Looking at several other webpages I currently favor
the idea of displaying a "What's your favorite language?"
page when starting Enigma for the first time. We could
ask for a user name at that point as well, even for the
video resolution. In a (much) later version we could
invite to a tutorial through the options and features
of the game or give hints about the ratings auto-update.
In which language will you ask your first question?
Hmm ... would be the default language, I think.
However, as soon as our freshling sees a list of
obviously different languages, he or she won't
bother the question and just opt for what he or
she recognizes.
The username/resolution questions will translate
immediately.
The main idea of addition of flags to avoid the problem of providing
language names in a certain language. On the main screen we do not
have the space to display many words. Thus the flags are nice a
colorful and inviting mean for language selection that is understood
by everyone. It works well on our homepage. It is just a question of a
locally fitting background to use flags in their original color.
There'd be no problem in adding the original
flags besides the written language name. We could
even try to catch several flags, as we wouldn't
have issues with the space anymore. At least in
the higher resolutions -- I'm not sure whether
the list would fit on 640/480 or even 320/240.