Guild Wars 2

hi there, i have a very big problem with the german “translation” of the scourge…

you basically named it “pestbringer” (yes, the german name is actually PESTBRINGER)

pestbringer means something like plague bearer, carrier of diseases and bringer of contagions

obviously this has NOTHING to do with the scourge, who is a manipulator of sand and lost souls… it really does not fit.

its really odd that you totally missnamed it, especially considering the other specs are actually pretty well translated

please rename :X

ps, maybe i just totally missed a point about the elite spec.., if so, feel free to correct my limited understanding of the scourge ;D

A scourge is also a multi-tailed whip used as a torture device across the back of the victim to flay the skin.

Words have different different entomology and meanings even within the same language.

Well, in English, the most appropriate definition would be “a person or thing that causes great trouble or suffering.” Which is pretty much trhe same thing.

a person or thing that causes great trouble or suffering.
synonyms: affliction, bane, curse, plague, menace, evil, misfortune, burden, cross to bear, thorn in one’s flesh/side, bitter pill, trial, nuisance, pest;

Dunno, sounds about right to me. The german language is kind of hard to translate things to because it’s just so literal though… what would you have named them instead?

Geißel would be a more appropriate translation like Attila , die Geißel Gottes (Flagellum Dei /God’s scourge). But maybe Arenanet fears that Geißel can be easily confused with Geisel (hostage) and wanted to avoid this.

Some french translations are also awkward at best.

Now, it may not be ANet’s fault. Usually, when a game is translated, the core company (ANet here) hires a specific company to do the translation job, which sometimes also includes voice actor acting and management, and sometimes, the control is quite loose.

Moreover, the guy (or girl) paid to do the translation often don’t know much about the ins and out of what he translates : it may even come down to an excel spreadsheet with a list of words and expressions to translate…

I’m not looking for excuses though…

Pestbringer isn’t as evocative as “scourge,” but it has much the same definition.

Much as you might dislike the name, it beats some English, untranslated names:

• Dragonhunter (particularly since we aren’t fighting dragons exclusively)
• Berserker (since it’s a condi-heavy spec and zerker has long since been used as the name of a stat prefix, a power set at that)
• Ranger & Druid (both good names on their own, but misleading when applied to how the prof plays and what MMO players have come to expect)
• Mirage (that sounds like a skill type, not the person who practices creating them)

It’s not just the necro, because the mesmer has the same problem. Mirage in english and Illusionist auf Deutsch. Do it like me and just play the english version. At least we don’t have a faux pas like Dragon Hunter this time around.

I recommend, like the guy above me, play GW2 in english and you ´ll be spared of horrible translations eventually.

ThomasC.1056:

Some french translations are also awkward at best.

Now, it may not be ANet’s fault. Usually, when a game is translated, the core company (ANet here) hires a specific company to do the translation job, which sometimes also includes voice actor acting and management, and sometimes, the control is quite loose.

Moreover, the guy (or girl) paid to do the translation often don’t know much about the ins and out of what he translates : it may even come down to an excel spreadsheet with a list of words and expressions to translate…

I’m betting it’s something like this. Which is a shame for those who speak different languages.

Yeah mirage really didn’t end well. Now we have the specs Illusionist and Illusionen. Glad I play the game with english text and audio.

Plaguebearer

Shinzan.2908:

a person or thing that causes great trouble or suffering.
synonyms: affliction, bane, curse, plague, menace, evil, misfortune, burden, cross to bear, thorn in one’s flesh/side, bitter pill, trial, nuisance, pest;

Dunno, sounds about right to me. The german language is kind of hard to translate things to because it’s just so literal though… what would you have named them instead?

Pest seems pretty low of the scale of causing great trouble compared to plague.

I would personally go with Wurstzerstörer.

I play the game in german and never use the german names for the specs.

Don’t even know how most of the HoT specs are called in german

With the entire megaserver and the LFG most of the times you have to write English anyways.

Belenwyn.8674:

Geißel would be a more appropriate translation like Attila , die Geißel Gottes (Flagellum Dei /God’s scourge). But maybe Arenanet fears that Geißel can be easily confused with Geisel (hostage) and wanted to avoid this.

The “B” as a double “s” does not translate unless you know German.

I had a doctor named “Grobmann” (literally translated into “big man”) and I asked if his family used to be part of the German town leaders, like a mayor.

Game of Bones.8975:

entomology

You mean “etymology”.

Entomology is the study of insects.

Game of Bones.8975:

Belenwyn.8674:

Geißel would be a more appropriate translation like Attila , die Geißel Gottes (Flagellum Dei /God’s scourge). But maybe Arenanet fears that Geißel can be easily confused with Geisel (hostage) and wanted to avoid this.

The “B” as a double “s” does not translate unless you know German.

I had a doctor named “Grobmann” (literally translated into “big man”) and I asked if his family used to be part of the German town leaders, like a mayor.

wait… are you talking about ß (=ss/sz) or b now?

Großmann = big man
Grobmann = rough man

about the scourge:
correct translation from english to german and chosing a fitting name in the first place are two different things.
overall “Pestbringer” might not be a literal translation, but comes very near to what it means and sounds better than “Geißel” imo.

Like others here suggested, switch the game to English. Although playing the German version is kind of hilarious, I wouldn’t recommend doing it all the time.

When I join the German squad at the Triple Trouble event, I have a hard time understanding which skills they are talking about (and the commander sometimes doesn’t remember the German version).

The whole game is just weird in German, don’t bother arguing about single words. The German translation doesn’t “roll” as smoothly as the English words. I guess that happens when you try to translate game contents.

Maethendias.1305:

hi there, i have a very big problem with the german “translation” of the scourge…

you basically named it “pestbringer” (yes, the german name is actually PESTBRINGER)

pestbringer means something like plague bearer, carrier of diseases and bringer of contagions

I suggest you post your complaint on the German forums, they listen to the community and apply changes quickly. (Den “Leber-Kommandeur” hast Du mir zu verdanken. )

Ashantara.8731:

(Den “Leber-Kommandeur” hast Du mir zu verdanken. )

And who committed the crime that’s called “Schweberochen”? :P

Faaris.8013:

Ashantara.8731:

(Den “Leber-Kommandeur” hast Du mir zu verdanken. )

And who committed the crime that’s called “Schweberochen”? :P

I have no idea. I only went there once to complain about the translation of “Rock Star”, then took the opportunity to provide additional suggestions for a couple of other things mentioned in the thread. A few weeks later, I stumbled across the change for “Liber Kommandeur” and rejoiced.

Never play the German version, just like many people said before. English text + English audio all the way.

i always start games with german translation, so i can make sure i understand everything properly.
once i get used to the game and have a basic knowledge about everything, i change to english. not only because it sounds better, it also makes ingame-communication in general a lot easier.

Just another reason why I refuse to play the german version despite it being my native language. The translation is a mess. It kittening is!

Sabine Frost.8576:

This is how we came up with the names for the specializations: Once the names were final in English, we put up a vote on our alpha forum and accepted suggestions. We checked if the finalists were already used in another context in the game and if they had a male and female version due to titles.

Awww, I missed that — what a shame! That would have been fun to participate in. Too late now. Maybe next expansion.

Could be worse, the spanish translation is “Azotador”, which while matching the most common word used for scourge (“Azote”) it pretty much sounds like “Beater”

Sabine Frost.8576:

Hello, German Loc team speaking here. Thank you for all your feedback on the translation for “scourge”. This is how we came up with the names for the specializations: Once the names were final in English, we put up a vote on our alpha forum and accepted suggestions. We checked if the finalists were already used in another context in the game and if they had a male and female version due to titles. This was one of the reasons, we did not decide for “Geißel”.

If you find other things in German you want to tell us about, please check out the forum Übersetzung / Lokalisierung.

Wow, makes really sense to put up such votes in places, where the public community has no access to. If youd be really interested into receiveing a broad feedback for term suggestions how a class should be called in a specific language, then you’d open up a thread for a longer while in the public forums of the specific languages, together with an announcement in the english forums, because there is the largest part of the playerbase actively reading the forums, that you have opened for the various threads a feedback thread for collecting name suggestions for translation and after ending those threads make up then a poll tread, where people can vote for like the top 5 suggestions that have been posted the most by people, so that the playerbase actually CAN INFLUENCE, how the class gets named in the end.

However, within the last round of E-Specs and in this one too, we players just get only the impression, that Anet sets up the names only and once they are put into stone, then you just try only to localize them as best as possible and once localization is finished, then these names are forever set into stone as well, without that the community really ever gets asked, if we even like those names, or if we find them fitting…

I wrote my opinion over the current localization work into the German subforum for it you mentioned… wrote there as well that I can arrange myself with the Pestbringer as term, because it is literally the best thing you could come up with with such an English fashion word like the “Scourge”.
Yes, translation can be hard between languages, especially when for 1 side exist no fitting 1:1 translation or when both languages have completely different meanings between their synonyms for 1 specific word.
Only because Word X has in English a synonym for it, doesn’t mean, that this has to be automatically the case for German too as well.

With pestbringer we got now maybe a localization, that fits for the English Synonyms, but absolutely doesn’t fit in any kind of way to the German synonyms, nor doesn’t its name fit at all to the gameplay of this Elite-Specialization, which is the reason, why the OP created here this thread now, because if you call a Necro-E-Spec Pestbringer, peopel expect from it, that the gameplay of the class is all about spreading pest, plague and DISEASES, basically like the GW1 Necromancer did, because in GW1 we had the condition “Disease”, which doesn’t exist anymore in GW2, but it would fit to the class, if the Scourge would introduce Disease back into GW2, then it would be kind of fitting for this localization, that a Pestbringer ’s unique condition would be Disease, which could work like a first condition, that spreads itself by standing too near for too long at the side of an infected player, which could becoem over tiem stronger in its effect so more enemies in the near are affected by disease, which would make this condition a strong one, when used by skills like epidemy to quickly spread it out to many enemies

The Scourge in its gameplay as it is now, is all about controling the sand of the desert and creatign shades out of it as minions. it is a protective and supportive gameplay specialization whioch has nothing to do with spreading anyhow pests, plagues and diseases and thats essentially the problenm, which people might have a problem with the localization of “Pestbringer”, simpyl because the one and only thing, that is needed so that the term makes sense, is simply missing – the class spreads no disease.
This would have been for Anet such a perfect opportunity to introduce Disease as condition back into the game under a new unique and for that condition fittign gameplay mechanic of “self spread out/becoming stronger so more are affected by it-mechanic”

In the future of GW2, I would wish, that we players get a little bit more influence on how E-Specs are named for the final product, instead of always putting us in front of already settled and localized facts, without that we got any chance to give feedback, before everything is already set in stone.
Maybe this is wished too much, but so far we received just only the impression of it ,as if you don’t care about it, what we think about how classes and e-spaces are named, when in fact thats an important factor also for immersion, especialyl when the name of somethign is completely incongruent to its gameplay.

Same thing with Firebrand… Archivist would be a much better fitting name, that fits to its complete book-gameplay.. but thats now a different topic, just saying

Don’t forget your role. You and I are the customer. We use the game. Arenanet is the designer, they design and produce the game.

The customer comments on the design, and the designer acts accordingly, which results in a change or no change. The customer cannot be involved in production, because he cannot be involved in the workflow in an efficient manner.
If the designer defines a name, this name stands. There is much more criteria behind a name than just the sound or feel of the name.

In my opinion, the german translation team does a superb job. The whole game is translated very carefully, and feedback about typos or translation flaws is monitored and incorporated in the game in a very timely manner. Many translations are not simply translations of the words, they faithfully keep the meaning behind the words as well. Unfortunately, some puns are not translatable, but that’s not the fault of the translation team.
But it’s clear that if an important name is set in that late state of production, it cannot be changed any more. It’s already on too many media aside from the actual game.