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A thank you to Obsidian for the localization :)

Zwiebelchen

By Zwiebelchen
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Zwiebelchen

Zwiebelchen

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Posted (edited)

I want to give you in advance my thank you for the great german translation you guys have done and will do!

 

As Gronkh, a popular german Let's Player started a series about the backer beta, I finally got to see the awesome job you did in this regard. Aside from some minor formatting issues (sometimes, the greyed out text appears as white and the opposite and some speech markers are wrong) and the usual english fragments, the localization looks great!

 

Only issue so far is that NPCs seem to have no localized names yet (you only see the variable names where the name of the NPC should be displayed).

 

 

If you guys can manage to hire great voiceactors for the spoken lines aswell, like Rainer Schmitt who did a phenomenal job on Irenicus in the german localization of BG2 or Ben Hecker, who did Minsc, I am a happy camper!

 

 

Maybe other germans lurking these forums are interested; this is the Let's Play I was talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMG_pyodOPw

Edited by Zwiebelchen
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war:head

war:head

Posted
Posted

I will never understand the admiration of localization of sounds. 

As a Swede, I would never want to play a video game with swedish voice acting.. horrible thought! :p

As a German - it depends. We have pretty awesome voice actors over here since we've been localizing movies for a long time now. There are even quite a few movies where the German dub is far superior to the original (Spaceballs, Hot Shots, Fifth Element to name a few).

 

Without this localization culture I can understand why you generally wouldn't want your movies localized. As for games, I agree though. Companies usually don't want to spend a lot of money on localization so the result is mediocre at best, with the occasional gem (the Baldur's Gate 2 localization was pretty spectacular - I actually prefer it to the original) in between.

 

That being said - I still prefer the original most of the time. It's simply more genuine and generally provides a better atmosphere. 

There is a road that I must travel
Let it be paved or unseen
May I be hindered by a thousand stones
Still onward I'd crawl down on my knees.

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Sedrefilos

Sedrefilos

Posted
Posted

It's a bit funny for me sometimes when I see people talking about localization. I've never played a game localized in my language (except FIFA '97 I believe?) since noone translates games in greek (I think only sports games are translated, but I don't play those anymore). I'm so used in playing games in english that when I try sometimes, for fun, to make a translation of a part of a game in my ming in greek, it sounds ridiculous to me. Like simple things, like how do you translate "greatsword" in greek? "Megaspatha"? "Megalo Spathi"? Sucks :p

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Jaspendar

Jaspendar

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Posted

The only thing about the german translation that bothers me is that the class 'Rogue' is translated with 'Dieb' which means 'Thief'. This could be confusing to some players who don
t know about the mechanics or didn't follow development and expect the stereotypical pickpocketing shadow-hiding thief.

'Schurke' would be a better translation, I think.

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Mayama

Mayama

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Translations usualy suck, for example the english translation of edna & harvey: the breakout which is a heartbreaking tragicomedic game in the german original turned into something like a dump adam sandler joke-fest in the english translation.

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Flow

Flow

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Posted

Why do ze Germans always have to have everything dubbed? Everyone knows there's only one real language any more..... :devil:

 

Har.

 

Because they can. There's enough German speakers that it makes economic sense. Dubbing is also very common for Spanish and other larger languages. There's no profit in dubbing smaller languages.

 

Personally, I much prefer subtitles, but we English speakers get such a small percentage of our media in foreign languages that I guess I haven't felt the pain of having to watch every movie with text on screen.

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crackwise

crackwise

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I want to give you in advance my thank you for the great german translation you guys have done and will do!

 

As Gronkh, a popular german Let's Player started a series about the backer beta, I finally got to see the awesome job you did in this regard. Aside from some minor formatting issues (sometimes, the greyed out text appears as white and the opposite and some speech markers are wrong) and the usual english fragments, the localization looks great!

 

Only issue so far is that NPCs seem to have no localized names yet (you only see the variable names where the name of the NPC should be displayed).

 

 

If you guys can manage to hire great voiceactors for the spoken lines aswell, like Rainer Schmitt who did a phenomenal job on Irenicus in the german localization of BG2 or Ben Hecker, who did Minsc, I am a happy camper!

 

 

Maybe other germans lurking these forums are interested; this is the Let's Play I was talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMG_pyodOPw

 

I actually did not like the German sound acting for Irenicus at all in BG2. Maybe I was used to hearing David Warner, since I had played the original version initially. But nevertheless, nobody can beat David Warner when he is voicing a calculating evil mastermind with strong motives! :)  Sound acting for NPCs were pretty decent though at the German version, especially Minsc, I agree. Imoen's voice acting sucked though.

 

 

 

The only thing about the german translation that bothers me is that the class 'Rogue' is translated with 'Dieb' which means 'Thief'. This could be confusing to some players who don

t know about the mechanics or didn't follow development and expect the stereotypical pickpocketing shadow-hiding thief.

'Schurke' would be a better translation, I think.

 

In BG since the class was originally named as Thief, it was also Dieb in the translated versions. In Dragon Age for instance the rogue class was translated also correctly as Schurke.

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samm

samm

Posted
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I'm not so sure Schurke is an appropriate translation, because it is inherently a bad guy, while Rogue focuses on the independence more.

 

Anyway, unless the original language is one I don't understand, I prefer no localization - and if a game / movie features a language I don't understand, like Japanese, I prefer subtitles to dubbing. There might not be much of a difference in a text heavy game like PoE, but it still keeps more of the original feeling.

 

---

 

Long story short: While I personally couldn't care less about the localization of PoE, I understand it's economically feasible to appeal to a greater audience.

Citizen of a country with a racist, hypocritical majority

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Wintersong

Wintersong

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Not sure if worth mentioning but D&D3+ had Rogue translated into spanish (castillian) as Pícaro (for male, female would be Pícara which is the spanish name for X-Men's Rogue :p ). But in PoE, the translation is Proscrito (Outlaw). The translation of Lore feels weird to me but maybe it's just me.

 

Switched the game to english because lack of many texts in menus/explanations but what I could read was quite good.

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EvilVik

EvilVik

Posted
Posted

 

I will never understand the admiration of localization of sounds. 

As a Swede, I would never want to play a video game with swedish voice acting.. horrible thought! :p

That strikes me as surprising and rather sad. Don't you like your own language?

 

 

If the original would be swedish I would be fine with it, but I would never play or watch a dubbed game/movie in swedish. 

I want to experience a game or movie as it was intended, especially in movies with the actors actual voices. 

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Zwiebelchen

Zwiebelchen

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I actually did not like the German sound acting for Irenicus at all in BG2. Maybe I was used to hearing David Warner, since I had played the original version initially. But nevertheless, nobody can beat David Warner when he is voicing a calculating evil mastermind with strong motives! :)  Sound acting for NPCs were pretty decent though at the German version, especially Minsc, I agree. Imoen's voice acting sucked though.

 

 

Well it depends. Certainly, the voice acting for Irenicus in the german version is totally different to the original; while in the original, he was speaking very monotone and cold (which is very in-character, considering his soul and feelings were stripped off from him), the german voiceacting is a lot more emotional and angry, but somehow this fits almost as good as the original voice-acting. I loved the voice. It sounded intimidating as hell, especially when he started shouting or cursing.

 

There's no doubt about the localization of Minsc, either. Perfectly executed! And I just recently found out that the voice actress of Jaheira is also the german voice of Angelina Jolie.

 

I can't agree about Imoen, though. I felt her german voice was A LOT better than the original. She sounded like an actual adventurer in the german version, not like a spoiled school child that she was in the original. After playing BG:EE, I finally understood why everyone was hating Imoen so much. Her original voice was ... punishment.

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Azrael Ultima

Azrael Ultima

Posted
Posted

Why do ze Germans always have to have everything dubbed? Everyone knows there's only one real language any more..... :devil:

Sure, but the game isn't being developed in chinese either, so it would have to be localised anyway.

I'm not so sure Schurke is an appropriate translation, because it is inherently a bad guy, while Rogue focuses on the independence more.

There aren't many words in german that would really capture that duality. And most other possible translations of rogue are even worse. "Spitzbube" certainly won't work.

 

I just hope they don't skimp on the voice actors. There's a rather noticeable difference between the good and the bad in german.

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redneckdevil

redneckdevil

Posted
Posted

I will never understand the admiration of localization of sounds.

As a Swede, I would never want to play a video game with swedish voice acting.. horrible thought! :p

Come now, a chanter singing or a mad animancer prattling on would be awesome with a swedish accent!

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