melkathi

Woah! Obsidian is making a Duke Nukem?

I never could stand that spell. Fireball? Ok a ball of fire, I an see that. Acid Arrow? An arrow of acid, sure why not. Magic Missile? A missile of magic.... erm what exactly does that mean? Just sounds silly.

Project Eternity: Nothing Lasts Forever Or Project Instantaniousness: A True Short Story

You are the one with experience with them. But for what it's worth, maybe this time around, with no publisher making decisions for Obsidian, perhaps communication with the translation team will be better and you get apositive surprise. One can always hope, right?

I'm on my fourth playthrough of AP. Still love it.

As well as our arsenal that includes such diverse elements such as surprise, fear, ruthles efficiency, a near fanatical devotion to Obsidian and nice red uniforms.

I want a custom forum tag! Oh, wait...

No ridiculous pop culture references (Haris Pilton *shudder*) No orphan chosen-one, destined by birth, in reality the only true decendant of whatshisface, shall bring balance to the force raised by their uncle/mentor etc cheap story mechanic No militaristic garbage - only soldiers understand the gravity of situations, all civilians ever do is stop us from saving the world blah blah. If I wanted that I'd be on the BSN praising ME No killing 10 rats quest but also no joke about killing 10 rats quests. Both have been doen to death. No forced difficult decissions that are only there so the game can boast about difficult decissions. If there has been so much foreshadowing that players have seen the situation come up from miles away and only end up in the situation because the game has them on a railroad track to doom, then we stop be players/gamers and become simply a helpless audience. No feedback spam on consequences of player actions just to stroke the player's ego. Not too many wierd/strange/cool companions. I'd rather see a few interesting characters who are that without having to be the superexotic race we have never seen. If everyone is exotic even by exotic standards, then the exotic companions loose heir exoticness

You might have missed, but Obsidian already decided on Polish and Russian translations. They will be done by distributors in Poland and Russia. Although Obsidian didn't mention any companies, we have reasons to believe that we know who they are and fear that quality will be an issue. As far as length restrictions are concerned...nothing unusual, really. It's just a skill you need to have, if you want to do your job well. I wouldn't say it significantly effects translation efficiency. Yeah I saw that after posting. As far as your comment on length, it is not unusual, that's why I mention it. And its sadly ignored by many. While yes, there is skill involved (for menus and buttons you will quickly have a working formula worked out) especially when it comes to ficiton and dialogues, there is a lot more involved beside just shortening something. It does affect results (I am not sure efficiency is the right word here). But re-reading the example of the Witcher I mentioned, I suppose the biggest factor for them was cost. Yes, there are terrible translators out there. I have seen greek subtitles in movies that had me spending the rest of the movie laughing at the translation (for example you have one cop congratulating another on a bust and the subtitles had "bust" translated as a sculpture ). I sure hope the russian and polish translations are better than that

Skeksis rule Gelflings drool. I had a big, goofy grin reading this

Just a few short notes with my thoughts to whoever can be bothered to read them: I just got my first paycheck for my translation work (woohoo! Money!). I only started this kind of thing recently and am not planning to make it a permanent career. There was a need that had to be met and there were only two of us available to do the job. Someone said early on in the thread that translations are cheap. No they are not. Usually transaltors are paid by word or line. This means that regardless how experienced they are and how deep they are in the subject matter, the rate you will be paying them at will be constant. There is no "This is easy so it will be cheap". Some blant description will cost just as much as the Gann's dialogue Usually translators are specialised on subject matter. As this is a tanslation of fiction though, you cannot just hire a specialised translator who already knows all that you could be writing. Translations aren't easy. And especialy fiction. You need to balance the original style with what works in the language you translate into. Some languages are very different from each other. So while the original had short sentences, giving a sense of haste and imediacy, it may be extremly hard to do the same in the target language. And there always is the simple technical problem. I had read a comment from the guys at CD Project about the original Witcher game and the trouble they had with the english translation, something they managd to fix with the Enhanced Edition. If I remember correctly the problem was in part that to express certain ideas, which in languages like german would be easy, allowing for the "creation" of words by "adding" them together, would take long texts in english. Lengths of text the game just didn't allow for. Especially with cutscenes, there is only so much text that can be added. Just think of the silly effect of dubbed into englih old karate movies where the lips of actors move far longer than the speech we hear. I currently keep facing the problem that the german word in my translation may be twice as long as the english word - and I keep getting sentences send back with a note "Can you try to shorten this just a little bit so it can fit in the space we have?" And a good translation needs constant correspondence between translator and writer, to ensure that the spirit, the style, the subtetlies of the original aren't lost. Bad translation to some point result in the translators not knowing what the hell they are translating. I get emails saying "Can you quickly translate this sentence" or, even worse, "is the translation for this word this?" and I often have to reply "What's the context?" or "Well if the context is a) then this or b) then this..." A good translation can reach a lot more potential customers. It can create goodwill among these customers who decide that this company cares about them. But a bad translation can alienate them completly and drive them away. Champions Online had terrible localization like that. It reach "All You Base" lows. So while I applaud the enthusiasm of everyone offering to help with translation into other languages, do make sure you know what you are getting yourself into. And be sure you can actually provide the quality that will make the project and your love for it justice. As for anyone who thinks translations would be cheap or easy, as a gamer and someone who frequents the net, you shoul be aware of All Your Base and thus know exactly what that kind of quality that attitude ends up with. edit: related unrelated: Quenya would be an interesting localisation for a high fantasy game

Will it also affect the journal entry? Whatever'sday the 24th of Whatevermonth I woke up. people insist it is the 25th but that can't be true. We had a lot to drink last night and a lot of fun. I can't remember exactly what it was that was fun but I think it involved alcohol, a cleric, a bar stool, a dwarven contralto and a swamp dragon. People are looking at me funny... Gods but I'd kill for a good cup of coffee right now!

For me it depends on what role gods will play in the setting and how the writting around them is handled. Also how much the story involves them. A pantheon of capricious, selfish 16 year old rich kids could be very interesting if one or two gods were inserted who in fact aren't just that. While everyone is partying on mount Olympus, no one knows that Apollo's next ride in the sun chariot will be his last, because his sweet sister Artemis has sabotaged it, cusing the sun and the god to fall into the ocean. The seas boil and the sun is extinguished, the god's remains lying on what once was the ocean floor but is now a dry waste. As eternal night falls, everyone blames Nyx, while a psychotic deranged Artemis hunts poor souls under a killing moon... Ok, I got carried away there. Gods are often just a dull afterthought it seems. Religion needs to be taken serious if it is to be worth the mention in the story. Though that may cause it to become too important. I dont want dull copies of ancient pantheons, but I am also slightly bored of theocracies, holy wars and witch hunts.

Plot of course. It looks like a choice between successfull writing and failure. If they can make a gripping original plot in an unimaginative setting, they just prove that much more what great writers they are - taking something dull and cliche and making it memorable. If the world is innovative as nothing before has been, but the plot is lackluster and forgetable, they will have failed to use all that potential.

"Three cheers for Fervus!" But for Paul too

You have your homework assignement then. Go play Arcanum We shall quiz you on the prophecy of the Living One next week.

My current plan is: get filthy rich. Buy the rights to Alpha Protocol from Sega. Get Obsidian to make Alpha Protocol 2 on a stupidly large budget. The getting filthy rich part I am having some serious trouble with though...

Are you sure? The Banner Saga, Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns... maybe we are lucky and Top 3 RPG of the decade actually becomes a real challenge. Thing is, this decade has only just begun. So there is a lot that can still happen I'd also add Dead State to that list.

I would like to see something as long as it is limited to important news and not a thinly (if at all) veiled attempt to give the impression of player actions having an impact. It annoyed me to no end that for every stupid mission I did in Mass Effect 2 I would then get mail confirmation of the impact. I am in a super secret space ship of a super secret organisation, in theory I am thought to be dead (though noone ever was surprised to see me breathing) and some punk kid, so unimportant he is sold a non-functional gun so he can go and sign up as cannon fodder for a gang, suddenly has enough pull and cash to get an audience with the top dog of the underworld and buy my email address so he can send a thank you note? And every npc I ever encountered in the previous game just happens to bump into me, even if it only is to say that "Hey! We exist, we are thankfull and haven't forgotten you and the facty ou imported your safe game also made this game (and the next one in the series) aware of this awesomeness of yours. I enjoyed Three Dog. I prefered Henry Eden. Yes, all I wanted to do was finally find out where Three Dog is broadcasting from, burst in there and tell him to stop telling the Black Talon and everyone else about my whereabouts. The DJ in Fallout New Vegas seemed kinda boring in comparison, as you'd hear the same information time and again even though you had explored that part of the game weeks ago.

I prefer them as they are than when silly things are done to them the wrong way.

Though generic races are part of what turns a setting generic. Using anything overly familiar creates difficulties (Going for completly "new" ideas does too of course. Most importantly the "Why should I be interested in this?" question of potential customers). Elves and dwarves are fairly clearly defined as fantasy races and the archtypes that come with them. If you stay too close to the known model, you run the danger of having that part of the game dull and forgetable. If you deviate too much from it, you miss the whole reason to have the races in the first place. The question is then, how do you add personality to something overly familiar without alienating the audience and without making your changes appear like a gimmick. One way is to take the races from a familiar environment and put them in an up until then unfamiliar one. Of course once it has been done a few times, it looses its effectiveness. Prime examples for this option are Shadowrun, Warhammer 40k but also Spelljammer and Dark Sun. Dark Sun looks at Elves and aks the question: if elves live in nature, away from the bustling human metropolises, but that nature is vast deserts, how would their culture be then? Warhmmer 40k looked at Squats and while they had made attempts at explaining the "dwarf" presence in the setting, ultimately decided it just didn't work and had the whole species nearly wiped out. (Jervis Johnson wrote up a great explanation here ) The other option is to take the setting and enter an unfamiliar variable, then explore how that would affect the world and races that inhabit it. Arcanum attempted this and created a very interesting setting. The two races though, dwarves and elves, are probably the most forgetable part of it. Of course that is part of the setting. The human industrial revolution coupled with the usurpation of power by the gnomish financial interests leave no room for the old powers of bygone times, turning them into tragic side notes. Dragon Age also, to a lesser extent, went this way with Dwarves, by removing the old, conventional racial enmity with orcs/goblins and entering the darkspawn into the equasion. The new enemy allowed for the otherwise fairly generic dwarveness to develope a feel and atmosphere of its own. The Legion of the Dead is not truly unique. In fact they are little more than Warhammer troll slayers without the wierd hair. But they work and the setting is richer for having them. And Dragon Age brings me to the third way of handling races: saying "Our <race name> are different!" Which is what Dragon Age did with Elves and... well, they didn't need elves to tell that story. The nomadic people in the woodlands could just as well have been a human civilization, the city elves just as well a different human ethnicity. If elves had been left out, the exact same story could still have been told. What the game gained by having elves this way? They could briefly touch upon racism without any fear of controversy (which there would have been had it been humans living in squalor based on their skin colour instead of their ear-pointiness-factor) and well, they got to have elves. But I better get back to work... Was going to write something about the Witcher, AD&D's Birthright settign and others, but mostly forgot what i think in the end I wanted to end wih something on the lines of: Let's see what Obsidian will do with these races to make them interesting without making them a gimmick and including them just so they can say they have pretty people wih pointy ears and short dudes who drink too much.

Damn it! Why? I don't think that's how it should be working. Do I have to make just one question and all the choices there? Yes you do. You ask a question and provide possible answers to choose from. The poll as it stands asks three questions. Edit: Think of it this way: If there cannot be two skies, how can there be three sepparate questions in this poll ?

The second digit of my age is the number of choices in this poll. The first digit is the square root of the product of the second digit multiplied by the first digit. Favourid RPGs: Planescape Torment Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura Final Fantasy Legend II Final Fantasy 6 and 7 Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator Vampire the Masquerade Redemption Vampire the Masqueade Bloodlines Alpha Protocol Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Neverwinter Nights 2 Sacred Sacred 2 And because in some interview someone (Tim Cain) said that we get to list Star Control 2 as an RPG: Star Control 2 / The Ur-Quan Masters

Sounds like an evil playthrough of Arcanum.