Why will the Arabic language be deleted?

Crine60

ItsDamien said:

Crine60 said:

ItsDamien said:

Translation does not come cheap, I know this because I’ve worked in games translation. The amount of work to support right to left text and then to have it translated every single month is extremely costly and while that may seem unfair, that’s business. These translations aren’t done in house by a team at Kabam, I can almost guarantee you that, but have to be outsourced to a third party localisation team who happens to have an Arabic member actively working in that company, which again is rare for game translation companies to have (neither of the two I’ve worked for had a single Arabic translator).

I am confused by Kabam posting about and you referring to the work/cost of doing right to left text. I completely understand the fact that it costs extra to have everything translated to any other language but what does the direction the text is read in matter? If you make all the text appear at once is it any different than just typing the text backwards so that it can be read from right to left? Honestly interested in understanding why the direction is a big factor as opposed to just the cost of an Arabic translator.

That’s a great question, and simply it boils down to implementation when inserting the text into the game. More often than not this is done using a specific tool (as adding each text string manually would be arduous and extremely time consuming), but unfortunately these tools generally don’t do well when dealing with text that is essentially “backwards” for lack of a better term. This can lead to instances where the words themselves will be correct, but the order will be wrong, or the order and words will be correct. You’d then need the translator to go through every newly translated line again to ensure that there has been no errors during the localisation process.

On top of that issue, and an issue that can occur in almost any language outside of the developers default (usually English is preferred as the default even with foreign developers), is simply due to the length of translation. Some words simply don’t translate in a small enough capacity to fit within the current UI or Text box that it was designed for (I’m looking specifically at you, German Language…) this means that more time and money has to be spent redesigning those elements to fit the text or you end up with a problem known as “Text bleeding” or which happens when text overlaps the borders of it’s intended place, or even worse can overlap with itself on separate lines.

But truly the biggest factor is simply the cost of implementing it for a small playerbase, and often the return on investment simply isn’t worth the time of troubleshooting and bug fixing that can arise.

Thanks for the explanation, that makes more sense. It might be beneficial (though obviously not changing the end result or making people who can't read the game anymore feel better about not being able to play) if Kabam took a little more time to explain the intricacies of these processes and what was going in to their decision than just saying the resources/cost/effort is too much for the size of the player base that utilizes it.

Skillful_star

I'm Arabic and have been playing the game for years and I never knew the game could be switched to Arabic. Wow. I mean I understand why they would take it out,but it sucks for the Arabic community in general since not everyone can speak English fluently enough to understand all the complex nodes and requirements within the game but I guess it is what it is. Also everyone here needs to relax a bit. We can all be civilized and state our opinions without being rude or attacking each other. Take a chill pill.

AverageDesi

magnus_xix said:

Zan0 said:

Crine60 said:

ItsDamien said:

Translation does not come cheap, I know this because I’ve worked in games translation. The amount of work to support right to left text and then to have it translated every single month is extremely costly and while that may seem unfair, that’s business. These translations aren’t done in house by a team at Kabam, I can almost guarantee you that, but have to be outsourced to a third party localisation team who happens to have an Arabic member actively working in that company, which again is rare for game translation companies to have (neither of the two I’ve worked for had a single Arabic translator).

I am confused by Kabam posting about and you referring to the work/cost of doing right to left text. I completely understand the fact that it costs extra to have everything translated to any other language but what does the direction the text is read in matter? If you make all the text appear at once is it any different than just typing the text backwards so that it can be read from right to left? Honestly interested in understanding why the direction is a big factor as opposed to just the cost of an Arabic translator.

It’s not just text, the entire game is backwards

Can't tell if u have 921 units or 129 units 🧐

While text is written right to left, numbers are still read left to right. So it's 921. Makes sense I guess since we all use the numerals that way

DrDrill

magnus_xix said:

Zan0 said:

Crine60 said:

ItsDamien said:

Translation does not come cheap, I know this because I’ve worked in games translation. The amount of work to support right to left text and then to have it translated every single month is extremely costly and while that may seem unfair, that’s business. These translations aren’t done in house by a team at Kabam, I can almost guarantee you that, but have to be outsourced to a third party localisation team who happens to have an Arabic member actively working in that company, which again is rare for game translation companies to have (neither of the two I’ve worked for had a single Arabic translator).

I am confused by Kabam posting about and you referring to the work/cost of doing right to left text. I completely understand the fact that it costs extra to have everything translated to any other language but what does the direction the text is read in matter? If you make all the text appear at once is it any different than just typing the text backwards so that it can be read from right to left? Honestly interested in understanding why the direction is a big factor as opposed to just the cost of an Arabic translator.

It’s not just text, the entire game is backwards

Can't tell if u have 921 units or 129 units 🧐

FYI,
these numbers:
0123456789
are called Arabic numbers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals

s3d5aled

I know so many Arabians who spent a lot of money and time on MCOC and they don’t even know how to write comments here or express themselves to KABAM
They are going to ask for refunds from Apple/Google cuz they know no English and they won’t be able to understand this game when Arabic transition get removed.. I really hope KABAM reconsider their decision

BitterSteel

DrDrill said:

magnus_xix said:

Zan0 said:

Crine60 said:

ItsDamien said:

Translation does not come cheap, I know this because I’ve worked in games translation. The amount of work to support right to left text and then to have it translated every single month is extremely costly and while that may seem unfair, that’s business. These translations aren’t done in house by a team at Kabam, I can almost guarantee you that, but have to be outsourced to a third party localisation team who happens to have an Arabic member actively working in that company, which again is rare for game translation companies to have (neither of the two I’ve worked for had a single Arabic translator).

I am confused by Kabam posting about and you referring to the work/cost of doing right to left text. I completely understand the fact that it costs extra to have everything translated to any other language but what does the direction the text is read in matter? If you make all the text appear at once is it any different than just typing the text backwards so that it can be read from right to left? Honestly interested in understanding why the direction is a big factor as opposed to just the cost of an Arabic translator.

It’s not just text, the entire game is backwards

Can't tell if u have 921 units or 129 units 🧐

FYI,
these numbers:
0123456789
are called Arabic numbers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals

Reminds me of a poll that found 56% of Americans didn’t want Arabic numbers taught in school…

Chatterofforums

I feel like Kabam was pretty clear why they are doing this. Basic business decisions include maximizing profit. The cost of providing this didn't make financial sense so they are discontinuing it.

AverageDesi

BitterSteel said:

DrDrill said:

magnus_xix said:

Zan0 said:

Crine60 said:

ItsDamien said:

Translation does not come cheap, I know this because I’ve worked in games translation. The amount of work to support right to left text and then to have it translated every single month is extremely costly and while that may seem unfair, that’s business. These translations aren’t done in house by a team at Kabam, I can almost guarantee you that, but have to be outsourced to a third party localisation team who happens to have an Arabic member actively working in that company, which again is rare for game translation companies to have (neither of the two I’ve worked for had a single Arabic translator).

I am confused by Kabam posting about and you referring to the work/cost of doing right to left text. I completely understand the fact that it costs extra to have everything translated to any other language but what does the direction the text is read in matter? If you make all the text appear at once is it any different than just typing the text backwards so that it can be read from right to left? Honestly interested in understanding why the direction is a big factor as opposed to just the cost of an Arabic translator.

It’s not just text, the entire game is backwards

Can't tell if u have 921 units or 129 units 🧐

FYI,
these numbers:
0123456789
are called Arabic numbers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_numerals

Reminds me of a poll that found 56% of Americans didn’t want Arabic numbers taught in school…

Ya lol. Most people don't even know what they hate

DrDrill

EaglesFlyHigh said:

Although Kabam is known for making bad & uncalculated decisions, I don't think this is one of them.
Probably the group of Arab players is just too small to continue going through the hassle.

I think there are a large amount of Arabs playing this game, but more than 70% of them uses English since it's much easier to understand than the low quality translation of the game, I tried it, then immediately returned it back to English.

Qwerty12345

I'm going to show both my ignorance here as well as possibly others... but there are many languages that are right to left. Other examples of "popular" languages include Hebrew and Kurdish, along with several others (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-left_script) . If any of these languages were being left in the game... while Arabic was being taken out... then all the moral outrage would be justified, and I'd be jumping right on board.

But I could just as easily questions why other languages that are right to left weren't originally included in the game, or question languages that go top to bottom, such as many languages associated with the far east. Is coding for those any easier?

This form for example in settings only allow for 4 languages (English, Spanish, French, and Dutch)... yet it has more official news, documentation ,etc. about the game than the game has... so are we going to thus restrict the game to just these 4 languages?

None of this comes with an easy answer. I for one think if the number is small enough, given the obvious shortage of staff to tackle roadmap items and keep the game stable... if cutting a language that effects very few players... then it might be justifiably necessary, although I would have written in some kind of "we will look in the future to revamping our systems to allow for this in the next major overhaul" kind of language.