Merneptah’s monologue ruins immersion

[Hori]

The game begins. Merneptah says: ‘Ramesses the Second’. Immersion ruined. No one called Ramesses II ‘Ramesses II’ back then. It’s either ‘the Great Ancestor’ or at least ‘Ramesses the Great’. I wish this could be addressed. They probably won’t bother remaking an entire cinematic because of a single line though. Yet I still think that it’s important because his monologue is about the first thing you see and hear in the game. On a different but related note, the compression on the pre-rendered cinematics is terrible and it’s one of the reasons why I think that pre-rendered cinematics are generally evil. I wish they could all be switched for the same thing but rendered in-game.

[Klutch]

Not a huge fan of cinematic stuff myself. I believe the reason they took so many liberties is because there just isn't a lot of information on this stuff. They seem to intentionally parse there sources to not include some traditional places for these sorts of "facts", ie the bible.

I did see one of the writers in the discord, and the person seemed very well read and quite eloquent. Its more of keeping an open mind and just enjoying it since seeing this era come to life is such a rare thing to experience.

[Defmonkey]

This is overly pedantic. We want historical realism where possible, but ultimately it is a game. Hardly immersion breaking at all.

EDIT: Now that i think of it. Why would Merneptah be speaking in English? Whos the scribe and fan bearer... did they exist? How do we know Merneptah likes grapes?... How silly do we want to go?

[Yews]

Jokes aside, were the game entirely in Egyptian and Hittite and so on, it would at the same time massively cut the localisation spendings as well as massively up the immersion. It’s not like all the necessary languages are unknown or something. It would also be cool to hear the same characters speak different languages depending on who they’re talking to, like Ramesses speaking Egyptian to Seti, to the player etc., but switching to Akkadian when talking to the international listener such as Shuppilulyuma or Walwetes. I don’t understand why more devs don’t do this. Ubisoft have already shown that you can make a whole game exclusively in Proto-Indo-European and the game will be bloody good.

[Iskar]

Except we don't know protoindoeuropean. What we know of it are reconstructed roots the variations and pronounciations of which elude us entirely.

I generally agree games in original languages are cool (like the old Warband Brytenwalda mod in old welsh/gaelic/anglosaxon), but this concept reaches its limits with languages that we only know from fragments and reconstruction.

[Hori]

Which is why when in Far Cry Primal they gave three interpretations of pronunciation to three different tribes it only boosted the immersion further, since that situation is precisely how it was in real life.

[Iskar]

I think the bronze age itself is already daunting enough for most people and making it even less accessible to them is not going to help sales and as such neither the expansion of the game.

[jonoliveira12]

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

This is overly pedantic. We want historical realism where possible, but ultimately it is a game. Hardly immersion breaking at all.

EDIT: Now that i think of it. Why would Merneptah be speaking in English? Whos the scribe and fan bearer... did they exist? How do we know Merneptah likes grapes?... How silly do we want to go?

Yes. No point in larping it so hard. Most people will know Ramesses II and "Ramesses the Second", not as "the Great".

The whole point of the cinematic is to introduce the player to the point in time, not to be completely immersive and a huge blast of historical accuracy and exposition.
It does the job well, it tells you Merneptah is the last stable pharaoh of the Bronze Age, and dark times are coming, so you better get active, because there will be opportunity and danger in equal amount.

[PERICLES1789]

Originally posted by jonoliveira12:

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

This is overly pedantic. We want historical realism where possible, but ultimately it is a game. Hardly immersion breaking at all.

EDIT: Now that i think of it. Why would Merneptah be speaking in English? Whos the scribe and fan bearer... did they exist? How do we know Merneptah likes grapes?... How silly do we want to go?

Yes. No point in larping it so hard. Most people will know Ramesses II and "Ramesses the Second", not as "the Great".

The whole point of the cinematic is to introduce the player to the point in time, not to be completely immersive and a huge blast of historical accuracy and exposition.
It does the job well, it tells you Merneptah is the last stable pharaoh of the Bronze Age, and dark times are coming, so you better get active, because there will be opportunity and danger in equal amount.

I also find this cinematic immersive. It does the job, I agree with that point.

[oOIYvYIOo]

Originally posted by Defmonkey:

This is overly pedantic. We want historical realism where possible, but ultimately it is a game. Hardly immersion breaking at all.

EDIT: Now that i think of it. Why would Merneptah be speaking in English? Whos the scribe and fan bearer... did they exist? How do we know Merneptah likes grapes?... How silly do we want to go?

If we had TW games using native language with legends, that would give the game a enormous quality and merchandising propaganda.
But CA continuous to impose english.

[Kendji]

Imv, it's down to the Anglophone world often being of the mind that their speaking the international language that ofc everyone else also speaks. A bit like the french with French Africa or Ruskimir, where in those areas the assumption is everybody speaks that language therefore CA/whatever company should cater to them.

Personally I think the open-source world got it right, community involvement. Say Wikipedia has lots of languages because it's designed around making content/translations in that language or Linux being ported in different languages. Some games make the language files easy for the lay person to edit and mod. It imo should be made easier to translate a game fully, incl recording audio etc. So if there's a language that has enough support they could completly port the game to it. Then as a thank you CA could give them a free game, early access or similar.