I spent a good chunk of time yesterday puttin...

September 03, 2005 by Adam in NWN2

I spent a good chunk of time yesterday putting together my translation tool. It has my usual bubblegum and duct tape ambiance about it, but it does seem to work. It pulls out every string from the module and puts it into a database. Translators can then go to a web page where they select their language and start translating things.

It even auto-translates, going out to Google's translator service and filling in the text. While it's not perfect, it might save some time and minimize typos.

I still have to figure out exactly what to do with the translated text once I pull it out. Basically I have two options, I can stuff each language back into the relevant dialog or whatever, or I can create a TLK file and have things point to it. The TLK file approach is more efficient and keeps the download sizes down. The "stuff it all in" approach is probably more compatible with NWN2, though of course things are still in the air. I suspect I might take the "stuff it all in" approach initially and then see what my options are when the actual game comes out.

As a complete aside, I also noticed that Stefan Gagne's HeX Coda has only got about 5,000 downloads. Dreamcatcher 1 is at 136,000. Since Stefan is one of the great mod authors as well as a nice guy, I think the issue has nothing to do with popularity. Instead, it's feeling like the NWN community is down to the last few hardcore users. Nearly everyone else has moved on to other things.

To me, that means that making a campaign for NWN2 is the right decision. My hope is to get something to people within six months of release, though I'm still fuzzy as to what exactly that means. Timing is everything.