Maybe new problems with French version
 

One of your player had 2 problems with the french version:

First there is problem with the USNI database for Surface to air missile : no data are diplayed:
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6545/usni21me.png
http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4919/usni34be.png

on peut verifier dans le "weapon loadout" du fig7:

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6955/usni49ns.png

And for the goals doctrine , the THEN key word is misisng or maybe there is a translation error.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/6...ctrine17rq.jpg

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/8906/doctrine25ww.jpg

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1717/doctrine37rz.jpg

DW is a very complex piece of software, especially in terms of functional operation.

Jamie, these things need to be done by people who know what they are doing.

Some guys from a gaming company who are multilingual who messed around for a few days isn't good enough.

The good news is that we can always patch! :)

Cheers,
David

you're right Luftwolf

it's not a secret to tell we are not very happy with the content of the FR release, the feedback from new comers is poor in term of customer satisfaction.

And why does it allways happen to me???:hmm:

(MSG, pourquoi "maybe" ? c'est plutot certain non ?)



I guess European versions will need quite a lot of patching, guys...that for sure, oh man....:shifty:

Thank you for collecting these issues, MSGalileo - that's exactly what we need. Same goes for those of you who have the German version.

As LW said, we have over 350,000 localized words in DW French and German that had to be re-integrated. Given that we are fluent in neither German or French, it was difficult to test the game its entirety. We appreciate your understanding, however, and ask that you continue to list any issues that you may find in the French or German version of DW.

Please continue to add any additional defects found in this thread (or PM them to me directly).

Thank you for your support!

Ok Jamie

As I said above, the FR release is not satisfying the new comers (and customers).

This game is a real simulation (I think everyone here will agree) and we like its depth and realism.

But like any other 'serious' simulation, it requires a real learning stage with serious materials and support.

Today, with the FR release (guess it's the same for EU) it's almost impossible for some people to understand DW and think they didn't get what they paid for and feel they have a poor experience with the game and an issue with the packaging itself.

#1 - Half of the game is translated (messages). Buttons are still in english, voices too. Same for the extra cd content (hopefuly vidéos have french subtitles). Some of the missions are still in english.

#2 - The manual is really too short. Around 100 pages, I had a chance to read it and it's just summary you know, one can simply can't learn the game mechanisms with it. So they totally rely on the community.

I'm worried about all of this just because we offered to SCS and Battlefront a year ago a full translation of the english manual but this wasn't allowed at this time by Battlefront, reason a EU release was already scheduled. So our work wasn't (politely) required even if 50% was already completed, and consider that half of our team was made of active/retired of the french military/navy. So we answered ok, and see where we are today and where we could have been. :-?

I know it's too late to change things now, I'm not writting this just to complain but to give a feedback to you, let's say it's my duty as a community 'leader'.

Simulations like DW are in niche. The pool of players (and customers) is naturally limited imo. I think it's publicly accepted and known that a significant part of those customers are in EU, and I guess this is why SCS decided a EU release. So why is the packaging inferior to the US release ? For simulations like DW, it is a major critiera imho. I don't know if SCS was in the loop of the content decision but I think for a next release it should be looked very closely.

Anyway, we've resumed our work on the manual translation and we'll try to finish asap in the interest of the people. Next time, please... please feel free to stop by and rely on the communities with your most dedicated fans and supporters... Think Mille-Sabords was borned back in end of 2001 for Sub Command :)

Hi Phullbrick,

Was not our call. We were paid an upfront royalty to grant exlusive license of DW to a foreign publisher. Packaging, localization, marketing, and media replication (CDs) are all handled with that intrinsic exclusivity.

Do I think BlackBean should have used the community to localize DW?
Yup. We created the localization kit in such a way that ANYONE could have done it. It was well organized in a series of spreadsheets and was extremely clear as to where the localized text needed to be entered. Anyone with a naval (or even military) background could have done a more than competant job on it.

Did they ask us for our opinion?
Nope. They had translators that they worked with in the past and I am assuming that is who did the French translation of DW.

With that said, we were able to get BlackBean hire the same German translator who translated FC and SC, so I think you'll see that the German translation is far more "understandable" and consistent throughout. We appreciate them doing that as we enjoy working with that translator very much.

In a perfect world, I would have liked for SCS to have been a little more involved in the localization process, but with that involvement comes additional cost and as you said it is a "niche" product and we need to be conscious of those types of decisions.

Thanks for your feedback, I appreciate your viewpoints.

Being in the airline industry for 15 y and as a sales manager now with a marketing experience I know what a budget and a 'perfect world' mean.

What I didn't know was the terms of the contract with a publisher in your industry ;) Now I know.

From the 'gamer' point of view I just can hope you'll be (scs) more involved in your next release in EU cause I believe a parent always takes care (better) of his own children ;)

Thanks for your interest and your answer Jamie. :up:

Phull'

Nice seeing people are more concerned about my little problems than myself am...:cool:

(I handle DW perfectly, it seems to me. Having played SC, SCX and SCXIIc helps a great deal I guess....I do have trouble with ffg's TMA, but I guess no translation will ever fix that :roll:...would be great to have a gamemod to make me a genius in TMA, but perhaps, since God wouldn't listen to my prayers, perhaps Santa will :p )

I still wish to remind people that might complain of these little errors that Sona has done great job with this masterpiece (can we still call it a sim?), no one should have anything to complain of to them...the blame goes to the people that have "translated" it.

Again, :up: :smug: :know: :sunny:

Personally from seeing how it has gone and with my limited exchanges with BlackBean over the missions I don't blame SCS I lay the blame at BlackBean's door.

Might be nothing but I had a bad gut feel about them from the day Davide or whatever his name in e-mailed me. I think they did somethings on the cheap.

Xabba, I've learned something from the last 4 years when I've been in touch (for simulation purpose) with companies like Ubisoft, EA France and other smaller : passion no longer exist.

I mean when I remember the era of companies like Microprose, there was passion and 'love' for their products. Remember we had fantastic packaging, nice products even if they knew they could'nt sell large numbers of boxes because at this time, there was less players.

Today when you call one of those big editors, you talk with a product manager who just came out from his business school and doesn't know much about his own games portfolio. Most of them do not even play.

So how do you expect someone to sell and promote something he doesn't really know (and care ?). They just follow business models and return on investment.

Yeah passion... is dead and all is about money. :hmm:

When you want things to be done correctly, it's better to do it by yourself (as much as you can/possible). So in a perfect world, SCS would be able to control everyting from A to Z I guess, and I'm pretty sure things would be done better. ;) Hopefully we still have the luck to speak directly with Jamie & SCS and to give our feedback. I thank them for this :)

ps : The last guy who gave him a strong impression was from Tesseractions.

Yup, he is called Davide Bordegoni, mailed me to...:-?

They don't love their products of course, because they dont want to; but we do love em, and that is the important part...
Perhaps that is why we waited till JULY 2006 to get our copies, and didnt complain...
Is it acceptable to have suffered such a long wait to get...what? A version incompatible with US version, with mods such as LWAMI, and most other stuff. US official patches wont work, I guess...We will have to do a FRENCH version of all mods (just give a look at Bill's site to see all the material there will be to translate to have roughly equal quality versions).

LWAMI has been "adapted" for our versions, thank you Santa (:roll: ).



Besides, I discovered my BOMBS files in USNI browser is empty...it opens, but is empty...make that 3 "holes" in the game...

[yes Goldorak, I will spare it]

You could have spared the last sentence ssbn92 :down:

I don't understand why there should be a German and France version altogether. :cool:
There is no Swedish, Finnish, Polish, Gr eeck or Dutch version, we use the US version and have a lot of fun.

Because believe it or not Fish, there are a lot of people, in France, in Germany even in Italy who will not buy a complex simulation if its all in english.
I can't blame them, can you ?
If i recall correctly when Falcon 4 was published, in italy we had the italian version (which means that all the documentation including the 500+ printed manual were in italian).
Same thing goes for the french and german version.

Ps: the world doesn't speak only english, so it is natural to localize software/manuals.