Petition for Localizations

rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
rootsrat
Flappers said:
Yes I understand people would like localisations. I live in Poland, and I know a lot of people would like a lot of games localised to their language here, but a lot of games are not.

Thing is, when you buy a game, digitally or physically, it says the available languages.

If people buy a game that doesn't say "Available in X language", you can't expect a game to be localised because you find it "unacceptable".

What's concerning is the people who bought the game, without prior research to see if the game was available in their language, now complaining that it's not available. Sorry, but I fail to see how FD are in the wrong here. There was nothing promised, there was no agreement... what did they do wrong?
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The thing is, Frontier confirmed they would do the localisations for these languages (they certainly confirmed the Polish one - I am not 100% sure about the others). They did not confirm the timescale for this, that's true. Clearly though, the localisations are important to many people and a simple update or an indication of when the localisations can be expected would be enough in my opinion. Manage expectations, that's all.
 

Whitehair

W
I have read the petition - here are the words I remember:

Demand....Incompetency.....betrayal.....demand ......demand

If I recieved such a 'petition' it wouldn't stay on the desk for very long.
 

TriumphANT

TriumphANT
Mary Celeste said:
Dutch localisation would be a waste of time and money. We are taught English in primary school.
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You Dutch are English-crazy. I was in Schiphol airport last month, and the ONLY word/phrase in Dutch in the whole airport was "First Aid", and even that was in smaller letters than the English version! Absolutely loved your country, for the 12 hours I was there, and the way the airport security guys say "sweeet" whenever you're nice to them is just awesome. :)

Sweeet, Commander. We need it.
 

Kyokushin

Kyokushin
Dear CMDRS, I am curious about one thing:
Are localizations so important for space sim without a 'story'?

There are a few sentences from ship computer and technical language about ships and short Galnet News.

My 60 years old father have no problem without understanding messages and galnet news in Elite. He never learn English, He never spoke in English, he know English only from 'computers' and 'television'. Understanding Elite is pretty easy.

I know - they promised. And I am sure they give other versions when they will be ready. FD keep their word. Translations can wait if FD have more important things to do like expansion packs or updates for Elite.

And to be honest - i think this game and other games of that kind are best in English. Not Polish, Russian, German or Chinese. I love my language, but this game in English is just better. Of course it is only my opinion, you could disagree.

English is not my native, however It is a good opportunity to learn international foreign language to me. And I am teaching English my 3.5 years old doughter, she know what means Elite, Dangerous, galaxy, mikly way, space ship, and hyperdrive ;)

If we like it or not, this is the fact: English is universal language at now, so it is good to understand it.
And if someone is able to write petition in that tone, if someone is able to argue in foreign language, he is able to play game in English too ;)
 
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AH_ImADot

AH_ImADot
I have no idea what is involved with localization; is it just translating the in-game text, or also re-dubbing all the audio? Is there any kind of tool out there that a person can acquire which would allow them to create their own "localized" plugin that the game could use? If so, I would also imagine FD would have to create a significant bit of code to utilize an external "localization database" automatically. Wouldn't that be nice? A way for volunteers to create a localized database that the game would automatically use with no further changes to the core game code.
 

natte hond

natte hond
TriumphANT said:
You Dutch are English-crazy..
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the other day I had to explain to a U.S. tourist what the difference between much obliged and obligated is
not the first time English native speakers do not know their own language.

the woman thought I said she had to pay, such a peeep..

I wonder how many Polish actually want a translated game.
they are improving on their foreign languages very fast.
here in Amsterdam we have about 270 different cultures wile there are only 780.000 people.
so being able to speak English is a must.
I see that as the same for space exploration ,only the most common languages will go to space.

(Im not saying they shouldn't translate).
 

Mary Celeste

M
TriumphANT said:
You Dutch are English-crazy.
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EA found that out the hard way. Back in 2003 they released Black and White in Dutch. The reception was so bad, they released a 90 MB patch with English audio, which was quite a big download at that time.

"Due to a lot of non-english players wanting to play B & W in the original English form, we're releasing the English speech files. The download contains the English audio and text files. Use one of the mirrorsites listed below. Beware, the download is about 90 MB. After download run the exe file for installation. Download the English language pack from Kayssplace."
 

Edward Lewis

Edward Lewis
Hey everyone.

Thanks Iain for tidying up the thread.

Options for localisation are being looked in to. I completely understand why you'd want it localised into your language, but as Iain said earlier, please try to be civil about the way you ask for it. Screaming and shouting isn't going to make it happen any quicker.

More news on this as soon as possible. I'll tell you as soon as I know when!

Ed
 

almostpilot

Banned
almostpilot
taeyoonpark.81 said:
It has been 5 months since release and 9 months since the announcement of localizations: http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=8b7e3f3ba9 (August 2014 Newsletter) There has been two major threads regarding localizations: Spanish - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=137624 Chinese - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=134317 And yet no announcement has been made since, and no plans or communication on the development of localizations has not been released. Plus, it has been reported by many French and German players that their localizations are in need of serious improvements. --- Therefore, I have created a petition: https://www.change.org/p/frontier-development-fulfill-your-promises-complete-localisation to kindly ask Frontier: 1) to keep their promises; 2) to make a localization a top priority; 3) to give us a realistic timeline on the development strategy for all 14 languages; 4) and give some kind of two-way communication on its development. It will soon be 10 months and a year will not be far since Frontier has made an announcement about localizations, and we are hoping for some good news soon!
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Brazilian portuguese?
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Viajero
Edward Lewis said:
Hey everyone.

Thanks Iain for tidying up the thread.

Options for localisation are being looked in to. I completely understand why you'd want it localised into your language, but as Iain said earlier, please try to be civil about the way you ask for it. Screaming and shouting isn't going to make it happen any quicker.

More news on this as soon as possible. I'll tell you as soon as I know when!

Ed
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Thanks Ed,

I will fully support any civil petition and polite reminder discussion on outstanding localizations.

I d like to also reiterate once more the Spanish Community offer to help translate the game to Cervantes tongue whenever FDEV is ready to integrate our help in the development process. The sooner the better though! :D

As an example and token of what we can do, we are already translating Galnet:

http://www.vieju.net/elite/

Vf1mtDI.png


ZRaVcs4.png
 
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Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Anything that makes the game more accessible to more people is great. Even though English is THE language of the internet in most areas, still plenty of people out there who can't speak the language at all. Also can lead to more fun monents in the game where commanders meet each other who can't understand each other. Could lead to smileys becoming the common langauge of ED :D

One thing perhaps FD could consider it making the localization a full community effort. An open document with a list of strings that can be ported directly into their string tables. I can imagine its half a days work for a junior dev to knock up a simple script to handle the import (unless i have it wrong how the strings are stored - but there is some localization there somewhere already).

Let the community develop it and QA it, like a wiki. When all strings for a language have been completed, FD just need to import, check data was imported right, and merge it into the master build and add a menu option for that language. Bang! And the translations done!

It also means FD don't need to worry about demand. If there is enough demand for a language, people will handle the translations. Hell, if people wanted a Klingon version - so be it!

(Ok, maybe i'm oversimplifying things, but it could work).
 

rizal72

rizal72
What about learning English? There is no better reason then ED, to start learning English. I've learned and skilled my English 30 years ago, playing Infocom text adventures! :D
Improve your lives, become citizens of an English speaking galaxy! ;)

P.S. I'm Italian, and I really don't feel the need of an Italian localization, really.
 

Pendra

P
I'm not a native English speaker and I find this a bad idea.
You do localization when you run out of anything to polish or improve.
 
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