Other languages?

[Alkenix]

Hello Folks.

Are there other languages planned for FG in the early 2019? It would help me and my group to focus more on RP instead of translating.

Maybe there could be an easy way to chance the designation of the whole character sheet?
For example changing the ability names like strength or the skills like acrobatics??

[Moon Wizard]

There are no language adjustments planned right now.

However, there is a community effort to provide some UI translation.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27202

Regards,
JPG

[Targas]

There is a Language Pack Project, but this is GUI and not content related:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27202-LanguagePak-(LPak)-Community-Project-Program
I guess offering localized content in the store would not pay off well. In January 2016 I sent SmiteWorks the localized German D&D 5E adventure Lost Mine of Phandelver, which took me 9 months to translate. It was never put into the store.
I did a couple of other translation projects, but all for myself. As an example, I was about 80% done with Princes of the Apocalypse and it took me 12 months to translate it. Although I translated a Pathfinder Society adventure in approx. 2 months..
You have to find someone doing it, and with the effort involved it‘s hard to find someone doing it.
When put on the store I guess there will be just some handful people purchasing this content, so it‘s probably not worth all this effort.
It get‘s even more complex, because in some case like for Pathfinder, there is an official list of translations to be used (at least into german) - which should avoid translating same terms differently. Where you don‘t have such lists, you need to rely on already published material to be consistent. Just think about the name of Goblin weapons, like horse chopper, which can be translated in various ways. Although using the translated module with other official products it would make it hard to read and understand, if such guides weren‘t used. Just to give you an idea, look here:
https://www.pathfinder-ogl.de/wiki/Regelbegriffe_(Glossar)

[Alkenix]

Thank you for the quick answer.
I will take a look at this @home:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27202-LanguagePak-(LPak)-Community-Project-Program&p=245051&viewfull=1#post245051

Well..at least a missing language support is a sign for a bad company, if you look through businessglasses.
I hope the developers look at posts in this forum to make their product better and give their customers the feeling of having a voice.

[Targas]

For example changing the ability names like strength or the skills like acrobatics??
Although you can do this yourselve, e.g. in Pathfinder by creating new localized skills, you still would have an issue, because purchased content is english only, and not just that. The whole automation depends on using keywords like ‚magic‘, etc. being in english. So yes, partially you can use localized descriptions, but using it for encounters besides that, would destroy automation. Further skills are sorted from A to Z.You will have a hard time scrolling through the mix of interchanging localized and english skills. You could prefix your localized skills with a special character like a „.“ ti somehow sort them. But then, if you level up, your localized skills need to be adjusted manually, and you can‘t remove the english ones.

[Zacchaeus]

Thank you for the quick answer.
I will take a look at this @home:
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?27202-LanguagePak-(LPak)-Community-Project-Program&p=245051&viewfull=1#post245051

Well..at least a missing language support is a sign for a bad company, if you look through businessglasses.
I hope the developers look at posts in this forum to make their product better and give their customers the feeling of having a voice.

The first person that answered your question is the chief developer; so yes, they do look at the forums.

[Targas]

Well..at least a missing language support is a sign for a bad company, if you look through businessglasses.
I‘d say it‘s a simple business case you‘ve to consider on effort and payment you put into it, not just to create, but maintain it, as well as additional sales won by it. If 20 people are purchasing a localized content worth 20 Dollars, then in total you get 400 Dollars. However you need to pay for creation, maintenance, licensing, infrastructure, etc. Therefore small companies rely on volunteers, doing it mostly ‚for free‘. Now tell me who is investing 500 hours (for LMoP) above for peanuts? You‘ll get the point. RPG‘s sales have been dwindling over the last 20 years. Companies like Ulisses nowadays produce 100 physical copies of an adventures and will not reprint it. It sits there for years to be consumed! When RPG‘s started, people where much more interested.
My personal opinion is, it‘s a different generation which wants everything nowadays A) for free, B) easily accessible, C) being entertained without thinking much,D) not spending too much time - but that‘s just my personal view I reckoned playing with some younger generation players.

[Alkenix]

You got me wrong. I know that you have to handle the licence for the region you want to translate for..
But the true programming could be translated to other language, in my opinion.

Well..let's see what the unity version will give us, when it's done.

[damned]

You got me wrong. I know that you have to handle the licence for the region you want to translate for..
But the true programming could be translated to other language, in my opinion.

Well..let's see what the unity version will give us, when it's done.

hey Alkenix its not an easy answer or solution.
many of the RPGs are only written/published in English
some of the publishers that have other languages have licensed those to the translators so new licensing agreements etc have to be done
the whole product needs to be translated again - and much of the code in the more advanced rulesets depends on certain content being english
the smiteworks team is quite small - they have recently grown to 6 staff - so their inhouse ability to take on a project of that size is limited
and finally - the game engine only has limited support for the extended characters required for many languages

so at this time - as cool as other language support would be - its probably not going to happen in the near future :(

[Alkenix]

But is it true that the programm will switch to unity in 2019? Maybe they could have an eye on switching languages. :)

At least I like leading sessions with FG more as in roll20..it has more comfort.

[damned]

But is it true that the programm will switch to unity in 2019? Maybe they could have an eye on switching languages. :)

At least I like leading sessions with FG more as in roll20..it has more comfort.

Once the change to Unity is done that still only solves one of 5 of the challenges I listed... so it is more likely but still probably not very likely...

[Bidmaron]

I know it's not good to hear, but you have to figure that if the original publisher didn't find it profitable to distribute in multiple languages, Fantasy Grounds, which represents (normally) only a fraction of the print and pdf sales of the actual product, has an even worse profitability figure. As others have pointed out, the automation would break even if you could find a kind soul to do the translation for free. Fixing that will be no easier in Unity than the current engine, so it is just a fiscal reality, unfortunately.