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Win Prizes and Explore New Languages: Localization Pre-release out on March 16th!


UomoCapra

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Humans are and have always been explorers, regardless of our ethnicity or cultural origin. We all share some underlying traits such as our unquenchable curiosity, our ingenuity and our will to go further and beyond. That is how we were able to venture out of Africa and populate every corner of the world, but that wasn't enough for us, and in the past 60 years we have expanded the grasp of our reach to the ultimate frontier...space. This venture has united us as human beings, and requires the expertise of all fields of science and the collective effort of all nations. At KSP HQ, we deeply believe in this venture. As a multicultural team, we have always tried our best to bring the experience to everyone and inspire future explorers.

That is the reason why we started a massive undertaking to localize Kerbal Space Program in four more languages: Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Russian and Spanish. We want to decrease language barriers and let more people enjoy the Kerbal experience in their native tongue.

Each language was carefully localized so it keeps the humor and charm of the English version. Keyboard layouts, UI and textures were also modified to please local players of each region

To give you an idea of the scope of this endeavor, the game has around 4,000,000 lines of code that had to be carefully revised to start cataloging all the aspects that needed to be localized and addressed. We translated more than 82,000 words, created 456 images for textures and UI, prepared 684 slides for the KSPedia and everything was carefully revised by a team of more than 20 dedicated volunteers.

This venture is not over yet, though. In the next two weeks we will pre-release this update to let players start playing in their native language and in the process, help us polish the final details of the localization effort to ensure a high quality experience to all KSP players. The KSP community has always been an essential part of the game, so we are grateful and honored to keep counting on your support.

By doing this, we’ll be able to use more resources on other projects in development, while simultaneously continue with localization on a steady pace.

The Localization Pack pre-release will come out on March 16th, and as always, you will be able to provide us with your invaluable feedback via our bugtracker.

But that is not all, we’ve decided to celebrate this release by announcing The Kerbal Chronicles Contest.

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Be a space article reporter for a day! To participate, you must write a satirical/parody/comedy article for our space race-themed magazine, The Kerbal Chronicles. As we are getting four new languages, we consider it proper to have four winners from anywhere in the world. The best four, selected by our community, will win the following prizes:

Prizes

For the four winners:

  • Their article will be published in The Kerbal Chronicles.

  • Winners will get themselves kerbalized by our Lead Artist, along with their own chosen or designed flag in a Shapeways exclusive one of kind figurine, which will be delivered to your home.

  • Have their names – or a name they choose – to be included as astronauts in Kerbal Space Program, available worldwide.

  • A special printed limited edition of The Kerbal Chronicles.

 

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The first 10 runner-ups will get a special printed limited edition of The Kerbal Chronicles.

The Kerbal Chronicles will be available digitally to everyone, but only these four winners will see their own articles featured, along, of course, with their names as authors.

Rules

  • Everyone in the world can participate!

  • Please use proper language (suitable for all ages).

  • The article must have a title and be between 200 and 300 words in length.

  • The article must be set in the Kerbal universe.

  • To participate, you will have to post your article in this forum thread.

  • We will let our community decide for their favorite article via a poll.

Important dates

  • The last day to submit your article is March 13, 2017.

  • A poll will be open in the forums on March 14, 2017… everyone can vote!

  • Winners will be announced on March 15, 2017 (one day before pre-release).

  • On March 17, 2017, the magazine will be available digitally.

But that is not all! We have more exciting news coming soon, so stay tuned! 

 

And next time, we’ll make sure to hype up those future announcements even more! :wink:

 

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I expected nothing but I'm still disappointed.

 

EDIT: I mean, really? You hype this up so much only for it to be what you were already doing, not exactly an announcement. Not to mention the do it for us approach to worldbuilding you seem to have taken. Sure, the contest itself is pretty ok but when you've got nothing of a space race sort in-game, something that would be worthy of this kind of hyping. 

 

Sell, sell, sell. Right?

 

EDIT2: I'm ok with the localisation, you've done nothing but talk about it for months so let's pretend that's not here. It's the contest. You've taken something sorely missed from the game and turned it into a contest for your own publicity. I so wanted a Space-race the era that KSP portrays is nothing without it. Science mode is just grinding and Career becomes the same midway through. No big feature, nothing that would be an addition to the game. The only thing in a long time that I got excited for was the part revamp and you threw the half-finished version of that into a mod and continued with your poor art design. Even clouds would be worth this hyping up. But no, you have to be doing a contest like usual.

 

EDIT3: The localizing took immense effort but it's also something you could've taken on additional staff to do, even disregarding localisation you're short-staffed after the hoohah last year.

Edited by Spartwo
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5 minutes ago, UomoCapra said:

But that is not all! We have more exciting news coming soon, so stay tuned! 

 

And next time, we’ll make sure to hype up those future announcements even more! :wink:

Oh great. Localizations... and I was expecting a big update. This is only 1.2.3 then?

Well...

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5 minutes ago, genbrien said:

Don't hype languages....

We knew that you were doing it months ago.....

12 minutes ago, Spartwo said:

I expected nothing but I'm still disappointed.

13 minutes ago, Foxster said:

Really?

I feel like the only complaints so far are from english speakers who don't realize the scope involved when you figure there are approximately 180 other countries out there, and that not all of them speak and learn fluent english.

You guys treat it as a trivial feature, but have you personally tried to learn more russian than enough to swear ironically in counter-strike?
Or more chinese than they use in a firefly episode? Or more spanish than when you watched dora the explorer?

Think of the reverse; the game is complicated enough without a language barrier, and a lot of nuance for the game's theme is lost. 

Localisation really is a Big Deal™, even if you're not one of the people who might immediately appreciate it. Don't knock them for treating it like one, just because it's not another planet or feature on the scale of commnet and other such things.

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my native language is French BTW

 

it's not that it is not important.... it's the hype about it...

for months they spoke about a new secret feature, than last week they hyped a news that will be awsome this week... and finally it's the pre-release of something we knew about for months....

 

Sorry if we're disapointed

Edited by genbrien
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Just now, Lupi said:

I feel like the only complaints so far are from english speakers who don't realize the scope involved when you figure there are approximately 180 other countries out there, and that not all of them speak and learn fluent english.

You guys treat it as a trivial feature, but have you personally tried to learn more russian than enough to swear ironically in counter-strike?
Or more chinese than they use in a firefly episode? Or more spanish than when you watched dora the explorer?

Think of the reverse; the game is complicated enough without a language barrier, and a lot of nuance for the game's theme is lost. 

Localisation really is a Big Deal™, even if you're not one of the people who might immediately appreciate it. Don't knock them for treating it like one, just because it's not another planet or feature on the scale of commnet and other such things.

While true, we already knew they were working it and getting close to being done. They'd hyped it up before, so doing a re-hype makes it feel....less. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the localisation, but I honestly thought that there'd be something other then that when they said "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!"

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3 minutes ago, Jivaii said:

While true, we already knew they were working it and getting close to being done. They'd hyped it up before, so doing a re-hype makes it feel....less. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the localisation, but I honestly thought that there'd be something other then that when they said "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!"

Yeah, exactly this. Making an announcement saying "Important announcement on March 2!" a week in advance gives people an impression of something more substantial than an update we already knew was happening, and a contest...

 

 

Quote

But that is not all! We have more exciting news coming soon, so stay tuned! 

I want to get off Mr Bones' wild ride

Edited by NovaSilisko
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3 minutes ago, Lupi said:

>snip<

I'm glad about localisation but you don't hype something you've been doing nothing but talk about for months as a new secret announcement and expect a great response. 

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Just now, Jivaii said:

While true, we already knew they were working it and getting close to being done. They'd hyped it up before, so doing a re-hype makes it feel....less. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the localisation, but I honestly thought that there'd be something other then that when they said "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!"

Well, a contest and a pre-release date seem like fairly decent sized announcements as well, even if the main feature in said pre-release appears to be localisation. We'll have to see if more comes out between now and the 16th.

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1 minute ago, Lupi said:

Well, a contest and a pre-release date seem like fairly decent sized announcements as well, even if the main feature in said pre-release appears to be localisation. We'll have to see if more comes out between now and the 16th.

They mention the localisation first, which would be the main feature of the announcement, then how many lines of code, which is alot, THEN mention the pre-release. Then a whole lot on the contest. I feel like the announcement was for the localisation and the contest more then the pre-release, which had a total of two sentences about it.

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not quite silly procedural question. do the published articles become property of KSP parent corp under standard work for hire or someting else? i'm cool with it either way if something i post makes it. but i've worked with people who have been really touchy about such things.

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2 minutes ago, Lupi said:

I feel like the only complaints so far are from english speakers who don't realize the scope involved when you figure there are approximately 180 other countries out there, and that not all of them speak and learn fluent english.

You guys treat it as a trivial feature, but have you personally tried to learn more russian than enough to swear ironically in counter-strike?
Or more chinese than they use in a firefly episode? Or more spanish than when you watched dora the explorer?

Think of the reverse; the game is complicated enough without a language barrier, and a lot of nuance for the game's theme is lost. 

Localisation really is a Big Deal™, even if you're not one of the people who might immediately appreciate it. Don't knock them for treating it like one, just because it's not another planet or feature on the scale of commnet and other such things.

Oh I suppose it has some merits but it's maintenance stuff that was announced ages ago. Definitely not something worth tantalising us over with a hyped announcement. 

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Just now, Jivaii said:

They mention the localisation first, which would be the main feature of the announcement, then how many lines of code, which is alot, THEN mention the pre-release. Then a whole lot on the contest. I feel like the announcement was for the localisation and the contest more then the pre-release, which had a total of two sentences about it.

I figure they're proud to say that it's practically complete now, because that had to be a massive undertaking for all involved. 

 

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Resisting the urge to make snide remarks about announcing super-secret things we all already knew about and actually getting a little bit interested in the contest. Question:

29 minutes ago, UomoCapra said:
  •  a Shapeways exclusive one of kind figurine, which will be delivered to your home.

...it's not really clear from the wording of that part--is the Kerbal in the figure the customized version (and the image is just an example), or will they all be generic male Kerbals with just a custom flag and name?

Edited by Hotaru
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