Author Topic: Localization  (Read 6196 times)

Offline darke

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Re: Localization
« Reply #15 on: August 13, 2009, 12:17:28 pm »
Having gone through the process of localizing a few products I can say that non-dictionary or proprietary words like Etherjet usually remain in that spelling regardless of language.

Yeah, that's true with so many French words, too (all sorts of technology words).  Ether and Jet and such are just compound words, though, so I figured they might turn into something really different based on the translations of the individual parts.

It gets really interesting when dealing with Asian/Middle Eastern languages, too.

I bet! :)

Japanese it's pretty painless for names, they're all usually translated phonetically, like EtherJet: ??????? (written "i-sajetto", though pronounced pretty much identically to the english version except sounding stilted).

Attritioner would probably just use a phonetic translation as well, since it's name is clunky in English so it's going to be just as clunky in translation, but it can retain the "coolness" of the English just being phonetically translated. :)

Something like the Bomber Starship would probably end up as a mix of direct translation and English phonetic translation: ???????? ("jibaku suta- shippu", "jibaku" meaning to self-destruct). If they were wanting something classier they could use ???????? ("etowa-ru shippu"), from the French "etoile" for star since my J->E dictionary says it's another possibility, though I don't know how common.

It's all a bit messy though (and my Japanese is a bit of a "learner" grade :) ), and you're all probably going to get lots of odd boxes scattered through the text unless you've got east-asian fonts installed. :)


Offline x4000

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Re: Localization
« Reply #16 on: August 13, 2009, 01:47:57 pm »
Very cool. :)
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Offline Admiral

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Re: Localization
« Reply #17 on: August 14, 2009, 12:47:31 am »
Localization is easier to write in at the beginning than to retrofit, that's for sure. :)

Also, make sure the text entry fields are fully Unicode-compliant in the UI and in the save game, etc. (Player name, Planet name, Comment is all that comes to mind.)

Offline x4000

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Re: Localization
« Reply #18 on: August 14, 2009, 12:55:51 am »
Localization is easier to write in at the beginning than to retrofit, that's for sure. :)

Yep, and it crossed my mind at the time.  But never having gone through the process before, and being pretty unsure of how much of an audience the game would find even in English, I decided not to bog myself down with that from the start.  So now I'm paying for it to a degree, which is fine and expected, and in future titles I'll build in support from the start since now I have a good code model for how to effectively do so.

Also, make sure the text entry fields are fully Unicode-compliant in the UI and in the save game, etc. (Player name, Planet name, Comment is all that comes to mind.)

Yep, that's one nice thing about .NET as the development platform -- unless otherwise specified, it's unicode.  I've had English-speaking players playing the game on German-language copies of windows, and I had a few problems back at the start with that which I fixed in version 1.006 or something like that, but it seems to be going well now.  If there's anything else unexpected, that will be a job for the QA team at the publisher to find and tell me about, since they have foreign-language copies and I do not.  For now, just making sure that everything is in unicode (done), and then pulling all of the text out into xml files (agonizingly slow), is the ticket.

Looks like this is going to be an off-and-on project for weeks for me, so expect a more regular update tomorrow.  The official 1.014 release won't be until probably Tuesday of next week, just to give the distribution places a bit of a breather since they've been lagging a few days behind the last couple of weeks (and so that I can pack in more content, too, given the localization-induced delays).
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Offline Admiral

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Re: Localization
« Reply #19 on: August 14, 2009, 12:58:24 am »
Go ahead and delay 1.014 until Friday, that way I have a reason to want to stay on vacation!!! :)

Offline x4000

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Re: Localization
« Reply #20 on: August 14, 2009, 01:00:00 am »
Go ahead and delay 1.014 until Friday, that way I have a reason to want to stay on vacation!!! :)

Haha, that's a little too far out, but I hope you can still enjoy your vacation regardless. ;)
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Offline Darkreaver1980

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Re: Localization
« Reply #21 on: August 14, 2009, 01:31:27 pm »
i could do a german translation, rts games are quite popular here.

i mainly translated some english mods into german language, so I'm pretty familar with it :P


Offline x4000

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Re: Localization
« Reply #22 on: August 14, 2009, 01:44:08 pm »
i could do a german translation, rts games are quite popular here.

i mainly translated some english mods into german language, so I'm pretty familar with it :P



Great!  I'll keep you on my list, too!  It will probably be a few weeks before I have stuff finalized with the publisher, and it will probably be about a month before I have all of the text extracted as it needs to be.  Look for us next week at Gamescon in Cologne, if you're following that or going to it.  TGC is planning to present us. :)
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Offline AcidWeb

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Re: Localization
« Reply #23 on: August 14, 2009, 02:38:09 pm »
Regardless of how it goes with the publisher and what territories they go for up front, I might still do something like that for the online version.  Of course, with weekly DLC updates and such for the online version, that could get challenging to maintain.

Only challenge will be time if you planing add 400 pages of dialogues each week ;D If all strings will be in XML files maintaining cohesion of translation and updating that files will require only some amount of common sense.  :)

Offline x4000

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Re: Localization
« Reply #24 on: August 14, 2009, 02:41:57 pm »
Regardless of how it goes with the publisher and what territories they go for up front, I might still do something like that for the online version.  Of course, with weekly DLC updates and such for the online version, that could get challenging to maintain.

Only challenge will be time if you planing add 400 pages of dialogues each week ;D If all strings will be in XML files maintaining cohesion of translation and updating that files will require only some amount of common sense.  :)

Oh, goodness -- I tend to only have a few new sentences each week, nothing huge at all.  It's just descriptions for new units, or tweaks to older ones, mostly.  Most of the changes to the game are not something that requires in-game textual edits. :)
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Offline PVega8

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Re: Localization
« Reply #25 on: August 14, 2009, 03:44:44 pm »
I prefer theatre to theater, myself, but that's the only strange foreign word I import, I swear. :)




I believe the two of them actually have different meanings. I'm not sure which one pertains to what meaning, but one is the PHYSICAL theatre (as in Movie Theatre, or going to the Theatre) versus the art form.

I was told that once by a thespian.
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