Vanilla TFTD translation questions

[long6oarder]

I don't care about this at all to be honest.
Vanilla game also says "ALIENS TERRORIZE Casablanca" and I was never bothered by that; I guess 99% of people aren't.
...
Summary: just keep vanilla strings vanilla

Thank you, Meridian, for clearing this up for me. I think you are right that most people don't get bothered by inconsistent or poorly formatted text strings. The information gets to the user, and the user moves on.

For me, when playing the old vanilla TFTD, these issues always distracted me. Seeing stuff like "ALIENS TERRORIZE Casablanca" makes me wonder why that wasn't corrected. Did the original developers run out of time, budget, or QA? And then of course you have to wonder, what else is wrong with the game. Well, as we now know, there were also bugs in the research tree, etc.

These kinds of things just make the game feel incomplete, and sometimes even sloppy, and I guess the ultimate question raised by this is: Am I getting the experience intended by the game's authors, or I am spending my time on a watered-down/incomplete/rushed version of what they intended? To make an analogy that I am sure Nord would appreciate: Am I going to enjoy my evening by watching the director's cut of the movie The Abyss, or am I going to settle for watching the theatrical release of The Abyss? Bearing in mind that I won't get that time back either way, I would really prefer to enjoy the proper version as the creators intended it.

Anyway, I know I am preaching to the choir here. You guys have certainly shown that you care a great deal about the quality of the game. It was really fun to be a tiny part of that.

Meridian, may I ask you something? Say I go through the vanilla TFTD string files and make my corrections just for myself (not changing any string names, only the text). I then copy this corrected file along with the rest of the vanilla TFTD files into the \TWoTS X.XX\TFTD subdirectory (like we do with every update). Will doing this create any conflicts for me?

[Meridian]

Will doing this create any conflicts for me?

No, US files are not affected by other languages.

Edit: also plural of cortex is not cortex's, but cortexes or cortices

[long6oarder]

No, US files are not affected by other languages.

That's good to know. Thank you.

Edit: also plural of cortex is not cortex's, but cortexes or cortices

Indeed, you are right! You found this error in the vanilla string for the Bio-drone autopsy. This is exactly what I am talking about. The vanilla TFTD strings have quite a few mistakes and many inconsistencies in naming, e.g. "Gillmen, Gillman, Gill Man". Up until v2.26 of TWoTS, the en-US.yml file included well over one hundred corrections for the vanilla TFTD strings, again with the goal of polishing the vanilla product and making the extension of TFTD into TWoTS a seamless experience as much as possible (at least aesthetically).

Now I am told these corrections cannot be included due to some compatibility requirements of OXCE between the Russian and English strings, so the vanilla strings are no longer overwritten, and they are kept as they were in 1995.

[Meridian]

Now I am told these corrections cannot be included due to some compatibility requirements of OXCE between the Russian and English strings, so the vanilla strings are no longer overwritten, and they are kept as they were in 1995.

They can be included... but if there is a change in en-US, they must be included in all languages, not only in en-US... otherwise the en-US modded string will override e.g. the ru-RU unmodded string.

The requirement is also not from OXCE, but from OXC.
The reason it was changed is so that modders don't have to copy en-US to en-GB (and to all other languages, which might not have a correct mod translation yet) all the time.

Whether it's now better than before is not up to me to decide... SupSuper considered previous behaviour a bug and it got fixed. IMO both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.

Also, please note that only en-US "suffers" this way, all other languages can be changed without affecting any other languages.

[long6oarder]

I see. I can't say I understand all of the issues, but I can see that it is not simple to fix. If I understand it correctly, overwriting the vanilla US English strings now also overwrites the corresponding vanilla strings in other languages (but not the other way around). I only ask for my own understanding (out of curiosity). I am sure you guys know way more about the constraints and dependencies than I ever will.

I tried searching the forum for evidence of what has been done already, but I couldn't find what I was looking for. Specifically, it looks like over the years there was lots of talk about the US English strings (probably only for UFO, and not TFTD), but I couldn't find anything that said if the US English strings have already been corrected/updated for TFTD. Do you know if this has been done already?

This is a task I would be happy to help with, but there would be no point unless:

• I follow the conventions you all set years ago
• It is worth your while to include it when it's done (and it does actually get included)

There is also the problem of how to get such a file to new users, since the files from Steam will still have only vanilla stuff. That raises another question: would that be against forum policy (posting original i.e. edited vanilla files here)?

[Meridian]

There is also the problem of how to get such a file to new users, since the files from Steam will still have only vanilla stuff. That raises another question: would that be against forum policy (posting original i.e. edited vanilla files here)?

We do not use the original xcom1994 files, e.g. from Steam.

All the language strings are in OpenXcom files:
/common/Language/en-US.yml
/standard/xcom2/Language/en-US.yml

The change that was made is OXC is here: https://github.com/OpenXcom/OpenXcom/commit/379410edaf56555237f5faa30563709d8e8bdf5a

Quoting from commit message:

Code: [Select]

Fix language loading to properly default to en-US when translations are missing. Prioritize untranslated text over incorrect text.

Modders, you can stop copy-pasting en-US to en-GB. Please.

PS: I'm also moving this to a separate thread.

[long6oarder]

Thanks for starting a new thread for me. 

I looked through SupSuper's changes to the language file handing. I think I understand what is going on, and it looks to me like the vanilla strings have to be changed in the OXC repository in order to be included.

Therefore, I have made a fork and I will (eventually) be submitting a pull request to get these corrected vanilla strings merged.

I assume this is the way I should go about getting these corrections to the vanilla strings included. I would like to ask, however, are there reasons why this hasn't been done yet, other than it being a very low priority? I mean to say, would I be wasting my time, e.g. if you all already know you don't want to include these corrections?

[Meridian]

I assume this is the way I should go about getting these corrections to the vanilla strings included. I would like to ask, however, are there reasons why this hasn't been done yet, other than it being a very low priority? I mean to say, would I be wasting my time, e.g. if you all already know you don't want to include these corrections?

I can't speak for SupSuper, but I would not accept such a PR. Vanilla is vanilla, whether slightly wrong or not. Casablanca or CASABLANCA, tomato or tomato. If someone doesn't like it, it can be modded with a private mod.

[long6oarder]

I see. Okay, then. Thanks for telling me.

[long6oarder]

@Solarius Scorch

I saw you mentioned Transifex on the TWoTS forum. I wonder if there is a way to add another language called something like "Corrected Vanilla Strings en-US" so that we can choose this option if we want to use a corrected and proofread version of the vanilla strings (along with the rest of the TWoTS English strings).

Months ago I found out it was impossible to correct the mistakes in the vanilla TFTD strings (misspellings, sloppy composite strings, inconsistent naming of Alien species, etc.) and also make these corrections available for others to use. So I basically chose to quit investing time in the English translations for TWoTS since there will always remain such awful errors in the vanilla strings anyway.

So, indeed, the question is: could adding a new language be used as a workaround to overwrite the mistakes in the vanilla strings? At least this way those of us who want the final presentation to be complete would have an easy way to make that happen.

[Solarius Scorch]

@Solarius Scorch

I saw you mentioned Transifex on the TWoTS forum. I wonder if there is a way to add another language called something like "Corrected Vanilla Strings en-US" so that we can choose this option if we want to use a corrected and proofread version of the vanilla strings (along with the rest of the TWoTS English strings).

Months ago I found out it was impossible to correct the mistakes in the vanilla TFTD strings (misspellings, sloppy composite strings, inconsistent naming of Alien species, etc.) and also make these corrections available for others to use. So I basically chose to quit investing time in the English translations for TWoTS since there will always remain such awful errors in the vanilla strings anyway.

So, indeed, the question is: could adding a new language be used as a workaround to overwrite the mistakes in the vanilla strings? At least this way those of us who want the final presentation to be complete would have an easy way to make that happen.

No, sorry; this kinda goes beyond the purpose of Transifex. The basis for all translations is en-US, which is the loaded source. You need to work it out with Nord if you have text improvement suggestions, I'm sure he will hear you out.

[long6oarder]

Understood.

I think the vanilla strings are out of Nord's hands now. He has always been super cooperative and interested in making the game look as nice as it can. Really, I was just thankful to have a way to contribute, and he always included my contribution.

But as it stands now (see the rest of this thread), there's no way to correct vanilla strings or meld them with the mod strings, so there will always be this clear division between a modder's work and the vanilla product.

Anyway, thanks for replying, and I'm sorry for whining about this again. I don't want to annoy you guys because I think I will never grasp the time and effort you all have put into this project. It really is impressive what you all have achieved.

@SupSuper
If you would ever consider approving a PR to include corrections to vanilla strings, I would be happy to do the work. Thanks.

[Solarius Scorch]

But as it stands now (see the rest of this thread), there's no way to correct vanilla strings or meld them with the mod strings, so there will always be this clear division between a modder's work and the vanilla product.

But it's not true... You can replace vanilla strings with a modded value.

[Meridian]

But it's not true... You can replace vanilla strings with a modded value.

The issue was that if he does that (only for en-US.yml, other language files would not have side effects) then all other languages will need to be translated too (because en-US is always loaded on each level it is defined, regardless of UI language).
(Btw. this is a change that SupSuper did so that you don't have to copy en-UK.yml all the time...)

Example 1:
-----------
vanilla US: STR_DAY: "Day"
vanilla RU: STR_DAY: "день"

with this definition both vanilla TFTD and modded TFTD show correct translation


Example 2:
-----------
vanilla US: STR_DAY: "Day"
vanilla RU: STR_DAY: "день"
modded US: STR_DAY: "DAY"
modded RU not defined

with this definition:
vanilla TFTD shows "Day" for US and "день" for RU
modded TFTD shows "DAY" for US and also "DAY" for RU (instead of vanilla "день" for RU)

So when he tried doing this, russian players started complaining there are many things in US instead of RU...
... and yes, Nord could copy all vanilla translations into the mod translations to workaround... but that's ugly as hell... and when vanilla translations would change (which happens a lot for example in OXCE), he would have the old ones instead of new ones

PS: technically, the load order before was vanilla US, mod US, vanilla RU, mod RU... now the load order is vanilla US, vanilla RU, mod US, mod RU... both have advantages and disadvantages

[Solarius Scorch]

Yes, I am aware of the issue... But well, I guess it's something we modders must live with. It's a case-by-case decision every time...