Most neglected aspect of modding

Imagine you pick up a novel in your local bookshop, marvel at the shiny cover, gasp in awe at beautiful illustrations and the sharpness of the font and start to salavate over the fine texture of the paper. You then begin reading, only to find out that the story itself (while being complex in plot) has been written by someone with all the English skills of a 4 month old baboon... You're not likely to buy it, are you?

Of course, that's not going to happen because they take steps to thoroughly check grammar and spelling before publishing novels. Authors and publishers often employ several proofreaders, even more so when the novel is a translation from another language.

So why is this not so with Warcraft maps?

The last thing, to my mind, you would want to do with your lovingly crafted map is ruin the atmosphere, betray the setting or detract from the plot with shoddy grammar and spelling. Especially after spending so long getting everything else perfect!

The "Nature's call" series is a great example of how to create a unique story in the Warcraft world with clever triggers, faithful scenery and good use of units. Think how much time must have gone into placing doodads and playtesting over and over and over again to get the balance of difficulty just right. There was time to recruit the services of voice actors, yet there was no time to get a native English speaker to proofread the grammar.

How much credibility would Kafka or Jules Verne have in the English speaking world if their works had been well illustrated instead of well translated?

I could run a dictionary dry of superlatives describing HeroRPG , an absolutely breathtaking mod that turns the Warcrft III engine on its head. The interior and exterior scenes are carefully and lovingly planned as are the battle scenes. Every aspect of the game that I can think of has been modified heavily but professionally to give the impression that the game was meant to be played this way all along. It all feels "finished"... Well, almost...

I could write a sizeable essay on the correct use of the definite article and present perfect tense that also expounded the virtues of knowing when a noun is countable or uncountable. The developers of HeroRPG would do well to read it and take it to heart.

The Curse of Feanor cinematic is absolutely stunning in terms of scenery design and custom skinning. Equally stunning, however, is how the narrative voiceover manages to mispronounce the word "kindreds", ruining the painstakingly constructed atmosphere, barely half a minute into the opening sequence. This is the first of many small errors that have a big effect on atmosphere, especially to anyone who's actually read the Silmarillon. While the pronunciation of fantasy names may be up for debate, the pronunciation of the contents of the English dictionary generally isn't.

Just as I came to post this thread, I noticed a guy who wants to attract "panda lover's" to his map making team. I wonder how many potential team members he could be losing because they'd rather work for someone who knows what an apostrophe is for.

In my opinion there is NO EXCUSE for poor quality English in mods or maps. If you aren't a native English speaker, get one to help you. You would get an artist to help you if you weren't very good at making graphics. Same applies if you're a 13-year-old prodigy with amazing programming skills but straight Fs in English class. I can't believe that the entire Warcraft III modding community is comprised of 13-year-olds and Germans.

I'm not trying to offend anyone here, so I apologise if I have. I would just like to play a campaign or scenario where I can focus on the story and get involved in the atmosphere without having to correct the grammar every 5 minutes. Is it really a lot that I'm asking?

To those people whos maps I've brought up in this post, this is not meant as negative criticism but as encouragement to put more thought into this aspect of map making. The three examples that I've given are the three best Warcraft related things I've ever downloaded and are so close to being highly polished, finished looking projects.

Grammar seems to be an afterthought on too many projects, yet it is more important than many people think. People don't like to comment for fear of being seen as pedantic or reminiscent of high-school teachers but believe me, even if they don't consciously realise it, they will give lower review scores for atmosphere, plot and setting if things are badly written.

So... If you need a proofreader, PM me ^_^

----
Ee by 'eck, that wer' a long'un!

I do hereby agree. I'd like to add that there are lots of people on the forum who have the necessary skills to help out with grammar and spelling. It's not asked about a lot, but it's an important aspect of mapping.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Personally I type out most of my tooltips in word as part of my design documentation so the spellchecker picks up most mistakes. I'd like to think that my maps have pretty solid language, but you have to understand that many of the mappers here don't speak english as their native language. I think that if the map isn't built around the storytelling, I can easily ignore poor language. Better to put up with lousy english than piss poor gameplay.

I agree, but a lot of people (well, I know *I* would, that is, if my english wasn't good...I tend to not put in victory triggers till really late in development...) probably just think 'i'll fix that next version'. But they never do. SO GO AND DO IT! Says the guy yet to actually finish a map up to release worthy state...

Absolutely true, especially in campaigns or maps where storytelling isn't the main focus. I'm not claiming that good language is the most important aspect of map making, just that it may be the most often neglected.

I do realise that a lot of map makers aren't native English speakers and that they make their maps in English in order to make them accessible to the widest possibe audience and this is very commendable. Big thanks to all of you! I doubt many British or American map makers will take the time to translate their work into German, Spanish or Russian or even have the ability to do so.