Just how much flavor text is there left to convert?

Or, no wonder the ambitious tech trees have driven sensible schedule changes

from GalCiv2 Forums
I tried to be a good citizen this morning and help another player out with a question about viewing econ starbase effects on a planet in the AoE. I haven't played a long enough TA game yet to have built an econ starbase, so I loaded an old DA game to check my recollection of the UI, and made a mental note to compare when I fired TA up again...

And it seems that these funky "new" Thalans-from-some-future still think that "Thala has long been the residence of the Thalan people."

This leaves me wondering if anyone has bright ideas for helping us beta folks help the devs do this sort of cleanup. My work experience is limited, so all I can quickly imagine is building a Word doc with the names of all the XML files as headings, pasting the XML contents as normal text, turning on tracked changes, and having at it. But that automatically leaves out folks who can't personally pay exorbitant license fees for a word processor, etc.
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And it seems that these funky "new" Thalans-from-some-future still think that "Thala has long been the residence of the Thalan people."
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If you are referring to the Colony Details screen, than this is essentially the same text that is used for every race, honestly. It would be nice if the Colony Description text engine got an upgrade with the recent changes, but I'm not going to hold my breath on this matter. Although, it might be easy enough to change the descriptions used for just the Civilization Capitals...

But to go with the flow of the thread... the flavor text regarding the Hyperdrive probably needs to be changed to, given that it has been retconned that it was the Human's invention of the Hyper Fusion Reactor that enabled the support of Stargate-like engines that could be localized on a ship, rather than a massive structure that changed the face of the galaxy, not the invention of the Hyperdrive itself, which was just adapted from the propulsion systems present on the Stargates. (At least, that's how I understand it anyway)

The Paulos's description still refers to the Invention of the Hyperdrive, as does the start-up pop-up window at the beginning of every game/game load.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've been pestering the Stardock devs (Kryo and Frogboy) to let me submit my new technology descriptions for review. I've basically made the descriptions much more serious, far more plausible, and even slightly more useful. They're a lot longer and verbose to be sure, but after seeing the new technology descriptions for Hyperfusion / Artificial Gravity, etc. I thought they could all use a redo. Some of them are good, some are just stupid: "Remember Basic Miniaturization? Well now it's better, and stuff, and junk."

Here's a sample of what I've written.

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In fact, if I knew I wasn't wasting my time and the developers were honestly considering the addition of community input like that, I'd make semi-unique technology descriptions for every race using the new trees.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well, I like the idea of more serious descriptions, but there was actually a thread about this some time ago and the majority of people seemed to indicate that they preferred the silly sometimes-funny descriptions rather than 'technobabble'. That being said, these particular descriptions seem rather long; I would suggest condensing them.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
they ought to hire a real writer.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
they ought to hire a real writer.
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:LOL:

Speaking of which, how's that endeavor going?
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
it's going, but slowly. funny how personal plans always take a back-burner when you meet someone special :d 
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've been pestering the Stardock devs (Kryo and Frogboy) to let me submit my new technology descriptions for review. I've basically made the descriptions much more serious, far more plausible, and even slightly more useful. They're a lot longer and verbose to be sure, but after seeing the new technology descriptions for Hyperfusion / Artificial Gravity, etc. I thought they could all use a redo. Some of them are good, some are just stupid: "Remember Basic Miniaturization? Well now it's better, and stuff, and junk."
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I want you to answer me three questions: Have you ever read the description for a tech more than once, do you make Wikipedia articles, and why do you think the rest of the GalCiv community wants to read Wikipedia-sized articles when they're almost invariably rapidly clicking the "next" button so they can get on with the game rather than reading the text of a tech that they've already read five times, neverminding the fact that they're playing a game and not browsing Wikipedia and hence probably don't care about whatever explanation you give them about why Warp Drive III is better than Warp Drive II?

I, for one, chuckled when I read the various Miniaturization descriptions, because it showed me that the developers understood exactly how much of a crap I gave about their description and plausibility. If I cared about how such a concept would work, I'd go read a book. For now I'm busy trying to slaughter those farking Torians because their ugly green hue annoys me.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've been pestering the Stardock devs (Kryo and Frogboy) to let me submit my new technology descriptions for review. I've basically made the descriptions much more serious, far more plausible, and even slightly more useful. They're a lot longer and verbose to be sure, but after seeing the new technology descriptions for Hyperfusion / Artificial Gravity, etc. I thought they could all use a redo. Some of them are good, some are just stupid: "Remember Basic Miniaturization? Well now it's better, and stuff, and junk."


I want you to answer me three questions: Have you ever read the description for a tech more than once, do you make Wikipedia articles, and why do you think the rest of the GalCiv community wants to read Wikipedia-sized articles when they're almost invariably rapidly clicking the "next" button so they can get on with the game rather than reading the text of a tech that they've already read five times, neverminding the fact that they're playing a game and not browsing Wikipedia and hence probably don't care about whatever explanation you give them about why Warp Drive III is better than Warp Drive II?

I, for one, chuckled when I read the various Miniaturization descriptions, because it showed me that the developers understood exactly how much of a crap I gave about their description and plausibility. If I cared about how such a concept would work, I'd go read a book. For now I'm busy trying to slaughter those farking Torians because their ugly green hue annoys me.
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While a lot of people couldn't be less bothered by tech description so that as soon as a tech description pop-up, they skip it there are lot of people which are really interested in "flavour" and certainly a more serious and longer tech description would work a lot better than a silly one.
To really understand how much flavour is important take in consideration a mod for Civ4 named FfH2 which success mostly rely on its added flavour.
Text (tech,improvement description, diplomacy dialog) while can be pretty minor compared to other features, adds a lot of atmosphere to a game, and can make the difference between a good game and a great one.

Uranium-235 your tech descriptions are very well written and interesting, hopefully Stardock will add them in the game to create a more unique flavour.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think you should go ahead with it Uranium. I'm think with the modding tools it's would be possible to put in your descriptions even if they aren't officially adopted, and I definitely would.


And yeah, the 'start of game' message for the Thalans is still something about how the humans gave them hyperdrive technology and whatnot.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I've been pestering the Stardock devs (Kryo and Frogboy) to let me submit my new technology descriptions for review. I've basically made the descriptions much more serious, far more plausible, and even slightly more useful. They're a lot longer and verbose to be sure, but after seeing the new technology descriptions for Hyperfusion / Artificial Gravity, etc. I thought they could all use a redo. Some of them are good, some are just stupid: "Remember Basic Miniaturization? Well now it's better, and stuff, and junk."


I want you to answer me three questions: Have you ever read the description for a tech more than once, do you make Wikipedia articles, and why do you think the rest of the GalCiv community wants to read Wikipedia-sized articles when they're almost invariably rapidly clicking the "next" button so they can get on with the game rather than reading the text of a tech that they've already read five times, neverminding the fact that they're playing a game and not browsing Wikipedia and hence probably don't care about whatever explanation you give them about why Warp Drive III is better than Warp Drive II?

I, for one, chuckled when I read the various Miniaturization descriptions, because it showed me that the developers understood exactly how much of a crap I gave about their description and plausibility. If I cared about how such a concept would work, I'd go read a book. For now I'm busy trying to slaughter those farking Torians because their ugly green hue annoys me.


While a lot of people couldn't be less bothered by tech description so that as soon as a tech description pop-up, they skip it there are lot of people which are really interested in "flavour" and certainly a more serious and longer tech description would work a lot better than a silly one.
To really understand how much flavour is important take in consideration a mod for Civ4 named FfH2 which success mostly rely on its added flavour.
Text (tech,improvement description, diplomacy dialog) while can be pretty minor compared to other features, adds a lot of atmosphere to a game, and can make the difference between a good game and a great one.

Uranium-235 your tech descriptions are very well written and interesting, hopefully Stardock will add them in the game to create a more unique flavour.
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Unfortunately I lost some of the work I did when I forgot to back it up before the last patch, but most of it's still intact on a different hard drive. Whoops, go me.

Besides, I might wait until TA is mostly done... but then again, I only have a couple months left... hrm.

And the way I see it, if flavor text weren't important, why would they have written a backstory about the game, as well as written such long descriptions about Artificial Gravity and Hyperfusion like they did? Obviously someone is interested in it.
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
longer discriptions would r0xorz!  :LOL: 

although the tech discriptions are pretty unimportant, the only bad thing I can think of have someone from the community type better ones is that there'll be afew more milli-secounds of loading time for tech pop-ups.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

And the way I see it, if flavor text weren't important, why would they have written a backstory about the game, as well as written such long descriptions about Artificial Gravity and Hyperfusion like they did? Obviously someone is interested in it.
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Backstory as flavor for a setting is one thing. Tripping over a wikipedia entry's worth of backstory because you researched "Laser III" is something different entirely.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top


And the way I see it, if flavor text weren't important, why would they have written a backstory about the game, as well as written such long descriptions about Artificial Gravity and Hyperfusion like they did? Obviously someone is interested in it.


Backstory as flavor for a setting is one thing. Tripping over a wikipedia entry's worth of backstory because you researched "Laser III" is something different entirely.
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So if you don't like it, skip it. Do you also just toss shit onto hull and send it out or do you sit there and design your own look to your ships? Guess what, that's pointless too. Guess you better start skipping over the shipyard.

And to mock your laughable "backstory as flavor for a setting" point, researching technology and advancing your empire is pretty much just establishing historical backstory as well. I think the popularity of a show like Star Trek that is absolutely saturated in plausible science fiction and 'technobabble' every episode pretty much disagrees with your assessment of what people are interested in anyway.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What makes me think I touched a nerve here? ::/

So if you don't like it, skip it. Do you also just toss shit onto hull and send it out or do you sit there and design your own look to your ships? Guess what, that's pointless too. Guess you better start skipping over the shipyard.
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I think you've managed to completely miss my point. Outside of a bit of backstory to give races some flavor, perhaps incorporating such without being verbose into their tech trees (Such as, say, the Drath techs that study the history of the Arnor and Dreadlords) but nonetheless keeping it to a relative minimum, there is no reason to put a series of mini-novels into their tech descriptions. That is best reserved for tiny communities of RP nuts who run the Wikipedia entry on GalCiv 2.

And to mock your laughable "backstory as flavor for a setting" point, researching technology and advancing your empire is pretty much just establishing historical backstory as well. I think the popularity of a show like Star Trek that is absolutely saturated in plausible science fiction and 'technobabble' every episode pretty much disagrees with your assessment of what people are interested in anyway.
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You know, there's really no need for me to give any more commentary here. The developers are wisely choosing to ignore you, you're not getting anywhere posting your novels on forums, and my posts apparently offend your delicate senses, so I might as well just give it a rest. As parting advice, however, I would recommend that you just go and start up some kind of tiny community of people who actually care about what makes Ion Drive better than Hyperdrive and go work on a GalCiv 2 wikipedia or something.

Also, listen to this guy:

Well, I like the idea of more serious descriptions, but there was actually a thread about this some time ago and the majority of people seemed to indicate that they preferred the silly sometimes-funny descriptions rather than 'technobabble'. That being said, these particular descriptions seem rather long; I would suggest condensing them.
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