I'm all for clever localization but please don't just leave out important story.

If you spend too much time changing things with localization, I'm willing to bet, it's going to bite the localization team in the butt big time one day when the next patch relies on something you completely changed "for teh lulz".

Stick to the script, please... This issue bothers me, as a lore junkie. You messed up, man.

Sorry but the contradictions are to big to call it "free interpretation" or "use your wits"....if the localization team makes Midgy talk in riddles but giving enough hints of what he means, that's good writting, and of course you can tell ppl "try to understand what you are reading, clues are there".

But what we have here is completely different dialog....on the JP side he tells you they are going to attack Ishgard for what they are doing now, in the EN side Midgy is telling you they will attack Ishgard because of the "sin of their fathers" = the past....that dialog can have the opposite effect on the player: make you sympathize with the Ishgard cause because sons cannot be blamed for their forebears sins.

Let's take another literary work as example....ASoIaF.
A translation team (SPA, FR, DE, etc) slighty changing the hints on who Jon Snow parents are to suit the language, but leaving the main clues/ideas intact, that's a good work.
The reader is never given the straight answer, but the hints and clues are there for him/her to join the dots.
A team completely changing those hints with non-sense (like mistraslating Ned's ToJ memories, or Daenerys visions); that's crap work because no matter how hard the reader tries, he won't have the necessary information to reach the answer.

On quite a few occasions in the past, it had occurred to me how much shorter the English text was compared to the Japanese audio (that's how I play the game). Knowing English full well, and knowing some basic Japanese too... I see nothing wrong with that - up to a certain point. Japanese is, mostly, much more embellished than English, even in case of the living, everyday conversational language. But I did also notice, on several occasions, that the sound of the Japanese VA and overall "sound" of the English text just...did not match at all? And that is definitely not good. Translation does have to contain a certain level of "localisation": even if there weren't expressions or idioms that can't directly be translated, but instead just substituted with those of the target language's, it cannot be a mirror, word-by-word translation of the original. It needs to sound and feel natural in the target language, and for that purpose, obviously, certain things need to be changed. However, changing those certain things cannot (should not, at any rate) alter key points, story elements, characteristics, personalities, moods, atmosphere, and the like. That is the writer's responsibility, not the translator's; it's a literary thing, not a linguistical one. And hearing Midgardsormr speak and reading what he said, I definitely felt a detachment between the two, something that did not vibe well with me either. Read that comparison of the actual JP translation and the in-game EN localisation, the two are worlds apart. And that's just not good, a translation, however localised, should never be like that.

This part...

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Originally Posted by Fernehalwes

When the EN Localization team received the relatively wordy Japanese lines for this scene, we felt that it would fit the character and his native language better if we localized it in a manner that seemed a natural fit with the dragon language I had created

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...this is the one that gives it away, that leaves too big of a grey area to argue about now that the thing is out. That is not the translator's call to make - the fact that one of the translators happens to be the one responsible for an imaginary language involved in here should be irrelevant and not come into play when actually making the translation. Because that usually is not the case anyway, it's just a coincidence that in this particular case it is so. If he felt that the text should be trimmed, he should've talked it over with the actual writers and should have had the original script altered appropriately. And mind you, he mentions the "EN Localization team" specifically - so, are we to understand that in other languages, perhaps, the text is not even that much different, and is much closer to the original? Because if that's the case... I'm not even sure it's about being "fair" here, but it definitely isn't right.



FORUM MANAGERS: PLEASE REMOVE CHARACTER LIMIT PLEASE.

Sons suffering the sins of their fathers does not have to be in the past, could literally mean present time sons suffering due to their father's... (thinking of multiple meanings).

IE, I 30 year old Chair hurt some dragons, now my 10 year old son, Lavalamp, will suffer for it. It would be likely working two time references at once, at least it appears to be so - but just that you could interpret that as a present time meaning.

My biggest gripe is that having done the quests asap, I didn't see Fern's post until afterwards. I was left with a -very- vague impression and that was that Midgardsormr was testing you while also doing it all begrudgingly. It seemed like a much more... sinister reason, almost mocking of Hydaelyn's in a way. (Seriously using "the olde speak" puts me in a confused state more than anything else).

Then I read the Japanese to English version, re-read the dialogue... and now I get the context of what was saying much more than I had before.

I love some localization... like pirate speak, moogle nonsense speak, & the whole gobby tongue flaps is great. But I greatly disapprove of changing context, meanings & omissions...

The problem people noticed now comes since launch... they mess up a lot in all content and story, It wasn't just here. The thing is in this speech was more noticeable than anything before. Anyone that know a bit Japanese will notice right away they did this so many times across all quests with voice. And who knows how many more we miss in translation with those non-voiced... -_-

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Originally Posted by Shiki_Lockhart

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Ya I notice a lot of dialogue changes when I started to revisit the 2.X cutscenes with Dialogues.

Not to mention some characters had their speech pattern changed. One big notice example is Urianger that in ENG version he speaks in riddles but in JP version Urianger has a normal speech pattern and does not speak in riddles like the ENG version.

There was even the part when Cid gained back his memory where he say his name in NA version the dialogue is "I remember everything.... My name, name, my people, and my purpose. Everything." but in JP version the dialogue is "I remember.... I am Cid nan Garlond of Garlond Ironworks!"

I hadn't read Ferne's post before doing the quests and I caught the meanings of what was said quite well. Looking at the J>E transliteration, the only thing I notice different is the new sin, but as Shogun stated, sons suffering for their fathers' action could also reference both living generations. The only real complaint I see is for non-native English speakers, but that is going to always be a problem short having the text written with all the complexity of an elementary school book.

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Originally Posted by Hyrist

Consider me in support of the Localization team not straying too far from the script. Too much here is left for inference and speculation in the script, and the direct contradiction is clear as day. Too much was given away to treat Midgarsormor as looming, cryptic and intimidating and not nearly enough concern was given to convey the same message universally across all languages.

Please be more cautious with translation in the future.

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I'm not one for daylight. What, specifically, does Midgardsormr contradict in his EN v. JP script?

The only difference I see: one is excruciatingly literal, and the other has a mote of character.