There was an old thread about this, but i decided to post a new, especially because i wanted to suggest translating the game on Russian myself. Fan made translations are always better than some pro made, as fans know lore, try to save the feeling they had, when played, and they work for free ^_^ So if you are interested in this, all i need is bunch of text + wishes of how i should do it (shall i try to make sence or translate by text and such) There are many people i know, who do not know english (and some of them are even proud of it -_-)
I don't think that's a good idea at the moment. If CH was also in, say, Russian, Russian players would also need their own server because having half of the chat in lobby in Russian would be very disturbing (even for someone who knows Russian like me). Also it's no fun playing against someone who can't understand you. But we don't even have enough players for 1 server yet...
But on the other hand getting enough players for 1 server would be much easier if game would be translated on different. Also there could be, say, made just for russian chat/pvp lobby, its not like this game requires good ping, as its step-by-step, so there is no need for another server. Translating is mostly done by changing files with one text to files with another, and i think its rather easy to do it ingame. Besides there is kind of zero advertisment of this game around the internet. I came here by being invited by someone other, who knew about it from someone other, who... We aint getting even one server filled like that for a loong time. Besides i think this game does not even needs pvp, better do more pve stuff. I already got to repeat quests with melvin, so i stopped playing it, for, like, year, but now remembered, as i wanted to show it to my friend, who loves board games, and he was like "Ewww, its english only! I aint learning that capitalists language for this!" -_- Well, thats pretty much why i suggested to translate it ) Also i have too much free time, and too little stuff to do (well, at least until i will buy myself good pc which would not lag while i play even flash games)
There are 2 main draw to Card Hunter: The first is the setting, humor, or flavor of the game. The setting is based on classic DnD. The not quite essential storyline that poke lighthearted fun at nerds and the players. The meta Blue Manchu referencing. etc... Some of the humor in this game is quite hard to translate to another language. The second is the mechanics, the brilliant combination of card game and tactical turn-based grid game. The power token system. The multiplayer mode, league etc.... In order to fully appreciate and get drawn into this game for the first reason, one must have already been fluent in English, or at least the reading part. Speaking from the perspective of a non-native English speaker who played a ton of game before I even learned English, I probably won't care much for the story and text in this game if I truly played and enjoyed its mechanics. Picture and number doesn't need translation. Rule are simple and easy to learn by trial and error (without knowing the language). If I somehow later liked the story and the humor, the best course of action is to study English to truly understand and appreciate all the jokes. Speaking from the perspective of the devs, BM has very few staff and they all work remotely with each other. I feel like they wont ever have the resources to spend on translation. It's only up to the fans to do it. Even then, they still have to spend time approving those translation if they ever wanted to add it to the game. tl;dr: Translation is simple, but not easy for BM to implement. I don't feel like it is needed, as non-English speaker players come to the game mostly for the mechanics.
If i to speak from my personal expirience, i played such game as Baldurs Gate long time ago. Now i bought it from steam, and i cant play it like i did before, because it was not translated on release on russian, and translation i had was fan-made. Now they made a pro one and its awful -_- . Well, i dont know how to describe it better, its just a "feel" you have, when you play a game. It combines from many little things, and text is one of those; thats what i wanted to share with others. In my opinion cardhunter mechanics isnt really brilliant (especially those power tokens! I hate goddamn power tokens!), well maybe from multiplayer perspective it would be so. But as i already (kinda) said i hate multiplaying here, as its PVP and PVP means that there 100% will be loser. I think that everyone should be winners ) But back to topic. Cardhunter have good mechanics, but it also provides player with humor; that is what gives game that "feel" and i think that it should be translated. If you think its hard - thats up to translator, if i wouldnt be told to translate by the text ofc. There are always such things as local memes (like "Thanks, Obama" - in Russia we had it for a long time but as "Thanks, Pushkin") which can be swapped without losing much sence, most cases of redirecting to other things can be swapped as well, and if i try hard enough, i can even provide some humouros rhymes which could be used in some cases. I think that you could do the same if you tried, i mean, just spend some time doing so, and you will see that it is not that hard. But if BM is really so underresoursed, well thats too bad -_- . Cant help with that, as i just started to learn how to flash.
I'd really like to see CH translated into many languages, but I don't know if an overlay of different text blocks selected based upon a switchable setting will work in Flash. Having to run a different program on a server for each language could be prohibitive.
Also, there's the problem of being legally responsible for any text in the game - in translations the devs can't read themselves.
A colleague of mine once said, "English is the language of business". But on a serious note: As Pengw1n said the translations could land Blue Manchu in big trouble, unless they make a document that puts any legal repercussions for "questionable language" the sole responsibility of the contracted translator.
Nothing to say about translations, but this thread has taught me that I should spend more time on these forums so I can resuscitate my Russian.
