The Witcher - 20% of the original English script cut

[Hory]

Vulgarity is good when it makes sense to use it.

Does it make sense to use vulgarity in the case of characters which you envisioned as vulgar?

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Martin is wonderful, but I couldn't get through Erikson. Rather liked Gardens of the Moon, but it started to become a massive clusterfuck and I lost interest halfway through Deadhouse Gates. :/

Btw, give China Mieville a try. He's also got characters who say "fuck" and "shit" a lot!

Yeah, Deadhouse Gates was a bit meh, but he completely recovered with Memories of Ice, so far it seems that every odd book is good and even ones are pretty average.

I actually liked both, to be honest, but MoI is my favourite so far. Book 4 was bad, book 5 was abysmal, book 6 was bearable, and book 7 is almost back to MoI quality. Not sure what happened at that little slump there, but he kind of replaced interesting characterization with a horrible oversaturation of penis jokes.

 

[Jora]

Those trying to find a good fantasy series should try R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing. I could write a detailed reason, but since this is the Codex, let's hear what the author has to say:

Let's start with discussing a major hot topic on the fantasy forums these days: China Miéville's comment about Tolkien being "the wen on the arse of fantasy." What were your reactions to that? What did you think about the response that question provoked on the forums that you've visited?

I'm afraid this answer has turned into something of a short essay, so let me apologize in advance.

What were my reactions? I laughed, of course, then I went running to the dictionary to look up the word 'wen' (just to be sure). I can certainly understand why Miéville might say this. The degree to which Tolkien has become the rule for so much fantasy is sure to antagonize those who style themselves 'rule-breakers.' Add to this a socialist bent and the sheer nostalgia of Tolkien's work, and the wen becomes very inflamed indeed.

All fantasy is a response to modernity of some kind, so it seems fair not only to ask what kind of response it is, but whether it's a positive or negative one - especially if you think, like Miéville and Tolkien, that modernity is somehow in crisis. In this respect, I think it's clear that there's something regressive about Tolkien's approach. By yearning for 'simpler times,' you not only risk drawing on the anachronisms and prejudices belonging to those times, you also become less inclined to participate in the present. Pining for the days before a problem is generally not an effective way of resolving it.

So I understand and in many ways sympathize with his complaint. Tolkien - and perhaps more significantly, Tolkienesque fantasy - can be seen as one of many 'social opiates,' a way to cope with social problems that reinforces rather than transforms the dominant institutions behind those problems.

Let me go into some detail, since statements like this can seem alienating in the absence of an explanation. Imagine what life was like for the average person some 400 years ago. They knew who stitched their clothes, who grew their food, who raised their houses, and so on - all the ways they depended upon others simply could not be ignored, and as a result some sense of community and communal responsibility was inescapable. Not anymore. As a result of technological innovation and the concentration of production, pretty much everything we depend on, from our blue jeans to our fried chicken, is provided anonymously. Not only can we ignore our multifarious dependencies, we can even pretend they don't exist. We are in fact the most interdependent generation in the history of the human race, and yet somehow we've come to think of ourselves as the exact opposite, as the most independent - as 'individuals.'

Contemporary consumer culture continually bombards us with images of this: "Everything you need," the commercial tagline runs, "comes from within." Just think of all the ways in which this message is repeated - and no wonder, given the way the media caters to our conceits. SUV's and rugged individualism. Cigarrettes and rebellious individualism. Shampoo for that 'individual look.' Few people make money telling people those things they don't want to hear, like the systematic way wealth often depends on poverty, or how our cars dump their own weight in CO2 into the atmosphere every year, or how we're becoming the greatest extinction event to hit our planet since the comet that took out the dinosaurs.

For people like Miéville, we already live in fantasy worlds - that's the problem - and what we need is a literature that will mitigate rather than aggravate the problem. Think of the way so many men style themselves as a 'rebel' or 'warrior' - I know I did. I remember congratulating myself day after day for being such a badass, even while I shuffled down aisle and queue, thoughtlessly doing what my boss told me to. 'Travel light,' the movie suggested. 'Wherever I lay my head is home,' the song crooned. 'Your future is what you make it,' the teacher insisted. The slogans go on and on. We've even been convinced that embracing these sayings - which are essentially marketing shout-lines - is what it means to be a rebel! Buy this CD and those hair-care products, look after you-know-who and spurn all things cooperative and collective - especially if they're political, which is to say, capable of effecting real change.

But of course this is only pseudo-individualism. In truth you're simply a 'good consumer,' working hard to make other people rich, reminding yourself over and over how unique and special you are while verifying your identity with your credit card, and thinking of all the things you could be, if only you had the time and money... If only... Because afterall, everyone is free to be what they want, aren't they?

Of course not. We don't live in a meritocracy - not so long as wealth remains more a matter of heredity than wit, grit and determination. The game is rigged - I think everyone understands this at some level. But the winners, the ones who own all the bullhorns, (and thus the only ones who are heard), crow on and on about how 'great' the system is. "I'm living proof!" they cry, conveniently forgetting their trust fund, that someone has to flip the burgers, pump the gas, stitch the clothes, man the assembly line - which is to say that someone has to provide all the goods and services they enjoy. Like all winners, they're convinced the game is fair, and if the game is fair, if everyone regardless of class has the same chance of becoming wealthy (and the facts shout otherwise), then the problem must lie with the players and not the game. Afterall an individual takes responsibility for their play... It's your own damn fault you're poor. You had all this potential...

If I had a nickel.

The systematic roots of our predicament escape us, because the media caters to our weaknesses, flattering us with images of illusory self-empowerment, papering over the complexities of system we live in, and concentrating on the short-term, the short-sighted and the individual. Afterall, each of us is our own person, with fiercely independant product choices to make. We end up living in little consumer bubbles, only dimly aware of the great machinery churning away in the darkness.

Given this dystopic picture, it becomes easy to see how Tolkien could be 'ideologically suspect.' The nostalgia for 'better days,' one might argue, induces complacency. The celebration of individual heroism and the identification with aristocratic values simply reinforces our false sense of empowerment. The provision of alternate worlds gives us yet another excuse to avoid the realities of this one. And so on...

Tolkien, understood in this light, is the return of the repressed, a way to express our disempowerment without having to relinquish our illusions. A wen.

Now I agree with much of this picture (so long as we remember it's an interpretation and not gospel), and yet nevertheless I would argue that Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece - a founding work of genius and not a wen. One reason for this is that I take the business of evaluating the value of a work's social role to be simply part of the business of evaluating the value of a work as a whole. The second reason is that a work's social role is always a work in progress, something that can be transformed by the reception of subsequent works. Tolkien - rather obviously it seems to me - stumbled upon something profound, something which, even when bound up in nostalgia and sentimentalism, simply has to be acknowledged. By casting light on the world of Middle-earth, he has thrown into relief a world pressed to the edge - our world. And the problem lies not so much in what he's written, but in how he is read. We determine his social role.

And this is why I'm such an unabashed fan, and why I write Tolkienesque epic fantasy. I want to continue Tolkien's exploration of our world, and to further it if I can. I'm not so interested in 'transcending the genre' as I am in exploring the possibilities within it - and I would argue that these are far more vast and significant than most realize.

So what was my overall reaction to Miéville's comment? Understanding and disappointment.

As for what I've seen of the debate this comment has triggered, I found it both interesting and heartening. As an epic fantasist, I've been stung by the 'laymen' versus 'literati' divide that seems to be forming along the epic and urban fantasy lines - especially regarding the 'new weird.' It's strange how little versions of this hierarchy seem to crop up in every sphere of human cultural production. For my own part, too many people seem convinced of the superiority of their tastes for me to have that much faith in the superiority of my own. All I like to point out to self-professed rule-breakers is that in many cases they're not so much overturning a set of conventions as they are buying into another. Post-modern works, for instance, have their own stable of conventions: hybridity instead of purity, existentially subversive doubles instead of dragons, displaced subjects instead of heroes, and undecidability instead of apocalyptic evil. I try to test the rules I follow, but I'm not convinced that simply swapping one set of commonplace rules for another set of arcane ones counts as 'original.' It's too mechanical. Originality, I suspect, arises between the rules.

Great answer. As I was reading this, I couldn't help but think that the Scylvendi chieftain, Cnaiür, would fit excellently as a badass who is a badass not because he resembles other badasses of his time and place, but even more so because he feels compelled to break with tradition to forge his own path. Did you have in mind this exploding of the badass character myth when you created Cnaiür?

I'm glad you've mentioned Cnaiür. He is indeed the battleground for this question.

I remember reading somewhere that 19th Century literary scholars had a difficult time dealing with Homer's Achilles, primarily because of the way he weeps to his mother after Agamemnon seizes his concubine. Here's Achilles, the most martial of all men, crying like a baby... How could this be?

But this is the thing: our present concept of what it means to be a 'man' is largely a historical artefact - and a very troubling one at that. Think of all the terms we use to impeach someone's manliness: pansy, bitch, queer, fag, girly-boy, pommy pufter, and so on. Almost all of them are accusations of femininity, which would suggest that the worst thing for a man to be is... a woman! Which is to say, soft, weak, passive, and emotional... Huh? This, I think, is an absurd and destructive way for men to value themselves. Strength is found by owning and understanding one's weaknesses, not by displacing and denying them. Think of all the supposed badass warriors out there, checking people in at hotels, clearing tables, posturing in front of mirrors, bragging to sceptical significant others about how lucky so-and-so is because... We live in strange times.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but there seems to be an implied statement that we humans find it necessary to create our own rules and hierarchies to meet our needs. Could it be said that fantasy is in one sense our attempt to experiment with the rules to see what we can make of it?

Are rules and hierarchies inescapable? Certainly. Cooperative action would be impossible otherwise. All societies are made up of human beings doing things in concert - the repetition of interrelated actions. That's what we do when we go to work everyday: we repeat actions that fit a greater network of repeated actions. Rules and hierarchies serve to regulate individual actions to ensure that they meet the requirements of the greater system. Since beliefs and desires are the bases of action, any given system requires the proper beliefs and desires in order to function. Imagine, for instance, if we all stopped believing in property or pointless consumption. Our whole system would come crashing down.

Nowadays we belong to a vast 'global machine,' one with six billion parts. Make no mistake, all the numbers you carry with you in your wallet perform the same function that the numbers serve in a car parts warehouse. They keep track of you, define your position relative to the whole.

The problem is that we evolved living in small systems where the people we knew were also the people we depended on to survive. Suddenly we find ourselves living in this immense system where we rarely depend on the people we know, at least not in any immediate material sense. For the first time in our history it is quite possible to survive without knowing anyone - this is extraordinary if you think about it. The 'shut-in' is a recent historical development. What this means is that we're living in social environments that cut across our evolutionary grain in what are likely profound ways. It's no accident that the feeling of alienation or 'not belonging' is the malaise of the modern world. And this is the reason, I think, why nostalgia rather than experimentation characterizes what one finds in epic fantasy: fantasy worlds tend to be places where individuals have an unambiguous social role, where they can clearly see where they fit, not only in the cosmic order of things, but in the social order as well. If we have to look to the past to find those orders, then it's because they no longer seem to exist.

http://www.wotmania.com/fantasymessageb ... geID=98054

 

[Direwolf]

Yeah, Deadhouse Gates was a bit meh, but he completely recovered with Memories of Ice, so far it seems that every odd book is good and even ones are pretty average.
Mieville is different, I still can't decide if I enjoyed Perdido Street Station or not.

Mieville is an... odd beast. His prose is dense. Dickens-dense. Putting aside the fact that I genuinely enjoy Dickens, I found Mieville off-putting for a while because there's a lot of info-dumps in PSS, but my ambivalence quickly turned into blind adoration as I discovered they're info-dumps about utterly cool concepts. Not for nothing is Mieville called the flagship for New Weird. I'll repeat what someone else has said: he has got more good ideas in one page than most writers will get in their entire careers.

If you're inclined to give him another try, The Scar is IMO his best yet. It has all the coolness and weirdness, but whereas PSS is weak in characterization, The Scar is not. Bellis Coldwine and Uther Doul are two of the best-realized, most human characters I've ever seen in fiction. (Of course, this is subjective: some people hate Bellis because she's a cold, unsympathetic bitch who's made a tool many times, but I didn't mind--I hate passive/doormat characters, but Bellis isn't exactly either.)

Yeah, you're probably right, the book was great, but the writing was a bit heavy.
You convinced me to give other books a try. Right after I finish The Witcher that is.

 

[Lesifoere]

I picked up The Darkness that Comes Before, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I've been hearing a lot of good things about it, especially from ASoIaF fans, though.

Hopefully all the bizarre, unpronounceable names in Bakker's books won't put me off.

Yeah, you're probably right, the book was great, but the writing was a bit heavy.
You convinced me to give other books a try. Right after I finish The Witcher that is.

Excellent. Oh, though I can't recommend Iron Council (due to not having read it yet and being slightly put off by the abrupt style change), I can highly recommend Looking for Jake and Other Stories. Most of them aren't set in Bas-Lag (only the story about Jack Half-a-Prayer is), but they're written with prose much less arcane than what's in Perdido without relinquishing the new weird/horror factor.

 

[dragonfk]

Agreed. Its pretty good( I have yet to read Thousandfold Thoughts) but it still is inferior to Martin. Sorry .

C'mon guys, we should stop derailing this thread !!

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

I... er... never thought of Bakker's stuff as "Tolkienesque" in the slightest. Hm.

Excellent. Oh, though I can't recommend Iron Council (due to not having read it yet and being slightly put off by the abrupt style change)

I've read it. It's pretty much the worst of three (PSS/Scar/IC).

 

[Jora]

I picked up The Darkness that Comes Before, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I've been hearing a lot of good things about it, especially from ASoIaF fans, though.

Hopefully all the bizarre, unpronounceable names in Bakker's books won't put me off.

I think his names, while often quite complex and indeed strange, are very good in that they're exotic and fantastical and feel like they could exist in some far-away fantasy culture: Cinganjehoi, Cememketri, Cepheramunni, Mangaecca, the Mysunsai mercenaries... they all create vague images in my mind.

 

[Lesifoere]

I... er... never thought of Bakker's stuff as "Tolkienesque" in the slightest. Hm.

Excellent. Oh, though I can't recommend Iron Council (due to not having read it yet and being slightly put off by the abrupt style change)

I've read it. It's pretty much the worst of three (PSS/Scar/IC).

Yes, that's what I was afraid of. That style just... doesn't really suit Mieville. Here's hoping the next one--Kraken, I think--will be good.

I picked up The Darkness that Comes Before, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I've been hearing a lot of good things about it, especially from ASoIaF fans, though.

Hopefully all the bizarre, unpronounceable names in Bakker's books won't put me off.

I think his names, while often quite complex and indeed strange, are very good in that they're exotic and fantastical and feel like they could exist in some far-away fantasy culture: Cinganjehoi, Cememketri, Cepheramunni, Mangaecca, the Mysunsai mercenaries... they all create vague images in my mind.

I... I'm afraid most of those sound like gibberish/random syllables strung together to me. Particularly Cinganjehoi. But to be fair, I've found that a lot of foreign names/words--particularly those from a different linguistic family--tend to sound like that when transliterated into English.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Incidentally Mr Meeveel looks scary and I would run away from him in an alleyway and/or a crowded high street

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... e_side.jpg

 

[Jora]

I'm a Finn, so I pronounce them differently. They make sense to me.

 

[Lesifoere]

Incidentally Mr Meeveel looks scary and I would run away from him in an alleyway and/or a crowded high street

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... e_side.jpg

Haha. I think there's a rock singer out there somewhere who looks like his twin, I just can't remember which one.

Besides, it's an improvement over the rather, uh, meaty, bearded look a lot of male fantasy writers have. Think Terry Goodkind and (sorry, Mr Martin) GRRM himself. That and Ed Greenwood, though just typing his name makes my skin crawl.

 

[dragonfk]

Atari is so hopeless...

http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/static/ ... Jjrjhv.php

 

[Elwro]

Finding a Western publisher for a game from an unknown Eastern European studio cannot be easy. I hope CDProjekt manage to work with a company which won't be so hopelessly incompetent the next time. I really hope this "next time" will happen.

 

[Claw]

The English text seems mostly shorter, often awkwardly curt and sometimes information is lost or the meaning is - slightly - changed.
So far I haven't seen any big problem, but the cuts certainly don't improve the dialogue any. It looks like a cheap move to save some money on localization. I understand that localization is usually done by the publisher, so... Atari, huh? Atari hasn't treated me too badly, but somehow I never hear anything good about them. Wasn't Atari also responsible for delaying Gothic 2's US release?

vulgar phrases that no reasonable person would ever use, the person being vulgar or not.

If there is one thing I learned from being drafted, it's that a phrase can't be too vulgar. Maybe you are still under the misconception that the world is largely inhabited by reasonable people. Well, it's not.

 

[Gerrard]

does it work correctly if you replace the english version voices.bif with the polish version file ?

Yes, it does. Unless it only works in the polish version, which I doubt.
Someone has uploaded the file to rapidshare, but if you don't have a dynamic IP it can be a pain to download all the parts.
The password is "peb.pl".

 

[KazikluBey]

Someone called "severian" claiming to be a developer has posted at Gamebanshee:

I can't judge English translation. Dialogs were trimmed (we had to shorten it by roughly 20% to meet agreements with ATARI) so maybe it spoiled them slightly. Polish conversations are brilliant and, from what I've heard, English voice acting is quite good.

 

[Ausir]

Severian is Michał Madej, lead designer.

 

[dagorkan]

Martin is wonderful,

I dislike George RR Martin for the same reasons as I think I'd dislike Sakopowski.

but I couldn't get through Erikson. Rather liked Gardens of the Moon, but it started to become a massive clusterfuck and I lost interest halfway through Deadhouse Gates. :/

Same here.

Btw, give China Mieville a try. He's also got characters who say "fuck" and "shit" a lot!

China Mieville is hugely over-rated.

If you want to try one of those British 'new wave' sci-fi authors go for John M Harrison (Centauri Device, Viriconium) or straight to the originals (Mike Morecock and JG Ballard).

Why do pricks go into cunts?

LOL

Severian

At least one dev might have some taste.

 

[MasPingon]

we had to shorten it by roughly 20% to meet agreements with ATARI

Omfg :/

Conclusion:

Polish dialogs | English dialogs

 

[Lesifoere]

China Mieville is hugely over-rated.

If you want to try one of those British 'new wave' sci-fi authors go for John M Harrison (Centauri Device, Viriconium) or straight to the originals (Mike Morecock and JG Ballard).

I wish. Mieville's obscure to most people and he deserves more recognition. Overrated is Waste of Time (I don't care that Jordan is dead. Authors being dead do not make their shit smell any rosier) and Sword of Tripe and Era-fucking-gon. And RA Salvatore. Ugh.

I tried Moorcock. Loved Dancers at the End of Time beyond all reason; could not stand Elric books because my god, what an emo whining stupid child. Found a cheap copy of the Cornelius stuff, will get around to reading it at some point.

 

[dagorkan]

Those trying to find a good fantasy series should try R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing. I could write a detailed reason, but since this is the Codex, let's hear what the author has to say

I was recommended that book on the Codex and was not impressed

I... er... never thought of Bakker's stuff as "Tolkienesque" in the slightest. Hm.

The way the map looks and the place names are quite 'Silmarillion-ish'.

I wish. Mieville's obscure to most people and he deserves more recognition. Overrated is Waste of Time (I don't care that Jordan is dead. Authors being dead do not make their shit smell any rosier) and Sword of Tripe and Era-fucking-gon. And RA Salvatore. Ugh.

Yeah he's only got his books in every fucking bookshop and was all the "editor's pick" shelves not long ago... He's no Jordan, Eddings or Salvatore but don't say he isn't hyped.

Re: Morecock

Yeah, I agree Elric not that great either (just a few of the stories are worth reading). Try Gloriana, Behold The Man, and some of his really early work. Hawkmoon has a cool setting

 

[Lesifoere]

Really? Mieville doesn't get any special recognition at the local bookstore here (okay, there's maybe a recommendation tag, but that's it). Then again, I live in a tiny town.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

I've never even seen Mieville in any bookstore here.

 

[Nutcracker]

Go fuck yourself, Atari.

Faggots.