[Tool Concept] Map Auto-Translator

[Retera]

So I made a little program in Java that if I expanded it could be turned into a map-translator. You open a map, select the map's language, select the language you want to put it in, and it runs all of the maps units/abilities/triggers (the WTS script file, to be exact) through google translator into a different language.

I already wrote a working implementation of a basic WTS translator that does this, but it would have to be expanded to become an actual usable, upload-able tool. So... Who votes I make that into a real tool?

Edit: What I'm really asking, I guess, is whether enough people would want this for it to be worth my time.

 

[PurgeandFire]

It seems like it could be a fun project. Even if enough people don't use it, it could be nice if people want to post things to other sites. Google translate isn't perfect, but it has definitely improved over the years, so it has potential.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I think the result you will get from most tooltips is as such...

Ability murdered enemy 100% kill gain attack swiftly win time limited 50 day minutes. Work 10% sure if gamble. Training and effort make skill efficiency faster murdered by 10%.

When it should have been translated to...

Gain 100% damage boost when killing an enemy for 50 seconds. This effect works 10% of the time. Every level increases chance by 10%.

People will probably be better off learning English and writing the tooltips properly.

 

[sethmachine]

Even with state of the art machine translation (MT), the translations won't be perfect as Dr Super Good points out. I can't remember if there is a theory that claims MT will never reach human level translation quality.

However I think this is a really good idea, because it's automated, taking advantage of an available resource, and it's better than not being able to read anything at all (I will take a google translated into English over reading the source language any day (unless I know that language)).

The alternative would be to just hire human translators for each language (as Blizzard and other video game companies do, I am certain). But there's probably no such funds for a WC3 map, as it would be costly.

(Btw, what language was that from Dr Super Good?)

 

[Dr Super Good]

(Btw, what language was that from Dr Super Good?)

Was not an actual example. It was purely an approximation to real text I have seen such as used by the SC2 map "Special Marine [RPG]". When you died there you quite literally got a string like "Revive Zergling died 50 DrSuperGood murdered!". I gave up playing at that point. I think the map was automatically translated from Korean as that would explain the gibberish.

My review emphasizing this somehow is highest ratted on US. I am not sure how considering it goes on to whine about GUI design technical mumbo-jumbo.

 

[WaterKnight]

Still better than Blizzard's localizations