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Runes of Magic to receive Turkish and Latin American localization from Aeria Games

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Culture, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic

Aeria Games seems to be making a niche for itself localizing games into neglected regions. Earlier this year, it was announced that the company would take on the localization for Perfect World International for Latin America. Now it's doing the same thing for another game, taking the responsibility of localizing Runes of Magic for both the Latin American market and the Turkish market. That means all of the current live features of Runes of Magic in your native language, assuming your native language is Spanish, Portuguese, or Turkish.

No details have been disclosed about the timeframe for the launch of these new localizations. According to Len Hoang, CEO of Aeria Games, the release is part of the company's overall ongoing strategy -- "We believe emerging markets will continue to rise in importance for Aeria Games as we commit to growing our global community of power players." Keep your eyes peeled for more news about the release.

[Source: Aeria Games press release]

Runes of Magic to receive Turkish and Latin American localization from Aeria Games originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BioWare delaying Star Wars: The Old Republic's European testing

Eliot Lefebvre — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:30:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Sci-fi, News items, Star Wars: The Old Republic

International issues with Star Wars: The Old Republic started cropping up more or less as soon as the pre-order began, and they're apparently persisting. It's recently been officially announced that European testing invitations have been delayed, missing the initial weekend and being postponed for an unspecified length of time. Fortunately for the players who are no doubt sore over the delay, an explanation was included with the announcement, which kicks off by pointing out that a new build and an associated character wipe are on their way for later in the week anyway.

The new build will require testers to re-download the entire client, and with the client requiring a 27 gig download, it was suspected that any players presently invited might finish the download only to have to start an entirely new download immediately afterward. Localized French and German versions of the game will be included in the new build, which further contributed to the decision to ultimately hold off on the European testing. It's cold comfort to would-be testers left out of the game, but at least it isn't without some logic.

BioWare delaying Star Wars: The Old Republic's European testing originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wizard101 goes anti-disco in the June producer's letter

Justin Olivetti — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Expansions, Free-to-play, Kids, Wizard101, Promotions, Family

The community at Wizard101 is still riding high on the recent Wintertusk world expansion, and according to the June producer's letter, KingsIsle wants to keep the good times rolling.

Apart from relaying a few testimonials about the recent expansion, the producer's letter is all about the Benjam-- er, Crowns. Leah Ruben spotlights a couple of promotional sales from the company, including a Dragon's Hoard booster pack that has the potential to deliver rare goodies, and a GameStop card that unleashes a genie (among other things) in your Wizard101 world.

Ruben says that a recent graphical issue known as "discoing" on older machines is now fixed. "While sometimes it's fun to dance the disco with flashing colors and lights," she jokes, "it's a bit distracting when you're trying to adventure through the new worlds."

Finally, Ruben says that the UK version of the game has added a German language version for those who perfer to play in their native tongue. Assuming that you're German and not Swedish. Or Kenyan. Or... well, you get the point. You can read the full producer's letter over at Wizard101.

Wizard101 goes anti-disco in the June producer's letter originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 20 Jun 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GDC 2011: ArenaNet's Adam Vance talks localization for Guild Wars

Eliot Lefebvre — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Business models, Culture, Events, real-world, MMO industry, Legal, Miscellaneous

Ask the average Guild Wars player what makes the game so enduring, and "localization" is probably not on the top of the list. But the game is truly a masterpiece of blending players across an international community, with a single multilingual client supporting a wide range of communities across the entire world. ArenaNet's Adam Vance hosted a panel on the localization process for the game at GDC, discussing the many trials and tribulations the game faces from both a business standpoint and a cultural standpoint.

It certainly doesn't seem like a difficult task from a conceptual standpoint -- even just running a block of text through secondhand solutions such as BabelFish can produce something that looks somewhat translated. But as Vance explained, simply changing the text from one language to another is an issue, and linguistics only scratches the barest element of what's needed for adapting a game. "Localization should be as much a science as an art," as he put it during the panel. While the focus remained on localizing Guild Wars from a business standpoint, players will still find interesting facts within the discussion.

Continue reading GDC 2011: ArenaNet's Adam Vance talks localization for Guild Wars

GDC 2011: ArenaNet's Adam Vance talks localization for Guild Wars originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Expanding the Dwarvish tongue in Lord of the Rings Online

Eliot Lefebvre — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Culture, Lore, News items, Free-to-play, Roleplaying

Some things are just going to appeal to a certain group of players, and that's fine. If you're enjoying Lord of the Rings Online for game design, class balance, or the like, then you might not be terribly concerned with the nuances of the functional languages that Tolkien developed for the original books. But if you really care about giving your Dwarf weapons with more resonant names than "Foe-hewer," you probably would be interested in A Casual Stroll to Mordor's latest post about expanding the rather anemic Dwarven tongue.

Using the Hebrew linguistic structure as a base, the article goes into depth about making logical alterations to existing words, and from there, creating new words that fit into the established structure. It's a fascinating post for Lord of the Rings Online players as well as anyone who likes developed in-game lore, as it shows just how much can be done within the given setting. And if you're a player in LotRO who'd like to use some more Dwarven names, there are interesting charts available along with some example names.

Expanding the Dwarvish tongue in Lord of the Rings Online originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NYCC 2010: Our interview with FFXIV's Sage Sundi and Yasu Kurosawa

Eliot Lefebvre — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Classes, Events, real-world, Interviews, Consoles, Final Fantasy XIV

If there were an award for the most controversial game on Massively, that award would probably have to go to Final Fantasy XIV. It's a game with a very different approach to many of the elements that are considered de rigueur for MMOs, which has produced a great deal of affection from some players, a great deal of enmity from others, and a flamewar that burgeons in nearly any thread about even the most innocuous news.

I had a chance to sit down at New York Comic Con with Sage Sundi, FFXIV's global online producer, and Yasu Kurosawa, FFXIV's North American online producer. It was certainly an interesting experience to chat with two of the people responsible in no small part for one of my personal favorite games, but both gentlemen were very polite to discuss the game, its worldwide community, and what lessons had been learned already from launch.

Continue reading NYCC 2010: Our interview with FFXIV's Sage Sundi and Yasu Kurosawa

NYCC 2010: Our interview with FFXIV's Sage Sundi and Yasu Kurosawa originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Newest responses to Ask Cryptic for Star Trek Online talks Klingons

Eliot Lefebvre — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, Game mechanics, Interviews, New titles, PvP, Star Trek Online

There's a certain mystique that Klingons hold for Star Trek fans, having shown up for many different stories in every show and even several movies. That's not even counting the fact that they have an entire language to back them up. So it's probably not a huge surprise that the most recent Ask Cryptic has been dedicated to questions about the Klingon Empire in Star Trek Online. Players have enjoyed the concept, but there have been more than a few expressions of disappointment at the lack of non-PvP options for the faction and the customization available (or not available) to the participants.

The short version is that many of the things being asked for by Klingon players are coming -- more customization, more ship types, and more options to advance oneself without blasting honorless Federation ships out of the sky. There's even a promise of opportunities for the two factions to interact outside of combat, although the question of capturing landmarks via PvP is met with a negative. One of the responses also hints that there may be yet more factions in the game. All of the questions may be found here, which promise an interesting future for Klingons and Federation players alike in Star Trek Online.

Newest responses to Ask Cryptic for Star Trek Online talks Klingons originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Crafting Final Fantasy XI's global community

Eliot Lefebvre — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Culture, MMO industry, Final Fantasy XIV

A recent piece on Gamasutra discussed one of the more prominent and yet understated issues facing Final Fantasy XI -- the challenge of creating, bolstering, and supporting a global community. It's easy to forget at times that the game is sold and played in four different languages across three continents on the same set of servers, with a Japanese development team and customer service representatives across several countries. Robert Allen Peeler, the assistant community manager for the game, went into details about several of the issues, hurdles, and pitfalls the game has gone through over its near six-year multi-lingual run.

Peeler discusses the challenges associated in communicating the wishes of the fans to developers, who speak only Japanese and don't necessarily have a clear grasp of what the rest of the world's players want out of the game. He also mentions the now-infamous Pandemonium Warden boss encounter and explains that the issue was largely focused in North America, but due to the communication issues it began to be seen worldwide before the developers could adequately address the issues.

The piece also goes into some detail regarding the plans for how these same issues will be addressed when Final Fantasy XIV is released, which will most likely share the same multi-lingual support and servers. If you're interested in taking a look inside some of the problems of a global game -- or if you're a Final Fantasy XI player looking for more of an answer about why the developers don't respond to issues -- you should take a look at the article.

Crafting Final Fantasy XI's global community originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Runes of Magic opens closed beta for French and Spanish users

Seraphina Brennan — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Betas, Fantasy, Culture, Launches, Free-to-play, Runes of Magic

Runas de Magica y el pollo es muy delicioso para la cena! Ok, so our Spanish is a little rusty, we're missing some accent marks, and we probably just said that Runes of Magic tastes good with chicken, but what we mean to say is that the closed beta for Runes of Magic in Spain and France has begun.

Now anyone from those two countries, or anyone who wants to have their client in French or Spanish, can enjoy Runes of Magic in those languages. With the closed beta comes the launch of the French and Spanish Runes of Magic websites as well, so feel free to scurry on over and register.

The final date for launch for these two countries hasn't been confirmed yet, but the game will be shipping out with The Elven Prophecy, giving their launches a timeframe of either launching with the new expansion or shortly thereafter.

Runes of Magic opens closed beta for French and Spanish users originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kids try to get around Wizard101 language restrictions

Alexis Kassan — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Game mechanics, Kids, Wizard101

Player 1: What can you see out your window?
Player 2: A large fruit. You?
Player 1: Uhh, OK... I can see Russia from my house.
Player 2: What?

Usually the language restrictions in MMOs consist of vulgarities and, less frequently, racial or sexual slurs. But Wizard101, a game targeted to a younger demographic, goes beyond that and disallows revealing location to other players. In fact, players under the age of 13 are not allowed to use the full chat function at all. This is to prevent kids from detailing where they are just in case.

The problem is that kids get curious and ask other players where they live regardless - mind you, it has to be in a roundabout sort of way. Since many cannot answer directly, they have been trying to use features of the state or nicknames to describe their location. They may not get very far in actually depicting their state, but the effort surely must be a learning experience in speaking indirectly. With this type of skill, these players may just have futures in politics.

Kids try to get around Wizard101 language restrictions originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Conan will start speaking Russian later this year

Samuel Axon — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, MMO industry, News items

Funcom today announced a partnership with huge Russian developer/publisher 1C Company to localize Age of Conan for the Russian-speaking market. All text and voices in the game will be translated to Russian, and 1C will provide customer support and community services to the Russian community. There will also be a Russian server. This is all due in Q4 of this year.

The English language version of the game has already been released in Eastern Europe, and it's done pretty well. All the marketing hype quotes in the press release stress that the game will be a massive success when available in the native tongue of the region. We're not going to make any predictions about that, but this is probably good news either way if your native language is Russian and you're already playing the game.

Conan will start speaking Russian later this year originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WoW's global conquest continues: Russian version imminent

Samuel Axon — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, MMO industry, News items

Blizzard will begin testing a Russian version of World of Warcraft next week. The first phase will be called the technical alpha, and will focus on "the technical aspects of the game." Never would have guessed! After that, the localization beta will commence. Blizzard has invited all its Russian-speaking subscribers (of the European version of WoW, presumably) to participate. A Russian-language forum will launch next week as well. There's a fancy flash-powered Russian teaser page already.

Even though the Massively staff includes folks of several nationalities, we unfortunately don't have any Russians on the team to analyze this. We're talking about the country of the great novels The Brothers Karamazov and The Master and the Margarita, the films of ultra-weighty director Andrei Tarkovsky, and the experimental, unforgiving, plague-themed video game drama Pathologic. Is Russia going to be receptive to the lightness that is World of Warcraft? Oh, hell, probably so!

[Via WoW Insider]

WoW's global conquest continues: Russian version imminent originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zon: the MMO that teaches you to speak Chinese

Samuel Axon — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:00:00 EST

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, News items, Browser, Education

A team of developers supported by Michigan State University and the Office of the Chinese Language Council International have spent the past few years piecing together Zon -- a browser-based virtual world wherein users can learn the Mandarin Chinese language. The game is currently in its open beta phase; you can sign up to play right now.

Users create an avatar and then find themselves in a representation of Beijing International Airport. From there, they may interact with NPCs and other world objects to learn more about Chinese language and culture, as well as communicate with other players to practice their language skills. As they progress through the system, they move up in rank from Tourist to Resident, and finally to Citizen -- at which point they may create their own content for the world.

We learned of Zon through the blog of Areae president Raph Koster, who had an interesting anecdote to add. During his stint at SOE, the company worked with college campuses to use EverQuest II for total immersion language education. So this is not a new idea -- just a really cool one!

Zon: the MMO that teaches you to speak Chinese originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Entropia Universe learns three new languages

Samuel Axon — Sat, 31 May 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Entropia Universe, MMO industry, News items, Virtual worlds

Microtransaction-based Entropia Universe is set to expand into new markets, as developer/publisher MindArk has announced the completion of translations of the Entropia client into three new languages -- German, French, and Spanish. Previously, the virtual world was only accessible to English-speakers.

The translations were performed by a company called Lionbridge. MindArk rep Frank Campbell said his company made the move to increase market penetration, address users' needs, and increase the company's credibility.

Entropia is a Sci-Fi-themed virtual world. It's an unusual combination of MMO-style combat and crafting, and Second Life-esque e-commerce. MindArk suggests to potential users that they can make money -- or even a living -- within the virtual world. Unsurprisingly, though, a substantial investment of real funds and time is required to become competitive.

Entropia Universe learns three new languages originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 31 May 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EQ2 helps teach English in pilot study

William Dobson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest II, MMO industry, News items

You may pick up the odd new word here and there playing MMO's, but a recent university study has used the game EverQuest II to reinforce the entire English language. The article was noticed by one of EQ2's senior producers Scott Hartsman on his personal blog. Hartsman muses that people will always find new ways to use code or software to achieve things that they had not been designed for, but also says that this particular use of EQ2 "wasn't something that was on the radar".

There were a number of reasons that EQ2 was chosen by the Northwestern University researchers for their project. They had considered World of Warcraft too, but in the end EQ2's clear descriptions and labeling made it the ideal choice. Everything is explained in detail in the game, and most items and places have extra labels on them. The researchers said that there is simply a lot more text in the game than in WoW.

Continue reading EQ2 helps teach English in pilot study

EQ2 helps teach English in pilot study originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 29 Oct 2007 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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