Translations

[alphyna]

Russian.

But please oh please hire someone who can do a good literary translation. Like me.

It just hurts to see a good text butchered.

[leshy]

These will earn them a lot more money than they will cost them.

 

I totally agree. Many people speak English as foreign language enough to communicate but not enough to actually enjoy the game. If you ignore most widely spoken languages you loose many potential gamers. So yes localization is a business decision and most games released today are localized at least with EFIGS.

 

you cant compare an obscure language like Polish to English.

 

Out of curiosity I checked. Apparently Polish is spoken by at least 10% of the EU. Given the fact that only the EFIGS languages are more popular I don't think you can consider it obscure. And if you're curious why I'm concerned with Europe so much, take a look here: http://forums.obsidi...-everyone-from/

 

 

To summarize this, if anybodies answer to the localization question is "learn English". I suggest they shut up and learn Esperanto.

Edited September 25, 2012 by leshy

[qloher]

Actually fans can be pretty awesome with their custom translations at times. The latest thing I remember is when EA for some crazy reason decided not to translate DLCs for Dragon Age: Origins into Russian starting from the second DLC, fans were able to do this job with an outstanding quality, one DLC per week.

 

P.S. BTW, I'm all for out of the box localizations in as many languages as possible on day one.

Edited September 25, 2012 by qloher

[leshy]

Actually fans can be pretty awesome with their custom translations at times. The latest thing I remember is when EA for some crazy reason decided not to translate DLCs for Dragon Age: Origins into Russian starting from the second DLC, fans were able to do this job with an outstanding quality, one DLC per week.

 

The problem with fan translations is that they are very uneven. Some are awesome and some are terribly, terribly bad. I don't think it would be wise to use something that unpredictable in high quality product like Project Eternity. Although I think that allowing the community to patch the game with custom translations would be a great idea.

[max8472]

Based on requests in Kickstarter update #8 I voted italian and russian.

 

I'm from Italy.

[evdk]

Actually fans can be pretty awesome with their custom translations at times. The latest thing I remember is when EA for some crazy reason decided not to translate DLCs for Dragon Age: Origins into Russian starting from the second DLC, fans were able to do this job with an outstanding quality, one DLC per week.

 

The problem with fan translations is that they are very uneven. Some are awesome and some are terribly, terribly bad. I don't think it would be wise to use something that unpredictable in high quality product like Project Eternity. Although I think that allowing the community to patch the game with custom translations would be a great idea.

 

Not to mention that I would like to see a group of fan translators with their inevitable drama meet some kind of deadline.

[Lucas]

Like I wrote in the "official" topic, it would be great if Obsidian could at least provide a tool (and Feargus mentioned something akin to that in a post inside the comments section of the kickstarter page, last night) in order to extract the text dialogue files with ease, because sometimes that's a problem for the amateur translation teams, that are required to re-arrange and rummage through the aforementioned files in order to give 'em a resemblance of chronology.

 

So, problem solved, if Obsidian can't simply put more resources into more translations (and we'll just have to accept that): amateur translation teams will take care of that post-release, like it or not (a few years ago, an italian team translated Torment in its entirety, plus Arcanum, Morrowind and its expansions, and Divine Divinity). After all, CRPGs fans are quite dedicated fellas, as you can see by the Bethesda games modding communities and more.

Edited September 25, 2012 by Lucas

[Avellone is My God]

My two cents for Italy...

[Wintersong]

Learn English.

So a company has a website for their product. A very nice, clean and pretty one. Some people with a disability, in this case they are blind, are truly interested in visiting the website and check the information in it (they really really want to buy) but... whoa! Totally inaccessible! The website doesn't care about the Web Accessibility Initiative and their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Those of them open minded enough (or really hardcore) may bother trying to decypher all the chaos that the pages' content is. The rest will just avoid the website with that it potentially can mean (not positive).

 

The company has to choose: do they prefer to spend part of their resources adding new content to their website or should they try to make their website complaint with the WCAG? On one hand, how many blind people actually could go to the website and could become regular customer in addition of some extra good company image? On the other, why bother pandering to them when the company alrady has other potential customers that don't require them to spend resources in tweaking the website?

 

If you were blind, what would you choose?

Edited September 25, 2012 by Wintersong

[molarBear]

personally i don't wanna see any translations, at least the translations should be fan-made/crowdsourced (save precious $$$).

also, why not give turkish a chance? many gamers in turkey do not know sufficient english to play text-heavy crpgs. it's probably as big a market as germany. when crysis was released in turkish its sales soared in turkey. many people bought it just to support turkish language games as they are really scarce. it's an odd mentality but shows that there is a desperate need for tr-lang games.

Edited September 25, 2012 by molarBear

[evdk]

Learn English.

So a company has a website for their product. A very nice, clean and pretty one. Some people with a disability, in this case they are blind, are truly interested in visiting the website and check the information in it (they really really want to buy) but... whoa! Totally inaccessible! The website doesn't care about the Web Accessibility Initiative and their Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Those of them open minded enough (or really hardcore) may bother trying to decypher all the chaos that the pages' content is. The rest will just avoid the website with that it potentially can mean (not positive).

 

The company has to choose: do they prefer to spend part of their resources adding new content to their website or should they try to make their website complaint with the WCAG? On one hand, how many blind people actually could go to the website and could become regular customer in addition of some extra good company image? On the other, why bother pandering to them when the company alrady has other potential customers that don't require them to spend resources in tweaking the website?

 

If you were blind, what would you choose?

If I were blind could I learn to see?

[thracian]

personally i don't wanna see any translations, at least the translations should be fan-made/crowdsourced (save precious $$$).

also, why not give turkish a chance? many gamers in turkey do not know sufficient english to play text-heavy crpgs. it's probably as big a market as germany. when crysis was released in turkish its sales soared in turkey. many people bought it just to support turkish language games as they are really scarce. it's an odd mentality but shows that there is a desperate need for tr-lang games.

i couldn't say it better myself

there were also campaigns for football manager that people stipulated to buy it if there would be a turkish edition. si games finally decided to support turkish language for fm 2013

[Loki Ador]

Guys

 

Don't feed the trolls (Vattghern & evdk)

 

Threads related to localizations have a sad tendency to get out of control because of such people. Let them spite on Obsidian's decision to make localization a (likely) threshold, the quality of the discussion will only improve.

[maggotheart]

Learn English.

 

"#$#$ you, as long as I get mine".

 

Divisive, selfish and ultimately self-defeating. I thought this crowd would have more solidarity considering the funding model, but nope! Many on these forums actively work against their fellow gamers interests, dividing themselves up into armed camps instead of supporting each other. Here is a great post satirizing this attitude, which hits the nail on the head:

 

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/60513-please-less-classes-races-factions-companions-regions-and-other-features/

 

All I can hope for is that the devs don't listen to the so-called 'fans' too much and translate the game into as many languages as possible. With the support of French, German and Spanish old-school gamers, maybe the next game will get even more funding.

[evdk]

Learn English.

 

"#$#$ you, as long as I get mine".

 

Divisive, selfish and ultimately self-defeating. I thought this crowd would have more solidarity considering the funding model, but nope! Many on these forums actively work against their fellow gamers interests, dividing themselves up into armed camps instead of supporting each other. Here is a great post satirizing this attitude, which hits the nail on the head:

 

http://forums.obsidi...other-features/

 

All I can hope for is that the devs don't listen to the so-called 'fans' too much and translate the game into as many languages as possible. With the support of French, German and Spanish old-school gamers, maybe the next game will get even more funding.

I learned English to play (and by playing) computer games. Go cry on a different grave.

[Sempavor]

Normally, the standard location for the videogame, at least here in Europe, with Multi 5 English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.

We do not understand why in this case they have forgotten Italian.

They invented the Multi4 and want to register the copyright.

 

However now it only remains to wait and hope that funds grow fast.

[Macbeth]

Learn English.

 

"#$#$ you, as long as I get mine".

 

Divisive, selfish and ultimately self-defeating. I thought this crowd would have more solidarity considering the funding model, but nope! Many on these forums actively work against their fellow gamers interests, dividing themselves up into armed camps instead of supporting each other. Here is a great post satirizing this attitude, which hits the nail on the head:

 

http://forums.obsidi...other-features/

 

All I can hope for is that the devs don't listen to the so-called 'fans' too much and translate the game into as many languages as possible. With the support of French, German and Spanish old-school gamers, maybe the next game will get even more funding.

I learned English to play (and by playing) computer games. Go cry on a different grave.

 

Good for you that you learned another language.

Sad for you that it didn't make you a wiser man.

[Pauzulodburzum]

Norwegian, for the youngest players here in norway that is

[jerf]

If someone thinks that he or she can help with the translation to a certain language, I'd suggest sending a message to the developeres through the Kickstarter website with that offer, since they are known to read all the messages there.

[Lysen]

FIGS should be enough, it seems that it is already decided (minus Italian for some reason).

[Luckmann]

None. It's a complete waste of resources.

Any time now, I'm going to start demanding Scandinavian translation.

[JediMB]

Swedish, if they'll pay me to do it. I'm cheap.

 

Otherwise, the $2.2M stretch goal is enough.

[alphyna]

Actually fans can be pretty awesome with their custom translations at times. The latest thing I remember is when EA for some crazy reason decided not to translate DLCs for Dragon Age: Origins into Russian starting from the second DLC, fans were able to do this job with an outstanding quality, one DLC per week.

 

The problem with fan translations is that they are very uneven. Some are awesome and some are terribly, terribly bad. I don't think it would be wise to use something that unpredictable in high quality product like Project Eternity. Although I think that allowing the community to patch the game with custom translations would be a great idea.

This, this and this.

I weep tears of blood looking at some fan translations.

(Then again, sometimes the same applies to official ones.)

[LordCrash]

Only Russian because there is a reasonable market for RPGs like this. In my experience most Polish gamers can speak either English or Russian or both so there is no real need for a Polish version (at release at least). I think the Italian market is for a niche game like that too small to justify an Italian version. Same is true for all other suggested languages.

[Rosveen]

This is an interesting question. I'm Polish, but I usually choose the original language version of games I play, so I don't need a translation. However, I know many people who want to play in their native language whenever it's possible simply because it's more comfortable for them. It's particularly important in a game focusing on dialogue (or text in general) - even if players have a communicative level of English, it doesn't mean they can easily understand more complex texts. Translations help them fully experience the game and enjoy all aspects of it.

 

With this in mind, all I can say is: since they already decided to include translations, they might as well give us a Polish version.

 

 

This, this and this.

I weep tears of blood looking at some fan translations.

(Then again, sometimes the same applies to official ones.)

I weep when I see games translated by Cenega. Far Cry was a joke, Mass Effect remarkably poor, even Skyrim came out rather bland. I'll take fan translations any day

 

 

In my experience most Polish gamers can speak either English or Russian or both

Fun fact: the majority of young people in Poland don't speak Russian. We usually learn English and German and in recent years Spanish has become more popular than Russian. Three, maybe four of my friends would be able to understand a game in Russian (though it's true that virtually everyone can play in English).

Edited September 25, 2012 by Rosveen