5 Languages Minimum at Open Beta Launch of Illuvium

[gentle hazel]

If it isnt already intended I believe that on Open Beta Launch everything in all 3 of our games should already be translated into at least French/Spanish/German/Philippines (and perhaps one or two other common languages in our community or in our target audience such as Russian or Chinese)

This may require hiring a single individual to manage all of this. This individual would likely need to manage paying 2 translators from each of the different languages and complete this mission.

Optional This hire could then stay onboard to manage translation of our website and all public facing communication (Perhaps new language mailing lists, etc.) (Perhaps managing adding of additional languages post launch on top of those at launch)

FAQ

• What if Illuvium does poorly on Launch and didnt really need the added languages?

• If Illuvium fails we have larger issues, we should prepare for success rather than preparing to fail!

• Won't this add dev time and costs?

• Since its a new hire, this will take minimal time out of any other devs work (apart from integrating the additional languages and having a toggle in settings for different languages) and imo its worth it. Cost wise imo this can be accomplished for under $100k whilst massively increasing our potential playerbase.

Look forward to the thoughts of others in the coming discussion

[warm wyvern]

No way i'm supporting anything that could be used by the team as an excuse to delay even more than it's already been. 17 days before Q3 ends, where is PvP?
Let's prioritize on what matters and stop investing precious time and thoughts to "cool add-ons" like this or Illuvium Beyond.

[hasty yew]

except that a game that wants to be global can only be in English! the release if the dates are maintained and respected is soon and they must prepare for success now and not when it is too late. it's much more important and useful than you think unlike JPEGs

[gentle hazel]

respect the Copy/Paste

[hasty yew]

Sorry ! 😂

[warm wyvern]

they already stated multiple times and shown by their actions that mass adoption is not short-mid term goal. They also stated that at launch, marketing efforts would be minimal and that they're not looking for a big boom effect (like most web2 games). So preparing multi-language and it's ramifications doesn't seem a priority to me. Also a lot of content creators will probably be very happy of having that easy free content and explain the game on their native language.

[hasty yew]

I agree but I think it’s a serious mistake! put a game in German and tell me if you like playing it without understanding anything, how do you want to attract players from all over the world in these conditions if you don't understand what you're doing? this is essential that it is for the short medium and long term even if no marketing effort is made in this direction at launch it is vital to project it that as many players as possible can play and enjoy playing

[warm wyvern]

The way i see it is: We're gonna have a small playerbase for at least the 1st year. People who just can't understand a single word of english in the crypto-space are rare, even though i know that a lot of french and asian people struggle with it. So assuming something like what... 10k monthly users... out of which maybe 1k can't understand english good enough to play... are we willing to pay 100$/user to convert them? that seems very expensive.

And i emphasize on my initial point. My biggest fear is this proposal ending up being one more excuse for launch to be delayed. Not the first time Aaron blames the community for "adding more work".

[hasty yew]

in any case if they don't meet the deadline they will find an excuse to justify it whether it's that or something else anyway if they can't meet them they will find something to blame us for? 😂👌

[warm wyvern]

Fair 😂

[regal pasture]

I got a friend from Brazil, with a good portfolio(Elden ring included) if there is room for him. The best Brazilian Portuguese can get.

[jaunty jacinth]

I've pinged Florian to see if I'm way off base, but I don't think its as easy or as simple as you put it here. So you change the language. How much longer is some sentence in the UI now? Does it fit in the box anymore? Does it look ok or janky? You're talking going through the entire games, website, UIs and changing this for 6 different languages whos words are different lengths.

Its not just a translator working on this

Its Web, UI/UX, game design, QA... probably more I'm not even thinking of. @sour axle? Any thoughts on the if this is less difficult than I'm thinking

Not saying this is a bad idea at all either, I think more language support is a good idea. Maybe just not at open beta.

our current discord demographic past 28days is 35% english only speaking countries.

That doesnt break down the smaller % of english only ones part of the 43%

And this only shows users who opted into analytics

[manic frigate]

Yeah, I absolutly believe that it would be beneficial to have the game translated, but I wouldn't want the release of open beta to hinge on the completion of the translations.

In the last company I worked for managing the translation of content was part of my job, and while I would have to see the extent of the in-game text to know for sure, there is little chance the translations could be done in 3 months.

The hiring for both the position Vet suggests and the translators could take 1-2 months alone let alone the work of actually translating, editing and then adjusting in-game visuals to accommodate it. You could go with a translation company but those are vastly more expensive than hiring translators on freelance sites.

Again, I think this is a great idea and something that should eventually be done, but I don't think it should be required to be done for us to release Open Beta.

[sour axle]

I'm in agreement that this would be of benefit, and we should work towards providing Multi-language Support both In-Game & within the WebApps.

Rich is correct however, it's a huge body of work.

We are already using a Content Management System (CMS) to manage some Web Content (areas such as the News Hub), this same tech is often used to offer language options, so definitely something we can begin working towards post Open Beta.

[sour axle]

Yes I've also worked on projects whereby we offered multiple languages and it's rough.

[gentle hazel]

To be Clear:

I always assumed that Illuvium would Launch w multiple languages on launch and when chatting w @hasty yew in another discussion I even mentioned that: #1146665567206506537 message but then received a DM from someone in the community informing me that they had heard that wouldn't be the case and that there would be only English on Launch.

This surprised me and lead to me to share this as an Idea in #1020759212172775464

[gentle hazel]

cant disagree here

if launch hinges on this then I am against this idea

if its doable without delay (in parallel to what we are already doing) or implementable shortly after launch (with work likely beginning on this prior to launch in parallel to other work without slowing other work) then I am for this idea

[gentle hazel]

v good points ser

[sick aurora]

If multi-language support wasn't already on the team's radar and roadmap, I would be shocked and disappointed.

This highlights one of the downsides of a DAO in my opinion. The community has great roadmap ideas, but so does the team (obviously). How do we better align in general and prevent the DAO from worrying about things that are already mapped out?

[buoyant cloud]

From experience I have to agree with Rich. It's a lot more work than what it seems on the surface. Design team has to be included again and there is more dev work across the board probably.

We are launching in beta and I think having only one language is good enough.

Should we add it in in the future? We should.
Do we have more important things to focus on now? We certainly do.

One thing to also think about. It's not a one time thing. There will constantly be new content added. Changes to current content and what not. All of that has to be translated as well.

[sour axle]

Spot on

[graceful breach]

Games released by new studios pretty frequently tackle translation as a post-launch activity - This allows for reasonable analysis of where players are, what languages are most needed for translation based on actual player numbers, and a more robust cost-benefit analysis of hiring for or outsourcing that translation.

That's not to say we need to follow suit, but there is definitely benefit in doing some analysis of where downloads for our betas are coming from, and which languages would be tackled.

[gentle hazel]

I mean by raising it like this we quickly get clarification and move on

[hallow pendant]

I'm sure we'll need it in the future.
The Japanese gaming market is so huge, I think many companies will release blockchain games in the future!
Without Japanese language games at that time, we would not be able to compete very well!
Many Japanese do not play non-Japanese games

Some of us are helping to translate the iluvidata site into Japanese!
We have a lot in common and can share information if needed.
And if you have any English texts that need to be translated, please send them to us and we can translate them for you.
The problem is that our work is very slow. hahaha🤣
But everyone works for free.

@hexed tendon
The arena is almost complete, need OW and Zero text!

Not related to this issue, but Japanese will not be able to trade on Binance Global from December
It will be very difficult to buy ILV
If ILV is added to the Japanese exchanges, I think it will attract Japanese users!
Binance has said that they would like to allow about 100 global stocks to be traded on the Japanese market in the future, and if ILV is among them, that would be great!

[sick aurora]

DAO is almost completely in the dark for game dev roadmap. We have what we see in the betas released a couple months ago (that didn't include everything that had already been developed at that point), leaks of mostly graphics, interviews from Kieran, and tidbits picked up from the team in discord.

It makes it hard to make any serious suggestions. Best option really is to just open a ticket with suggestions and let the team decide how/if it fits into their plans and adjust that accordingly if many people make the same requests. Exception would be if it's truly something novel and major that they were unlikely to have thought of.

[velvet meadow]

Can I volunteer to be the Chinese translator lol

[sour axle]

This is something I'd love to see change, I can say it's quite tough right now as everyone is at capacity working towards Open Beta

I genuinely believe once these huge milestones have launched relevant team members will have more time for Blogs, AMAs, and engaging more frequntly in the public channels

[torn lintel]

Not needed for open beta. For release I could see it. Let's first prove that the whole thing works.

[hexed tendon]

Speaking from experience, translating to one language is difficult especially since it will affect UI/UX but it is a worthy endeavor considering how big the paying and playing market is for these three countries: Chine, Japan, and Korea. Thankfully for Philippines, english is an official language and does not need translation to its native language 🙂

[hallow pendant]

Yes I agree!
I think we need all three of these countries in the future, the one thing they have in common is that they don't play English games very well!
Mobile gaming is also thriving and people are willing to spend large amounts of money.
But right now I think we should release PVP first.
I think it would be better to organize regular weekly competitions to attract as many users as possible.

[hexed tendon]

Agree 100%. Language support will be scoped out for sure. Just have to allow the team to get the prio items done and introduce these in a future update.

[brazen kestrel]

Language support isn't just about translating in-game text.
You'd also be required to have customer support for these languages, and probably marketing as well (wouldn't be much point in translating a game then not market it to that specific audience).
This would add additional strain on resources, and probably not something that should be done this early.
Once the game is out, deemed stable and secure enough for a bigger audience, sure.
At launch of open beta, no that's far too early.

[sick aurora]

Appreciate that, it's a great long-term goal and I just hope you didn't take that as a complaint. We shouldn't really expect to get more visibility into the studio at this point, it just is what it is for now...more important things for you guys to work on!

[regal pasture]

Nintendo only started translated it's games to Brazilian Portuguese recently, and even so the cartoons were always in Portuguese and that's how pokemon makes a huge success now, children back then are now young adults and buy a lot of things related to pokemon

[umbral rapids]

When I played a bit in harvest, there was usually someone who spoke English and a third or even fourth language. They often helped those who couldn't speak English.
People can team up in parties and help.
This may curb the downside that could occur until such time as translation happens.

[buoyant cloud]

One more thing to add. If we want more languages every update will take longer to get it live as it first needs to be translated. We don’t need that now.

[sick aurora]

It's a good point, so if an in-game chat is part of the release or at least near-term roadmap, it would help people communicate in their native language and learn from those who speak both. I believe this is in the plans already?

[umbral rapids]

That could be it. Or just discord itself.

[hasty yew]

I agree with all the points you just mentioned, but on the other hand, how do you expect us to guess if no one clearly tells us what's on your roadmap and at what stage you are? Wouldn't it be possible to have a team member who also serves as a mediator with the community to provide more details on what is planned in terms of development and what remains to be done to allow us to make more interesting proposals in the future? Furthermore, an important point has been raised here... everything will be in English at launch... okay, but in that case, would it be possible to add a built-in general chat directly in the game to be able to talk with our friends, add them, etc.? Is it possible and is it difficult to create such a text interface to allow players to play and have fun while chatting without a world that feels too empty or where boredom sets in faster than we think after several consecutive runs?

[jaunty jacinth]

I think this is what many of us do to the extent we can (with CCs giving updates, Nick, Julien, Johnny) , also this is where the sub councils help. Since the sub-councils are NDA'd they have more access to info general public may not. So for proposals thats where the community sub council can help. As for the text chat I know some things were being tested but not sure the extent of it bein1g in Open Beta will need to follow up on that.

[night dagger]

Good idea and with AI it should be a breeze getting at least subtitles for different languages.

[weary marten]

I try to do translations of illuvium content as much as I can in my spare time and it is a LOT more work than you might think. I would love for the game to have multiple languages on launch but I rather see the team work on it post launch.

[sterile oyster]

At least Chinese version should be there. I am glad to contribute that the Chinese version translation, given my decades of writing career.

[sterile oyster]

Chinese/Japanese gaming market is very big, it will be great to have these two translations. Given that it is bear market, it is better to recuirt some qualified writers who have the experience (writing experience, writer-level, plus WEB3/gaming experience) to prepare the translation. I mentioned this issue like two years ago in the Chinese community. No one reply to this. Very glad to see this proposal. I would like to contribute my experience (15 years' writing career in Chinese, 3+ years in Crypto, 2+ years in DAO, 3+ years in WEB3 gaming)

[solemn pilot]

Remember Real Audio Player? (I'm showing my age here)

I worked on the team that localised that application into several languages. It's a massive job and it normally gets outsourced to specialised localisation firms.

First you have to export all the code into tools (customised MS Word etc) and separate all the code from the content.

You then have technical translators that needs to translate all the content into the language of choice. They can’t be regular translators, they have to know which terms to translate verbatim and which to leave in English for tech implementations.

Then for every language, you have to resize all the UI and dialogue boxes because visually they are all designed for English. Small phrases in English could be long phrases in Spanish.

The roman languages were easy, when you got to the double byte languages (Chinese / Japanese) the resizing efforts got a little hairy.

I doubt it's something the illuvium team will do themselves, there are localisation firms that specialise in this.