ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Having just completed the game with the beta 1.0.5c i looked back at my items and noticed this one i didn't even remember picking up :


The description does hint at some raging storm, i thought maybe it's related to Urkis' Tempest Peak as it is well known for its raging storm, so i went to Angolwen in order to get a teleport to there, but Linaniil has no more dialogue for it and Tarelion is as useless as ever.

The only hit i have from a search was this old thread that hint at it not being finished 2 years ago
http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=27135

Ahah .. teaser!

Is Saphir a typo (Of Sapphire, presumably)? Or is that supposed to mean something?

I'm guessing it is Darkgod spelling.

It's French. Just like they say frogs legs are delicious.

Mayfair wrote:It's French. Just like they say frogs legs are delicious.

The problem is that to someone who doesn't speak French it just looks like bad spelling. In English writing foreign words are supposed to be italicized and only used where there isn't an English equivalent, usually for idiomatic phrases since if there really isn't an English term we usually plagiarize your lexicons until there is.

A saphir/sapphire is a concrete noun for a well defined mineral with no real nuance to the definitions. There is no reason not to use the English term in the English localization of the game.

If DarkGod wishes to show patriotism through language insertion I would suggest using French terms where they do not appear to be misspelling to an English audience. Places where our ancestors chose to use the Anglo-Saxon term rather than the Norman.

Or having the Sher'tul speak French. I can't seem to complete the game with a non-antimagic character to use the staff for translation and I have a French-English dictionary floating around somewhere so that would be great.

Atarlost wrote:Or having the Sher'tul speak French. I can't seem to complete the game with a non-antimagic character to use the staff for translation and I have a French-English dictionary floating around somewhere so that would be great.

Zut alor, c'est une bonne idee!

Hang on, Le Dieu Obscur est francais? I had him pegged as German, honestly, for no particular good reason other than he doesn't talk much and he's a good coder.

Woh atarlost, yeah I obviously am trying to shove my Better French Ways down your throats with my cunning use of the word saphir. Or I did just do a mispelling ..

darkgod wrote:Woh atarlost, yeah I obviously am trying to shove my Better French Ways down your throats with my cunning use of the word saphir. Or I did just do a mispelling ..

Dang. There goes my cunning ploy to get the Sher'Tul to write in a language I could translate.

Atarlost wrote:Dang. There goes my cunning ploy to get the Sher'Tul to write in a language I could translate.

ITYM Chére't?l

Atarlost wrote:

Mayfair wrote:It's French. Just like they say frogs legs are delicious.

The problem is that to someone who doesn't speak French it just looks like bad spelling. In English writing foreign words are supposed to be italicized and only used where there isn't an English equivalent, usually for idiomatic phrases since if there really isn't an English term we usually plagiarize your lexicons until there is.

I'm not a native english speaker and french I don't speak a word. Also we all know Americans are notoriously bad knowing the right spelling for their own language, which I don't think is the same for English people or any others who natively speak english. What I'm trying to say I didn't know that many of us here would even mind a bit different spelling on a word people can't even properly spell.

A saphir/sapphire is a concrete noun for a well defined mineral with no real nuance to the definitions. There is no reason not to use the English term in the English localization of the game.

If DarkGod wishes to show patriotism through language insertion I would suggest using French terms where they do not appear to be misspelling to an English audience. Places where our ancestors chose to use the Anglo-Saxon term rather than the Norman.

I always love the mysterious sounding words, no matter what their origins. It adds a little touch in the games. Then again who are we to say Ancient Storm Saphir is or is supposed to be a sapphire? Especially if it's an artifact it could refer to a name and not an item, a bit like Stormlash instead of Storm Lash. There's an example of set-in-stone-name vs. proper spelling of the term.

Or having the Sher'tul speak French. I can't seem to complete the game with a non-antimagic character to use the staff for translation and I have a French-English dictionary floating around somewhere so that would be great.

That dude kinda looks like a slimy frog so it would be nice to have that french maid froglegs also speak french. I can imagine ToME getting voice acting in the future and how hilarious would it be to have him/her/it speak in french accent.

All in all I don't find Saphir in any way offensive. It has a sexy clang to it and doesn't need that much brain power to figure out what kind of item it is; even less so when reading the item description.

Agreed. It gives it an accent. We keep it as is.