Slitherine

I'm guessing that there are none for the same reason the game doesn't have swastikas? I hate the Nazis as much as anyone, but I think historical accuracy is key. Is there any way to rewrite the text to get SS units for the germans and NKVD units for the soviets? Thanks

AgrippaMaxentius wrote:I'm guessing that there are none for the same reason the game doesn't have swastikas? I hate the Nazis as much as anyone, but I think historical accuracy is key. Is there any way to rewrite the text to get SS units for the germans and NKVD units for the soviets? Thanks

You can click on a unit and then hit Alt-N to rename them to something like "SS evil dudes" or whatever you fancy.

I read somewhere in these forum that the SS distinction would cause problems with the game in Germany.

Obviously, the 'SE' units are serving the function of 'special bodyguard' units. For PC reasons, you will indeed have to re-name them if you prefer more historical accuracy.

shawkhan2 wrote:Obviously, the 'SE' units are serving the function of 'special bodyguard' units. For PC reasons, you will indeed have to re-name them if you prefer more historical accuracy.

Well put, and also the names are pretty meaningless in this game anyway, as it's scale is pretty hard to define...

Swastikas and SS symbols are banned in Germany and as we cant really support a different version in Germany to the rest of the world we have to have all versions without those symbols. I can see the desire to have things historically accurate but also the offence that they cause and for obvious reasons we have to go with the no nazi symbols option.

Not only in Germany btw, but in many more countries here in Continental Europe, Nazi or SS symbols are still banned by law, so we follow the rules... or risk getting banned and taken of the market.

IainMcNeil wrote:Swastikas and SS symbols are banned in Germany and as we cant really support a different version in Germany to the rest of the world we have to have all versions without those symbols. I can see the desire to have things historically accurate but also the offence that they cause and for obvious reasons we have to go with the no nazi symbols option.

lordzimoa wrote:Not only in Germany btw, but in many more countries here in Continental Europe, Nazi or SS symbols are still banned by law, so we follow the rules... or risk getting banned and taken of the market.

In 2001, 1C (a Russian developer) produced "Sturmovik", one of the best-selling WW2 combat flight simulator ever made. The German planes in the game had swastikas and they disabled the Swastika for the Western European market. However, with a simple user mod fix, one could re-enable the swastikas, for any version of the game. I didn't see any authorities (German or otherwise) demanding that the game should be banned. So I don't understand Iain's contention that Slitherine can't support a different (non-Swastika) version for the Germans.

And lordzimoa, Sturmovik was a game made in 2001 (12 years ago). If Western European authorities weren't bothered then, why are you guys getting so queasy about SS unit insignia. Don't other wargames have it? The irony is that you have so-called "SE" units, which is your politically-correct term for "SS"! If Slitherine is so sensitive to political correctness, why include SE units in the first place? And yes, I want those damned cool "SE" unit insignias that you had showed in a previous thread but disabled them because you wanted to earn a better ESRB rating. And did the German authorities give you that rating??!!! No, they didn't! So put utility on the internet for downloading that will enable those unit insignias and do it incognito.

Thanks for all the information guys, and thank you for showing me how to rename units! Pretty awesome.

As deplorable and somewhat insulting this situation might be for a wargamer, that's who it is at the moment. Things are getting better, but only slowly.
I would just go on with the game as it is, you might notice that on planes and tanks the better visible Balkenkreuz was prominent, and the Hakenkreuz if at all rather at the tail of the plane only.
How S and E can be exchanged has already been explained.

There are laws barring those symbols in many countries, getting one game banned can lead to stores and chains re-evaluating if they want to cooperate with such a publisher. Wargaming is frowned upon in many countries, you don't want to give anyone the idea this is a game for people secretly in love with Nazism.

We had our problems with some authorities over Panzer Corps and with certain Media, and there are other games that were fined and even took off the market after release. But no time to get into a debate about it. Just believe us or not.

The main problem is that our games fall under toys and here the laws are very strict in certain countries. We have governmental official documents that state very clearly what we can and cannot show.

That some other games slip through the net fine for them, but we don`t risk it. Again we don`t like it from a historical point of view, but we run a business and are non-political.

If we like it or not and if we agree or not is not our battle. Take it up with European authorities and legislation.

Here example the situation in Germany, but we also have Austrian, Polish, Hungarian, Danish, Belgian, Dutch, etc... but in General if you follow German, you are in line with all the others as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgeset ... ection_86a

There are mods available that have what you want, just search the mod forums here and you can have all the SS goodies you can wish for, we are just not involved as it is free available community build content, not ours.

lordzimoa wrote:We had our problems with some authorities over Panzer Corps and with certain Media, and there are other games that were fined and even took off the market after release. But no time to get into a debate about it. Just believe us or not.

The main problem is that our games fall under toys and here the laws are very strict in certain countries. We have governmental official documents that state very clearly what we can and cannot show.

That some other games slip through the net fine for them, but we don`t risk it. Again we don`t like it from a historical point of view, but we run a business and are non-political.

If we like it or not and if we agree or not is not our battle. Take it up with European authorities and legislation.

Here example the situation in Germany, but we also have Austrian, Polish, Hungarian, Danish, Belgian, Dutch, etc... but in General if you follow German, you are in line with all the others as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgeset ... ection_86a

There are mods available that have what you want, just search the mod forums here and you can have all the SS goodies you can wish for, we are just not involved as it is free available community build content, not ours.

Wow thanks Lordzimoa! I can't believe there are so many mods, just awesome.

Wow thanks Lordzimoa! I can't believe there are so many mods, just awesome.

Well, yeah I guess some more spotlight on user made mods would be great...

McGuba wrote:

Wow thanks Lordzimoa! I can't believe there are so many mods, just awesome.

Well, yeah I guess some more spotlight on user made mods would be great...

Especially the WWI - the first of its kind in 20 years!

- BNC

Actually the legal situation in Germany is at once less strict than outlined above, but even more complicated.

The usage of illegal signs is forbidden by criminal law, in §§ 86, 86a StGB, as cited above. This includes swastikas, SS runes and so on. There are exceptions, of course, like historical science, art, satire and generally anything, which is obviously neutral towards or even against nationalsocialism. This is why the are swastikas in movies and you can openly show, for example, replica models with swastikas on. Unfortunately there is one court decision from the 1990ies about the original Wolfenstein 3D, which classified it as illegal, regardless of the fact, that the nazis were the enemy. It didn´t help that in that case the game was distributed by a Neonazi mailbox. Why Neonazi would play Castle Wolfenstein in the first place is beyond my understanding, though ...

Additionally, there is juvenile protection law. You don´t get to openly publish material potentially endagering minors, like, say, snuff videos, pornography or stuff glorifying war and violence. Playing the SS doesn´t sound like something people want their children to do. So is not forbidden to publish such stuff, but you need to do it in some way that precludes minors from gaining access to it. As things go, this can actually boost sales, but makes it more complicated. The big stores or online stores might refrain from bothing about it.

In the end, it is not inconceivable to publish a video game with historically correct units, but it might require legal counsel and a willingness to stand up to it in court, which makes it plausible that a small foreign company has no interest in doing so.