gaqzi

Seems like they're completely based on the amount of posts you make.

lol I can imagine that. He owns the large part of all wizard operated far-seeing orbs, where women in chain-mail bikinis are shown.

Planescape: Torment hands down. Big fan of Fallout 1&2, I was so disappointed by Bethesdas Fallout. Even knowing what kind of game it would be I was hoping for something else, and it was also way too easy to play. Baldurs Gate, my first foray to a "real" RPGs. Really showing that a real RPG was a bit more than hack n' slash Diablo type gaming.

I think you are missing one thing, if it was on a German site most of us probably never would've found out about it. And to re-iterate my stance, I'm for translations/localisations when money isn't an issue. Maybe gauge interest when it has been released and do it then?

Better question is why money is being spent on Linux version if all steam games will be on Linux? It doesn't work that way, all games that will be available through Steam on Linux/Mac OS X will have to be ported. Now that porting will be more or less work depending on the game in question. Steam is just a platform.

There are more people speaking French, German or Spanish than are living in the countries you've quoted. For example you missed out, that the whole southern american continent speaks spanish (except of Brazil, there it's portugese), including Mexiko and quite a lot of people living in the USA. Wikipedia also says, there are more people speaking spanish as their native language than english. That much about figures. Of course you can exclude several markets and target audiences, it's simply a business decision, as it is always. But in that case they would also disappoint quite a lot of people. If I recall correctly, their games have always been well received in Europe, sometimes even better than in the USA. So I think it's correct, that there is a large group of fans who would like to play the game in their native language. Gaming is about entertainment, having fun after daily work, when your children have gone to bed. And there are a lot of people that don't think doing vocabulary excercises belongs to that. For me, I would be really disappointed if they would not offer a tranlsation to the EFIGS. I do understand english well enough to play a game, but I think Obsidian has the capabilites to do this and that's what makes the difference between a good and an extraordinary dev. If Fargo can do so, Obsidian should be able to do so as well. I don't think it's rocket science to translate a fantasy text and it worked quite well with planescape and all the other games Black Isle or Obsidian released. I actually mentioned that Spanish would probably make most sense because of the latino countries in an earlier post. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point. Personally I just wish that money is going spent on making great English content and not diverting into other languages that possibly could rob us of that. Oh cool, wasn't aware of that strong a RPG culture in Germany. Hehe, nope, but I'm a Swede living in Singapore.

As far as I know it's taught in most countries in Europe. Now I only know people from "western" Europe, but that covers a large part. Wikipedia sais: All 23 official languages of the EU are accepted as working languages, but in practice only three are used most often: English, French, and German. Of these, English is the most common. Living here and looking it up on wikipedia are two different things. Trust me on this, I'm a German-American dual citizen in college and I make my money tutoring english and translating papers. I dunno how many times I've heard someone say "Nat

As far as I know it's taught in most countries in Europe. Now I only know people from "western" Europe, but that covers a large part. Wikipedia sais: All 23 official languages of the EU are accepted as working languages, but in practice only three are used most often: English, French, and German. Of these, English is the most common.

Really? Which languages? What I've seen games are generally translated to French, German and Spanish. Looking at Wikipedia for those countries we get: France: 65 million Spain: 47 million Germany: 82 million The European Union: 503 million So if they're to aim for those three languages it'd cover about 39% of the population of Europe. Is there bang enough for the buck? And if we're contemplating doing just one translation I'm guessing Spanish would make the most sense considering the Latino countries, right? And then there's always Asia

If the game is supposed to be targeted at a mature audience enjoying RPG games, isn't it a fair assumption that they'll understand English well enough to play? I was playing BG/Fallout in my early teens with English as a second language, and while I didn't get all nuances I could still enjoy the games. I completely disagree and believe it'd be an unnecessary money drain, unless there's is just so much money that they don't know what to do about it. And an honest question, is there really any market that is so big on it's own that it could actually sustain the cost of translated game, intended for a mature audience of RPG players?

So what is the IE experience in your mind? They're making their own IP so they can't exactly copy the game mechanics from D&D based games straight off. Personally I'm hoping for some great characters, largely dialog based game. A game that isn't just another ugly 3D-game that is dumbed down for the FPS players on a Xbox and want to seem deep by playing RPGs. So I'm one of those that hopes this game will take many queues from the game play of Planescape: Torment, probably the best game I've played.

They said in the video they're aiming for their own IP (Intellectual Property), meaning, that the world be off their own imagination and own rules. Personally I hope they take some of the aspects from Planescape: Torment, the whole idea of the world forming after the belief of the people living there really speaks to me. Then again I'm also a big Discworld fan so.