AI War II: Kickstarter launches on Monday!

[Cyborg]

The webpage looks good, but you don't need to explain your studio problems or do anything that might seem like apologizing in the middle of your sales pitch.

[Captain Jack]

Noted kasnavada, Cyborg. 

[kasnavada]

Sorry the goal ain't to be petty nor anything . So... other other remarks, after a night's sleep...

Most of the article's fine, but there is a few words which I think non-native speakers will have no clue what they mean. "takeaway, gangbusters, skimp"... a few others. I don't really know how much of Arcen's fans ain't natives, but I'd consider simplifying if possible.

We have two more secret weapons. If something in AIW2 isn’t working, we have AI War Classic to look to for inspiration: if our brand new idea fails, we can just go back to doing it how we did in the past. In the unlikely case that fails, our extraordinary community, the largest force behind AI War’s evolution over the years, has always been a source of ideas and creative solutions to problems.
If nothing else? If things go wrong we’ll let you know. We have reputation for speaking with our fans, and for listening. You’ll know what we’re doing, what our challenges are, and what we’re doing to overcome them. We’ll go into excruciating detail (after telling you to expect "a brief update" or "a quick video,"), just like always. It’ll be great.

I find this part awkward too, because the "if nothing else" and changing paragraph looks like you're repeating the same thing twice (to me, at least).


Last, stance against translating ? I don't think I saw that in the document, and not sure that anyone brought it up. I don't think it's worth adding that you'll make a English only game if you do. But, if it allows "easy" translations, translating the KS could be wise.

[Captain Jack]

Sorry the goal ain't to be petty nor anything . So... other other remarks, after a night's sleep...

Most of the article's fine, but there is a few words which I think non-native speakers will have no clue what they mean. "takeaway, gangbusters, skimp"... a few others. I don't really know how much of Arcen's fans ain't natives, but I'd consider simplifying if possible.

Hey, no worries! I'm writing most of this on my own since Chris is so busy, having other people look over it before it goes live is a relief. It probably helps that you've caught more of Chris's mistakes than mine.  >D (But seriously I appreciate the help).

I like a lot of English colloquialisms are well known internationally, at least among the internet savvy crowd likely to hear about this project. You're right that we should do better though, if nothing else it helps keep the tone consistent. Editing this for tense agreement is next on the list.

We have two more secret weapons. If something in AIW2 isn’t working, we have AI War Classic to look to for inspiration: if our brand new idea fails, we can just go back to doing it how we did in the past. In the unlikely case that fails, our extraordinary community, the largest force behind AI War’s evolution over the years, has always been a source of ideas and creative solutions to problems.
If nothing else? If things go wrong we’ll let you know. We have reputation for speaking with our fans, and for listening. You’ll know what we’re doing, what our challenges are, and what we’re doing to overcome them. We’ll go into excruciating detail (after telling you to expect "a brief update" or "a quick video,"), just like always. It’ll be great.

I find this part awkward too, because the "if nothing else" and changing paragraph looks like you're repeating the same thing twice (to me, at least).

Augh, that bit's been driving me crazy, but I haven't been able to think of a better way to get the idea across. I'm just going to lead off with "If things go wrong" like I should have from the beginning.

Last, stance against translating ? I don't think I saw that in the document, and not sure that anyone brought it up. I don't think it's worth adding that you'll make a English only game if you do. But, if it allows "easy" translations, translating the KS could be wise.

Translating the KS pitch into other languages?  Oh snap, hadn't thought of that. Don't think Chris did either. I'd be nervous about doing an automated translation for fear of a Google Translate disaster, and I don't think we have the buypower for professional translators or enough reach/time to get volunteer translators and foreign language editors we'd need to ensure quality. It's out of scope at this point, I think. Something to keep in mind if we ever do this again for sure.

[kasnavada]

I can do French if needed, being French and having translated websites for major corporation at work. Pumpkin may be interested in this too I think, and if so, he could be diverted a bit if asked to help / proofread. Well, it's a bit late. But really the main point I wanted to address is if the game will have translations. AFAIK, AI war classic's text was mostly hard-coded. As enabling translations have additional costs (coding-wise, mostly, I don't think that you'll be able to hire pro translators, so fan-based translations it is) I've no clue if it's worth it, and haven't seen it discussed. In any case if its a feature, it should be advertised (from "fan translation possible" to "X languages will be there at start").


If I may, then, I'll suggest to start from something like this:

We have two more secret weapons : we have AI War Classic to look to for inspiration, and our outstanding community, which has always been a source of ideas and creative solutions to problems.  We have reputation for speaking with our fans, and for listening. You’ll know what we’re doing, what our challenges are, and what we’re doing to overcome them. We’ll go into excruciating detail (after telling you to expect "a brief update" or "a quick video,"), just like always. It’ll be great.

I'm not for writing anything negative, so basically I removed that part  . It could use more fluff probably.

Hey, no worries! I'm writing most of this on my own since Chris is so busy, having other people look over it before it goes live is a relief. It probably helps that you've caught more of Chris's mistakes than mine.  >D (But seriously I appreciate the help).

Thanks =).

[Captain Jack]

I can do French if needed, being French and having translated websites for major corporation at work. Pumpkin may be interested in this too I think, and if so, he could be diverted a bit if asked to help / proofread. Well, it's a bit late. But really the main point I wanted to address is if the game will have translations. AFAIK, AI war classic's text was mostly hard-coded. As enabling translations have additional costs (coding-wise, mostly, I don't think that you'll be able to hire pro translators, so fan-based translations it is) I've no clue if it's worth it, and haven't seen it discussed. In any case if its a feature, it should be advertised (from "fan translation possible" to "X languages will be there at start").

Oh, for the game! Yes that is a bigger concern. I think this is a question for Chris and Keith. 

If I may, then, I'll suggest to start from something like this:

We have two more secret weapons : we have AI War Classic to look to for inspiration, and our outstanding community, which has always been a source of ideas and creative solutions to problems.  We have reputation for speaking with our fans, and for listening. You’ll know what we’re doing, what our challenges are, and what we’re doing to overcome them. We’ll go into excruciating detail (after telling you to expect "a brief update" or "a quick video,"), just like always. It’ll be great.

I'm not for writing anything negative, so basically I removed that part  . It could use more fluff probably.

Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. 

Hey, no worries! I'm writing most of this on my own since Chris is so busy, having other people look over it before it goes live is a relief. It probably helps that you've caught more of Chris's mistakes than mine.  >D (But seriously I appreciate the help).

Thanks =).

No, thank you.

[garion333]

Our first order of business in AI War 2 was cleaning up the most obtuse bits. Our forum community was an invaluable resource this quest, pointing out too-similar mechanics wherever they were to be found and suggesting alterations to complicated processes to make them simple actions. The final results make you a more efficient commander.

Bold bit doesn't make sense. Maybe "resource in this quest" or "with this quest"?

[garion333]

You keep referring to "1.0" which is the release build of AI War 2, but sounds an awful like you're talking about AI War 1. If change that so you're saying AI War 2 version 1.0 or something about the release instead of using 1.0 as short hand it wouldn't be as confusing. You guys are devs and 1.0 might be common parlance for programmers, but it's not for me. That and it's super easy to confuse 1.0 with meaning the first game.

[Cinth]

Quote from: kasnavada on Today at 12:38:31 AM

    I can do French if needed, being French and having translated websites for major corporation at work. Pumpkin may be interested in this too I think, and if so, he could be diverted a bit if asked to help / proofread. Well, it's a bit late. But really the main point I wanted to address is if the game will have translations. AFAIK, AI war classic's text was mostly hard-coded. As enabling translations have additional costs (coding-wise, mostly, I don't think that you'll be able to hire pro translators, so fan-based translations it is) I've no clue if it's worth it, and haven't seen it discussed. In any case if its a feature, it should be advertised (from "fan translation possible" to "X languages will be there at start").

Oh, for the game! Yes that is a bigger concern. I think this is a question for Chris and Keith. 

Translations for the game itself would likely be way beyond the scope of 1.0.

[kasnavada]

Translations for the game itself would likely be way beyond the scope of 1.0.

I thought as much. If so I think translating the KS is counter-productive, it would build the expectation that the game is going to be translated.

[Cinth]

I thought as much. If so I think translating the KS is counter-productive, it would build the expectation that the game is going to be translated.

I'm pretty much going off of what has been said in the past about these things.

[Tridus]

Quote from: kasnavada on Today at 12:38:31 AM

    I can do French if needed, being French and having translated websites for major corporation at work. Pumpkin may be interested in this too I think, and if so, he could be diverted a bit if asked to help / proofread. Well, it's a bit late. But really the main point I wanted to address is if the game will have translations. AFAIK, AI war classic's text was mostly hard-coded. As enabling translations have additional costs (coding-wise, mostly, I don't think that you'll be able to hire pro translators, so fan-based translations it is) I've no clue if it's worth it, and haven't seen it discussed. In any case if its a feature, it should be advertised (from "fan translation possible" to "X languages will be there at start").

Oh, for the game! Yes that is a bigger concern. I think this is a question for Chris and Keith. 

Translations for the game itself would likely be way beyond the scope of 1.0.

But building the game to be translatesble wouldn't be. You very much want to do that as early as possible, because it gets much more expensive to do it later.

[Cinth]

But building the game to be translatesble wouldn't be. You very much want to do that as early as possible, because it gets much more expensive to do it later.

I'm not saying it isn't possible, I don't know the specifics of what Keith has going on.  I don't know if something like this would impact his workflow, which would impact how his parts are budgeted.  At this point, all of that is pretty much set and not likely to change much in any direction.  Of course, I could be wrong. 

[PokerChen]

On the subject of translations, making the game translatable by modders would be preferable to promising anything in the KS, I think. Language mods are one of the default popular mods in games like Banished and Civ, which aren't promised but naturally arise given enough interest.

It's a point to raise with Keith to just minimise hard coded text.

[Captain Jack]

Okay, I've made some pretty major changes to, uh... everything. I'm not sorry. 

Could folks take a look, especially at the opening and closing paragraphs? I have a short list of additions (forum quotes and reward information) but this is basically final barring any more disastrous holes.