it's funny to read people using VPNs to pretend to be in my region when I spend so much time going the other way. Will be glad to see you all online early to play.

I definitely plan on playing MP (PC/alinearity) from the start. Am GMT+8 (Asia/Australia), do not know how that'll affect things.

Hello hello.

I am a woman in Asia, advocate/research in public law and justice (which is righteous! and hard!), and am involved in many things that can leave me mentally and emotionally taxed. I stay sane by knitting, kick-boxing and taiqi, reading, and playing games.

I used to mostly play strategy and sim games. Some years back, my partner had me play Mass Effect concurrently with his game. I thought it fine enough for time diversion, but it crashed constantly, had some awful infodumps I associate with bad scifi, and fetch quests that exacerbated my completionitis, and it did not leave me with a positive impression. A year or two later, partner procured used copies of the sequel along with DA:O, and after several months we started it.

 

DA:O had so many issues, but it was playable. The story was a bit simple and well-trodden, but some of the political aspects made up for it. I am glad that I chose the mage origin, as I would have probably rage quit had I chosen the city elf -- or had watched my partner when he played that origin. I greatly enjoyed DA:O:A, and I tremendously enjoyed DA2 (save the Sebastian and MotA DLCs), so I am trepidious about DA:I. However, I did enjoy MEMP despite hating ME3, and still play regularly, so I suspect that even if I am less than happy with the campaign of DA:I, I will enjoy DAMP.

I plan to play on my AmigaOne.

PC: alinearity / UTC+8 / Aggressive/support mage / should have mic

ReveurIngenu wrote...

I'm too lazy to dig up the leaked script and read it, especially since most of it is the same as the final game.  But I would like to know what changes there were.

I know that there originally was supposed to be a mission on Omega (side mission?) and that was cut.  But besides that.  What about the endings?  Romances?

I'd really appreciate it if someone who read the leaked script and played the final game could tell me what differences there are.

I've started compiling some on Tumblr; will add to it with more detailed references as I replay ME3. 

Install error (PC, purchased via EA, updated through1.02 without problem): Dragon Age II Not Found.

I previously experienced installation errors with the graphics patch and had to change the region and language before it would work; subsequent DLC and patches installed without a problem. Such is not the case this time. Any suggestions?

[edit] Going to respond to my own inquiry: EADM includes ™ in the install path. See this helpful post (now sadly buried in the forum) from shunjie via lamaslany should you also be experiencing this problem. 

tobynator89 wrote...

nice collab, not a supporter of fan interfering in storytelling though. Caving in to rabid fans demands makes me lose respect for the writers. Rather they surprise me insted.

I know what you mean. I was quite peeved to learn that Garrus and Tali were to be love interests. 

Ninalupa wrote...
Kolyat's middle name is 'Donor' [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/grin.png[/smilie]

<3

hanar05 wrote...

Lina wrote...

Mash Mashington wrote...

Depends on the quality of Feron's Kolyat's lungs

*GASP*

But but but but but! Even though Thane himself would reject the idea, his body would be less likely to reject Kolyat's lungs being that they're kin. It makes sense! 

Mash Mashington wrote...

Depends on the quality of Feron's Kolyat's lungs

The thing about natural language translation is that you can't translate a sentence until it has already been completed. Further, some sentences won't make any sense when translated unless understood in the context of sentences that have come before it and the cultural context of the speaker - in a worst case scenario a sentence might have three or more possible translations depending on context.

Even individual words require an understanding of context in order to properly translate, because so many words have multiple meanings, but the foreign language equivalents often assign those meanings to different words.

For example, the english word "lie" has a completely different meaning if you say it as "he was going to lie down on the couch" compared to "she was going to lie to him about her criminal record". Or perhaps they ask "does your town lie in the countryside?" Unfortunately, foreign languages do not have easy, direct 1:1 translations, so they cannot simply translate it into a single foreign word that has the same three possible meanings. For instance, the usage of the word to indicate dishonesty is "mensonge", but the "to be situated somewhere" meaning of the term translates as "se trouver" and finally the positioned horizontally on a surface meaning of the word translates as "être étendu" or "gésir".

Then, when dealing with audio translations instead of text translations, we get an additional problem - homophones! What if they meant "lye" not "lie"? Oh dear! Being able to translate languages to the degree that MEverse or Trekverse or what have you does is basically impossible without a fairly sophisticated A.I., and even then it would not be able to work in real time the way it does in those two series, as per the above context problem.

Oral->aural machine translators would likely have evolved to the point that they are able to recognise homophones through context (I've used Mandarin voice recognition software with a varying degree of success, and there are many more homophones in Mandarin than, say, English), much as text->text machine translators are currently able to parse homographs. Machine translators at present do not work on a word-by-word (morpheme-by-morpheme) basis; there is at least a slight attempt for contextual basis in translation. (I agree, though - real time translation is an issue. Word order alone would make that impossible without prior knowledge of what's to be sad.)

Whereto wrote...
you know there are some words that dont translate into other languages even today. Dont you?

1. Not necessarily true. Words are translatable, but perhaps lose the full connotation in a concise translation. Wikipedia (of all places) is a good place to start on this. Where translation gets difficult is in set phrases, puns, poetry, slang, etc., where one can translate something but lose the full cultural connotation, lose the joke, etc.

2. Re: Soft sci-fi, don't worry about it: As I said: bored syntactician is bored. Said bored syntactician also almost went into AI/natural language processing and machine translation before she killed her wrists in programming and thus changed to a less computer-intensive course of study, so she has a tendency to over-think this sort of thing. <3

Obviously some people care if they are bothering to ask the question. Should you yourself not care, why bother posting to the thread?



That said, automated simultaneous translation seems to be the creators were going for, though there's potential for hilarity in it due to mistranslated idioms/slang/structure, outright translator fail, etc. Too bad they'd likely not go with such, as it's obvious that they haven't a proper linguist on staff. ;p

gi0m wrote...
If every one is equipped with auto translator, how come we can still hear words from foreign languages? Like Keelah se' lai or whatever? Shouldn't it be translated as well? 
And don't tell me it has no translation, I highly doubt this couldn't be translated as Amen, farewell or Hello.

I can hardly see every quarion say "hang on, turn off your translator a minute, I'm about to say Boosh tet"

Likely the translator has glitches along the lines of existing auto-translation software, wherein certain words are not translated (or improperly -- or literally! -- translated, which is potentially much more fun). Then again, if the translation software w/in ME is supposed to get updated OTF to reflect new words (which it would have to, in order to reflect slang if anything [would it be able to interpret LOLCAT or "harmonised" speak?]), then e.g. "Keelah se'lai" should probably have been included as whatever the relevant translation into X would be, unless of course Tali/quarian in question is speaking some common tongue (guessing it's a pidgin rather than creole) and simply code-switching to her native language in her/his exclamation. (But in this case, would the translator simply kick in anyway?!)

What intrigues me more is the idea of purposefully getting around translators by messing with a language (or languages) through code-switching of either vocabulary or syntax (or both~), or other such things; would the program be able to catch it and/or adapt? e.g. (using real languages) speaking Mandarin with Japanese pronunciation for random characters or words and switching up syntax to from Subject Verb Object (Mandarin) to Subject Object Verb (Japanese).  

or, goodness, could one simply turn off one's sub-dermal translator were one not wishing to be bothered? Should one be in a crowd where many languages are being spoken, would one's translator translate them all (or make a failing attempt to, resulting in word salad) or simply pick up the closest/clearest? Would one hear simultaneous translations a la UN-style interpretation? 

and so on. My main man had his F!Shep romance Thane the other day and I've been babbling about the translator nonsense ever since. Only just thought to look for threads on it. (bored syntactician is bored.... )

And to quote a certain someone. "Do say something dear."

But were one to say something, you'd need to be present to hear it, no? Perhaps one should write something instead.

LupusYondergirl wrote...

From the LJ:

\\\\her OCs are truly not awful

That is the most bizarrely backhanded yet sincere compliment I've ever been given.  I've read enough fanfic to totally get what they mean, it just reads funny. 

It was meant kindly, really. [smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/lol.png[/smilie][smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/heart.png[/smilie] Never was good at giving compliments in English without being more than a bit mildly insulting in the process apparently.  

As I'm adept at hole-digging:
Yes! Your OCs come across as well planned and executed! And your writing is a joy to read! I'm happiest when I can't guess what might happen next, and that's rarely the case!

(It took me far too long to [remember to] figure out how to register with this forum, otherwise I'd've posted such earlier [though I did have quite a laugh at how I came across, hah!].[smilie]http://social.bioware.com/images/forum/emoticons/blushing.png[/smilie])

Sad Dragon wrote...

How about i just burninate the peasants?

/TSD

Burninating the peasants means more tea for the rest of us. good job! :innocent:

Sad Dragon wrote...
That being said - cant drink tea. Have a problem with hot bevarages in general so nothing against :/
/TSD

Sad Dragons make Linas sad too. Tea can be consumed hot, lukewarm, cold, and iced! One can even cold brew tea! 

Favourite iced tea: 
rooibos + purple hollyhock + hibiscus (+ honey/sugar should one prefer) 

bibgar wrote...
Not sure why its unique...over here in Asia it's consumed more regularly than sodas, hell people even prefer cold Milo over most sodas.

Yes, and some of the tea sold here (e.g. boxed Vita tea) is sweeter than soda. One misses proper unsweetened tea. 

Pine needles go well with mint or lemon peel.... 

There are so many wonderful teas!

I find that coffee drinkers who are turned off of tea simply haven't yet found the right one. ; ) One'd recommend that they try the dark "cooked" pu'er (bo lei/bolay) tea from Yunnan, which brews into a lovely rich tea. (I personally cannot stand it -- I prefer the "raw" green pu'er -- but my partner, a coffee drinker, adores it.) It's also a popular tea amongst dieters here as people believes that it helps them lose weight.

My partner purchased them for me as a surprise. They're silly, but fun. I'm far too amused by the mere existence of the uncrushable pigeon. : )