Beta Build - Evolution 11 - Multiple Language support for Custom Scenarios (and minor bug fixes!) :: Plague Inc: Evolved Evolution Experiments (Beta tester forum)

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Ndemic James [developer] 29 Oct, 2014 @ 2:02pm

Beta Build - Evolution 11 - Multiple Language support for Custom Scenarios (and minor bug fixes!)

WARNING - Beta builds are not fully tested and should only be used by people who are ok with the near certainty of encountering bugs. If you just want to play the game - please wait until we release the Evolution formally.

I'm amazed by the quality of custom scenarios that the community is making. For some custom scenarios I have seen several versions appearing on the Steam Workshop, each in a different language. This shows some dedication from the creator, but we don't think they are being fairly rewarded as their subscribers and ratings are split between different scenarios.

We have therefore added the ability to have multiple languages for your scenario. This means that people can play the scenario in their own language. If their language isn't available, then the creator can also set which language it will default to in this case.

Full Change log below

Main Game 0.8.4.3

Updated main game population bar tool tips.
Custom Scenario Descriptions scroll text issue - fixed.
Fixed wrong text on incompatible scenario message.
Fixed display of custom tech hexes in both places displayed.
Added search tagging filter for Languages.
Missing Neanderthal completed image - fixed.
Added text indicate that there is no reply in cloud saved play on new machine.

Scenario Creator 0.6.3.3

Translations option - SC allows creator to export game strings, edit the files and import back in so that the same scenario can host multiple languages.
Fixes:
Default spacing issue in Scenario Data
Shrink to fit checked for all text boxes.

If you want to help test, right click on the game's name in your Library, select 'Properties' then the 'Betas' tab and then enter the code 'testbuildevolved' to get access.

James

Note - updated languages will only work for players once they update

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Showing 1-10 of 10 comments

brothercake has Plague Inc: Evolved

30 Oct, 2014 @ 3:44pm

The translation functionality seems to work as expected. Export and import are fine, and the translations show up as expected -- except for one place. When you're in the "custom scenarios" list and you've selected a tab (in this case "local"), clicking on a scenario to view its description shows the English description, not the translation that matches the language I've set the game to.

I also don't see anything that indicates to users which translations are available. If an English description will always be shown, this would be essential -- perhaps a bunch of little flags above the description.

Probably unrelated to this beta, a couple of things I noticed while using it:

- in order to test it out without risking any live stuff, I made a copy of an existing (published) scenario so I could work on that. However after changing the title and going "save as", the new version still has the same "visibility" and "publish_id" flags, when these should have been reset to None and [empty]. As a result, it asks if I want to republish after every save (which I fixed by editing publish.txt)

- if any of the description fields have colons in them, everything after the colon is lost (and I know a parsing gotcha when I see one!)

Last edited by brothercake; 30 Oct, 2014 @ 5:34pm

brothercake has Plague Inc: Evolved

30 Oct, 2014 @ 3:50pm

On a side note -- I think that text format is a mistake! XML would have been better:

<ORIGINAL>Venom is better able to withstand cold temperatures and climates.</ORIGINAL> <DE>Venom ist besser in der Lage, Kälte und Klima standhalten.</DE>

Because then you wouldn't need to impose restrictions on character formatting, you could just allow people to put what they want and then sanitize through the import function. The current format could be hard for people who aren't used to editing files with such precise syntax, that a single missing quote or backslash can break the whole the thing.

Last edited by brothercake; 31 Oct, 2014 @ 8:53am

NdemicTech [developer] 31 Oct, 2014 @ 9:28am

Originally posted by brothercake:
The translation functionality seems to work as expected. Export and import are fine, and the translations show up as expected -- except for one place. When you're in the "custom scenarios" list and you've selected a tab (in this case "local"), clicking on a scenario to view its description shows the English description, not the translation that matches the language I've set the game to.

Hello! Lots of good feedback as ever :) I'll go though and chat in-line...

We're sort of a bit limited by how Steam Workshop handles the publishing here. Currently it is set-up to have workshop items published in one language, and as that section of the game is working via the Workshop protocol it uses that language. You are right though; multi-language there would be good. We have put the tags in though, so helpfully that will help.

Originally posted by brothercake:
I also don't see anything that indicates to users which translations are available. If an English description will always be shown, this would be essential -- perhaps a bunch of little flags above the description.

This is where the tags come in. We've got plans to make them much clearer and more accessible in the next update.

Originally posted by brothercake:
Probably unrelated to this beta, a couple of things I noticed while using it:

- in order to test it out without risking any live stuff, I made a copy of an existing (published) scenario so I could work on that. However after changing the title and going "save as", the new version still has the same "visibility" and "publish_id" flags, when these should have been reset to None and [empty]. As a result, it asks if I want to republish after every save (which I fixed by editing publish.txt)

OK, that's no what we expected. It is back compatible; once the Master language is set, it should not ask again. It does ask if you want to re-publish after a save however as it assumes things have changed? However, as Steam Workshop adds an ID, it can get a bit confused by copy/pasting. We're looking to create a better system for this in the next update.

Originally posted by brothercake:
- if any of the description fields have colons in them, everything after the colon is lost (and I know a parsing gotcha when I see one!)

Lol! Indeed! The system should have handled those fine. Were you putting colons (;) in the Scenario Creator end or the text editor end of the process and did you put backslashes before them?

Thanks

NdemicTech [developer] 31 Oct, 2014 @ 9:33am

Originally posted by brothercake:
On a side note -- I think that text format is a mistake! XML would have been better...

XML rules! It's a great format and I'm a big fan of it. However there are a few compatibility things within the project that meant this was the best format.

Last edited by NdemicTech; 31 Oct, 2014 @ 9:33am

brothercake has Plague Inc: Evolved

31 Oct, 2014 @ 10:22am

Originally posted by NdemicTech:
It is back compatible; once the Master language is set, it should not ask again. It does ask if you want to re-publish after a save however as it assumes things have changed? However, as Steam Workshop adds an ID, it can get a bit confused by copy/pasting. We're looking to create a better system for this in the next update.

This is not specifically related to translations or the master language -- it happened before making any changes. If you go "save as" with a scenario which already has a published ID, then that ID should be deleted in the new version.

For any scenario which has been published, I would expect it to ask if you want to republish after saving, that's fine. But the new version is not the same scenario.

Presumably if I'd just allowed it to republish after editing the new version, then the new version would overwrite the original on Steam; then any changes to the original would overwrite that, and so on -- two scenario with the same ID that Steam will consider are the same scenario.

So it's simply an ID collision, fixable by deleting the ID and visibility flag from the new publish.txt, which I fixed by editing the file manually (which is the first time I did so, everything before I applied that fix happened via the SC, not manually copying and editing).

Last edited by brothercake; 31 Oct, 2014 @ 10:25am

brothercake has Plague Inc: Evolved

31 Oct, 2014 @ 10:25am

Originally posted by NdemicTech:
Lol! Indeed! The system should have handled those fine. Were you putting colons (;) in the Scenario Creator end or the text editor end of the process and did you put backslashes before them?

I'm talking about colon (:) not semi-colon (;)

Initially I put them in the SC, and that saved unescaped colons to the text file, with the specified result.

However if I edit the text file to escape them manually, then the same thing happens -- the text after the colon is still lost, leaving only the backslash.

That might be also related to a new problem I've just noticed! If the scenario description fields (or presumably, any text fields) have double-quotes in them, then those are now saved to scenario.txt as escaped quotes. However the game isn't parsing them out -- so they show up in the scenario description, and in the popup text, with their backslashes still visible.

Last edited by brothercake; 31 Oct, 2014 @ 10:28am

NdemicTech [developer] 31 Oct, 2014 @ 10:37am

Originally posted by brothercake:

I'm talking about colon (:) not semi-colon (;)

Initially I put them in the SC, and that saved unescaped colons to the text file, with the specified result.

However if I edit the text file to escape them manually, then the same thing happens -- the text after the colon is still lost, leaving only the backslash.

That might be also related to a new problem I've just noticed! If the scenario description fields (or presumably, any text fields) have double-quotes in them, then those are now saved to scenario.txt as escaped quotes. However the game isn't parsing them out -- so they show up in the scenario description, and in the popup text, with their backslashes still visible.

Ah right the evil :

That's good feedback; we'll check it out...

brothercake has Plague Inc: Evolved

31 Oct, 2014 @ 10:37am

Originally posted by NdemicTech:
XML rules! It's a great format and I'm a big fan of it. However there are a few compatibility things within the project that meant this was the best format.

Personally, I would have used JSON for the scenario files and XML for the tranlsation files.

But fair enough, if you have other constraints.

I did chuckle when I noticed "en.txt" translating the original English into English :-D

Last edited by brothercake; 31 Oct, 2014 @ 10:38am