Awful, awful spelling and grammar

from GalCiv2 Forums
I know for most of you it's not an issue, but this game is just awful when it comes to sentence structure and spelling. I just started playing, and I'm enjoying it, but the overabundance of mistakes is killing my fun. I have recently engaged diplomatic relations with the Snathi and apparently they're malacious. Malace is not a word, it's malice!

Many of your sentences are either too wordy or badly constructed. Sometimes I had to read them twice to understand what they meant since they lead to ambiguous conclusions. Example: on page #9 of your .pdf manual "The Normal setting will proceed with the default victory conditions." I assume the conveyed meaning is that choosing the Normal setting will enable default victory conditions. In the following sentence: "Otherwise, you can choose from among various scenarios..." Useless repetition. It should've been something like: "...you can choose from various scenarios...", or even better "... you can choose among various scenarios...".

Also, the use of contractions such as, we're or you're, is not recommended when it isn't part of a conversation. It's fine when the GNN robot is talking with the player, but when they're part of a research report, it's messy.

Right now, I'm looking at the top of the Create Forum Post in the HTML Markup section and the word grammar is misspelt as 'grammer'. Come on!

I'm a professional proofreader and translator and I would be glad to revise any documents or game text you would send my way. I would also do it for a fair price. This game is great but the quality of the language should represent the amount of hard work invested; and you've invested a lot.

Additionally, whenever I press the windows button to return to windows mode, my game crashes.


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18,594 views 74 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sigh. Everyone's trying to make a buck.

I'd do it for free, and my English is pretty good.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Getting an editor to look over all the in game text would have really done wonders for this game. The spelling doesn't really bother me so much ( I wouldn't have even noticed malice spelt wrong) but the wording really stands out like a sore thumb sometimes. Those examples you put aren't even that bad, I've seen much worse in this game.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Based on your logic I stopped reading after the first paragraph because in your first paragraph you have 4 grammatical errors. Master the language yourself before you start complaining about others.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
YAWN ..... Now back to something important like how Brad updated the AI.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Me gamer. Me no talk so goood. Me spell easy stuff like rocx or skillz. Or somtimes when me angry me say ****. Me angry alot. Me want money two. Stardock! Give me money!
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm a professional proofreader

Ha! A professional troll is more like it.
misspelt

If you're going to be a grammar troll, at least spell that word right. It's misspelled. I don't even want to get into punctuation.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

spelled and spelt are both acceptable

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=misspelt
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, a lot of the GC2 cutscene animation would get you kicked out of art school, were you to hand it in to me as your class project. Some pretty crappy secondaries, looks like parts of the model for the evil GNN robot were rendered on the wrong layers, and here and there you have some scene composition that just doesn't work all that well.

However, Stardock didn't pay me to fix their animations; in fact, I paid to play their game. And I like the game, animation flaws notwithstanding. It's certainly not as bad as X3, where the grammar and animations are far worse.

It feels pretty good to get this off of my chest, though. I doubt it will ever get fixed, and I would not want it to be a high-priority issue, anyway.

Finally, just to be clear, "Grammer" most closely refers to the Cheers and Frasier actor Kelsey Grammer, while "Grammar" is about how one puts words together in sentences and such.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I hate to admit it but the OP has a point. There are quite a few grammar and spelling mistakes in the game and outside the game (manuals etc).

However there are several things to consider:

1. Obviously you are an expert when it comes to the english lanuage...so you will, obviously, be more "focused" on these issues. However, for the average player...you must understand that it is not a big thing. Personally, I don't notice these mistakes and even if I do...I'm too busy fighting the bloody yor to react to it. Don't get me wrong. If stardock decides to fix all the language mistakes in the game...then fine...go ahead...but only do it if it won't take away from the updates. Only do it if it doesn't take away from making the AI better and smarter. Only do it if it won't take away from developing the game.

2. You also have to look at the overal "context" of the developer. This whole game has a "humorous" and "sarcastic" tone. Personally that is what makes the game fun. The developers injected some humor to the game. You see this in everything. The research report, the way the AI talks, to the way menus are described. There isn't really a "formal" tone to it...and that is a good thing. Also, if the use of "contractions" is the worst problem you can come up with...then I think the game did its job.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
They could pay you. OR; They could copy the list of documents containing any text (easy as they're all .xml), paste into word, and within half an hour have perfect spelling.

Anyway, doesn't matter to me since I use my own text.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
This game is great but the quality of the language should represent the amount of hard work invested; and you've invested a lot.
He left out a comma, and you don't use a conjunction with a semicolon. You can't take this poster seriously. It's a joke, or he's a troll.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i like bugs
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"Your base belongs to us".. took me two turns to realize what that means. I still found it funny though
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow. Maybe they should have spent more time proofing the grammar, instead of making a better game for us. Personally that is more important to me. It would be great to see the A.I. still going around in huge ship designs without engines. Or even, no throttling option. That's just me though....
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
dont forget that a lot of sentence structure dealing with the ai is the way it is because of the ai. for example... the drengin.... they wouldnt be very good speakers and the way they speak in game is the way they really would, poor sentence structure and all. misspellings etc are unfortunate, but think of all the other work involved, they are bound to miss some things.... look at everything you've ever written and tell me you havent made a mistake somewhere. its going to happen, and eventually when people find them all, they will likely be fixed. ive hardly noticed anything and have found everything clearly understandable. ..... and

RODY it says "all your base are belong to us" i have a screenshot of it, and its not bad grammar or anything, thats the way it should be.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Its a game, not a Legal Dissertation. Maybe they wanted to misspell the words? True the game has its flaws, but to me that gives it its character. There is one thing i cant figure out though, if the game is so Awful, why are you still playing it ? Your very own words are, " I just started playing, and I'm enjoying it ". How can you enjoy somthing that you criticize so much? If you are as you claim to be a " professional proofreader and translator ", why do you continue to play such an Awful game? Did you buy the game just so you can find flaws with it? Another thing is if you would stop pressing the windows button to return to ( the correct term is) " Windowed Mode " , and start pressing the TURN button in the game more ,you will most likely avoid so many crashes!
I think its time for people to just " Get a Grip", and start playing the game, because that is what it is, a game!
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Based on your logic I stopped reading after the first paragraph because in your first paragraph you have 4 grammatical errors. Master the language yourself before you start complaining about others


i also stopped reading in the beginning. read a few of the other posts, such as the "I'd do it for free" comment.

i'd do it for free, and when i really sit down and apply myself, i'm great with the language. i pursuing an MFA in writing and poetics. and i have a BA specialized in the sociology of language. it's very difficult to spot one's own grammar errors, and if you really want to split hairs, none of us are using especially wonderful language on here. the only thing that has a more deleterious effect on the english language than interacting through computers is interacting through alcohol.

that said, take a step back to consider your complaint. for all my education, my day job is in customer service. for a mortgage lender. i see the worst of human nature, and considering it's a US-national lender, i also hear the worst of english grammar. the game really isn't that bad. i've noticed some errors, and the occassionally awkward syntax. do you know what i haven't noticed?

unbalanced gameplay.

predictable AI.

boring graphics.

lack of variety.

finally, i remember seeing a forum and post early on that was completely dedicated to producing a list of typographical errors and other similar language issues for stardock to correct. frankly, i think it's rightly a back burner issue.

finally, as a creative writer, all i have to the original poster is this: get over yourself. a foucaldian take on propriety in grammar emphasizes the ways that its a means of social control maintained by an authoritative power. but authority is in the perception of the speaker's audience, and frankly, you don't got it.

did you ever consider the possibility that the awkward sentence structure is meant to reflect a specific habit of drengin speech, or typos, a bug in universal translation software? use your imagination dude.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
finally, i said finally twice, and neither of the paragraphs were final. no one's perfect.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@ Rody

Link
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Bah. Nobodys perfect. So theres a grammar error. Big deal. So there's a mispelling. Again, Big Deal. Maybe its getting the kinks out of the universal translator ?

Does it destroy the game ? No. There's not even a big % of grammar/spelling errors. Meh.

I also agree with Dystopic's post.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
For those of us with a real education, I agree, it's a terrible distraction. The shameless plug for the OP's proofreading services was laughable at best.

I am amused by the replies which suggest that proofreading would have been some terrible burden, consuming vast corporate resources that could have been devoted to creating one extra AI, or maybe a cool-looking piece of 3D decoration. No, the poor grammar isn't a game-ruining issue, but it's roughly equivalent to walking into a formal dinner, blissfully unaware that you have left your zipper down. In other words, it's very easy to fix, it's something that should have been fixed, and it looks very unprofessional.

Worst of all, since the developers had the foresight to put all text strings into external files, it would have been extremely easy to check.

It's just sloppy, that's all.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It's just sloppy, that's all.


Get a life people! Skimming through the posts, at least one person was correct: The text is the way it is on purpose. Have you ever seen a literal translation from another language? The syntax doesn't always match perfectly and a literal translation won't have perfect grammar because the grammar rules are different between languages.

To bring my example in-game: Have you run into another race BEFORE researching Universal Translator? Gibberish pops up in the dialog box with "(we need to research universal translator)." Did any of you grammar natzis ever stop to use your imagination enough to realize the universal tranlator was literally translating? At most you could complain about any spelling mistakes, but the spelling errors add character; IMHO.

I see two possible options, neither of which should be done by Stardock:
1) Go in and edit all the text messages to your liking.
2) Mod in another technology after the UT (call it a Universal Syntax Engine) and mod in the perfect text of your choice being presented after the second technology is researched.

Of course there really is a third option: Quit your bitching, use your imagination and simply enjoy the game as a game.
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
Oh, give me a break. You can't honestly believe they misspelled a couple words to "simulate" translating alien languages. That's a huge leap from the obvious pre-translator gibberish. My god, I've heard of rampant fanboy behavior, but that's just ridiculous.

I didn't say I'm not enjoying the game. I said it does create a distraction.

This is a message board. People have discussions here. Not all of them are fawning praise. Get over it.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Jeez, I didn't expect that many replies in such a short time. In any case, they have work to do and I hope they do it soon.

None of you would do it for free. The amount of information you'd have to proofread would most probably discourage you. It's not a single-man job. It would probably take two to three people to revise eachother's work. I doubt any of you who criticized me have University degrees or work experience in the domain, so pipe down.

This stuff is easy to fix and it should've been done. For Pete's sake, they've had that 'grammer' error for a while now. It doesn't take a team of linguists to fix that! They ARE sloppy.

And who cares if I didn't write my post in revised English? This is just a dumb forum, not a University entry exam.

Oh yeah! 'Misspelt' is acceptable too. Duh!