W3D Hub W3D Hub launcher and games localization

[__nEmPoBu4__]

Hello there, I'm from Russian Renegade community. We mostly promote Command and Conquer news in our segment, but when it comes to convenience and trouble free gaming experience, we take it with all the seriousness. We would like to cooperate with W3D Hub and contribute to the common goal - making the Renegade great again. If speaking more precise, we want to make Russian translations of W3D Hub Launcher and all games it provides, so our players would not face the problem of long game learning process ever again.
Surely, it would be much better, if there would be more languages support, so that's why this thread now exists - if you want to contribute to the Renegade community by making the games more accessible for non-English speakers, don't be shy to begin from here!
Waiting for the answer from W3D Hub and its community members, who are wishing to help!

Edited May 4, 2019 by __nEmPoBu4__
Corrected the link to the community

[Raptor29aa]

Wow, I did not know Command and Conquer  games were popular in Russia 🇷🇺 

[Threve]

13 hours ago, __nEmPoBu4__ said:

Hello there, I'm from Russian Renegade community. We mostly promote Command and Conquer news in our segment, but when it comes to convenience and trouble free gaming experience, we take it with all the seriousness. We would like to cooperate with W3D Hub and contribute to the common goal - making the Renegade great again. If speaking more precise, we want to make Russian translations of W3D Hub Launcher and all games it provides, so our players would not face the problem of long game learning process ever again.
Surely, it would be much better, if there would be more languages support, so that's why this thread now exists - if you want to contribute to the Renegade community by making the games more accessible for non-English speakers, don't be shy to begin from here!
Waiting for the answer from W3D Hub and its community members, who are wishing to help!

Good Evening, I do not represent the official response of W3DHub. (I'll leave that to @Pushwall or @FRAYDO) however I think I could help you with your project should you need or want it. I do not know Russian but I can get you the Strings.tdb for APB, Reborn, and ECW. (Strings are/is basically the text for everything in the game. Tanks, Weapons, anything)

For IA there are about 13 string files which makes it more complicated... for example I change the strings in one string file and it works for maybe one thing in-game. This means that all 13 string files have to be changed so that they all match up into the game for some reason. @Kaskins Yap if you could make it so the strings are from 1 string file that would make this alot more do-able...

As for the W3DHub launcher you'd have to ask one of the admins about it. I can't remember who was in charge of it, but this shouldn't be as difficult to modify or extensive as the games i'd imagine. I would recommend modifying the Launcher, APB then IA in that order as those are the most popular things people use so far.

 

This might be a weird question but do you (or your team) know how to use the Strings.tdb editor? Do you know what to do? If not I can write up a tutorial to help you guys in modifying the game to different languages. I will show you where to download the tools you'd need and how to use the program (It's beyond easy).

 

Finally, when and if you're done with your translations we (W3DHub) would be happy to keep it in our downloads section so that everyone here and on your site can download it. Who knows, maybe we can make the launcher select languages as well. 

 

Also, Renegade is still great! Big welcome to the community and hope to work together soon. - Threve

 

4 hours ago, Raptor29aa said:

Wow, I did not know Command and Conquer  games were popular in Russia 🇷🇺 

Considering how it's just about free to play I can see it.

[Pushwall]

This would be a difficult project.

1. Right now, Cyrillic characters can't be sent over the netcode, and the strings database doesn't support them either.
2. APB's killfeed icons replace all the obscure symbols and non-standard Latin characters that are supported by the game, leaving only standard Latin characters, numbers, and common symbols. If you were to be given a custom font that replaces the killfeed icons with Cyrillic characters so that you could actually type in a way that works over the netcode, it'd be hard for you to figure out what's killing what, and that's a big part of the game. Also, everyone without your custom font would see you speaking in a flood of "unitrunes". (A couple of Russian players took this approach during the Gamma days, or at least I'm guessing they did since they spoke in unitrunes, but back then the killfeed icons weren't in use so they didn't have to worry about losing that information.) Other projects don't have to worry about sacrificing information since they don't use kill icons, but a custom font is still a hamfisted way of solving the localisation problem. (Then again, kill icons replacing obscure characters instead of being printed some other way is also a hamfisted way of doing the killfeed, and I'd be open to the coders finding a different way of doing the killfeed that doesn't bogart the chat font.)
3. If you were to be given a custom font that replaces the common Latin characters with Cyrillic to get around both these restrictions, everyone without that font would be speaking spam/gibberish to you and everyone with the font would see people without the font the same way, even for people who understand both English and Russian. And this also wouldn't work because...
4. There is a lot of text in these games that doesn't actually use the strings database; text that is defined in a script and can't be changed by the client. I wouldn't mind the scripts guys making all these scripts read from strings instead for the sake of making localisation more feasible, but even if we get past that, there's one more issue...
5. If we ever release any updates to our games that add more strings, anyone maintaining a different localisation will have to take our version of the strings file and copy paste every single individual string from their old file to our new one (and there's a lot of them), otherwise those new strings will be missing. Updates that merely change an existing string are easier to deal with, of course. But the way the strings database works was clearly designed for a 100% finished game that doesn't get any further updates. So I'm sure that won't be a problem for stock Renegade at least.

Still, I'll welcome a localisation project for APB with open arms (I can't speak for the other projects but I'm sure they feel the same way), I'd just prefer that we get some of these code barriers to localisation fixed first (1 and 4 in particular) to make it much easier on you.

I don't know jack about the launcher, but I'm sure localising that is a much more attainable project for the time being. I'll let the launcher coder take that subject though.

[__nEmPoBu4__]

I'm grateful for your response. Your help in getting these APB, Reborn and ECW files would be much appreciated. The tdbeditor isn't that hard actually, I think we will be able to work with it without any problems.
About APB and Reborn having cyrillic letters changed into killfeed icons. It will probably sound ignorant but the best solution would be adding another font to serve this role. I know that I must be speaking only for Russian localization, but there might be problems in the future with other languages support, if you have changed other alphabets' letters (i.e. French or German). Making all this work together now is a very hard work and I understand that, I won't be hurrying you up in any case, just do what you can and take your time.
Having the game files to be redacted from scratch after each update might be hard, but I think we will be able to get over it as the main translation proccess is complete (as we won't have to think about the translation itself anymore, except new content, but just moving the existing strings to a new file).

Thank you for noticing this, we're looking forward for this cooperation!

[TemporaryName]

btw. there is many people in internet who loves this game but they think multiplayer is already dead, just look at comments on youtube

[Threve]

4 hours ago, __nEmPoBu4__ said:

Thank you for noticing this, we're looking forward for this cooperation!

I’ll get you the strings.tdb files and post them here. However Pushwall does bring up a couple good points.

i don’t think APB can have cyrlic (Russian) characters. APB can only handle a limited amount of custom characters/letters (like 40) and currently out of those 40 about 38 or so are being used for Icons when you kill someone. What this means is it’s impossible unless you want a Russian letter to show up when you kill someone or the game says you got killed by a Russian letter. 

as for ECW and Interim Apex, they do not use the custom kill icons so you might be able to make it work on these games because you’d have the room (those 40 characters I was talking about that can be replaced because they’re not used in-game). In regards to changing to  the scripts to read the new characters (your Russian letters) and input them. I have no idea how. 

Now that i’m Thinking about it (and I think Pushwall said this if i’m Not mistaken..) it might be impossible all around with these custom Russian characters. The reason being is in English the game will say

”player has left the game”

if you made the game in Russian it would say 

“игрок вышел из игры” (google translate so maybe it’s correct but you get the idea)

 

Anyways, you would have to replace the letters p l a y e r h s l f t  and etc. then tell the server itself that a Russian letter replaces said English letter. This might be a bit confusing so long story short...

if you’re translating English to another language without the use of special characters then it’s easy and smooth. If you input custom characters (like Russian) you have to have the server apply that for EVERYONE who plays otherwise the custom characters will not work/be activated. The server can only use one set of scripts at a time. This goes for every game on Renegade..IA, ECW, Reborn.

The only solution to not make people who don’t understand Russian be able to play would be to create a new server where Russian custom letters are applied. This of course is counter productive.

 

At the bottom of Google translate, it also says “igrok vyshel iz igry”. Does this also mean “Player has left the game” in Russian? If it does then you can simply replace the text with that and it’ll work smoothly since they are “normal” English characters. 

Edited May 1, 2019 by Threve
Problem solving

[__nEmPoBu4__]

Well, If it's not possible, let it be then. We do not want to separate English and Russian players by making different servers. Transcription of Russian words with English letters isn't the solution either as it is even less understandable, than English, not even mentioning that it's just rather silly method of speaking Russian and won't be taken seriously.
Considering everything said, we will make the localizations of IA and ECW, leaving APB and Reborn alone. We still will be promoting them, but with another technique - guides.
Thank you for explaining everything and for understanding!

[Pushwall]

42 minutes ago, __nEmPoBu4__ said:

Well, If it's not possible, let it be then. 

It may be possible in the future if the code guys can fix cyrillic characters not being sent properly over netcode so no font shenanigans are needed.

[FRAYDO]

Privyet! We are glad to have you here as a representative of the Russian C&C Renegade community. Please enjoy your stay.

[Threve]

3 hours ago, __nEmPoBu4__ said:

Considering everything said, we will make the localizations of IA and ECW, leaving APB and Reborn alone. We still will be promoting them, but with another technique - guides.
Thank you for explaining everything and for understanding!

I might have some good news for you then comrade.

I have created an EXTREMELY extensive guide to ECW already (Maybe it can be posted or translated into russian?)

And I am currently in the process of creating a Guide to Interim Apex on our Tacitus (Basically the W3Dhub Wiki for everything W3D based engine. This means tutorials, tools, and guides along with history or W3DHub and games.) http://tacitus.w3dhub.com/

We have however had some drama happen with the Tacitus so it's currently not up and running unfortunately. When it is I can notify you if you'd like. Hell, maybe you could even help write the guides unto the tacitus with me about the games?

[__nEmPoBu4__]

20 hours ago, Pushwall said:

It may be possible in the future if the code guys can fix cyrillic characters not being sent properly over netcode so no font shenanigans are needed.

We'll be looking forward to it, thanks!

20 hours ago, FRAYDO said:

Privyet! We are glad to have you here as a representative of the Russian C&C Renegade community. Please enjoy your stay.

Thank you, it will be a pleasure to work together with you!

16 hours ago, Threve said:

I have created an EXTREMELY extensive guide to ECW already (Maybe it can be posted or translated into russian?)

Your guide is amazing! Very detailed, I will translate it in the nearest time, thanks!

16 hours ago, Threve said:

And I am currently in the process of creating a Guide to Interim Apex on our Tacitus (Basically the W3Dhub Wiki for everything W3D based engine. This means tutorials, tools, and guides along with history or W3DHub and games.) http://tacitus.w3dhub.com/

We have however had some drama happen with the Tacitus so it's currently not up and running unfortunately. When it is I can notify you if you'd like. Hell, maybe you could even help write the guides unto the tacitus with me about the games?

The Tacitus issue is very unfortunate, I hope this will be resolved soon. As for helping in making write-ups about W3D games - I'm not really an expert here, as I specialize more in Renegade X. Though it would be very interesting to learn something new and help you out!

[Yah-Nosh]

Hi @__nEmPoBu4__

I'm one of the developers. I just wanted to add that we definitely should not give up hope on the localization just yet. I have an idea for solving the netcode issue mentioned above, and I'm discussing it with the team. Stay tuned.

Also, I have a Russian friend who is currently looking for game projects where he can do translation/localization work. Do you guys already have a team assembled, or are you looking for contributors?

Glad to have you on board!

[__nEmPoBu4__]

1 hour ago, Yah-Nosh said:

I'm one of the developers. I just wanted to add that we definitely should not give up hope on the localization just yet. I have an idea for solving the netcode issue mentioned above, and I'm discussing it with the team. Stay tuned.

Looking forward to it, thank you!

1 hour ago, Yah-Nosh said:

Also, I have a Russian friend who is currently looking for game projects where he can do translation/localization work. Do you guys already have a team assembled, or are you looking for contributors?

We will accept any help, your friend can contact us anytime he like!

And again, thank you!

[Jeod]

Yah-Nosh has fixed a lot of mind-boggling issues. He's the one behind the plane physics, which were long thought either impossible or too difficult to implement correctly. When he says he has a plan, you can trust that he has a plan.

[Yah-Nosh]

@JeodReally? I thought everyone was just too busy with other things to get around to it :D

In any case, yeah, I'll try and help figure this out. I've already considered bringing up the topic of localization, since I figured that there's a ton of people out there who would be more interested in the game if they could play it in their own language (might even attract more modders too). And now we know there is actual demand for it.

[Threve]

For anyone reading or desiring for now or the future... Here are the String files for almost all W3DHub games as follows. Furthermore included in this Zip is the String editor I use made by Tiberian Tech. 

@__nEmPoBu4__ This should help out with your efforts in-case you decide to translate it to another language without special characters or are able to figure something out yourself.

(INCLUDED IN ZIP)

-APB, IA, Reborn and ECW String Files

- String Editor

*Please note that IA has about 10 string files.. This has been discussed with Yap and he is working on it. However to edit the strings in IA involves some (alot) of trial and error to see which string edit works on which file.

Enjoy.

 

 

Strings for W3D.zip

[danpaul88]

I actually brought this up myself a few weeks ago internally as something we could do. The launcher mostly already supports localisation, but doesn't yet have any translations... so I've created a topic to let you supply some  

 

Longer term I'd also like to add support for the launcher to download localisation files for our games too (in the form of an extra localisation package for a given language) which would override the default strings table and anything else that needs localising in always.dat

[__nEmPoBu4__]

16 hours ago, Threve said:

This should help out with your efforts in-case you decide to translate it to another language without special characters or are able to figure something out yourself.

Thank you for providing these, we will start working on it soon!

4 hours ago, danpaul88 said:

I actually brought this up myself a few weeks ago internally as something we could do. The launcher mostly already supports localisation, but doesn't yet have any translations... so I've created a topic to let you supply some  

This is great news! I submitted the Russian translation tags, check it out!