Topics

16

Offtopic / The Firaxicon report

« on: October 07, 2015, 04:58:21 pm »

A lot of people have been asking me what my Firaxicon experience has been like, but I didn't wanna clutter the website so I decided to post here instead:

It was super fun! I got to meet some fans like hmaon and Brian, there was some great cosplay on display and a shark for some reason, and someone even had a genuine X-COM Alliance poster for signing. And I thought I was hardcore.

Firaxis put on a great show, the panels were fantastic, there was a whole bunch of stuff to see and play, and they are super nice guys that will happily interact with with their fans. I got to talk to them about OpenXcom and they are well aware it exists and have no problems with it (though this isn't a legally binding statement ). I also got their community manager contacts so if you guys ever need something on the 2K/Firaxis front I can forward it to them.

To cap it off here's a pic of me and Jake Solomon: https://twitter.com/SupSuper/status/650487354101243904
(if you're wondering if I'm as big as I look, you'll just have to meet me to find out )

17

Translations / Don't post translations here, use Transifex

« on: September 16, 2015, 09:51:32 pm »

This forum is only for discussion, and any posted translations and language files will be ignored. Please use Transifex instead to contribute to OpenXcom translations. Mod translations should be posted in the respective mod thread instead.

You are free to use your native language to talk between translators, but use English if you want the dev team to be able to read it.

18

Translations / Terror From The Deep added to Transifex

« on: June 21, 2015, 06:06:09 pm »

To avoid redundancies, I split up the language files into OpenXcom / X-COM 1 (UFO) / X-COM 2 (TFTD) in Transifex. I realize there are still a lot of "samey" strings between X-COM 1 and X-COM 2, but I'd rather translators deal with it as they see fit rather than risk over-simplifying the languages.

Anyways please let me know if this went smoothly and no translations were lost. And if you were getting bored, you've got a whole new game to translate now.

19

Work In Progress / Upcoming mission changes

« on: February 06, 2015, 04:07:06 pm »

As some of you might have heard, we're working on major changes to the mission infrastructure in order to accommodate TFTD's crazy mission variety in OpenXcom. However there's no way to do this without a lot of drastic changes to the ruleset data which will not be backwards-compatible, so I figured I'd give you an early warning, as they will be rolling out in the nightlies soon.

The bad news: This will break some mods! Mods that have customized alien missions or world data will very likely break until they're updated to the new standards. Certain map mods might also be affected.

The good news: A bunch more features for modders!

- Globe markers (the indicators for bases/crafts/sites/etc) are customizable.
- Globe polygons can have one or more associated terrains (eg. different maps depending on the world region).
- Mission zones (eg. cities) can have one or more associated terrains (eg. different maps depending on the city).
- Terrains can have different probabilities (eg. 30% FOREST1 40% FOREST2 20% FOREST3).
- Sites are no longer restricted to terror sites.
- Sites can have custom names, markers, deployments, alerts, etc. (eg. port/island/ship/artefact).
- Missions can have different probabilities.
- There can be multiple missions of the same type (eg. multiple types of terror missions).
- Missions can spawn sites directly (instead of requiring UFOs to spawn sites).
- Missions can customize the wave behavior somewhat (instead of always being hardcoded that Terror Ships spawn Terror Sites, etc).
- Sites can have different durations.

Our priority is TFTD support though, so don't take this as an excuse for extra feature requests.

If you're planning on using any of the upcoming features, note that they will be very volatile and likely to change until we've ruled out every issue. However the more people testing them, the sooner that will happen.

20

Offtopic / OpenXCOM interview in Level magazine #245

« on: October 19, 2014, 04:45:08 am »

Ever wanted to know more about us? Well, now you can!... if you can read Czech.

We got interviewed by the Level magazine a few months back, and the result is out: https://www.level.cz/starsi-cisla/level-245/

Here is a capture of the OpenXcom section: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1949448/xcom-level-magain.pdf

Edit: Here's a translation by Meridian: link broken, text available a few posts below

21

Work In Progress / Mod Translation Project

« on: October 10, 2014, 01:23:46 am »

So we've moved to Transifex for translations. And as a result some language codes and stuff have changed which probably has broken a bunch of mod translations, sorry.
Really the current mod translation process is kind of a mess, as it's all manual. Translators have to manually edit files and translate files, modders have to manually update their mods each time, encoding gets broken, codes get changed, etc. Plus it completely ignores the large pool of translators we already have for OpenXcom.

Since Transifex supports the translation of multiple resources, I had the idea of having a global Mod Translation Project. Modders interested just add their English strings to the MTP language file. This single file can then be uploaded to Transifex, making all the mod text available to translators without needing to muck around with files. The resulting translations can then just be packaged into a single MTP ruleset for players to use.

Pros:
- Modders don't need to keep updating their mods with translations, they can just keep the English strings and not worry about it.
- Translators don't have to mess around with language files directly, they can just use Transifex and not worry about it.
- Players that want translations don't need to keep updating individual mods, they can just get the MTP and not worry about it.

Cons:
- Every mod string ID needs to be unique. Well this should already be the norm anyways, if multiple mods use the same string IDs they'll override each other when combined. An easy way to ensure this is to just put your mod name or author name on the string IDs. However changing string IDs will break any existing saves, so don't do it carelessly.
- How to manage the MTP language file: Just have modders submit their mods and someone adds their strings to the file each time? Have a publicly-editable file everyone can update and hope nobody wrecks it? Etc.

Discuss.

22

Translations / Testing out Transifex, new localization website

« on: September 17, 2014, 06:18:00 am »

So we've used GetLocalization for an year now... time for a change. Now that text has been nice and stable is a good time to go trying out new things, so we're gonna check out Transifex.

Main complaint about GL has been the fact that it's a democracy... people vote for translations, most-voted is used, and that's that. And the bigger translation teams have a hard time coming to a consensus like that. Transifex instead uses dictatorship every user has their role, you have a strict hierarchy you must respect, so while it's more effective it's gonna take more dedication from you guys!

Basically users are broken up into languages. For each language, there are Translators, which are allowed to suggest/vote/comment translations. Above them are the Reviewers, which can pick, edit and effectively "lock" translations, finalizing a given string. Finally at the top are the Coordinators, who accept/reject users, control their roles, etc. More info here: https://docs.transifex.com/faq/#transifexs-roles

Other cool things compared to GL:
- Looks shiny.
- Search and filters that actually work.
- Better editor with support for plurals, comparing translations, comparing languages, validating tags, etc.
- Notifications that don't spam your inbox.
- Translators can download/upload files themselves, submit multiple suggestions, vote for multiple suggestions, and total votes are actually shown.
- More features for translators to organize themselves like comments/forums/glossary/history/etc.
- And so on.

Anyways I've set up a sample project here: https://www.transifex.com/organization/openxcom/
So feel free to sign up, test everything and goof around to get a feel for the place. There's more info on the editor here: https://docs.transifex.com/guides/txeditor

23

Released Mods / [SOUND] PlayStation Sound Effects

« on: August 26, 2014, 02:31:18 am »

Since the PlayStation version of the game is an improved port of the original, I decided to try ripping its sounds for OpenXcom. The result is much more high-quality sound, while still maintaining the feel of the original.

Download here: https://www.openxcom.com/mod/playstation-sound-effects

To install just extract it to your "OpenXcom\data" folder and enable the PSXSounds mod.

24

Builds & Ports / OpenXcom 1.0 amd64 Debian/Ubuntu Package

« on: June 17, 2014, 06:14:24 am »

Someone e-mailed me a .deb package for OpenXcom 1.0, it works fine for me but figured I'd post it here so you guys can check if it works for you too:

https://openxcom.org/file/1749/

25

Open Feedback / Post screenshots of OpenXcom running on your platform of choice!

« on: May 11, 2014, 01:26:10 am »

Despite how cross-platform OpenXcom is, there's little evidence of it out there. But I know a lot of you play it on very interesting platforms, so I'd like you to help me gather up a bunch of screenshots of it running on various distros/devices/etc to make a nice gallery. (please mention the platform and if you wanna be credited)

The screenshots may be used for marketing purposes though, so don't put any private/sensitive information in there.

26

Translations / Please review the new Options screen!

« on: May 08, 2014, 05:52:04 pm »

The Options screen was completely changed between 0.9 and now, so it looks quite schizophrenic on some translations. Because GetLocalization can't pick up on every context change, there are a lot of messy translations of the Options with many problems like:
- Outdated / incorrect text.
- Inconsistent terms / formatting.
- Overlapping text / not fitting the screen.

I really recomend every translator to go inspect the screen in their language and fix any problems they find, since it'll likely be a popular screen. Remember, keep descriptions clear for new players, be mindful of text length, and make sure everything is internally consistent. Abbreviating option names is probably fine since you can save the full words for the option description. And if you can't replace an outdated translation, let me know and I'll delete it.

Here's screenshots of the English version to help comparing:

27

Translations / Translating the Windows Installer

« on: April 19, 2014, 01:38:31 am »

Some people suggested that it might be useful to localize the Windows installer. The upside is that the default NSIS text is already available in a multitude of languages. The downside is that NSIS has no language format to speak of, so we're doing this the old-fashioned way.

If you want your language to go in the installer, just translate these strings (the parts in quotes, don't touch the $ parts though) and specify the language:

Code: [Select]

;--------------------------------
;Pages

LangString PAGE_UfoFolder ${LANG_ENGLISH} "${GAME_NAME} requires a copy of UFO: Enemy Unknown / X-COM: UFO Defense. You can skip this step if you're upgrading an existing installation.$\n$\nSetup will copy the required files from the following folder. To copy from a different folder, click Browse and select another folder. Click Next to continue."
LangString PAGE_UfoFolder_TITLE ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Choose X-COM 1 Location"
LangString PAGE_UfoFolder_SUBTITLE ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Choose the folder where you have X-COM 1 installed."
LangString DEST_UfoFolder ${LANG_ENGLISH} "X-COM 1 Folder"

;--------------------------------
;Installer Sections

LangString NAME_SecMain ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Game Files"
LangString DESC_SecMain ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Files required to run ${GAME_NAME}."
LangString NAME_SecPatch ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Data Patch"
LangString DESC_SecPatch ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Fixes errors in the X-COM 1 data. Recommended for first installations. (requires an internet connection)"
LangString NAME_SecDesktop ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Desktop Shortcut"
LangString DESC_SecDesktop ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Creates a shortcut in the desktop to play ${GAME_NAME}."

;--------------------------------
;Uninstaller Descriptions

LangString NAME_UnData ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Delete X-COM Data"
LangString DESC_UnData ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Deletes all ${GAME_NAME} data, including mods and X-COM resources. Recommended for a clean reinstall."
LangString NAME_UnUser ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Delete User Data"
LangString DESC_UnUser ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Deletes all ${GAME_NAME} user data, including savegames, screenshots and options. Recommended for a complete wipe."

;--------------------------------
;Shortcuts

LangString LINK_DataFolder ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Data Folder"
LangString LINK_Readme ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Readme"
LangString LINK_UserFolder ${LANG_ENGLISH} "User Folder"
LangString LINK_Uninstall ${LANG_ENGLISH} "Uninstall"

;--------------------------------
;Warnings

LangString WARN_UFOMissing ${LANG_ENGLISH} "X-COM 1 wasn't found in this folder. ${GAME_NAME} requires a valid installation of X-COM to run. Continue?"
LangString WARN_XCUDetected ${LANG_ENGLISH} "XcomUtil detected. ${GAME_NAME} is incompatible with XcomUtil and may experience weird behavior. Continue?"

For an example of where these go, just check the 0.9 installer.

28

Translations / Discussions in GetLocalization

« on: April 15, 2014, 10:48:40 pm »

Looks like GetLocalization has added their own forum system: https://www.getlocalization.com/openxcom/forum/

I don't know if this is better or worse than just using this subforum, but not everyone checks the forum and every language gets their own dedicated space, maybe try it out and see how it goes?

29

Translations / Unicode bitmap fonts

« on: March 31, 2014, 03:54:47 am »

Some open fonts I found in the wild that might prove a handy reference for the more exotic languages out there:

Unifont (wiki) - A 16x16 bitmap font covering every Unicode BMP character.

Wen Quan Yi (english) (wiki)- A bitmap font of varying sizes covering all the CJK Unicode characters.

30

Offtopic / YCOM: Enemy Unlikely - an XCOM demake/parody

« on: January 07, 2014, 01:40:17 am »

If you ever thought XCOM just has too much complexity, too much features, too much stuff, well this is the game for you!



Fun stuff.