Update

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Hey guys,

Just wanted to let you know that I am putting the finishing touches on the online datalinks for Firaxis' own SMAC section. I know many of you have written asking for various things like the complete story, faction profiles, etc., and the EA site isn't exactly chock-full of info. =)

It should be done in the next week or so, and we'll make sure Apolyton knows as soon as it is. Basically, the site will be everything that alphacentauri.com ISN'T, which is to say, a repository of info and cool stuff about the game. I have some cool never-before-seen concept art and preproduction stuff, as well as hopefully the entire datalinks in web format.

Dan Magaha
Web Wizard
Firaxis Games

[Helium Pond]

Wow, COOL! Thanks for posting, Dan, I'm thrilled to know Firaxis is still thinking about us. But you left out any news about the most important question....

What about the patch?????

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

HeliumPond,

I knew that question was going to be asked (grin).. the short answer is, "I don't know".. I'll see what I can find out.

Dan Magaha
Web Wizard
Firaxis Games

[Helium Pond]

Thanks Dan. It's so heartening to get some news from the company.

[Aredhran]

Good to see that Firaxis is still doing *something* for SMAC... I was beginning to think that this game had been completely abandoned in favor of Civ3 and Dinos...

Aredhrans

[Alex2001]

I also want the complete story, faction profiles, etc., but will you post them also in GERMAN LANGUAGE?

[Genaciv]

That would be nice.. i'm sure they'd have to hire a translator to do that, though..

Lets see.. German, Italian, Spanish, French.. any other languages? Perhaps Portuguese..

Most of the non-English speakers that I know that play SMAC speak those languages.. oh well..

- Genaciv

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Well, I don't speak any other languages (elementary, broken Spanish doesn't count, does it?) and I'm hesitant to just run everything through a translation program, as it will probably botch many of the words.

An interesting idea, and one which Shiny used with their Messiah pages, was asking fans to translate for them. Once we get the main pages up, we'll talk more about translation possibilities. Do we have any volunteers here who would want to do translation?

One caution on this is that the datalinks are in a big database, and they would be the hardest to translate. Since the database was constructed mainly from the existent text files found in the Alpha game directory, it's possible I could do it that way, but it would take quite some time.

Thanks for the input,


Dan Magaha
Web Wizard
Firaxis Games, Inc.

[Adm.Naismith]

Well, I haven't enough spare time to make a full "english to italian" translation, but I'm ready to share the effort with some other italians here. Anyone ready to join?

My main limit is that I only have original Alpha Centauri (USA edition) with patch 4 added.

No italian version (because of late and poor translation I had with italian Civ II, how funny ), no Alien Crossfire expansion.

Oh, and I'm not a professional translator (but they want real money for the job, right? ) but my italian is far better than my english!

------------------
Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Meisman]

Well, from June 6th on I have about 2 months of spare time. I'd be interested to do a translation into German. So, what do you think Dan, how much time would it take for a single person to translate all of that?

If anybody else wants to join in, he/she'd be more than welcome.

[Blade Runner]

Dan,

I can translate to Hungarian (I'm a native speaker).

Blade

[Dan Magaha FIRAXIS]

Hey guys..

Thanks for the volunteer help. I got a bit behind schedule this week, so the site is tentative for next week to launch. After that, we can start talking about translations. Since I basically started by working over the text files present in the game directory, the "major" localized language versions hopefully won't be that difficult (Spanish, French, German, etc.) Although, I don't know how good the native translations are for those languages. I'm sure some of you are snickering at some of the translations as we speak =)

Anyway, I appreciate the enthusiasm and will contact you all as soon as I'm ready to start the translations.

Dan
Web Wizard
Firaxis Games, Inc.

[Nimrod13]

Well, I just happen to have time (more than four months) so count me in for the German part.

[Enigma]

Dan,

Any news on the SMACX v 3.0/SMAC v5.0 patch?

[Ephack]

Nobody for a french translation?
I'm exactly in the same position as Adm.Naismith (but for french translation ): I haven't a lot of time, but I'm ready to help.