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Astrox ImperiumFix Male-Centric Wording and No Multilanguage (22 posts)(22 posts)
(22 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 12, 2022
Hello,

Recent changes are quite promising, thank you, the game gets closer to finalization. However, there are two issues with its texts: Desync on characters' sex and trouble for translators.

One. Let's imagine we create a female "she" pilot, go to import her to another game after a while, the import menu states "The imported pilot will assume his new identity." Confusing. Why not say "the new identity?" Anyway, this is alienating customers, at odds with many players' reality and the game itself when a player/NPC is not set as male. It can be found all over the game texts or binary data like "level3" for the shown example.

Luckily for us, from the time of Shakespeare, to the present day, "they" is used when sex is any of the two, hidden, non-binary or unknown for a person, and it is not a new phenomenon (~700 years), present "you" is about from the same time. "They" is acknowledged in all the main dictionaries in such usage, a good choice.

What to do then? Two main options:
1. The import menu, etc are neutral, but create the sex variable and adjust words for an NPC or player to set "he" or "she" by the variable.
2. Replace to make it match everything by default, regardless of sex, less work. Not too difficult to do here, thankfully. For example:
Mr. to Mx.
Foreman to Leader
Guys to Folks
His to Their or Theirs
He/Him/Himself to They/Them/Themselves
Mankind to Humankind
Buddy to Pilot, Friend
Man to Pilot, Friend, Humankind, etc or no word
"the bad guy" to "the bad person"
"Take it easy guy" to "Take it easy friend"
"It was said man dreamed of traveling the stars from the first moment he looked up" to "It was said humans dreamed of traveling the stars from the first moment they looked up"
"That is until man created" to "That is until humans created"
"Boss man would send us" to "Boss would send us"
"negotiate with the local foreman" to "negotiate with the local leader"
"and boy is they going to regret it" to "and they going to regret it"
...so on, a lot is like that

One, alternatively. Why not do the 2nd option, then allow for any face as the pilot and to drop he/she complitely or not and add "they" for non-binary like Battletech did? As far as I see, sex has zero gameplay value in Astrox Imperium, it is not paramount. For example, the developer of Kitaria Fables purposely allows a player to imagine what they like to see the hero cat like, the quests are written for all too, thus everything is available, not limited by a slider: It works quite well here, people tend to fill empty spaces of unknown.

Two. Not every market speaks English, for example Chinese, like, ~6/7 of the planet doesn't. The game is not designed for translation or changing in the settings, it allows only one language. Even if it improves, the current structure will create similar case issues for languages that physically cannot write inclusively like in addressing someone (English's neutral quality is oddity among Indo-European), this is why the sex variable may be handy. In the end, having more customers never hurts. Isn't it? I am sure many people of all kinds will like to play it.

Please look what can be done about all of that before the release date.
Posted January 12, 2022
high rated
once things get more finalized, i will pull out all the ingame menu text, and anything that is not already exposed to the user in plain text, and make it editable for language translation.
Posted January 13, 2022
What about the mismatch bug, the 1st part, will it be fixed in time?
Posted January 14, 2022
avatar
unhopefuldarkness: Hello,

Recent changes are quite promising, thank you, the game gets closer to finalization. However, there are two issues with its texts: Desync on characters' sex and trouble for translators.

One. Let's imagine we create a female "she" pilot, go to import her to another game after a while, the import menu states "The imported pilot will assume his new identity." Confusing. Why not say "the new identity?" Anyway, this is alienating customers, at odds with many players' reality and the game itself when a player/NPC is not set as male. It can be found all over the game texts or binary data like "level3" for the shown example.

Luckily for us, from the time of Shakespeare, to the present day, "they" is used when sex is any of the two, hidden, non-binary or unknown for a person, and it is not a new phenomenon (~700 years), present "you" is about from the same time. "They" is acknowledged in all the main dictionaries in such usage, a good choice.

What to do then? Two main options:
1. The import menu, etc are neutral, but create the sex variable and adjust words for an NPC or player to set "he" or "she" by the variable.
2. Replace to make it match everything by default, regardless of sex, less work. Not too difficult to do here, thankfully. For example:
Mr. to Mx.
Foreman to Leader
Guys to Folks
His to Their or Theirs
He/Him/Himself to They/Them/Themselves
Mankind to Humankind
Buddy to Pilot, Friend
Man to Pilot, Friend, Humankind, etc or no word
"the bad guy" to "the bad person"
"Take it easy guy" to "Take it easy friend"
"It was said man dreamed of traveling the stars from the first moment he looked up" to "It was said humans dreamed of traveling the stars from the first moment they looked up"
"That is until man created" to "That is until humans created"
"Boss man would send us" to "Boss would send us"
"negotiate with the local foreman" to "negotiate with the local leader"
"and boy is they going to regret it" to "and they going to regret it"
...so on, a lot is like that

One, alternatively. Why not do the 2nd option, then allow for any face as the pilot and to drop he/she complitely or not and add "they" for non-binary like Battletech did? As far as I see, sex has zero gameplay value in Astrox Imperium, it is not paramount. For example, the developer of Kitaria Fables purposely allows a player to imagine what they like to see the hero cat like, the quests are written for all too, thus everything is available, not limited by a slider: It works quite well here, people tend to fill empty spaces of unknown.

Two. Not every market speaks English, for example Chinese, like, ~6/7 of the planet doesn't. The game is not designed for translation or changing in the settings, it allows only one language. Even if it improves, the current structure will create similar case issues for languages that physically cannot write inclusively like in addressing someone (English's neutral quality is oddity among Indo-European), this is why the sex variable may be handy. In the end, having more customers never hurts. Isn't it? I am sure many people of all kinds will like to play it.

Please look what can be done about all of that before the release date.
Ok, my English sux, as will become apparent with my post, but I can still follow the logic in someone's post, when there is one.

So, how did you manage to jump from, as you said "confusing" situation when your new pilot is female and the game still refer to him as "he" and then ended up with complete nonsense in form of a list with suggested replacements that has nothing to do with the :problem you are presented in your first part of the post?

How any of your list have anything to do with the fact that you new pilot is now imported as opposite sex? Did you ever see someone calling your pilot as "guys"? Did introduction video and that "man" and "mankind" stuff, which seem to bother you so much has anything to do with your imported pilot sex? Your pilot sex has nothing to do with that "local foreman" line or in that matter in almost any line from your list with suggested replacements.

So, please, can you explain to me what irritates you so much in words like "Mankind"and how replacing it with "Humankind" will help to not "alienating customers".
Posted January 15, 2022
Op seems to be a twitter stranger who is trying to push a dev to use their "words".

Some groups of people in Twitter live in a social media bubble, the person in question might be trying to expand that bubble.. oof

The only changes that op mentioned I think is good is the muti-language one and the "she" still being "she" later in the game text, yeah.

That being said, the author did the best response, he said the text will be editable later. SO if a person wants to make British English, Scottish English, or uh "social-media-trans English" (just made that up) they can.
Post edited January 15, 2022 by NobleNoob
Posted January 16, 2022
Shakespeare is not "social-media-trans" English. The argument does not hold up to reality, to history and to common sense: itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html

Let be very clear, this is absolutely a bug and it must be addressed. The developer decided to mix everything up in one pile by design from the very beginning, not introducing a variable to shift words depending on a receiver of those words like RPG games do. Totally naturally going from this choice, switching to what everyone in English uses in such case, ironically including you in your very message* ("stranger" and "their," "person" and "they"), confirming it as usual English yourself, is a logical cheap bugfix favouring the chosen design by the path of least resistance.

Another option for the developer might be to drop the charade, make every pilot a male, including the main. Clearly the female option was just for a checkbox.

* archive.is/rxBM2
Post edited January 16, 2022 by Dreamdash
Posted January 16, 2022
How conveniently you chose to ignore my post and twist your words to sound like a simple suggestion to fix a bug.

Fun fact, I'm a man, but I play most role-playing games as a female character (especially when gender in the game matters as a role-playing element, with advantages and disadvantages, with choices and consequences). Yes, when your pilot is a man and everyone calls him "her" is something that needs to be addressed as a flaw in the game, something that can be improved because of obvious things like role play and simple text coherence.

This is something basic and obvious, and everyone would agree that it is beneficial for the game to fix it, simply because it is an inaccuracy. It's not critical, it's not a bug (if we have to be meticulous in describing the problem, because a "bug" in the game is something completely different from an inaccuracy in the description) and it certainly doesn't "alienate" the player base as you try to present it. Just one of the many inaccuracies you may encounter when the game is in the early stages of development. This inaccuracy does not alienate players more or less than any other inaccuracy in the game - some weapons have the wrong stat, some ship has an inaccurate description, some module has the wrong level or duplicate name. These things are everywhere in the game and players just point them out so Dev can edit them properly.

But you're not talking about that, are you? No, you don't talk about it unless you have to maneuver between posts and avoid questions that disprove what you're trying to pass as an idea. When it's convenient for you, you talk about simple text consistency, but you mean something completely different in your first post, right?

You tend to rape your own language (the language of this same Shakespeare) just to push your worldview where no one cares and where it has no place.

And, by the way, I checked the link you sent. One would think that we would come across pages and pages of Shakespeare's text in support of your claim, not a single line. I would say that (again) you have a very selective approach when presenting your position.

So, I'm still curious to find out what's problematic when the game uses "Mankind". Would you explain, please?
Posted January 16, 2022
avatar
Daering: How conveniently you chose to ignore my post and twist your words to sound like a simple suggestion to fix a bug.
I am not the topicstarter. I said from the time I stepped in that's a bug.
avatar
Daering: It's not critical, it's not a bug
The result it produces is incorrect, it is a flaw in the programme, it is, in fact, a bug by the very definition of the word and not every bug is gamebreaking. Please familiarize yourself with terminology before stepping in into the discussion.

Wikipedia:
"A software bug is an error, flaw or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways. The process of finding and fixing bugs is termed 'debugging' and often uses formal techniques or tools to pinpoint bugs, and since the 1950s, some computer systems have been designed to also deter, detect or auto-correct various computer bugs during operations."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug
avatar
Daering: selective approach when presenting your position.
English is not Bulgarian, globally widespread is not selective.

"You use they instead of 'he or she' to refer to a person without saying whether that person is a man or a woman."
www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/they

"The use of they, their, them, and themselves as pronouns of indefinite gender and indefinite number is well established in speech and writing."
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/they

"Used instead of he or she to refer to a person whose sex is not mentioned or not known."
www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/they

"The singular 'they' is a generic third-person singular pronoun in English. Use of the singular 'they' is endorsed as part of APA Style because it is inclusive of all people and helps writers avoid making assumptions about gender."
apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they

"The use of singular 'they' has been around for centuries, from William Shakespeare to Jane Austen to Charles Dickens."
www.noslangues-ourlanguages.gc.ca/en/blogue-blog/they-as-gender-neutral-pronoun-eng

"The need to deal equally with men and women highlights the desirability of drafting using gender-neutral language. Laws that exclude references to the female gender do not promote gender equality. For this reason, gender-specific language should not be used in legislation. Gender-specific words should be replaced with gender-neutral words that have the same meaning."
canada.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/legis-redact/legistics/p1p15.html
Posted January 17, 2022
high rated
You don't even own the game, or any other game here, Mx. Go back to your twitter bubble.
Posted January 21, 2022
avatar
unhopefuldarkness: Hello,

Recent changes are quite promising, thank you, the game gets closer to finalization. However, there are two issues with its texts: Desync on characters' sex and trouble for translators.

One. Let's imagine we create a female "she" pilot, go to import her to another game after a while, the import menu states "The imported pilot will assume his new identity." Confusing. Why not say "the new identity?" Anyway, this is alienating customers, at odds with many players' reality and the game itself when a player/NPC is not set as male. It can be found all over the game texts or binary data like "level3" for the shown example.

Luckily for us, from the time of Shakespeare, to the present day, "they" is used when sex is any of the two, hidden, non-binary or unknown for a person, and it is not a new phenomenon (~700 years), present "you" is about from the same time. "They" is acknowledged in all the main dictionaries in such usage, a good choice.

What to do then? Two main options:
1. The import menu, etc are neutral, but create the sex variable and adjust words for an NPC or player to set "he" or "she" by the variable.
2. Replace to make it match everything by default, regardless of sex, less work. Not too difficult to do here, thankfully. For example:
Mr. to Mx.
Foreman to Leader
Guys to Folks
His to Their or Theirs
He/Him/Himself to They/Them/Themselves
Mankind to Humankind
Buddy to Pilot, Friend
Man to Pilot, Friend, Humankind, etc or no word
"the bad guy" to "the bad person"
"Take it easy guy" to "Take it easy friend"
"It was said man dreamed of traveling the stars from the first moment he looked up" to "It was said humans dreamed of traveling the stars from the first moment they looked up"
"That is until man created" to "That is until humans created"
"Boss man would send us" to "Boss would send us"
"negotiate with the local foreman" to "negotiate with the local leader"
"and boy is they going to regret it" to "and they going to regret it"
...so on, a lot is like that

One, alternatively. Why not do the 2nd option, then allow for any face as the pilot and to drop he/she complitely or not and add "they" for non-binary like Battletech did? As far as I see, sex has zero gameplay value in Astrox Imperium, it is not paramount. For example, the developer of Kitaria Fables purposely allows a player to imagine what they like to see the hero cat like, the quests are written for all too, thus everything is available, not limited by a slider: It works quite well here, people tend to fill empty spaces of unknown.

Two. Not every market speaks English, for example Chinese, like, ~6/7 of the planet doesn't. The game is not designed for translation or changing in the settings, it allows only one language. Even if it improves, the current structure will create similar case issues for languages that physically cannot write inclusively like in addressing someone (English's neutral quality is oddity among Indo-European), this is why the sex variable may be handy. In the end, having more customers never hurts. Isn't it? I am sure many people of all kinds will like to play it.

Please look what can be done about all of that before the release date.
OP seriously? meh

Although: I would like to thank the developer for actually listtening to this OP. I would not have the patence! also there is a situation where this is reversed. A game called "Seige of Avalon" that was not even supposed to HAVE a female option for the PC but when it was remade the option was not only available but the male character had a female voice! no one really complained about that! It was changed later as an afterthought, nothing more. in fact, it was that remake dev's own idea, not any complaint to vollenterily change it to have no voice at all!
Post edited January 21, 2022 by neosapian
Posted February 02, 2022
Space sim games like "X2: The Threat," "X3: Albion Prelude" and "X4: Foundations" do not have this silly problem in custom modes.
Posted May 31, 2022
You have to go back.
Posted June 20, 2022
And i thought this nonsense is only happening in germany.
This gender problem - keep it.
Some poeple just want to have a problem.. and they will find one - always.
So fix it for yourself, I am happy that there are still some normal people!
Maybe the next one asks for mor inuit faces or indian face in game.. sure.
Another might want only european/kaukasian faces.. but those have to mod it..
and then the top of it: that mod is forbnidden, ... maybe you ask paradox to implement your wishes into stellaris.
I bet they would be glad to do this right into their game - for other stuff, you need a DLC, for gender speech - it will be done.. priceless...
Posted July 12, 2022
The dev made a deliberate bad game design mistake and clearly does not want to address or fix the bug. Anyone who truly loves the idea of the game, of role-play freedom itself, and want it to be respectful in regards to literally half of humanity, I advice you to not pay for this project unless the dev will properly address the issue of totally own intentional making.

There were multiple options:
- To account for a person's Sex as a variable, change pronouns accordingly;
- Proper inclusive unified writing, genuinely the most easiest way to do;
- Write like the "X" series, not addressing Sex or minimum it.

All what we need is to call apples apples.
Post edited July 13, 2022 by stateperson
Posted July 12, 2022
avatar
88fred88: And i thought this nonsense is only happening in germany.
This gender problem - keep it.
English is not German, the comparison is ill-suited.

What is the meaning of "keep it", from which insanely crazy time is to address one who is "she" as "he" alright? No, no, this is a not logical proposal. The so-call "normal" people address a woman that identifies as a woman as what the woman uses, i.g. "she." Shakespeare, Law, dictionaries, etc go for using "them" for other cases. This is common sense and that how it's for over 7 centuries.

In regards to the post's further speculation, is baseless.
Post edited July 13, 2022 by stateperson
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Astrox ImperiumFix Male-Centric Wording and No Multilanguage (22 posts)(22 posts)
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