Gothic 2 Native English speakers needed for G2 mod Velaya

Ondo

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Help needed: natively English-speaking translation checkers for G2 mod Velaya

Greetings all,

is anyone interested in helping to finish the English translation of Gothic 2 modification "Velaya"? Then please read on...

The authors Sektenspinner (programmer) and Schreiberling (story writer), two members of WorldOfGothic.de forums, published the original German version of Velaya modification at Christmas 2007. The mod was extremely popular with German fans of Gothic series - for a while (a month or so) it looked like the "Modifications" forum on WoG should have been renamed to "Velaya" forum, because all threads on the first page were about Velaya. You can see the modification homepage here:
http://velaya.worldofgothic.com/
(for screenshots, see 'Galerie' subpage.)

Later, Sektenspinner came to an idea to translate Velaya into English using a special wiki, programmed by himself. The translation wiki lists all strings in German version on the left side, and the textfields for translated strings on the right side. Every user of that wiki can enter new translations, and also correct the existing translations of other users (well, mostly - it also depends on the user level, which can be set higher for the users with more English knowledge). See the translation wiki here:
http://velaya.worldofgothic.com/translate/
(you can log in as a 'guest' user with a special link, and read the FAQ.) And here's the original english forum thread about the project:
http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/showthread.php?t=423581
...and here is the currently actual thread:
http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/showthread.php?t=425097

A group of WoG forum members (including me) pledged our help for this project and set on the work. Eight months later, we are roughly done. Roughly, because there are no native English speakers among us. So, if there's a native Eglish speaker, preferably with at least some knowledge of German, and with enough free time and persistent will, his help to proofread the dialogs would be appreciated.

How to start? Just go to the translation wiki and register a new username of your choice. This way you'll be able to edit the translation strings of the level 0, and commit them with level either 0 or 1. To be able to edit more strings, then ask Sektenspinner for a higher level. (For being able to send him a private message you'll probably need to register a username with WorldOfPlayers.de; or maybe just reply in this thread, and I'll inform him to look here. (EDIT: I have let him know and he'll occasionally look at this thread.) Preferably use the same username in forums and in the translation wiki.) The following web tools may also help:
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/ (of course just for a first draft of the translated sentence, not for the final translation)
http://www.dict.cc/
http://dict.leo.org/
The translated names of items probably don't need to be changed anymore, because most of them were translated automatically from English G2 scripts, (EDIT: and for many of the rest we checked in the English Gothic 2 NotR scripts,) so they are mostly in the style of Gothic game world. So only the dialogues remain for checking now.

Note that the voices are probably going to stay in German, only the subtitles will be in English instead of in German, because the original voice-recording for this mod took more than nine months. Anyway, if you'd like to contribute, please start soon. The authors would like to finish this project in a few weeks:
http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/showthread.php?t=425097&page=8
...so I hope we'll find one or two people willing to help. If not, then the released English Velaya is going to keep the warts it has now:p, although we did do our best. Good luck.
 
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I don't have the time for it and probably wouldn't be a good candidate for my lack in German skills and maybe even English, but I wish you all the best of luck and if I get the time I will certainly try it out.

Thanks for your hard work.
 
Joined
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i've heard of this very interesting mod and i am glad that there are initiatives to translate it to English. i might drop by the translation wiki but being a non-German speaker, i can hardly contribute.. then again, hats off to the original modders and those involved with the translations.
 
Joined
Jul 17, 2007
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Well, if anyone still wants to join, he's welcome. To see one of the reasons why, please go to:
http://velaya.worldofgothic.com/translate/
and click "log in as a guest", then click "view the progress and select a page".
There are 279 pages (and 100 entries on a page). A lot of entries were translated automatically from English scripts, and these mustn't be touched. A lot of manually translated strings are OK, or at least acceptable. However, each pair of discerning eyes and typing hands counts.
 
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Urk. My hard drive died. Back up and running now, but I can't access my WoG account... I see Sekti is going to compile build now, which will begood. I'll have to find my copy of G2 :)
 
Joined
Oct 29, 2006
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Velaya (& Piratenleben!) are first class Gothic 2 mods.

Good luck for the project.

My native language is german and my english skills are not so good.
 
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I see the news got around already: :) - it's done, the translation.
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9467

So, this thread is now complete. Many thanks to Alistair, who answered my call and helped the translation project. (Named as AlistairUK in the credits.) I wish everyone to enjoy the coming Christmas holidays in a good company, and if there's some free time left, also with a good game/mod. :D
 
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