad at playing the game and bad at understanding the game.

That's probably true for some people but for a decent percentage that just doesn't hold water. If I am playing with at least 2 people (so that more than half of the team is people I can rely upon) I don't think it's too much to ask that the rest of the team be competent. I'm not asking for great, I'm not even asking for good, I just want someone who can do basic things reliably like call missing in a language that the rest of the team can understand, or carry a tp so that if a lane is getting swarmed they can provide assistance.

I don't expect randoms to smoke gank, stack jungle camps, deward, hunt couriers, or solo offlane. If you are telling me I can't even expect randoms to do things like call missing or speak in an understandable language to the rest of the team than we have very different expectations for dota 2 and frankly human beings in general.

There are Russians on every server, even on the North America servers.

I guess even Russians don't like to play with Russians.

My point is though, there are assholes with bad pings and worse attitudes everywhere, the idea that this is uniquely Brazilian or Russian or anything is rubbing me very much the wrong way. I know an American guy who has spent more time in the low priority queue than he has the main one, does that call for a post lambasting American Dota players? I just don't get why race specifically is a thing here, I don't think there any more Russian assholes than there are of any other nationality.