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Team: iwnh
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Post Use words like Spacebase, Galaxy etc. in mission texts
In the video review of Star Sonata someone did recently they mentioned the wording around some mission text sounding like it was not written by someone who's first language was English
Quote:
Report to Earthforce Command in Earthforce Outpost

If you haven't played the game much that wording might not make a lot of sense.


Thu Feb 23, 2017 11:15 pm
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Team: Axis Industries
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Post Re: Use words like Spacebase, Galaxy etc. in mission texts
I don't think text like that is a problem. This first quote is how the grammar you mentioned is written for another item, in this case, a television show.

Quote:
Report to Fred Flintstone in Bedrock.


As you can see, Fred Flintstone is the name of an object.

Quote:
Report to the Fred Flintstone in Bedrock.


This is what I believe you are trying to correct that particular piece of text to. As Fred is a unique object, we don't say "the". We just give the name of said unique object.

If we were going to say:

Quote:
Report to the person in Bedrock.


Then "the" would be the correct word for the job. Though, in that case, because there are so many people, this sentence does not make sense. Which person?

Quote:
Report to the red building in Bedrock.


Assuming there is exactly one red building in Bedrock, this sentence makes sense.

In the case of that particular case, Earthforce Command is the name of a station in the galaxy Earthforce Outpost. Maybe the sentence can be rewritten as:

Quote:
Report to Earthforce Command station in Earthforce Outpost galaxy.


But that sounds a little redundant because some station names have station on the end and some galaxies have galaxy on the end.

A sentence like:

Quote:
Report to Merchant Guild Repair Station station in Baade's Galaxy galaxy


Sounds a little on the silly side for the sake of grammar correctness. There has to be some seriously butthurt people present in our target audience to get upset over:

Quote:
Report to Merchant Guild Station in Baade's Galaxy.


To actually want to explain to people that Merchant Guild Station is a station and needs to be identified as a station in the text beyond its name that clearly already identifies Merchant Guild Station as a station, and that Baade's Galaxy is a galaxy and needs to be identified as a galaxy in the text beyond its name that clearly already identifies Baade's Galaxy as a galaxy.


Fri Feb 24, 2017 12:23 am
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Post Re: Use words like Spacebase, Galaxy etc. in mission texts
Max235 wrote:
To actually want to explain to people that Merchant Guild Station is a station and needs to be identified as a station in the text beyond its name that clearly already identifies Merchant Guild Station as a station, and that Baade's Galaxy is a galaxy and needs to be identified as a galaxy in the text beyond its name that clearly already identifies Baade's Galaxy as a galaxy.

So you would say that if the instructions for docking at a station in a galaxy contain the words station and galaxy once we're all good? I'm glad we agree mate :)


Fri Feb 24, 2017 1:55 am
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Post Re: Use words like Spacebase, Galaxy etc. in mission texts
Infact if you don't pay attention to galaxy names and station names (and trust me, new players won't, a majority of them will want to just get into action and skim the crap text), they wont remember that they have to go to X spacebase at Y galaxy and they'll look at the mission text as if it's foreign language until they either manage to work it out....or they ask general chat.

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Fri Feb 24, 2017 2:26 am
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