Curious about some of the obvious bad English?

[obliviondoll]

Things like "he can't of gone far" (HAVE. He can't HAVE gone far. Or "can't've" if you're trying to sound like you're in a hurry) and "the most vial of poisons" (VILE, vial is a noun and your game uses the alternate spelling of phial which shares the same meaning). Is there anyone working as an editor to clean this kind of mistake up? Or are your translators still working on the English localisation? As someone who's curious about the game and seeing some unfortunate mistakes in the subtitles, I hope this is something that can be improved. The game looks good, but for a game where communication and conversation is such a key element, doing it right is important. You're not quite on the full AAA price point, but you aren't discounted enough to get away with that kind of problem in an element that's one of the selling points of the game.

[Ogami]

Small French development studio with a budget of barely 5 million and about 25 people.
For that this game is a miracle in what it provides. I honestly did not notice those grammar errors you mentioned but maybe its because i am not a native English speaker.
For me the English seemed fine and the voice acting was actually really high quality.

[obliviondoll]

I'm both a native English speaker and someone who's worked as an editor. This kind of mistake is very noticeable for me. It's not HUGE, and it's not game-breaking, but it's details that matter for a game where conversation is a key element like this one.

If the game wasn't so close to AAA price point, it wouldn't bother me nearly as much. "Small team and budget" but you're still charging US$50 (and close to $80 in my currency) still means you're at a higher price point and should be held to the standard applicable for that price point.

[TripSin]

i'm a native english speaker, but i'm not anal so it never bothered me.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by obliviondoll:

I
If the game wasn't so close to AAA price point, it wouldn't bother me nearly as much. "Small team and budget" but you're still charging US$50 (and close to $80 in my currency) still means you're at a higher price point and should be held to the standard applicable for that price point.

Dont know if its really the teams fault, their publisher Focus Home has a tendency to sell their AA games ( Vampyr, Sinking City, Greedfall) for full AAA prices, justified or not.

[obliviondoll]

Originally posted by Ogami:

Originally posted by obliviondoll:

I
If the game wasn't so close to AAA price point, it wouldn't bother me nearly as much. "Small team and budget" but you're still charging US$50 (and close to $80 in my currency) still means you're at a higher price point and should be held to the standard applicable for that price point.

Dont know if its really the teams fault, their publisher Focus Home has a tendency to sell their AA games ( Vampyr, Sinking City, Greedfall) for full AAA prices, justified or not.

Yeah, it's not quite the full AAA price point, but it's close enough to make it worth taking extra care with such things.

[darkdisciple1313]

It's the year almost 2020, and the English language has always been FUBAR. Yeah, the typos suck, but anymore, I just cringe, say "merde" and move on. I recommend doing the same.

Now if they use the word "lose" and spell it with two Os repeatedly, then I might have to hurt somebody.

[obliviondoll]

Originally posted by obliviondoll:

"he can't of gone far"

That one gets to me about as bad as "loose" does for you xD

[Quacksalber]

There are mistakes in it, but there are also tons of them in games made by companies from English speaking countries - especially when they try to imitate old English, for example, so it's not really a biggy except in instances where it obfuscates what is actually meant. In your example, using of instead of have - that's actually a mistake more commonly made by native speakers than people who speak English as a 2nd + language.

[obliviondoll]

Originally posted by EH!:

There are mistakes in it, but there are also tons of them in games made by companies from English speaking countries - especially when they try to imitate old English, for example, so it's not really a biggy except in instances where it obfuscates what is actually meant. In your example, using of instead of have - that's actually a mistake more commonly made by native speakers than people who speak English as a 2nd + language.

"Tons made by companies from English speaking countries" - you're right.

Most games with significant mistypes are:

1. Cheaper than this game.
2. Not as focused on their dialogue.
3. Making deliberate use of their spelling mistakes as part of a joke.

Any or all of those elements together occur in most cases where this kind of situation happens. Any or all of them would make the mistakes less important (or potentially a feature in case 3). And for the record, I'm not running this thread as an "I will never buy this game unless it's fixed" demand. There IS justification for the mistakes to have been made by a smaller non-English-speaking studio. As mentioned, some of the mistakes are actually common mistakes made by native speakers, but it's one of those little bits of polish that a game like this really should be doing, in my opinion, and it'd be nice if the devs were putting extra care into cleaning things up.

[Precache]

It bugged me how wordy they are. Some of the text in the subtitles for the game look like it was their intended purpose to use as many words as they could find that they could cram or otherwise position in a sentence of language without actually saying anything else of any particular significance.

Either that or their translator was being paid by the word.

[Quacksalber]

Originally posted by Precache:

It bugged me how wordy they are. Some of the text in the subtitles for the game look like it was their intended purpose to use as many words as they could find that they could cram or otherwise position in a sentence of language without actually saying anything else of any particular significance.

Either that or their translator was being paid by the word.

Some of the language, while not being wrong, does seem to be heavily influenced by having been written in French originally - or written in English by a French person and edited by someone who was reluctant to swing the edit hammer.

[Tzuhsi]

I noticed very few errors in the voice acting. If you turn off the subtitles the only error I remember is the occasional gender mix up (I'm playing as a female). However, if you really want the subtitles, it seems to depend on the quest. Some have more typos than others.

[Smig]

I'm not a native English speaker, but typos aside, I actually thought the writing was really good, which would indicate that either the translation was very high quality or the game was written in English originally. I don't get that feeling of picking up some random eastern european indie game where it's obvious whoever wrote some line isn't aware of the subtleties of native speakers.

[hyperion]

I thought is interesting that one of the 'Rebel' natives that I had to seek out to see why they were attacking our merchants had a very obvious Hispanic type accent where she was even rolling her Rs. I guess you use what you got.

[Quacksalber]

Originally posted by Tzuhsi:

I noticed very few errors in the voice acting. If you turn off the subtitles the only error I remember is the occasional gender mix up (I'm playing as a female). However, if you really want the subtitles, it seems to depend on the quest. Some have more typos than others.

There are definitely odd things. The one example I can think of off the top of my head is that in one of Vasco's quests, the dialogue refers sometimes to "Dieter's daughter" and sometimes to "Dieter's girls". There are other examples, but none of them are a big deal.