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KaVir · 01-22-2007, 04:14 AM

Support for multiple languages requires a large amount of effort even for most graphical applications. For a text-based mud, the amount of effort would be overwhelming - you're likely talking about thousands of messages, tens of thousands of lines for help files and room descriptions, lots of output reformatting (for score, tables, etc), careful command name selection for each language (eg north/south/east/west should ideally have one-letter shortcuts), and so on. Then there's the whole issue of player-customised text (character descriptions, titles, etc).

Add to that the fact that (1) most people online speak English, and (2) even many non-native English speakers prefer playing computer games in English (although admittedly that's usually because the translations aren't very good, or the voices don't sound as good as the English version).

I suppose it would also be worth mentioning that translation work is generally far less interesting than mud development. If you think people get bored writing help files, just wait until you get them to translate several thousand lines of help files.

For a very small codebase I could see multiple languages as a nifty feature. For a large codebase, perhaps something like "multiple language support" would be viable (still requiring each mud owner to add the alternative language files, but certainly being far easier for them than having to manually go through the code looking for each piece of output). But for an individual mud (particularly one which is constantly growing) I don't think it's really feasible - sure, being able to view all 10,000 room descriptions in English, German, French, Spanish and Esperanto is a cool concept with some novelty value, but most players would far prefer to have 50,000 room descriptions in English.

01-22-2007, 04:14 AM	#5
KaVir Legend Join Date: Apr 2002 Name: Richard Home MUD: God Wars II Posts: 2,052	Support for multiple languages requires a large amount of effort even for most graphical applications. For a text-based mud, the amount of effort would be overwhelming - you're likely talking about thousands of messages, tens of thousands of lines for help files and room descriptions, lots of output reformatting (for score, tables, etc), careful command name selection for each language (eg north/south/east/west should ideally have one-letter shortcuts), and so on. Then there's the whole issue of player-customised text (character descriptions, titles, etc). Add to that the fact that (1) most people online speak English, and (2) even many non-native English speakers prefer playing computer games in English (although admittedly that's usually because the translations aren't very good, or the voices don't sound as good as the English version). I suppose it would also be worth mentioning that translation work is generally far less interesting than mud development. If you think people get bored writing help files, just wait until you get them to translate several thousand lines of help files. For a very small codebase I could see multiple languages as a nifty feature. For a large codebase, perhaps something like "multiple language support" would be viable (still requiring each mud owner to add the alternative language files, but certainly being far easier for them than having to manually go through the code looking for each piece of output). But for an individual mud (particularly one which is constantly growing) I don't think it's really feasible - sure, being able to view all 10,000 room descriptions in English, German, French, Spanish and Esperanto is a cool concept with some novelty value, but most players would far prefer to have 50,000 room descriptions in English.