Interesting discovery RE: dialogf.tlk

[Qwinn]

I looked around the documentation for IESDP and GemRB and such, as well as some forum searches, and I didn't find any reference to this bit of information, so I'm guessing it's a pretty new discovery.

 

The common wisdom appears to be that dialogf.tlk is used when the protagonist is female. (This is indeed what GemRB documents). Since the protagonist is always male in PS:T, it was therefore assumed that the dialogf.tlk is never used.

 

Discussing translations with the folks over at Clan Dlan, though, they reported to me that some of their banters stubbornly insisted on coming up in english. They've spent years trying to figure out why, thinking that they just weren't able to find the right strings to translate. I looked over the banters they mentioned this was happening with, and noticed that those banters were all initiated by Grace or Annah. I checked, and they didn't overwrite the dialogf.tlk.

 

This leads me to believe that it's not the gender of the -protagonist- that determines when dialogf.tlk is used, but rather the gender of the -character that began the current dialogue-. 99% of the time it's the protagonist that begins a dialogue, thus the confusion.

 

This may have some interesting ramifications in other games regarding banters (and maybe would answer some bugs that folks couldn't figure out), so I thought I'd leave a post about it.

 

See yas

 

Qwinn

[Avenger]

Now we just have to know if gemrb is compatible with the IE, and copies this behaviour or not.

[Qwinn]

Another note of interest is that it was apparently happening with Nordom, too. Nordom's gender is "Neither". So it appears that dialogf.tlk gets used if you're "not male", not just "female".

 

Qwinn

[Guest Thomas]

I believe the dialogf.tlk file feature was implemented because all the IE games (to my knowledge) were translated into other languages, and in some languages, like Polish (although I guess this goes for more Slavic languages, if not all), conjugation is more complex.

 

Some verbs are conjugated differently depending on the gender of the speaker, so many strings in the game would require two different versions, and it seems that the developers chose to make the engine use a secondary (female) dialog.tlk.

 

I would have done the same thing in their shoes. Actually, I do not see how translating the game would be feasible if it had been done any other way.

[Qwinn]

Oh yes, it's quite necessary. Moreso in other languages, as you correctly note, but even in english there'd be uses for it. Example: if an NPC were to try to address the protagonist as "my lord", need a way to make it "my lady" instead, etc. Or pretty much any time the protagonist was referred to in the third person.

 

Qwinn

[Guest Thomas]

To clarify, what I said about the conjugation only applies to verbs that refer to the first person, and the rule does not apply to all verbs (in Polish, at least).

[Guest Thomas]

Oh yes, it's quite necessary. Moreso in other languages, as you correctly note, but even in english there'd be uses for it. Example: if an NPC were to try to address the protagonist as "my lord", need a way to make it "my lady" instead, etc. Or pretty much any time the protagonist was referred to in the third person.

 

Qwinn

No, that is not necessary at all, since, if I am not mistaken, there is a tag (is that the correct term for it?) that you can use in strings which will automatically put the proper word (lady/lord, female/male). The gender check is done by the engine.

 

If my memory serves me right, what you are referring to would exist as <LORDLADY> (or vice-versa) inside a string.

 

Verbs, on the other hand, are much more complex.

[Qwinn]

Ah, IE has those tags? Okay... I knew Weingine did, but PS:T doesn't need them so I never saw it in use in an IE game.

 

Okay, then yeah, not necessary for english, but very necessary for other languages.

 

Qwinn

[zefklop]

There was a discussion about it in the wishlist, at the bottom of the first page. (stickied in this forum)

[jcompton]

Now we just have to know if gemrb is compatible with the IE, and copies this behaviour or not.

 

I have no idea where to look for anything in GemRB code but I did find this note which suggests that no, GemRB is keying on the protagonist rather than the gabber:

 

interface.cpp

 

//use DialogF.tlk if the protagonist is female, that's why we leave space

static const char dialogtlk[] = "dialog.tlk\0";

 

 

It would probably be a good idea for somebody to build a simple test case for the five games and see if the behavior is consistent to gabber, or if it's a game-by-game decision, or what...

[Avenger]

Right, looking at the code, we always open only dialog.tlk