Slitherine

Hi.

I bought this game on GOG, along with the dozen different DLCs. I'm playing the English version. I'm currently approximately 25 hours into the variety of campaigns (including the "demo" ones I haven't bought yet).

With this out of the way, I will be blunt and to the point: the number of botched linguistic conveyances, for the *price demanded*, is ridiculous. It's an actual affront to the buyer to deliver such a high quality product in the merit on the given topic of WW2, while neglecting the important semantic aspects.

I took this personally and therefore I decided to post the criticism directly on Slitherine forums. The developers are free to employ the criticism to improve their product. They are also free to take this as personally and to counter me with any form of a reply they see fit, including radio silence.

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The most glaring problem is that the game cannot decide is it going to apply UK or US version of the English language.

It leans towards the UK style with its "Ss over Zs" in certain words ("organisation", "specialisation", "authorised", etc.), along with "LLs for present participle" ("refuelling", "cancelling", etc.), but then attacks you with "full dots at the end of titles" ("Sgt.", "Lt.", "Mk." [in non proper/own names], etc.) and "we are going for some Zs in them words, anyway" ("mechanized", "mobilized", etc.) for US impression. That's the first recognizable element of the division.

Then it randomly cycles between styles with the "dash joint words" too ("long-distance" <-> "long distance", "anti-tank/anti-air" <-> "anti tank/anti air" <-> "antitank/antiair", "counter-attack/counter-strike <-> "counterattack/counterstrike" <-> "counter attack/counter strike", etc.), without having any actual consistency for them from either the UK or the US style.

Then it delves into the UK/US randomly applied difference for "-our" words ("favour" <-> "favor", "honour" <-> "honor", "armour" <-> "armor", "colour" <-> "color", "harbour" <-> "harbor", etc.).

The spelling differences for the words like "reconaissance" <-> "reconnaissance", "defence(s)" <-> "defense(s)", "embarassing" <-> "embarrassing", "pre-emptive" <-> "preemptive", or "sizeable" <-> "sizable" stem from this divide as well.

2. Then there are regular typos/misspellings for the words like "equiment", "adress", "abandonned", "occured", "fuctional", "overwheming", "elsewere", "aistrip", "agression", "manourve", "agressors", "suprising", "suprise", "overhwelmed", "reinforcments", "increasinly", "amored", "preparng", "fighgter", "beachead", "possesion", "penisula", "simultaniously", "seperates", "detemined", "threathen", "skillfull", "desparately", "elimated", "foxhoxes", "habour", or "violitation".

3. The "core_redarmy" text string is named exactly the same of "core_redarmy". I'm 100% certain it should be named "Red Army".

4. Randomly applied capitalization to the proper/own names like "italian", "september", "karelia", or some units' names.

4. Lack of consistency for the plethora of "point(s)" of Land/Ground, Naval, Air, Resource/Requisition, Spec(.)(ialisation)/(ialization)(pt)(pt.)(pts), Victory Point(s). I suggest to make the clear categorization of:

- LCP(s) [Land Command Point(s)]
- NCP(s) [Naval Command Point(s)]
- ACP(s) [Air Command Point(s)]
- RP(s) [Resource Point(s)]
- SP(s) [Specialization Point(s)]
- VP(s) [Victory Point(s)]

Then change to that in the texts accordingly. And then stick to it for future development.

Revamping the tutorial to reflect on this new clarity for the newcomers, while including those changes in the change log for the veterans, and for both in the tool tips, might be recommended.

5. Not unified wording for the "free", "awarded", "added to (y)our (Core) Force(s)" units/commanders via specializations. That's too much randomness all over the place.

6. Occurrence of minor and tiny issues like doubled spaces ( ), or unneeded spaces at the end of lines ( \r\n), or doubled exclamation mark (!!) in one instance, or some mangled idioms like "(...)need to pay a prize" instead of "(...)need to pay a price".

7. The conveyance of mission objectives and specializations is too often chaotic as well, not really having anything in common with the way of presentation of mission objectives from other missions/campaigns.

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Of course, this can be easily remedied with some hours poured in. I used Notepad++ to nullify most of those in two hours via RegEx... but that's actually the developers' job, not mine. *Especially* for this price, since other indie studios, who also produce tactical/strategic war games, at half of the price, while at that, don't have games with such a big amount of orthographic issues. I know, since I devour those.

Also, I believe there's no "production bible" for this game; Slitherine "manufactures" games, and this either translates into a heavy work load and/or a great work force rotation, and not enough time to compile one. I helped in production of three animated TV shows, and it always the same: without such a thing, the creators/developers/newcomers have no way to verify the current stages of production with a unified source of knowledge, to prevent semantic/logical/continuity/discrepancy errors and guarantee consistency. It might be worthwhile to make one, to save on time in following productions/DLCs.

Cool post. And your're right, I guess.

Although I don't see language/orthography as much as a "religion", but more of a means to deliver information. Still, you're right, there's a lack in consistency...

I am somewhat meticulous with spelling and grammar, both in my own stuff and noticing the mishaps of others, but I have come to realize a number of things that I keep in mind:

1) There have been more than one main DLC designers over the years. A couple of the DLCs seem to have been created by "guest designers" who have come and gone. This fact alone is going to cause inconsistencies in the use of capitalization, hyphens, semi-colons, abbreviations, etc.

2) Not every one of these designers is a native-English speaker. To the extent that they have put together projects in passable English is in itself remarkable.

3) I believe these designers are all European and to the extent that they use English, it will be U.K. English except where they have been exposed to and influenced by American style. (I believe the current main DLC designer is British.) As such, I have come to see the spelling variations between the two styles as interchangeable and immaterial. I, as an American, now spell "defence," "specialisation," and "harbour" as a matter of habit from my interactions with people here.

This is not to downplay your concerns, which are valid. Typos should be hunted down and destroyed, but the rest of it meets with a shrug of these shoulders and, believe me, this is coming from a perfectionist. For one thing, as you mentioned, one can find all of these troublesome aspects and correct them in various text files. I have done this myself; not to the extent that you are proposing, but a few things that stand out.

Orthographic issues aside, it's the things that I cannot correct that "bug" me about this game. The situation has improved significantly in the last year and a half or so, thanks to renewed vigilance on the part of a couple of principal officials.

But one must take OOB as it comes. The Artistocrats are not a very large concern; far from it. As far as I can tell, officially there is only one active member at this time. Slitherine fosters and showcases OOB but is not in charge of production as far as I know. Given this dose of reality, I find myself appreciating OOB more, warts and all.

https://github.com/marketplace/actions/ ... eck-action

It'd take me a few minutes to set up a typo check in the build process that would catch a good chunk of this stuff so it never hits live. I do devops work (specifically I use golang to build microservices and solve problems, and CI/CD tools to create delivery pipelines) for a living and am happy to chip in some volunteer time

bru888 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 25, 2020 3:40 pm I am somewhat meticulous with spelling and grammar, both in my own stuff and noticing the mishaps of others, but I have come to realize a number of things that I keep in mind:

1) There have been more than one main DLC designers over the years. A couple of the DLCs seem to have been created by "guest designers" who have come and gone. This fact alone is going to cause inconsistencies in the use of capitalization, hyphens, semi-colons, abbreviations, etc.

2) Not every one of these designers is a native-English speaker. To the extent that they have put together projects in passable English is in itself remarkable.

3) I believe these designers are all European and to the extent that they use English, it will be U.K. English except where they have been exposed to and influenced by American style. (I believe the current main DLC designer is British.) As such, I have come to see the spelling variations between the two styles as interchangeable and immaterial. I, as an American, now spell "defence," "specialisation," and "harbour" as a matter of habit from my interactions with people here.

This is not to downplay your concerns, which are valid. Typos should be hunted down and destroyed, but the rest of it meets with a shrug of these shoulders and, believe me, this is coming from a perfectionist. For one thing, as you mentioned, one can find all of these troublesome aspects and correct them in various text files. I have done this myself; not to the extent that you are proposing, but a few things that stand out.

Orthographic issues aside, it's the things that I cannot correct that "bug" me about this game. The situation has improved significantly in the last year and a half or so, thanks to renewed vigilance on the part of a couple of principal officials.

But one must take OOB as it comes. The Artistocrats are not a very large concern; far from it. As far as I can tell, officially there is only one active member at this time. Slitherine fosters and showcases OOB but is not in charge of production as far as I know. Given this dose of reality, I find myself appreciating OOB more, warts and all.

There's absolutely no excuse for this amount of typos/misspellings and lack of consistency for *this* price. I wouldn't mind this in a 20$ game, maybe even a 40$ one. But with more than 100$, this is downright insulting. You don't do that if you have any amount of respect for your own work and your customers.

Also, if this happens with well known, established linguistic conventions, then it might as well be happening with well known, established coding conventions used for the game's engine. Who knows what kind of bugs, issues, and errors could be hiding in the code, all connected to the actual problem of inability to follow some basic programming rules or their random application.

The letter that kills




Terry Gilliam, Brazil, 1985

The main thing is that this is understandable...

terminator wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:07 am The main thing is that this is understandable...

True, but a bit of style does not hurt either.

For me it's stuff like this that always makes me shake my head:


These kind of abbreviations belong into a beta test and not a finished product IMO.

GabeKnight wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:15 pm

terminator wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:07 am The main thing is that this is understandable...

True, but a bit of style does not hurt either.

For me it's stuff like this that always makes me shake my head:


Screenshot 233.jpg


These kind of abbreviations belong into a beta test and not a finished product IMO.

How dare you to question Slitherine executive integrity with actual screenshots??? This is just a honest mistake with all this creative geyser of theirs, and even with all those orthographic errors that are everywhere, you have no right to say they could have fare better in this aspect! Even if you bought all their very competitively priced game and DLCs! If you expect polish and refinement, then go somewhere else! They are doing the best they can!

And let me inform you that since no one from the staff actually bothered to answer to this thread, it 100% solid the problem doesn't exist and most likely *YOU* are the problem! So, you better slow down, buster!

I'm really interested what Kverdon thinks of this matter.

GabeKnight wrote: ↑Tue Oct 06, 2020 10:15 pm

terminator wrote: ↑Fri Oct 02, 2020 8:07 am The main thing is that this is understandable...

True, but a bit of style does not hurt either.

For me it's stuff like this that always makes me shake my head:


Screenshot 233.jpg


These kind of abbreviations belong into a beta test and not a finished product IMO.

[Boot Camp] War Games

Good style

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know we're not talking about any game-breaking stuff here, but in the early DLCs, it was like "a light tank will join your core in march 1942" or just "...later". Or: "...some ressources will be released by Soviet command" or whatever. Oh, well...

GabeKnight wrote: ↑Fri Oct 09, 2020 5:07 pm Yeah, exactly. I mean, I know we're not talking about any game-breaking stuff here, but in the early DLCs, it was like "a light tank will join your core in march 1942" or just "...later". Or: "...some ressources will be released by Soviet command" or whatever. Oh, well...

It will always give a better impression on the consumer if it´s spelled and done according to 1. The national official dictionary of the language the customer of the game is from and aimed at 2. That any abbreviations or other forms of things, like grammatically, it´s like it should be and as official, descriptive and logical as possible.
Anything else makes the product look less professional and accurate overall for sure.

(But how´s my English so far, seriously, i doubt it), but anyway. Here in Sweden we have national text-TV news, not on any commercial channels, but on the governments official channels (2 of them) and it´s wrong pages given for the news, spelling mistakes and total anarchy in the gramma, and all the time. So Slitherine; it could be worse for sure.

Edit: I realize now that this comment could have been done without my quote, not related really is it to it specifically? It´s OK, i´m not on someones payroll and not my job this. PHEW!
(kidding)
GabeKnight will survive my mistake.

bebro wrote: ↑Thu Oct 08, 2020 9:06 am I'm really interested what Kverdon thinks of this matter.

Is that "Kverdon" a local guru on linguistic conveyance and a final voice in OOB development or something?