I'd like the game to have a built in spell check, as long as it's not auto correct.

Just being able to check that you spelled something right without having to tab out or use a seperate device... Or sit there with a dictionary, I guess.

ConundrumofFurballs wrote:

In composition, we have multiple stages of review, as well as people whose entire role with us is as a copy editor. Between the reviews and the editors, nearly everything is caught. Some things will get through, that's just the nature of life, but we're doing our best to catch them. 3 stages of review before anything is officially approved, at least one copy editor, and being posted on our wiki (our wiki boys are good at reading through everything to find all the possible links they can make, which means they catch most of the stuff that slips through as well). However, given the volume of content being generated, some typos will slip past.

Again it's reasonable to assume you're going to do your best to catch every typo and it's also reasonable to assume there will be a few typos that will slip through. No one's perfect.

But I would ask this of you on behalf of the future players of CoT: If you ever get a report about a "typo" that a player has found in the game will you at least do your best to correct those as soon as reasonably possible? The reason I ask this is there have been games in the past (even CoH) where people have noticed and continually reported typos that either -never- get fixed or only finally get fixed after months or even years. Again no one's going to fault you for making a mistake or two. But people WILL fault you for not bothering to fix easily correctable mistakes in a timely fashion.

ConundrumofFurballs wrote:

Any typos that are pointed out should be fixed as soon as is reasonable. If it is within my ability to control, corrections will be made as soon as they are reported (or at least as soon as they make their way to the comp department). I cannot promise that things will be fixed from the players' perspective immediately; it likely wouldn't take effect until the next update.

Sure... by the next update is fine. I'm just saying such things shouldn't take months, years or even never get fixed.

Planet10 wrote:

As "easy" as it might seem to just correct a typo, there is more to it than that. As stupid as it might sound, the work to update a string (and there might be multiple instances of it or it might get reused in multiple areas) has to be budgeted against other fixes like crashes, holes in the map, etc. If their dev group is refined enough, there should also be a verification loop that occurs before the changes get released. Yes it is important to catch simple things like typos because they get a fair bit of visibility, but other things can and will take priority. That is why it is important to get as much iterative testing done early to catch these thing. Unfortunately, the manner in which MWM is coding and integrating probably will not allow for that kind of thorough up front testing.

It will be important for whatever bug feedback loop they setup to at least acknowledge that a typo exists and is on their radar so they don't get 397 instances of the same bug flooding their system. Also if there is a commonly encountered bug that will not get immediately fixed, a suggested work around (or how to avoid the problem) would be helpful.

Obviously typos in game text are relatively minor bugs and (gods forbid) aren't usually game breaking. This (again obviously) is why they often get overlooked by the Devs who are understandably busy enough fixing "real bugs".

But as you yourself implied typos can actually become far more "visible/annoying" than their relative severity would otherwise warrant. Or put more simply people tend to focus/harp on silly little bugs like that rather than more serious issues that might not be as apparent. The Devs are always going to be called out for what [b]doesn't[/b] get fixed even if that stuff is the least critical.

Bottomline the Devs of CoT simply need to do their best [b]before[/b] launch to avoid such things. I seriously don't expect to see more than a small handful of text typos regardless. I'm just hoping this Dev team is willing to understand that "visible small" bugs can sometimes be more detrimental to the overall public relations of a game than "invisible big" bugs might be and as such can't always be readily dismissed as unimportant. MWM can't really afford to earn -any- kind of negative reputation, even that of producing a sloppily edited game.

Planet10 wrote:

If there are only a handful of typos, that won't be very detrimental. If you misspell something that looks like an honest typing error, not a huge deal. If you have a typo in your lore or a main storyline that could be a significant problem as that could mislead or confuse the user. If the typos appear in highly visible areas (something you see frequently like a loading or login screen) that ventures into detrimental because it looks unprofessional. If someone exhibits prolific spelling errors through a multitude of areas that would be a huge problem.

Again I'm going to blissfully assume the only few typos we find in this category will be in randomly far-flung mission text. If we see typos on the login screen then MWM has some serious trouble on their hands.

Planet10 wrote:

A bigger problem / issue occurs when the text is translated into other languages. You can run into so many more problems (overflowing dialogs, failure to render, improper or poor translations, etc).

Yes this is where the notion of "badly edited text" can transition from simply being annoying to actually game-breaking. Clearly if the game text is translated to other languages care will have to be taken to make sure it fits properly within data structures, dialogs and GUI displays.

Planet10 wrote:

There is another possibility, the intentional slang / typo / shorthand / lingo to give character to the conversation or to contextualize something that was observed second hand. If things are nitpicked, language like this could get misreported and just generate needless noise.

Yes I suppose there could even be cases of "false positives" where people might reasonably think the Devs dropped typos in places where they actually intended the text to appear in certain ways for "flavor" purposes. I suppose if it's not well handled then the Devs could get a bunch of bug reports about it.

There's pretty much no way the Devs could prevent people from reporting those cases so I'd leave it up to the Devs to determine how much tolerance they want to maintain with that. For instance if they have a "slang" scenario where they only get a few reports a month on it they might just let is slide. But if it's something they get dozens of reports a day on then the Devs might (for their own sake) decide to clean it up a bit.

Lord Nightmare wrote:

Ultima (2 I think it was) had a similar typo error in that a specific password that was given to the player somewhere in the last leg of the game was the [i]correct[/i] spelling but the actual invocation of it when needed had to be misspelled, leading to a pseudo-unwinnable scenario if you didn't know about this error or didn't happen to get it wrong accidentally.

Given that some Ultima games required you to use an undocumented command on a seemingly random NPC after performing a series of seemingly unrelated tasks... This seems pretty par for the course.

cloganart wrote:

Some of our code is also case sensitive.

Oh man, that's always a nightmare.

Riptide wrote:

Whenever I see these lines of discussion, it reminds of a typo-issue related to my work as a drug analyst.
When MDMA (ecstasy) and related designer drugs first became a big problem in the 90's the state of Alabama rushed to add it to their controlled substance list, but when they decided on a threshold weight for a trafficking charge they misspelled it. Instead of 3-4, methylenedioxymethamphetamine, they put in 3-4, methylenedioxyamphetamine (without the "meth" before the amphetamine part).
The misspelled version, is a real compound, MDA, but one that has never been seen in casework in this state.
There is [i]still[/i] no trafficking charge for MDMA in the state of Alabama.

Although, in fairness, MDMA has all but disappeared here and been replaced with far nastier stuff in the form of Spice (synthetic cannabinoids) and the so-called "bath salts" (subsituted cathinones and tryptamines).

So this sounds just like a text typo in a computer game - the mistake was made, probably everyone who cares about it is aware of it and it still hasn't been corrected in the law for years. ;)

Just as a side question is the MDA compound something that could effectively be an "illegal street drug" as well or does it really have no value as something anyone would want to use as a "drug" in the layman's sense (like ecstasy, cocaine, etc.)?

Riptide wrote:

It could be. But just as amphetamine is much less potent than methamphetamine, the MDA is much less potent than MDMA and thus, less desired.

Unlike methamphetamine, where all you need is some cash and access to a Wal Mart to make, the skill needed to make either MDA or MDMA is pretty specialized so the people who manufacture(d) it were in pretty much complete control of the market.

That makes sense - if it takes some serious skill/infrastructure to make either MDA or MDMA for illegal trafficking you might as well only bother with the more "marketable" of the two. It's like a person might be able to make "illegal aspirin" in their basement but who would buy it. ;)

Cinnder wrote:

Riptide wrote:

Whenever I see these lines of discussion, it reminds of a typo-issue related to my work as a drug analyst.
When MDMA (ecstasy) and related designer drugs first became a big problem in the 90's the state of Alabama rushed to add it to their controlled substance list, but when they decided on a threshold weight for a trafficking charge they misspelled it. Instead of 3-4, methylenedioxymethamphetamine, they put in 3-4, methylenedioxyamphetamine (without the "meth" before the amphetamine part).
The misspelled version, is a real compound, MDA, but one that has never been seen in casework in this state.
There is [i]still[/i] no trafficking charge for MDMA in the state of Alabama.

Although, in fairness, MDMA has all but disappeared here and been replaced with far nastier stuff in the form of Spice (synthetic cannabinoids) and the so-called "bath salts" (subsituted cathinones and tryptamines).

I'm surprised Vince Gilligan didn't work this into Breaking Bad somehow. :-)

Well MDMA is a Schedule I drug under the DEA-enforced Controlled Substances Act so that would cover trafficking MDMA in all states, including Alabama. That's probably why there's been no rush to "fix" the state-level mistake there.

The net effect is that Alabama is technically specifically prohibiting a drug (MDA) that apparently no one really uses in an illegal manner to any significant degree.

OathboundOne wrote:

While not particularly relevant to the topic, mention of spellchecking makes me think of this poem my high school English teacher had (some variation of) on her wall:

Candidate for a Pullet Surprise
by Mark Eckman and Jerrold H. Zar

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your sure reel glad two no.
Its vary polished in it's weigh.
My checker tolled me sew.

A checker is a bless sing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right awl stiles two reed,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The checker pours o'er every word
To cheque sum spelling rule.

Bee fore a veiling checker's
Hour spelling mite decline,
And if we're lacks oar have a laps,
We wood bee maid too wine.

Butt now bee cause my spelling
Is checked with such grate flare,
Their are know fault's with in my cite,
Of nun eye am a wear.

Now spelling does knot phase me,
It does knot bring a tier.
My pay purrs awl due glad den
With wrapped word's fare as hear.

To rite with care is quite a feet
Of witch won should bee proud,
And wee mussed dew the best wee can,
Sew flaw's are knot aloud.

Sow ewe can sea why aye dew prays
Such soft wear four pea seas,
And why eye brake in two averse
Buy righting want too pleas.

You never told us you knew how to speak Amerikatt! That's a rare skill! :p