Dear Citizens of the Suzerainverse,
It’s been a while, so we wanted to share a quick update on the status of the official Chinese translation of the Suzerain base game, as well as our broader localization efforts.
Currently, we’re focusing on one language at a time for localization, due to limited resources and the need to prioritize effectively. That said, we’re excited to report that the Chinese localization project is steadily progressing. (Read in Chinese below).
Given that the Chinese gaming market accounts for over 30% of global video game revenue, and considering the strong support from the Chinese Suzerain community, it made perfect sense to prioritize this language for our first official localization of the game.
To give us more insight into the project, we spoke with Gordon Chengjun, a native of Shiyan, China. He’s been living in Adelaide, Australia for the past 12 years and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Adelaide. The localization project is also the subject of a scientific research program at the university focused on developing community-supported localization processes for deep-content games; a first of its kind and a potential valuable resource for indie game developers. Gordon is the lead researcher of the Chinese localization effort and shared some exciting developments with us.
Hey Gordon, can you give us a bit of backstory on how this Chinese localization project came together?
"While the Chinese market shoulders more than 30% of global video game revenue, the amount of research on English-Chinese game localization is disproportionately low, especially when it comes to volunteer localization or crowdsourcing. Existing studies often lack the depth needed for meaningful findings.
As a dedicated fan of Suzerain and having seen strong demand for a Chinese version within the community, it felt natural to combine my passion and academic focus into something that benefits the game, its players, and the research field. I contacted Torpor and expressed my interest in organizing and leading a volunteer localization program. Ata responded promptly with great interest, and that’s how it all began!"
Around how many people have been working on it?
"We had 26 volunteers in total, with a maximum of 17 working at the same time across four different teams. Among them, five core members have been with the project from start to finish."
What have been the biggest challenges?
"Volunteer availability. While we had dozens of contributors, personal commitments always got in the way. On top of that, there were inconsistencies in punctuality and submission quality. A lot of extra effort went into proofreading, or even discarding, unsatisfactory submissions.
In reality, the volunteer teams translated most of the news articles, half of the Codex, two-thirds of the policies and government reports, Turns 6–9, and completed the first round of proofreading, totaling around 350,000 words. I handled the rest of the translation and the final proofreading of all texts myself, as this project is closely tied to my academic research.
Moreover, this project marks Torpor's first attempt at localizing Suzerain into Chinese; everything from database formatting, dialogue management tools to UI implementation, which inevitably led to some trial and error. And let’s not forget they’ve also been juggling updates and other development projects simultaneously! But once we built a process and got it running, it stopped being a major issue. Ultimately, translation quality mattered most."
What’s the status of localization from your side?
"The translation phase is wrapping up, and the final proofreading stage is underway. I know the Torpor team is already working on implementing the translation. Once that’s done, we’ll move into testing. I can’t wait to see all the work come together."
Currently, we can't provide a timeframe for when the testing phase will be ready or when localization will be implemented, as there are several production priorities across multiple projects, and a variety of technical challenges to assess first. But, stay tuned!
Once the Chinese localization is live and our team is better equipped to handle the process, we’ll gradually begin integrating more community-driven localization projects that are complete or nearly complete into the game. However, each language requires custom integration work, localization testing, dedicated project leadership, and admin support, making it a highly intensive process. We understand there’s strong demand, and we truly appreciate your patience!
Glovurius axa Rizia!
A’Morgna her Coren!
//
亲爱的各位《Suzerain》世界的公民们：
距离中文本地化项目启动已经过去了很长一段时间，我们想在此向大家汇报一下《Suzerain》本体的汉化进度，以及其他语种本地化工作的最新情况。
由于人手和资源上的限制，我们采取了各语种依次推进的本地化策略。我们很高兴地告诉大家，中文本地化项目正在稳步推进当中——翻译、校对阶段已经基本完成，文本的初期导入与技术验证工作也已经启动了！考虑到中国游戏市场占全球游戏营收30%以上的份额，再加上中文玩家社区对《Suzerain》的大力支持，将中文作为我们的首个官方本地化项目绝对是明智之选。
为了更深入地了解这个项目，我们采访了中文本地化项目的总负责人——来自中国十堰、现居澳大利亚阿德莱德的Gordon。他在澳洲生活了12年，目前是阿德莱德大学的一名博士生，正在以此次本地化项目为研究对象，剖析深度内容游戏的社区支持型本地化流程，如此规模的课题在这一领域尚属首次，对独立游戏开发者具有重要参考价值。作为中文本地化项目的负责人，Gordon向我们透露了不少振奋人心的细节：
“你好Gordon，能说说中文本地化项目是怎么诞生的吗？”
“虽然中国游戏市场全球占比超过三成，但关于游戏中文本地化的学术研究却与这种份额并不相称，在志愿者汉化和众包翻译领域更是如此。而现有研究往往基于单部作品针对翻译策略进行分析，缺乏深度。作为《Suzerain》的铁粉，我在看到Steam社区对中文版的强烈需求后，自然而然的想把个人爱好和我的研究方向结合起来，联合其他有兴趣的志愿者们推动这个项目。于是我联系了Torpor工作室，表达了想牵头组织志愿者汉化的意愿。工作室负责人Ata立刻表现了出极大兴趣，故事就这样开始了！”
“大概有多少人参与其中？”
“前后共有26位志愿者参与过项目，高峰时期同时有17人分为四组进行工作。其中有5位核心成员全程坚持了下来。”
“遇到的最大挑战是什么？”
“协调志愿者的时间和产出最头疼。队伍虽然看上去人多，在招募时也针对个人能力进行了筛选，但在现实中总会被学习、工作等各种私人事务打乱节奏，影响效率；作为一支志愿者队伍，我们也无法就进度做出硬性要求，导致交稿准时率和质量参差不齐，在校对甚至重译上额外消耗了团队的一些精力。项目期间，志愿者团队共完成了大部分新闻条目、半数游戏百科条目、三分之二的政策文件与政府报告，以及第6-9回合对话的翻译和首轮校对，总计约40万字；其余游戏文本的翻译以及全部文本的终校工作则是由我本人完成的——毕竟从这个项目基本就是我的研究课题。”
“此外，这个项目也是Torpor对《Suzerain》的首次汉化尝试，在数据库格式、对话管理工具和UI置入方面均属首次，走过一些弯路；更不要说他们还要兼顾新版本的发布和其他作品的开发了。不过在建立起标准化流程之后，这就不再是主要问题了，毕竟翻译质量与文本的可读性才是核心。”
“项目现在的进展如何？”
“本体的翻译工作已经全部结束，最后一批文本的校对工作也将马上完成。Torpor团队已经开始进行初期导入和技术验证，成功封装之后就会开始计划测试阶段。我们都非常期待看到项目开花结果的那一刻！”
由于需要同时兼顾其它开发任务以及解决一系列技术难题，目前我们还无法给出测试或本地化实装的具体时间，但请大家保持关注！待中文版上线，团队积累更多经验之后，我们会逐步整合其它语种的社区翻译项目。不过每种语言都需要特化导入、本地化测试和专人管理，整个过程将非常耗时。大家的热切期盼我们深有体会，衷心感谢各位的耐心等待！
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