Translations

[The Sharmat]

Followed by Chinese/Japanese/Korean I would think,

Computer/language guys correct me if I'm wrong here; but isn't it fundamentally harder and more expensive to translate a game to a language with an entirely different kind of alphabet? This might be a reason that would be a low priority. I'm also not sure how much this genre has penetrate the East Asian market.

 

That's being selfish, caricatural and stupid.

We're investors in a private enterprise. We're all being selfish here. Which is why you vote with your money. Obsidian would be foolish to keep the game in English only if they'd make more money from a translation than they'd lose. Which seems likely to be the case with at least the central European language, given the demographics.

[evdk]

I'd rather be ignorant with more quests in English than enlightened with half the quests but all of them fully playable in Swahili. But that's just me.

That's being selfish, caricatural and stupid.

There is no world beyond glorious anglosphere. Nobody deserves this games beyong glorious english speakers.

Obsidian doesn't need dirty strangers' money.

Geez, sorry for being a not-native speaker.

English is my third language. By some mysterious twist of fate, I manage to play games in English. Must be MIRACLES.

[PaganPoetry]

That's true, I thought about the lack of appeal but... it does seem like that region would be in the most need of a translation, since Europe is about 500x more likely to have the English competency necessary to play. No idea about how hard it is to translate though. That could be true.

[Auxilius]

And because you did, everyone must? Everyone can?

Don't you know basic logic or are you so egocentric, you can't understand why people are not working like you?

[evdk]

Of course I am. I want the game for myself, the rest of you bastards are just funding my dreams.

[anek]

Computer/language guys correct me if I'm wrong here; but isn't it fundamentally harder and more expensive to translate a game to a language with an entirely different kind of alphabet? This might be a reason that would be a low priority. I'm also not sure how much this genre has penetrate the East Asian market.

 

No, that is not the case anymore now that Unicode is supported almost everywhere in the digital world. If the framework on which the application/game is based on (in this case, the Unity engine) supports Unicode for all its text handling (and I would be surprised if it didn't), then a Chinese translation should be just as trivial from a technical point of view as a German translation.

 

PS: Of course, I don't know if English<->Chinese translators with fantasy game knowledge are as easy/cheap to find as English<->German translators. But that is a different question...

Edited September 25, 2012 by anek

[Klaleara]

FYI to people who say "Learn english"

 

How about the developers make the game in the most widely used language, Mandarin. That way, you can go learn Mandarin if you want to play the game.

[True_Spike]

There's a subtle difference in understanding a language and speaking it fluently. A huge portion of the self-proclaimed foreign English speakers is not capable of understanding everything they read or hear. In a text-based game focusing on complete immersion and built around an intricate plot it is vital for the player to be able to fully grasp the narrative - not simply understand it; That way you don't get to appreciate all its colour and flavour. It's not only a matter of the game's playablity, but it's quality in the eyes of the potential customer, and that sense of high polish and quality will probably be lost on people without a reasonable command of the English language.

 

Depending on how much Obsidian is willing to spend on translations, I think Polish and Russian are reasonable choices, because very few people in these two countries speak English on a decent enough level to enjoy the game the way intended. Mandarin seems like an interesting idea, business-wise, because the target market is, simply put, huge and Asians, in general, have a very poor understanding of English.

Edited September 25, 2012 by True_Spike

[evdk]

FYI to people who say "Learn english"

 

How about the developers make the game in the most widely used language, Mandarin. That way, you can go learn Mandarin if you want to play the game.

That way I just won't play it. Or send them any money. If they think they have enough presence in the SE Asian market to make the leap more power to them on kickstarter.cn

I still have WL2 and SRR

 

 

There's a subtle difference in understanding a language and speaking it fluently. A huge portion of the self-proclaimed foreign English speakers is not capable of understanding everything they read or hear. In a text-based game focusing on complete immersion and built around an intricate plot it is vital for the player to be able to fully grasp the narrative - not simply understand it; That way you don't get to appreciate all its colour and flavour. It's not only a matter of the game's playablity, but it's quality in the eyes of the potential customer, and that sense of high polish and quality will probably be lost on people without a reasonable command of the English language.

The enjoyment won't be worse than with a butchered translation, which you can count on getting on many occasions.

Edited September 25, 2012 by evdk

[True_Spike]

FYI to people who say "Learn english"

 

How about the developers make the game in the most widely used language, Mandarin. That way, you can go learn Mandarin if you want to play the game.

That way I just won't play it. Or send them any money. If they think they have enough presence in the SE Asian market to make the leap more power to them on kickstarter.cn

I still have WL2 and SRR

 

 

There's a subtle difference in understanding a language and speaking it fluently. A huge portion of the self-proclaimed foreign English speakers is not capable of understanding everything they read or hear. In a text-based game focusing on complete immersion and built around an intricate plot it is vital for the player to be able to fully grasp the narrative - not simply understand it; That way you don't get to appreciate all its colour and flavour. It's not only a matter of the game's playablity, but it's quality in the eyes of the potential customer, and that sense of high polish and quality will probably be lost on people without a reasonable command of the English language.

The enjoyment won't be worse than with a butchered translation, which you can count on getting on many occasions.

 

Could you please give me next week's lottery numbers, while you're at it, because you seem to know a great deal about the future. You must be a time traveller. The quality of the localization, not a translation, depends entirely on the how the process is handled and by whom. Do not make it seem like localizing a game *well* is hard to do - it's not. On the contrary! Projects of this sort are butchered when the company responsible is trying to cut corners. There are many examples of stellar localizations in the world of gaming, just as there are examples of the bad ones.

Edited September 25, 2012 by True_Spike

[qloher]

Ha, I see Russian overthrowing Italian in the poll. Go, Russian, Go!!

[evdk]

FYI to people who say "Learn english"

 

How about the developers make the game in the most widely used language, Mandarin. That way, you can go learn Mandarin if you want to play the game.

That way I just won't play it. Or send them any money. If they think they have enough presence in the SE Asian market to make the leap more power to them on kickstarter.cn

I still have WL2 and SRR

 

 

There's a subtle difference in understanding a language and speaking it fluently. A huge portion of the self-proclaimed foreign English speakers is not capable of understanding everything they read or hear. In a text-based game focusing on complete immersion and built around an intricate plot it is vital for the player to be able to fully grasp the narrative - not simply understand it; That way you don't get to appreciate all its colour and flavour. It's not only a matter of the game's playablity, but it's quality in the eyes of the potential customer, and that sense of high polish and quality will probably be lost on people without a reasonable command of the English language.

The enjoyment won't be worse than with a butchered translation, which you can count on getting on many occasions.

 

Could you please give me next week's lottery numbers, while you're at it, because you seem to know a great deal about the future. You must be a time traveller. The quality of the localization, not a translation, depends entirely on the how the process is handled and by whom. Do not make it seem like localizing a game *well* is hard to do - it's not. On the contrary! Projects of this sort are butchered when the company responsible is trying to cut corners. There are many examples of stellar localizations in the world of gaming, just as there are examples of the bad ones.

Same to you. Can you tell me with a straight face that a translation of a niche game will get the five star treatment for sure?

[Revan91]

Ha, I see Russian overthrowing Italian in the poll. Go, Russian, Go!!

Let's hope Obsidian will translate the game in both the two languages, then.

And others as well, maybe...

[qloher]

Ha, I see Russian overthrowing Italian in the poll. Go, Russian, Go!!

Let's hope Obsidian will translate the game in both the two languages, then.

And others as well, maybe...

Sure. I myself have voted for Russian, Italian and Polish alike as a priority.

[JediMB]

FYI to people who say "Learn english"

 

How about the developers make the game in the most widely used language, Mandarin. That way, you can go learn Mandarin if you want to play the game.

 

If the game's writers spoke fluent Mandarin, you'd have a case.

[Azraelle]

Where is "i don't need(and want) translation" variant? Your budget isn't sky high, so wasting your time and money on that unnecessarily thing doesn't look reasonable.

[AwesomeOcelot]

Japan and South Korea don't play Western RPG. I think focus on Poland and Russia, where a lot of RPG fans come from, and emerging markets such as Brazil and China is the most sensible. None of these territories are going to make any money though, and most of the kind of people interested are also going to be the kind of people who know English.

 

FYI to people who say "Learn english"

 

How about the developers make the game in the most widely used language, Mandarin. That way, you can go learn Mandarin if you want to play the game.

Mandarin is the largest first-language, but English is the most widely used by far. Languages in China aren't distributed the way they are in Europe, only half of China can communicate with Standard Chinese.

Edited September 25, 2012 by AwesomeOcelot

[norolim]

Do not make it seem like localizing a game *well* is hard to do - it's not. On the contrary! Projects of this sort are butchered when the company responsible is trying to cut corners. There are many examples of stellar localizations in the world of gaming, just as there are examples of the bad ones.

 

Well, not all of that is true. It's harder than you think. You simply have to know what you are doing. You have to use specific procedures to ensure quality and consistency. You also need a certain skill set. Being fluent in the source and target language doesn't make a person a great translator. Without proper knowledge of rules and procedures such a person will butcher the translation 5/6 times out of 10. That's why fan translations are so uneven. It's a question of luck really.

 

I would also like to bust another myth. Many people believe that fan translations of games are always better, because professional translators know nothing about games, esp. fantasy ones, and therefore they are not able to grasp the tone, use proper terminology and understand some crucial concepts. This is as far from truth as possible. Professional translators do specialize, you know. You can specialize in IT, medicine, law and you can also specialize in games. This means you have to have broad knowledge and deep understanding of the field. I, for instance, am a translator and games are one of my 3 main fields of specialization. So what do I know about RPG games, you may ask. Well, I've been playing RPGs for over 12 years. I played dozens of those games incuding all the IE classics (each of them at least once) and all other traditional party-based RPGs with tactical turn-based combat I could find (cause that is my favourite RPG type). I used to be a D&D Dungeon Master. I designed my own campaign with hand drawn maps that I run for my friends for over two years. I created my own tabletop RPG system. I played several P&P RPGs including Call of Cthulhu, Middle-earth, Cyberpunk, Kryształy Czasu (pol. Crystals of Time) and Warhammer.

I guess I might know a thing or two about games (esp. RPGs)...and yet I'm a professional translator.

Edited September 26, 2012 by norolim

[logray]

I know that Poland and Russia are quite poor countres so probably spending money on translation is not a good idea. On the other hand Polish and Russian PC players love RPGs. I hope that both languages will be added to 2.4 or 2.6 tier.

[Semper]

The enjoyment won't be worse than with a butchered translation, which you can count on getting on many occasions.

 

what a faux argument... how should someone, who can't speak or understand english at a level to enjoy the game, differentiate between a good and a bad translation? right, he can't. but he's glad that his native language is supported and buys the game.

[evdk]

If some regional publisher decides post release to translate the game to Slovakian or some fans extract the text and translate it themselves, I do not care one bit. What I care about is taking funds away from the project during development and spending it on unnecessary features. Translating a game whose audience is primarily in their late twenties/early thirties and who played all the games PE seems to build upon in a time when English was the only language they were available in, is a unnecessary feature in my opinion.

[Simonosaurus]

Translating a game whose audience is primarily in their late twenties/early thirties and who played all the games PE seems to build upon in a time when English was the only language they were available in, is a unnecessary feature in my opinion.

You're just completely wrong when you say that those games, "ancestors" to PE, were only in english.

I have always played my favourite RPGs in french, and it was very good translations by the way.

Baldur's Gate 1&2, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale 1&2, and other RPG from the same era : all localized, even with voice acting for some.

[evdk]

On release?

[Arkeus]

On release?

Yes, on release. The only game i can think of that wasn't translated was Daggerfall.

[leshy]

Baldur's Gate 1&2, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale 1&2, and other RPG from the same era : all localized, even with voice acting for some.

 

The same here, all of these games were released fully localized.