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How hard would it be? *technical question*
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Eternus8lux8lucis
Guardians of the Gate
RAZOR Alliance
#1 - 2015-04-11 03:05:13 UTC
How hard would it be to code into eves chat channels (local, corp, alliance or private) a translator like google translate? So youd set a translate too language, in my case English, and anyone that types in another language in that channel window it would automatically translate to.

I realize that google translate is likely a proprietary software so it might not work for that reason. But often in eve we deal with people who dont speak english or are horrible at it. I also realize that translation software has limitations like with slang and dialects but Im curious if itd be possible at all to do.

Anyone?

Have you heard anything I've said?

You said it's all circling the drain, the whole universe. Right?

That's right.

Had to end sometime.
Scipio Artelius
Weaponised Vegemite
Flying Dangerous
#2 - 2015-04-11 03:25:32 UTC
From my perspective, I have mixed views on this:

As a game company, CCP aren't in the business of providing online services that other much larger or more specialized companies provide. They build game(s) and I think there is more productivity to be gained from focusing on what you do well and leaving other things to third parties that do them better.

However, Eve is also a very social game and language can be a significant barrier to socialising, resulting in groups often forming around the language they can most easily communicate in. So from that perspective, there is a lot to be said for having a translator in the chat system.

If I had to make a choice, I guess I would prefer CCP concentrate on the game and leave third-parties to provide much more feature rich tools for other services, including translation.
Kenneth Endashi
Kor-Azor Slave Holdings
#3 - 2015-04-11 03:29:45 UTC
Because the software is proprietary, it could get costly.

A better solution would be to do what Phantasy Star Online did on the Gamecube: They had a feature called "build a sentence" or something that gave you all these possible in-game things you could say, starting with the 5 w's and how, and then took you into a trade tree, logistics tree, etc. to suit your situation.

It was very cool because whatever you selected, because you built the sentence using that feature, it would get automatically translated into the gamer's chosen language. You could speak to a group of like 20 people using 20 different languages at once. Very innovative.

And what a wonderful game it was.
Reislier
#4 - 2015-04-11 03:31:08 UTC
I would love to have this feature but Google would not allow and is really not good enough to depend on for good translation.
Is ok for the one line phrase but it break quickly on more than a few words.. it is a good way to insult people or make them think you are idiot.

I find sign language work well.

Be nice. If nice not work, be civil. If civil not work, beat with iron pipe till bloody and still.
Eternus8lux8lucis
Guardians of the Gate
RAZOR Alliance
#5 - 2015-04-11 04:17:50 UTC
Scipio Artelius wrote:
From my perspective, I have mixed views on this:

As a game company, CCP aren't in the business of providing online services that other much larger or more specialized companies provide. They build game(s) and I think there is more productivity to be gained from focusing on what you do well and leaving other things to third parties that do them better.

However, Eve is also a very social game and language can be a significant barrier to socialising, resulting in groups often forming around the language they can most easily communicate in. So from that perspective, there is a lot to be said for having a translator in the chat system.

If I had to make a choice, I guess I would prefer CCP concentrate on the game and leave third-parties to provide much more feature rich tools for other services, including translation.

I can understand your pov here.


Reislier wrote:



I would love to have this feature but Google would not allow and is really not good enough to depend on for good translation.
Is ok for the one line phrase but it break quickly on more than a few words.. it is a good way to insult people or make them think you are idiot.

I find sign language work well.


I really dont think itd have to be perfect but enough to keep the conversation and communication going.

Have you heard anything I've said?

You said it's all circling the drain, the whole universe. Right?

That's right.

Had to end sometime.
Sykaotic
Doomheim
#6 - 2015-04-11 05:29:41 UTC
Probably would not work as if other languages use the same Eve Troll slang it would not compute and be a waste of time and dank cabbages.
Eve Solecist
Shitt Outta Luck - GANKING4GOOD
#7 - 2015-04-11 06:45:39 UTC
Copy, translate.google.com, paste.

All that's needed. CCP could never come up with anything
even remotely capable and there's really no point in trying.

Implementing an interface for it directly into the game?

That's easy!

Reinventing this gigantic wheel?

Nonsense!
  • All incoming connection attempts are being blocked. If you want to speak to me you will find me either in Hek local, you can create a contract or make a thread about it in General Discussions. I will call you back. -
Tuttomenui II
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#8 - 2015-04-11 07:52:28 UTC
Eve Solecist wrote:
Copy, translate.google.com, paste.

All that's needed. CCP could never come up with anything
even remotely capable and there's really no point in trying.

Implementing an interface for it directly into the game?

That's easy!

Reinventing this gigantic wheel?

Nonsense!


^^^ This. Why create something that is already covered by 3rd party, and usable within the IGB?
Eve Solecist
Shitt Outta Luck - GANKING4GOOD
#9 - 2015-04-11 08:23:20 UTC
Tuttomenui II wrote:
Eve Solecist wrote:
Copy, translate.google.com, paste.

All that's needed. CCP could never come up with anything
even remotely capable and there's really no point in trying.

Implementing an interface for it directly into the game?

That's easy!

Reinventing this gigantic wheel?

Nonsense!


^^^ This. Why create something that is already covered by 3rd party, and usable within the IGB?


And if the IGB is too much of a drag,
it's not hard to write a windows client for it.
  • All incoming connection attempts are being blocked. If you want to speak to me you will find me either in Hek local, you can create a contract or make a thread about it in General Discussions. I will call you back. -
Thorn en Distel
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#10 - 2015-04-11 09:56:50 UTC
Eternus8lux8lucis wrote:
How hard would it be to code into eves chat channels (local, corp, alliance or private) a translator like google translate? So youd set a translate too language, in my case English, and anyone that types in another language in that channel window it would automatically translate to.

I realize that google translate is likely a proprietary software so it might not work for that reason. But often in eve we deal with people who dont speak english or are horrible at it. I also realize that translation software has limitations like with slang and dialects but Im curious if itd be possible at all to do.

Anyone?


Hum. Well, I work on a regular basis with machine translations, since some upper management thought it would cut costs. In practice, we need to send it to professional translators to get the many, many, many errors out. And I'm not talking typos, it's errors like the translation saying the opposite of what the source language intended, badly mistranslated words, making a complete hash of the verbs and the word orders... the list goes on. I'd say that just learning a language that's widely spoken internationally (say English) is probably a lot more likely to make sure that people actually understand each other.

And incidentally: English is not my first language, from personal experience, I'd say it CAN be done P
Tisiphone Dira
Garoun Investment Bank
Gallente Federation
#11 - 2015-04-12 02:48:06 UTC
Oh sure, run the interpreters and translators out of business to suit you

There once was a ganker named tisi

A stunningly beautiful missy

To gank a gross miner

There is nothing finer, cept when they get all pissy
Glathull
Warlock Assassins
#12 - 2015-04-12 03:02:41 UTC
You're asking the wrong question.

In almost every dev scenario, the question is not, "How hard would this be?"

The question is, "Is this something we should do?"

You have to focus and stick to your guns and say no to a lot of things. Otherwise you just get swamped with stuff that never gets done.

I honestly feel like I just read fifty shades of dumb. --CCP Falcon
Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#13 - 2015-04-12 03:14:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Vincent Athena
Eve Solecist wrote:
Copy, translate.google.com, paste.

All that's needed. CCP could never come up with anything
even remotely capable and there's really no point in trying.

Implementing an interface for it directly into the game?

That's easy!

Reinventing this gigantic wheel?

Nonsense!

So the easiest way for CCP to do it is to automate the above process so it happens automagically for the users.

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Bienator II
madmen of the skies
#14 - 2015-04-12 03:36:56 UTC
ccp would have to use a third party service since automated translation is actually a very hard to solve problem in computer science.

If you translate something with google translate you quickly realize how unreliable it is and how funny results can be.

how to fix eve: 1) remove ECM 2) rename dampeners to ECM 3) add new anti-drone ewar for caldari 4) give offgrid boosters ongrid combat value
Captain Davison
Malachi Keep Detachments
#15 - 2015-04-12 03:53:05 UTC
Eternus8lux8lucis wrote:
How hard would it be to code into eves chat channels (local, corp, alliance or private) a translator like google translate? So youd set a translate too language, in my case English, and anyone that types in another language in that channel window it would automatically translate to.

I realize that google translate is likely a proprietary software so it might not work for that reason. But often in eve we deal with people who dont speak english or are horrible at it. I also realize that translation software has limitations like with slang and dialects but Im curious if itd be possible at all to do.

Anyone?


It's a lot easier than it used to be, but it's still pretty freaking hard at the moment. There's a reason that the only real major translation program I can think of is google's. It's mind-bogglingly, neuron-fryingly, freighter-gankingly hard to pull off, especially on the fly like you're suggesting.

Granted, it MAY be possible in 2020 if EVE lasts that long (which barring any major issue, it looks like it will), but at the moment it's still probably beyond CCP's reach.
Liafcipe9000
Critically Preposterous
#16 - 2015-04-12 07:44:45 UTC
Eternus8lux8lucis wrote:
code into eves chat ... google translate

do you want to spark more chaos than there is currently?

...

fine, go for it Twisted
BrundleMeth
State War Academy
Caldari State
#17 - 2015-04-12 10:48:15 UTC
Sorry...

If you ain't speaking English I'm not interested in what you have to say anyway...
Mira Stargazer
Epic Warfare
#18 - 2015-04-12 13:14:41 UTC  |  Edited by: Mira Stargazer
Captain Davison wrote:


It's a lot easier than it used to be, but it's still pretty freaking hard at the moment. There's a reason that the only real major translation program I can think of is google's. It's mind-bogglingly, neuron-fryingly, freighter-gankingly hard to pull off, especially on the fly like you're suggesting.

Granted, it MAY be possible in 2020 if EVE lasts that long (which barring any major issue, it looks like it will), but at the moment it's still probably beyond CCP's reach.


I agree.

I tried to run the original text back and forth english-> swedish, and it's very funny that "slang" is translated back to english as "hose" and such things. It's extremely hard to do this, and if you are one of those people speaking several languages you probably already know the complexity. It's not just slang, it's also regular words. Some words just don't translate or may have several meanings in one language but not in the other, causing trouble for todays translation logic.

I'm pretty sure translation technology will develop a lot more in the next few years, but during 2015 I'm sure you will misunderstand my poor english much less than you would through the translator.

I have feelings, I can smile - and murder while!
Trajan Unknown
State War Academy
Caldari State
#19 - 2015-04-12 13:36:10 UTC
I think the main problem is, that most people aren´t able to write a proper sentence anymore. I know several languages including English where this is the case. It´s one thing to make mistakes and whatnot and another thing if people are using a crippled form of weird slang to express themself. Good luck translating that bullshit and that´s just for English. Russian for example is a whole different story. The language is pretty hard to translate by any kind of program and that is for proper written Russian. Most Russians - no offense - don´t write proper "high Russian" so to say simply because the Russian language is such a rich language and it takes some effort for a native speaker to use it to it´s "full potential". You could say that for a good amount of other/old languages so not just tacked to Russian. Non the less, as long as people use crippled language it´s hard to translate it properly. :D

Vincent Athena
Photosynth
#20 - 2015-04-12 14:50:29 UTC
Bienator II wrote:
ccp would have to use a third party service since automated translation is actually a very hard to solve problem in computer science.

If you translate something with google translate you quickly realize how unreliable it is and how funny results can be.

Google translate game

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