Oh well, I can as well post it, I guess…

As some of you know I have been thinking about doing a re-translation into German for Ultima VII for a while now. Indispensable in regards of quality and hence prerequisite for this project has been the capability of using German Umlauts in the text – anything else would just feel awkward while reading.

For this I got in touch with DK, one of the principal contributors for the Italian Version of the game and coder of the Ultima 7 Editor I intended to use for the translation. After quite some effort, hassle and struggle, kind DK went through, he actually succeeded in modifying the code and provided a version of his editor that manages to encode the German char-set correctly and let the game display it alright (see yesterdays screenshot). Alas, a HUGE THANK YOU, DK! is most appropriate – for, none of what I write below would be here, if it weren’t for DK’s initial effort….

No, that I got this off my chest, here goes: I will do a re-translation for Ultima VII into German next, because I think there are some good and vital reasons, that the game deserves this effort.

– The existing translation from 1992 follows the old rules of spelling
– It was done for Ultima 7 BG only, but disregards the Addon “Forge of Virtue”
– Available today is only the “Complete Edition” of Ultima 7 – a version which is incompatible with the German translation
– Together with the Forge of Virtue there must have been a massive code change as well as bug fixing as almost all the internal jump addresses have changed.
– Also, of course all books and dialogues for the Add-on are missing from the existing translation.

The plan so far:
– I will try to make use of the existing translation as far as it makes sense. (Though I have to admit, that after checking the code, that will probably not be too much, to my regret :-/)
– The translation will comply with the new German spelling rules from 2006
– Some (some say many) translation terms have to and will be aligned to get it inline with other existing translations (e.g. Corpsers have been wrongly translated as Ghuls [ghouls] originally)
– The Add-on text will be translated and playable
– It will be fully compatible with the versions sold nowadays (“Complete Edition”) on GOG and Origin.

And – if at all possible,

The bonus goal is:
– I would like the patch to be compatible with Exult but without Exult being mandatory. So hopefully it will run with the normal “out-of-the-box” versions available for purchase as well as running it under Exult.

What I don’t know yet is anything about releases or schedules. Sorry. It will take as long as it takes.
Plus, the decoded text is sorted by the Hex-Addresses for the text in question. Also, the Hex-codes are used as file names for backup. These internal addresses do not follow any pattern, I’m afraid. Alas, I will not be able to sort the work following geographical or logical regions, sorry. The first text block, for example is two lines about setting sail on a boat, followed by a lengthy conversation with Erethian from the Add-on as the second text block.

Accordingly you can imagine the difficulties here besides the impossibility of sorting the work you do: The German text for text block 0AB7 may be there or not, but if it is, it will most likely be in a text block other than said 0AB7. Statistically spoken chances are 1:645 *lol