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Updated English Manual

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Litude

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Post 30 Oct 2008, 21:03

Updated English Manual

Thanks to The Knight I got my hands on the original source files of the game manual. By using these I put together and updated version of it which fixes numerous errors that are present in the original and rewrites a bunch of text to hopefully make it better.
Compiling it to PDF turned out troublesome and currently the layout has some minor problems that will be fixed before the manual is finalized.
What I'm looking here for though is if anyone finds any errors that are still are present or if there's text that doesn't make sense/use bad grammar.

Get the fixed manual from here.
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Lewin

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Post 31 Oct 2008, 08:09

Hi Litude,
Good news that you can finally fix it up. Will this be happening for other languages too?

I didn't read the whole lot, I just skimmed some of it.
Comments: (note that page numbers are from on the manual, and not the PDF viewer)
- The whole license agreement is in German!!
- The mentions of Windows on page 6 should probably not just say Windows 98/95, maybe just Windows?
- Page 13 - Screenshot could be updated to include main menu text changes
- Page 15 - Stats menu screenshot should be updated. (IMO :D)
- Page 16 - Both images need updating for text changes
- Page 44 - I think the table would be better if that space between the header row and the other rows was removed.
- Page 47 - Top row, delivers -> deliver
- Page 48 - Lots of the text on this page needs rewording. The Storm attack ability would be better as the charge ability, "Worth mentioning" doesn't sound at all formal enough, the thing about linking them together doesn't fit well, and the sword fighter needs a longer, more interesting description.
- Page 49: - First line, is -> are, battle axe -> hand axe, enemy fighters -> enemy soldiers.
- Page 50: The bit about long ranged troops should be moved down to line up with the crossbowman. Stuff -> fighting
- Page 51 - (rouge description) "the he" -> he Battle axe -> Hand axe
- Page 52 - "But beware when opposing bowmen and crossbowmen are being deployed" -> "But beware of opposing bowmen and crossbowmen, for warriors are also very weak." I think the siege equipment should be moved right to the bottom of this page, and then put a red heading above them "Constructed in the siege workshop" (like the town hall one)
- Page 57 - Some of the text has changed, e.g. storm attack -> charge
- Page 64 - Says troops eat fish. We wish... Just remove the mention of fish.
- Are you going to update the credits to match the in-game ones? I think you should...
- Do you think we should add to the Q&A section how to get around the bug that stops ware delivery to construction sites caused by too many buildings on order? (demolish one of the buildings on order) I suppose it might make it look bad, admitting that it has bugs. :wink:


There are so many other grammar mistakes, but it's slow reporting them this way. It would be best if you could look through the whole thing systematically correcting as you go. (but I can see that would be a mammoth job)


I'd also like to add that some of the images might be good for the Art section of the fansite. (now that we can extract them nicely) e.g. the gold plated images on the last two pages.

As far as exporting from Word to PDF, have you tried Open Office? It's pretty good at opening Word documents, and you might be able to setup the bookmarks from there.

I might have another look later, if I feel like it.
Lewin.
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Litude

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Post 31 Oct 2008, 11:15

Good news that you can finally fix it up. Will this be happening for other languages too?
German at least. We don't have the sources for other languages.
- The whole license agreement is in German!!
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that... :D
Does anyone know where to find the English license agreement anyway?
- The mentions of Windows on page 6 should probably not just say Windows 98/95, maybe just Windows?
Nah, Windows 95 and 98 are the officially supported OSes by the game.
- Page 13 - Screenshot could be updated to include main menu text changes
You can't actually make out the text, can you? :shock:
- Page 15 - Stats menu screenshot should be updated. (IMO :D)
Okay.
- Page 16 - Both images need updating for text changes
Yeah.
- Page 44 - I think the table would be better if that space between the header row and the other rows was removed.
Don't know what you're talking about ATM as I'm not at home but I'll check.
- Page 47 - Top row, delivers -> deliver
Okay.
- Page 48 - Lots of the text on this page needs rewording. The Storm attack ability would be better as the charge ability, "Worth mentioning" doesn't sound at all formal enough, the thing about linking them together doesn't fit well, and the sword fighter needs a longer, more interesting description.
Storm attack somehow fits better IMO because the troops also shout "storm attack!" when you launch it... But yeah a lot of the manual needs to be rewritten.
IIRC the page was quite full so I don't know if there would be room for any additional text for the sword fighter. Besides I think it already was quite a direct translation from the German original, but I'll do a recheck.
- Page 49: - First line, is -> are, battle axe -> hand axe, enemy fighters -> enemy soldiers.
Thanks.
- Page 50: The bit about long ranged troops should be moved down to line up with the crossbowman. Stuff -> fighting
Okay.
- Page 51 - (rouge description) "the he" -> he Battle axe -> Hand axe
Right.
- Page 52 - "But beware when opposing bowmen and crossbowmen are being deployed" -> "But beware of opposing bowmen and crossbowmen, for warriors are also very weak."
Yeah.
I think the siege equipment should be moved right to the bottom of this page, and then put a red heading above them "Constructed in the siege workshop" (like the town hall one)
Right, I'll need to think about some nice way of doing this.
- Page 57 - Some of the text has changed, e.g. storm attack -> charge
You know I had planend to change this in beta 7. The soldiers shout "storm attack" after all.
- Page 64 - Says troops eat fish. We wish... Just remove the mention of fish.
Better fix one bug than none?
- Are you going to update the credits to match the in-game ones? I think you should...
...They don't? I was only aware of the mission SOUND EDITING part but I haven't compared them either.
- Do you think we should add to the Q&A section how to get around the bug that stops ware delivery to construction sites caused by too many buildings on order? (demolish one of the buildings on order) I suppose it might make it look bad, admitting that it has bugs. :wink:
Yeah it definitely looks bad, besides this bug has apparently been partially fixed in TPR. Now wares are delivered as long as you keep all your construction sites conencted to the road.
There are so many other grammar mistakes, but it's slow reporting them this way. It would be best if you could look through the whole thing systematically correcting as you go. (but I can see that would be a mammoth job)
Yeah...
I'd also like to add that some of the images might be good for the Art section of the fansite. (now that we can extract them nicely) e.g. the gold plated images on the last two pages.
Perhaps but they are monsterous in their size :D.
As far as exporting from Word to PDF, have you tried Open Office? It's pretty good at opening Word documents, and you might be able to setup the bookmarks from there.
Nah, will need to do a check.
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The Dark Lord

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Post 31 Oct 2008, 21:46

Page 1 (page 3 of the document):
This may happen even if the person has no medical history of epilepsy or has never had any epileptic seizures.
Doesn't that actually mean the same?
Do not stand too close to the screen.
stand --> sit ?

Page 7 (page 9 of document):
If you agree with the pre-set default directory "C:\Program Files\KaM ? The Peasants Rebellion" click on ?Next?, otherwise on click ?Browse?.
otherwise on click --> otherwise click on ?
If you clicked on ?Browse?, the following menu allows you to enter the target path and hard drive either manually or you can select an already existing directory from the list of sub directories.
Isn't it better to leave ''either'' out? Or make it something like ''If you clicked on ?Browse?, the following menu allows you to enter the target path and hard drive manually, but you can also select an already existing directory from the list of sub directories.''
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Litude

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Post 01 Nov 2008, 00:03

I did a slight update which fixes a lot of bugs in the buildings section and some of the bugs reported here. Also bookmarks were now added as I found out that Adobe offered a 30 day trial of their PDF editor :).
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Litude

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Post 03 Nov 2008, 20:36

Another update, now I think it's starting to get pretty much ready.
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Michieru

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Post 03 Nov 2008, 21:51

Good news that you can finally fix it up. Will this be happening for other languages too?
German at least. We don't have the sources for other languages.
When will the German one be available?
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Litude

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Post 03 Nov 2008, 21:52

The German version is being worked on by The Knight.
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Michieru

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Post 03 Nov 2008, 21:58

The German version is being worked on by The Knight.
Wow... that's an fast answer! :D

Thx, I didn't know, because I didn't find anything on KaM.de
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Lewin

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Post 04 Nov 2008, 04:21

Looking good! Hey how come this version is 3 MB and the last one was 15??? You must have been using a really inefficient program before. Oh and you could have hosted it on my mirror if you wanted to, you didn't need to use Megaupload. (although I guess the speed is much faster)
Hey, now that you're using the Adobe editor, can you update the Dutch, Polish and Russian manuals? (just the image changes would be a good start)
You know I had planend to change this in beta 7. The soldiers shout "storm attack" after all.
Yeah, good idea. It kind of sounds like odd English but that's KaM for you. I agree, none of the other suggestions really fitted.
...They don't? I was only aware of the mission SOUND EDITING part but I haven't compared them either.
I was referring to the SR3 credits. Should they be in the manual credits as well? Maybe not, because it would require another page I think.
This may happen even if the person has no medical history of epilepsy or has never had any epileptic seizures.
Doesn't that actually mean the same?
Kind of, but in legal English that sort of thing is quite common. (repeating things with slightly different wording) I guess it covers them better if someone tries to sue.
The German version is being worked on by The Knight.
It would make sense to discuss stuff with him, because lots of the image changes should be done for the German one too. They should be fairly consistent.

Comments:
- I noticed that the crossbowmen is said to have 100% attack! Is that really true? That's a good as a ballista, and I don't think he's that good.
- "In a Strange Land" uses the same map image as "Snow and Sand"

Good job on this.
Lewin.
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Litude

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Post 04 Nov 2008, 07:33

Looking good! Hey how come this version is 3 MB and the last one was 15??? You must have been using a really inefficient program before. Oh and you could have hosted it on my mirror if you wanted to, you didn't need to use Megaupload. (although I guess the speed is much faster)
The first release was completely uncompressed :D.
Hey, now that you're using the Adobe editor, can you update the Dutch, Polish and Russian manuals? (just the image changes would be a good start)
I only have the Dutch manual but I was surprised to find out that the professioal Adobe Editor can't actually edit PDF file contents, just add some bookmarks etc.
Still I'm planning to copy over the text from the Dutch manual to the English source files or something similar.
I was referring to the SR3 credits. Should they be in the manual credits as well? Maybe not, because it would require another page I think.
Adding another page would be no problem, but the credits for SR3 will be included in a separate readme.
It would make sense to discuss stuff with him, because lots of the image changes should be done for the German one too. They should be fairly consistent.
Yeah though they are quite different even in their original state. But this would be a good opportunity to make them the same (the German manual is obviously based on an older template).
- I noticed that the crossbowmen is said to have 100% attack! Is that really true? That's a good as a ballista, and I don't think he's that good.
The attacks are real weird, I'll have to check with the Unit.dat editor that Merchator made.
EDIT: Seems like all attacks for each ranged unit is off. I don't know, wouldn't an attack value of over 200% for the ballista and catapult scare someone? :P
- "In a Strange Land" uses the same map image as "Snow and Sand"
Great eye, didn't catch that.
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Litude

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Post 05 Nov 2008, 18:58

Release 5 is here with some layout changes and few fixes. Also The Knight now sent me the updated German manual which I'll still have to port over to the cleaned layout. Should still take some time.
And you know, I should return working on the real SR3 as well.
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Lewin

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Post 09 Nov 2008, 05:36

Hi,
It's looking good. I still say you can't release SR3 with the German licence agreement in the English manual! It looks really bad. Surely you can get it Google translated and then correct mistakes? (or even ask The Knight to translate it)
The first release was completely uncompressed :D.
How did you compress it? Is it a PDF thing? Does it lose image quality or something? Because I don't think it's a good idea if the images lose quality.
The attacks are real weird, I'll have to check with the Unit.dat editor that Merchator made.
EDIT: Seems like all attacks for each ranged unit is off. I don't know, wouldn't an attack value of over 200% for the ballista and catapult scare someone? :P
Yeah, I thought they looked weird. Even if you don't correct them all, I think you should give the crossbowmen less. (~50% I reckon)
Are the other troops attack values correct? They don't appear correct when compared with the images. (assuming 1 attack sword icon is always the same)

Other comments on release 5:
- Page 6: "So tat body and soul..." -> "So that body and soul..."
- Pages 51-53: You don't "train" mercenaries, you hire them. (they are already trained fighters after all) Therefore I think it should say "Hired from the town hall" instead of "Trainable from the town hall"
Same thing with siege, they are not "trained". You can't train a machine! (you can construct one though) I think it should say something like "Constructible in the siege workshop"
- Page 52-53: With the text "Attack Against Cavalry", the first two words are red but the last one isn't. (they are obviously the same sentence)
- Page 68: "My farmer needs too much time to work on his fields, how can I fix this?" -> "My farmer doesn't have enough time to work on all his fields, how can I fix this?" ("needs too much time" sounds like a direct German translation to me... :wink:)

This updated manual will be a great addition to SR3.
Lewin.
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Litude

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Post 09 Nov 2008, 08:54

It's looking good. I still say you can't release SR3 with the German licence agreement in the English manual! It looks really bad. Surely you can get it Google translated and then correct mistakes? (or even ask The Knight to translate it)
Of course I ain't gonna do it. I'm waiting for either the English license agreement for The Shattered Kingdom to turn up or then I'll remove it completely.
How did you compress it? Is it a PDF thing? Does it lose image quality or something? Because I don't think it's a good idea if the images lose quality.
Yeah the images lose quality, it uses the same quality as the original manual now.
Yeah, I thought they looked weird. Even if you don't correct them all, I think you should give the crossbowmen less. (~50% I reckon)
Are the other troops attack values correct? They don't appear correct when compared with the images. (assuming 1 attack sword icon is always the same)
Yeah but it's quite hard to show a 5% increase in attack with a sword icon (the vagabond). I really don't know what I should do to fix this...
Other comments on release 5:
- Page 6: "So tat body and soul..." -> "So that body and soul..."
Heh I was under the impression it was some Old English :D
- Pages 51-53: You don't "train" mercenaries, you hire them. (they are already trained fighters after all) Therefore I think it should say "Hired from the town hall" instead of "Trainable from the town hall"
Same thing with siege, they are not "trained". You can't train a machine! (you can construct one though) I think it should say something like "Constructible in the siege workshop"
Good idea.
- Page 52-53: With the text "Attack Against Cavalry", the first two words are red but the last one isn't. (they are obviously the same sentence)
This is how it's supposed to be, or did I misunderstand you?
- Page 68: "My farmer needs too much time to work on his fields, how can I fix this?" -> "My farmer doesn't have enough time to work on all his fields, how can I fix this?" ("needs too much time" sounds like a direct German translation to me... :wink:)
I don't think those two sentences have the same meaning really...
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Lewin

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Post 10 Nov 2008, 05:28

Yeah but it's quite hard to show a 5% increase in attack with a sword icon (the vagabond). I really don't know what I should do to fix this...
Are the values in units.dat percentages? If so then I believe you should make them the same. Having 200% attack is probably ok, because a ballista does a huge amount of damage. (it still will be way better than now. After all, people will use the manual to see how good the troops really are, so it would be way better if they are accurate.
The icons should just be approximate.
Heh I was under the impression it was some Old English :D
I really don't think it is. All of the other Old English used I have heard in other places, but I've never heard of "tat" being used like that.
I highly doubt that it is Old English.
This is how it's supposed to be, or did I misunderstand you?
Well why should part of the sentence be red and part of it be black? Surely it would be better if it was all the same colour? (the sentence is "attack against cavalry")
I don't think those two sentences have the same meaning really...
Ok, how about this then: "My farmer needs too much time to work on his fields, how can I fix this?"
-----
"My farmer needs more time to work on his fields, how can I fix this?"

"Needs too much time" is quite Engrish.

Lewin.

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