Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Alienman]

My main that is a dwarf will feel all alone.

 

[Infinitron]

There appears to be a dwarf sidekick, but sidekick doesn't qualify as "proper companion" either.

 

[Pyke]

Translations are stretch goals? lol

Professional translations of a text heavy game are insanely expensive.

 

[AwesomeButton]

There appears to be a dwarf sidekick, but sidekick doesn't qualify as "proper companion" either.

For all I know, it's actually better.

I agree that translations look strange as a stretch goal, because they are not strictly "game content" or a feature, but I guess this is why they are added to a stretch goal containing other things. Mobilizing some some additional support from the respective language's speakers, and in addition allowing you to raise the stretch goal a little more.

 

[Fedora Master]

Translations are stretch goals? lol

Professional translations of a text heavy game are insanely expensive.

Then don't do it. I can't judge the Italian translation business but German translations are mostly complete shit. lol @ anyone who can't speak English in CURRENTYEAR anyway.

 

[erickaqua]

I'm honestly curious how they will handle Korean and Chinese translation, they're quite ballsy to promise them.
Since Pillars of Eternity is a very Eurocentric game and Obsidian has a very modest budget, I think the translation would probably be as awkward as Tales of Wuxia, in which idioms and figure of speech would be translated as literally as possible lol.

 

[Prime Junta]

Since Pillars of Eternity is a very Eurocentric game

P2 is set in the Deadfire Archipelago, which is more Indonesia than Europe.

 

[BilboBaggins]

Translations are stretch goals? lol

Games don't translate themselves for free.

 

[Flou]

I'm honestly curious how they will handle Korean and Chinese translation, they're quite ballsy to promise them.
Since Pillars of Eternity is a very Eurocentric game and Obsidian has a very modest budget, I think the translation would probably be as awkward as Tales of Wuxia, in which idioms and figure of speech would be translated as literally as possible lol.

Unless my memory is completely fucked up some fans translated/modded the first game into Korean and it got some praise. They have the data from Steam/GOG, so they have some sort of idea how popular the game could be if translated.

 

[Bonerbill]

I'm honestly curious how they will handle Korean and Chinese translation, they're quite ballsy to promise them.
Since Pillars of Eternity is a very Eurocentric game and Obsidian has a very modest budget, I think the translation would probably be as awkward as Tales of Wuxia, in which idioms and figure of speech would be translated as literally as possible lol.

It worked well for witcher 3.

 

[Dorateen]

Argument: The Pillars of Eternity series is biased against dwarves. Neither game has a proper dwarf companion.

Counterpoint: By not providing such a companion, the games are implicitly encouraging players to play as a dwarf themselves.

Dorateen What say you

I'd more or less agree with your second point. I had no use for the Eskimo dwarf companion, and would much rather be rolling up a player character dwarf or a whole clan of dwarves, anyway.

I don't agree about an inherent bias against dwarves on the grounds that the White March expansion was very well executed in terms of dwarven themes.

 

[tripedal]

Translations cost money, but turning them into kickstarter goals is pretty stupid imo. If the translation will push enough copies to pay for itself, Obsidian can fork over the money themselves. If it won't, you're wasting backer money on something that an infinitesimal minority of players will ever get to see.

 

[Ulfhednar]

Translations cost money, but turning them into kickstarter goals is pretty stupid imo. If the translation will push enough copies to pay for itself, Obsidian can fork over the money themselves. If it won't, you're wasting backer money on something that an infinitesimal minority of players will ever get to see.

But it gets people who speak those languages to invest in the KS, whether it makes logical sense or not. And if you do one language as a stretch goal, you kinda have to do them all.

 

[Mazisky]

Lot of spanish, italians and portoguese don't even know what english is.

And even those who know it prefere the game to be translated if it has a lot of text, to the point they won't buy it if only in english; if you wanna attract those markets, you have to feature translations

 

[Rev]

Lot of spanish, italians and portoguese don't even know what english is.

Can't speak for Spanish and Portoguese people, but while it's true that Italians generally are not very proficient in English, games like PoE are of interest only to a niche of gamers, and they had to learn English to pursue their hobby since a lot of not-mainstream RPGs are not translated (both new games like Shadowruns, Tyranny or D:OS2, and old ones such as Planescape: Torment and Fallout which weren't translated in our language at release).
Now, of course if the new Uncharted or Assassin's Creed is not translated in Italian that would have a big effect on sales, but for a game like PoE? I don't really think it would.

 

[Urthor]

pretty sure Obsidian knows exactly how many people downloaded x language pack and has run the math on what languages are worth translating for. Iirc Korean and Chinese were fan translations or somesuch? And Obsidian just gave them a string list on their forums to TL.

 

[Flou]

https://www.obsidian.net/jobs/open-positions/qa/837-qa-tester-poe

Seems like they are beefing up their QA Department for Deadfire.

 

[Flou]

Lot of spanish, italians and portoguese don't even know what english is.

Can't speak for Spanish and Portoguese people, but while it's true that Italians generally are not very proficient in English, games like PoE are of interest only to a niche of gamers, and they had to learn English to pursue their hobby since a lot of not-mainstream RPGs are not translated (both new games like Shadowruns, Tyranny or D:OS2, and old ones such as Planescape: Torment and Fallout which weren't translated in our language at release).
Now, of course if the new Uncharted or Assassin's Creed is not translated in Italian that would have a big effect on sales, but for a game like PoE? I don't really think it would.

You can think of it as an way to test the market as well. Is there a demand for a product like PoE/Deadfire on said languages. They can't say for for certain until they've actually tried it, so putting translations as Figstarter goals is a quite risk free option to do it. They had quite good data from PoE to use on Deadfire and based on that data they chose which markets to chase and in which order.

If no one ever releases a crpg as a translated version on some market, how are you going to know for sure how much demand there would be for one. Not everyone will learn English even though they try and some just won't fucking bother at all. Translations don't need to make a huge impact on sales, as long as they make enough to cover the costs from translating the game and possible marketing campaign in the market, the translation has done it's job.

 

[Jimmious]

Translations cost money, but turning them into kickstarter goals is pretty stupid imo. If the translation will push enough copies to pay for itself, Obsidian can fork over the money themselves. If it won't, you're wasting backer money on something that an infinitesimal minority of players will ever get to see.

Just FYI, D:OS2 was almost review-bombed by Russians because it lacked a Russian translation on release. It got it a week later and they were ready to explode.
Translations are apparently really important for some people..

 

[AwesomeButton]

Translations cost money, but turning them into kickstarter goals is pretty stupid imo. If the translation will push enough copies to pay for itself, Obsidian can fork over the money themselves. If it won't, you're wasting backer money on something that an infinitesimal minority of players will ever get to see.

Just FYI, D:OS2 was almost review-bombed by Russians because it lacked a Russian translation on release. It got it a week later and they were ready to explode.
Translations are apparently really important for some people..

Especially to Russians who have somewhere among the worst rates of knowledge of foreign languages in the world.
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Foreign_language_skills_statistics

https://www.rbth.com/news/2015/12/03/percentage-of-rusians-who-speak-english-doubles-to-30_547189

https://www.quora.com/How-many-Russians-speak-more-than-one-language

 

[Lacrymas]

Only 7% are familiar with colloquial language and only 3% speak fluently, lol. I knew they weren't big on other languages, but 3%?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Different subject: can anyone point me to the info released by Obsidian about the factions and politics in PoE2? From what I remember, there is a contested resource, red Adra or something ("red Lyrium"), and four factions - Pirates/Princes, Vailian Republics, Natives, and one more I can't remember.

 

[Lacrymas]

AwesomeButton

Pirates, indigenous people, Royal Deadfire Company and the VTC

 

[AwesomeButton]

Thanks!

Contrary to the standard in PoE, where nations are multiracial, Rauatai is described as an "Aumaua nation". This permits the game to treat the subject of Rauatai-Aumauan nationalism-racism, which can be interesting if handled correctly.

This ties in with the subject of the thread I started a few days ago.

Another curious thing - Aumaua were one of the "exotic" races in PoE's context, and in PoE2 we'll have a chance to see them in the role typically reserved for "the fantasy race which resembles the dominant, oppressive colonial power that were western colonial powers of the 16th-19th c.". I think that's a cute turn on the fashionable trope of "white people as bad guys".

I just wish they treat the worldbuilding seriously and realistically and let it develop through its internal logic instead of trying to be didactical.

 

[Alienman]

So the Russian codexers here are really unique.