Language....

[Leet Eriksson]

The romans in the ign movie speaked english,so did the greeks,i was wondering if that will change or will the language remain english with different accents?

[RisingSun]

I think theyll keep it in English/whatever country you bough it from. Its great hearing guys saying "To the walls" unless you don't know what they're saying. Ifyou don't know well... For all you know, the guy could be screaming "I'M CONSTIPATED" or "OH MYGOD, THIS IS TH WRT DIAHRREA I'VE EVER HAD" or perhaps even "I'M COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET THAT'S RIHT, I'M GAY" (which, incidentally for a Greek a few hundred years earlier wouldn't be all that strange)

[Kongamato]

They have recorded voice-overs for every culture involved in the game. I cannot expect them all to just speak with accents or just speak the same english words. The english speaking in the demo could be part of an in-game movie or most likely a quick alpha sound file thrown in to complete the movie.

[Spino]

Quote[/b] ]The romans in the ign movie speaked english,so did the greeks,i was wondering if that will change or will the language remain english with different accents?

Faisal, the scenes in the trailer where the Roman and Greek generals speak English ("For Rome", "To the Walls") were pre-rendered cinematic sequences and were NOT taken from in-game battle footage. You can tell the difference between the pre-rendered cinematics and the in-game battle footage as the former are in 'widescreen' format (i.e. notice the two black bars on the top and bottom, sandwiching the video in the middle) and the latter are in full screen format.

I believe CA is going to use the proper languages for the battlefield commands; Latin, Greek, Farsi, Gaelic, German, etc. It would be a real treat if CA actually went the extra mile to attempt to record the commands in the ancient dialects of the time (i.e. ancient Greek is quite different from the variation spoken today). Can anyone name the predominant Germanic dialect spoken at that time? On the other hand I can see how taking the path to total authenticity could lead to serious problems. Ancient Greek is quite easy to verify and reproduce but determining the actual language spoken by Parthians would be an unpleasant undertaking, not to mention the herculean effort required to find someone who knows how to speak it properly However, since the Parthians absorbed so much Persian culture in the years following their defeat of the last Seleucid rulers that to have them speak Farsi would make perfect sense.

Odds are CA is using the modern dialects of all the languages I mentioned.

[Catiline]

CA seem to be saying that all footage is in game. Perhaps one of them will clarify that here, but it's my understanding.

Greek's a rather conservative language, the difference between modern greek and Ancient is far less than say Modern and AngloSaxon English. i can have a stab at modern Greek on the basis of what I know of the Ancient language.

[Nelson]

I would prefer to hear Latin in the game. I would also like to see and hear musicians.

[Nowake]

Quote[/b] (Nelson @ June 12 2003,18:58)]I would prefer to hear Latin in the game. I would also like to see and hear musicians.
Totally agree ... Latin and greek at leat should be in.

[rasoforos]

Yes i would prefer to have them speak their own language ( i still remember those italian speaking byzantines from AOEII , it destroys the atmosfere). As katiline said ancient and modern greek are very close so it wont be difficult for us to verify what every phrase means if the factions indeed speak their proper languages , so RisingSun fear not , if your soldiers say 'i m constipated' we ll ask technical support to correct it...and they ll release a $30 patch http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Rosacrux]

rasoforos


you mean the "leleo", "pesto" and the other obscurities in AOE II? Those were quite funny, but not Italian. Just the way the devleopers thought Greek was spoken http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[rasoforos]

i havent playedAOE2 for ages but if i remember properly at least some of the things tranlsated in italian rosacrux. In any case microsoft is famous for historical innacuracy http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Rosacrux]

I haven't played AOE2 for zillions of years but I do remember that it was some sort of funny Greek... I do remember those two words for sure, and some other that sounded like "etoimos"... but it wasn't Italian for sure http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

AOM OTOH... speaks actually Greek http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Jacque Schtrapp]

In a new preview from Gamespy.com


Quote[/b] ]A similarly meticulous approach in the creation of the sound. The soundtrack will feature a set of new epic music themes, which will surely be a crucial part of the entire in-game atmosphere. One particularly interesting fact about the sound is that the development team sampled over 400 voiceovers for each culture (which is quite a lot you have to admit)?

Gamespy Preview (http://www.actiontrip.com/previews/rometotalwar.phtml)

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[AvramL]

I can add a little here, the languages spoken by the ancient Germanic tribes all shared a common root, but varied depending on the geagraphic region, meaning a frank on the Rhine would not be able to understand a Goth from the banks of the Dniester, at least not very well. Certainly the Germanic languages at that time were very different from modern German, English, Danish etc. (almost unrecognizable in fact)
As a side note, the tribes I just mentioned, like all the Latin "blanket" names the Romans gave to groups of similar tribes (particularily during the migrations) should not be taken as refering to any real unity etc.

[Shahed]

Everyone will speak UBER English. Or maybe UBER Latin.

I hope that this will not be the case though, and that all efforts are made to correctly represent the factions. Hope that it will not be like in MTW where Byzantines are speaking Russian, Turks Arabic.

Does not make for a nice finish to the game.

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[rasoforos]

lets make it clear to those CA guys that we need the factions to speak their languages properly and in a proper dialect if possible. If ya need native greek speakers i volunteer http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif . It shouldnt be too difficult to get the proper phrases translated.

[Vlad Tzepes]

What about rebels – what language should they speak? Dacians, for instance, which I understand appear in the game, spoke, of course, Dacian. There is no information about their grammar and not much about their culture. There are only 7 Dacian words remaining in nowadays Romanian (Romanians being the people created by Romans and Dacians&#8230http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif. Will CA make Dacians shout in Latin when fighting Romans? Dacians really hated Romans, and they sure had what for: Romans eventually conquered them… finally teaching them to write

[MiniKiller]

Ya I would like the option. English with accients, some english or all their language with diolouge on the bottom.

[Catiline]

the only command my Greeks will need is apofeugete

[hrvojej]

IMO, they should definitely use authentic languages for the factions. It would be great if they could actually get speakers of modern languages closest to the ancient ones to do the voiceovers. Regardless of the possible inaccuracies that may result from the incomplete knowledge of those ancient languages, it would give a great flavour to the game.

[Catiline]

Just think of the squabbles you boys will be able to have about language inaccuracies http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[hrvojej]

Teylargh entendetey http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Intrepid Sidekick]

It should be noted that there are several ancient languages that are now dead and that as a result we don't know how they were actually spoken. Everyone has pet theories but no one is certain.

As a result we chose increased accessibility by allowing players to understand what is actually being said by their units.

A Faction's units will therefore not be speaking their faction language. They will speak the language of the player who is playing the game at the time (English, German etc).

These voices will be flavoured to the faction the player is commanding at the time. So an Egyptian will have an appropriate accent and so on.

Hope this helps you all. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Intrepid Sidekick
~CA Staff~

[rasoforos]

Great , another AOE2.... :P . At least if you are not gonna make em speak their proper languages ( how difficult is to find what at least the greeks and the latins would say? I could contact a university department and have it in no time) then dont do this accent stuff cause it sounds stupid . It was funny on cartoons when we were 5 but in a game that strives for historical accuracy it is not.

[Captain Fishpants]

Quote[/b] (rasoforos @ July 01 2003,05:13)]Great , another AOE2.... :P . At least if you are not gonna make em speak their proper languages ( how difficult is to find what at least the greeks and the latins would say? I could contact a university department and have it in no time) then dont do this accent stuff cause it sounds stupid . It was funny on cartoons when we were 5 but in a game that strives for historical accuracy it is not.
There were three 'accented' voices used for Medieval: Total War and these managed to be quite flavoursome without becoming cartoony, all things considered.

On a more general point, having some languages such as Greek and Latin in the game would only show up that other factions/cultures are not speaking in the native tongues. We did consider using the 'barbarian' option for anyone who wasn't Greek and just having the voices go "Bar-bar-bar-bar-bar-bar-bar...", as these was the noise that most barbarians (i.e. non-Greeks) made as far as Greeks were concerned.

However, for clarity, in the end we chose to cast people with good speaking voices to do the VOs, and have 'accents' to reflect different factions and cultures.

MikeB ~ CA

[rasoforos]

I still dont understand why a small innacuracy ( not knowing the exact llanguage of the barbarians ) can be solved by a greater innacuracy ( making everyone speak english). People would really like to see , at least the Latin and Greek factions , to speak their languages. We cant know what every single barbarian was speaking but we could have proper phrases for the factions that we know what they were speaking.
Will those voices be modable so they can be changed?
Granted the medieval voiceovers were not bad ( apart from that 'the enemy general flees to his women' , but we were expecting an improvment to this guys...
Concerning the accents , well it is unrealistic since the ancient accents are not the same as today. You cannot have the greek general say ' Ourr enemy is rrunning awuaee , lets celebrreight with some moussaka and rretsina ' and keep it realistic http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif , even worse in latin where modern italian and latin are too far apart to be considered the same language anymore. Imagine a Roman general talking like super mario :P
Sorry for being such a pain in the ass and criticising everything but for some reason this came as a dissapointment to me :/ . I am sure the game will be great and i am gonna buy it even if they speak with a texan accent but some extra detail would add to my gaming experience.

[Shahed]

He he I just won 5 euros I had a bet that all factions wil, speak English or Latin and to most extent this will be true for UK-US release versions. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

One of the things that gave Shogun outstanding atmospherics was the Japanese language, authentic.

[Jacque Schtrapp]

[quote=rasoforos,July 01 2003,05:53]
Will those voices be modable so they can be changed?

I would assume if RTW sounds work the same way as MTW that you could make your own.wav files for any voices you desire to change and then convert them to mp3 format rename them to match the existing files and then delete/move the original and plug your replacement into the correct folder. I'm sure someone will correct me if I have assumed incorrectly.

i am gonna buy it even if they speak with a texan accent

Howdy Cezare y'all shore whupped them rascals over yonder http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Cockney barbarians- I swear I never sees those Romans on the hill guv' LEG IT

[hrvojej]

Maybe it would be a better option if all barbarians would speak English, and have Greek and Latin for the appropriate factions? That way we would still be able to squabble about Dacians using somewhat odd phrases, while on the other hand having a bit more authentic flavour. Otherwise, we'll have to wait for rasoforos to make us some VO to download... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Macedon]

In M:TW, on the battlefield everybody speak their own language...Probably it will be the same in R:TW too...I hope http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Shahed]

In MTW sadly everyone DOES NOT speak their own language.
The Byz are cheerfully speaking Russian and the Turks Arabic.

RTW hmmmm it has been state that factions will speak the language of the game version, earlier.

[rasoforos]

Well if they are modable and independent for every faction then i guess we can contact a military historian and get the exact phrases in greek and latin, then we gotta find 3-4 people from the community with nice voices and record. Of course someone should do the technical stuff since i have no idea how to mod http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif and of course a sound wizzard.
CA if we do all that B4 the game goes gold could you please add it even as bonus material or something? It will cost ya nothing and people want it as you can see. Just give us guys the phrases needed. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif


P.S : BTW the gaming industry owns it to the greek language ( we heard the greeks speaking mumbo jumbo , italian or russian in 90% of strategy games... i know it still sound like greek to some people but no to meeeee http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Jacque Schtrapp]

Quote[/b] (hrvojej @ July 01 2003,14:02)]Maybe it would be a better option if all barbarians would speak English
So exactly what are you trying to say? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[rasoforos]

hahahahahhaha , havent noticed this one b4 http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

[hrvojej]

It was ment to be subtle in the first place... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif