Update #8: New Digital Tier, Novella by Chris Avellone, and Translations at $2.2M

[Wintersong]

I don't think that names should be translated ever. It's true that we say "Nueva York" instead of "New York" or "Londres" instead of "London". But William Shakespeare is still William Shakespeare instead of Guillermo Agitalanza (let's ignore that origin of "William" as name, and let's focus on its castilian equivalent).

 

I remember the D&D 3rd edition books and how they decided to be "original" about how they translated the names. So "Neverwinter"? Well, apparently "Nuncainvierno" was not good enough and they called it "Noyvern". Totally wtf moment there, with no real meaning that I know of.

 

As in Forgotten Realms, if PE uses (american) english as the equivalent to "common"*, I think that it's fine to just keep the names and translate only when it really makes sense. Like going from "Baldur's Gate" to "Puerta de Baldur". Or in PE's case, from "Steel Crown Tower" to "Torre Corona de Acero".

 

 

* as in "We are not Tolkien and we are not creating new freaking languages for the game!".

[Darth Trethon]

I hope the novella will really be included with the packages higher than the $110 digital because it doesn't seem to show up on the images describing the rewards of those tiers. If not I hope it will be available for purchase separately and no I wouldn't mind purchasing it separately I just don't want to miss out that's all.

[AlNU]

What if the game was in Germany? According to you they should not translate Deutschland, Schwarzwald or Bayern into English (Germany, Black Forest, Bavaria) because of immersion.

 

I don't speak German, but these names shouldn't been translated in the first place in my opinion nor should the names of places or people be translated in the game. City in Bayern is München not Munich (no matter how many Americans or English you ask about it). Same goes for every other language with names of places. Even names like Schwartzwald which have actual meaning (not just more anglisised pronounciation) shouldn't be translated. It's not Black Forest if its in Germany. I never understood idea of translating names of places as it makes even more confusion (less in games than in real life, but anyway) with people calling same places with different names. You can see I still used Germany instead of Deutschland, but that is to make less confusion, since everyone knows what I'm talking about. Although I would prefer for everyone to start using also names for countries like Deutschland, Hrvatska or Suomi, but I think it's too late for that.

 

Otherwise I'm all for translations although I wouldn't use them and that was one of the ways I learned better English. Try to play word based adventure games with very limited vocabulary at early 90's at age of 10 and later RPGs with little bigger vocabulary and u will learn quicker than at school.

[Cantousent]

The problem with not translating these particular place names is that there is a specific word for those places in English. Translating those names provides greater clarity, not less. I think folks would not understand that Schwarzwald was a geographical area known in English as the Black Forest. These aren't made up fantasy names. Look, I took Attic Greek in school and 'Greek' itself comes from the Romans. We use the word we have in English, and there *is* a word. I understand not wanting names translated in all sorts of off the cuff crazy ways, but where definite names exist in a language, I think we should use those names in the translation. ...But I'm not a linguist, so I don't have a real stake, but that's how I see it.

[Wirdjos]

I hope the novella will really be included with the packages higher than the $110 digital because it doesn't seem to show up on the images describing the rewards of those tiers. If not I hope it will be available for purchase separately and no I wouldn't mind purchasing it separately I just don't want to miss out that's all.

 

The update says that the novella will be added to the $50 and up tiers. Not sure why it's only showing for the $110. Maybe because it was added after the update?