AirwaySim's (nearly) all features support multi-language interface at the moment. We've deliberately built the system so that adding another interface language is fast and easy when the time is right.
But question is .. is there need for a multi-language interface? Some selected languages like English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, and max 2-3 others to keep it easy to manage.
For the task some local users would be needed to translate the game files, and also in the future to keep the data updated too. As there are a lot of feature changes and every time something is changed the language files change too this may get complicated... Translating the system itself is easy, all language files are simple text-based files but there is a LOT of text/data to translate and manage (at the moment around 3000 lines).
And the languages would of course only concern the site interface, all news and similar would still continue to be in English only.
Anyway - what I am actually asking is that do you prefer me to use time on this feature instead some other (new) features of the system? ;D
This funny screenshot in mysterious 'x' language illustratres that nearly every item is directly translateable here. The descriptions and news on the game area are excluded.
Not really, no. There will be enough time later and I think keeping it in one language keeps the player community together (they all know what they are talking about). Adding other languages may attract new players but so will the new features.
And we live in 21st century. EVERYBODY SPEAKS ENGLISH! ;D
I'd prefer you to spend your time developing game features rather than adding languages. But having said that, I am English so obviously I am a little bias :)
Whilst I appreciate your efforts, I'd rather see you spend your valuable time on something more game/feature oriented. (If you do go multi-language, I'll volunteer to do the Afrikaans for you.)
This is an interesting post though and related to something I was thinking about recently.
How about you give voting points per player per completed week of gameplay, and then allow them to use those points to vote on a specific issue or choice, so for example you may ask which of the following 5 requested features would you like to see ... and then each player may only use 15 votes (if they have that many), but no more than 10 on any single item.
This way, instead of all asking all the time and you trying to gauge which features to implement, the players get to make a choice on how they would prefer to spend their votes.
Best Regards
Richard
Quote from: Yb on November 10, 2009, 01:31:06 PM
Not really, no. There will be enough time later and I think keeping it in one language keeps the player community together (they all know what they are talking about). Adding other languages may attract new players but so will the new features.
And we live in 21st century. EVERYBODY SPEAKS ENGLISH! ;D
Quote from: NorgeFly on November 10, 2009, 01:43:38 PM
I'd prefer you to spend your time developing game features rather than adding languages. But having said that, I am English so obviously I am a little bias :)
I agree with this. Most of the players speak English and although I can make some jokes about French and Latin America not speaking any English, I doubt the are much. Only if there is a significant group of people that does not understand English than it should be an option...
for now you should just focus on the gameplay and not the languages as I don't think it's needed.
Definitely work on new features ;D
English is (almost) universal.
Quote from: Riger on November 10, 2009, 01:49:17 PM
How about you give voting points per player per completed week of gameplay, and then allow them to use those points to vote on a specific issue or choice, so for example you may ask which of the following 5 requested features would you like to see
This would fall into the category of "things that take up your time to code, without a noticable benefit". ;)
Plus I'll still decide what's done and what's not, so there's no sense in that anyway. (buahahahahah!) ;D
I would suggest you to you update your code in order to use languages files e.g. list of codes which are defined with the translation in the selected language.
This is the way how open sources software such as Phpbb, Mambo, Xoops,... manage multi languages. Just give a template a language file to a native speaker or a group of native speakers and they will do the job at your place !
With this process, adding a new language is childish :) and you can concentrate yourself to new developments.
Quote from: AppleBoss on November 10, 2009, 09:36:29 PM
I would suggest you to you update your code in order to use languages files e.g. list of codes which are defined with the translation in the selected language.
If you re-read what I said in first message, this is of course done from the very beginning.... ;) It would be foolish to hard-code the texts into source code directly. (or actually the site core engine, that is made by me too, directly supports it already, thus so does the AWS game engine too)
But the point of my thread was that adding languages still requires rather much labour from me too, although I wouldn't do the translations, as keeping it all managed is a bit of an task if there are many languages to handle.
Just didn't read all comments (lack of time) but IF you need s.o. for German.... HERE I AM!
just doing fine in English class, and being native German speaker!
but I don't think it is needed, due to everybody (playing this game) speaking english, because why would someone register, and even pay for something he doesn't even understand (by language, and not by strategy of course!!)!
Well, I also worked as translator for some OTTD graphic sets, so I have experience in doing that!
but to make the whole website it would take some weeks, maybe 1 month!
Hmmm, I guess people who don't understand english wouldn't be here anyway. So answers were kind of as expected...
What about adding one language to see if it makes any difference. Does it bring in new players (who wouldn't join without it...)
Spanish for example.
Guides and forum would still be in english, I don't know how much translating only game interface actually would help.
I suppose you don't need help with savo :P
Although like sami said that the decision in the end is still his, I prefer that you use this valuable time to further develop the game features.
I think this is something that is not necessary at the moment. Currently with a relatively small community and players, introducing languages is difficult. I think as our community and gradually grows this is something we might look at, maybe 3 - 5 years down the track depending on the growth and demands of AS.
From a developers prospective its not enormously viable as if you were to weigh it up, you would get more financialy out of new features as opposed to new languages.
The only thing I would say on the opposite side from your propective is that if we were to implement it now you would recieve the benefits in maybe 2 - 3 years as opposed to 3 years down the track being 4 - 5 years you would recieve the benefits.
Sami, this game is business to you, isn´t it?
So, think about the translation, yes. Maybe it´s not the FIRST priority, but is very important, no doubt.
Maybe you started developing this game for fun, but money does not hurt anyone. And I think you close the door for a lot of people who wants to play and don´t speak English.
Even in my group of friends many don´t speak English very well, and whenever I show the game they show interest, would pay for it, but the language is a barrier.
When you decide, I'll be a volunteer for Portuguere translation.
Quote from: Sidereus on November 11, 2009, 05:04:26 AM
Sami, this game is business to you, isn´t it?
So, think about the translation, yes. Maybe it´s not the FIRST priority, but is very important, no doubt.
Maybe you started developing this game for fun, but money does not hurt anyone. And I think you close the door for a lot of people who wants to play and don´t speak English.
Even in my group of friends many don´t speak English very well, and whenever I show the game they show interest, would pay for it, but the language is a barrier.
When you decide, I'll be a volunteer for Portuguere translation.
Right. For the long-term sustainable development, multi-languages is a must. It is very useful to promote the game to the non-English-speaking communities. The translation works can be totally done by volunteers (players), so not much extra workload is involved for the developers.
I don't think it's needed right now. There are still a lot more features that, in my opinion, are more important than making this game multi-language. I agree with you and everyone else, it will be needed someday, but I think it's too early. However, it will attract a lot more players, which means more money for you, so you decide. :laugh: If you decide to do it now, I would like to help with Spanish translating. :)
I don't really think that languages are necesarry.. definetly if it should slowdown development of game.
having multiple languages especially including eastern-asian languages would boost the volume of users a lot - you can't imaging how many online gamers over there! -
However not sure if Sami's team is ready to manage a large number of players.
These days most people have some English.... in civilizated world.. Another thing is that adding players = need for more games = higher server load... Are servers ready for it?
After some thoughts, I would probably introduce two additional languages like German and French to the system after v.1.2 is available.
I don't really have an opinion about language version. Though I guess I wouldn't mind a Spanish or Japanese version.. :P
Talentz
Sami, if you want additional langs you should focus on other ones.. In Germany and Frace majority of people (especially aviation-interested) speaks English.. there are countries where English is bigger problem :)
Not the French at least.. ;) (no offence meant, but that's a fact)
Well, in fact, problem in France is not that they don't know English, but they don't want to use it.. At least that's my experience :)
Spend your time creating new features, this game is becoming increasingly boring...
Aviation world lives and breathes english language... So I think that everyone who's worth a penny should be able to understand english. Anyway, if you want to translate your game in Italian I would be very happy to help you UNLESS there's programming to do: I'm a s*** in programming! ;)
Why dont you just use something like this?? Its easier...
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https://www.airwaysim.com/&sl=en&tl=es&history_state0=&swap=1
Don't work. When you log-in it comes back to english.
Quote from: T8KE0FF on November 15, 2009, 06:52:52 PM
Why dont you just use something like this?? Its easier...
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https://www.airwaysim.com/&sl=en&tl=es&history_state0=&swap=1
Believe me, Google Translator will not give you good result in most languages :)
Quote from: Samo on November 16, 2009, 05:08:29 PM
Believe me, Google Translator will not give you good result in most languages :)
Yeah, in Macedonian "LINK TO US" translated to something that meant "Link to United States" lol. ;)
Few times I tried to translate texts from Slovak language to English and it don't make any sense :D
Anyway translating a website as I explained a few post above is only to define values. This can be performed by users.
The admin work is only to upload them into the system.
The only thing that can take times is to create new images for some titles. Pages titles are made of images and not of text. But is this not time consuming when you want to have in a future a multilingual website ?
Hi folks.
Well, I agree with most opinions that English is not only the standard aviation language, thus, one could expect most interested folks able to speak it, but it is also the easiest language to use for those applications.
Anyway, Sami, if you need somebody to help translate into German, French, Portuguese or Russian, feel free to send me a message. I had an unsolicited hospital treatment during the past two months and will be off work until mid-January. Same goes for the idea of setting up incumbent airlines against whom to fly, as mentioned in another post earlier.
Denis
Quote from: Samo on November 12, 2009, 07:38:05 PM
Sami, if you want additional langs you should focus on other ones.. In Germany and Frace majority of people (especially aviation-interested) speaks English.. there are countries where English is bigger problem :)
I agree. Germans and French speak English and the ones who don't are either too old to care about this game or too poor to afford to play it.
I would look at countries that still haven't got a good grasp on English yet, like China. Plus, think about it.....1.6 billion people here!
I wouldn´t say English is universal in general. But English is defenitely the aviation language.
I´m german, and my English is far away from perfect. But I would even have problems to find translations for terms like "livery", "D-Check" or "slot".
I´m not sure if you may get a job in the airline industry, if you don´t speak English.
QuoteI think keeping it in one language keeps the player community together (they all know what they are talking about).
Think of the forum!
The website´s start page should be multilingual to attract new people, the interface might be translated, but the forum language should always be English.
Additional languages would be a nice touch to the game, but not really necessary.
And like "lastchancer" said, some aviation terms isn't even translatable.
Still adding more languages couldn't hurt anything, so if you got the time, then go for it.
I could help with translation to Swedish.
I think you should look at the user statistics (you made a thread with that a while ago) to see where most users are from. I think German would be the place to start, together with Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch and maybe French (which isn't on the chart).
well if the french are not on the chart whats the point of translating it!!!
Quote from: freshmore on November 30, 2009, 01:36:23 PM
well if the french are not on the chart whats the point of translating it!!!
Maybe there would be more French players if the game was available in there own language?
(yeah, I know it's far fetched ;))
As said before, for the long term planning it's important to think about translations.
And, as said before too, you shouldn't focus on German or Italian.. Those languages mainly spoken in Europe.
You should focus in Portuguese and Spanish. I am brazilian, and here people just don't like a software because they are in english "i can't understand anything!!" sounds ignorant, and it is.. Well, it's not everyone, many and many people speak english, but adding a portuguese and spanish translations would bring a lot more users.
i am volunteer for portuguese translation ;)
You must focus in languages that people from countries that speaks those language don't speak english very well. Taking Brazil as an example, i guess we have some brazilian players here. I saw few of them. With a translation, the number would increase a lot
I do not think that Sami would waste so much time if we give him a hand for translating the game... I think that the main languages are european plus, maybe, chinese and japanese (even though I heard that japanese and chinese ideograms are quite similar)... So I would rather set up a poll to see which languages should be implemented... I volunteer for Italian! :)
If you need Turkish translations, I would be glad to do it. I already work as a Turkish-English translator.
I would be willing to help with the translation i speak fluent english and german, so if you need any help let me know, i would be happy to help :D
I guess we stick to english only and let Sami concentrate on more important and needed things. If any anyone has problems with english well, good to time learn it here and free of cost ;D , trial and error always the best way, you learn better ;D
VJC
ich spreche kein deutsch ;D
My native language is russian , but I don't vote for multi languages for Airwaysim . English is enough. Today everybody speak english , but somebody don't - it will be stimulation to be as everybody. Better to spend time for develop this project in aviation side.We still have a lot of futures that everybody would like to see here , but not multi-languages. thank You for your time.