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The HUD is a great idea, however impracticle when...

Sezja M's picture

... you don't speak or cannot read English.

I have many many Russian friends here in SL and they're all absolutely crazy about them. My fiancee and I both have a stump and enjoy learning about them and we enjoy being able to pass out a copy of our HUD to our friends so they can kind of get a 'sneak peek' of how they work, what they do and various other components the HUD is used for. However, though English is usually taught in school in Russia, most who do not practice it outside of the classroom, don't remember but the utmost rudimentary (if that) English. (Remember when you took that language class back in high school? And...how much can you remember now? LoL...it's my point) I cannot think of a fix for this unless you somehow plugged google translate ability into it (and to be honest - google translate botches Russian horribly... to the point of 'pick me up and snuggle me' sounds more like a beastiallity request). I know of a better translator online for Russian and it's the most accurate because it was written by a Russian, however I don't see any way of plugging this into the HUD either. I don't have a solution, but there is a problem. If non-English speakers cannot read or understand the HUD, then it becomes almost impossible for them to play except at a very minimal level. We, of course, translate it as much as possible when we share our HUDs but we can't know everyone and can't help everyone either. Russian aside, there are tons of people in other languages who also will have the same problem.

Perhaps, as an option, there can be not so much as HUDs in different languages, but a translated guide/pictures for various languages. It would have to be written by someone who thoroughly understand the game 100% and how the HUD works. It's not an answer for how they're going to read the Oracle questions, but at least they can understand more better the use of the HUD. I'm open to help and open to suggestions for a fix for this because so many friends and their friends and their friends friends want them very badly when released.

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