Friday News on www.camelot-europe.com

[c0ngo]

I don't go there much but just did.

Here's most of it
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Friday news!
[05-17-2002]

It's Friday, time to do a little check-up on what is going on in GOA's office.
Technical Part:

The technical teams are working, on top of the daily maintenance, on three main points.

First, update of the software on the entire computer network. The upgrade on all servers was one part, an important one.

The installation of a new patching system which should ensure a better download quality for the future patches. The patch servers' network is being adjusted and a new patch server will be added to strengthen the whole thing.

The coming public opening of Gorre, the test server is the last one. This is an important part for many modifications are needed with the patch servers' network. The connection procedure is also a tricky part since a client change is needed to access the test server; we are working with Mythic to see if we can use a specific launcher. The opening of Gorre to players will give us the opportunity to test the patch process and the new patcher network; the test server being currently with the 1.48 patch, players will be able to download the 1.48 patch.

The goal is to have all this done in two weeks.

Patch 1.48 :

When you say public test server, you say modification to the testing procedures for translations.

The translations are almost done:
For French translation, both Albion and Hibernia are done (Hibernia only needs internal testing) and Midgard is 85% complete.
For German translation, 100% is done and only internal testing is needed.

By the beginning of next week, both French and German translation will be completed and the test & debug stage will start, first internally then on the public test server where motivated players will be invited to actively participate in the very last checks. The internal testing stage should go on for 15 days and we are planning two or three more weeks for public testing. If everything goes good, the 1.48 should therefore be up and ready on the production servers by the end of June.

Events:

With the 1.48 patch closing, the first scripted events will start. The first event tests will happen on the test server when it opens to the players and will be done simultaneously to the 1.48 translation tests. The event team said, I quote: 'These first scripted events will be very basic, the events will come to their full bloom and complexity with the coming of the 1.48 on the production servers, once we are 100% sure that future patches (fixes or contents) will not overwrite them.'.
The event team will do an announcement about all this soon.

Official site :

The web team is working on two projects.

The first one is of course concerning the new Camelot Chronicles functions for the coming 1.48. While the final results will not be fully accessible before the patch on the production servers, we will open a test server section and the web team will put some of the new goodies on it.

The second project is the enhancing of our current news system. For now, only the home page and the chronicles are not 'static'. In the planned changes, we want to add realm and server news for the events, backgrounds and the servers 'life'. This one should be ready in the coming weeks.

 

[Riddler]

well...seems like great news but i dont dare hoping for anything

 

[old.Nol]

...

riddler, did you just sit on a porcupine? nice photo

 

[Riddler]

lol well....that was taken at a LAN some years ago after being awake for 4 days

 

[old.Halfmad]

C0ngo thanks for posting, I never check that site these days because I'm erm too damn lazy

 

[tilde]

End of June? *no comment*

 

[old.Wut]

OoOoo events

 

[old.tRoG]

if i wasnt so tired id go and look myself

 

[old.Biohazard]

Well well, end of June, wahey!! that will only leave us 3½ months behind on the US

 

[old.uto]

Well, it might take some time but I for once am glad that they posted info. That is exactly what has been missing..

I dont really care if they say 'nothing is working' or 'patch next week' or 'patch next year', what matters is that they tell us how it's going.

If only the news bits would be weekly. Anyways, I hope GOA keeps this kind of news coming

 

[Cuthervaen]

Old forums

Old forums being deleted now, is it just me or do you remember some old post by Kemor saying their goal was to be one or two weeks behind US patching??

hum no comment...

 

[old.Niljindil]

Re: Old forums

Originally posted by Cuthervaen
Old forums being deleted now, is it just me or do you remember some old post by Kemor saying their goal was to be one or two weeks behind US patching??

hum no comment...

Cuth, its was one or two DAYS

 

[old.Organ-Grinder]

patch imo is to far away and myself personaly wouldnt be surprised at all if its late and delayed2-3 weeks

 

[old.Mousah]

the 1.48 should therefore be up and ready on the production servers by the end of June.


first they say 2-3 days.
then its 2-3 weeks.
now its at the end of June.
but they forgot something, will it be in year 2003 or 2004?

ppl are leaving the servers for US version, this patch have taken long enough, hope the next one wont take 2 months to come
or i do like other ppl do, go to US or find a better game.


they say it takes long to translate, and that the players on the english servers will have to wait for french and german patches to be translated, why? you really think that ppl that cant speak/read/write in english would come to english servers just for the patch.....

if it continues in this speed, Excalibur and Prydwen will end up as dead servers, and the only loosers will be GOA and the ppl that have spend money and time on the game(like myself).

Mousah mOO
Pikeman at 47
<Dragon Knights>
R3 L1

 

[Cuthervaen]

Patching

Fully agree on it Mousah, I'm for myself french and I usually prefer playing RPG games in English, if only for the crappy translation u usually get.

I understand it's important to localise server and provide peopel a game in a language they can understand though. But taking 2 to 3 months of delay is just unacceptable.

I'd switch to an US server wo hesitation if I could transfer my char there. As I'm not too keen on relevelling in the same game / environment, I guess I'll just give it a go at some other game.

Cuthervaen

 

[tilde]

I've order us.version today, but i will keep my account here at EU in hope for the tide to show up..

About the process and delays i will now copy a post from a professional translator named Yomar:

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Thought this might be of interest (posted on General Excalibur forum too):

Translation speed
Professional translator here... I've written this on the old forums already, but I guess it can't hurt to write it once more. See www.akebono.nl for my credits

An average translator or software localizer (software localization is, in most cases, just an expensive word for software translation) can translate at least 2000 words per day. I'm currently doing 4000 a day and can do 8000 words per day if I really want to and feel like it.

For those of you who have no idea what 2000 words is like: it's as much as 6 to 7 A4's.

Software localization is very different from translation, but I think I have a right to speak since I'm a professional software localizer. As a matter of fact I'm currently translating a complete enterprise database package. This is a big package, prolly much bigger than DAOC in it's current state. The package resources contain 50.000 words. This will normally take me (just one translator) 25 working days. If I try hard, 12 working days. If I try really hard, just 6 working days. This includes checks on concistency, grammar, spelling, etcetera.

Path 1.45 was implemented on March 27th. Since then, 27 working days (excluding weekends) have passed. Assuming that:

1. Every language is just translated by one translator (which ain't much)
2. This translator has no other projects planned

(based on experience I can say that the above is pretty much a worst-case scenario)...

Patch 1.48 implements at least 27 x 2000 = 54000 *new* words.

That's more than the entire enterprise database software package I'm currently working on (excluding the manual - but DAOC has no manual translations).

I will not mention how much time can be saved by using professional CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) tools, which are much more professional than your average Babelfish translation goodie. I estimate that at least 10% of the new translations can be matched from a database containing all translations that have been done until patch 1.45. This is a realistic estimate.

Assuming the translators use a professional CAT tool, which is a must for software localization, I'd say that patch 1.48 should at least implement 54000 + 5400 = say 60.000 new words (say 200 A4's).

Do the maths

I believe the translation thingy is just a poor excuse. I'm not angry at GOA - actually I love the game and I am very satisfied on the overall. But I don't want GOA to give the translation industry a bad rep just because they need an excuse for a poor implementation policy

Translation quality
Unfortunately there are more bad translators than good translators. The problem is that everybody can call himself/herself a translator.

A good translation is a translation that reads like an original, without the reader ever wondering whether the document is a translation or not.

Too many translators make the mistake of translating far too literally, instead of trying to convey the same idea or thought behind the original. Not to mention the enormous amount of translators who can't even spell or people who think they can translate to anything that is not their mother tongue. Ah, and let's not forget specialized fields like games.

I still remember the Dutch translation of "Turn Undead" in an RPG. The translation rendered to something like "Turn zombie upside down".

About string truncations
Good CAT tools warn for string truncations on the fly

Response to News on GOA site

For example, let's take an item: all its occurrences must be translated identically in all the files: the item file, but also in the NPC talks file if some NPCs mention it. You also need to make sure that the monsters dropping the item are named correctly, or you can end up, after translation, with a 'bandit ear', dropped by a 'brigand' while a quest asks for a 'cutpurse ear' (in German or French of course).


This is what we translators call consistency. Every CAT tool does this on the fly for you. It does not explain the delay, it really doesn't

Suppose you translate the string called "bandit ear" to German. The result is [German translation of "bandit ear"]. The CAT tool memorizes this automatically (if the string is part of a bigger string, then it's custom to basically add all noun combinations and nouns to your terminology database), adding it to the terminology database. Once the word group "bandit ear" pops up 2 days later in an entirely different string, the CAT tool will see this and automatically display the translation used until now in a separate window. Click the translation and voila - it's automatically added in the translation of the new string. In some cases, you don't even need to click anymore - when the CAT tool sees that there's only one possibility for word order and inserts the used translation automatically.

GOA, head to www.atril.com to see what this software can do for you The first month of usage is for free.


__________________
Yomar Balthasar, Eldritch
Legends of Camelot Guild Leader
Excalibur - Hibernia
Legends of Camelot Website

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Read it and weep, aimed at GOA's incompability...

 

[old.Mousah]

well then, only thing i can say to goa is to HIRE THAT GUY!, your ppl seem to kinda...ehm...suck?