South American Dota 2 players at odds over language settings

Syed Mujtaba Naqvi Published 18/07/2019

A wedge is being unintentionally driven through the South American Dota 2 community.

According to Reddit user u/andrewsnycollas, inconsistent labeling of the server located in Brazil is causing a rift between the Brazilian Dota 2 community and the rest of South America. They theorize a key reason for this might be how the server isn’t actually labeled as “Brazil” for many of those who could be interested in playing there.

While the Brazil server is labeled as such for those with English and Portuguese language settings, it is labeled as “Sudamerica,” meaning South America, for those who play the game in Spanish. The official language of Brazil is Portuguese, while most of South America speaks Spanish.

This results in a number of Spanish-speaking Dota 2 players flooding onto what theoretically should be a Portuguese-speaking server. Given how reflexively hostile Dota 2 players can be towards teammates, this has created serious tension between South Americans that play public matchmaking.

This is compounded further by the Brazilian server being among the biggest in Latin America and often the best available for players in the southern hemisphere.

Dota 2 enjoys global popularity in a way few games do but strong communication is important for consistent success. This has resulted in players blaming teammates that speak different languages for losses on a regular basis with each region finding its own scapegoat.

The Dota 2 development team has historically done very little to remedy this. While the game features language-based matchmaking options, these preferences are not consistently utilized and are easily subverted by players that wish to reduce queue times. A chat wheel was introduced to the game in years past, but it is a poor substitute for actual verbal communication.

Given how prevalent this issue has been at the global level and how Valve has been unable to find an elegant solution, it’s possible the best way to handle playing with people who speak other languages might be to simply try hard and trust teammates to do the same.

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