Two dev diaries today:

 

[spoiler=Shattered Heart: A History of Non-Violence]

http://services.runescape.com/m=devblog/view_post.ws?post_id=82

 

A History of Non-violence

by Mod Maz 12-Feb-2010

 

Shattered Heart is a new skill update that Im working on to tie in with every non-combat skill. Its designed to reward those players who take an even-handed approach to training skills (or to encourage training skills you normally wouldnt). Its not a D&D or minigame, but it does have repeatable elements similar to those categories of content.

Creating an update to support existing non-combat skills without adding any new mechanics to them is no easy feat; however, Mod Mark and I rose to the challenge, and after playing with some ideas came up with some prototype code that seemed to do the trick.

Balancing the project and getting the rewards right involved lots of numbers on a spreadsheet and pretty, curved graphs - hopefully, all that effort will pay off!

While doing my best not to spoil the update for you, the event supports players who have a well-rounded approach to training, and will be a bit of a break from the updates weve seen recently which have been fairly heavily combat-oriented.

I quite like this as my "choob" account (the character I play in RuneScape when Im not on Mod Maz) is very heavily skill-based. Combat is my least favourite thing to do, unlike many other developers! It was refreshing to be able to create something that I would enjoy and, even better, actually be able to play. When I was first releasing my own content I couldnt actually play any of it; things like the Warriors Guild took me six months to finally gain access to on my choob!

Theres even a little here for players that like story, as Shattered Heart delves into a little of the history of RuneScape. Early in the 2nd Age, when the only runes were those created by Guthix, many battles were fought over them. This event involves a mage who was in one of those battles and what happened to him afterwards...

So, when Shattered Heart has been released and youre out there running around your Agility course, Fletching your bows or maybe netting some fish, keep an eye out for interesting things appearing in your inventory.

Oh, and dont worry, I am still working on the Elite Achievement Diaries too - I havent forgotten them!

If you'd like to discuss this blog on the forums, please visit this forum thread.

 

 

[spoiler=Localisation: A Day in the Life]

http://services.runescape.com/m=devblog/view_post.ws?post_id=81

 

A Day in the Life

by Mod Vero 12-Feb-2010

 

Were a team of in-house translators and testers from far-away countries whove been lured to Cambridge with promises of fame and fortune.

The more observant amongst you might have noticed the little flags at the top of the start page of both RuneScape and FunOrb. Those lead you to the three language versions that are currently available: German, French and Brazilian-Portuguese.

Each language team consists of one team leader/translator, two translators and one localisation tester and Mod Annaw who is the head of our department. This is a day in our lives...

 

9-10am

The localisation testers usually start their day with a cup of coffee and a generous helping of bug reports from the localised websites. "We check every bug report that gets sent in by jumping into the game and trying to reproduce the error. Thats why its so important that you give us as much detail as possible in your bug report forms. Translation-related bugs we can fix right away (even though the change will only be visible after the next game update). Game-breaking issues will also be handled by the localisation testers immediately while all other non-localisation bug reports get forwarded to the English QA", explains Mod Toom, the French localisation tester.

 

10-11am

In the meantime, the translators work on translating the upcoming updates. This not only includes in-game text, but also newsposts, website text, forum posts, even some of the dev blogs. "We try to make the translated text at least as much fun to read as the English one. That means that we spend a lot of time localising the many puns, jokes and puzzles in RuneScape and FunOrb. If we cant think of a good translation right away, we have a brainstorming meeting about it", explains Mod Talula, the French team leader.

Mod Heiko, the team leader of the German translation team, remembers: "The most difficult translation in RuneScape was in a quest called 'Spirits of the Elid', [spoiler alert] where the player thinks they need to collect 'souls' for the genie. Only later do they find out that the genie is actually looking for 'soles'. As those two words dont sound alike in any of our languages, the wordplay didnt work and we ended up re-writing big parts of the text."

 

12am-1pm

The interface used to translate all game/website content

 

On an update day, this time can be quite a busy one. There might be some more sentences to translate which only popped up recently. Thankfully, we have a very clever translation system, which spots untranslated phrases, before they have a chance to go live, and flags them to us with a bright red warning sign.

The translation system has lots of other snazzy features - too many to list - but if you ask them nicely, the Web Systems team might write a blog about it. After all, they were the ones who developed it!

 

1-2pm

Lunch! Mittagessen! Déjeuner! Almoço!

 

2-3pm

A first look at the 'translated' Summoning interface. Horrorhuhn, indeed! ;)

 

All translations are tested in WIP (work in progress) by the language testers, to make sure that the translated text fits the interfaces and makes sense. As a general rule, translated text is 20% longer than the English original, which is why we often struggle to make our text fit the interfaces (the interface for the summoning pouches was quite a challenge). Usually, the testers will first demand that the translators use shorter words. If the translators cannot mutilate the text enough to make it fit, the testers will work with the developers to make the interface wider or find another creative solution (mouseovers and symbolic language are big favourites!). "When the developers see me coming, I can see their hearts sinking, because they know theyll have to rework some interface or a piece of code", says Mod Dagget, the German localisation tester. "On occasion, testers use little self-written helper programs to reproduce specific in-game contents more quickly. Once, I was testing some NPCs on the test server with Mod Claudio and had his test character bashed into the ground immediately by a freshly spawned Bork."

 

3-4pm

When time allows them to take a short break from translation, the translators usually browse the language forums to see whats going on there. We will answer questions or collect the feedback on the latest update, which we then pass on to the content department. We also update the Jagex Twitter and Facebook. "Some people might not be aware of it, but we have Twitter and social networking pages for our language versions (Facebook for German and French, Orkut for Brazilian). We use them as an event diary, do little puzzles, upload photos and let the players submit their own screenshots. You should look us up sometime!" says Mod Giuly, the Brazilian lead translator.

 

4-5pm

Time for the team leaders of each language to attend the weekly RuneScape scheduling meeting! As translation is last in the production process, we often have to rush to get the translation done in time for the release. Therefore, its important for us to be up-to-date with how the projects are progressing, if all departments are managing to stick to their deadlines, and when the project will be available for us to translate. This is when Mod Annaw takes her axe out of her handbag...

 

5-6pm

At the end of the day, the translators will have translated 2000 words per person or proofread/edited about 4000 words per person. The localisation testers will have tested between 3000-4000 words in game. You might be thinking: "Why dont they just use automatic translators - that would be much quicker!" Well, the machine translation tools still struggle with idiomatic sentences. Consider this sentence: "We see ourselves in the play!" Do you understand what it means? We dont. Its supposed to be the English translation for "Wir sehen uns im Spiel!" (Well see you in-game). Good for us - that means well still have a job, at least for the next 10 years or so...:)

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

Personally, I think the Shattered Heart update sounds incredibly awesome. I'd love something for people who like to skill. I hope it comes soon <3:

Well it's nice to see Jagex looking towards the non-combat side of the game but I can't really see the benefit in a update-for-all-skills approach simply because it screams low XP values all around. Who knows though, it may be a nice addition to the grind of other skills.

 

Also, who the hell uses 'choob' anyways...

Looks interesting.

Shattered Heart sounds like Tears of Guthix... I like it! :D

can't really make anything from it, seems like a pretty vague preview

 

Also, who the hell uses 'choob' anyways...

 

yeah it's always jmods using it and nobody else lol

I'm surprised they have such small teams of translators for the size of the projects they have. I take my proverbial hat off to them as it must take a lot of effort to do what they do.

I'm looking forward to seeing it. I don't do combat much either, so this might be a nice change of updates. :grin: And I thought it was an interesting diary on the translators.

Look's great.

More boring than usual dev blogs =S

I'm surprised they have such small teams of translators for the size of the projects they have. I take my proverbial hat off to them as it must take a lot of effort to do what they do.

 

Indeed. 4 people per language is pretty low. :o

 

I didnt understand much of what shattered heart was about.

Agreed with Den, didn't get the idea of Shattered Hearts apart from that you'll get random things in your inventory, which I wouldn't be a fan of losing an inventory space when fishing :s.

This Shattered Heart thing looks quite interesting, as I prefer skills instead of combat. I also liked the Translators blog, it was nice to see what they get up to

Well I'm just going to put things together.

 

The name is called Shattered Heart and we know that you will randomly receive an item in your inventory while skilling. The item will most likely be a piece of a Heart Rune that has shattered, and once you find enough of the pieces you can put them together to form a whole Heart Rune which was lost in which you can turn in for either an Experience Reward, Cash Reward, or a unique outfit that has no bonuses. This is basically a random event incognito. The storyline is about the 2nd age and it's runes, which is why I came up with the Rune idea. If it is not a Heart Rune, then it will have something to do with the Mage's heart that was in one of the great battles during the 2nd age.

 

I think that summed up basically all speculation that can and will occur.

Just as bland as the past dev blogs

Also, who the hell uses 'choob' anyways...

 

old people.

 

 

 

 

 

I love the skilll, its for people with balanced skills :D

Well I'm just going to put things together.

 

The name is called Shattered Heart and we know that you will randomly receive an item in your inventory while skilling. The item will most likely be a piece of a Heart Rune that has shattered, and once you find enough of the pieces you can put them together to form a whole Heart Rune which was lost in which you can turn in for either an Experience Reward, Cash Reward, or a unique outfit that has no bonuses. This is basically a random event incognito. The storyline is about the 2nd age and it's runes, which is why I came up with the Rune idea. If it is not a Heart Rune, then it will have something to do with the Mage's heart that was in one of the great battles during the 2nd age.

 

I think that summed up basically all speculation that can and will occur.

 

I'm actually more interested as to why he chose the 2nd age of RS, who this mage is and what happened to the mage rather than the rewards from Shattered Heart. Wasn't the 2nd age when Zaros was still around?

 

Also, a heart rune? A forgotten type of rune? I don't think we'll get new spells but there might some interesting back story about what kind of magic was used during the 2nd age. Maybe even more forgotten runes.

Just as bland as the past dev blogs

 

needs more screenshots

Yeah I know they give us some hints and these developer blogs, but I will always miss the Behind the Scenes...oh well.

 

Interesting about the breaking heart thing, nice for them to not forget their skillers.

Well I'm just going to put things together.

 

The name is called Shattered Heart and we know that you will randomly receive an item in your inventory while skilling. The item will most likely be a piece of a Heart Rune that has shattered, and once you find enough of the pieces you can put them together to form a whole Heart Rune which was lost in which you can turn in for either an Experience Reward, Cash Reward, or a unique outfit that has no bonuses. This is basically a random event incognito. The storyline is about the 2nd age and it's runes, which is why I came up with the Rune idea. If it is not a Heart Rune, then it will have something to do with the Mage's heart that was in one of the great battles during the 2nd age.

 

I think that summed up basically all speculation that can and will occur.

 

I'm actually more interested as to why he chose the 2nd age of RS, who this mage is and what happened to the mage rather than the rewards from Shattered Heart. Wasn't the 2nd age when Zaros was still around?

 

Also, a heart rune? A forgotten type of rune? I don't think we'll get new spells but there might some interesting back story about what kind of magic was used during the 2nd age. Maybe even more forgotten runes.

I agree, the fact that the backstory is dealing with the Second Age matters more to me too than the whole reward aspect. We virtually know nothing about that Age. By the way that was indeed the period when Zaros was still here. I'm still waiting for Kudos Isle too, that thing's bound to be a treasure of information as well.

 

By the way, as I was reading the Funorb news item it occured to me that that game may contain a lot of new info. Does anyone here play AoG?

Well I'm just going to put things together.

 

The name is called Shattered Heart and we know that you will randomly receive an item in your inventory while skilling. The item will most likely be a piece of a Heart Rune that has shattered, and once you find enough of the pieces you can put them together to form a whole Heart Rune which was lost in which you can turn in for either an Experience Reward, Cash Reward, or a unique outfit that has no bonuses. This is basically a random event incognito. The storyline is about the 2nd age and it's runes, which is why I came up with the Rune idea. If it is not a Heart Rune, then it will have something to do with the Mage's heart that was in one of the great battles during the 2nd age.

 

I think that summed up basically all speculation that can and will occur.

 

Sherlock Holmes in disguise :lol:.

 

Seriously though, I'm really looking forward to this update. I love skilling and all the combat-based updates the past month have kinda irked me :?

Does anyone here play AoG?

 

I play it but im no good at it. :P

Havent got FunOrb membership at the moment either so cant check the new campaign out.

Shatter Heart... That's the name of one of Fran's Quickenings in FF12. :D

Sweet. Sounds like something that will help my skilling faster :P

This sounds like a great update. I am more of a skiller myself. Will this be F2P and P2P or just P2P?

Kind of makes me think of a few small tidbits from Meeting History.

 

I hope we get to punch a hole in the timeline again :D

 

It'll probably be P2P though.