DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce


If you are interested in helping with tiles, vaults, patches or documentation, this is the place for that.

Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 14th November 2012, 10:39

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

There are screaming skulls, but those are dumb.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 14th November 2012, 17:08

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Maybe a bombastic quote for them would be funny.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 14th November 2012, 22:32

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Too bad Murray the evil talking skull is already in the game. That would be a prime place for his quotes.
You fall off the wall. You have a feeling of ineptitude.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 15th November 2012, 08:09

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

He's from some game right? Let's eschew that kind of thing.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 15th November 2012, 22:14

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

The Curse of Monkey Island.
What made you happy today?
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Dungeon Dilettante

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Post Sunday, 9th June 2013, 21:59

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Hi,

Have there been any new developments in how you are merging and collecting quotation and description submissions? I would be very interested in contributing both and assisting with grammar. I've started compiling my own list of possible quotations.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 10th June 2013, 07:24

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

It's still happening on Transifex so please sign up there and apply to the English team (don't create an English (Australian) group). I'll add you and you can get to work. Feel free to post your ideas in this subforum for discussion.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 10th June 2013, 12:48

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

As already explained, to submit a new quote, append a line with :quote after the description, followed by the quote.

This is a description.
:quote
This is the quote.
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Dungeon Dilettante

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Post Thursday, 8th August 2013, 02:16

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Hello again! I'm finally back. I have compiled several choice quotations that I think would fit nicely into crawl, and I'd like to know what you think.

Also, I have joined Transifex under the same handle "teecall." If you could add me, that would be splendid! I have a few ideas for improvements on several descriptions, but I haven't included them here.


An Apple

Whann the fayre apple, rudde as even skie,
Do bende the tree unto the fructyle grounde;
When joicie peres, and berries of blacke die,
Doe daunce yn ayre, and call the eyne arounde;
Thann, bee the even foule or even fayre,
Meethynckes mie hartys joie ys steynced wyth somme care.
-Thomas Chatterton, Ælla


Blowgun

When [Hunahpu and Xbalanque] were inside they just slept in their blowgun: they were not bitten by the members of the Bat House.
-Popol Vuh
Trans. Dennis Tedlock


Labyrinth Portal/Walls

Destinat hunc Minos thalami removere pudorem
multiplicique domo caecisque includere tectis.
Daedalus ingenio fabrae celeberrimus artis.
-Ovidii Nasonis Metamorphoses Bk VIII: 157-159


So Daedalus made the endless pathways of the maze, and was scarcely able to recover the entrance himself: the building was as deceptive as that.
-Ovid's Metamorphoses Bk VIII: 157-159
Trans. Anthony S. Kline


Raven

"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore--
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven "Nevermore."
-Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven


Orb Weaver

The Weaver’s bulk was mostly its huge teardrop abdomen that welled up and hung downwards behind it from its neck-waist, a tight, bulbous fruit seven feet long and five wide. It was absolutely taut and smooth, its chitin a shimmering black iridescence.
-China Miéville, Perdido Street Station
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Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 8th August 2013, 11:50

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

teecall wrote:Also, I have joined Transifex under the same handle "teecall." If you could add me, that would be splendid!

Done.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 12th August 2013, 12:54

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Excellent quotes. Thanks. Please ensure the citation form matches that of extant quotes.

Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 4th September 2013, 15:25

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

I have read a little bit of the german translations and saw this:
Breathe Dispelling Energy

Atmen Sie eine Druckwelle der Macht an einem ins Visier genommenen Ungeheuer,
vielleicht etwas von seinem Entzücken entfernend.


I would rather write this:
Versprühe einen Strahl magischer Energie auf einen Gegner,
welcher manchmal Verzauberungen entfernt.


Little question aside, am I doing it right?
Du hast dich zu weit vorgewagt, (Hinter diesen Mauern!) dich durch dieses Tor gewagt! (Hinter diesen Mauern!)

Dungeon Master

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Post Wednesday, 4th September 2013, 15:26

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

aegis: Yours is much better (the other one looks very strange to a native speaker).

Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 4th September 2013, 15:48

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Here's another one:
Evoke Teleport Control

Gewinnen Sie die Fähigkeit, Ihre folgende Versetzung zu kontrollieren –
entweder indem Sie ein ungefähres Ziel für ein Teleportieren auswählen, oder
indem Sie eine Richtung für ein Blinzeln auswählen. Seien Sie vorsichtig, dass
kontrollierte Versetzungen das Thema veranlassen werden, verseucht mit der
magischen Energie zu werden, und das kontrolliert teleportiert, wird länger
nehmen, um auszulösen, als nicht kontrollierte.

And here's my version:
Verzaubere dich, um aktiv das Ziel einer Teleportation zu bestimmen.
Sei jedoch gewarnt das dies nicht überall funktionieren wird und das jeder
kontrolierte Teleport dich mit magischer Energie kontaminiert
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 4th September 2013, 16:25

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Ugh. If you want to improve these, you should register here and join the german translation team: https://www.transifex.com/projects/p/dcss/
There are some spelling mistakes in the second one btw. Also the increase duration should probably be mentioned. :P

Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 13th September 2013, 13:23

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

I joined transifex and got accepted in the german group but I still cannot translate texts via the ,,translate now'' button.
Could someone explain this to me please?
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 13th September 2013, 13:40

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Are you Aegisar on Transifex? If so you haven't been accepted to the team yet.

Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 13th September 2013, 13:45

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Grimm wrote:Are you Aegisar on Transifex? If so you haven't been accepted to the team yet.

Yes. Yes I am.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 14th September 2013, 00:38

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

You're accepted now, go for it.

Spider Stomper

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Post Saturday, 14th September 2013, 07:45

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

I don't know if this belongs here but I would translate the shining one to:

die glänzende Gottheit (no Gender)

instead of:

der Glänzende (Gender)
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 14th September 2013, 13:35

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Maybe start a new thread for discussion of German translations.
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Barkeep

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 12:25

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

I've considered working on adding text to some of our more anemic uniques, but I'm afraid that just wildly adding in flavour until I've thickened them up might not be the best way to go. If I'm interested in contributing to the descriptions, do I need to join up in Transifex?

Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 12:43

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

archaeo: Great! Do you have ideas for descriptions, speech or both? In either case, you can post your texts/lines here and get feedback, or send me a message/mail.
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Barkeep

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 14:07

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

dpeg: Thanks! I'm still working on ideas, so let me just continue the discussion here. Sorry for the wall of text.

I'm still looking for the free time to really dig into the material, but I've been planning on starting with uniques. My main question: what is the ideal description for a monster? Our common monsters all tend to have about two sentences worth of description, around 50 words at most. For uniques, we swing wildly between Xtahua ("An ancient and mighty dragon," full stop) to the more-than-flash fiction of Fannar. My plan was to add to the former while leaving the latter alone, but that brings up a pretty big topic:

Crawl doesn't have a good "house style." We swing all over the map, from jokes like the Death Cob ("Look, this one was probably a mistake. We're sorry.") to weird transitions to the second person ("You can barely move through the hellish cold that's freezing your soul," which Coc's Serpent of Hell tells you even if you're in Ice Form). This is, of course, only natural, since I assume most of the descriptions are unchanged from whatever the patch-writer put in originally. But it raises the question: does Crawl need to have a more consistent tone and style of descriptions? I'd love to add flavour to monsters and uniques without it, but I don't want to step on toes by deviating from expectations or wrecking someone's beloved description. That said, it also seems like addressing each unique/monster one-by-one will take forever, but a more sweeping set of changes might be too hard to critique.

Either way, I'd be interested in knowing what the community feels is the text area in need of most improvement. I can't write code or draw tiles, so I might as well contribute to the game by addressing text problems.

Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 14:23

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

As far as description style goes, there's a link to a guideline in the very first post of this thread that I mostly agree with:
Descriptions should be roughly 1-3 sentences long. They should be flavourful and informative, with an encyclopaedic tone. They can be witty, though jokes need to be high quality and not irritating. All descriptions must not contradict actual gameplay - an orc, for example, which is of average speed, should not be described as ‘dashing through dungeon corridors’. References to “this one” should not appear - the description must apply to all creatures of that type. References to the PC’s thoughts or reactions to the monster should not appear.

This is by no means "official" but it's certainly something I'd prefer descriptions to be closer to in general. (Uniques can obviously get away with having longer descriptions, although Fannar's is a good example of one that is pretty clearly excessive).
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Barkeep

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 14:52

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

This leaves the question of a house style. Before launching into adding much description, would there be much interest in an edit of the descriptions with the aim at being more consistent? They certainly can use an edit for clarity and grammar, as well as the elimination of idiosyncrasies like those annoying lapses into the second person.

If I do this, what "chunks" of text would people prefer to have to comment on? I was thinking about tackling this over the weekend, but I don't want to flood the devs and others with too many changes at once.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 15:12

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

archaeo wrote:I've considered working on adding text to some of our more anemic uniques, but I'm afraid that just wildly adding in flavour until I've thickened them up might not be the best way to go. If I'm interested in contributing to the descriptions, do I need to join up in Transifex?

You can submit descriptions through transifex. It makes it easy for you to submit, for reviewer to review (although there aren't any reviewer for english submissions yet, but maybe your post will wake some from their slumber) and for devs (me) to integrate your contributions.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 15:58

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

I have no clue how all the Transifex stuff works but if I can figure it out I'd also be happy to push improvements and removals of the second-person stuff and so on.

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 17:12

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

archaeo wrote:I've considered working on adding text to some of our more anemic uniques, but I'm afraid that just wildly adding in flavour until I've thickened them up might not be the best way to go.


why not, that's mostly what i did to harold

Edit: I'd be in favor of getting rid of "you" in descriptions, though it's been ages since I did anything on Transifex. (The old Google Docs spreadsheet was easier for me to work with...)

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 19:39

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Yeah, Transifex is easier for moving code around but the spreadsheet was clearer to me. Oh well.

galehar wrote:(although there aren't any reviewer for english submissions yet, but maybe your post will wake some from their slumber)

It's time I got active again. Thanks for helping out archaeo, I will pitch in.

For this message the author Grimm has received thanks:
archaeo
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Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 22nd November 2013, 20:47

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

I did a lot of improvement on the crawl-transifex interface. It's now much easier to see what's to review, because when english contributions are integrated in crawl, they get removed from translations (since they become source). You can post comments and view history too. If there's anything you don't understand or think could be improved, just poke me.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Thursday, 13th February 2014, 21:28

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

A few things I noticed about the quotes in the game:

-Most noticeably, quotes don't seem to appear for artifact or branded versions of items? This is too bad, though I don't know how much effort it would take to fix.

-No quote for meat! Would something like this be permissible?

"O Thou, whose Bowels yearn'd to see,
The hungry Crowd that fallow'd Thee
And nothing had to eat,
Pity again the famish'd Throng,
Who have with Thee continued long
and Faint for want of Meat."

-J & C Wesley, _Graces Before Meat_ .1762.

Would it be better to put things in a .txt file and upload?

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 27th March 2014, 17:26

Re: DCSS Text Improvement Taskforce

Hi SublimeSnake, sorry for the late reply.

The quotes thing is just a bit of fun. It's not consistent at all. Apparently some devs like the idea, and some don't. I really like it and spent a lot of time adding new ones. Randarts probably can't get quotes but fixedarts probably can.

Your meat quote is excellent.

In both cases, please join Transifex and participate in the DCSS project.
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