Community Council

Actually countless examples of “the players” asking before about certain stuff scheduled events even start - without answers. Possibly without “the team” even checking up on the matter. Only so that on set date the predicted fails… happen.
I don’t want to read to much into it, but that sentence or that part of “that’s on us” comes across like “pff whatever”, because “the team” has yet to actually deliver proof of “caring”, not just for a day or a week. No, consistently. And if some bugs already occur, then if someone goes to have dinner, it would be awesome if another person could actually take over and not have the topic ignored until someone eventually takes pity. Same if someone gets ill, or is “off” due to whatever reason.


Hm, translation is a paid job, but what about “voluntary” doing it as some already offered? What about beta testing which is also “voluntary” - just as example?
You could - in theory still “release” such a excel file with the language strings, f.e. to users of the beta program with “exclusive viewing and editing rights” to a small amount of users then and see what you’ll end up with. This could eventually be double, triple, countless times re-checked. It is basically nothing else than someone using their free time posting useful comments in such a forum. Or is it?

Otherwise just move to nzl, because I had no problems translating a whole game for a dev from nzl, without payment. The three people involved in translating into german simply got “acknowledged” in a small ingame page. We didn’t even ask for that. That was a voluntary doing by the dev, just a small appreciation.

4 Likes

…a legal one here in Australia where volunteers can’t/shouldn’t be doing the job of paid employees and translation is a paid job.
then you would have paid people like Taran, Hawx, Gary, El Duderino (just to name a few) since ages!

2 Likes

I don’t disagree that in the grand scheme of things, translation issues are relatively minor. But here are three points I’d like to make:

  • The rate at which translation errors are introduced outpaces the rate at which they’re fixed. Coming up with a plan to keep this in check would be… advisable?

  • Every patch, people in our guild alliance ask why some new troop or weapon doesn’t work as advertised. More often than not, the answer is that the translation is just wrong. Forcing people to switch back and forth between English for reference and their local language for play is rather annoying (to put it mildly) and will drive a not insignificant number of people away.

  • It’s not just one language. We’ve had machine-translated Chinese gibberish, a stream of requests to fix various fundamental issues with the Russian translation without any sign of improvement over the years (I think even the most prolific Russian bug-reporters have become resigned at this point)

Regarding translations, it’s an ethical problem and possibly a legal one here in Australia where volunteers can’t/shouldn’t be doing the job of paid employees and translation is a paid job.

That’s fair. But here’s a blunt question: Why not hire someone at least semi-qualified for the job? Again, not being snarky, also not mincing words. Whoever’s translating to German doesn’t know the language well enough to be doing this for a living or even as a side-gig - yes, it is THAT bad. Imagine playing GoW and a troop’s English translation talks about ‘purpelian’ gem. Funny the first 3 times you see that one, I’m sure. Not so funny after finding out that the translator is 100% convinced ‘purpelian’ is the correct way to spell ‘purple’. I’d imagine that one, in any language, wouldn’t slip past proofreaders…

5 Likes

I agree with the translation aspect. Many in our guild are German and post as such in the pet rescue channel etc which can be quite funny because most German words aren’t as easy to make an educated guess at. They are happy to translate and such stuff could be added to a decicated area aimed at resolving translation issues. I know in discord you can just select one of the flags to a post and said post will translate into the language of the selected flag. But I think removing all “mother tongue” spell inaccuries should be addressed 1st to ensure resultant translation (where identified) is also correct.

Thank you for taking the time to respond and letting us know communication is being worked on! I know every time you (or any staff member) posts things like this you always get lashback and upset individuals, but I hope this doesn’t influence future communication. There will always be people who are frustrated by something, whether reasonable or not, and these people are often very vocal. I’m not saying to ignore criticism or upset players; plenty of them/us have very valid points that need addressed. But in the past, frustrated players have caused staff to threaten to cut off communication with the community, which is not something that should happen in any game. Pull valid criticism from negative posts and don’t take them personally - we as the community don’t mean them personally 99% of the time (and the 1% that does should be dealt with with mutes and bans). Even the most negative players on these forums who may seem impossible to please make negative posts because they’re frustrated by the direction of a game they care a lot about.

While bugs have been plentiful lately, I feel communication has at least taken a step in the right direction from where it was months ago. Thank you for your continued work on this!

2 Likes

Pro tip - hire someone whose native tongue is German and who also speaks English to translate from English to German.

The results will always be a more correct and natural German than if you hire an English speaker who has German as a second language.

Ref. Translations
As a linguist, I struggle to envision the low QA threshold that is tolerated in IP2 when it comes to translations (programming, design, dedication, and customer-relations aside): I’ve had the chance to see the ‘French’ mistakes that are still running jokes among my french-speaking guildies, and just today someone posted “Verde Enemigos” in a ‘Spanish’ screenshot.

But the translation topic is a periodically recurring one, with the same excuses/promises being brought forth by the mods: adjust expectations/effort accordingly…
:person_facepalming: :sweat_smile: :vulcan_salute:

@Jeto @Kafka @OminousGMan
There are plenty of active community members who would love to keep this game alive.
And I guess both sides would benefit from something like that.

So we would really like to know your thoughts about this topic.

1 Like

All of our translators are native speakers, play Gems of War, have access to update info before it’s released so they have additional context to what they’re translating, and at least one of them is a professional translator as their day job outside of just Gems of War.

We prefer to have people who play Gems of War so they understand the context of what they’re translating.

This is either not true, or said ‘translators’ are not even bothering past Machine Translation.

Again “Verde Enemigos” is something a 4-5 y/o can recognize as incorrect Spanish Grammar.
:blush: :person_facepalming: :vulcan_salute:

4 Likes

Besides this doesn’t answer the topic request.

Of what language?

Who translates a songtext to German when we listen to it in English? The reference gets lost.

Or leaves out part of descriptions?

Or makes all the other various mistakes?

I think you’ve been duped regarding the capabilites or your translator. :sweat_smile:

They even mixed up the gender of one troop (can’t remember which one but I remember talking about it on a German stream).

They also translated Pan’s Valley to Pantal - it’s Pans Tal (though I would have gone for Tal des Pan).

Many things aren’t game breaking, of course, but I’m sure the people who came up with names, references, story etc had something in mind…

2 Likes

tbh I often notice that german translation is really bad because I’m a german native speaker and in contact with some german players/guilds and often things get translated wrong, also how spells work - may I say: a essential part of the game. Ignoring that facts is really unprofessional.
Often a german born speaker would assume the use of a translation tool is in play here - because as “native speakers” you just “know”. Of course we can’t “prove it”, and by now most of us know, your company tends to shid on player feedback.
You’ve been offered help by community players. For free. By people that understand context, because “we” … “do actually play the game”.
But, better pay “professional translators” (h3h3, right…) to do that job. Seemso legito.

While I don’t personally use german translations and play my game in english, to say the (german) translator is a native speaker makes me really “lol”. This either can’t be true or it is a person that didn’t grow up / learn the german language properly or otherwise just doesn’t use/speak the language anymore.
And again, a important thing here: this is not about undermining the ability of the one that translated into german here. Mistakes can always happen. Maybe there’s time pressure involved, you can often struggle using the correct terms too, maybe something else is the cause. No, this is pure critique on the company and everyone involved that seemingly don’t really care all that.

7 Likes

@Kafka i posted several times about please stop lying!
why you are doing it over and over again, what is your intention to do so?
idc about spelling mistakes or sth, but there are still some wrong translations.
example:
we ask since years to change the German translation for Queen Aurora and Gaard’s Avatar - still nothing happened!
we asked about 8 months to change the German translation for the newer guardian troops (fixed after 8 months), where in German the third trait was about “give 6 to all skills by 4 match”!
in what language translation a “4 to all skills” can change to “6 to all skills” ???
your translators can’t even read pure numbers!

7 Likes

Priceless :joy::joy::joy:

4 Likes

I’d like to add that native German speaking players (or any other native speaker who told you about mistakes) aren’t trolling you.

I must admit that my first reaction to your post was to think “that’s BS”. Then I thought “well, they’re not German speakers so they might believe they’ve got a good translator who does a great job”.

If you don’t speak a language you must trust the person who translates. And it might be hard to fathom that someone you trust doesn’t do a good job.

Anyway, I remembered the troop - it’s Venoxia.

While absolutely not game breaking it may hopefully illustrate how glaring the mistakes are to someone who is a native German speaker and also fluent in English.

The English says ‘Affectionately known to her friends as Ol’ Swamp-ass’

Her = female

The German says ‘Von seinen Freunden liebevoll “Alter Sumpfarsch” genannt.’

Seinen = male

Now, what’s male in German is “ass” (Arsch).

But it should still be “ihren Freunden” (ihren = female) as it refers to Venoxia and not to ass/Arsch.

I just can’t believe that a German native speaker would make that mistake.

6 Likes

The translation issues have been deflected by IP2 for years now, with some iteration/variation of the current ‘reasons’ (e.g. “we can’t accept community help and it’s not our fault”, “we have legit translators”, “we will review and improve the process”…), so it’s hard to suggest that IP2 is a ‘victim’ of this increasing translation bug backlog…

Historically, once the current wave of player frustration dies down, the topic gets shelved in the ‘status quo’ folder until it is brought up again.
:sweat_smile: :vulcan_salute:
#IP2caresaboutquality

7 Likes

Well… They’re either lying (now they wouldn’t do, that would they? /s) or still believe their translator over the community.

I would believe the latter, they usually seem to suspect we’re wrong, only there to troll them or whatever they think.

In general, you have to put trust into the person translating if you don’t speak the language. And it seems that despite numerous reports they still trust their translator more than they trust their caring community.

Ultimately, I’m trying to say that the translations aren’t good.

Do better, guys, especially with the actual game stuff like spell descriptions.

6 Likes

I’m not denying there’s problems with the text and I’m certainly not accusing anyone of lying. I’m just saying in a round about way that it doesn’t matter who translates it there will be mistakes because humans aren’t perfect, even with spell checkers and grammarly.

The best process is for CX to report issues with the text when they appear and that feedback to be passed onto the translators to be fixed. Then the whole thing is all of us learn from our mistakes right? Better to have someone experienced who makes mistakes and learns from them than to hire someone new who hasn’t made any mistakes yet and start the process from scratch. I’d also point out that it’s not a one person issue, I don’t feel it’s constructive to call out single people and blame them for it. It’s inaccurate to blame people without knowing who wrote the mistake into the text and also pointing fingers doesn’t actually solve the problem at all.

I will raise the translation issues with the team again to try to get more attention on them.

I think we should try not to derail this thread any further though. I’m happy to continue the discussion in a translation specific thread, but just a disclaimer, try not to criticise people in your posts. If it gets personal it will be against the community guidelines. Always happy to take feedback about game things though.

And that’s why I didn’t bother replying to this thread anymore.

Absolutely no point whatsoever as long as every call for help or pointing out things that need fixing are painted as baseless, personal witch hunts.

Instead, we just get the usual gaslighting BS and threats of excommunication.

Stop taking the piss. Financials were a wakeup call.

6 Likes