Outcry Against the Sinful Localization Team: Chinese Players Demand Accountability

[I won't tell you]

Recently, the 1.6.5 update of the game Stardew Valley was released, which included updates to Chinese fonts and translations. However, this has caused a lot of discontent and even anger among many players. The translation quality of the new Chinese localization team in the 1.6.5 version is extremely poor. Changes were made just for the sake of change, and even some excellent translations by the previous localization team were replaced. The quality seems akin to that of a junior high school student, with numerous obvious errors, such as translating "pickaxe" as "pick head" (a pickaxe refers to the entire tool used for striking rocks, not just the metal part at the end). Moreover, the font they chose is crooked and does not match the game's pixel style, and sometimes even hampers normal reading. When players raised objections, the new localization team claimed to welcome feedback. However, when players actually provided feedback, they exhibited arrogance and contempt, continuously arguing unreasonably against any dissenting opinions from players, distorting facts and being unyielding. Later, they just arrogantly stated on the Wiki, "I won't change it."
Subsequently, players discovered that a member of the new localization team is a member of an extreme feminist. She injected some personal biases into the game translation, using many cheesy words that makes people uncomfortable, and only accepting suggestions from software gathered by extreme feminists. Even the crooked and uncomfortable font was chosen just because the new localization team, which hates the country and worships foreign things, believes it resembles Japanese.
Additionally, after being criticized by players, the new localization team hired a large number of online mercenaries to defend themselves in communities such as Baidu Tieba where objections were more vocal. They used verbal violence to attack opponents, creating chaos to confuse the situation. At the same time, it's suspected they used the name of the official to coerce forum moderators to delete all posts exposing them. On various video platforms, especially on Bilibili, the most important long-video platform in China, the new localization team found some uploaders to defend them. Even the most popular and authoritative Stardew Valley uploader, "无我2004," was directly messaged by the new localization team after he posted a neutral vedio showing the changes, demanding a new video defending them, and even threatened some uploaders who were clearly against them in the name of the official, suppressing various dissenting voices within the Chinese Stardew Valley community.
The Chinese gaming community is currently seething with indignation, with players expressing vehement outrage and fervently calling for the developers to sever ties with the reprehensible new localization team.

[Amberbaum]

I advise you to post on the official SDV forums, too.

There is already a post saying that the new chinese font sucks.

https://forums.stardewvalley.net/threads/i-strongly-demand-for-a-pixel-font-for-chinese.29473/

[Amberbaum]

I will also leave the 1.6.3 chinese translation here in case anyone wants it:

https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/22951?tab=posts

[Professor Hardknocks]

Why don't you take the energy of these angry folks and use it to create a better localization, then campaign for ConcernedApe to use yours instead?

If you're polite during the process, he might think it's a great community addition, add it to the game, and give credits. He seems the kind of guy who wants to do things right. But he is just one guy and probably isn't fluent in Chinese, which is a very difficult language.

[长歌]

please fire Chinese translation group

[\o/]

Originally posted by Professor Hardknocks:

Why don't you take the energy of these angry folks and use it to create a better localization, then campaign for ConcernedApe to use yours instead?

If you're polite during the process, he might think it's a great community addition, add it to the game, and give credits. He seems the kind of guy who wants to do things right. But he is just one guy and probably isn't fluent in Chinese, which is a very difficult language.

Yes, someone already corrected and compiled list of words in the official forum thread: https://forums.stardewvalley.net/threads/simplified-chinese-typo-display-text-errors.20921/

What people don't really appreciate is they decided to change font type and some of the zh-CN translation without a good reason. Most importantly, they did not actively seek for player's opinion before the change (e.g. survey); or, maybe only listen to a fraction of players and I'm not really sure about this.

Old translation done a fine job to me and I don't really understand why they want to modify an already great translation. New font type is cute and neat, but i prefer the older pixelated font. Guess I haven't used to the new font yet.

Now many zh-CN players isn't very happy with their (translator) bad attitude toward the new translation. There is an user with name "Stevenlele" (suspected zh-CN translator) on SDV wiki call off other player's negative opinion and recent steam review regarding new font as "Survivorship bias", and won't change it just because of the negative reviews. Of course some players do like the new font, but that doesn't mean all players will like it.

About the comment by "Stevenlele" on SDV wiki: https://zh.stardewvalleywiki.com/User_talk:Stevenlele/Translation_changes
(similar comment can be found by user with same ID in the official SDV forum link above)

English is not my first or native language and I apologize for the poor English, but I sincerely do hope players from other community can understand what zh-CN players is angry about.

*Edited reply for paragraphing.

[种红果熬糖浆]

WE NEED THE OPTION TO CHOOSE IF WE WANT THE NEW TRANSLATION OR NOT

[julia]

concur with you, the trans sucks me a lot, here is an example: "darling" the word, they trans it as actually means "little princess", which includes cute, puny, and female-discrimination in Chinese nowadays statement. And others, like 'parsnip/catfish/red quartz's trans, which never perplex Chinese players before, they changed these words to another unfamiliar words and make us feel troubled now!