Darkest greetings Underlord,
Back once more for another insight into the upcoming Patch 1.5? Well you’re right on time! Our dedicated engineers are just putting the finishing touches on a somewhat small but no less significant undertaking, if we do say so ourselves. So today we’re going to take a brief look at the upcoming community translation features in Patch 1.5.
What is Community Translation?
Community translation is where fans put their collective heads together and bring a product from its native language into their own, so that others who are not so savvy in the complexities of other languages can also enjoy the experience.
In short it will allow dedicated multilingual fans to share their experience of WFTO with others by translating the game. Though this has been done before with WFTO (looking in particular at the incredible Japanese translation!) it has previously been achieved through ad hoc methods which could cause issues in the long run.
So What’s Changing?
Instead of forcing players to go the roundabout route of directly translating and modifying our game files, we’re now implementing a more robust system:
- We will be providing templates for translators to fill out. These will be similar to our existing translation files, so existing translations should not be majorly affected.
- These templates can then be dropped into the game files and uploaded to the Steam Workshop.
- This means that translation files can be downloaded in a one-click process via the Workshop.
- They will then be added to the Options menu’s Language list, where they will become a selectable language.
- We will be providing concise updates for translators to use whenever we make changes to the game text. So you’ll always be ahead of the curve when new content releases!
- To centralise all this information we’ll be updating our forums and Knowledge Base to contain all the tools you’ll need to create and keep translation files up to date.
- To further support unofficial translations we may consider asking dedicated teams to provide translations for our Steam store pages, which would direct players of a particular language to download the community translation from the Workshop.
Why is This an Important Feature?
One of the problems of being a relatively small indie developer working on your very first title – especially when that title is as narrative, text and speech heavy as WFTO – is that you have to make very strict choices on where you invest your resources.
Unfortunately translation of games is extremely expensive and in many cases it becomes difficult for us to justify the investment, especially so far after launch when the greatest portion of sales are behind us. This presents a double whammy as we’re very keen on updating the game with new features and content (just like this patch!), but this new content may not be translated into as many languages as we’d like.
Now our dedicated Aussie fans can bring you the authentic fair dinkum Australian Edition!
As a developer we want to see the game reach as many potential fans as possible, and it’s much to our regret that we can’t finance the official translation into all the languages we would like. As you may know we also had to drop several languages from our official translations after launch, as these were originally funded by our physical distribution partner, and their budget did not support post-release content.
Supporting community translations helps both us and our fans by giving the community the tools to better address these issues.
Get in Touch!
If you’re a dedicated fan, or a member of an interested translation team, please get in touch via our forums! We’d love to work with you to bring WFTO to your language.
Crucible Unit Preview: Mysteries of the Arcane
There are those that might say this update was a little too text heavy, but fear not we have more of the game-changing features of Patch 1.5 coming to you next Monday, with a further look into Crucible mode!
In the meantime we’ll leave you with this cheerful lot – our new arcane brethren! Though it seems one of them has slipped in unnoticed…
Someone’s been gorging on spellbooks.
Cheers!
– Brightrock Games Team
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Left the game shortly after release..tried again and its come a long way..one thing is critical, as many DK fans are out there, yourselves included…I hope and think its time…shall it be written..release mod tools.. for the sake of keeping our old friend Dungeon Keeper alive.. make the cash first of course. But when sales are at a minimal..open this baby up and let community bring out our beloved reaper.