Josh Sawyer is asking french/ger/ita/spa/port/polish/russian players for input on how much people care about how the game deals with ship gendersyntax

[smjjames]

Double posting this from the Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers thread to give it more visibility and help him out.

 

Anyways, Josh Sawyer has been agonizing about tokenizing ship names because English doesn't use gender prepositions for ships (although ships are commonly referred to as female, but english language doesn't do that) and when he tries to localize to other languages that DO use gender nouns (the Romance languages for example, french, spanish, italian), he's running into problems in deciding how, and there are similar issues with Polish and Russian, but for other reasons.

 

Or tl;dr, localizing to other languages, especially when you're trying to deal with gender prepositions, cases, articles, can be a real PITA and he wants help and opinion from gamers.

 

His 'mood is like this' type image pic: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/948678512969375745

 

Twitter poll asking speakers of the mentioned languages how they feel about doing it: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/948690992089088002

 

Tumbler post on it: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/169284230541/the-problem-with-tokens

Edited January 4, 2018 by smjjames

[hilfazer]

I didn't need it in Baldur's Gate.

I won't need it in POE2.

[theBalthazar]

If Josh want help with French, I'm here.

 

For the problem in french :

 

La Marquise, Le Garibaldi (je dirais plus "le" que "la" personnellement, ça sonne mieux, it sound better) etc.

 

<player_shipname> tire avec ses canons sur <enemy_shipname>.

 

L'équipage <enemy_shipname> accoste le navire <playershipname> après des avaries dans la coque.

 

Navire (ship) = pre-subject, playershipname = name of the ship.

 

Le Garibaldi :

 

2 variables for the french.

 

L'équipage "du Garibaldi" = object.

 

"Le Garibaldi" tire avec ses canons = le sujet. (Variable including "le" or "la")

Edited January 4, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Nail]

Double posting this from the Josh Sawyer's tweets and teasers thread to give it more visibility and help him out.

 

Anyways, Josh Sawyer has been agonizing about tokenizing ship names because English doesn't use gender prepositions for ships (although ships are commonly referred to as female, but english language doesn't do that) and when he tries to localize to other languages that DO use gender nouns (the Romance languages for example, french, spanish, italian), he's running into problems in deciding how, and there are similar issues with Polish and Russian, but for other reasons.

 

Or tl;dr, localizing to other languages, especially when you're trying to deal with gender prepositions, cases, articles, can be a real PITA and he wants help and opinion from gamers.

 

His 'mood is like this' type image pic: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/948678512969375745

 

Twitter poll asking speakers of the mentioned languages how they feel about doing it: https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/948690992089088002

 

Tumbler post on it: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/169284230541/the-problem-with-tokens

It just won't work with Slavic languages if they will use this:

 

<player_shipname> fires its cannons at <enemy_shipname>.

The crew of <enemy_shipname> braces for impact as <playershipname> rams into the hull.

 

Because there can be name declension according to the rest of the sentence or it's meaning.

So there is a change in the shipname, it can't stay constant.

I guess other rule set for Slavic languages should apply and that a pain in the ass, one can imagine...

Poor Josh.

 

I think the only decision is to write those encounters is very simple language.

Like:

<player_shipname> fires its cannons at <enemy_shipname>

<enemy_shipname> is on fire and the crew braces for impact as <playershipname> rams into the hull.

Sometihng like that...

Edited January 4, 2018 by Nail

[theBalthazar]

For french precisely :

 

Test "Marquise" (F) (Input of the player)

 

Object :

du (M) de la (F) des (P)

E. g : 

The crew of <enemy_shipname> braces for impact as <playershipname> rams into the hull.

 

L'équipage (du) Phoenix accoste (La) Marquise après des avaries dans la coque.

 

Subject :

Le (M) La (F) Les (P) Empty (E)

E. g.

<player_shipname> fires its cannons at <enemy_shipname>.

 

(La) Marquise  tire avec ses canons sur (Le) Phoenix.

 

But the big problem is :

 

If the french player give a name like La Marquise (directly).

 

(La) La Marquise  tire avec ses canons sur (Le) Phoenix.

 

Start of a solution : Never give a turn with object. Like :

 

(Le) Phoenix accoste (La) Marquise après des avaries dans la coque.

But stay the problem of the variable of Le/La/Les. At the creation ? Name of the ship + A scrolling text with tree choices Le/La/Les ?

Edited January 4, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Aramintai]

It just won't work with Slavic languages if they will use this:

 

 

 

<player_shipname> fires its cannons at <enemy_shipname>.

The crew of <enemy_shipname> braces for impact as <playershipname> rams into the hull.

 

Because there can be name declension according to the rest of the sentence or it's meaning.

So there is a change in the shipname, it can't stay constant.

I guess other rule set for Slavic languages should apply and that a pain in the ass, one can imagine...

Poor Josh.

 

Yea, if they wanna do it grammatically correct it's gonna be a real pain in the ass to figure out how to change ship names' declensions depending on sentence. 

 

Dunno about Polish, but for Russian what they could do is to work only with one word and change it depending on sentences instead of changing all sorts of names - they could put a word 'Корабль' (Ship) or 'Cудно' (Vessel) before the ship's name, put ship's name in quotation marks and color the words with a different color for better readability. Ships' names can stay constant this way and would be grammatically correct. It's still a bit of a hassle, but much less so if there is only one word you need to work with.

 

For example, in Russian:

Ship "Defiant" fires its cannons at ship "Black Pearl".

Корабль "Дерзкий" стреляет из пушек по кораблю "Черная Жемчюжина".

Or:

Судно "Дерзкий" стреляет из пушек по судну "Черная Жемчюжина".

 

The crew of ship "Black Pearl" braces for impact as ship "Defiant" rams into the hull.

Команда корабля "Черная Жемчюжина" готовится к столкновению с идущим на таран корпуса кораблем "Дерзкий".

Or:

Команда судна "Черная Жемчюжина" готовится к столкновению с идущим на таран корпуса судном "Дерзкий".

Edited January 4, 2018 by Aramintai

[MaxQuest]

HOW MUCH would you care if you specified the name of your #deadfire ship, gave it an article (das/el/la/o, etc.) or implied gender (polish/russian) & the game didn't modify the word/article/partitive articles based on case

Gonna give a somewhat contradictory feedback.

 

> From one point of view it's quite important. If you try to imagine how much it would be annoying, think about the inappropriate usage of "your vs you're".

> From another pov... it's something I personally don't really care about, because am not going to play Deadfire in Russian. I've tried localized PoE1, and didn't like it, reasons being:

 

- main reason: reading in Russian, and hearing VO in English is disturbing; also it feels strange when you select a reply and hear it in another language

- second reason: localization wasn't qualitative enough

- minor reason: need to know English names for races/spells/abilities for forum discussions anyway

 

Now a few thoughts about what to do with all this:

- v1. leave as is - kinda poor choice, but oh well... there can be more important features that require attention

- v2. use workarounds - you can avoid the declination of ship name, by prepending the word "ship" before it (and declining it instead); or by omitting ship name altogether (by saying "our ship", "enemy ship", stuff like that)

- v3. proper localization - particularly ask the player to input all proper declinations, and also let him indicate the gender of <ship name>.

 

EN Shipnames:

- Black Pearl: The crew of Black Pearl braces for impact.

- Sea Wolf: The crew of Sea Wolf braces for impact.

- Santa Maria: The crew of Santa Maria braces for impact.

- The Virgin Mary: The crew of The Virgin Mary braces for impact.

^ all names remain the same.

 

RU (same shipnames as above): (v3 approach)

- Черная Жемчужина: Команда Черной Жемчужины готовится к столкновению.

- Морской Волк: Команда Морского Волка готовится к столкновению.

- Санта Мария: Команда Санта Марии готовится к столкновению.

- Дева Мария: Команда Девы Марии готовится к столкновению.

^ all names were declined, and use different suffixes

 

RU (same shipnames as above): (v2 approach)

- Черная Жемчужина: Команда корабля «Черная Жемчужина» готовится к столкновению.

- Морской Волк: Команда корабля «Морской Волк» готовится к столкновению.

- Санта Мария: Команда корабля «Санта Мария» готовится к столкновению.

- Дева Мария: Команда корабля «Дева Мария» готовится к столкновению.

^ all names remain the same, but you have to add the declined form of word <ship> before them

 

Btw, adjectives do change depending on the gender of the ship as well:

 

EN:

- The Black Pearl: The Black Pearl is fast as the wind.

- Sea Wolf: Sea Wolf is fast as the wind.

RU (v3):

- Черная Жемчужина: «Черная Жемчужина» быстра как ветер.

- Морской Волк: «Морской Волк» быстр как ветер.

RU (v2):

- Черная Жемчужина: Корабль «Черная Жемчужина» быстр как ветер.

- Морской Волк: Корабль «Морской Волк» быстр как ветер.

 

 

P.S. If you go for proper localization, the best way imho is to ask the player to input the declined names himself.

P.P.S. Aramintai you ninja

Edited January 4, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Olauron Mor-Galad]

Dunno about Polish, but for Russian what they could do is to work only with one word and change it depending on sentences instead of changing all sorts of names - they could put a word 'Корабль' (Ship) or 'Cудно' (Vessel) before the ship's name, put ship's name in quotation marks and color the words with a different color for better readability. Ships' names can stay constant this way and would be grammatically correct. It's still a bit of a hassle, but much less so if there is only one word you need to work with.

I'd say that if a word "корабль" or "судно" is used in a constant string it can be changed without problems. Also I'd mark only ship's name with a color. For example,

<player_shipname> fires its cannons at <enemy_shipname>.

The crew of <enemy_shipname> braces for impact as <playershipname> rams into the hull.

may be localized as 

Корабль "<player_shipname>" стреляет из пушек по кораблю "<enemy_shipname>".

Команда корабля "<enemy_shipname>" готовится к столкновению с идущим на таран кораблем "<playershipname>".

and then displayed to the player as

Корабль "Дерзкий" стреляет из пушек по кораблю "Черная жемчужина".

Команда корабля "Черная жемчужина" готовится к столкновению с идущим на таран кораблем "Дерзкий".

[Aramintai]

P.S. If you go for proper localization, the best way imho is to ask the player to input the declined names himself.

Lol, you don't ask a player to work on localization within the game, it's developers job. The only input I think players should be allowed to do is to write their own ship's name if they so desire, which makes my suggestion the only viable suggestion. Or choose from a range of predefined names. 

Edited January 4, 2018 by Aramintai

[hilfazer]

 

Dunno about Polish

 

Same.

[Aramintai]

 

 

Dunno about Polish

 

Same.

 

Well, good to know if it's the same in Polish. A universal solution for Slavic languages.

[MaxQuest]

Lol, you don't ask a player to work on localization within the game, it's developers job.

That would be... a gargantuan task.

I understand that devs can code the declination rules into the game, but there is no way it would take into account all exceptions to those rules... like:

- Санта Мария: Команда Санта Марии готовится к столкновению.

- Дева Мария: Команда Девы Марии готовится к столкновению.

"Санта" is coming from other language - and is not getting declined...

 

Btw, here are the current voting results:

[theBalthazar]

The truth of this poll :

 

43 % no. (Not at all)

57 % yes. (A little + A lot + Hate it)

Edited January 4, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Aramintai]

Btw, here are the current voting results:

 

It doesn't matter, if it's gargantuan and expensive then they should not attempt it at all, instead of pushing their work onto players and turning the game into some grammar game. And judging by the results it's indeed not really worth it. I suppose localization users will just have to endure it, as it happens most of the times. (Good thing I only play in English.)

[MaxQuest]

The truth of this poll :

 

43 % no. (Not at all)

67 % yes. (A little + A lot + Hate it)

^ 43% vs 57% you politician! 

Edited January 4, 2018 by MaxQuest

[theBalthazar]

^ 43% vs 57% you politician!    

 

 

  

 

 

For aramintai :

 

For example, in Russian:

Ship "Defiant" fires its cannons at ship "Black Pearl".

Корабль "Дерзкий" стреляет из пушек по кораблю "Черная Жемчюжина".

Or:

Судно "Дерзкий" стреляет из пушек по судну "Черная Жемчюжина".

 

Doable in french !

 

Le navire "Défiant" fait feu avec ses canons sur le navire "Black Pearl".

 

At worse, the player give a "Le" Black Pearl : create this :

 

Le navire 'Le Défiant" fait feu avec ses canons sur le navire "Le Black Pearl".

 

It is not perfect to ear but this is not grammatically wrong in French.

 

Or a If conditionnal :

 

If "Le/La" is detected = supress of "Le navire" ("Ship").

 

"Le Défiant" fait feu avec ses canons sur "Le Black Pearl".

Edited January 4, 2018 by theBalthazar

[Aramintai]

Doable in french !

Great, now if only Josh visited this forum to see our solution...

[Nail]

I'll repeat, considering that:
 

<player_shipname>

<enemy_shipname>

 

are constant variables in database - they could not be changed in any way

only simple phrases would work

 

1. Obsidian should have a writer who understands Slavic languages so the simple text structure can be made, where no conjugation has place.

or

2. More variables needed, to cover all cases of nouns (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, apiary and prepositional case)

<player_shipname_nom>

<player_shipname_gen>

<player_shipname_dat>

<player_shipname_acc>

<player_shipname_api>

<player_shipname_pre>

 

Something like that...

From my knowledge all Slavic languages share same base, thus I made this conclusion, but I may be wrong.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Nail

[Madscientist]

In german it is complicated too. There are 3 genders and the grammatical genders often have no connection to the biological gender. There are several articles who may or may not change depending on the situation.

 

Lets say we have two ships: "Die Ziege" (the goat) and "Der Hund" (the dog). (terrible names, I know)

 

In english it is simple: The goat fires its cannons at the dog. ( and vice versa)

 

1.) Die Ziege feuert ihre Kanonen auf den Hund. (Is it clear that the target is a ship?)

2.) Die Ziege feuert ihre Kanonen auf Der Hund. (The name of the shop is "Der Hund". I am not sure if names of people or objects are changed at all.

3.) Der Hund feuert seine Kanonen auf die Ziege. (In this case (and if the shooter was a neutrum) the words between the ship names change too.

 

The next problem is that individual names of people or objects have capital letters. Should the article be written with capital letters in any case? Then it would always look like in example 2. If the article starts always with a capital letter, should we always write the name in "", like: "Die Ziege" feuert ihre Kanonen auf "Der Hund". It looks strange, but at least it is clear that one ship with that name shoots at another ship with a name.

 

The version:

4.) Das schiff "Die Ziege" feuert seine Kanonen auf das Schiff "Der Hund".

might be the best option. It does not look good, but it is correct grammar and it may be the only way that avoids a change of the words between the ship names (like example 3).

 

PS:

You might want to read Mark Twains text about the terrible german language. It is really funny.

[smjjames]

 

P.S. If you go for proper localization, the best way imho is to ask the player to input the declined names himself.

Lol, you don't ask a player to work on localization within the game, it's developers job. The only input I think players should be allowed to do is to write their own ship's name if they so desire, which makes my suggestion the only viable suggestion. Or choose from a range of predefined names. 

 

 

Hey, he asked for help, so....

 

I only know english, so, I can't actually help much here. I am aware of other languages having the gender pre (or post) positions and am slightly familiar with the Spanish one, but not neccesarily it's proper use.

 

 

 

Doable in french !

Great, now if only Josh visited this forum to see our solution...

 

 

I'm sure the other devs will relay the information if he doesn't see it.

Edited January 4, 2018 by smjjames

[Fluffle]

So, just as a little feedback, if I was playing in German it would indeed bug me. A lot probably.

 

But I usually play my games in English only.

Edited January 4, 2018 by Fluffle

[smjjames]

stealing from my post in the other thread:

 

There is a solution to Josh's dilemma in this thread that seems to work for Slavic and French languagues (maybe others as well):
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95495-josh-sawyer-is-asking-frenchgeritaspaportpolishrussian-players-for-input-on-how-much-people-care-about-how-the-game-deals-with-ship-gendersyntax/?p=1967740

Yeah. Stolen from the thread:

Ship "Defiant" fires its cannons at ship "Black Pearl".

Similar to the example I gave but avoids the problem of stating the sex of the subject. Smart wording as I said.

 

 

It's a potential solution, sure, but it still reads a bit awkwardly because in english you'd say 'the ship Black Pearl'.

 

It'd work fine for a combat log, but not as well for dialogue or descriptive text.

[Suen]

Italian

Using Pirates of the Caribbean as reference:

 

La Perla Nera (f) (The Black Pearl)

L'Olandese Volante (m) (The Flying Dutchman)

La Silent Mary (f)

La HMS Providence (f)

La HMS Endeavour (f)

La Santiago (f)

 

They translated the names of the most important boats (the ones whose meaning was important to understand the conversations). 

The others were kept in english but treated as feminine, as "nave" (boat, f) is implied. 

 

And as a possible solution: if you really want to translate the boat names, make them female. 

Edited January 5, 2018 by Suen

[Messier-31]

This issue is known to me.

I play most of my games in English, so I don't care - but if I were to play in Polish, then I also wouldn't care.

[hilfazer]

 

And as a possible solution: if you really want to translate the boat names, make them female. 

 

 

What's male and what's female differs from language to language.

Polish "kot" is male but German "die Katze" is female. Both mean "cat".

 

"King Robert's Hammer" translated into Polish will be male. You'd need "King Robert's Mace" to have female name in Polish. And what if there's a language where "mace" is male or neuter?