Help Translate Fortress Forever!

[Firefox11]

Certainly, the class names is a big issue. Translating them can make it easier for players that don't understand English to get a small idea of what each class does, but translating Demoman (Experto en explosivos) is too long and probably would "kill" the hints (not fitting in the hint space) due to excessive lenght.

However, translating only some while leaving other in English may look like unpolished or just plain weird. Either translate it all, or leave it in English a la TF2.

Weapons and buildables should be translated, if possible. So I would use "Arma Centinela", "Dispensador", etc. The mancannon/jump pad, I think it should be translated as "Pad/pod de salto" (choose whichever sounds better); even if it's not a complete translation, most gamers can get an idea that "pad" or "pod" is used to reference a hi-tech device (although "pod" makes me think more of robots, but w/e).

Detpack is a tricky one. Literaly it's "Paquete Bomba", but as many of the translations you may run out of space in the hint/weapon selection menu. However we don't know yet, so it's probably better to use this direct translation unless there are confirmed issues about length.

[VMX]

Yeah, I see what you mean.

Then I'm probably more inclined to keep them all in English, even if the texts in the help, etc. look really stupid (people won't read them more than once anyway).

However, would it be alright if we left them untranslated in the class selection buttons and hints (everywhere else where there are spacing issues), but deployed the full Spanish equivalent in long texts (like the class description, etc). That way people would quickly know what the class names mean by seeing the English name in the menus, then reading the Spanish description. The texts wouldn't look stupid and spacing issue is solved where it applies.

What do you think?

[VMX]

Hey, something else.

What should I do with these:

"FF_MEDENGYMENU_ARMOR" "engyme; say_team I need armor! H:%H, A:%A"
"FF_MEDENGYMENU_MEDIC" "saveme; say_team I need health! H:%H, A:%A"
"FF_MEDENGYMENU_AMMO" "engyme; say_team I need ammo!"

I know "engyme", "say_team", etc. are commands, but should I translate the "I need armor", "I need health", etc.??

Right now I guess there are mostly English speaking players in every server, so I'm not sure if it would be too useful for a Spanish guy to have those translated. He would understand them better, but maybe nobody else could read that, which is the point if you need help

Plus, if those got translated in every other language, the team chat would be a mess with everyone asking for help in their own language

Should I leave them in English?

[Firefox11]

It's your call to translate them when there is no space problem. Maybe put both in English and in Spanish:

El Explorador (Scout) es la clase más rápida ...

so it' even easier to tell which class you are speaking of.

As for the "help" commands, I can't really tell. I imagine that you don't send that same message, but every client receives the data that you used the FF_MEDENGYMENU_ARMOR/MEDIC/AMMO command and loads it on the same client on it's own language, so everyone will get the message in the language they've set FF (like in TF2, where the Incoming, Go Left, Go, etc. commands are translated to your set language). Would be nice to have some confirmation on this before translating it.

[VMX]

Great idea for the "Scout (Explorador)", that's the best option I believe.

As for the chat messages, if they work anything like in TFC (and thus HL1), they'll appear as they're seen there.

The commands "say whatever" and "say_team whatever" will just print the word "whatever" in either the public or the team chat respectively. It's widely used in binds, to assign custom sentences to particular keys so that you don't have to type. So basically the command "FF_MEDENGYMENU_ARMOR" will probably be called only in your own client when you ask for an engy (it'll probably be assigned to a key), and it will just shout for help while printing that plain text into the chat for others to see, showing YOUR health an armor.

So, using a command from your client like:

"say_team I need armor! H:%H, A:%A"

will always output this in the chat:

Player (TEAM): I need armor! H:100, A:200

while:

"say_team ¡Necesito armadura! H:%H, A:%A"

will always output:

Player (TEAM): ¡Necesito armadura! H:100, A:200

The "saveme", "engyme", are just the usual commands to shout "MEDIIIC!!", etc.

That's why I believe it'd be better to leave them in English.


Some more stuff:

Battlements - ? Maybe "barricadas" or something? It's quite hard because there isn't really a word for it.

Plank - Tablaje? (not sure what it refers to)

Respawn and Spawn - ? Should I leave them in English? Hard ones really.


P.S.: Translation is at 60% aproximately

[Firefox11]

Hm, now that I think about it, I don't recall ever seeing a help message after using the Medic or Armor call (and I use them quite frequently, just for fun), so maybe there's no message after all. Not sure though, so it's probably best to leave it in English.

Now, the locations.
- Battlements: Seeing as they usually function as a Sniper zone, might as well name it "Zona de tiro". If there's any Sniper Deck location, you can translate it as "Puesto de Sniper/Francotirador". No real translation as you said, so it's pretty much a matter of taste.
- Plank: Kinda hard to do this one. Literal translation doesn't help at all, so since the plank is usually an alternate route to the flag room, you could name it "Corredor/pasillo trasero" or something along those lines.
- Respawn & spawn: Probably best to leave them as is. At most, you could change "respawn" as "reaparición" in any non-location text.

[VMX]

Thanks a lot! That was really helpful.

We'll have:

Battlements - Zona de tiro
Sniper perch - Puesto de francotirador
Plank - Corredor trasero (after thinking a lot about it, I really couldn't come up with anything better).

And yes, I had already translated "respawn" when it appeared as a verb (i.e.: "volverás a salir/aparecer", etc.), but I'll definately leave the location name untranslated. Any attempt would require 2 or 3 weird-looking words.

I'll keep posting here if I need anything else. Let's hope this can be finished in 1-2 more days.