[TERA PC & Console] En Masse is closing, but TERA lives on! We will continue to support TERA PC (NA) and TERA Console until service is transferred. Stay tuned for more information.
[TERA Console] The Grotto of Lost Souls update (v85) is now live! Read the patch notes here: https://bit.ly/TERACon_v85
[TERA PC] The 64-bit update (v97) is now live. Check out all the changes delivered on August 11 here: https://bit.ly/tera64_patchnotes
[TERA PC & CONSOLE] Summerfest Part 2: The Beach Bash is on from August 11 until September 1! Participate in event activities to earn tokens redeemable for costumes, consumables, mounts, and more! Details: https://bit.ly/tera_sf20
Meet the Team: Writing Team Lead Emlly
See previous threads here:
EME Senior Producer Lawllipops
Technical Producer GELETRON
QA Lead Singlebear
CS Specialist Rayner
Please welcome Emlly! She is the Writing Team Lead here at En Masse Entertainment.
If you've ever wondered about the life of a video game writer & localization expert, now's your chance to ask some questions! Consider this your chance to find out more about our process here at EME. I'll leave this thread pinned until end of the work day Friday. Until then, Emlly will answer all the questions she can.
Keep the following in mind when posting in this thread:
• Prime Directive: Be polite to Emlly!
• One question per post. It keeps things tidy and significantly increases the chances you'll get a response from our guest.
• Be succinct. No rants. This kind of goes along with the "be polite" Prime Directive. This isn't the place to post long rants or giant lists that hijack the thread. Please make your own threads for such things.
Below are some questions I asked Emlly to get the conversation started:
Please describe the kind of work you do.
I’m going to answer that in 2 parts… 1) What the writing team does and 2) what I do
Most of the Writing Team’s time is localization—spent putting words into the games we publish. Localization is a step beyond just translating. We get a rough English translation of the developer’s Korean text, but it’s usually translated by a team of non-gamers. So terms aren’t always translated consistently. One translator may translate a word as “strength,” another as “force,” and yet another as “power.” For most people, that’d be fine. But we gamers know that Strength, Force, and Power almost always mean 3 different things in game. So the Writing Team finds where the word is used in game, determines if it’s the same or different as other words we’ve used elsewhere, and rewrites the line accordingly.
Another big aspect of localization is making sure the Western gamer aesthetic is reflected in the quests and NPC dialog of our games. Asian players are perfectly happy to “do X.” But many Western players want to know “why do X.” Especially when X is give a message to that NPC 3 feet away. We do our best to give meaning to the NPCs and quests and make them entertaining.
I can sum up Localization at EME in two phrases:
1. Remove barriers to understanding
2. Infuse our games with emotion
In addition to the Writing Team work above, I spend about 10% of my time on administrivia—organizing files we work on, arranging schedules for our projects, and protecting my team from all the distracting stuff (a key task I learned from the previous team leads).
How does your work specifically affect TERA?
All the words you read in all the products, UI, quests, and NPCs were written by the Writing Team.
Tell us about your TERA experience.
I started at EME as a localization writer for TERA over 6 years ago before Bluehole finished making all the races. My primary focus before launch was the make sure all the items got meaningful names and the UI all made sense. At the time we had a different writer working to become subject matter experts on each race and each class. I was responsible for the poporis, elins, and priests.
As a player, my favorite character is a female amani lancer. Which surprised me (the lancer part, not the amani part).
Favorite TV shows.
Jessica Jones and Orphan Black. They can’t make them fast enough for me.
What are some of your hobbies?
Graphic design. I love taking text and shapes and making them pretty.
What Hogwarts house do you fit in best?
Ravenclaw
Favorite TERA race, and how would the real world react if a portal from TERA opened and spit out a thousand of them?
I love the amani and want to do more with their story. If there were a thousand dragon-esque warriors in the the real world, I’d do my best to befriend them...with food!
If you could only eat one type of food for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
Crab.
What makes a book great? What are some of your favorites?
Stories that makes me think “what if,” and situations that use intelligence to succeed. Hopefully both. Bonus points if they make me laugh, too. I’m fond of books by Terry Pratchett, Robert J. Sawyer, and speaking of can’t make them fast enough, Patrick Rothfuss.
EME Senior Producer Lawllipops
Technical Producer GELETRON
QA Lead Singlebear
CS Specialist Rayner
Please welcome Emlly! She is the Writing Team Lead here at En Masse Entertainment.
If you've ever wondered about the life of a video game writer & localization expert, now's your chance to ask some questions! Consider this your chance to find out more about our process here at EME. I'll leave this thread pinned until end of the work day Friday. Until then, Emlly will answer all the questions she can.
Keep the following in mind when posting in this thread:
• Prime Directive: Be polite to Emlly!
• One question per post. It keeps things tidy and significantly increases the chances you'll get a response from our guest.
• Be succinct. No rants. This kind of goes along with the "be polite" Prime Directive. This isn't the place to post long rants or giant lists that hijack the thread. Please make your own threads for such things.
Below are some questions I asked Emlly to get the conversation started:
Please describe the kind of work you do.
I’m going to answer that in 2 parts… 1) What the writing team does and 2) what I do
Most of the Writing Team’s time is localization—spent putting words into the games we publish. Localization is a step beyond just translating. We get a rough English translation of the developer’s Korean text, but it’s usually translated by a team of non-gamers. So terms aren’t always translated consistently. One translator may translate a word as “strength,” another as “force,” and yet another as “power.” For most people, that’d be fine. But we gamers know that Strength, Force, and Power almost always mean 3 different things in game. So the Writing Team finds where the word is used in game, determines if it’s the same or different as other words we’ve used elsewhere, and rewrites the line accordingly.
Another big aspect of localization is making sure the Western gamer aesthetic is reflected in the quests and NPC dialog of our games. Asian players are perfectly happy to “do X.” But many Western players want to know “why do X.” Especially when X is give a message to that NPC 3 feet away. We do our best to give meaning to the NPCs and quests and make them entertaining.
I can sum up Localization at EME in two phrases:
1. Remove barriers to understanding
2. Infuse our games with emotion
In addition to the Writing Team work above, I spend about 10% of my time on administrivia—organizing files we work on, arranging schedules for our projects, and protecting my team from all the distracting stuff (a key task I learned from the previous team leads).
How does your work specifically affect TERA?
All the words you read in all the products, UI, quests, and NPCs were written by the Writing Team.
Tell us about your TERA experience.
I started at EME as a localization writer for TERA over 6 years ago before Bluehole finished making all the races. My primary focus before launch was the make sure all the items got meaningful names and the UI all made sense. At the time we had a different writer working to become subject matter experts on each race and each class. I was responsible for the poporis, elins, and priests.
As a player, my favorite character is a female amani lancer. Which surprised me (the lancer part, not the amani part).
Favorite TV shows.
Jessica Jones and Orphan Black. They can’t make them fast enough for me.
What are some of your hobbies?
Graphic design. I love taking text and shapes and making them pretty.
What Hogwarts house do you fit in best?
Ravenclaw
Favorite TERA race, and how would the real world react if a portal from TERA opened and spit out a thousand of them?
I love the amani and want to do more with their story. If there were a thousand dragon-esque warriors in the the real world, I’d do my best to befriend them...with food!
If you could only eat one type of food for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
Crab.
What makes a book great? What are some of your favorites?
Stories that makes me think “what if,” and situations that use intelligence to succeed. Hopefully both. Bonus points if they make me laugh, too. I’m fond of books by Terry Pratchett, Robert J. Sawyer, and speaking of can’t make them fast enough, Patrick Rothfuss.
5
Comments
Tiny Falcor
When Bluehole decided to bring TERA to North America, they wanted to make it as big of a success as possible. That means appealing to a broad audience. Plus BG, Bluehole's CEO, specifically tasked EME to deliver "Emotional Rewards through Storytelling." (ERTS)
The Writing Team took ERTS to heart. We examined every zone; we looked at every NPC. Quests that just sent you from point A to point B for no reason wouldn't do. So each zone got a little backstory of its own. The races and major NPCs received complex personality traits. We also supplied questlines to Bluehole. If you look at the credits in KTERA, you'll see the EME Writing Team credited there.
And I still have ERTS displayed prominently on my desk.
I'm a big roleplayer, so I understand. To this day there's a "poison the dog" questline I haven't completed in another MMO. Kill humans? Sure! Poison dog food? Nope!
I love seeing players key off of our lore. It'd be cool to do more with lore and the community. What's your favorite bit of lore? Who's your favorite TERA god? What you want to see grow? Wait...I'm supposed to be the one answering questions... oops.
Both are great friendships. But if you're asking about true love... Zolyn x Syona
That is hard to answer though I do LOVE the quest line "Like a Brother To Me" so much emotion in that one
Zuras
Me I like to see more defined lines between the races, how after the Argon War what happened. Did the Castanics do what was expected of them and just go their own way after?
During the journey into Northern Arun would love to see some developement with Clan Castanic, how that was once their home long ago, how they would interact with the Arch Devas, would they settle old scores, repay them the kindness that the Devas once showed them back when they where hunted down by them. Would Zuras favor the Clan, blessing them some how from a distances, would she walk back into the story as her children tore each other apart?
Also some old wounds between the Amani and the Devas since those human lands where once painted with their blood during the wars between them and the Devas.
Of course you are:) its fun to play like this
With over 9000 items in TERA, we can't always hit winners. I honestly can't remember which I'm personally responsible for, but it's probably more than 80 percent of them. For weapons, they're almost always themed. Every weapon that could drop with Kicking & Screaming has a name inspired by horror. Forest Toothpick may not be an awe-inspiring name, but it's a common weapon. For Wonderholme, all the names are an homage to Lewis Carroll; they are a bit out there, but on purpose.
Fall. It gives me an excuse to set fires.
Each writer has their own process. I probably have used more than a dozen processes for items, monsters, and NPCs. I read a lot. I keep a variety of reference books on my desk. And I have more than a few randomizers at hand.
* Crystals were named for their shape: Niveous mean snow, so Niveots are snowflake shaped.
* I've named NPCs off of license plates. (You know how you try to make a word out of the weird 3-letter combinations?) This can also be achieved by rolling a Scategories die multiple times.
* I keep a pad of paper to jot down interesting names I encounter.
* I built a spreadsheet of over 1000 morphemes or words suited to building compound words out of, and I'll sometimes put two random words together until something evocative comes up.
Also all the Wonderholme gear will never be forgotten... good ol' Boojum Gripples.
So my question is, what's your favourite bit of text in-game? Piece of gear, monster name, NPC text, etc.