It's not the voice acting as such that is being complained about, but all the cut dialog. I don't remember who wrote it where, but supposedly the Polish voices.bif is 627MB whereas the UK one is 478MB (I know the latter is correct), i.e. about 24% less!
What is up with posting a preview based on an hour's play 4 days after it was released? What could you hope to bring to the table when full fledge reviews are already available?
Edit: After finishing the preview this man wasted his time both with the game and writing a worthless article.
Absolutely, I watch plenty of subtitled movies too. This is not what I was talking about however, please reread my post. We know that ~ 25% of the initial script has been cut and that the cuts are random and uneven. So in a situation that dialogues are exchanged fairly rapidly, a cutscene for example, the length of the animation (which is cut as well) that you watch on your screen would be too short, don't you think?
That's why I guessed that a subtitles-only mod would work properly only with the Polish version (the animations are uncut in this one).
@KazikluBey I think it would be also interesting to compare the total size of the UK and Polish versions.
I presume you mean gibibytes (1024^3 bytes) and not gigabytes (1000^3 bytes). My The Witcher directory is about 7.9 GiB and my voices_3_00.bif is 478 MiB.
So if the above figures are correct that would mean that there is a difference of 8.5-7.9= 600MB between the UK and Polish versions. Subtract 627-478=149MB (the difference in the voice files) and you're left with 451MB of missing content (other than dialogues).
zima98, check both the left and right numbers in your properties sheet and post them both if you please.
I wonder if all the cutscenes are in one file as well, then the Mod would require the Polish language dialog and cutscene files and the English text file.
I guess with the cutscenes and the dialog were talking about at least a gig for the Mod, the main thing woudl be to get an Uncut English dialog text file.
Does the Polish version have English subtitle choice?
I came across another interesting fact. There is a setting in the ini
Language=FinalEnglish_Short
I wouldn't be surprised if the devs have already thought about the matter beforehand. In that case, making such a mod would be as simple as replacing some files. The initial unedited script might even be hidden somewhere in the retail version.
A thing one has to remember is that ANY English text translated to Polish ends up lengthened by a considerable degree, perhaps due to immanent differences between the languages. As for the opposite direction, I know of a good Polish big-scale poem "Pan Tadeusz", which in the original version maintains a consistent 13-syllabic verse, while the verses are shorter in English (see here: http://www.antoranz.net/BIBLIOTEKA/PT051225/PanTad-eng/PT-books/BOOK01.HTM ) - if it's of any indication here ;-)
If it weren't for the forum translations I doubt I would really have noticed outside of a few disjointed dialogs but if the post containing the fan-translation examples are anything to go by then a lot of flavor and sometimes even meaning is lost in the English version of the game.
A thing one has to remember is that ANY English text translated to Polish ends up lengthened by a considerable degree, perhaps due to immanent differences between the languages. As for the opposite direction, I know of a good Polish big-scale poem "Pan Tadeusz", which in the original version maintains a consistent 13-syllabic verse, while the verses are shorter in English (see here: http://www.antoranz.net/BIBLIOTEKA/PT051225/PanTad-eng/PT-books/BOOK01.HTM ) - if it's of any indication here ;-)
E:Lithuania, my country! You are as good health
P: Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! Ty jesteś jak zdrowie
E: How much one should prize you, he only can tell
P: Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie
*
E: Holy Virgin who shelters our bright Częstochowa
P: Panno święta, co jasnej bronisz Częstochowy
E: And shines in Ostra Brama! You, who yet watch over
P: I w ostrej świecis Bramie! Ty, co gród zamkowy
I don't think English verses are shorter. Btw. good translation, it catches rythm of 13-syllabic poem and at first look translator doesn't miss/cut words in translation.
Well, the number of syllables is USUALLY lower, so I guess the number of letters should also be lower in the long run - but of course you're right about the examples.
I suddenly lost all interest in either discussing or playing The Witcher. I know I'll be missing on a great game but I just want the full experience, so I'm not going to bother until if and when a proper mod is made. Not to mention that I don't particularly enjoy being treated like an idiot, and all this pr bs I have been hearing lately has absolutely no effect on me (no to anyone else who is able to read I would presume).
It does make things difficult to say the least, at first I wanted to blame the editor at atari but I have come to realize that it was probably just a person whom got the job saying, "Cut 25% of the dialog, we can't afford it, No wait make that 40%, I got to take my family on a ski trip for the holidays.".
Hence, atari = asshats!
Seems to only solution is to get the original English dialog file from the devs.