Implementation of Multiple Language Options

[gritty tusk]

Summary:

This proposal recommends that the DAO and the team seek full quotations for the cost and implementation timeline of adding multiple language options to all Illuvium games.

Rationale:

Obtaining quotations for this initiative is low-cost and can be efficiently managed by elected DAO representatives or appointed committee members. If the cost and implementation are found to be reasonable, this initiative could significantly expand our player base by making the games more accessible, without imposing a heavy financial burden on the DAO. Priority should be given to languages most frequently used in our Discord community, which currently include:
• Portuguese
• Spanish
• French
• Chinese
• Russian
• Turkish

Potential Challenges:

Character length variations may impact the user interface (UI). This issue should be addressed with the development team. In my experience, utilizing AI tools like ChatGPT Pro creates concise, character-restricted translations, that potentially solves this issue. Given that the game is currently in beta, the focus should be on achieving a functional rather than perfect implementation.

[rancid mural]

Available for FR translation here 🙂

[fiery void]

I am ready to work on correcting any potential UI translation errors for the Turkish language. from Turkish com.

[surreal geyser]

What's the usual on how multiple language options works in other games? I'm not from a country that has that luxury. But in top games? Is it always there or?

[gaunt osprey]

I can help also for french translation 🙂

[gritty tusk]

I'm always translating now with Chat GPT pro and if you proof read it a bit after you get great results. I think it should not be too expensive or time consuming.....what I don't know is the complexity of dev work

[surreal geyser]

That's common. Having 10+ languages per game?

I think the translations are not the problem. The dev work is a much bigger problem and making sure everything is fine. There is also voice over that might cost a bit more maybe. Having new cut scenes for other languages? etc.

[gritty tusk]

The problem was with the UI and character size, but that can be worked around. I should have specified that the translation is text only...no dub, for voice I would just go with subtitles.

No need to change the scenes or the video

[rancid mural]

For the text, it can be set with different tools, which will settle on a predefined box and adjustable to a maximum size, as it can be done with tailwind for the web.
It's not really complicated

[frozen kayak]

I think japanese and korean should be in that list of languages as well.

[prime sierra]

i would not take the discord activity as a metric.
Not supporting a language can be the cause for not interacting with the game at all but being intrested in the IP generally.
I would rather take metrics like revenue of games based on their country/languages.
In my opinion we should focus to support languages of gaming markets which have paying players and the infrastructure to actually run illuvium for the average gamer, is it internet speed or the average players gaming setup, first before we support other languages.

It's been a while since i checked the metrics, but if i remember right, next to english.... chinese, japanese, german, korean, italian, french spanish should be top langauges to focus on in my opinion.

[sterile herald]

I am a dev and could help out with German language and English/German Mail support if needed. Just dm me.

[gritty tusk]

This is a good idea, thanks for the graph....what is the source?

[prime sierra]

was an individual article, also a bit outdated (last year)
But one should be able to get the todays data from steam and other platforms as far as they are public.

Possible revenue should really be considered to see which "languages" are worth to be translated first.
As you pointed out, there is "hidden" work behind it and not just translations of a text and done.
And as we all know, we need paying customers first.
Following graphic also draws a pretty clear direction and you can see the relation with the article screenshot i posted above. (source: statista)

[rotund flint]

I'll be happy to help with the review and approval of translations into Brazilian Portuguese, which is my native language. I can also help with French, but it's one of my other languages, so I think a native speaker would do much better than me.

[sinful sleet]

Thanks for pushing this @gritty tusk

I am totally in favor of translating the key aspects of the illuvidex and games to ease onboarding

Aiming for functionnal rather than perfection to start off is the way to go. Ive been close to many linguistic communities in illuvium and the language is a massive barrier of entry for some

As we even see in this thread a lot of people from the community would love to volunteer to double check the AI initial translation if needed

I think with AI and community help we could do an amazing job while ensuring dev work and costs assicated are as low as possible

To your list of language i would suggest to add japanese and korean

[tall marten]

Simple incentives such as standard beyond discs for correcting ai generated subtitles should work. At least I have seen something similar working quite well. It is not enough to be considered real payment but usually the community is eager to help out.

Edit: It was done in the respective language channels with a google sheet. People were able to ask for access and corrected the translations while discussing the perfect translations in the respective channels.
I thought something like that would end in a mess but it worked perfectly

[gritty tusk]

A community lead effort in proof reading translated AI text is a great alternative. I think we should get the quotations and compare, we could save on translation and use those resources to hire temporary devs to immplement it. We can get Labs opinion to see if they consider it viable.

[sinful sleet]

Yes, it got the 25 thumbs up already, feel free to post as the official proposal in gov channel when ready

[surreal geyser]

Sad we didn't hear from anyone on the team what the current status is.

[gritty tusk]

Thanks everyone for the feedback and the up votes, I will move it to a formal IIP draft. But before that, if you guys had to prioritize 5 lenguajes what would they be? I'm now leaning towards @prime sierra data, but I would also like to see web3 gamer data included. I'll search for it.

[gritty tusk]

I rather they focus on bug fixing and backend dev work. When it goes to council they will provide feedback

[prime sierra]

let me know if you need any help.
i strongly support additional languages and am willing to look up some data giving better indicators for what languages should be prioritized.

[surreal geyser]

I’m pretty sure there are team members that aren’t working on bug fixing and backend development. There might be a lot of them on vacation. But still, is it that hard to chime in?

[surreal geyser]

Try to make IIP open-ended. Don’t put languages in there. Let Labs decide on that. Council won’t pass something that strict. That’s my advice.

[gritty tusk]

Fair point but when it comes to making things happen fast prioritization is essential, you do 5 (the optimal number time/resource wise) and we leave it open ended for the others

Thanks for the feedback. I'll send you draft before submitting it

[drifting pendant]

Id suggest you get the Labs data on where the players and paying players are coming from as well

[surreal geyser]

Oh yeah, that will be easy.

[prime sierra]

Implementimg new languages should open up new markets. I strongly suggest not taking any data from the existing userbase. And instead focus on data Like

• revenue of similar Games or gaming in General based on countries
• average pay of the population, can those people afford to play illuvium and have the Hardware to actually play it
• maybe get data from pokemon (people interested in illuvium genre)
• Check what languages are supported from top Games (those Studios done their research already)

[drifting pendant]

I agree. My suggestion was to take both data sets in consideration. Not necessarily one over the other. You widen existing markets which may have better word of mouth traction since there's a niche group already.

If we dive deeper we look at existing web3 markets first before general web2 since we aren't at mass adoption level yet

[prime sierra]

not sure i would take web3 markets even in consideration.
Languages aren't implemented over night, especially not considering the massive workload the ui team still has.
So when languages are done, we already dipping into web2 market or are about to i guess.

I'm also not really sure how big of a paying playerbase web3 actually has.
Web3 is all about airdrop farming, multiaccounting, botting etc. basically extracting money... not spending money for a fun time.
you can see that behaviour in the current situation we have now with the airdrop campaign and discord debates, or look at DAU of different games...Pixels having 1m dau and ILV... 7k ish? That's not because Pixels is a revolutionary game with tripple A graphics 🙂

[trim jay]

That’s an indication but won’t help much.

A bit like the story of the plane getting shot many time and surviving. Data points do not necessary mean what you think.

If your players can’t play because they can’t read, how can you use your current player base ?

Again, proposed system anyway don’t care how many language to cover.

Because from a dev point of view you create a bridge in the e code to variables from the languages.

Example:
Code: Display « sentence 1 »

French:
Sentence 1: pu..n!

English:
Sentence 1: f..k!

Then it all depends how many language you activate. 1 or 100 don’t make your code more complicated.

That’s why this capability is low dev intensive but high reach. A very good way to invest little but expand large.

[surreal geyser]

I kinda disagree. Implementing languages aren’t just backend work like activate multiple languages and you’re good to go. There is so much more because of complicated UI. Design team needs to be included. QA needs to be included. Also, every future change in UI or new feature will take a lot more to develop because you need to be ready for multiple languages.

[frozen kayak]

You likely also want support and mods in those languages.

[gritty tusk]

Good point...but do you think it is essential there and then after implementing a multi-language option, or could it wait?

[frozen kayak]

I am not sure, would need input from someone more knowledgeable on how likely it is to run into unhappy customers, if they can´t get any help/support for the game or only in a different language than they prefer to use/speak.
Maybe chatgpt/google translate and englisch support are fine for them as well.

[gritty tusk]

Things take me a bit when I have to prioritize helping in the discord and responsibilities outside of it. I'm working on the IIP proposal and I will have it out as soon as i can. Thanks everyone for your feedback

[summer crescent]

Also should add Arabic

[gritty tusk]

Yeah, I think I will leave the language selection open ended. If this is approved and quotations come in we can know how much different language implementation costs (money and time). Based on that, the council and labs can prioritize the specific languages. If the marginal cost and time are very low then we can add all the languages we want, if not we need to prioritize