localization and tooltip addon

[kappe]

here in italy something odd is happening. seems the italian localization of the game is really a fact, but the community is far away to be happy with it. newcomers will be happy to play in their language, and also blizzard blind-fans.
but old players, or ones with a little of sense of lore, or just ones thinking with their own brain, are starting to have, err, difficulties. the localization is so bad, that a lot of players will still use an english client. there is something we can accept, like having quests in italian, but now the trolls are speaking like people from naples, a city that have nothing about jamaica, voodoo, and stuff like those. there are a lot of these problems, and as players we are looking for a solution for our enjoyment and that will let us understand new names without trying to translate them, cos those names are not translations.

now, the point is, they used the same rules applied to other localizations: translate all. but we'd like to have locations and names in english, at least to avoid to learn a new world, if not for other reasons like 'where the **** is sepulcra?' and if we play on the italian client, we'd like to have a reference to original npc names and world regions.
sepulcra is undercity, fyi.


so: what about an addon adding a tooltip with the other localization? maybe this could help, and could be a nice thing for other localized clients. like italians, every player in the world surf the web for addons, guides, and stuff, and the language here on the web is the english. looking for an italian quest on, example, wowhead, will be painful, but if you have right names and stuff it should still work.

this could be a standalone addon, adding a line in the default tooltip. or something to add to addons already customizing tooltips.

sorry for the wall of text. we are a little worried, and i'm trying to find a way to help us to keep the game playable and universally understandable.






about localization: if you need italian localization for your addons, i'm here.

[Dridzt]

I'm pretty sure you can play with a full English client if you so choose regardless of your realm by setting the appropriate language option from the Blizzard launcher.

Options -> Game Preferences -> (Dropdown with all language clients)

If that is not the main requirement but you prefer a "dual" language client where a second tooltip shows the alternative language,
that is a huge/huge undertaking in terms of data and I doubt it's feasible.

[Phanx]

Something similar was done for the Chinese client (so everything was displayed in English) but as Dridzt said, it's a huge amount of data to collect and compile. It's also a huge amount of work to hook into everything in the game, scan the original text, and replace it with the translated text. Finally, even if someone was willing to go through all that trouble, they'd have to do it all over again after every patch.

A more practical option might be to play in English, and add a second panel to only specific windows like the quest log to show the quest text in Italian for those who are more comfortable with Italian but want the English names available as well. Collecting only the quest text would still be a lot of work, but a lot less than trying to do everything. I think there used to be an addon that did exactly this for some other language (I can't remember which) that you could use as a base.

[kappe]

thanks for for reading anyway. i respect you both so much since years, i can trust you blindly. when i was playing i used to know your support to the community, and i am happy you take time to read this :)

consider me as an ambassador. had that idea but i dont really need an addon like that, i though i'll resume playing in english to avoid all those horrible mistakes they made. about 'how many is a plethora?' number.
just hope to find a way to have some sort of automatic reader, copypasting names from en localization, but seems pretty hard.