Nick (Linguistic Specialist) englisch

Nick (Linguistic Specialist)

What is your name and what is your field of activity at NCsoft?

My name is Nick and I currently live in Brighton. I work in the localization department. We localize anything that needs to get published in our respective target languages: ingame texts, pr material, press releases, website content, game manuals, knowledge base articles, etc. Rather than just translating things literally, we have to make sure that the materials we localise for our respective target language sound authentic to the target audience (i.e. players, readers, etc.). That often means having to make editorial choices and departing from the source material, e.g. when certain cultural references (e.g. from American English or American culture) are inexistent in the target language/culture. This can go as far as ignoring the source altogether, for example in the case of puns. Also, we have to make sure that our output is acceptable in the target culture and to that end filter out things that may be offensive/inappropriate.

We also have to make sure that the terminology of the game world is consistent, which is not quite so hard if you work at traditional console games, but with a game the scale of an MMO, you have to be on your guard at all times. A lot of times, devs don’t think about the fact that their games will need to get localized (and in some cases don’t even care – one programmer from my previous job in the console world seriously asked us why people in continental Europe couldn’t just play their game in English!). So when you work on an MMO (“which can always be patched”), you get texts to translate that are not final, that get modified by different and may therefore contain inconsistencies in the terminology of their game. If it weren’t for translation memory tools that can flag text changes for you, we’d probably all be nervous wrecks by now.

How did you come to NCsoft?

On foot. … Okay, I was told I had to give a little more detail than that, so here’s the boring part: I originally came to the UK for a university course that didn’t exist in Germany. Overall, I studied for four years, with an ERASMUS year in France. After my degree I got a job at a localization QA company here in Brighton, working as a localization tester (basically testing German language versions of video games for language content, cultural issues and compliance with hardware manufacturer standards – naming conventions and such). It was a great time, where I got to travel around for work and met lots of interesting people along the way. In the meantime NCsoft Europe had opened in Brighton. I had already started working as a part time translator during my time as a tester and since I wanted to do something more rewarding than writing bug reports all day I applied when a job for a position in localization came up and somehow got in … they must still be regretting their decision today.

What are you working on presently?

At the moment I mostly work on Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa and City of Heroes/City of Villains as well as the odd Guild Wars website content. Aion: The Tower of Eternity is currently getting translated from Korean to English and our department will soon start localising it into French and German and it will most likely become a part of my job.

What do you like most at your job?

The good atmosphere in our team.

The fact that a lot of times you have to use lateral thinking to find the best translation, which gives you the chance to come up with creative/funny ideas and keep your grey matter active. As you can imagine from the answer to the first question, we unfortunately don’t always have enough time to spend as much time on polishing as we would like to, but the odd spark of genius makes up for it.

Babelfish translations provided by our developers: In the first game that I worked on here, when you were shooting at an opponent and missed, you could read “Fräulein” above your target, which of course is one possible translation for “Miss”.

What is your favourite NCsoft title and why?

That would be City of Heroes/City of Villains. The game has grown a lot since release, adding auction houses, time travel, chaos missions, etc. The character creation system is simply the best and there are lots of funny details, such as a radio on the hood of a car in a parking space giving you missions.

What other game genres (except MMOs) are you interested in and what are your favourites?

Sports/racing games, adventure type games such as Alone in the Dark or Prince of Persia or simply games with a great atmosphere/idea, such as Psychonauts.

What is your favourite TV show or series? What are your favourite films?

That list could get pretty long. Heroes, Futurama, the Simpsons, South Park and lately American Dad. Favourite movie totally depends on the mood. I can spend hours in the video shop if I can’t decide which type of movie fits the mood of the moment. One of my all time favourites would have to be The Big Lebowski though.

Do you like reading? If yes, what kind of books do you have in your bookcase?

I do buy books with good intention (mostly at airports and train stations) but normally fail to read them. Most of the space on my bookshelf is taken up by comics, graphic novels (which I actually do read) and some art books.

What are you doing in your spare time?

I would love to answer this with “Oh, the usual. I bowl. Drive around. The occasional acid flashback”, but not really. Watching movies, reading comics, trying to improve my Photoshop “skills”, or I grab my guitar when it gets too dusty after months of neglect. Once the cold season is over I’ll hopefully get back into sports.

McDonald’s or Burger King?

McWhat? Burger King is pretty okay, but some of the Pubs here have way better burgers than either of those two ever will – plus you can have a beer with your food if you like.

Coca Cola or Pepsi?

Whatever I get my hands on.

If you would have one year free time and enough money: Where would you spend your time and what would you do?

Probably spend some time travelling around and try taking some decent photos. Take some music lessons. Catch up with some of my friends in far far away lands and spend some time at home. Then again, when do you ever have enough time AND money?

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