Farudan

@dlux: Please add Armand as Meistersinger of the Obsidian Order.

Is there a bigger resolution for the Sagani concept, par to the previous ones?

Hey Armand, we all decided to get excited about this project and spread the word, so we are all "riding the band wagon". I think music is such an important thing in our lives and your music simply fits perfectly to this campaign. For me, it's inspiring and another piece to the whole picture of the community commitment seen during the whole campaign. Fans offering Obsidian help in all areas, pledging more than they have to, Obsidian reacting to the fan input, there is so much going on. So don't listen to the haters. They are always around, but mostly because they simply can't feel the passion of such a community campaign. You have to be part of it to understand. On a side note: As a fellow brother of the Obsidian Order you have the right to a unique forum title. Just leave a note with your title wish here: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61188-the-obsidian-order-of-eternity-wants-you-part-3/ May I propose Meistersänger of the Obsidian Order?

Don't worry. Considering the reputation of OEI, the press coverage and the regularities of such Kickstarter processes, i's very likely that we achieve this goal, unless Obsidian fails miserably or the screenshot looks like Civilization II in the 1990s.

Thanks for the interview, these are some really good questions.

Accept. But a bad translation kills the possibilty to understand the overtone for both the skilled and the normal reader. So in the end it's a question of personal taste if you prefer pest over cholera or vice versa. So there might be situations it would be better to leave the name in the original form, and that was the message I wanted to send out when I made my first post in this thread. I simply oppose the idea to generally translate all possible terms / names regardless of the context.

Christina Aguilera was also "dirty", but not the same way as Harry.

I think "dreckig" could work for "dirty".

It's mainly the names. But that's like changing actors in the middle of a series and pretending they are the same roles.

Yeah, same problem here. As I found out, I switched to english. Not because I'm very eager to read it in english, but because I can't stand the new translation.

Yes, indeed, both of you. The translation of Lord of the Ring was that good, because Tolkien as a linguist had a great knowledge of european languages. He gave Carroux instructions and advises how to translate and what should be considered. He had taken care himself that it would be the best translation as possible (e.g. he proposed using the word "Elb" instead of "Elf", because back then Elf would have been Tinkerbell from Peter Pan). But that's real passion of an artist, not economical logic behind a million dollar biz. Also you have to admit, that Carroux lost the different levels of language Tolkien uses to characterize his characters. That's the thing Krege tried to achieve with his new translation, but failed miserably when he changed the characteristic style from lyrical old german to modern world german. Didn't like his Hobbit either. The result is, I have two boards with Tolkien books, english, old german translations and new ones.

If fantasy hadn't been considered being childish and pulp for such a long time in germany, and if the literaric german elite had treated it properly, it could have been different today. But they left this field to the nerds and that's the result.

Agree. There is no proper german fantasy genre. Most high epic fantasy comes from english authors and they stick to english terms and names, as do the translators. German fantasy would have to use a more german romanticism style of language (like in Goethe poems or fairy tales) to be accepted as suitable language for this kind of literature. Unfortunately there are not many translators that are capable of this. So most german fantasy is in fact english based and therefor you get used to english names. Switching to common german names through the whole novel would sound very strange for many people of my age. Yeah, but that's also the argument against new music, film or clothing styles and so on. The times they are a-changing.

"Mund" (= mouth) should be an equivalent for estuary, and that's quite the opposite to what was intentionally meant. An estuary is the final stage of a river, the landing stands for the beginning of something new. It's also a synonym in the book because it was the beginning of a new era for Westeros. I can't see that intention behind Königsmund, because there was no releation between the Targaryens and the sea. This might look like nitpicking, but it's a indicator of what can be said against this whole name translation process. I remember a 24 epsiode where Jack Bauer spoke german. As a native speaker I really could not understand what he said. It sounded like a gurgeling of several phonems. Lucky me there have been english subtitles. I'd say the mixture of the original english "John" with german "Schnee" is what makes the whole german translation of ASoIaF / GoT horrible, because it is a arbitrary mix up of languages. If they would have been consequent about this, they had to translate it to Johann Schnee or Hannes Schnee, and I think that's nothing a german reader would take for serious. The whole book cast consists of altered spellings of english names. But instead of adapting them as well they only took the most obvious words and translated them. That's ridiculous. For the Lord of the Rings original german translator Margaret Carroux tried to catch up the essence of the name Shelop by using an old german word for spider and giving it a female looking shape (= Kankra). That seems to be way to much thinking for the new translator of ASoIaF / GoT or a result of cheap, excessive outsourcing methods in the print media biz.

Nope. Main game, XP1, XP2, updates. One can never be sure about the update process. It can kill your installation in one case and when you repeat it doesn't have problems at all. Maybe simply make a system recovery point after installing game & xps and run auto-update afterwards. I installed it yesterday on Win 7 and it was fine. Just take some time, I needed about an hour to install.

Hehe, not at all. Just thought "Ru-hä, jetzt spricht der Sarevok" didn't make Sarevok appear as impressive as if he had used common tongue. But that was the opionion of my juvenile rebel Ego. Now I think I have something for my grand-children to tell.

@HumanFlesh+5: I understand your concerns and Obsidian is aware as well. It was also in the daily Q&As in the Kickstarter comments. Feargus answer was, that they have learned their lessons since the old days of Baldur's Gate. He absolutely knows about the saxon elves. I also hinted at Roland Austinat who worked on the translations of New Vegas and Skyrim for Bethesda, that are considered to be good translations. Regarding the pronounciations I don't think one can give a general rule. I want to use german translation of A song of Ice and Fire as an example. In my opinion, the first translation that used the english names as Martin used them as well, fits better to the setting. Because ASoIaF is heavily influenced by british Middle Ages. Switching the names to german lookalikes also changes reception of the whole story, because names can also create imaginations and connect to cultural references. So I would say, this is a decision that has to be made individually. Everything else would be like a desperate struggle to avoid foreign words. And to be fair, you would never translate Jerry Cotton to Jeremias Baumwolle.

I think Drakensang: The Dark Eye was about 5 million Euros, atm that would be 6,4 million US dollar

Can't say for sure, there was some time of transition, I guess. What I can say for sure is, that Feargus is listed as Division Director in the Fallout credits. So at this time it already existed. Interplay marketing also released a brochure around the time of BG2 where they mentioned the important role of Black Isle and how BIS revived the CRPG genre with Fallout. So it seems they didn't seperate that internally. I also think to have read an interview with Feargus where he stated that it was simply because they couldn't agree to a name that Fallout was labeled simply Interplay. Maybe I simply ask him when he's around in the kickstarter comments.

I don't know the whole story with Dragon Play and Mark O'Green leading them, but Feargus took over the RPG division in 1996. They decided to build this division after they aquired the D&D licences- That must have been 1995/96, because IIRC SSI lost the rights in 1995. http://web.archive.o.../ptorment.shtml http://www.joystiq.c...k-isle-studios/

To be even more pedantic, it's only because they didn't come up with a name before.

@LordCrush: What about simple blackmailing? Either we get a paladin class or the order votes for a Feargusaurus as pet.

I can't see the point. I don't think there are many people left saying "oh they didn't promise enough story telling options as in PsT". I think at this point you need hard facts / gameplay options to convince people to join the campaign. It gives them orientation what the game will look like. Storywise there's a lot of room even within the actual boundaries. But as long as Obsidian is still working on the lore, the plot, factions and characters there is not much you could announce as a stretch goal to make people throw their money at OEI.

All members of the Order, we have a mission. If you have not already done so far, go like Obsidian at facebook to get us another Mega Dungeon level at 20.000 Likes. Oh, and let your mum, dad, sisters, brothers, children, nephews, grand-children, class / university / work mates like them as well. Spread the word! Edit: This FB page: http://www.facebook.com/obsidian , not the PE FB page someone else made.