Arthur Bruno, I warn you!

[garkham]

Oh a French translator, ça fait plaisir de te voir ici parmi nous !

As I already said earlier, I thought certain game translations in French are so good, that they outdo the original version. Especially when everything is translated in old French with complex sentences, where English original ones are easily readable even by a French or any Southman.

[Yggdrasil]

I personnally consider translation is not really necessary for this type of game, and is far from top priority in a low funded project like GrimDawn.

I'm agree with you nyamanyama when you said professionnal ones are usually of great quality. But we have to consider the following points :

- professionnal translations implie less money for producing game content
- if the first release is translated, the further expansions will have to be also translated (deeper money sink)
- fans translations could easily be added like mods
- fans translations could be a good way to involve community and strenghten the links between Crate and all the grimdawners (yes, I invent new words )

you mentionned Elder's Scroll games in your posts. You perhaps know the Wiwiland community, who translates in french the most interresting mods for the Elder's Scrolls games (a process named "camembérisation"). I think they are well-organised and do a really good work for some amateurs.

I think fan-made translations could work with a good process. Just consider this (it's just an example) :
team A : pure translation -> submitted to a supervisor or a committee for validation
team B : refining vocabulary / correcting grammar and synthax mistakes -> submitted to a supervisor or a committee for validation
team C : creating the translation mod

[Kurrus]

First of all, I'd like to thank nyamanyama for taking the time to shed all that light on the and take the opportunity to apologize if my post seemed hostile; it was never my intention to offend.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

Think of all the other games that have been translated correctly (those for which you have nothing to say). After all, it's quite easy to make a list of the horrendously translated games out there, because it's always more visible, and generally funny ^^.

The majority of titles are, in fact, translated correctly. I did mention a few translations that I find to be particularly well made; that doesn't mean a few translations are great and all the others are bad. There's a wide quality spectrum here, but that's the point.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

On the contrary, I've never seen a community-based translation that was legible. Someone was talking about Terraria, saying it was horribly translated and so on. This is a community-made translation, not a professional one.

I have - a few were bad, and a few were good: just like professional translations. As for Terraria -and correct me if I'm wrong- it was translated as part of the publishing deal Re-Logic made with whichever company published the game and the Spanish translation wasn't made by the Terraria community or any (open) community that I know of. This might have been otherwise for other languages (perhaps French), but the point is that someone was paid money to translate Terraria into Spanish and the result shortened my lifespan by several decades.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

Valve was also mentioned: Steam is translated by the community, and it always makes my heart sink when I browse their pages. That such a successful company like Valve is satisfied with this level of quality is beyond my mind. I can open a page randomly on Steam and spot at least several huge mistakes (though it got a little better recently, I have to admit).

Funny story about this: I was reading on a French forum that some guy took Valve's translation test. He failed it because the quality was not good enough, but the strings he translated for the test have been uploaded nevertheless. Talk about quality and peer review.

This, again, differs: the ongoing Spanish translation of Steam and its store pages is of good quality (usually), partially because of the draconic standards held by the translation team.

As for your funny story, you forgot a few things: the entrance test is not made by or endorsed by Valve in any way and the moderators have the right to do whatever they please with the submissions. Whether that was a display of hypocrisy, a legit mistake or corruption I won't judge, but strictly following what the rules say they did nothing wrong.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

I understand that people are concerned about Crate eventually throwing money out the windows for something as "secondary" as translation, but I cannot let you say that professional translations are like google translations, it is just plain wrong (and slightly insulting, but I won't take it personal ^^).

I'm afraid you misunderstood me there. I didn't say a translation is unimportant (I did say not translating the game could be beneficial but only in this very specific case), nor that all professional translations are of Google Translator quality. Again, it wasn't my intention to insult anyone, but I'm glad you didn't take it personal anyway.

My point is that hiring a professional translation team for Grim Dawn is a big mistake. Crate has a finite amount of money and a million things they could improve by using it. Hiring a team to translate the game would not only cost them a good portion of the funds (which could be better spent on other things the game needs more) but also would not ensure the quality of the final product.

A community translation wouldn't ensure its quality either (even less so) but it would cost Crate a nominal amount of money (if any at all). Granted they'd need to spend some time setting it up, but with the additional recruits coming in, this shouldn't be a problem.

Grim Dawn won't be a literary masterpiece and won't have an enormous emphasis on dialogue-driven narrative (and even if it did, I think most of us would be there for the violence and loot anyway). It'd make sense to take the risk and hire a team if we were talking about TQ (can never be too careful mythology) or BioWare's story-intensive franchises.

Grim Dawn, with its fantasy setting, planned constant content updates and refinements and (initially) small scale would benefit more from a community translation.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

Also, stating that there is a difference between big companies and small ones as far as quality is concerned just demonstrates a total lack of knowledge of the translation field: almost no company -even big ones like THQ, EA or Blizzard for example- has an internal translation team, it just does not work that way. Most translators work as freelancers, which means they can either work for big companies or small ones alternatively. I'd like to be able to give personal examples. I can't due to NDAs, but let's say in the last six months, I've worked both for triple A games and big companies, and for iPhone games and indie devs. So it is not a matter of good translators working for big companies, it's just a matter of competence, like in every field.

(I'm going to assume that by "company" you meant publisher, since you didn't make the distinction and all 3 companies you mentioned also develop games and developers generally don't care about translations at all.)

Remember we're talking economics here.

I didn't say publisher size is intrinsically linked to translation quality - indeed, most translators are independant and are hired to translate each individual project. This is sort of obvious looking at my original post, considering I attack STALKER games and immediately praise Titan Quest. TQ and the original STALKER were both published by THQ.

Publisher size is, however, generally linked to available funds. The truth is that bigger companies either have more money or have more ways to acquire it (maybe both) and that does make it easier to get a good translation. Call it more options, more safety, whatever. We're all in it for the money.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

Finally, it was said several times that you can never evaluate the quality of a professional translation when you don't speak the language. I couldn't agree more. BUT: it's exactly the same for community-based translations. How can you tell that the "language moderator" is not full of shit? With a professional team, you can ask for references, know what they've worked on, etc. What I'm saying is if quality is your target, it is much easier to control and evaluate it with pros than with random people who will not take responsibility anyway because they are not paid.

That can also be arranged with a community-based translation, although it wouldn't be easy by any means.

Otherwise, you're completely right. At the end of the day, it's all up to Crate; the people have spoken.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

My two (or three or four) cents.

Thanks, and likewise!

[nyamanyama]

Oi all,

First of all, thanks a lot for the courteous answers. I was a little afraid when I wrote my message that it would be incorrectly perceived, but it seems people here are not your average internet forumers, and I find this discussion very interesting.

Kurrus, I'd like to apologise as well. With further explanations from your side, I seem to have been quite a bit jumpy on the matter, and I understand your position a bit more clearly now. There are still some points on which I disagree though.

About Terraria: are you sure there is an official translation for this game? I checked on the Steam page, it's still marked as English only. The only pages I seem to be able to find are fan-made, unofficial translations.

I would also like to state that (should have done that before ^^) I'm talking about what I know, i.e. French translations. I'm not confident enough in any other language to be able to judge a translation, be it professional or fan-made.

For Steam: it seems to be rather inconsistent between languages then. About the funny story, I think the point is not whether the people who made this possible are hypocrits, made a mistake or whatever; the matter of the fact is that it should not happen, even if they did not break any rule or it wasn't endorsed by Valve. I just liked the irony of the situation ("Hi, you're fired, now give us your work so we can use it" ^^).

About the economics of translation, I have to disagree as well (and btw by companies I did mean publishers, it's quite rare, though not unheard of, that a dev takes on this process by himself). Having a lot of money is not the corner stone of a good translation. Giving translators time, the ability to play the game before starting the actual translation work, flexible deadlines, answering their queries when something is a bit obscure (and not by a "not used, do not translate" when you know it's actually a quest name, true story ^^), these are the key parts in how the translation goes, not so much the amount of money you're willing to spend. Of course, you should not expect the same quality from a translator who charges 0.02$ a word and the one who charges 0.2$, and the bill is going to be slightly different between the two.
But what I'm saying is most prices (especially in video games translation, where rates are very low) are not something unsurmountable, even for smaller companies. It would be interesting to know how many words there will be in Grim Dawn, just to have an idea of the total cost, but I'm willing to bet it wouldn't cost more than 15000/20000$ for the 4 languages (and I think that would be a worst case scenario). That is still a lot of money that could be spent elsewhere, which is your main point. But from what I understand, cutting the translation budget does not necessarily mean more content in the end. I'd like to remind you that it is something Crate is willing to consider if the KS campaign goes way beyond what they expected in the first place, i.e. what they deem would be enough to release the game much faster and with more content.

I'm also a little uncomfortable when I read your paragraph on GD not being a literary masterpiece, and people who (will) buy the game being there for the blood and the loot. This is no Baldur's Gate, I agree, but still. I am not sure this is the right state of mind to start a translation project.
I've been a gamer waaay before I got to be a translator, and I like to read all the texts in a game, be it an action game or an RPG or a sauerkraut simulator (hi, good folk from Germany). I hope I am not the only one, and I certainly hope that the people who will take care of the translation, pros or not, will care as much as I do.

Anyway, it would be nice to have some feedback from the dev team.

[LostSoul]

I think that was more related to the volume of written text and not the quality of it. I'm certainly not expecting a full novel worth...I hope nobody else is either. I mean...do keep in mind the nature of the game we're talking about here.

[Kurrus]

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

About Terraria: are you sure there is an official translation for this game? I checked on the Steam page, it's still marked as English only. The only pages I seem to be able to find are fan-made, unofficial translations.

Yes. FIGS translations were added in version 1.1.2; the game's Steam page is outdated. Development of the game was also terminated, so references to "upcoming content" shouldn't be there, for example.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

The matter of the fact is that it should not happen, even if they did not break any rule or it wasn't endorsed by Valve. I just liked the irony of the situation ("Hi, you're fired, now give us your work so we can use it" ^^).

This is true. It certainly does show the very real risks of community translations. I missed the point before.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

About the economics of translation

At this point I'm pretty sure your expertise in this field is superior to mine, so I'll trust your judgement.

Originally Posted by nyamanyama

I'm also a little uncomfortable when I read your paragraph on GD not being a literary masterpiece, and people who (will) buy the game being there for the blood and the loot. This is no Baldur's Gate, I agree, but still. I am not sure this is the right state of mind to start a translation project.
I've been a gamer waaay before I got to be a translator, and I like to read all the texts in a game, be it an action game or an RPG or a sauerkraut simulator (hi, good folk from Germany). I hope I am not the only one, and I certainly hope that the people who will take care of the translation, pros or not, will care as much as I do.

I think I worded that a little awkwardly. I didn't mean to say GD's translation shouldn't be top notch nor that its lore and story will be largely ignored; I simply meant that the gameplay will be the meat and potatoes of the game. Titan Quest had a very good Spanish translation and I found the story to be enjoyable, but after my second playthrough these things sort of started fading away in favor of trying new builds, getting fat loot and murdering lots of baddies.

I guess it all comes back to the economics of translation in the end, which is why I'll stop babbling about it and let Crate decide. I too am a maniac when it comes to reading in-game text, and whoever ends up translating this game to Spanish (assuming it's not me) should know I'll be there. Watching.

[nyamanyama]

Yep, I got your point about the literary masterpiece thing now, and I totally agree, after the discovery, same here: I don't feel the need to read everything over and over again.

Well, that was an interesting discussion anyway, and I wish the best of luck to Crate. I hope the KS campaign goes well (it seems to be slowing down a bit) and I'll be following the project anyway (kind of pondering whether to give more money right now).

Thanks for the discussion everyone!

[all_zebest]

Hi Crate, I already translated the 3 games made by Soldak Entertainment into French and am part of the second team translating The Walking Dead game. I even translated a bit of Eschalon Book II. I can help tranlsating the game for free.

[Nori]

I have to agree with the OP. I would take a wait until after the game is released and evaluate the want/need for translation. While a official professional translation would be nice, there is a budget here and I think the money would be better spent elsewhere.

[harlequ1n]

I still stand for my original offer I'm a professional translator and would love cooperate fan-translating the game in order to maximise profits towards more content and design.