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

[MaskedMan]

but i wanna make a pimp house

 

[Wintersong]

We don't need Eternity: Hearthfire.

I find your definition of "we" disturbing.

 

Translations are fine to have. But considering the circusmtances, it's one of those things that can be done after release. Yes, after release. Ask the guys at Runic. I much prefer extra content, like a solid housing/stronghold system, added for release than having it switched to get room for translations.

 

That said, if possible, I'd prefer some translations done for release (without taking the place of other features like the mentioned housing). Translations help but won't break the game by their absence in release.

[Avantenor]

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.

It's interesting that you mention this one, because as far as I know, BG1 was translated by Interplay itself without any german service provider (just as Oblivion was done by Bethesda).

[Hornet85]

I'm all for translation but don't be selfish. Translation and player house is not mutually exclusive.

 

Asking Obsidian to drop player house just for translation is not going to help your cause.

[Meethique]

I think FIGS translation is one of the most important thing to add to the game.

I cannot believe Obsidian did not think to this option from the beginning.

 

Their games have always sold well outside of the US. I remember when I was young, all my french friends bought Baldurs Gate.

This is seriously mandatory and would bring a lot of new backers (much more than the Linux version).

I have several friends waiting for an annoucement about that.

 

Remember that not everybody has the chance to speak English, still they want to play to your game so translate it, seriously !

Edited September 16, 2012 by Meethique

[OrcusOfUndeath]

I would like a house. Ney, I would like a stronghold. I mean, it would be great if there was an option to hold a stronghold when you reach higher levels.

 

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.

I am positive that most of them will not remove their pledge. Why? Because this is the game we've been waiting for, and something as trivial as localization will not deter people from wanting it.

Edited September 16, 2012 by OrcusOfUndeath

[Korron]

Feargus: "Our goal is to use voice over as flavor and not as something that exists for every written word in the game. We don

[Lostbrain]

I'm not convince that translations have to replace a pre-existant stretch goal, but a lot of great kickstarter project have propose localizations (RPG with Shadowrun returns, adventure games with project Fedoroa & Broken Sword), so I think Obsidian must propose the game in EFIGS (english, french, italian, german, spanish).

A consequent number of potential backers wait for a stretch goal annoucement concerning localization for pledge. 2,4 millions sounds good for me.

[John Snow]

What languages ? French, Spanish, Italian and German...

And russian, please.

[gaqzi]

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.

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.

 

 

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.

Oh cool, wasn't aware of that strong a RPG culture in Germany.

 

Also dude, Singapore isn't in Sweden xD

 

Hehe, nope, but I'm a Swede living in Singapore.

[Ieo]

Housing aside (I liked BG2's strongholds, and I think I had a house in Oblivion, but that's all I remember in terms of player housing ), I think localization is a more worthy expenditure of funds compared to something like co-op for the simple reason that this would be a far larger market. As someone else said, this is no different than adding platform support, but the accessibility net could be even wider. Of course, this conjecture doesn't take into account relative costs, and the ol' Kickstarter limitation still comes up. Only Obsidian would know that, I guess.

 

As a side note, were the fan translations in other IE games any good?

[Longknife]

At any rate I think it'd be interesting to add multi-language support as a stretch goal and monitor how that effects donation frequency. Sure the marketing department would enjoy such an experiment aswell.

[iota3]

Player Housing is more important than multi language support. If funding is a concern, please put housing before translation in terms of priority.

 

If the game shall be translated to any language, they shall translate it to Chinese lol. Compare the billions to millions.

[overlordrauz]

I agree a house doesn't add anything to the game as a whole sure its cool but I would rather see a multi language support even if I would never use it.

[Chunkyman]

I really want player housing (preferably a castle), so I would choose that over translations (which I don't need).

 

Player housing in general is important for me in an RPG, mostly because I'm a hoarder and like having a place to store my treasures without lugging everything around.

[Milten]

If it's Crossroad Keep kind of house, than it's far more important for me. Besides translation can be done by fans.

[Paul D]

Does support for multiple languages increases the target market, or does it simply make it easier for players in areas where English is the second language? Irrespective of the answer I think multi-language support would make a great additional stretch goal rather than replacing an existing goal. A Player House / Stronghold can add to the gameplay, whereas multiple-language support can add to the usability/marketability.

[Merin]

Is that a royal "we?" It must be, since I don't recall electing you to speak for me. I happen to love housing options in games.

 

That said, multi-language support would be nice.

When he said "we" he was talking about him, me and all the other people with good taste in RPGs that funded this game. Eternity: Hearthfire is a terrible idea. All the best RPGs didn't have houses you could buy and raise families in. This isn't the Sims.

 

Consider me to have bad taste, then, as I have no problem with property in an RPG.

 

I mean, what were those losers Gygax and Arneson thinking when they including players getting their own base of operations (keeps, towers, etc.) as a normal part of leveling up. Those guys clearly knew nothing about RPGs made in good taste.

 

[Fierhorn]

I am very excited for getting the player house in fact seeing that made me pony up more money.

[Fierhorn]

I totally think all the strech goals should have things that benefit all backers not just people who speak multiple-languages.

[Lostbrain]

I totally think all the strech goals should have things that benefit all backers not just people who speak multiple-languages.

 

This is as stupid as someone says "Apple and Linux versions have to disappear because I use Windows". Please respect players who haven't sufficient level in english to enjoy all the game. Thank you.

[Rink]

Well we have Mac and Linux-Versions as stretchgoals as well and those also do not bring any benefit to many backers. I don't see many people complain about that. Still I think it is important to also include things that open the game to people that otherwise would not be able to play it, so translations should of course be a stretchgoal up the road.

Since this game probably will include a lot of text, translation will be expensive and it may be smart to only include the most important languages at first.

 

But I really really like player housing, NWN2-stronghold was a lot of fun and Bg2 stronghold also (even though there wasn't a lot to do there).

If you don't like it, you are free to just ignore it just like the guys that play solo will ignore Companions. I think it is weird that people complain about features just because they wouldn't use it even though it doesn't have any downpoints.

[buggeer]

If this is going to be a true cRPG with a lot of dialogues and dialogue choices then translating it is a waste of money. I've played some translated games and have to say that in most cases the only thing translation does is breaking the game. It seems that translators are internally unable to gasp the mining of even the most basic sentences. More often than not they make up their own lines than really translate the original. In my country a lot of people think the same and don't even consider buying the game if it is translated. That's the reason I buy games on Steam where they come with English versions.

 

If someone needs a translated version he will simply download a mod made by fans as those usually come in far greater quality then the official translations. Just include modding tools.

Edited September 18, 2012 by buggeer

[Lostbrain]

And many people in my (and probably yours) country won't pledge until translations wille be considered as stretch goal. What is the problem if the funding arrive to 2,4 millions ?

 

"More often than not they make up their own lines than really translate the original". I have done little "scanlations" of U.S. comics, and it arrive often that original statement cannot be translate whithout adaptation to the chosen language. That's not change the quality of translation.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Lostbrain

[metiman]

While finding someone with good literary translation abilities can be tough, it is far from impossible. I support a player house as long as it takes no more than 3 hours of programmer time. All you really need to do is take any house in the starting city and assign it to the player. Whatever chest happens to be there will be a protected database of stuff you put in it. There. Was that so hard? I don't know why everyone is making such a big deal over that little thing. In FONV I used the chest in front of the arms merchant for the same purpose. When I played BG2 I used the chest in Cernd's house to store all my equipment. Is that what people mean by a player house? If so it's fine by me. If it's anything more than that it is an utter waste of time. Has anyone asked for anything more than a place to put stuff where it won't disappear?