Will there be support for multiple languages?

[晨光暮曲]

Will there be support for multiple languages?

[Voliol]

Sadly not without third-party mods[github.com], no.

[晨光暮曲]

Originally posted by Voliol:

Sadly not without third-party mods[github.com], no.

[kaldeqca]

Yeah, it's kinda weird that the game doesn't have any localization.

[Borkentroll]

No it's not weird. Because the two people developing DF are native English speakers and do not have the money to buy in a lot of translators. And please do not refer to some online translator. They are nice to have to get a certain understanding of some forum post in another language, but otherwise they are crap.

There are mods to get language support, but as far as I know none of them is really good because of how the game creates texts. A modder would have to rewrite quite a bit of code to change that - provided they somehow get to the code first.

Why not improve your English?

[kaldeqca]

Originally posted by Borkentroll:

No it's not weird. Because the two people developing DF are native English speakers and do not have the money to buy in a lot of translators. And please do not refer to some online translator. They are nice to have to get a certain understanding of some forum post in another language, but otherwise they are crap.

There are mods to get language support, but as far as I know none of them is really good because of how the game creates texts. A modder would have to rewrite quite a bit of code to change that - provided they somehow get to the code first.

Why not improve your English?

I mean... This is not exactly a two dudes' project, they have a publisher and it's publisher's responsibilities to hire translators and do localization, all the two devs need to do is pay for translations.

Like literally, even hentai games published by Kagura all have localization in different languages. There is literally no reason for them not to get the DF translated, unless they are really scrapping the bottom of the barrels, running extremely low on funds.

[Borkentroll]

As hinted in the second paragraph, any translator would need to rewrite parts of the code to make his target language sound well, since many texts are not written somewhere - the game creates them on the fly.

If the developers would have to implement different languages, even if their publisher gets them translators, that would take away so much time from real important development work like all the features on to road map.

And besides, every time the code changes you'll have to start over with the translation process. Wow, what a waste of time that would be - if all that really want to play the game just could learn some basic English.

[The Former]

Originally posted by 76:

Originally posted by kaldeqca:

I mean... This is not exactly a two dudes' project, they have a publisher and it's publisher's responsibilities to hire translators and do localization, all the two devs need to do is pay for translations.

Like literally, even hentai games published by Kagura all have localization in different languages. There is literally no reason for them not to get the DF translated, unless they are really scrapping the bottom of the barrels, running extremely low on funds.

Its not the publishers job at all.

'hentai' games would have no where near the text DF does, I'm not sure half the names of persons/locations etc could be easily translated.
If you insist on using your native language I suggest you make a language mod, English is the global default, it could have been Cantonese so be thankful.

Good point. Since the names we have are translations unto themselves, localization will by necessity need to translate the translations in a way that feels remotely like a name. Not every language will work just translating the translations from English.

For instance, say your guy goes by Axebroken. It wouldn't feel quite right in Chinese to just write "斧头坏了" because it reads more like "the axe is broken" than "axe + broken", if I'm not mistaken. Not to mention those languages where the name parts might need to be flipped.

And that's just the beginning of translation issues, of course.

[McFuzz]

Originally posted by Borkentroll:

And besides, every time the code changes you'll have to start over with the translation process. Wow, what a waste of time that would be - if all that really want to play the game just could learn some basic English.

Rough but valid; but more realistically, any dual language speakers could either make mods or tutorials on DF for his/her native country fairly easily. Saves the devs doing it 342 times every time there's an update.

[Cormac]

And I almost thought about buying it (German).

[Clowny Cobalt]

Originally posted by Borkentroll:

No it's not weird. Because the two people developing DF are native English speakers and do not have the money to buy in a lot of translators. And please do not refer to some online translator. They are nice to have to get a certain understanding of some forum post in another language, but otherwise they are crap.

There are mods to get language support, but as far as I know none of them is really good because of how the game creates texts. A modder would have to rewrite quite a bit of code to change that - provided they somehow get to the code first.

Why not improve your English?

I will say that telling someone to just improve their skills in another language is a little much for a game, and just a fair bit eurocentric, if that's the word. Not to sound confrontational at all, please pardon me!

I think that DF not having any translations for this release shrinks its audience a lot, it's not like any kind of like moral failing or anything on the part of the brothers, translators cost a lot of money and is a very complicated process to translate something in its entirety for multiple languages. Anyways my point is that like, I think 晨光暮曲 is just disappointed that they can't enjoy Dwarf Fortress in their native language, something which English speaking players, especially players with English as a first language, have an overabundance of luxury in experiencing. I think it'd be nice if Kitfox helped the Tarn brothers with translation somewhere down the road, as it'll bring Dwarf Fortress to an extremely wider audience.

[MadAsgardian]

It also needs to make financial sense. Translating to something like Chinese would be a huge undertaking, both in terms of sheer text translation as well as code/design/UI/display changes. Would enough people actually buy it to make that investment worth while? Look at the people whining that the game is too expensive because it costs $13 USD in Turkey.

[Via]

I read Kitfox Games said localizing is impossible by some technical reasons. My theory: when a developer says impossible, it's time for us to give up. Fortunately, the game texts are relatively simple.

[AlP]

Originally posted by Clowny Cobalt:

I think it'd be nice if Kitfox helped the Tarn brothers with translation somewhere down the road, as it'll bring Dwarf Fortress to an extremely wider audience.

You fail to understand that this game is not translateable. There is no text that can be simply changed into another language. It uses procedural language constructs that cannot be translated.

Instead of translating it, you would need to create an entirely new procedural language in Chinese, German or whatever language you want to play in. That involves completely rewriting a huge part of the game's code to make it work.

[Clowny Cobalt]

Originally posted by AlP:

Originally posted by Clowny Cobalt:

I think it'd be nice if Kitfox helped the Tarn brothers with translation somewhere down the road, as it'll bring Dwarf Fortress to an extremely wider audience.

You fail to understand that this game is not translateable. There is no text that can be simply changed into another language. It uses procedural language constructs that cannot be translated.

Instead of translating it, you would need to create an entirely new procedural language in Chinese, German or whatever language you want to play in. That involves completely rewriting a huge part of the game's code to make it work.

Well my apologies, I know DF has some complicated structure under the hood, so that makes sense. I mostly just took offence with Borkentroll's suggestion of just learning another language being the solution.

[Borkentroll]

Originally posted by Clowny Cobalt:

Originally posted by AlP:

You fail to understand that this game is not translateable. There is no text that can be simply changed into another language. It uses procedural language constructs that cannot be translated.

Instead of translating it, you would need to create an entirely new procedural language in Chinese, German or whatever language you want to play in. That involves completely rewriting a huge part of the game's code to make it work.

Well my apologies, I know DF has some complicated structure under the hood, so that makes sense. I mostly just took offence with Borkentroll's suggestion of just learning another language being the solution.

And that's why I suggested improving ones own language skills might be the better and less time consuming solution.