Inactive Topic Translating to User Language (in game)

DeletedUser

Guest
Proposal:
Create a new feature that allows the user to specify what language they are communicating in.

Have you Checked the DNS and PSI lists in the Archives? Is this idea similar to one that has been previously suggested?
Translation ideas have been put forward, but not this one.

Reason:
There are a lot of people that dont speak the main languages that Grepolis is played in (mainly English, French & Spanish I'm told).

Details:
(1) Registration
When registering the user has the following info to enter Player name, Password, Confirm password, Email address, World and "I accept the Terms and conditions and the Data protection regulations".

After World should be another drop-down box called "Language" with all options of what languages Grepolis is played in.

(2) First Login screen
When logging in it says Player name, Password, Stay logged in
After Password should be "Language" with all options available. Selecting a different language then the login language should ask for confirmation. Login language should be stored in cookies or use default language

(3) Second Login screen
Next screen it has "settings", clicking this should also allow you to change the language with a confirmation. Selecting a different language should log you out and change the login language via cookies.

(4) Other Worlds
From second login screen is "other worlds" which lists all worlds available. This should list ALL worlds in any language with an extra setting "Base Language: <base>". The Base language is the language it is implimented in (most would be <base> = "English")

(5) Settings - Account Settings
Add a screen under Account Settings that lists the base language of this world and the language of the user. Changing the language should ask for confirmation and if accepted return them to the login screen with login language (via cookies) being changed.

(6) Standard Features
Standard Features should be implimented in that users language (ie: not converted from base language). This would include:
* Left Panel (City Overview to Logout)
* City Overview and buildings.
* Messages (headings only).
* Reports (all features).
* Alliance (all features, excluding Internal announcements).
* Alliance Forum (standard features, excluding anything users input)
* Ranking (all features)
* Help (clicking on this will open help wiki in users language).
* Forum (clicking on this is a seperate proposal. Should forum be multi-language?)
* Premium (all features)
* Chat (standard features)
* Invite friends (all features).

The features that would need conversion would be:
* Messages (If Base<> User THEN allow "Base Language" and "User Language" options).
* Alliance - Internal Announcements. When opening is in base language. Button available "User Language". When editing a button says "Base Language". Extra buttons only if Base<>User.
* Alliance Forum (the big one)
=> Forum headers & subject headers are shown in base language (they are basically just user tags, players dont need to read them.
=> At the top of each subject is "User Language" clicking that will convert that page to the users language. User can then toggle it back to "Base Language" also.
=> Editing will allow the user to click on "Base Language" to toggle it to the base language.
* Chat - This should be in base language with a "User Language" toggle button to convert from base language.

Visual Aids:
I can provide some if people want them but it would take a while to do them all.

Balance:
It will allow players of different languages to play together whilst minimising the lag effect of this implimentation (yes I am aware of lag if poorly implimented).

Abuse Prevention:
This feature if implimented correctly should not allow abuse to occur other then verbal abuse in different languages which can already occur with a converter.

Summary:
I am aware that this would be a significant change to the game, but lets face it, it will:
* Increase the number of worlds that users can play as Grepolis can show ALL worlds and not just the ones in your language.
* Increase the number of active users that can play the game, thus increasing competition in worlds.
* Decrease the number of worlds that Grepolis needs to make (as there are requests for worlds in different languages then current).
* Increase the revenue to Grepolis as users in other languages (eg: Chinese) will be encouraged to play (with main languages being the base languages of servers).
* Increase the ability of players to interact with each other (who hasnt had difficulties chatting to players in other languages?)

The exact way of implimenting this, including how to make it easiest on the user is dependent on the code. Thus the way I am designing this is an example as I am not familiar with the back-end of the program.

Please note that as a software engineer (including project manager roles) I believe that these changes are possible without major overhalls as you would just need to replace hard coded texts with references to a procedure that converts to different languages, based on different needs. Its not an insignificant change (would take some time) but this is do-able without extensive costs.

There are also many converters available to software engineers, which I'm sure the talented people of Grepolis would be able to take advantage of.
 
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DeletedUser

Guest
So what do people think? Would you'se like to be able to play with players of other languages with no language barriers?
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Thanks Kanga. I think it would be feasible for them to do it too (depending on the coding). Often the reason why things cant get implimented is "legacy" issues related to past versions that if needing a overhall would have to wait until Grepolis 3.0 to occur if thats the case.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I did skim over parts of the idea, but so far, this looks good. I am all for it.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Thanks guys. Feel free to make any suggestions that would (a) increase support of forum users and (b) increase interest by Grepolis team.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
You do have to find people to translate Grepo to other languages
 

DeletedUser

Guest
There is a number of translation tools that is out there. If you do a google search you will see that there is heaps of them that you can use for free that converts from one language to another.
An example is: http://translation.babylon.com/english/to-french/

Most free conversions will convert the words but not the grammar. This isnt a problem for small sentances but when someone writes a large amount the person sounds like Yoda. This isnt a significant problem but I doubt that the developers could overcome grammar differences between languages (as I dont think that there are converters out there that would handle all grammar differences).

However grammar aside, the developers would be able to create a backend that would convert from one language to another without gigantic costs (it wont be simple, but it will be worth it for the developers to do this).

With my idea you will be able to convert from one language to another by stating things in settings (or elsewhere like login) and then just using a button in the game to convert (unless the programmers can do it automatically, but that could create bugs, a manual pressing of button could be the solution).

The big advantage is that everyone can play the same worlds. I am told there are non-English worlds out there that we arent playing. If there isnt this will allow the creation of non-English worlds to improve the markettability of the game, whilst allowing players to communicate with people in other languages (regardless of what the base language is: eg English).
 

DeletedUser

Guest
However many ways I look at this idea I do not like it. Grepolis is already offered in many different languages such as German, English, French, Greek, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Romanian, Swedish, Czech, Polish, Portuguese, Hungarian, Danish, Slovak, Russian, Norwegian, Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Turkish. While there are many languages not represented it would be easier to create new language servers than to implement this idea. If we only offer this server to the players we would most likely only release speed 1 worlds since they hold the most players. Or we would have to release many worlds at the same time to allow all players to join a world that has not reached capacity yet. For a while the international server was releasing two worlds at the same time since the worlds were filling up too fast. In order to release a faster speed world we also released a speed 1 world so that everyone would be able to join a new world.

Since I am an ingame mod this will create more headaches for the moderation team. It is already difficult enough dealing with messages written in languages other than English and by allowing all languages to be used will be a huge mess. In order for the moderation team to be able to mod the worlds at all the devs would also need to change the ingame mod tools to translate everything to the mods language, which would be even more coding. Right now I think its easiest to keep the system that we have.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
I would have to stand with Tanuki on this idea. While this would be great to offer another community ..I don't think we should have the .en community translating languages. That is one reason grepolis has the different languages offered for those people to play on a community in their own language.
 

DeletedUser

Guest
Umm I swear Grepolis has other servers with different languages?

I feel that these servers are pinpointed to majority language groups of people who play Grepolis. Adding this feature would benefit a small minority of players which wouldn't really benefit the whole of Grepolis as a whole, just increase the chance of a bug infection and slow Grepolis down as a whole.

As Tanuki7 pointed out it would give the devs and the InGame team headaches, and in my honest opinion it's just too much work for too little gain.

And surely this idea would cost too much in coding? (cough cough)
 

DeletedUser

Guest
yes i agree it would be a pain in the brain on the grepo team's part
 
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