Guild Wars 2

I know you native english speakers commonly tell foreign people to just “go learn english, its THE international language”, but cmon. It’s been proven that language options can bring good results. The international community usually see with good eyes when a company takes the time and effort to localize stuff. I’m sure you all know that so, just add more languages, please. Not for me, because I took the suggestion of you guys a few years ago and learnt at least the very basics of your language, but a dozen of my friends won’t play GW2 because they can’t understand it. And I NEED them to play it with me and let go of freaking WoW once and for all. We’r brazilian by the way, I know there’s at least 15% of portuguese speakers in any MMO as long as they have PT-BR language as an option, so there’s no reasonable excuse for not having it. Yes, they could learn it, but please try to think of it this way at least once: it takes a lot of time to learn a whole new language. Just ask yourselves, how much foreign languages do you know besides the internationally holy precious and globalized english ? Some of you can speak other languages, but let’s face it, the vast majority can’t. Which is OK since english is indeed a common language in the whole world. But it won’t hurt to give us a simple localization. Thank you.

Yes it takes a lot of time to learn a new language, but to localize a game the size of GW2 ALSO takes a LOT of time and a LOT of money

Wanna let you know I support the OP’s suggestion. It’s a worthwhile effort. Though I’d like to know: what does it take to localise and release a game in a new language? What’s involved?

GummiBear.2756:

Yes it takes a lot of time to learn a new language, but to localize a game the size of GW2 ALSO takes a LOT of time and a LOT of money

A lot of money that I’m sure will convert in even more money due to massive foreign people signing up. If you don’t wanna invest then why even bother to “waste” millions developing a game in the first place?

FacesOfMu.3561:

Wanna let you know I support the OP. It’s a worthwhile effort.

Thank you FacesOfMu.

FacesOfMu.3561:

Though I’d like to know: what does it take to localise and release a game in a new language? What’s involved?

I’m not an expert, but I’ve been involved in minor software development issues. I believe it is an issue proportional to the original content. Since there’s tons of content in GW, of course there’s tons of translation to do. But other then that, they’ll just have to add up another language pack to the original 4 available options (EN/FR/DE/ES irrc). It’s not the most complex thing in the world, just not the most simple either, since GW2 is huge. Still, its pretty reasonable effort. It requires nearly zero coding, so it won’t even be this expensive as mentioned above. The effort is minimal compared to the number of people directly affected.

The problem is no matter how many ppl speak a certain language, the cost to localize a game is about the same (keep in mind localizing a game is not just a strict translation, first of all both text and audio would need a translation, whihc mean you would ahve to hire voice actors for it, but alos you need to be sure that the way things are said and written wouldn’t offend ppl talking that language for instance, and likewise what stuff like jokes and such can never be directly translated either you may have to do a completely different wording to get the same fun effect)

That said IF more localization where to take place Brazilian yes is talked by enough that it could be a candidate, but i leave that to ANet to decide if its worth it

aguering.6974:

We’r brazilian by the way, I know there’s at least 15% of portuguese speakers in any MMO as long as they have PT-BR language as an option,

Brazil… lots of people who are coming into wealth, one of the famous BRICs that the vile investment bankers have been backing for such a long time, huge population. I’d be translating it right now, I think.

Also, Samba.

Don’t forget as well localizing a game is not enough, you need servers in this language as well. I would hate seing people talking in english, german or whatever else in my french server, as my “motto” is, you’re free to go to whatever server you want, as long as you speak the server’s language. When I go on an english server in a mmo I always speak english, and only english, on global and local channels.

And GW2 will take a lot of time to translate. Don’t forget all the videos, you have to translate all those videos as well. And not just with subtitles, but with voice as well.

There are many games that some of us English speakers want to play too. But they are only available in Asian languages.

GummiBear.2756:

(keep in mind localizing a game is not just a strict translation)

Yes. While a complete localization would be awesome (and games released here, like Ragnarok Online, has proved to be a huge success, with millions of brazilians playing its exclusive brazilian servers), I don’t think we would demand all that effort. Most of people would be greatful with a minimal effort of captioning the english voices, NPC dialogs, and general UI/HUD . Even though they did translated item names from english to FR/DE/ES in their respective localizations, I actually believe they should remain with their original english names. Not only they sound cooler, but help to keep interaction with other fellow players around the world easier, since things can get confusing when you have lots of diferent names for the same item.

Ultimately, I think that if they took all the effort of making FR/DE/ES versions .. some other countries should definitely share the love too. Portuguese and chinese being some examples. Take Diablo 3 for example. Blizzard has the game in something like 15 different languages. And I don’t even have to mention it, it was a huge sucess (well, commercially at least).

Onshidesigns.1069:

There are many games that some of us English speakers want to play too. But they are only available in Asian languages.

And I’m sure you wish it was translated to english, instead of having to go learn chinese (which is a crazy difficult language to get into). That’s fair enough.