More flavor to texts

Discussions about creating additional language XML files to translate the MoM IME client into other languages
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Singularity
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Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 11:50 am
Location: Alicante, Spain.

More flavor to texts

Post by Singularity »

While translating, I've been thinking of expanding descriptions for races, spells, creatures, etc. to give them more flavor. Currently, I've made some in spanish, but have no problem to carry them into english for the stock game or anyone that would like to add similar ones in other languages.

For example, the Summoner retort:

Summoner reduces the casting cost and maintenance of all summoning spells by 25%, and also gives a 25% bonus to research put towards summoning spells.

...could be:

Summoners are wizards well versed in calling and binding creatures to put them into his service and make indirect use of their magical abilities. The art of summoning not only demands knowledge of magical formulae: a summoner must wield a strong personality and aura to enforce his commands, be fluent in several arcane languages to communicate with outer spirits, and study the creatures he intends to enslave as well as their strong and weak points.

Summoner reduces the casting cost and maintenance of all summoning spells by 25%, and also gives a 25% bonus to research put towards summoning spells.
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Implode
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Re: More flavor to texts

Post by Implode »

Well, it wouldn't be for me, personally I just want to know the stats of the unit/spell/building/etc and don't care about the pretty descriptive text about it. Also the only places I've changed the help text from the original MoM is when its simply wrong (e.g. The MythMaker pointed out the help text for Just Cause was wrong).

What do other people think? One idea is, eventually I'll have two versions of the rules file, the one as now called "Original Master of Magic 1.31 rules" and another called "MoM IME recommended rules". You could do the same for the language files, have "English (Original MoM 1.31 text)" and "English (Enhanced)" (or whatever you could call it), that would let people choose which they wanted.
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Lucern
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Re: More flavor to texts

Post by Lucern »

I like the idea of flavor texts, thinking back to the enjoyment I got out of reading the descriptions of units in Age of Wonders. You give the description, and then you give the stats in a lower text paragraph. Works for me. For the units I'm adding to the game, I consider the descriptions to be helpful in justifying my additions to the game as well as explaining how they fit into the strategy of a race, in in-game terms.
The MythMaker
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Re: More flavor to texts

Post by The MythMaker »

I've changed the help text and spell descriptions of a number of things in the original MoM to fix known errors, including Just Cause. Adding expansive text for IME is a nice idea, but not a priority, I would think. For the original, there simply isn't the room in the data files.
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