Did you plan to provide non-English-speaker community a translation of this DLC (based on VO files sending) ? If so when do you send VO files to publishers ? if not why ?

Thanks for your reply

It is already being translated. At least, in Spanish.

Same question and no answer... I think there's a problem with non english speaker...

The french publisher Edge Entertainment say they have not received VO files yet. That's I understood. Publishers need these files to translate. So I wonder why FFG need so much time to send these files.

I had a lot of hope in this game and I realize FFG is on the way to make money and that's all. It's a shame. This game should have been a great game with its app. I'm disappointed.

If we need to wait many weeks (months ?) to get translated DLC/expansion after release, well it's not very good.

Maybe we should have asked a bit more as a customer.

So... where is the "partnership" or what is FFG definition of partnership?

Be informed that for French speaking customers only 4 scenarios are made available while for English customers already 9 scenarios ( despite only a few weeks between commercial launch of English version and French version)

I think there is little FFG can do about it. Once they hand over the files to foreign publishers, this is completely in the hands of people not working for FFG, e.g. Edge Entertainment for France.

Also translating all those text fragments that make up a scenario is not that easy. FFG can test and fix text content until the app content is almost released. Only then (this is much later than with printed rules and texts) can a scenario be translated and the translation also needs testing with the app.

11 hours ago, Samea said:

I think there is little FFG can do about it. Once they hand over the files to foreign publishers, this is completely in the hands of people not working for FFG, e.g. Edge Entertainment for France.

Not completely. FFG/Asmodee also generates some delays, that's what I heard from our publisher.

11 hours ago, Samea said:

(...) and the translation also needs testing with the app.

What kind of testing would translation need?

Usually, rules and texts can be available for translation before production starts, because everything has to be finalized before printing. But with digital content, changes to scenarios can be made even as packaged games and expansions are already shipped from the factory. That means that it can take longer for FFG to release a finalized file for translation to foreign publishers.

Once publishers receive the file, the ball is in their court. Translating a bunch of text fragments is harder than translating plain text and harder to proofread. Also, physical components might already be in production, which might not leave much time to do it.

The result needs testing with the app for several reasons:

• You only see the whole text in the app - it is much easier to spot errors there.
• Grammar can be an issue, because text is composed from fragments by the app - imagine a text like "the X summons a Y" with X and Y being some kind of monster, say "old cultist" and "young cultist". "the old cultist summons a young cultist" works, but "the young cultist summons a old cultist" does not, it should be "an" instead of "a". Especially grammatical cases make this a challenge in languages like French and German.
• The translated text might not fit. Imagine that the German translation for "ghost" would be "Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft" (an actual word, look it up). Whereever it says "ghost", the app would need room to but this godawful word into so e fiekd or box and depending on platform, resolution etc. it might just not fit or fit beautifully. If this is an issue, you have to reconsider the teanslation.

When the translation is done and tested (with the newest version of the app, which might be under development and cause further delay) and they had the chance to record a voice actor for the intro text, the publisher can get the files back to FFG and then waits for it to be included in a future update.

For FFG and their foreign partners this is a new workflow that will probably get smoother in time, when some kinks are worked out and all partners have more experience with the process. But in the short run I believe that there is little that FFG can do to hurry a translation along apart from releasing finalized texts as soon as possible and updating the app as soon as translations are available.

I would buy every dlc for mom2 almost instantly, if ffg would provide them in german.

2 hours ago, jcbb92 said:

Sorry but I think they should publish a new DLC, a fix, new features after they received translated files from their partners only.
That means Quality.

I don't think that would work. Keeping a product back just because a licensee is not done sounds insane - that is like Disney shelving the new Star Wars film a couple of months just because some licensed Lego set or pyjama printed with the characters is not done. Developers, authors, artists and marketing want to be paid. Customers are waiting for new content to be released. You have a complete product, ready to be released and to make money.

And it is not like the foreign translaters are all idling around, just waiting for your content to arrive - they might be working on a lot of other games already, so the translation might have to wait until there is time. Also foreign licensees are typically months behind with their product line, piggybacking on FFG's reprints with their production. So if translated DLC is lagging behind, it is still on time relative to the physical product.

2 hours ago, jcbb92 said:

But focus on the app, if they have to rebuild app because of syntax or length of words in different languages, it's a big issue and a bad app design.

I don't think this is likely to happen - if these problems appear, it is far mote likely that foreign publisher will have to fiddle with their translation.

And even big IT companies are constantly patching for different languages and writing systems. Unless you have the capability to test with lots and lots of different languages during development, there will always be situations no software developer could foresee. If you are working in IT, stuff like this will probably be known to you, and people working with localization and international formats are constantly finding fun traps like the crazy Dutch using letters in their zip codes or input format for city names having to allow exclamation marks.

Also do not forget that FFG is a boardgame publisher which is more akin to a book publisher than a computer game publisher. They have a small team working on digital components for their games, that does not mean they suddenly can act, plan and work like a software company. The same is true for their partners.

Its over a year now, and DLCs available on steam are still not translated to Polish for example. Why is that? How long do we have to wait for other translations?

Same with german =(

On 9.02.2018 at 6:06 PM, DryMike said:

Its over a year now, and DLCs available on steam are still not translated to Polish for example. Why is that? How long do we have to wait for other translations?

WLW i DR are translated into polish so WTF?:D