Online games with chinese communities

hedos
February 19, 2008, 06:11 PM posted in General Discussion
Hello,

I remember how I learned quite a lot of english (written english at least!) : that was by playing video games where most of the community spoke english (Diablo, Starcraft, Dark Age of Camelot all comes to mind).

I think that's actually a pretty good way to learn more about a language.

Can you tell me (and others) about online games where chinese is spoken? It can be anything, ranging from commercial titles to more simple web based flash games (I know there's some quite popular online flash games in english).

Thanks.
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fudawei
February 19, 2008, 11:29 PM

The fact that I am a stockholder in Giant International and Perfect World Limited precludes me from giving you an unbiased answer. ;)

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bazza
February 19, 2008, 11:32 PM

Quite a lot of Chinese folks play facebook poker, but you can only type Chinese if you're using IE for some reason.

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rich
February 19, 2008, 11:32 PM

In stores in China I would always see games called "Three Kingdoms" (San guo) from the "Three Kingdom dynasty" I always wondered if playing such games would not only only force me to use my Chinese to know what the characters are saying, but if it has any cultural value to it. Anyone? Anyone?

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rich
February 19, 2008, 11:33 PM

Uh, that was a computer game of course, but I don't think it is an online multi-player one.

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GreyPhoenix
February 20, 2008, 03:17 AM

If you like text-based multi-player games, try http://cantr.net/ . I warn you, though, you'll need to be able to read quite a bit of Chinese if you're to have any fun. I tried it for awhile and eventually quit. Another idea is to do a search on Chinese MMORPG (I think that's Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game). I know there are several. I'm waiting for "Zon: the new Chengo Chinese" to come out. It's on online game specifically geared for learners of Mandarin (created by the Confucius Institute and Michigan State University I think). I think it was supposed to be out in February, but so far I haven't seen any updates. Hope this helps a little!

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Julesong
February 21, 2008, 01:07 AM

An inexpensive alternative might be Chinese users of Second Life. http://secondlife.com/ I am sure there are many Mandarin speaking Second Life users, and best of all, playing SL is free. :) I did a quick search on the Second Life site, and it appears there are even folks looking for language partners... http://tinyurl.com/2ec84j Hope I was able to help! :) --Julie/Julesong

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janezhang00882
December 16, 2009, 09:51 AM

Well, in fact, San Guo is about ancient China, so many words used in that game is not used today. I suggest you to register in www.renren.com. It is a big website just like China's Facebook. You can talk with Chinese students there.