Guild Wars 2

I’m back with my favorite topic : the communication in GW2 !

I’ve already asked it several times, but once again :
Could you please add subtitles to the recordings of the RU and Points of Interest ?

I mean, not everyone speaks fluent English (hi german, french and spanish servers !), and even among those who do, a large amount doesn’t understand your “elegant” american accent.
So far, there were few new information during these streams, but with the concept of Point of Interest, it may change.

“Points of Interest, your source for all things Tyrian !”

To be fair, I wouldn’t care if we could find the things somewhere else (on this forum, for example), even several days after the stream.

But the fact is : if you can’t understand the stream, you don’t have access to information.
Your only choice, as a player, is to trust third-party websites, like Reddit, with a high risk of transcription errors or misleading translations…

A-net, a worldwide company, who sells games around the world, rely on amateur websites to communicate with its customers ? Really ?

Dulfy always posts at least abbreviated transcripts. The POI one is here: http://dulfy.net/2014/06/20/gw2-points-of-interest-dev-livestream-notes/

english company, english game, english language, they should assimalate to our way of life or go make their own video game

Duke Nukem.6783:

english company, english game, english language, they should assimalate to our way of life or go make their own video game

Steady on there, old chap. That comes across as a bit racist, dontcha think?

After all, since China is now the only important market to Anet, surely we should all be learning Cantonese?

I also would love subtitles on EVERY VIDEO anet posts. During my time in university, I learned ASL and found that many deaf people I met there were gamers of some kind and one of the main things they were looking for was subtitles in game and in informational game releases.

I also want to be able to watch the videos while I eat lunch at work. And just being honest, some of the videos have audio problems at the beginning that cause a loss of information.

They should at least have translated subtitles for the languages they have officially servers for.

Or at least post a transcript of the video a day or so later.

Totally +1 !
US NASA channel does it, their government sites does it, and so on.. and their videos ain’t focused on other language speaking nations either. I’m fluent in English but hell even I can’t understand the jibberish sometimes they say, hence I don’t watch those videos rofl.

@GuzziHero : Dulfy is one of the “third party websites”… why don’t we have anything more official ?

Duke Nukem.6783:

english company, english game, english language, they should assimalate to our way of life or go make their own video game

So I’m asking for english subtitles at least, what’s wrong with that ?

Subtitles in other languages like french, german or spanish would be awesome for sure, but it’s a dream that won’t ever happen.. They made few videos in those languages at launch to promote their game, but now non-english communities are for A-net peaceful cows buying gems ….

Another Point of Interest, still no subtitles….

Dulfy’s notes on Episode 2 of PoI: http://dulfy.net/2014/07/03/gw2-point-of-interest-ep2-livestream-notes/

But I completely agree with everyone. The game is worldwide and has a huge following in Europe. Making content available to only a subset of players is just silly. Also saying that it is an English game and therefore subtitles aren’t necessary is also silly. The developers are all American, but American English and American accents are not universal. There are plenty of people who speak English, either as a first or second language, who may have trouble understanding American accents.

So that you can READ them say, “Um” and “Uh” between every other word?? Seriously! Once you hear it, it can’t be unheard. I tried to watch them, but they say these 2 kitten ed things so often that I just can’t stand it!

I love the concept, but please, please, PLEASE get some people that can speak more evenly without “UM” and UH"!!

Even deaf people would appreciate subtitles.

@Eight O Eight, I think that is kind of unfair. I personally think that Kate is doing a great job!

I enjoy Kate as a host, as well. Much better than Josh, who is likeable enough, but I have a hard time understanding him when he speaks. He is a bit soft-spoken and somewhat of a rapid-fire speaker. (Probably picked up from shout-casting…lol.)

FlamingFoxx.1305:

@Eight O Eight, I think that is kind of unfair. I personally think that Kate is doing a great job!

I very much like Kate as well.

I think 808 was mostly referring to one or more guests who are the main source of the more noticeable speech disfluencies. This behavior is expected, though, when one is not used to a live filming environment that is coupled with a very odd combination of public speaking without a crowd of faces, as well as speaking on a topic that is not as clear and immediately relatable to an audience (especially when being very careful not to say something you are not allowed to say regarding unreleased and ‘secret’ content).

(just to note, it doesn’t bother me at all as I try to empathize and understand the speaker’s situation and cut them some slack)

Make subtitles is REALLY hard.
I used to make GW2 videos for Brazilian audience, so I had to make subtitles in many in game dialog, and that was about 70% of my video editing time, I can’t imagine what would to be to make subtitle for the over 30 mins talk.

It’s a live event, and to expect them to waste time and money on this is ridiculous. I’d rather they work on other things than worry about subtitles.

I used to transcribe for a youtube channel about space weather/sun, news and earth weather events. While these daily videos were known for being 4 minutes long, it was non-stop talking with almost no pauses, completely devoid of speech disfluencies, and involved a lot of “big” scientific and technical words and terms.

It would generally take me 10-20 minutes to transcribe, spell check and format…and this was with a single person speaking whose voice I was very familiar with hearing so I could tell exactly what words were being spoken.

I can only image how long it would take to accurately transcribe 30-40 minutes worth of live, unscripted and meandering audio that involves 2-4 people (this most recent involving a skype convo I didn’t understand a word of) all with different ways of speaking and pronouncing words (and possibly unfamiliar accents) with a lot of humorous and joking comments mixed in.

It really is quite a large task, especially if looking to get it out in a reasonable timeframe after the live stream finishes. I think it would be well worth the effort though!

nexxe.7081:

It’s a live event, and to expect them to waste time and money on this is ridiculous. I’d rather they work on other things than worry about subtitles.

Do subtitles being provided hurt you in some way or affect you in any negative manner to where you would be against their being supplied for all other people, and especially for those with possible hearing disabilities or language barriers preventing them from being able to enjoy the videos as much as you are able to?

Merci, Stéphane !
Not really the answer I was hoping, but at least it’s an answer

In fact, I’m fine with PoI, since it’s only about LS stuff (how devs work, etc..). My biggest problem is the previews and new informations from the RU.

For example, during RU #3 you spoke about the incoming changes about critical damage, weeks before the official announcement on the forums. I watched the stream, and I decided to stop crafting my ascended zerk weapon and wait to see the changes. Meanwhile, my friends, who didn’t watch it, spent time and gold crafting zerk armor or weapons, until they saw the changes on forums. In the end, after the update, they were disappointed by the new zerk…

That’s my problem : watching or not the previews from RU creates an unbalance among the players. Watch it, and you have access to more information, and you can benefit from it (in my example, by selling your zerk stuff before the other players know the future changes).

That’s why I think an official (not through dulfy) report after the RU would be great.

nexxe.7081:

It’s a live event, and to expect them to waste time and money on this is ridiculous. I’d rather they work on other things than worry about subtitles.

It’s not a waste of money. Budgets for game developement & communication are two differents things ! It’s not because something is made for a better comunication that it directly impact the money spent on developement….
Btw why don’t you say “I’d rather they work on other things than discussing during a stream” ? After all, streaming cost money too…

As a French player, I would just want to say that even an English subtitle would really allow me to understand what happens in PoI. I can speak and write English well enough (I believe), but when it comes to slightly technical subjects such as those videos (The Nostalgia Critic isn’t a problem for me to watch without subtitles, most of the time, that is), having text in English actually help me both way : I understand what is said and I learn new words.