I love Seabloom Villa, but...

SilverBride · September 9

ElderSmitter wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

I would have preferred a small portal like in Khelesan'rhun to this setup.

Was i supposed to get this in an in game mail attachment? I have the Purchase Order Confirmation number from Zenimax.. Should i submit a ticket?

The house just becomes available once you purchase it and there is no attachment. You should be able to port to it, or go to its location and just walk in.

katanagirl1 · September 9

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

You know, its not uncommon for real houses to have staircases outside ...

I think the ladder was only added for convenience.
Whoever designed that house probably wanted to avoid negative feedback by the community for seperating upper and lower floor.

It does have a staircase outside - lol.

TaSheen · September 9

Syldras wrote: »

ElderSmitter wrote: »

I bought this starter pack and never received it. How do we claim it? Thanks!

It should be automatically activated/added to your account after you log in the next time after purchase. Did your amount of crowns rise by 800? Is there a house symbol you can click on the Western coast of Auridon now? You should also have gotten a system mail by Ferande Demar.

Felande Demarie....

You have to log out of game entirely, then back in.

Syldras · September 9

TaSheen wrote: »

Felande Demarie....

Funny, she indeed has a different name in my translation.
I've noticed that with some characters, but in her case, I really can't figure out why.

TaSheen · September 9

That's odd then. Of course, I don't have any other languages to compare, so.... For some reason, I assumed (mistakenly obviously) that names were never translated or changed?

Syldras · September 9

TaSheen wrote: »

That's odd then. Of course, I don't have any other languages to compare, so.... For some reason, I assumed (mistakenly obviously) that names were never translated or changed?

I've noticed a few cases (usually while browsing UESP.net), although it mostly comes down to changing (human) female npc's distinctively masculine sounding names (from the perspective of the audience the translation is made for) to something that fits common naming patterns in that culture better. Well, mostly it's minor changes, like changing an "-o" at the end of a name to an "-a", as an "o" is usually used to form the masculine form of a name, while the feminine form usually ends with "a" or "e".

Same goes for titles. So the impresario becomes "Impresaria" in the German translation, because the "o" as an ending marks the word/title as clearly male. Using "Impresario" instead of "Impresaria" for a female character would feel like deliberately calling a police woman "police man" (not "officer", but "man"). So I see why ZOS changed that in the translation.

And then there was "Julian" for example, which is a typical male name (and only a male name) in German, so in the German translation that npc is called "Julienne" instead (which would also be the correct female form of the name in French). (Edit: Or maybe it's "Juliane"? I can't remember anymore, but either way, they changed the name to have a female ending).

But in case of Ferande Demar or Felande Demarie, I really have no clue.

TaSheen · September 9

Syldras wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

That's odd then. Of course, I don't have any other languages to compare, so.... For some reason, I assumed (mistakenly obviously) that names were never translated or changed?

I've noticed a few cases (usually while browsing UESP.net), although it mostly comes down to changing (human) female npc's distinctively masculine sounding names (from the perspective of the audience the translation is made for) to something that fits common naming patterns in that culture better. Well, mostly it's minor changes, like changing an "-o" at the end of a name to an "-a", as an "o" is usually used to form the masculine form of a name, while the feminine form usually ends with "a" or "e".

Same goes for titles. So the impresario becomes "Impresaria" in the German translation, because the "o" as an ending marks the word/title as clearly male. Using "Impresario" instead of "Impresaria" for a female character would feel like deliberately calling a police woman "police man" (not "officer", but "man"). So I see why ZOS changed that in the translation.

And then there was "Julian" for example, which is a typical male name (and only a male name) in German, so in the German translation that npc is called "Julienne" instead (which would also be the correct female form of the name in French).

But in case of Ferande Demar or Felande Demarie, I really have no clue.

Yeah, that bit with Julian is truly bizarre. Julian is only a male name in the languages I'm familiar with - US English of course, as well as British English; and then pretty much any of the Romance languages. Now - the possibility exists that "Julian" does not identify as female. If that's the case, well, that's fine with me. But if that's the case.... where's the backstory for her (?)/him (?) got to?

Behind the Name doesn't show any instance of "Julian" being female....

Syldras · September 9

The other characters in the Scholarium refer to Julian as "she". Maybe she just has a strange name. Or it was an oversight from the developers who originally intended the character to be male? We'll never know, I guess.

There's a similar case with the Skald-King, actually. It's not as obvious, but in Scandinavia, Jorunn is a female name.

code65536 · September 9

I believe that the canonical names are created by the writers in English, and then they get passed off to various translation teams who appear to have quite a bit of discretion with how they want to translate things. I get the impression that there isn't much (if any) input the original English writers have over how things get translated.

So my favorite example of this is the DLC pledge-giver. This is her name in the seven officially-supported languages:

English: Urgarlag Chief-bane
German: Urgarlag Häuptlingsfluch
Spanish: Urgarlag la Castradora
French: Urgarlag l'Émasculatrice
Japanese: 族長殺しのウルガルラグ
Russian: Ургарлаг Бич Вождей
Chinese: 乌尔加拉格·酋长克星

So for Chinese, they strung together a bunch of words that when spoken, have sounds that somewhat resembles the sound of "Urgarlag", so there it's a phonetic translation (which is typical for this language).

And for Spanish and French, they clearly had took some fun artistic license with the nickname portion of her name.

The other languages tried to follow the English nickname to the best of their ability.

TaSheen · September 9

Syldras wrote: »

The other characters in the Scholarium refer to Julian as "she". Maybe she just has a strange name. Or it was an oversight from the developers who originally intended the character to be male? We'll never know, I guess.

There's a similar case with the Skald-King, actually. It's not as obvious, but in Scandinavia, Jorunn is a female name.

Yes, a Swedish friend of mine pointed that out early on. It would be interesting to know what happened, but unlikely we'll find out.

Syldras · September 9

code65536 wrote: »

Spanish: Urgarlag la Castradora
French: Urgarlag l'Émasculatrice

They really took a lot of artistic freedom with these...

But generally, it's more or less clear that they have to translate names that have a translatable meaning in English, as it would seem strange to keep the English name of an obviously not English culture in other translations.

They do the same with place names (most - strictly seen, they could also have translated Morrowind, but did not), also keeping specifics of the languages they translate to in mind (so Coldharbour did became "Kalthafen" in German, but "Havreglace" in French, which would literally be "ice harbour"). Generally I find they do an awesome job with these translations (always did, in all TES games). Especially in German they take older (historical, not common anymore) naming conventions for places into consideration, so whoever does it really shows care and knowledge in that regard.

TaSheen wrote: »

Yes, a Swedish friend of mine pointed that out early on. It would be interesting to know what happened, but unlikely we'll find out.

I suspect they either had another queen in mind in earlier concepts and didn't change the name when they changed the character to a king, or maybe they just liked the meaning of the name and somehow missed that it is a female one. But yes, we'll probably never know!