[Merged] PROTIP: Replace the "Player House" stretch goal with multi-language support

[Longknife]

Doesn't everyone in Europe speak English already? Problem solved.

 

I promise you that while the Dutch and the Swedes may often speak english with a flawless American or British accent, probably thanks to their habit of utilizing subtitles for Spongebob and not dubbing it (I kid you not, subtitles are amazing for learning english), the French and my German brethren can be quite bad about speaking english. Don't think Spain is wild about truly learning the language either.

[gaqzi]

Doesn't everyone in Europe speak English already? Problem solved.

 

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.

 

Edited September 16, 2012 by gaqzi

[Longknife]

Doesn't everyone in Europe speak English already? Problem solved.

 

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

[Arkeus]

Doesn't everyone in Europe speak English already? Problem solved.

 

I promise you that while the Dutch and the Swedes may often speak english with a flawless American or British accent, probably thanks to their habit of utilizing subtitles for Spongebob and not dubbing it (I kid you not, subtitles are amazing for learning english), the French and my German brethren can be quite bad about speaking english. Don't think Spain is wild about truly learning the language either.

 

Pretty much. As said, those kind of rpg are VERY popular in France/Germany (not sure about Spain/Italy), but the players often have a walls when it comes to english that is more or less "Can play the game, but would make it much harder" to the point they wouldn't try it unless it's already immensely popular.

 

Also, people are widely over-estimating the cost of translation. We are not talking Dubs here, just changing text, and text translators are not paid that much.

[Humanoid]

Obviously the fairest compromise for everyone would be to do the whole game in Esperanto.

[gaqzi]

Doesn't everyone in Europe speak English already? Problem solved.

 

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

Edited September 16, 2012 by gaqzi

[Djole]

Multi-language support only drains funds and adds nothing to the game quality.

[Arkeus]

 

A well fleshed out RPG I would wager probably ends up being along the lines of a couple of novels worth of translation.

Yes, and that's not as expensive as you'd expect it to be. Translators aren't paid much for translating a single book, and if it's a game where the cohesiveness is much lower, well...

[BSoda]

As a native german speaker I don't agree with the OP. Don't waste any effort on multi-language support.

 

I'd much rather have the player housing...or wearable tophats. Anything really.

[Avantenor]

It wasn't that long ago (1,5 years) when I travelled to Rome, I saw posters in the central station, saying "It is important to you that you learn english". Yes, it was a company selling language courses for business english, but in Germany it would be rather like "Need to _improve_ your English? We can help!". They would never imply, you are not able to speak english. That much about every European should be able to play in English. In addition to this, I would advise to all anglophiles to use basic services like taxi driving in Montreal and try out, if english is really enough to get along. My personal experience says no. But maybe I only had three bad days in sequence.

 

Obsidian is a NA company where majority of people speak and write english. They can be really successful just fine selling their game to that audience a lone. Multi language support is a nice bonus to expand potential market but it is NOT a must. Your definition of 'must' is weird.

The only "must" in the world is having to die. The rest is bonus, pure will or strongly connected to if-else arguments.

 

I don't really know who the audience for a translation would be. If you're intelligent enough to use a computer, you probably also know English.

Quite a lot of asian people would start laughing now. If they could read English, of course.

 

The reason I'm quoting Wikipedia is so that there'd be some kind of numbers in this, I'm not denying that these three countries are not too keen on using English. But I'm questioning if there's a strong enough business case of translating it.

Working as a translator one could also argue that you have a strong bias for people not being good at English as I have a bias of them being, if not good, at least being ok at it.

And I believe the answer to how good peoples understanding would lie somewhere in between?

 

Now I've not been involved in translating a game, but just general shopping/corporate web sites usually cost more than you'd imagine. Generally it's believed you'd be able to just translate phrases and pasting them together all over the place. But there's different syntax in different languages, some phrases wouldn't make sense at all. Some would make sense in some contexts and not in others.

A well fleshed out RPG I would wager probably ends up being along the lines of a couple of novels worth of translation.

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.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Avantenor

[C2B]

Crossroad Keep was the basis of half of Neverwinter Nights 2 and was its own little mini-game all in itself. It was integral to the story and had a lot of useful gameplay functions too. "Player house" doesn't really cover the same ground... I'd rather not have a little log cabin with a storage chest or something. I realize they just threw this in there to appeal to the LARPing crowd, but I'd much prefer they focus their efforts on substantive content rather than gimmicky stuff.

 

The Sink in Old World Blues

 

And how do you know exactly that this one will be just a "simple" player house? Because that's not what I expect it to be (knowing Obsidian), nor should you sea.

Edited September 16, 2012 by C2B

[D3xter]

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?

 

Yes, Germany, see Drakensang, Northland Trilogy, Gothic-Series etc.

They at some point got translated, but were mainly german games. Same thing for the Adventure genre.

 

Also dude, Singapore isn't in Sweden xD

[Avantenor]

By the way, I'm pretty much convinced there are more people speaking French, Italian, Spanish or German than buying and playing games on Linux.

[silvercross]

I'm one of those abominable people who don't really care for stronghold-type quests. Always thought it was a gold drain and I hated having to go back to the place to upgrade it (though the parts in BG2 where you acted as a judge was pretty fun).

 

So I wouldn't really mind if the "player house" stretch goal was changed. Honestly, anyone who says it's already "set" hasn't seen enough kickstarters. If enough people demand it, it will change (how do you think digital tiers came about?). That said, I don't care either way for multi-language support (which has generally has come to mean European language support >.>, not that I speak any other language to some fluency other than English).

Edited September 16, 2012 by silvercross

[D3xter]

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.

Why'd you suddenly disappear from RPGBoard btw.?

[Lostbrain]

I have been disappointing that's neither of the stretch goals who have revealed concerned translation.

I think it's time for Obsidian to think about that (The first stretch goal of Shadowrun returns was about localization).

2,4 millions seems good to me for this goal.

What languages ? French, Spanish, Italian and German are primordial for international market.

 

I hope we will in a few days this stretch goal.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Lostbrain

[C2B]

Seems to be a seperate thing from pure stretch goals

 

The initial release will be in English, and we

[dlux]

I am sure Obsidian that Obsidian will announce stretch goals for more languages after we hit 2.2 Million. It would not be very smart to alienate the European fans, and I am sure that Obsidian knows this.

 

Please don't waste any money translating the game. Only do that if you think you can get additional funding to the project to more than compensate for the effort.

Those want the game in their language will not pledge if there is no localisation. You can be sure that alot of Europeans will even remove their pledge, if their language is not announced at some point.

 

By the way, I'm pretty much convinced there are more people speaking French, Italian, Spanish or German than buying and playing games on Linux.

He speaks the truth!

Edited September 16, 2012 by dlux

[Lostbrain]

"and our Funding increase". Don't seems to be a so separate thing from stretch goals to me...

Edited September 16, 2012 by Lostbrain

[Gurkog]

It is not uncommon for Kickstarter projects to include localization as stretch goals. It can be rather costly and difficult for text heavy games too. There is a very large quantity of material that has to be translated compared to an action title. At least, I think Brian Mitsoda said that in the Dead State forums.

[Kai]

Humbly disagree, having a player house a great way to really have your character feel like a part of the world.

 

Also, english isn't my first language. Back when BG, PS:T and Fallout were released, my english skills weren't that good. But playing those game for way too many hours pretty much made me fluent. And even if there would be a game in my native language (swedish, so highly unlikely), I'd still play it in english. Too many puns and other small details tends to get lost in the translation (at least that happens with most books).

[Argonar]

Hi everyone from Spain!

 

Just placed my 20$ for the project, and would be awesome if they confirm other languajes as soon as possible (specially spanish!).

 

Greetings.

[Lysen]

And even if there would be a game in my native language (swedish, so highly unlikely), I'd still play it in english. Too many puns and other small details tends to get lost in the translation (at least that happens with most books).

 

This is a good point. I always play games in English and don't use translations, even if they are good (which is very rare). And why should I do such a thing? My English is far from perfect, but I can understand most the puns and enjoy the game. Especially after playing dozens of games in English since my childhood. Puns and pop-culture references are tricky to translate too.

[Bill Gates' Son]

It would be a HUGE mistake to not translate this game into other languages. Europe and Northern North America aren't the only nations in the world, so it wouldn't be fair to alienate their other fans who do not know English. Many of my friends from Mexico and Brazil are interested in this game, but they don't know English at all.

 

I'm sure many fans would be willing to help translate the game. Of even some localization companies (I'm pretty darn sure CD Projekt wouldn't mind translating the game in Polish if Obsidian puts the game on Gog.com, because they did it for the other Infinity Engine games. ).

Edited September 16, 2012 by Bill Gates' Son

[Jiraboas]

English isn't my native language too, but i dont have problems to play english games,generaly. As long as Project E will not be have the dialogue system of Alpha Protocol, it doesnt matter for me, if the game dont will be transtlated in german.

 

Also i dont know how translation QA works, but many german translations are really really bad and sucks all the way along. Also german "voice actors" suck, so i do prefer english voice actors with german subtitles.

 

In Alpha Protocol this way wasnt that good anyway, but i dont think Obsidian use the same sytem for Project E. So:

 

If translation, please only translate the text of the game and dont look for german voice actors. It don't worth it, believe an old 15 years experienced gaming veteran

 

I remeber the days i play baldurs gate 1. The german "voice actors"(amateur is the better word) were horribly bad at acting. They also add german acent to the elfs and other things that destroy the atmosphere of the game.

 

 

So:

 

Dont remove the housing strech goal(i love this!!!), only add a mulit-language support goal. And please only translate the text. Thank you very much

 

 

kind regards,

 

Jira