You guys need a proofreader.

Count me among the people who think if a feature is delayed one day because of this I'll be more annoyed than having to occasionally read a typo. Way, way down the scale of importance for me.

In any case, some of these "errors" are direct quotes from a speaker. They are errors only in the sense that the speaker got it wrong. If the occasional Paragonian incorrectly uses terms like "myself" then that's a big shoulder shrug for me.

Unrelated aside: this reminds me of the time my co-worker tried to tell a guest at a party that color blindness was an inherited trait, and she ended up saying "Did you know color blindness is sexually transmitted?" Wrong, yes, but that's what she said.


PS this is also most definitely a topic where "standard code rant" applies. I don't know how CoX implements its text string lookup system. But just running it through a spell checker is unlikely to be as easy as it sounds, and it is highly likely at least some errors happen during cut-paste operations or after text scripts are moved into the xml/txt files with lookup codes, where it is much more difficult to scan and read them straight through and some characters are replaced with symbols. Depending on how CoX sets this up, changing values in the files themselves can be easy or hard. It is my assumption that at the very least color codes have to be embedded directly into the text lookup file. Those lookup files then have to be somehow deployed--to either the server or to the player's computer, depending on how the game is set up (power text, for example, probably resides player/client-side).

I would like to see some evidence that any mission text error reported has ever been fixed, and then I'll take the time to compile an extensive list of the errors in the DA arcs. I don't believe there's a single DA arc that doesn't contain at least one error. As I have mentioned elsewhere, while there have been text errors in the game since launch, the problem seems to have grown much worse since around the time Freedom launched.

There seem to be both typos (unintended presses of keys) and misspellings (apparent misunderstandings regarding correct spellings of words), as well as the incorrect choice of words -- sadly, this last category seems to happen most often when the writer seems to be attempting that little extra bit of creativity. ("Ah, I see what you were going for, but, sadly, that is not it.")

My problem with this is twofold: (1) with so many MMOs out there, the lack of professional polish could chase away the more discerning potential subscribers and (2) it breaks my suspension of disbelief -- not from severity as much as frequency. As I read the quite excellent story of DA, I wanted to believe in it -- to get caught up in it emotionally -- but my ride was repeatedly smacked in the face by these annoyances. So my "Wow, this is cool" keeps getting knocked over by interruptions ranging from "*sigh*" to "I do no' think tha' word means wha' you think it means" to the temporarily game-stopping "Huh? What the heck are they trying to say? ...... Ohhhhh! They meant..."

When my left brain keeps getting prodded into action, it eventually decides to play a game that it finds more amusing than the actual game: "How long will it be till the next error? Can we make it to the end of the arc...?" Needless to say, this really annoys my right brain, which is trying to enjoy the game as (I assume) it is intended.

Zwill, you mentioned how fixing these errors would impact other work. If mission text were written in any modern editing application with spelling and grammar checks I am convinced that 90% of these errors would never make it to live, and thus no repair time would be required. And that really would not take much time at all.

As for the question of hyperbole, perhaps GG had a good idea: if we had a sticky thread to track reports and repairs, we'd all be able to see whether reporting text errors actually results in fixes, thus indicating whether our time reporting them is worthwhile.

Zwillinger,

I understand the point about priorities but I must disagree because you omitted skill sets.

Take the thread title literally. Hire a proofreader/writer, someone to check/fix text errors and write some dialogue/descriptions if/when there is time. Entry level job, only computer skill requirement would be text editing and english majors are not exactly hard to find

BTW, "writing on the side" is how War Witch got into game development and look how well that has worked.

'Telepathists' in the TPN Trial. Its Telepaths!

Ya know... the typos bug me too... especially the "viscious criminals" in the RSF....

But if I have to make a choice between fixing typos and fixing bugs that actually effect the way the game plays... I'll chose the bugs every time.

Read my stories!

Point one, hyperbole is the Lingua franca of the internet. Yeah it'd be nice if everyone had to pass a joint Robert's Rules of Order/Miss Manners test before they were issued a browser, but we're stuck with the internet we've got, not the one we'd like to have.

Point two, it's reasonable for the folk who're irritated by the extensive pool of typos to feel their concerns have been ignored over the years- as noted, there's stuff in the game that's been hanging around since launch with no action taken.

But fixing stuff costs money and I'm mostly in the feed resources to gameplay camp. Existing errors, eh whatever. Go after the huge ones, sure (Foce of Nature, anyone?), but for the most part they're a minor annoyance that won't even register with most players.

What I would like to see is some sort of effort to limit new ones entering the system going forward- make an intern read the missions, or at least assign someone to the 'text beat' in beta. Players have been spotting and reporting these things for years- correct them in beta so they don't get out in the wild where they instantly plunge to the bottom of the 'to do' list.

I'm not one to throw stones (if I was, I'd want to be one of those guys at TPN; they are killers ). Truth is, I'm a terrible typist, a below average speller and a very poor proofreader. But if I read the Z-man [edit: Zwillinger not Zombie Man] correctly, there is a (significant) level of effort, consistent with existing priorities, going into this type of editing already. So we players are supposed to do what we have been doing (if we want) and they are going to do the same (what they have been doing... if they want). I don't see much prospect of change under those groundrules. So I am not going to go into "compile a huge list of mistakes mode". Should anyone under these circumstances?

Havent read the whole thread, but hopefully there is a mention of the infamous and much-beloved "Self Reparing War Walker" in here somewhere.

Normally i would snicker and give this sort of thing a pass, [including the many textual...difficuties found in the DA arcs - honestly, my guess is that the person who wrote these is not a native English-speaker] but given how much we VIPs are being soaked these days.... I'm not giving it a pass anymore. These laughable disgraces to the game should be fixed, because we are paying quite a bit more than we used to,- and they need to hire some staff. These mistakes make the game look bad.

I learned to deal with the occasional typo in game years ago, because they were occasional and because I most always alter the dialog mentally to fit my character by default.

That said, while running the SSA and DA content, the sheer overwhelming amount of typos started to get annoying. Towards the end it seemed like every single line of text had a typo...

I can handle the occasional typo, these things happen. As a hobby writer I know how it is, you can read and re read a paragraph a dozen times and never spot the msall little mitsake simply because you know what it should say in your head.

The end of DA started to feel really rushed and sloppy as a result.

To reiterate:

I can tolerate the occasional typo in game, even though once live they are immortal, these things slip by from time to time.

I can't tolerate the increasing trend of rushing things out unpolished, be it costumes, powers or text. I have no clue what this 'Text Lock' deal is, but all we are asking is to have someone who hasn't read/wrote the text to proof it as a final step before the lock, as quality control, due to the nature of resources meaning once live they are immortal.

The fact that Rulu-Wade made it live with 'Insert bio here'...
For him to be such a huge end boss encounter, that was really kind of a bad slip up.

We're not trying to rag on you guys, we know what pressure your under, we're just giving advice to help produce great content.

I'd have to agree with Maestro and all the rest, Zwil. This is a wonderful game, the new unique maps, the new play mechanics, nearly everything in this game has been spiced up to a point I never thought possible given how the game play was originally conceived. However, there have been way more typos since Freedom's launch than I have seen cumulatively in all the prior issues before City Of Heroes: Freedom.

One would imagine that at least in the S.S.A.'s that there would be a little more care in the text. I think much of the writing was rushed in the last few arcs and even some of the terminology (Rula-Wade being used as Vanguard's official codename for the merging Darrin Wade) for instance was a bit unpolished to say the least. Some lines of dialogue made little sense too, such as when Wade was saying he "just wanted to be free" when all throughout the story arc he obviously had more sinister intentions.

I said it before in my previous post in this thread that we should be allowed to create a thread where all the typos can be placed that players know of to make it easier on the dev.'s to correct them in game.

I don't think players are trying to knock on the developers. I know many of you must be overworked and forced to shell out even more content than before without having the benefit of many new extra hires, but again, maybe you can devote one person for one eight hour shift once a month to fix these spelling and wording errors. If I were a new player trying out this new content, I would think that some of the content was sloppily put together and I would think twice about continuing to play.

Honestly, this is a problem that I see in far far too many fields these days and far far too much from creators and authors who you'd think would know better.

Putting out content with typos and grammatical errors is simply embarrassing. To me, it shows a lack of care in the work done and it looks sloppy. NOW, I appreciate that a lot (all?) of the time that's not the case - of course you care greatly about your work and what you're creating ... but the presentation does matter so much.