I see...
...well, I don't know what to tell you other than to just keep hitting 1-5 and 2-5 until she comes.
As for me, I'm about the same level, and I'm a casual player as well, I just have this obcession with completing quests and I don't have crap to do after work during the week.
As for KC being region-locked...are you talking about Kadokawa being overprotective with its content or the everlasting sensations that are "questionable contents of the game"?
Well, that makes sense as to why certain games and content are noted as being 'Japanese Only', and given what I know of what is legal in Japan vs. what's legal in the US.... well, I understand why that's a thing.
...doesn't exactly explain KanColle other than the fact that the game as a whole seems to gloss over a lot of "stuff" and the mere implication that Japan won at Midway (even as an alternitive history and/or history repeating itself) would fly like a lead balloon in some areas of Western (read: American) culture.
But the world isn't just "Nihon" and the "USA" either. Even if the US isn't going to stand for such a thing, it may be okay elsewhere.. If they're really doing it because they actually forget that there are other continents, well... that isn't new either (over the years of game-releases... even NieR Automata initially had region-locked "US" and "Nihon" releases).
Even if they do not wish to distribute it overseas, they could simply just leave it. Take Granblue for example; the game is technically "for Japan only", but they do not enforce a ban. The silly thing is that their website can be accessed from across the Internet, but only English lessons can be accessed (unless you are from Japan). Perhaps preventing (irresponsible) users of the Internet from accessing their games might be their goal...
(BTW, if DMM is the distributor and nearly everything on their website is region-locked, why do people say that Kadokawa is responsible for this?)
I am not going to pretend I know why DMM has 'Japan or USA' only...I have a few ideas, but without any actual understanding, I just cannot comment on that matter in comfort.
You do realize that KanColle is in the same boat as Granblue Fantasy in that regard, yes? While KC is for Japan only, but there are plenty of players all across the planet that play. I know 2 people who frequent these forums (or at least the chatroom) that are from the USA...including myself. This said, there could be any number of reasons why DMM has made the decision that they did... or maybe it's not up to them and has more to do with legality... I mean, DMM has a subsidiary called Nutaku that is for the English-speaking (or, rather, not Japanese) crowd and there are plenty of games and such there. Why they have this seperation, I have no clue...
As far people pointing to Kadokawa instead of DMM, that is probably because people don't know the difference between a developer (Kadokawa) and a distributor or publisher (DMM). Which is understandable in some cases, because the very large scale game companies are their own developer and publisher... but most games? Not so much.
Well, that makes sense as to why certain games and content are noted as being 'Japanese Only', and given what I know of what is legal in Japan vs. what's legal in the US.... well, I understand why that's a thing.
...doesn't exactly explain KanColle other than the fact that the game as a whole seems to gloss over a lot of "stuff" and the mere implication that Japan won at Midway (even as an alternitive history and/or history repeating itself) would fly like a lead balloon in some areas of Western (read: American) culture.
What's next?
As for Kadokawa vs DMM; based on what I've heard, I would too point towards Kadokawa because I always thought that "Devs" as we refer to KanColle team here are this group that initially created the game and then was bought by Kadokawa who is feeling negative about releasing their content outside of Japan. If the culprit here is DMM....well I guess it's still the fact we don't get the game properly released around the world.
A follow-up of what was supposed to be before "What's next?" cuz comment section is buggy:
Whaaat? Are you saying that a bunch of anime girls wearing some ship parts named after imperial japan warships defeating some albino girl named Midway Princess and a bunch of creatures straight from H.R Giger's sketchbook is considered "history alteration"
For those who ask about why region-lock, here's a fact:
KC is among the least strictly region-locked games on DMM, it's one of the few games that allows the "osapi method" (going to the source code of the webpage and click the huge address that starts with "osapi", and they you can turn off the VPN), other games require you to stay connected via VPN at all times. In a way I think they deliberately allowed this (appearently it is technologically possible to forbid this) to let foreign players to play KC.
as for history alternation... anything that does not go all the way to Hiroshima is more or less a history alternation. But after Ark hinted that the story of KC happened in modern days, there's no history to be altered to begin with. Which is good IMO, because this means that no war crimes, no cruelty and probably nobody dead at all would come from these girls.
Kadokawa vs. DMM - Kadokawa is the company that created, develops and maintains the game. DMM is the distributor. While Kadokawa may have a measure of say-so in where/how their game is distributed, these decisions are ultimatly up to DMM.
Again, I'm not going to pretend to know the hows and whys but I kind of equate it to a particular product showing up *only* in store (such as Walmart) such that you must go to that one store to get that particular product.
As far as why this 'region locking' is loosly enforced, I can only guess that there's more incentive to keep it like this than not.
Regarding all of the alternate/not WWII stuff - KC has already been blasted because of it's Japanese-Centric view, glossing over the Japanese acitons of WWII, pro-war and the like. To me these arguements make little sense because they also come from the same sorts of people who view Space Battleship Yamato in the *exact* same light.
This being said, if KC had a wider distribution/English translations, I can already see the fit the internet would pitch because of the historical parallels and implications with things such as 'what if Japan won Midway..." and stuff like that.
No, this outrage doesn't make sense...but let's be real here, people on the internet get angry over stupid stuff all the time and stay mad even when the reason for theri anger is taken away or undermined.
...it doesn't help that the US is one of the few places I know where someone can go on national tevevision and say "You don't need your flu shot because Jesus died and so you're protected from disease"...and people actually, genuinely believe it.