The Ultima 7 German Translation: Beta Test Cancelled
Sir John has cancelled the beta test of his German translation of Ultima 7, mainly due to the fact that he has received — since August, mind — exactly no feedback from those who had expressed interest in being testers.
Consequently, the release of the actual German patch…well, I’m not quite sure what its status is, actually, mostly because I a) don’t speak German and b) can’t quite make sense of Google Translate’s take on what Sir John has written. I don’t think the patch is cancelled, but absent further testing — as well as the identification and correction of bugs — it is unlikely we’ll see it released any time soon.
Why is there a German translation project?
I still have the original german Ultima 7 (somewhere).
Sir John wasn’t happy with the quality of the original translation, I guess.
Hey Birk,
just in case you are still interested what this is/was all about: there have been a few good reasons to start this project:
– First and foremost: the original translated German version that exists is limited to the base game without the extension. Hence, the original language files are not compatible with the versions of Ultima 7 Pt1 available today, since these have the expansion built-in. Whatsmore the original German game itself is not available for purchase anymore. Alas: yes, there is an German version but it is of no use nowadays.
Other good reasons have been:
– Germany got new spelling rules in 1998 – all text of the patch complies to the new rules.
– the original German version was quite buggy opening quite a few in-game dead ends / stalls which the patch corrects
– Last but not least: some (by no means all, mind you) of the original translation work was done quite …hm… unloving. E.g. The translation of Chuckles games did not follow the games rules, limiting this part of the game to unlogical guessing
There were some more other reasons, but these were the main motivation for me. Hope, this clarifies the intention a bit 🙂
Alle the best,
John