Is WoW a positive or negative for future MMORPGs?

[Lyenae]

Originally Posted by Vaclav

.Hell, my father in his retirement works more hours a week on his hobbies than he ever did at his real job.
.

MMO's are more a hobby than a game. My goal is to build a great character, on all levels. Stats, gear, experience, social hierarchy. It takes time, just like assembling/paining a model car from a hobby store. Sure, you can buy one that looks real nice at the toy section of Walmart, but it's just not the same.

The finished product is full of memories. Every level, every piece of gear, has its own story to tell.

WoW just feels more like going to "Plaster Fun Time" than it does making a model car.

[Luthair]

Originally Posted by Deris

One thing you all completely fucking forget (Schatze) is the amount of localization that has to go into each and every patch to seamlessly (or attempt to) roll out all of these patches all at once in 6? Languages.

And by all accounts WoW's localized versions have set the bar for games.

Localization is trivial, how long do you think it takes a bilingual person to translate a paragraph?

Originally Posted by Tancred

How many of the 500 servers are affected by queues? A handful of US ones? Sure it must suck but the VAST majority of people are either (a) unaffected or (b) clever enough to move to a stable server. Yeah, maybe it could have been handled better but it wasn't sufficently bad to stop people playing - they just pony up the subs and complain all the louder.
But as I say it's never affected me so all my comments refer only to the content of the game.

And it took how long to get there? (I see vaclav already pointed out many servers still have them)

[Cuppycake]

My opinion is that WoW made a game that's fun to play even if you don't have tons of spare hours a week to play it. That's why I enjoy the game (pre-60) is because there is lots to do and its casual friendly.

I say that if any game is going to take a step forward and make the game viable to more people, people who have lives that permit them from LIVING in the game...that its a step in the right direction IMO. I don't think WoW is perfect, I think its far from it. I do think that if games in the future try to appeal to more people and make the game playable without allakhazam by your side to figure out quests, more power to 'em.

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by Luthair

Localization is trivial, how long do you think it takes a bilingual person to translate a paragraph?

If it's so trivial, why is Blizzard the first MMOG company to do it properly?
Go ask the French DAoC or EQ players how well Mythic or SOE managed it, for example.

[Luthair]

Originally Posted by Itzena

If it's so trivial, why is Blizzard the first MMOG company to do it properly?
Go ask the French DAoC or EQ players how well Mythic or SOE managed it, for example.

Probably the same reason that many user's manuals from Korea & China are in engrish, they weren't using people who are fluent speakers.

[Digo]

I get the feeling you don't work in software development, otherwise you'd realize how non-trivial localization really is.

[Vaclav]

Originally Posted by Digo

I get the feeling you don't work in software development, otherwise you'd realize how non-trivial localization really is.

I think that really depends strongly on the TYPE of software development you're in.

Entertainment software - not so much in the two projects I did that involved localization way back - Darklands (initially German - localized to English) and UFO (AKA X-Com - localized from the Queen's English to American English).

It doesn't change the programming significantly (especially these days) - and most entertainment developers don't prioritize catching mistranslations and such. People read a tooltip once or twice before they figure something out and slightly broken grammar or whatever doesn't really harm anyone.

That said in most productive software development I'm sure it's almost life and death to get the localizations perfect.

[Ukerric]

Originally Posted by Luthair

Localization is trivial, how long do you think it takes a bilingual person to translate a paragraph?

It depends. Correctly, or babelfishly?

Being bilingual isn't enough. You also need to know the subject matter being adressed (or at least have an idea of it) to do the job correctly.

In the french version of the game, there's still this Edgemaster's Gauntlet, which is translated as "Gantelet du Maître des Confins". Gantelet is Gauntlet, Maître is master, Confins is french for edge.

As in land's edge, not weapon's edge. The translation is perfectly correct. Taken out of context. Of course, if you look at the weapon, you do realise the translation falls flat on its face; the edge is clearly a weapon's edge, considering the gauntlet boosts your skill in all edged weapons.

It's only an example of the problems of translation. Then you do have problems of culture. One shape, one color, means something for you, and something different to a japanese person. Localisation of a product is something that's far, far more tricky than merely translating word by word.

(still, Blizzard has done one of the best jobs in a MMO to date. Far better than the hideous butchery that SOE did with EQ2)

[Man0warr]

Localization is one of the reasons Blizzard has done so well on their games overseas, they are the best at it as far as game companies go.

[Furism]

Originally Posted by Luthair

Localization is trivial, how long do you think it takes a bilingual person to translate a paragraph?

Clearly, you never translated shit. I did a lot of translation for EQ (English>French), and trust me, I don't want to do something like that ever again. Ever. For each fucking term you need to translate, you need to check with a glossary just for consistency. Then you need to make sure what you translated made sense, then you need to have somebody else make sure it makes sense.

Being bilingual (I'm far from being bilingual, but still) people can be crappy translators. It takes a lot of skill to be a good translator. A good translator can make, I believe, 10 000 words/week or something.

[Cybsled]

No company worth it's salt just translates anyways...they call it localization for a reason. It involves translating the words, swapping new words in if there isnt a good translation for it in the language, changing sentance structure, and altering the material slightly if it doesnt convey the same meaning to another culture (fo shizzle might be funny to Americans who know it, but it would probably not make sense to someone in China or Germany). You just can't shove shit into babblefish and have it spit out a perfectly translated work.