#i understand this is a AAA game with outcomes that need to be written as endings. it's not an experiential VN

[hanzajesthanza]

this looks like a long time but initially it said 1 MONTH 15 days

[espressocomfort]

How I translate elvhen

In my post-modern character in Thedas fic Coiling Time, the time travelling protagonist Malika understands every language spoken or written. In a fantasy world, that’s quite handy, don’t you think?

The obvious downside — When Malika is present in canon scenes from Dragon Age: Inquisition, some of the dialogue is in untranslated conlangs — namely, qunlat and elvhen. I’m not complaining about the presence of languages we’re not supposed to understand; in the context of the games, it makes for an interesting tension that the character (and player) isn’t able to understand every single word around them. However, due to the magic of her time travelling apparatus, Malika is supposed to be able to parse the meaning out of these overheard conversations — which I, as a fanfic writer from Earth, do not. Cheesecake, it would seem I shot myself in the foot.

However, as I see it, untranslated passages of canon are an opportunity to surprise your canon-savvy readers through either decoding that which hasn’t been decoded before, or through imbuing it with new meanings and nuance to suit your needs. Elvhen, especially, is a wonderful conlang in that most words carry many meanings and possible interpretations.

Since I got through this process, and no readers have complained about my unauthorized translations, I thought I’d share how I did it. As an example, I’ll use the dialogue with the spirit guards we meet on one of the towers overlooking the fortress of Fen’Harel in the Dragon Age: Inquisition Trespasser DLC. These are sentences that, even if an Inquisitor drank from the Well of Sorrows, they do not understand — but my poor Malika had to know what the phantom elvhen says. So let’s take a look.

The goal here is to come not up with a translation that is accurate, but one that works for your story. As a caveat, this process goes against pretty much every single linguistics methodology I have ever heard of, and I don’t mean that in a good way. The first step already abandons a lot of what would be considered really important data.

Starting point: get the words down on paper

The first step for me is to get down whatever the subtitling of the scene says. A game writer friend at another AAA studio shared that the subtitling is usually the writing, as done by the actual writers of the game - it’s oftentimes easier that way to keep them in order, it prepares them for localization and recording, and they can be used to automate mouth movements, even. The reason I start by getting the subtitles, is that the actor speaking the lines? Barring some fantastical machinations, they’re not fluent in elvhen, and it’s also rather unlikely that the writer of the line was present during recording (been there as well). But do make a note of what the inflection is. It might also not quite hit the mark every time, but it can serve as a baseline of what the mood of the line is.

So, at this point we have the following two lines from the spirit guard:

Atish’all vallem, Fen’Harel elathadra.

Nuvenas mana helanin, dirth bellasa ma.

A branching outcome - depending on whether the Inquisitor took the Well:

(Well of Sorrows - good outcome)

Inquisitor: Ar-melana dirthavaren, Revas vir-anaris.

Guard: Amae lethalas.

(No well of Sorrows - bad outcome)

Guard: Virthar ma. Na din’an sahlin!

Screenshots are useful at this stage.

Compare to canon and fanon

Next up, I’ll scour Project Elvhen (P.E.) and the Fandom wiki to find a rough translation for most of the lines and copy it into my document. I’ll pick out any words that kind of make sense as being parts of the translation.

Project Elvhen is an absolutely amazing resource, in that it both collects canon translations and speculative ones (fanon), as well as delves into the grammar of this made up language. However… Based on BioWare Q&A streams (and my own experience with localization management) elvhen isn’t complete nor is it always spelled consistently in the games (if I remember correctly, Twitter discussions suggest that, for instance, apostrophes are sometimes left out). Rumor has it BioWare has its own internal Wiki for keeping track of things and another of sorts to keep track of their conlangs, but that doesn’t guarantee they’re always grammatically consistent.

Of course it’s also possible that some words, especially barks, would just be gibberish, but I still recommend assuming there is an intended meaning and canon translation of eah line, and trying to decipher enough of it to have a rough idea of what the writers might have intended. It also helps to think of how the line is used. Is it a greeting? An insult?  A command?

Amae lethalas.

Ama would be used when talking about protecting your daughter.

lethal n. kin, or family, specifically very close kin or family.


as - plural? innumerable?
(protect + family) (spec.)

Conclusion: (protect + family + many)

Virthar ma!

vir (a way path, route, or road)

tharia (wheel)

Ma pron. sb. sg. You

Conclusion: (a way + wheel (?) + you)

Na din’an sahlin!

na (you)

Din adj. adv. n. death, dead, no

an n. place

sahl'in adv. n. now, in this moment, currently

Conclusion: (you + death + place + now)

... ‘A way wheel you?’ Not to be too critical, but ‘You death place now’ doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, does it?

Context, to con through text

So, I have a rough translation of individual words. Now it’s time to do the dirty work. At this stage, I start looking at what I want the conversation to say, in the context of my story, and start adjusting the sentences. Nudging, if you will. Choose which option of the different meanings makes most sense.

After finding the rough words that could be some kind of match:

Atish’all vallem, Fen’Harel elathadra. (atish + alin + vallas, Fen’Harel + ela + unknown) (peace + stranger + writing, marking, Fen’Harel + be able to + unknown)

I make myself some options, twisting and turning the words:

Atish’all vallem, Fen’Harel elathadra.

Peace, stranger with the mark of Fen’Harel’s permission.

Peace, marked stranger. Do you have Fen’Harel’s permission?

Hello, marked stranger. Fen’Harel has given you the ability to enter.

Nuvenas mana helanin, dirth bellasa ma.

Unless you desire to fight indefinitely, say many permission you

Unless you desire a lengthy struggle, say the passphrase

I am half convinced this exchange is an inside joke of a log in process, asking for your username and password. It would be a very BioWare thing to do.

Ar-melana dirthavaren, Revas vir-anaris. (I + time + speak disappeared/promise, Freedom + path + countless years)

I promise my years, for the freedom of countless years ahead

I promise my years, for a path to freedom in the countless years ahead.

With this one, I’ve seen speculation that anaris would refer to one of the Forgotten Ones (Anaris), but, that doesn’t make much sense to me in context. It’s also not a capitalized word. So, I went with the assumption that anaris is an alternative spelling of annaris.

Based on how the other lines shaped up, the ending lines that made most sense to me were:

Amae lethalas.

Protect the people.

Virthar ma. Na din’an sahlin!

Have it your way. Die here and now.

And here’s how it looks in context with my final translations:

“Peace, marked stranger. Fen’Harel has given you permission to enter,” the leader speaks.   “Wait”, Lavellan says. “Is this... necromancy, Dorian?” “Not quite. It would seem the elves bound a spirit here. It feels… old. Very old.” “What does it want?” Lavellan asks. The spirit looks at her. “Unless you desire a lengthy struggle, say the passphrase.” “That’s elvhen, right?” Sera huffs. “Do your pool whisper thing, yeah?” “You... understand what he said?” I ask Lavellan. “Sort of. I never learnt fluent elvhen... but I can sort of feel the meaning, through the Well of Sorrows,” she says, taking another step. “And I think I know which words to say.” Lavellan looks back at us, but her eyes seem distant. She clears her throat. “I promise my years, for a path to freedom in the countless years ahead,” she says, but her voice sounds distorted, as if someone else was speaking the words along with her. “Protect the people,” the spirit replies, bowing his head, stepping aside. “Protect the people,” Lavellan agrees, as she walks past him and his archers.

In conclusion: the author is dead, go wild

We went through the process! 

Now, are these correct translations? No. Probably not. Maybe. Could be. But, more importantly, if they fit and don’t seem wildly out of place, who cares?

The purpose of my translations here isn’t to theory craft for DA4, or go on a deep dive into lore. The purpose isn’t to reveal new nooks of canon to prove my Fan Cred™️ to my readers. No.

They serve their one purpose, which is to support the story I want to tell with my fanfic. For instance, my translation of the secret greeting of the agents of Fen’Harel contains a promise, a pledge. That’s not necessarily correct, but for how this scene appears in Coiling Time, it’s crucial, since it makes this scene a source of information about the willingness of the elvhen to give up their immortality — their years — for the cause — freedom in the countless years ahead. It also makes for a plot point further ahead; Malika really does not want to repeat this phrase, since promises uttered by her are binding.

Similarly, I went with 'Protect the people’ for Amae lethalas, instead of Protect our kind, or Protect our family, which may be slightly more in line with canon — but that would fit the story poorly, so I threw that out. I didn’t want to put the reader on the path of considering Fen’Harel’s bloodline, for instance. All in all, I’m alright with what I came up with; it’s not perfect, but, hopefully, it gets that it needs done.

Another I wanted to be careful with was the tone of the English translation here; is it formal, is it familial. For the guard, I went with a bit of a robotic delivery, since in the way I imagine Coiling Time, the pre-Fade spirits — such as the Archivist — operate similarly to VI in Mass Effect.

Anyway, since I went through the trouble of doing this, I wanted to share some phrases:

Atish’all vallem, Fen’Harel elathadra. Peace, marked stranger. Fen’Harel has given you permission to enter.

Nuvenas mana helanin, dirth bellasa ma. Unless you desire a lengthy struggle, say the passphrase.

Ar-melana dirthavaren, Revas vir-anaris. I promise my years, for a path to Freedom in the countless years ahead

Amae lethalas. Protect the people

Virthar ma. Na din’an sahlin! Have it your way. Die here and now.

And for a bonus, a Librarian line as well:

Delltash! Seran Viar Malas Shivera Mellavar! Keep quiet! Return the loans that are long overdue!

I hope you find this useful. Again, the goal here isn’t to find the ultimate translation, but to lead the reader onto your path.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Some of you have likely read Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc. The book dives into the creative process at Pixar and describes how the studio managed their creativity, which resulted in a seemingly endless string of blockbuster movies, and it provides insight into how Pixar maintained its creativity throughout tremendous growth. Reading the book had me reflecting on my own experience in game development, and pondering why some studios fare better than others, despite having fewer resources.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not pretending to be Ed Catmull. I have only 7 years of experience in the games industry and till date, I've only built one studio from the ground up. I haven’t worked in AAA studios or in tiny indie studios. But again, I do have experience in making free-to-play games for web and touchscreen devices in a few of the top studios and I’ve had the opportunity to work closely with some of the most talented people in the games industry.

So, what makes for a successful game studio that’s able to ship quality games and sustain itself in a competitive industry? Based on my experience, I’ve identified seven characteristics that make a game studio successful:

#1 Compact Teams 

Large teams create middle management. The need for communications and various meetings increases significantly and engineers and artists can end up spending significant portions of their time in meetings instead of building the game.

The absence of ownership. In a compact team, every member cares about the quality of the game as a whole and bugs are spotted instantly. In large teams developers and artists concentrate on one individual piece at a time, failing to sometimes see how their work integrates into the game as a whole.

I’m an advocate of right-sized teams on a game project, starting very small in the beginning and conservatively scaling as the design becomes clear and there’s need for new talent.

In successful studios, game projects start off with an experienced and already gelled core team of four to six professionals and grow up to fifteen to twenty strong as the project moves from concept to pre-production, production and live operation. The growth of the team is organic as new team members get brought in on an absolute need-to-have basis.

For a couple reasons, ambitious team sizes actually slow down the development instead of speeding up the progress. Overall, look to stay lean and make sure that people who join accelerate the progress instead of slowing the team down.

#2 Value Software Over Presentations

Essentially a game team has only one goal: to create a hit. In the beginning progress towards the end goal is exhibited through prototypes and later on through internal and external playtests. Successful studios make fast progress towards first playables and start iterating based on the qualitative feedback these builds generate. In the end, the ultimate test for a game team is the soft launch during which the game has to reach key performance indicators (KPIs).

Studios must have the guts to shut down projects which fail to reach KPI goals or respond successfully to the qualitative feedback the team receives. Closing projects is important because launching a low-performing game globally can become a bad long-term decision for the studio as a whole. It can eat up resources that are needed to kick off new projects or support growing games.

Fast and tangible progress can be made and measured by playing ever-evolving internal builds. Putting emphasis on the playables gets the team into the groove of hitting milestones with builds that have been improved based on feedback. Regularly reviewed internal playables also boost teams’ morale and give a sense of progress towards the launch as the builds improve and feedback gets increasingly positive.

#3 Use Benchmark Games

Benchmarks allow the team to get a game built quickly and have it playable so that playtests and soft-launch data can start guiding the development.

In my experience, the more unique and complex the game becomes in development, the greater the risk grows. Successful game studios tend to limit the risk of over-innovation by choosing very clear benchmark game(s) from mobile, web or board game(s). With clear benchmarks, development done in pre-production and production is based on proven concepts, meaning that the features or systems the team is building exist in one or two reference titles. In addition to decreasing risk, strong benchmarks cut development time as designers, engineers and artists have a playable version to learn from.

Blizzard's Hearthstone is heavily inspired by Magic the Gathering. Designers of the game have been able to keep the deep deck building meta-game while significantly lowering the entry barrier.

Another approach to using benchmarks, though a bit riskier and time-consuming, is to first thoroughly deconstruct the benchmark game. After that, the team creates their own noticeably differentiated game based on the benchmark. Building on benchmarks is something Blizzard is extraordinary at with games like Hearthstone, which is based on Magic the Gathering; Heroes of the Storm, which used League of Legends as a foundation benchmark; and Overwatch, which is strongly inspired by Team Fortress.

#4 Play Your Games Until Exhaustion

Teams who love to play their game end up building a great game. Often, especially early on in development, it’s hard to play the game you’re building. The build is buggy and lacks most of the final art. Yet by constantly playing it the team ends up not only clearing away all of those bugs and nagging user experiences but also actually creating something that players will love.

In my experience playing the game to exhaustion is actually the secret sauce of tuning and user experience at many successful studios. Simulators help finalize the set in-game values. Play tests push user experience. The first step is always to play the game as a team.

#5 Respect Your Players

Our players are our fans. They play our games even more than we do. They create communities inside and around our games making them into phenomena. Successful studios aim to create games that not only delight their players but also challenge them.

If a studio doesn’t think much about their players it will show in the software. When product managers and designers consider players too simple to understand deeper mechanics, their game will lack meta-game and deeper exploration elements. Take away meta-game and you are left with repetitive loops and poor long-term retention. Losing the respect towards players is a dangerous path that not only hurts a game in development but can also kill a community around a successful game, no matter how much marketing is set to support it.

Companies like Riot, Blizzard, and Supercell invest heavily into their communities and carry deep respect towards their players. This allows these companies to create massively successful long-lasting games that are further elevated by strong communities around the game.

#6 Empower Teams to Make Decisions

Successful studios empower game teams to make their own decisions and carry the responsibility of decisions made. With both internal and external playtests game teams receive a steady stream of very harsh and highly actionable feedback. This feedback should then be converted into quantifiable milestone goals by the team leads.

When a team is empowered to make decisions regarding the development of their game, it increases commitment to execute as they’ve set the milestone goals for themselves. It also improves the quality of decision-making because once the decision is made there’s no one else to blame for the outcome. Finally, by empowering the team to make decisions, the studio enables teams to learn faster. Decision-making requires thorough analysis and with increased responsibility team members will end up making better hypotheses and action plans.

Letting teams experiment and fail is a tough call for studio leads, whose responsibility is to build teams and push them to launch hit titles in the shortest time possible. Yet withholding decision-making power from the team risks downgrading the game teams into pods with less ownership of the product they’re building. I’ve noticed that studio leads that challenge and listen create the best environment of empowerment and responsibility.

#7 Always Ship

Successful studios launch games that grow into hits. Surprisingly often, studios that have all six of the above elements don’t have the guts to pull the trigger and ship their games. These studios tend to be too critical towards their own work to a point where the critique actually hurts rather than helps the development. When critique starts chopping away the confidence of a game team it also tends to increase development time as changes and new features are added to cater to the feedback. Critique is crucial but I believe that the team also needs to stand behind what they believe is right rather than constantly adjust to the never-ending internal feedback.

A friend and ex-colleague of mine who has launched some of the absolute best games on both Facebook and mobile said that there’s only one way to fail in game development and that is by not launching anything at all. What he meant was that you never know if the game will be a hit or not. Sure, play tests give a good indication but in the end, it’s the market that will give the final verdict. Sometimes it’s simply better to release the game out in the soft/beta launch than to build out all the end game features in production just to witness that the end-game features don’t actually work or that the game can’t even hit its KPIs in soft-launch. In the end, the launch is just one of numerous releases the game will be making.