Why is the localization so bad?

[Rahaya]

Honest question that has bugging me ever since I heard the VA for Poharan. I have made my opinions on the 'translation' known here and on reddit before. But please tell me there are plans for rolling updates or something to fix more than the terrible skill translations. I am honestly confused on why the game was released in this state where I am honestly glad I already know how to play forcemaster from Taiwan. Because half my Martial Tome is full of nonsense, and it seems forcemaster is not the only class with that problem. Then there is the VA. It's one thing to have cheesy or annoying lines, happens in every game. What I am quite shocked about is that the poor quality $5 microphone in a closet recordings persisted past beta and weren't updated with audio that sounds like Blade and Soul has a sound team.

 

What happened? Why have you not given yourself enough time to make basic effort at delivering a professionally done game? Bugs are more important than audio, but if your audio sounds like completely unedited amateur work, there is a serious problem with the entire time table. That does not bode well. I'm sure the cash shop was very important. 

 

So is the actual game.

 

What is going to be changed, if anything? Why has this been allowed to happen? I'm still mad about the story, and now that I know its a systemic issue, NCWest has continued to fail to inspire confidence. I'm sure much of the team has been hard at work with the troubles lately, and I appreciate it. I have to say however.

 

I would also, greatly appreciate it, if in the future NCSoft does not try to sell me quality localization using community managers as mouth pieces when it is not delivering.

 

 

 

[Pangu]

I'm with you on that, but i'd rather see them release korean/japanese voicepacks and give the original korean translation without any changes.

[Lovele]

+1 to this. Some skill descriptions just don't make any sense and feels like they used google translator...

[LordLokai]

i dunno... i found it charming? its suppose to be a kungful game... i treat it like kungfu movies... i never expect the voice acting to be brilliant, and aside from some skills seem to lack details, its not that bad i've seen much worse.

[Nyel]

9 minutes ago, Lovele said:

+1 to this. Some skill descriptions just don't make any sense and feels like they used google translator...

 

Yeah. Skill 1 is called "ABC" in one tooltip and in another tooltip the exact same skill is called "XYZ".

 

It's very confusing to figure out what the hell those skills are meant to be. 

 

Even the EULA... LOL

 

The very first point is written wrong - it's 1. Dfinition instead of Definition lol.

[Saima]

I just want them to give us the original EN1 text they received from KR, edited for grammar. If they can't afford better voice acting then its fine to give us ANY of the other voices. The thing is, i don't think they can even do this much... 

[Mokiki]

I agree. I have to google certain skills in the martial tomes and check how they work because in the game the skills reference skill names I don't have or call on status effect from one skill that are actually on another.

[Sacrefice]

3 hours ago, Lovele said:

+1 to this. Some skill descriptions just don't make any sense and feels like they used google translator...

 

Reminds me of the german release of Aion back then. It was just sh.it to be completley honest they translated nearly everything with google until it was fixed almost 5 oder 6 months after the release.  After this i was hoping they wouldn't do the same mistake again but it seems like some game designers dont want to learn anything from their faults in the past

[Kuvu]

3 hours ago, LordLokai said:

i dunno... i found it charming? its suppose to be a kungful game... i treat it like kungfu movies... i never expect the voice acting to be brilliant, and aside from some skills seem to lack details, its not that bad i've seen much worse.

That is exactly how it seems to me, like an old 70's dubbed kung fu movie and yes the VA sucks also., heck 3rd rate anime have better dubbing then this game. 

[Artifact]

"You're lives end here!"

 

I agree. The entire supply chain VA is so cringey

[Fuz]

This:

And bad voice actors.

[LadyLuxuria]

I get the feeling playing the NA version that NCsoft put WAY more time in figuring out how they could squeeze every penny out of us rather than how they could produce a top quality product. I'm actually really close to just going back to playing the other version of B&S as a result.

[Teisho]

Good question -- I wonder the same myself. The English localization of this game is in an absolutely sorry state. It's pathetic, really.

 

I spent hours upon hours reading every single quest in the game in CBT (not only because I tend to do that anyways but also to look for errors) and managed to report about 100 or so grammar/spelling mistakes that, for the most part, have yet to be fixed in the game. It makes me wonder why I even wasted my time doing that since it doesn't seem like the team even cares about the work that they do. It's funny because I even made it easy for them by providing screenshots of exactly what I was talking about.

 

Then there's the skill descriptions which, as you said, are riddled with several nonsensical passages; I still have no idea what KFM's "Unleashed Flow" is supposed to be, for example.

 

The voice acting is absolutely terrible. A few voices are good but most of them sound like random people they either picked up off the street or just staff members that happened to be in office on the day they recorded. Not to mention that the voice acting in general is very much all over the place, with some NPCs being voiced and others not. It makes me wonder what the hell they're even doing.

[Houlon]

The issue I have with the voices is none fit the characters, at all. I'm just glad you can either change them or turn them off.

 

Without trying to spoil anything.... who on earth decided she should be a redneck...ya'll know who I mean.

[Teisho]

1 minute ago, Houlon said:

The issue I have with the voices is none fit the characters, at all. I'm just glad you can either change them or turn them off.

 

Without trying to spoil anything.... who on earth decided she should be a redneck...ya'll know who I mean.

 

You mean Soha? Her voice was changed and she doesn't sound like that anymore so your point doesn't really follow.

[Houlon]

Just now, Teisho said:

 

You mean Soha? Her voice was changed and she doesn't sound like that anymore so your point doesn't really follow.

 

I wouldn't know... I've never had English voices since the beta as they are terrible.

 

All of the other voices don't fit the characters so my point is still valid.

[Iduno]

Do the daily in the Mirage inn.

 

The character you escort seems to have forgotten that the translators mashed everyone's names together and calls the owner by her  proper name (which I've completely forgotten at this point, just remember that sticking out for me)

 

Go collecting dingo (Or was it jackal? Either way it wasn't wolf hides) leather from wolves.

 

Go beat up Yes Men who seem to have had a sudden change of heart and changed their job titles from what the quest tells you to kill.

 

I mean I don't know Korean to compare the sources myself but I'm pretty sure the writers weren't all forgetting what they'd told you to do in quests before they finished writing the quests or forgetting what type of enemy an enemy was before deciding what it would drop for quests.

 

And lets not even go into the intentional messing up of a couple of quests because the translators fancy themselves as moral guardians, despite the quests ending with karmic justice or a change of heart. (No seriously, we have a thread for that already)

 

TBH I wasn't expecting good voice acting and whilst I prefer the original voice track in anything foreign I find the dub bearable for the most part, but part of that may because I'm simply not invested enough in most of these characters to really give a *cricket*.

[SasamiMasaki]

I was actually commenting to as clan member the other day that the American Voice acting sounded like they grabbed a guy in the office, pushed a sheet of paper in front of him and said: "Read what is on this into the microphone", then called it a day.

I have been on the fence whether or not to use a mod that lets you put the Japanese Voiceovers into the game...because quite frankly some of the English voice acting in this one is cringeworthy.

[Houlon]

That's exactly what I do, I used a JP voice pack as soon as I finished the story in beta. I would of done it sooner but I wanted to see if it was the same level of awful all the way through.

[noctred]

Generally agree with this.

I don't care about the VA too much, although Poharan's is hilarious and sounds like she's getting straight up trained when you have enough people attacking her. The martial tome, however, is a complete mess and was probably Google translated at best. If I hadn't played on Taiwan I very likely wouldn't be able to make any real sense of my skills without consulting third party sites.

Please fix.

[Rahaya]

11 hours ago, LadyLuxuria said:

I get the feeling playing the NA version that NCsoft put WAY more time in figuring out how they could squeeze every penny out of us rather than how they could produce a top quality product. I'm actually really close to just going back to playing the other version of B&S as a result.

Yeah, I'm regretting leaving my TW toon behind a lot lately as well. Even though TW has some really bad voice acting for sidequests in places, it never sounds like it was unedited.

[Soulequilibrium]

I feel NCWest doesn't care about the quality of the game in the slightest, as long as they maintain enough of a bed of people to feed their RNG boxes to. I'm guessing they assume that most of their playerbase won't bother with reading quests anyway so they spent the minimal amount of resources on story localisation. It's come up often enough around the forums and on reddit but I highly doubt they will ever invest into the game to improve the sorry state of the game's translation.

 

Honestly I think if we ever want a shot at a proper translation of the original Korean story it'll have to be a fan made thing. For anyone wondering or doubting about voice packs by the way, I can totally recommend it. I'm using a Korean pack myself and it's a lot better than the mediocre English one. On top of that all NPC are voiced. Not just the main story ones. All of them. Even kids running through town and making comments at each other that you can't otherwise interact with. If you are interested in getting your own voice pack upgrade there's a few threads at the Dojo that can help out.

[Hime]

We are working on improving the localization quality of our game. Understandably it should have been in a pristine shape at launch, but first, we will be tackling the skill descriptions, which we are already working on. Please keep in mind just updating the skill description is a huge task to take on and will take awhile and/or come in phases. We appreciate the candid feedback on the matter and will continue to make the improvements necessary.

[SasamiMasaki]

37 minutes ago, Hime said:

We are working on improving the localization quality of our game. Understandably it should have been in a pristine shape at launch, but first, we will be tackling the skill descriptions, which we are already working on. Please keep in mind just updating the skill description is a huge task to take on and will take awhile and/or come in phases. We appreciate the candid feedback on the matter and will continue to make the improvements necessary.

While you are at it, any chance to revisit the rewrite of some of the quests that changed what they were intended to be and were a slap in the face to Eastern  (and some Western) mythology, all because some particular 'SJW' on the 'localization' team felt 'uncomfortable' with the quests?  As an adult and a professional writer, I feel particularly insulted that the team NCSoft hired decided to edit and censor game content based on their sensibilities which frankly caters to a subset of culture that is too shallow to even partake of this game to begin with.

[Soulequilibrium]

I appreciate you coming in here and giving us a heads up on that Hime, really do. I don't mean to sound harsh by the way, it's just really how I perceive NCSoft's stance as a result of their actions. I mean, am I too assume the localisation is not in a pristine shape as you call it, because a big company like NCSoft isn't capable of doing it right as they are out of touch with what the public wants or because someone higher up chose for the localisation to not be in a pristine shape because it wasn't worth it? Or a mix of both? Either situation does not give me cause to have much faith in the company.

 

Meanwhile, we have this whole business with the RNG boxes going on which seems to be nailed down tight. Exclusive costumes and major upgrading materials in the same box effortlessly combined via the regular box system the game already has. A single cash shop RNG box that not only draws in those wanting the exclusive costume, but also those that want to buy their way to the top via the upgrading materials. And you need loads of those but only one costume, so you get plenty of upgrade materials and most likely you don't get a costume unless you are very lucky. Never a loss for either side right? Those wanting the costume get all these materials thus they'll feel they are getting something even if they aren't lucky so they are more inclined to spend more on the boxes. And those wanting the materials have the tiny chance of getting something extra, a costume, so maybe they'll spend a little more as well. Whales trip over each other to buy these things whilst the rest of the player base is left in the dust, unable to realistically obtain the costume and faced with what could easily be considered pay to win elements in the form of directly buying upgrades for your gear from the shop. But that's okay because the whales are made to pay. And that's all that seems to matter as a result. That collecting outfits, which is a big part of this game for many, is being hampered and made frustrating as well as any piece of content that's gear reliant is being made something you can just buy your way into instead of working for it is apparently deemed irrelevant or worth it, even though it reduces the quality of the game as a whole. As does the impact on the economy the influx of the materials in these boxes have.

 

So yea. Forgive me Hime if I'll say I'll believe any efforts are made to actually improve the quality of the localisation when I see it. I know it's a business and money needs to be made but as long as NCSoft keeps doing things that shows they care only for money and not at all for the quality of the products they own I'll remain sceptical. And a few ability description fixes isn't going to cut it either. The entire lore and story section needs to be revised so it actually respects and properly conveys the original message. A faithful translation of the Korean version. Not patch jobs here and there. That isn't going to restore my faith at all.