Translated dev blogs?

[BelamanthDE]

Seeing the HUGE amount of info in those blogs - is Turbine planning to offer translations of these too (at least of important ones like the proposed class changes), or are they not "official" enough to do so, leaving it to community effort to spread the word?

I know it would still be a kind of one way information, as we can't expect the devs to translate potential German feedback back to English, but at least the thoughts would reach the non-English speaking players.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Interesting question. You got some like Orion blogging. He is native American English. How would he ever know if it was translated correctly into German? How would he ever understand German responses? To get it right it would have to be written in German by Orion. That requires be fluent in German.

This is one my problems from living in Germany for a few years. I got to the place where I could read German and translate it as long it was technical documents and stuff - the cultural or emotional nuances never came thru well. Eventually I learned some it like Max and Moritz.

The slang, culture and emotional component becomes a big issue in discussions like forum threads, conversation, blogging. Development diaries - not a problem. Blogging not so sure about.

I read some of the German posts on the forums - I need a German native speaker - I can read the words - I am missing important information. I am pretty sure it does not mean what I am reading. These words have an emotional or slang meaning in German. The written word already has a terrible problem due to the lack of tone, facial expressions and body motion.

[BelamanthDE]

Codemasters made official translations of Dev Diaries (but not of blog entries). I guess Turbine will have official translations of them made also.

So my question is, will Turbine use the translation service they have to translate the blogs as well, seeing that some of them have reached a quality that would qualify them as dev diaries.

I surely don't expect Orion to start blogging in German. And I have stated that translating the feedback from other languages back to English could prove a bit of a hassle and may not be a valid option. But at least we would have the information flowing from dev to non-English players.

[Cara_Gilrain]

The German-speaking servers are very big. Lots of people. It would be foolish to leave them feeling cut out of things. I'm sure Turbine aren't foolish. But I do think it may take some time for everything to settle down.

[djheydt]

The German-speaking servers are very big. Lots of people. It would be foolish to leave them feeling cut out of things. I'm sure Turbine aren't foolish. But I do think it may take some time for everything to settle down.

I'm going to assume, until told otherwise, that in preparation for the move Turbine hired many translators who are not only fluent in both English and German/French, but *understand the game*. There are a lot of dev diaries out there and it will take a while to get the back issues translated, but I hope they do. Meanwhile, I'm going to expect any new dev diaries to come out in at least the three major LotRO languages (and no, I don't mean Quenya, Sindarin, and Khuzdul.)

[Yula_the_Mighty]

So my question is, will Turbine use the translation service they have to translate the blogs as well, seeing that some of them have reached a quality that would qualify them as dev diaries.

My gut feeling is that I doubt it. Blogging an unofficial chat communication between a Turbine employee and the customers in whatever language the developer is comfortable writing in. I do not think Turbine spends much effort on moderating and approval for Blogs.

Development diaries are formal documents that are written by a developer. They go to professional editors and a management approval cycle before getting an official Turbine stamp. There a lot of dollars spent on each diary. It appears each diary is a Public Relations and Marketing document more than a development document.

They start as a development document. Once it leaves the developer for tone, edits, grammar ... it becomes something else. Turbine will have funding to translate them.

IMHO - If Turbine starts formally translating blogs, that will be the end of any blogs. Every blog entry will have to be written off line - go to the translators and approval folks before being posted. You get one post a week or so because of the turn around time. I think it takes like two or three weeks to get a development diary through the pipe after a developer finishes it.

[Sapience]

My gut feeling is that I doubt it. Blogging an unofficial chat communication between a Turbine employee and the customers in whatever language the developer is comfortable writing in. I do not think Turbine spends much effort on moderating and approval for Blogs.

Development diaries are formal documents that are written by a developer. They go to professional editors and a management approval cycle before getting an official Turbine stamp. There a lot of dollars spent on each diary. It appears each diary is a Public Relations and Marketing document more than a development document.

They start as a development document. Once it leaves the developer for tone, edits, grammar ... it becomes something else. Turbine will have funding to translate them.

IMHO - If Turbine starts formally translating blogs, that will be the end of any blogs. Every blog entry will have to be written off line - go to the translators and approval folks before being posted. You get one post a week or so because of the turn around time. I think it takes like two or three weeks to get a development diary through the pipe after a developer finishes it.

This isn't terribly far off. Our development team is made of of native english speakers. If we translated every blog, post, and comment it would not only be prohibitively expensive, but it would kill the spontaneous replies and interaction.

In the past, after the developers wrote their dev diaries, or the community team wrote guides or other articles, they were sent to CM who sent them to a translator before posting them. We wil be doing the exact same thing exact same thing for all future diaries, release notes, and known issues. In addition any guides or community articles written by our content team will be translated as well. All of this delya and extra time is built into this process so it will be transparent when the articles go live.

[Melky_Way]

It's understandable. We're already kind of used to it, so well. :')

[MrWarg]

I realise I am biased here since I am a native English speaker, but I would rather have the more consistent interacton from the devs through blogs, etc than have them delayed because of translation issues. I know that isn't great news for those who don't speak English well, but on the other hand when information is posted I'm sure members here can translate it into other languages for those members who don't speak English terribly well. So in the end people will still get the information and we will still get the more consistent interaction.

[djheydt]

I realise I am biased here since I am a native English speaker, but I would rather have the more consistent interacton from the devs through blogs, etc than have them delayed because of translation issues.

Keep in mind that dev diaries aren't just written out one mirthful evening inspired by plenty of beer and doughnuts and slammed onto the forums the next morning. They get carefully looked over by all kinds of people: is everything in this diary true? is anything in this diary telling the readers more than we want them to know yet? does anything in this diary promise anything that we may not be able to deliver and won't know for another year?

This necessary delay will also allow time for careful translations to be made.

[MrWarg]

Keep in mind that dev diaries aren't just written out one mirthful evening inspired by plenty of beer and doughnuts and slammed onto the forums the next morning. They get carefully looked over by all kinds of people: is everything in this diary true? is anything in this diary telling the readers more than we want them to know yet? does anything in this diary promise anything that we may not be able to deliver and won't know for another year?

This necessary delay will also allow time for careful translations to be made.

Actually the blogs the devs write seem to be entirely under their own steam. The diaries are a different story I agree.

[Svealyn]

In the past, after the developers wrote their dev diaries, or the community team wrote guides or other articles, they were sent to CM who sent them to a translator before posting them. We wil be doing the exact same thing exact same thing for all future diaries, release notes, and known issues. In addition any guides or community articles written by our content team will be translated as well. All of this delya and extra time is built into this process so it will be transparent when the articles go live.

That sounds great, thanks. But what about the current release notes, from the Update 3 which is now live?
Since it was not going live on the Codemasters servers, we did not receive any translation by codemasters, and when coming here I was only able to find the English version. Will there be German / French versions coming soon?