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Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben English Translation Mod (G2DNdR ETM) - version 1.0b1 (BETA)

May 20th 2004


Finally, is here! The english translation of Gothic II's addon: Die Nacht des Raben is offered to you by Gothic II Addon's Translation Team (G2ATT): Tiamat (adonys13@yahoo.com) - scripting, translating, modding and package; Gornsbestmate, Xerxes712, Spunior, Draakan, Eloroi - translating; Fallenadi, Dawil, Whailor - additional help and support.

This is the result of ONE full month of hard work from G2aTT members, which voluteered and offered their free time to make something which Gothic 2's publishers should have done a long time ago. We had enough waiting months after months for the english/international version of the game and tons of unanswered yet simple questions: WHEN? WHEN? WHEN? Atari didn't do it ... JoWooD didn't do it ... so WE had to do it by ourselves!

If you are one from Atari or JoWooD corporations, please make sure that will never happen again: it's bad marketing, and WE are the ones which give you money for the game, so please show us a little respect, we didn't asked for anything more! Uhm... oh yeah, we did: WE WANT GOTHIC III !!!


G2DNdR ETM

The Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben English Translation Mod is a public BETA version of a Gothic II addon's Die Nacht des Raben mod. A very solid beta version, but still a BETA. Look in the VERSION HISTORY section to see current's version modifications.

As G2DNdR ETM it is a 3rd party mod, Atari, JoWooD and Piranha Bytes do not provide support for this file and no one should try to contact them about it. You can find bellow (in the BUG REPORTS and KNOWN BUGS / ISSUES section) all the info regarding known bugs/issues and how to report them to G2aTT. That will help us nail the bugs and make a better G2DNdR ETM for all of us.

Also, please make sure you're having both original Gothic II and Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben games, and you'd better buy the future official addon's english version too (for its full english voice acting and to support Piranha Bytes)!


LEGAL NOTE

As it is clearely stated in the G2aTT_License.txt licence text file, this mod needs to be used only with the original version of the software it's designed for. If you don't own a legal copy of Gothic II and Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben then you'll break the law by installing and using this mod too!

ALso, this mod can NOT be used in any form of comercial use, in part or as a whole, without its author written accept (as it's tsateted, again, in the G2aTT_License.txt licence text file). I guess you all know why we're needing to clearly say this...


LEGAL ASPECTS

Regarding the legal aspects of this translation mod, we can tell you that we used Gothic II's own mod kit to do it. It would have never been working otherwise (as it would have been a nightmare to hex edit Gothic II's data files to do it). And the mod kit was EXPRESSELLY released for 3rd party developers (ie Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben software owners) to can make and release their own modifications to the original game.

We couldn't find any statement (not in mod kit's Licence or in whatever else file from it, nor on mod kit's site) which let be known that the mods aren't legally allowed to be in other languages than german, or that some specific modifications to the original software aren't allowed (like this english translation mod one).

Maybe we didn't noticed it, and if this is the case, then any official from Atari, JoWooD or Piranha Bytes who see this is asked to contact us showing us where it's stated that a modification like this isn't legally allowed in order to immediatelly stop the distribution of this mod!

As G2DNdR ETM it's a 3rd party mod, Atari, JoWooD and Piranha Bytes do not provide support for this file and no one should try to contact them about it.

Also, Realms of Torment / Mourning game don't have anything in common with this mod, excepting the fact they kindly offered their assistance (and bandwith) to hosting it for all Gothic series fans! Any official from Atari, JoWooD or Prianha Bytes who see this mod hosted on their site and think this mod is illegal is asked to immediatelly contact them in order to stop the distribution of this mod at once!


REQUIREMENTS

Is VERY important to take note that G2DNdR ETM and the G2aTT absolutelly DON'T support software piracy, under no excuses or circumstancies. It's a must for you to own the original both Gothic II and Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben software in order to use it! If you're not, think twice, as what you're doing is not only breaking the law, but also hurting Piranha Bytes, the ones who developed this awesome game, and diserve better than that!

Both legal and moral aspects of this should prevent you from doing that, but anyway, if you'll think otherwise, then you'll break the law again, as the original Gothic II and Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben software are required to can play this mod too (as it is expreselly stated in the G2aTT_License.txt file)!


RECOMANDATIONS

We strongly adivce you (even if that would be a choice of your own), to also support this german series developer and its international release version by buying the future english version of Gothic II addon's, Die Nacht des Raben. This mod is only a subtitle one, and can't be better than the future full voice-acted official one, which will worth each penny you'll spent on it! So, if you really like this series immersion magic, and also want to support Piranha Bytes to continue this series, we think you should definatelly buy this future addon's english version!


INSTALLATION

You need to have the Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben installed and patched to the latest version (which is v 2.6). IF you don't, then do that first, then run the G2aTT-DNdR ETM installer. The installer should autodetect your G2aTT-DNdR installation folder, if not, please press the Browse button and selectit by yourself.

The G2aTT-DNdR ETM installer have everything is needed to run it as a Gothic II mod (you don't need to have any Gothic II modkit version to run it, as the installer contains the v 2.6a GothicStarter.exe and GothicGame.ini files).


UNINSTALLING

Just run the G2aTT-G2TNoTR Uninstall.exe from your main Gothic II installation folder. That little program will do everything for you!


RUNNING

As it is provided as a mod, the G2aTT-DNdR ETM doesn't harm in any way your original german Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben installation. All you need to do start the game is to run the GothicStarter.exe program from the System subfolder of your main Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben installation folder. Once started, you can choose if you want to run the original german Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben game, G2aTT-DNdR ETM or any other Gothic II mod you have installed.


BUG REPORTS

As G2DNdR ETM it is a 3rd party mod, Atari, JoWooD and Piranha Bytes do not provide support for this file and no one should try to contact them about it.

Please use the adonys13@yahoo.com email address instead for bug reports and support, and make sure that the email's subject is "G2aTT-DNdR ETM bug submission/support requirement". Try to avoid report as bugs the adapted translations, just report the translation if their general meaning is different than the german original one. Be carefull to make a precise mention regarding places / time / persons / situations in which you noticed the bug.


KNOWN BUGS / ISSUES

Sometimes the subtitles aren't displayed enough time for one to can read them in good conditions, that's a Gothic 2 issue (the subtitle for a certain dialog line is displayed as long as the sound file for that specific line is played - and in very rare cases the english subtitle is a little bit longer than th egerman one, causing the text to be scrolled faster than it should).

As we couldn't find any way to activate the subtitles during the movie playbacks, we had to make a little "hack" and add some new code lines to some script in order to make Xardas say in game (via dialog discussion) what he's telling in addon's intro movie too. So, if you think that's a bug, think twice before reporting it!

Also, we found out that there are some other movie subtitles for another addon movie (different than the intro one), if you manage to locate it, please let us know about it. Those lines looks like this:

(erstaunt) ... Menschen?
(abfällig) Menschen sind schwach.
(abfällig) Nur allzu leicht erliegen sie den Verlockungen des Bösen.
Dabei lassen sie sich mit Mächten ein, die sie nicht verstehen, geschweige denn kontrollieren können.
Jene, die standhaft im Glauben sind, haben den Kampf gegen den Feind bereits begonnen.

(surprised) ... Humans?
(arrogant) Humans are weak.
(arrogant) Only too fast do they fall victim to the tempation of evil.
Trying to deal with forces they can't understand, not to mention control.
Those who are pure in their belief have already started fighting the enemy.


VERSION HISTORY

v 1.0b1

- Fixed the infamous description "Mana bonus" - "Bonus for maximum Hitpoints" interchange bug! Also chaged Hitpoints in Health.
- Lab water bottle became Lab Flask.
- Fixed german names for common people (ie Worker instead Arbeiter etc).
- Corrected armors' displayed characteristics in armor buying dialog options to the actual in game values.
- Changed Steintafel translation from Stoneplate to Stone Tablet.
- Changed Beschworener translation from Sworn to Summoned for some mobs.
- And a few minor other ones...

v 1.0b

- First G2DNdR ETM public beta released version


DEVELOPMENT KIT

This mod wasn't done by brutal force (hex-editing Gothic II Die Nacht des Raben's data files), but working with the script files provided by Gothic II's mod kit. We marked inside its own scripts all the texts which needed translation, gathered all of them in a few big dump files, translated those dump files and then injected them back into Gothic II's marked script files (using automatic parsing scripts specially developed for this purpose by us).

What all that means? Well, it means it's EXTREMLY simple to make now professional translations of this game in any other languages. You don't need to bother to hunt needing translation lines through Gothic II's script files, as they are all gathered in the same place.

Anyone interested is welcome to contact us.


CONTACT

You can find us lurking in here http://www.realmsoftorment/forums or here http://www.rpgdot.com/phpBB2/index.php?c=3 . Also, you can contact Tiamat using adonys13@yahoo.com email address or his Yahoo Messenger ID.


FINAL WORDS

Thank you Piranha Bytes, you made our day by developing this game and releasing the mod kit!
For Atari and JoWooD... well, we thanked you all the time during our long-late-night-hours work at this translation mod. If your heads hurt bad in this last month... now you know why :PPP


Yours,

Gothic II addon's Translation Team

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