Risen - Gimli, Gollum and Pratchett Confirmed

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Checked out her resume.

For some reason, I haven't really played any of the games with which she's been involved. I've tried Mirror's Edge and the Overlord demos. Nothing struck me as particularly bad or good, though I found Overlord pretty charming.

In any case, I think Gothic 1+2 had good writing, and I actually think the plots were great. I think the idea of the Colony and the "mage shield" was inspired and the camp setting was at once plausible and engaging.

Then again, I prefer plausibe low-key settings to fantastical and "over-the-top" stuff.

It's my european nature, perhaps :)
 
If you've never played overlord then your missing out. Let's just say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Her style of writing and humor in Overlord 1 and 2 remind me of her father's work. Only good things can come from having a Pratchett on this project.
 
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If you've never played overlord then your missing out. Let's just say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Her style of writing and humor in Overlord 1 and 2 remind me of her father's work. Only good things can come from having a Pratchett on this project.

I played enough of Overlord to recognize that it simply wasn't for me.

But I definitely see the appeal, and can easily understand why some might enjoy it a great deal :)
 
Maybe some of you misunderstand the "writing" part. Risen was written in German by Piranha Bytes. The English writers have to take a translated script and re-write the dialogs which don't click for an audience in their target markets. A typical example from the movies would be replacing a Baseball reference when a game is localized for the German market.
 
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Too bad you're not into strategy games more because there were some real laugh out loud moments for me in that game. You gotta love the Pratchets for what they can do with traditional fantasy cliche writing.

I never knew she worked on Mirror's Edge. I never played that more than a few minutes. I bought it because of some recomendations from friends, but after a few minutes I could see that it was just a jumper. Now that I know she was on the project I think I'll give it another shot a little later on.

Edit:
Maybe some of you misunderstand the "writing" part. Risen was written in German by Piranha Bytes. The English writers have to take a translated script and re-write the dialogs which don't click for an audience in their target markets. A typical example from the movies would be replacing a Baseball reference when a game is localized for the German market.

That's too bad. I would of loved it if she was on the writing staff. I thought that it was a little late in the game for more writing, but I saw Pratchet as a writer and hoped it was more than just a re-write for English.
 
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Maybe some of you misunderstand the "writing" part. Risen was written in German by Piranha Bytes. The English writers have to take a translated script and re-write the dialogs which don't click for an audience in their target markets. A typical example from the movies would be replacing a Baseball reference when a game is localized for the German market.

Actually, all the Risen dialogues were written pretty much from scratch by the English team. And all other translations were based on this reworked version. Possibly it was also re-translated into German after that. It's not just a simple rewrite of "baseball references".

I'd tell you more, but I'm under NDA.
 
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Actually, all the Risen dialogues were written pretty much from scratch by the English team.

Hm, so this might result in a different gaming experience - one that differs from the one in those markets which used the translated version ?

I wonder why they did it ?
 
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You know I messed up when I wrote "rewrite for English". I meant to write translate, but I guess it was closer to the truth to say rewrite.

I like that better with Pratchet on the staff, but still like Alrik said I wonder why they did that?

Damn you NDA!!! ;)
 
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The English writers have to take a translated script and re-write the dialogs which don't click for an audience in their target markets. A typical example from the movies would be replacing a Baseball reference when a game is localized for the German market.

This is called "Localization". Localization is more than just Translation, as explained by Gorath above.
 
Actually, all the Risen dialogues were written pretty much from scratch by the English team. And all other translations were based on this reworked version. Possibly it was also re-translated into German after that. It's not just a simple rewrite of "baseball references".

Hmm I am not sure how I feel about that... The concern of a differing experience per
version is I think valid and that doesn't sound too nice.

We'll just have to wait and see I guess but I am one of those that actually liked PB's
dialogs in the first 2 games. They may have lost something in translation but I found
them to be generally funny and quite in character, part of the atmosphere really and
that is one of the main things that drew me to the series. I would hate to see it diluted
by a different writer team's viewpoint...
 
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Hm, so this might result in a different gaming experience - one that differs from the one in those markets which used the translated version ?

As far as I know, all markets, maybe aside from the German one (although I'm not sure about this one either), will use the reworked dialogues. And in my opinion they're much better.
 
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Actually, all the Risen dialogues were written pretty much from scratch by the English team. And all other translations were based on this reworked version. Possibly it was also re-translated into German after that. It's not just a simple rewrite of "baseball references".

I'd tell you more, but I'm under NDA.

Of course I believe you, but a re-translation into German is very, very unlikely because by this the game would lose its local German atmosphere. PB would hardly agree to this, and it wouldn't make sense because it's what made the Gothics successful in Germany.

Here is a translated quote directly from the horse's mouth. Brand manager Oberlerchner said in this video interview:
"... so we sat an international author team on it who have really reworked all dialogs. It went as far as renaming characters, ... "

Of course these marketing guys are trained in bending the truth, so I'm not saying it's 100% correct and complete info.


edit:
It would be normal if all other locas were based upon the English version.
 
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I've seen both versions and I very much prefer the reworked dialogues, although I cannot share any details, of course. To me, the original version was rather bland. You might disagree, of course.
 
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I've seen both versions and I very much prefer the reworked dialogues, although I cannot share any details, of course. To me, the original version was rather bland. You might disagree, of course.

I'm jealous :). How is it that you've already seen both versions?
 
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I'm translating the game into Polish. Anyway, I can't really talk about any details. I suppose I'll be able to post more about my thoughts on the English localization when it's out.
 
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I'm translating the game into Polish. Anyway, I can't really talk about any details. I suppose I'll be able to post more about my thoughts on the English localization when it's out.

Okay, then it's clear you have to remain silent. Thanks for posting what you can. :)
 
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Well, all of the stuff that I posted (aside from the fact that I like the reworked version more than the original) can be found in various interviews etc. around the net.
 
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Just curious...Why would they feel the need to "rework" it? Why wouldn't the devs want people of all nationalities to experience the same story?
 
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I doubt it was necessary to change the main story. Details can be "too German" to make the same impression on people from other cultures. Or things simply don't work at all (see the baseball jokes example). Sometimes names or phrases canbe insulting in other languages. For example an NPC named "Dick" got a different name in the English version.
 
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