ANSI vs Unicode

[Krom]

You probably read this article: http://www.kamremake.com/devblog/adding ... e-support/ if not, please read it first.

Questions are, what format to choose for savegame names?

Unicode
- campaign missions are titled in unicode and default savename matches that
- players might like to give native names to their savegames
ANSI
- multiplayer saves will be understandable to all players
- savegames and replays shared in forum will be understandable to all players

I'm inclining towards ANSI, do you have any arguments?

[Lewin]

Some counter arguements:

I think for a Chinese player it would be annoying to have to be restricted to Latin characters for save game names. Especially if I'm playing "Town tutorial" (in Chinese) but I have to call the saved game something in Latin (imagine if China made a game where when you selected English everything in singleplayer was in English except you had to name your saved games in Chinese).

- multiplayer saves will be understandable to all players
- savegames and replays shared in forum will be understandable to all players

Not really, if it's written in ANSI Polish/German/Dutch then it's mostly meaningless to me (almost as meaningless as Chinese would be)

The OS supports Unicode file names so I don't really see an issue with it.

[Krom]

By the ANSI I meant 0..9 A..z NumberLatin set only. I know it sounds restricting, but it has its benefits that anyone can read/type it (unlike e.g. 2 Chinese players names are almost indistinguishable or SAM and SAM and SAM being three different names because one uses Cyrillic letter A and M).

[Lewin]

By the ANSI I meant 0..9 A..z NumberLatin set only. I know it sounds restricting, but it has its benefits that anyone can read/type it (unlike e.g. 2 Chinese players names are almost indistinguishable or SAM and SAM and SAM being three different names because one uses Cyrillic letter A and M).

Yeah, so I think player names should be ANSI so they're typable by anyone. However, saved games are almost always for your own use, nobody else needs to see them in 99% of cases, so it seems silly to restrict it. In cases where you want to share saves/replays you can rename the file to be in ANSI first if it's being shared publicly, but if Chinese players send names between each other (or on their own KaM forums) then that's not necessary.

[Shadaoe]

Well the fact that when someone saves in multiplayer, everybody in the game gets the save too makes me think that'd be best to keep with ANSI because otherwise you end up with save names you totally don't understand and you'll feel the need to save on your own with ansi characters, thus increasing the save spam in your folder and the management that comes with it.
I for example only do save with english names because I know everyone got it and it avoids having two or more saves of the same game.
If people saved in different characters than me, I'd end up deleting saves after each session.

On the other end it is frustrating for people who use different characters in their language, so there are pros and cons for keeping ANSI only.

I'm not sure what would be the best but I guess that'd be easier for players to be restricted to ANSI characters compared to unicode.
Although note that I'd surely not say that if I used different characters every day for my language that's a very biased post probably.

[Lewin]

Well mostly people leave multiplayer saved game names starting with the map name. If they do change it to their own language in ANSI (like Polish) then it's meaningless to me also, so I'd delete or rename it the same as I would if it was saved as a Chinese name. It's not like ANSI forces everyone to name their saves in English, they can still give it a name which is completely meaningless to me. And if we do force it to ANSI, then what will a Chinese player (who doesn't speak English) name a multiplayer save? Probably some phonetic like "Duo Ren You Xi" (taken from our Chinese translation), which is completely meaningless to me. It's almost as meaningless as if he'd used the actual Chinese symbols. So I don't think forcing it to ANSI suddenly means everyone can understand the name of multiplayer saves.

But multiplayer saves is not the main point of my argument, a lot of people play singleplayer and it would seem silly to restrict them to ANSI. I think at least singleplayer saves should support Unicode, but I don't like the idea of single/multiplayer having different rules.

If you can't name singleplayer saves in Unicode then it seems like we're only making partial Unicode support, and languages like Chinese will always be only "partially supported" like they are now.

[Shadaoe]

It's not like ANSI forces everyone to name their saves in English

Actually it does limit a lot the saves which are named in other languages than english, it's pretty common in my games to have non native english speakers write the save name in english currently (from what I saw).
At least I do name my saves in english.

So I don't think forcing it to ANSI suddenly means everyone can understand the name of multiplayer saves.

You're right it doesn't, but it makes people name their save names mostly in english so I guess that's for the better (again based on the assumption that I'm right about the sentence above your quote). Although you're right it will force chinese people or other languages to name a save in characters they don't want to write, I understand how frustrating this could be.

But multiplayer saves is not the main point of my argument, a lot of people play singleplayer and it would seem silly to restrict them to ANSI. I think at least singleplayer saves should support Unicode, but I don't like the idea of single/multiplayer having different rules.

I agree that having different rules wouldn't be nice. In my opinion it would be silly/confusing.

If you can't name singleplayer saves in Unicode then it seems like we're only making partial Unicode support, and languages like Chinese will always be only "partially supported" like they are now.

Yes it's true but that's a tricky debate I think, both sides have advantages and disadvantages, and I wouldn't be able to say which is best (apart from my biased point of view).
I totally understand your arguments and agree with them, but I also think there are positive arguments for ANSI-only, and my goal was just to list all arguments I thought of, both ways are good to me as I can't really decide myself, although I slightly think that ANSI would be best but again, sorry for repeating, but this slight advantage is based on the fact that these are characters I'm used to.