Please ZOS, reconsider your direction of Chinese localization

Lavennin

...and cut back the use of pop culture phrases, outdated memes and juvenile humor that are not present in the original English text!

First, I must thank you for having taken our feedbacks seriously and improved the Chinese translation to its current state. While there are still errors and inconsistencies, most of the text has become readable and we can understand the lore without having to switch to English.

However, one begins to wonder why ZOS has chosen a rather childish and awkward style of localization?

A few examples to show what I mean:
(I apologize for the quality of some of these images, as we originally took them to share with guildmates.)

• 
  Chinese localization translated back to English:
  ...form a family, grow some crops, turn old slowly, and then pass everything on to my children. What more do you need a bike for?
  
  No, we have no use of a bike, it would break my immersion. As did the localization.
  Why bike, you may ask? Well, the bike phrase is a pop culture saying that was funny more than 10 years ago. Maybe some streamers made it popular again, I'm not sure. Needless to say, it doesn't belong in ESO.

• 
  (English original) High King Emeric: Tell me quickly and truthfully.
  (Chinese localization) High King Emeric: Truth or Dare.
  
  Why? Why did he suddenly want to play Truth or Dare with us? Is a direct translation too unfun for Chinese players? And who plays Truth or Dare these days?

• 
  
  While "啪啪打脸" just means slapping face, it's a pop culture phrase in China and a tasteless one at that. The wording is very specific, not something you'd expect in any kind of serious writing. It will also age very poorly when the expression, like most pop culture expressions, eventually become obsolete.

On countless occasions we see an attempt from the localization team to be funny, but it's a crude and childish sense of humor:

• 
  (Chinese localization) Got time to help lil' fairy me?
  
  Not only is little fairy self-deprecating humor on a woman's appearance and character, it's also a pop culture saying that went out of fashion. I doubt most people find it funny nowadays, and many have never found it funny.

• 
  
  "牛逼啊“/cow *** is a modern pop saying that has never appeared in translated fantasy work. It's not in Dragonlance novels. It's not in A Song of Ice and Fire. It's not in any of the fan-localized TES games. Yet it's here, showing how little the localization team think of us that a saying any more context/period-appropriate would bore us too much.

There are many more examples and these are the only ones we have images of. I can't finish a questline without raising my brow a few times, and having my immersion repeatedly broken for no good reason at all.

For each above example I can think of a better translation, which is just translate the text directly. We aren't 10-year-olds that giggle at any lazy attempt of humor, and we can sit through a good story without the aid of catchy internet phrases. Most of us are adult fans of the fantasy genre, otherwise we wouldn't be playing an online game with an average of 300 Ping and unfinished translation. Some of us are roleplayers and collectors of lore. We never asked for this, and we deserve better.

So please, please, please ZOS, for the love of all pantheons, give us a localization as simple and solid as any other localization. Stop the pop culture invasion!

Lavennin

I'm not sure if this is the correct section to post, and apologize if it's not.
This problem is lore and story-related, but has nothing to do with a particular piece of lore.

Eporem

I think this belongs here - for like you say it is lore and story related - for the understanding of this -

isadoraisacat

What does this have to do with lore ?

Elsonso

Wow. Wondering if the company doing the translation was not a good fit for the content.