So, reading RPG books, you see little snippets of language and crap.
Russian instances can be dumb. The written language is based on Greek (because religion and shit), and it figuratively is Greek to a lot of people. (Despite the importance of the Greeks to Western civilization, fewer people to the west of Greece give a rat's butt about Greek. Whatever.)
I am reading the ALIEN RPG Colonial Marines Ops Manual, and the book mentions the dreaded "heomopf" in relation to the Sino-Russian faction.
"Heomopf"
This should be (in Cyrillic)... "неоморф".
This would be anglicized as "neomorph".
NOT "HEOMOPF". What the heck is a "heomopf"?!
In Greek and in Cyrillic, it is the same got-dang word as it is in Roman script because Neo- ("new") and -morph ("shape") in the got-dang Greek language. The word is GREEK-derived, not English.
Neomorph! You cretins!
It refers to the exact same alien. Not a "heomopf", but a neomorph. The f-ing root language is the same, just with different letters.
It's just f-ing annoying to see idiot language like this.
Reminds me of someone telling me about the CANTA shotgun he bought.
He meant SAIGA. I guess a cap gamma looks sort of like a T and you see a backwards N and think oh poor thing must have flipped over, I'll just fix it. LOL
This was a minor plot point in Murder on the Orient Express: "Why are we finding all these N's and one H?"
It was a major plot point in an original Simon Templar story. A murdered man's last act was to write "COP" in his own blood. Everybody was looking for a policeman as the murderer when someone casually mentioned the dead man was Russian. Simon: "OH!" and pointed out the character SORan as the murderer.
My personal favorite is telling people that when a Russian wants to out to dinner, he goes to a "Pectopah". :D
The problem is that Cyrillic script looks close to English, but it really isn't.
Trying to read it may make you feel like you're dyslexic, as a result.
Lack of skilled proofreading is always a bad sign.
A lot of games seem that way, with a lack of proofreading and actual testing.
I don't know if people playtest these things or they're just there to give money/provide glowing fan reports (instead of actual test feedback).
I find fakey sounding Russian charming honestly.
The funny thing is that 'Neo' and 'Morph' are both still pretty english terms. They don't exist or mean anything in Russian.
Neo, as in new, is 'Noh-Vih' in pronounciation. Morph is either 'Mee-Nyate' or 'Prevro-Shatsa', but can't really be used in the same way as 'morph'.
'Oborot-teyn', is a standall for 'Shapechanger'. 'Choo-zhiye' means 'Foriegners', but is the more accurate use of 'Alien'. But you can't really mix russian terms together to make new words like you can in english, at leats not in the same way.
If I where to make a russian equivalent of 'Xenomorph', we would take say..Xeno (Foriegn) and 'Morph' (change). So a foriegn thing that changes you.
My idea would be for 'Preda-Vesha' from the russian words of 'Traitor' (Predatel) and 'Monster/Thing' (Choodo-vesha). So the idea is that its a monster that makes your body betray yourself.
Quote from: bromides on June 08, 2022, 12:10:28 PM
A lot of games seem that way, with a lack of proofreading and actual testing.
I don't know if people playtest these things or they're just there to give money/provide glowing fan reports (instead of actual test feedback).
In my opinion, I don't think these companies do as much playtesting as one would think. If they outside playtest at all!
Pazio is fairly notorious for soliciting feedback in their paid-for playtests, then in spite of feedback, doing pretty much what they want anyway...
Most of 5e's playtest feedback questions consisted of: "Is this fun?"
Modiphius 2d20 Conan got a lot of system feed back, especially concerning the GM doom pool. They ignored it and did what they wanted to anyway.
WFRP 4e; C7 chose not to do blind playtesting at all...
Pundit's Lion and Dragon rules - and a few other RPGSite's poster's homebrew rules have probably seen more actual playtesting than many "professionally" published RPG game systems...
Quote from: bromides on June 08, 2022, 12:10:28 PM
A lot of games seem that way, with a lack of proofreading and actual testing.
I don't know if people playtest these things or they're just there to give money/provide glowing fan reports (instead of actual test feedback).
I can confirm that FFG just wanted "glowing fan reports" from their playtesters. Any significant feedback tended to be ignored.
Bad Russian is even more noticeable as primary English, but native Russian speaker. I particularly despise when something could have been left vague and technically correct, but the writer feels the need to be specific and wrong about. White Wolf's Scion comes to mind with Katyusha rockets in Afghanistan. Makes as little sense as a saying M4 Shermans in Desert Storm. A Savage Worlds one shot was also "creative" enough to name a ship Chernobyl's Revenge to hint that the secret cargo might be a nuclear device, not that a ship would ever be named that, nor does the ship's name have anything to do with the cargo. I wonder it they would have put a chemical weapon aboard Bhopal's Revenge. Videogames are another level of hell, although I remember Battlefield being much better than COD about it.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 08, 2022, 10:58:12 AM
The problem is that Cyrillic script looks close to English, but it really isn't.
Trying to read it may make you feel like you're dyslexic, as a result.
That's.... Actually perfectly true. It does describe how I felt looking at Russian text, never put it that way tho.
QuoteThe funny thing is that 'Neo' and 'Morph' are both still pretty english terms. They don't exist or mean anything in Russian.
Neo, as in new, is 'Noh-Vih' in pronounciation. Morph is either 'Mee-Nyate' or 'Prevro-Shatsa', but can't really be used in the same way as 'morph'.
'Oborot-teyn', is a standall for 'Shapechanger'. 'Choo-zhiye' means 'Foriegners', but is the more accurate use of 'Alien'. But you can't really mix russian terms together to make new words like you can in english, at leats not in the same way.
I think Russian can adapt forms that are Greek based, due to it's influences on Russian Orthodoxy.
I think I would go with - Novoforma.
Quote from: Wrath of God on June 10, 2022, 08:12:49 PM
QuoteThe funny thing is that 'Neo' and 'Morph' are both still pretty english terms. They don't exist or mean anything in Russian.
Neo, as in new, is 'Noh-Vih' in pronounciation. Morph is either 'Mee-Nyate' or 'Prevro-Shatsa', but can't really be used in the same way as 'morph'.
'Oborot-teyn', is a standall for 'Shapechanger'. 'Choo-zhiye' means 'Foriegners', but is the more accurate use of 'Alien'. But you can't really mix russian terms together to make new words like you can in english, at leats not in the same way.
I think Russian can adapt forms that are Greek based, due to it's influences on Russian Orthodoxy.
I think I would go with - Novoforma.
The real question is whether xenomorph would get transliterated into Russian, or just called something else all together. Acid-Beast would be a fitting description and kislotnyy zver' does not sound half bad, probably shortened to kislo-zver'. The Russian name for something need not follow the English nomenclature for it.
Russian Wiki use Чужой/Chuzhoj (Alien) and ксеномо́рф (Xenomorf).
Quote from: bromides on June 08, 2022, 12:10:28 PM
A lot of games seem that way, with a lack of proofreading and actual testing.
I remember seeing this line in WFRP 2nd edition, which had a similar lack of research behind it:
Quote
Of every thousand babies born, perhaps one may possess a talent with magic. Of every thousand with talent, one may have a remarkable talent, and for every ten thousand with a remarkable talent, there may be one powerful enough to become one of the legendary Battle Wizards.
I'm guessing they just made up those numbers to sound cool, but I couldn't help doing the maths in my head: 1 in every 10 billion people has the potential to be a battle wizard. Yet there are plenty of battle wizards in the Empire. Which has me wondering just what the population of that analogue of medieval Germany is. Based on those figures, I'm guessing it must be about 100 000 times the population of modern-day Germany.