How we localize ArcheAge
Hi, Habr!
In January of this year, we announced that we had become the publisher, localizer and operator of the game ArcheAge , created by XL Games Inc. How this process goes, I will tell in this post.
')
A little bit about the game
ArcheAge is an MMORPG from Lineage designer Jake Song. ArcheAge recreated what was in Ultima Online 15 years ago - the opportunity to change the game world: choose your own role, be a warrior, a pirate, anyone. You don't have to be a hero and fight, you can be a civilian, build a house in the village, trade items and capture the economic market of the whole game.
For three years, there was a closed beta testing of the game, and quite recently a release took place in Korea. Millions of Korean players are already playing ArcheAge. Surprisingly, most of the fansite of the game was created in Russia - this is the most anticipated online game of 2013, and we are doing everything so that Russian players are the first to get to know the project in Europe.
Localization as it is
I think it’s possible not to remind once again how good localization is important for games - surely many have favorite localization blunders, which are often associated with the process of finalizing the game.
The Mail.Ru Group has over 70 people working on ArcheAge. These are not only editors, testers, managers, etc., but also programmers, engineers, designers, producers, marketers, and many others. Consider the points, what quest we went through and how developers simplify our life.
So let's go.
First we get the LK (Localization Kit) - these are all the texts, graphics, voice acting, all that the player sees on his monitor.
- Localization Kit structure
Here we are lucky. All files are formed according to the SQL database principle, from which developers draw texts in XML format, and this is 71 files, each of which is responsible for a specific part of the description (skills - names and descriptions of skills; buffs - names and descriptions of buffs; quests - tasks and t .P.). But this structure has a minus - we cannot change the base ourselves and substitute texts on our side. You have to ask the developers to make patches.
- Translation from Korean
Korean language, undoubtedly, brings its own difficulties. Firstly, finding competent specialists is not easy, and secondly, the translation may not be checked everywhere without a build. The translation speed from Korean is lower than from English.
In ArcheAge about 4.5 - 5 million Korean characters. Translated into Russian - 8 - 10 million characters. By the way, just as we had at the time of the commencement of work on the "Lord of the Rings." However, there was a little easier - the world is known, Tolkien himself wrote about how to translate (he has notes for translators). And the translation was from English, it is always easier.
- Glossaries
Glossaries for NPC and geographical names are very detailed. If the latter is pretty standard - the zone, city, mainland, etc., then the NPC glossary is amazing! In addition to the character's name, the developers indicated his race, gender, age, geographical area where he meets, mood / speech patterns (affable, friendly, educated, curious, irritated, infantile, etc.). Such a detailed glossary on NPC from developers, we meet for the first time.
Not without humor. One of the characters (race - ferre, man-cats) in the glossary is called "Captain Guards Ivan." Ivan the cat would have looked great in the Korean game, but we still changed his name.
- Content update
Developers update content very quickly. At the moment we are working with the original version of the texts, however, soon we plan to receive materials of all updates released by March 2013. We also do not recall this speed of work with content and the discovery of new features.
- The world with history
The world of ArcheAge is based on the books of Jong Min Hee. Accordingly, we have a certain world that we cannot change. In this, the work is again similar to the work on The Lord of the Rings. Before embarking on editing, we had to study many articles, translate some key parts of the book, understand who the main characters are, their motivation and characters.
- Case system
In the current version of LK there is a case system, but it is a Korean case system. Combine it with the Russian does not work. We are actively working to make changes in LK that will allow us to use variable cases.
That is, we will not need to write something from the category of “Go to the city of“ Moscow ”, where“ Moscow ”is a variable, which can only be in the nominative case. We want to be able to substitute "Go to" Moscow "." While we are not sure that we can do this, the changes affect not so much the structure of the LK itself, but the structure of the base and the addition of new tags.
Build testing
As soon as a certain percentage of texts are ready, we give them to the developers to build the first build - this is the first version of the game, in which Russian and Korean texts are mixed. This is necessary in order to understand how beautiful the font looks in the game, whether we guessed correctly with substitutions, what the Russian text in the picture looks like. Editors see that there are no errors in the text, differences in terms, check the correctness of the names.
Testers look at all the texts in the picture live, make sure that there are no typos, errors, old versions of texts on the screen. They also check the functionality of the game, make sure that the game does not “fall”, so that you can take and pass any quest, so that the NPCs are in their proper places, so that the correct rewards can be given for completing the task.
And about support
Technical support of the project will be carried out around the clock. At the moment, our specialists are actively studying the game, collecting material on the basis of which the rest of the support staff will be trained on this project. This is not just a brief description of a particular mechanics or functionality, but a detailed lecture material that can fully serve as both a reference and a full-fledged training manual for specialists. In addition, in the learning process, the internal test server is actively used, as well as accounts on the official Korean server, where experts can fully feel all the subtleties of the social interaction of players and in the process of the game feel all the possible difficulties and problems that an ordinary player encounters.
In addition, we are actively changing the interface of the players with customer support, making it more convenient and casual. It will be easier for players to find a ready answer to their question, it is easier to understand the process of processing a request created by it and methods for solving it, to get a response from a specialist faster.
Localization work is in full swing. Closed beta testing is scheduled for autumn 2013, after which the date of open beta testing and launch of ArcheAge will be determined. Today I described only the very first steps, if you have questions and suggestions, I will be glad to discuss in the comments.
In January of this year, we announced that we had become the publisher, localizer and operator of the game ArcheAge , created by XL Games Inc. How this process goes, I will tell in this post.
')
A little bit about the game
ArcheAge is an MMORPG from Lineage designer Jake Song. ArcheAge recreated what was in Ultima Online 15 years ago - the opportunity to change the game world: choose your own role, be a warrior, a pirate, anyone. You don't have to be a hero and fight, you can be a civilian, build a house in the village, trade items and capture the economic market of the whole game.
For three years, there was a closed beta testing of the game, and quite recently a release took place in Korea. Millions of Korean players are already playing ArcheAge. Surprisingly, most of the fansite of the game was created in Russia - this is the most anticipated online game of 2013, and we are doing everything so that Russian players are the first to get to know the project in Europe.
Localization as it is
I think it’s possible not to remind once again how good localization is important for games - surely many have favorite localization blunders, which are often associated with the process of finalizing the game.
The Mail.Ru Group has over 70 people working on ArcheAge. These are not only editors, testers, managers, etc., but also programmers, engineers, designers, producers, marketers, and many others. Consider the points, what quest we went through and how developers simplify our life.
So let's go.
First we get the LK (Localization Kit) - these are all the texts, graphics, voice acting, all that the player sees on his monitor.
- Localization Kit structure
Here we are lucky. All files are formed according to the SQL database principle, from which developers draw texts in XML format, and this is 71 files, each of which is responsible for a specific part of the description (skills - names and descriptions of skills; buffs - names and descriptions of buffs; quests - tasks and t .P.). But this structure has a minus - we cannot change the base ourselves and substitute texts on our side. You have to ask the developers to make patches.
- Translation from Korean
Korean language, undoubtedly, brings its own difficulties. Firstly, finding competent specialists is not easy, and secondly, the translation may not be checked everywhere without a build. The translation speed from Korean is lower than from English.
In ArcheAge about 4.5 - 5 million Korean characters. Translated into Russian - 8 - 10 million characters. By the way, just as we had at the time of the commencement of work on the "Lord of the Rings." However, there was a little easier - the world is known, Tolkien himself wrote about how to translate (he has notes for translators). And the translation was from English, it is always easier.
- Glossaries
Glossaries for NPC and geographical names are very detailed. If the latter is pretty standard - the zone, city, mainland, etc., then the NPC glossary is amazing! In addition to the character's name, the developers indicated his race, gender, age, geographical area where he meets, mood / speech patterns (affable, friendly, educated, curious, irritated, infantile, etc.). Such a detailed glossary on NPC from developers, we meet for the first time.
Not without humor. One of the characters (race - ferre, man-cats) in the glossary is called "Captain Guards Ivan." Ivan the cat would have looked great in the Korean game, but we still changed his name.
- Content update
Developers update content very quickly. At the moment we are working with the original version of the texts, however, soon we plan to receive materials of all updates released by March 2013. We also do not recall this speed of work with content and the discovery of new features.
- The world with history
The world of ArcheAge is based on the books of Jong Min Hee. Accordingly, we have a certain world that we cannot change. In this, the work is again similar to the work on The Lord of the Rings. Before embarking on editing, we had to study many articles, translate some key parts of the book, understand who the main characters are, their motivation and characters.
- Case system
In the current version of LK there is a case system, but it is a Korean case system. Combine it with the Russian does not work. We are actively working to make changes in LK that will allow us to use variable cases.
That is, we will not need to write something from the category of “Go to the city of“ Moscow ”, where“ Moscow ”is a variable, which can only be in the nominative case. We want to be able to substitute "Go to" Moscow "." While we are not sure that we can do this, the changes affect not so much the structure of the LK itself, but the structure of the base and the addition of new tags.
Build testing
As soon as a certain percentage of texts are ready, we give them to the developers to build the first build - this is the first version of the game, in which Russian and Korean texts are mixed. This is necessary in order to understand how beautiful the font looks in the game, whether we guessed correctly with substitutions, what the Russian text in the picture looks like. Editors see that there are no errors in the text, differences in terms, check the correctness of the names.
Testers look at all the texts in the picture live, make sure that there are no typos, errors, old versions of texts on the screen. They also check the functionality of the game, make sure that the game does not “fall”, so that you can take and pass any quest, so that the NPCs are in their proper places, so that the correct rewards can be given for completing the task.
And about support
Technical support of the project will be carried out around the clock. At the moment, our specialists are actively studying the game, collecting material on the basis of which the rest of the support staff will be trained on this project. This is not just a brief description of a particular mechanics or functionality, but a detailed lecture material that can fully serve as both a reference and a full-fledged training manual for specialists. In addition, in the learning process, the internal test server is actively used, as well as accounts on the official Korean server, where experts can fully feel all the subtleties of the social interaction of players and in the process of the game feel all the possible difficulties and problems that an ordinary player encounters.
In addition, we are actively changing the interface of the players with customer support, making it more convenient and casual. It will be easier for players to find a ready answer to their question, it is easier to understand the process of processing a request created by it and methods for solving it, to get a response from a specialist faster.
Localization work is in full swing. Closed beta testing is scheduled for autumn 2013, after which the date of open beta testing and launch of ArcheAge will be determined. Today I described only the very first steps, if you have questions and suggestions, I will be glad to discuss in the comments.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/184102/
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