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While you might not find any new news in this article, it is always good to see how much care is being taken to properly localize TERA. The interview features some neat anecdotal stories about some of the cultural differences the team has run into among the regions they're working to localize for and it feels overall very personal.
Check it out below and thanks so much for your translation, Kalsteine!
Many Korean MMORPGs fill the MMO market internationally, however bringing Korean games to players all over the world includes a lot more than just providing adequate servers and clients. The game goes through a localization process to make international players feel comfortable rather than lost due to cultural differences.
Generally, game localization is the responsibility of the overseas publisher, however Bluehole Studio also has a small, Korean localization team. Currently, the team is working on localization for North America, Europe and Japan as Bluehole's TERA is planned to be released in those regions.
There are no longer regional boundaries when it comes to games and many Korean made MMORPG's eventually debut overseas. Compared to others, Bluehole Studio's localization team is a unique and rare one, so we're interested in taking a look at them. Meet the four employees who are currently working to localize TERA.
From left to right: Hee-Soo Lee (Team leader), Young-Kwang Kim (North America), Sun-Joo Jang (Europe), Manager Hee-Yun Choi (Japan).
Localization in a Foreign Language
TIG: Normally to the fans in Korea, localization usually means translating whatever it is from overseas to Korean however in this case I heard it was the other way around. Could you introduce your team to us?
Team's Leader Hee-Soo Lee: If you are trying to release a game from a country other than Korea, the word Localization would mean making it Korean. However if you flip that around and bring a Korean game to other countries, the 'Foreign Localization Team' is probably the most accurate way to describe it.
Our team currently consist of 2 members who take care of English, one of each in German and Japanese. The four of us currently oversee each country's localization.
TIG: Normally to be able to localize something you need a very good understanding of not only the country's language but their culture as well. Are there any problems in the localization process taking place in Korea?
Hee-Soo Lee: For example let's talk about the North American version. We first make a rough draft of the game and send it over to NA's Publisher, En Masse. En Masse then takes that rough draft and makes the appropriate changes with their localization team.
Basically, rough drafts are created in Korea and sent over to the countries and then the local publisher takes that rough draft and edits it. They then send that back to once again go through another revewing and editing process here.
TERA's NA version is being rewriten in English by the team that used to do the writing in D&D.
Young-Kwang Kim (NA): The English version really takes priority for the game's story. NA players consider a game's story a portion of the game's content. With that in mind we are currently working on how we can best convey TERA's story. For example, the story cannot just be told through simple text, but with many background stories for the NPCs and zones. So far, no one has complained that the story is too difficult to understand during testing.
We are mostly focusing on the broad issues of localization which include cultural differences and unnatural sounding words.
TIG: International players are concerned that when someone who is not from their country is in control of their country's localization, they may not consider important cultural differences. In particular, some fans felt that the German version of TERA shown at Gamescom 2010 was merely translated and not at all localized.
Hee-Soo Lee: The version of TERA that was shown during this year's Gamecom was admittedly rushed. Signing a contract with the German publisher and deciding whether or not to show the game at Gamescom were all decided at the last moment. It is true that because of that, we did not have the time to go through cultural localization, especially keeping in mind that German has a very complex grammar system.
We will keep working until both Bluehole and the German publisher are satisfied. If any of the two are not satisfied with a particular feature, it will not be implemented in the game. The European publisher, Frogster, was pleasantly surprised to have any kind of German version of TERA available in such short notice.
German's grammar is quite complex, so it takes a lot of hard work to translate it properly.Not just a translation but a localization, created by understanding different cultures.
TIG: What are some of the things you had to be careful with for each localization?
Hee-Yun Choi (Japan): One of the areas in TERA is called 'Cave of Cannibals' and in Japan they wanted this area renamed. We really had no idea that in Japan it was culturally forbidden to say the word 'Cannibal'.
Things like that are the things we do; changing content that does not fit the culture. We try to do extensive research before we implement anything that might be offensive to a culture in the game.
Sun-Joo Jang (German): Germans are very sensitive to the word 'Race' since the World War II, but in MMORPG's the word 'Race' is commonly used, so we are currently trying to figure out what to call races in German instead of just using the word 'Race' in German.
Hee-Soo Lee: The North American version has a similar problem. In this case, it wasn't text but a symbol. Within the game there was a symbol, the Star of David, but because of cultural differences and even possible hositlity towards the game if it were to be included... we removed it and changed it to a different symbol.
TIG: From the sound of it, the team spends more time understanding cultural differences rather than translating.
Hee-Soo Lee: It is true that we are careful about cultural differences more than anything. To be honest, it is hard to categorize the difference between 'Localization' and 'Culturalization'.
TERA's localization is more than a simple translation, word for word. We want to make it easier for players around the world to understand the game without hitting cultural walls.
TIG: Is it fair to assume that you guys are making the drafts through different versions of the client or trailers and reviewing/editting them?
Hee-Soo Lee: That's correct.
TIG: Tell us about the typical revision of a draft.
Sun-Joo Jang: This does not happen often but there is one particular instance involving the German version we can talk about. During the Gamescom trailer, there is a narration that says something like "when you play the game there is a beautiful ambience from the surrounding nature." However the rough draft of the German translation read something like "Nature's noise."
When it was first written in Korea, it was suppose to mean soothing chirps of birds and the rivers flowing down, but in German it was simply written as the noise made by nature. It ended up being changed to something else but there are different ways to express certain things between cultures. When trying ot make it sound beautiful, it sounded kind of stiff and dry in German.
Hee-Yun Choi: In Japan's case, Korea and Japan both use Chinese characters with our own pronounciation but there are some things that can sound similar as one sound of the chinese characters could have multiple meanings. Because of that there was a place called "Tooshin's Hill" Now Tooshin means 'God of War' but in Japan it came out as 'To throw one's body.' This is because similar sounds can have different meanings.
Our intention was to give a strong and courageous feeling and instead it came out to be a very sad and depressing sounding zone. So, we ended up changing that to the correct meaning. Korean versions do use Chinese characters but we only use the sound of it not the actual letters and because of that these kinds of mistakes are often made.
Cultural differences between the East and the West are important to note.
TIG: So, choosing the right words for each region carry as many problems as the actual variety of the different languages themselves?
Hee-Soo Lee: The Korean words used in the game sometimes carry different meaning, because of that we try to find the difference and fix the problems. For example there is an area called 'Garden of Dawn', in the Korean version we went for more of a Garden feel.
However in North America and Europe, it gave out more of an Island feeling so we ended up changing the name to 'Island of Dawn'. In the Japanese version they use the same meaning as the Korean 'Garden of Dawn'.
TIG: It looks like there is a huge difference between the East and the West.
Hee-Soo Lee: It is true. In the process of looking for cultural differences, we ended up changing some of the NPC's names. For example, the names "Paul" and "Bob" are kind of like Korea's Chul-Soo and Young-Hee as they are very common names in both of their own countries.
Young-Kwang Kim: We get a lot of feedback on changing the monster's names. For example in the beginning level we have a monster race called 'Hooka'. Since we made the name 'Hooka' up we just sent it just like it.
However in North America, the name 'Hooka' sounded similar to the slang word 'Hooker' so we changed it. This is why it is important to understand the culture of the country you're localizing for.
BabaHooka, Leader Hooka, Club HookaTIG: Do you also change the story to cater to the local culture?
Hee-Soo Lee: TERA was always meant to be a game for everyone. In order for the story to be properly implemented without an issue in other countries, we avoided referencing Korean culture and instead created some things that slightly resemble them.
One story can be really interesting and fun to players overseas but may end up confusing Korean players.
Young-Kwang Kim: For example, take a look at the idea of Love. It's true that Love knows no boundaries, however sometimes it is hard to fully understand how the East thinks of love compared to the West. We always take things like this into consideration before we begin work.
TIG: What has been the most challenging region to localize for?
Sun-Joo Jang: All of them are fairly challenging in their own ways but German is particularly difficult. German grammar is very complex, containing many rules that Korean does not; the genders of words have posed a particular issue for us.
For example, we have to take into consideration when a male NPC is speaking to a female player. Some people think the German language is very stiff and emotionless but in actuality it has a lot of variety and room to show emotion.
One Translator assigned to one region for maximum efficiency.
TIG: Since one person takes care of one region all by themselves, I think it might put a lot of pressure on the team.
Hee-Soo Lee: We currently have 2 team members working on English because the North American team has gotten really large, but it is not that much different from one person working on it. We have envisioned TERA as an international game, so we have been working on localization from the beginning.
I think it is the most efficient way to do this with one person on the localization team, because people have their own style of how they speak the language. Because of that, having more than one person on the job would be confusing and would end up giving the words a messy style.
TIG: That must be a lot of work, especially only four people on a team to localize many different regions; you seem to lack manpower.
Hee-Soo Lee: The things we localize are system messages and contents for developers to understand. Conversations and quest logs are all being localized by each of the local publishers. We create a draft and discuss with the publishers and come to an agreement.
TIG: Lastly, what do each of you want the local communities to think of TERA?
Young-Kwang Kim: For the North American version, I would like a player to mistake it for being North American made even though it was made in Korea.
Sun-Joo Jang: I think everyone would want the same thing. Of course just translating the text would hardly feel like a game developed in your country if the design and the atmosphere of the game were very oriental. I personally would want TERA to be considered an Eastern version of WoW.
(Editor Note : Bluehole's localization team said, after researching internationally released games, WoW was considered by players to have a perfect localization in many countries including Germany. That is what was meant by this statement.)
Hee-Yun Choi: I also want the same, I would like people to find entertainment in just the texts alone that we localized.
Korean fans don't really read the words in quest texts or dialogs, but I would like the local players to find enjoyment and be engaged in the story alone. I wish to bring out more enjoyment of TERA through perfect localization.
Localization sounds difficult ... due to the cultural differences. It must be really stressful to have to scrutinize it so closely as to find the little things like "hooka" vs. "hooker" ... Although, I thought a hooka was that crazy pipe-thing. 
Anyway, thanks for the translation Amira and Kalsteine.
