[MUD-Dev] Metric vs. English System of Measurement in Games

[Kirinyaga]

Michael Hartman [mailto:michael at thresholdrpg.com] wrote:

> The question here was whether using any system other than
> imperial/English will alienate American players who are likely to
> be the largest percentage of my customers. Specifically, I
> wondered if anyone had done any actual market research to
> determine how people/players are affected by playing a game that
> uses units they are not as familiar with.

As a french guy who never used the imperial system, I can tell you
feet and inch looks exotic to me. It reminds me of the jules verne
books I read, and all the old novels. Just one sentence talking
about a distance in such units is perfect to quickly immerse me in a
different universe, or at least a different time.

On the other hand, I have absolutely no idea what it means. I know a
foot is about 1/3 meter, and an inch about 1/4 dm. The only way I
can understand what a distance in foot really is, is to do the
division myself. And because of the approximation, it is always
false. For exemple, I presume the average 6 feet guy you were
talking about is not 2 meters high. How really tall is a 6 feet guy
? No idea. Because when you're talking about this, you're really not
talking on the 1-meter or 1 foot scale, more on the 1-10cm scale,
the scale that makes you look up or down, the height difference
between your eyes and the other guy ones. I don't need any measure,
whatever the unit, to know the average human height, the word "guy"
is sufficient enough.  And a lot of my friends don't even know the
name of all the units US is using (don't ask me what a ounce is...,
I don't even have an approximation for this). Some don't even know
you are not using the metric system ...

So, if the length you try to talk about is really important, you
better have to translate it in something I can understand. If,
however, you just want to immerse me in your universe, you can keep
any unit you want, and refering to an obsolete real system (obsolete
for your target audience) such as the imperial units (for the
frenchmen) may even be far better than made-up units, as it can
instantly evoke back from memory a lot of things from old books, and
the feeling to be somewhere else but without being totally lost.

--
Kirinyaga
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