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Re: NEW EVENTS

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:09 am
by MadMikael
Tarlin wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 6:19 am This has been bothering me and I think I found a viable solution.... We make events and other such things for the community in English posts only. This game has multiple languages from various regions of the world that play.
I think, and it is very easy to implement, that if an event is planned, then it should be posted in the announcements section in English and should be unlocked for replies. Then it should be translated into each of the current forums, that are a language other than english, and have a link to the original forum topic. These additional forum posts should be closed though so that all feedback on the post is gathered in one place.
I'm not entirely sure what you specifically mean by events.
The events that are described in this post, the daily ones, have in game announcements.
And if you change your language in the game app, you'll get the translated message if it exists.

But from the GM point of view, of making GM made events...
They literally take hours to set up.
By the time you're done that - just making a forum post about it is a pain.
Sure, you could say "announce it in advance", but we do not like to do that - because if we do, and we can't make it, many get disappointed.
Real life happens.

Out of all the GMs, I'd say I have a fairly good chance of being the one who uses the online translator the most.
Translating large messages is not as easy as it could be.
If you're trying to translate an exact meaning, often times it takes several attempts to get it right.
Now, do that for every language.
I'm sorry if I sound rude here, but after spending 4 hours setting up an event, then another 10-15 minutes writing a post, I don't want to add another hour to that.

The only other possibility is that the official translators may translate it.
But, that depends on their schedules as well.

Your idea is sound for pre-announced events, but I do not do those anymore, and neither do most GMs when they hold events.

Re: NEW EVENTS

Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:38 am
by Tarlin
That does add a lot of clarification to what I said. I was under the assumption that most "on the fly" events were still coordinated to some degree before hand. Remember I am still relatively new to the game. I did in fact mean that official translators could translate for events and in last minute efforts Google translate could be used. I speak english, french, pashtuan and arabic but I absolutely despise translating. Taking a 26 letter alphabet and translating it to a 19 letter alphabet that is mostly phonetic can be a very difficult task, and Google translate almost always gets it wrong the first time. As a matter of fact, unless you speak perfect book taught grammatical english, Google translate will get it wrong the first time every time.

I feel your pain on having to write it over in a language that is not native or fluent to your own. The task is arduous to say the least. I was meaning more to the effect if an event is planned in advance, send it to the translators and have them send a translated version back to you. Then post the translated version to the link attached that leads to the English version. The only version that can be replied to is the English version. Then any posts replied in a foreign language the appropriate interpreter or if need be Google translate can write in English for us. Unfortunately every language in the world has simple slang or socially acceptable grammatical flaws. This makes "book-ish" translations (aka... Google translate) nearly impossible the first time out.

Hopefully this clears up that I am not referring to on the spot events. Instead I am referencing coordinated events or special events that are announced in advance of the actual event.

Hope the clarification helps.

Re: NEW EVENTS

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:03 am
by DaHobbit
I attempted to do many events using Google translator. I ran these events almost every day for about 3 weeks leading up to Christmas. I posted signs on the start map telling players to go to forum, and made the same sign in these other languages. Still, only a few players participated. So it's not just that players do not understand - many just don't participate or don't use forum.

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14926

Re: NEW EVENTS

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 5:36 pm
by Tarlin
I wish I would have known about DT sooner, a lot of these events that I have seen look like they would have been a lot of fun.