226 replies to this topic

[Ascension64]

Place your feedback/reports of testing the public test release versions of TobEx here. Mention the test release version in your report.

[Antipatiko]

Hi, Ascension! I've installed test release v0.18.2.8 and I think I've found a little problem: my character isn't getting experience for memorizing spells. Thanks.

Edited by Antipatiko, 07 February 2011 - 09:34 PM.

[Ascension64]

Hi, Ascension! I've installed test release v0.18.2.8 and I think I've found a little problem: my character isn't getting experience for memorizing spells. Thanks.

Thanks for the report. Fixing this may be tricky. I'll need to check with GemRB team.

On other notes, can I please get some feedback on whether the new features are working as they should? (hint at modders)

Edited by Ascension64, 07 February 2011 - 10:21 PM.

[DavidWallace]

On other notes, can I please get some feedback on whether the new features are working as they should? (hint at modders)

Sorry - will have a chance to check this evening

[DavidWallace]

The new version is running smoothly in my local version of SCSII.

Some further thoughts about translation: on reflection, I'm not sure (the redistributed version of) ToBEx needs to ship with any translations at all. Here's the current .tra file broken up:

@-10000 = ~Installing TobEx...~
@-10001 = ~TobEx EXE patch: Already applied, skipping...~
@-10002 = ~TobEx EXE patch: Target bytes don't match, aborting...~
@-10003 = ~Updating TobEx...~
@-10004 = ~TobEx already up-to-date.~

These only show up as part of the install text, and really they're feedback for the modder rather than the end user. Perhaps other things being equal it's better if they're translated (and I appreciate that as a monolingual speaker of English I need to be careful in saying "don't bother translating this"), but to me they don't really feel different from WEIDU commands like "Compiling script", Copying and patching N files", etc, which aren't translated.

@-10005 = ~Basilisk~
@-10006 = ~Bear~
@-10007 = ~Fairy~
@-10008 = ~Mist~
@-10009 = ~Mimic~
@-10010 = ~Giant~

These are new races to be slotted into racetext.2da. But actually, they only show in game if a modder takes advantage of it (if I'm understanding correctly). In that situation, they can presumably add their own text.

@-10011 = ~Critical Hit Averted~
@-10012 = ~Spell Cancelled: Can not target spell on invisible or sanctuaried creatures.~

Here I actively think it would be better for ToBEx not to substitute these strings into the game. They're linked to components of ToBEx that are intended only as extensions, but they change the core-game behaviour. In the case of -10011, I'd personally rather carry on getting the flavour information that the critical hit was blocked by a helmet, unless there's actually a mod installed that allows other things to block critical hits. In the case of -10012 it hardly matters - other than for translations - but as far as I know only SCSII takes advantage of this extension, and I might as well just swap the string myself. (And if other mods want to use that extension, they can do likewise).

So my - tentative - suggestion would be: drop -10011 and -10012 from v18, leave the rest, but don't worry about translation support for the rest because it doesn't really make much difference. (Of course, that doesn't prevent somebody actively providing it in their mod if they really want to.)

[the bigg]

You'll be surprised by the amount of things people want to translate. It's almost as if they want to let the non-English speaking subhuman scum enjoy something they find via a computer and an Internet connection in the same way somebody with the decency of learning English would.

[DavidWallace]

You'll be surprised by the amount of things people want to translate. It's almost as if they want to let the non-English speaking subhuman scum enjoy something they find via a computer and an Internet connection in the same way somebody with the decency of learning English would.

I can't work out if that's a joke or not.

If it's not, then apologies: I certainly didn't mean to offend and, as I say, I'm conscious of how easy it is to overlook language issues if you're EFL (it's a major issue-to-be-aware of in academia, in fact).

I think I'd stick by my argument, though (having re-checked it): the strings in ToBEx are either (i) strings I'd rather remove anyway, (ii) strings whose values I'm indifferent to because in practice they can be set by the modder (feel free to put them in Sanskrit!), (iii) strings that are install-time feedback basically aimed at modders (where in any case it's more or less forced that one can read English just given WEIDU's prompts). Having said which, obviously I don't actually mind anyone translating ToBEx (except for the strings I think should probably be dropped). I'm mostly concerned with whether there's any particular need for me to support translation in SCS installs of it, given that on the current model it's outsourced to 3rd-party modders.

[the bigg]

Actually, I'm the "xenophobic" here: I strongly believe that people who can't
1) read and write correct English (or at least not make a grammar/spelling error every three words)
2) follow instructions regarding basic file manipulation and other computer tasks
3) RTFM and visit Google when they have a problem
don't deserve using a computer or being on the Internet. Since I learned English as a second language, I can make such a statement and look 5% less of a complete asshole than somebody born in England or the US who made the same statement.


Either way, translators want to translate every fiddly bit of a mod, and can translate most of the WeiDU prompts, hence it makes some twisted sense to translate stuff like "Installing ToBEx". Of course, lines like "Copying 3 files..." aren't translated, and having similar lines translated makes it harder for the modder to read debug files (while not being actionable by players), so in practice it's not perfectly clear that they should be translated.

Since ToBEx is now all-or-nothing, it helps with coding that the racetext.2da / critical hit / spell cancellation lines are always patched (and translated), even if no mod is added that alters how critical hit prevention works.

[DavidWallace]

Since ToBEx is now all-or-nothing, it helps with coding that the racetext.2da / critical hit / spell cancellation lines are always patched (and translated), even if no mod is added that alters how critical hit prevention works.

This is the bit I'm not persuaded by. (Well, I don't really mind the racetext.2da bit.) ToBEx is all-or-nothing in the sense that it provides its engine extensions in an all-or-nothing fashion. But I don't think that needs to extend to string patching. It makes sense for "Cannot target spells on improved-invisible creature" to be replaced by "Cannot target spell on improved-invisible creature") if a mod is installed that allows some spells to target improved-invisible creatures; it doesn't otherwise. So it ought to be the responsibility of the modder to change the line. (And of course, patching that line isn't a game-engine fix, so the arguments for all-or-nothing-ness for ToBEx don't apply here.)

[Ascension64]

Some further thoughts about translation: on reflection, I'm not sure (the redistributed version of) ToBEx needs to ship with any translations at all.

So you prefer that I just stated in TobEx_ini.txt that if you plan to use hack X, you will be have a bug with wrong text until you STRING_SET to fix it up, in which case you need a translation anyway unless you want to be stuck with English?

As I see it, the two options are:
1. Keep current style. All non-English game versions will have English text show up for the critical hit averted and spell cancelled strrefs
2. No translation. Modders deciding to use the hacks will ship with the translations.

You are right, people probably won't like it if their vanilla German game shows up English text every time a critical hit is averted or when they try to cast spells on invisible characters. In essence, #1 does change core-game behaviour as you state.

Would like more discussion on this.

[Wisp]

I would suggest you include the translations in ToBEx (aside from everything else, that way they'll be consistent across all distributions) but leave it to the mod that bundles ToBEx to manually load the TRA file and set the strings.

[Miloch]

I don't see the issue in traifying the few racetext strings that are getting added. Most are hardcoded string references, which mean they'll be whatever language the user's game is in. TobEx just adds a few that aren't in dialog.tlk. The real argument could be - why is it doing this at all - shouldn't a modder who actually wants to add such an (N)PC race worry about this? But again, there's only a few added strings. I would actually argue it makes sense for TobEx to add as many as possible early on, so modders X and Y don't come along later and add redundant strings, etc.

[DavidWallace]

As I see it, the two options are:
1. Keep current style. All non-English game versions will have English text show up for the critical hit averted and spell cancelled strrefs
2. No translation. Modders deciding to use the hacks will ship with the translations.

At least for the critical hit averted and spell cancelled strings, I'm arguing for

3. Remove the relevant STRING_SET commands from ToBEx, and leave it to mods that want to use that functionality to implement them. That way, those relevant components of ToBEx become pure extensions, and it's entirely down to modders to generate in-game consequences from them. (In principle I'd say the same for scrollbars, but in practice it's fairly clearly more sensible to include that functionality by default in ToBEx.)

As for RACETEXT.2DA, I really don't feel strongly. If people think it's sensible to include translations here, that's fine.

EDIT: actually, on rereading, perhaps 2=3. And yes, a corollary of including the critical hit averted and spell cancelled strings in ToBEx is that anyone using ToBEx whose language isn't translated in the relevant version will see quite a bit of unwanted English, even if they're not using mods which make any use of the target-thru-invisibility and externalised-critical-aversion extensions.

Edited by DavidWallace, 09 February 2011 - 06:41 AM.

[GeN1e]

I'd leave handling translations to modders. Should two mods try to use different strings for the same thing, well, we have incompatibility here. Just like we have lots of it already between existing mods, despite all of them using WeiDU, the tool designed to allow compatibility.

[Jarno Mikkola]

So you prefer that I just stated in TobEx_ini.txt that if you plan to use hack X, you will be have a bug with wrong text until you STRING_SET to fix it up, in which case you need a translation anyway unless you want to be stuck with English?

Would you really... as you can include two functions in the same library, you can have one with and one without, or a third one that has with and a forth that has the STRING_SET commands catered to a ready to use function made with the third... and it's the mod makers job to include the one he wishes to use, and provide the extra resources that are then needed, if needed.

[Ascension64]

So you prefer that I just stated in TobEx_ini.txt that if you plan to use hack X, you will be have a bug with wrong text until you STRING_SET to fix it up, in which case you need a translation anyway unless you want to be stuck with English?

Would you really... as you can include two functions in the same library, you can have one with and one without, or a third one that has with and a forth that has the STRING_SET commands catered to a ready to use function made with the third... and it's the mod makers job to include the one he wishes to use, and provide the extra resources that are then needed, if needed.

I'll just mention under the relevant hack that certain strings need to be set for consistency. I don't want TobEx to rely on translators whenever I have new strings to add (which hopefully aren't any in future versions) so I would prefer to leave this to the modders to handle. I'm sure we are all happy to share such translations around (unless someone really gets peeved that their Russian word for "bear" should be theirs only and no one else's...)

I realised that the racetext.2da strings weren't even installing correctly because the source text wasn't present.

What I will do is to keep the current redist implementation technique (use LOAD_TRA) in case future strings are needed. I'll keep the installation strings there in case pedantic people want to translate them.

The remainder of the strings I will remove and 'suggest' in the TobEx_ini.txt under the relevant hacks. This will include the racetext.2da stuff, for which then basilisk, bear, fairy, mist, mimic, and giant joinable NPCs (of which I know none) will have no race text unless specifically altered by a mod.

Therefore, TobEx.tra will look like:

@-10000 = ~Installing TobEx...~
@-10001 = ~TobEx EXE patch: Already applied, skipping...~
@-10002 = ~TobEx EXE patch: Target bytes don't match, aborting...~
@-10003 = ~Updating TobEx...~
@-10004 = ~TobEx already up-to-date.~

[DavidWallace]

Sounds perfect. I'll plug the spell-cancelled line into SCS.

Edited by DavidWallace, 09 February 2011 - 04:36 PM.

[Wisp]

I'm apparently unable to get the PickpocketFailed trigger to work with v18 of tobex_redist. It is enabled in tobextweak.ini and remaining hidden on successful pickpocket works, so I don't think it's because I'm doing something stupid.

ToBEx is on standard settings, with the addition of

COPY "tobex_ini/tobextweak.ini" "tobex_ini/tobextweak.ini"
  REPLACE_TEXTUALLY CASE_INSENSITIVE EXACT_MATCH ~Enable PickpocketFailed Trigger=0~ ~Enable PickpocketFailed Trigger=1~
  REPLACE_TEXTUALLY CASE_INSENSITIVE EXACT_MATCH ~Remain Hidden On Pickpocket Success=0~ ~Remain Hidden On Pickpocket Success=1~
BUT_ONLY

[Ascension64]

Is this from a test build or from the release build?

[Wisp]

It's the release build (available from the DL Manager). Which means I'm posting in the wrong thread. Go me.

Edited by Wisp, 17 February 2011 - 01:30 AM.