City of Heroes Client Translation Project

[Michiyo]

City of Heroes Translation Project

We're working on translating the client-side text of City of Heroes — things like menus, powers / power descriptions, tooltips, and other interface elements.

This project does not include missions or NPC dialog, as those are stored on the server and cannot be modified.

Current Language Support

We currently have machine translations available for:

• Spanish – Download

• French – Download

• German – Download

 

These are also available in the City Mod Installer under the "Languages" category.

 

Spanish and French are already being reviewed and improved by volunteers, but there's still plenty of work to do. German hasn't had any human work yet — if you're fluent or comfortable with it, we’d appreciate the help.

 

Thanks to Archviste for working on the French translations, and Black Jaguar for working on Spanish.  But they can use more help, currently there are ~30k lines, and I've yet to load in powers data.

How to Contribute

If you'd like to help improve translations, you can sign up at https://cityofheroes.dev.
Once logged in, just click "Translation Project" from the main page to get started.

You can contribute as much or as little as you like — even small corrections are useful.

Thanks to everyone who's already contributed. The more eyes we have on these translations, the better the experience will be for players using them.

 

[Archiviste]

Yep, like Michiyo said, I agreed to volunteer (... me and my big mouth...) on this project. I am a native French speaker, but I only played sporadically on the old Vigilance French server, so if any former Vigilance player wants to give me a hand, it would be appreciated - especially when it comes to getting the names of characters (ex, Ghost Widow = "Veuve fantome"?) and concepts (Task Force = "Groupe de travail"? (Beurk on that one, I used "Force de Frappe") right.

[jkwak]

6 hours ago, Archiviste said:

Yep, like Michiyo said, I agreed to volunteer (... me and my big mouth...) on this project. I am a native French speaker, but I only played sporadically on the old Vigilance French server, so if any former Vigilance player wants to give me a hand, it would be appreciated - especially when it comes to getting the names of characters (ex, Ghost Widow = "Veuve fantome"?) and concepts (Task Force = "Groupe de travail"? (Beurk on that one, I used "Force de Frappe") right.

its just my humble opinion and i m a german player not a French one, but i would leave names and such like Ghost Widow and concepts like Task Force untranslated to avoid confusion

on another note, if you want to get even further the loading screens are still there even on the homecoming client



 

[Scarlet Shocker]

Yow ay ploid City of Eros until yow've ploid in thay original YamYam

[Snarky]

Thank you all! I have been studying German for a couple years using apps and YouTube.  I still pretty much am terrible at it lol.  German grammar is a hairy monster for an English native speaker.

 

I want to try this.  What are the procedures for reversing it when I find I cannot understand anything?  

[Michiyo]

Just now, Snarky said:

Thank you all! I have been studying German for a couple years using apps and YouTube.  I still pretty much am terrible at it lol.  German grammar is a hairy monster for an English native speaker.

 

I want to try this.  What are the procedures for reversing it when I find I cannot understand anything?  

Just uninstall the mod.  If you're using the mod installer select it in the installed mods list, and click uninstall.  If you're manually installing mods (but why?) Just delete the .pigg from assets\mods, or wherever you put it.  This makes no permanent changes to your game.  I will warn you the German version is 100% Machine translated, and anything NOT translated is still in English.

[Snarky]

24 minutes ago, Michiyo said:

Just uninstall the mod.  If you're using the mod installer select it in the installed mods list, and click uninstall.  If you're manually installing mods (but why?) Just delete the .pigg from assets\mods, or wherever you put it.  This makes no permanent changes to your game.  I will warn you the German version is 100% Machine translated, and anything NOT translated is still in English.

yeah, and machine translated German is....  well, better than me, but... lol 

 

Still, this will provide enjoyment and opportunity Thank You!

[Archiviste]

14 hours ago, jkwak said:

its just my humble opinion and i m a german player not a French one, but i would leave names and such like Ghost Widow and concepts like Task Force untranslated to avoid confusion

 

Noted. I've received similar feedback from other French players, and I tend to agree.

[-Kobi-]

 

Hi Michiyo,

This is a great initiative, which had previously been taken up by part of the French community but was eventually abandoned due to the sheer amount of work required.

Being able to translate the interface and some basic information will no doubt help retain both new and returning players, especially since,unfortunately, we live up to our reputation when it comes to foreign languages.

 

I’ve started revisiting some of the French translations, which were very literal, in order to make them more contextual.

 

As Archiviste sayed, I believe that proper names and place names shouldn’t be changed, especially since many were designed with English pronunciation in mind and rely on things like  patterns, syllabic repetition (like “Black Brawler”), or references rooted in English-speaking culture. Same goes for location names. The idea is to avoid ending up with a “WoW 2.0” situation, where the translation sometimes went a bit too far.

 

I'll quietly add my own little contribution to the project over time.

Edited June 5 by -Kobi-

[High_Beam]

Me llamo es High Beam

 

...  I barely passed Spanish I in HS; its one of four regrets I have in life, two of which involve language.

[Michiyo]

14 hours ago, Archiviste said:

 

Noted. I've received similar feedback from other French players, and I tend to agree.

 

1 hour ago, -Kobi- said:

 

Hi Michiyo,

This is a great initiative, which had previously been taken up by part of the French community but was eventually abandoned due to the sheer amount of work required.

Being able to translate the interface and some basic information will no doubt help retain both new and returning players, especially since,unfortunately, we live up to our reputation when it comes to foreign languages.

 

I’ve started revisiting some of the French translations, which were very literal, in order to make them more contextual.

 

As Archiviste sayed, I believe that proper names and place names shouldn’t be changed, especially since many were designed with English pronunciation in mind and rely on things like  patterns, syllabic repetition (like “Black Brawler”), or references rooted in English-speaking culture. Same goes for location names. The idea is to avoid ending up with a “WoW 2.0” situation, where the translation sometimes went a bit too far.

 

I'll quietly add my own little contribution to the project over time.

Anything currently translated can be reverted to English by simply copy/pasting the English string over the Translated string.  This way it is still counted as "Translated", and indicates to others that it should be left as is.

[Darkneblade]

This project should be really in Crowdin, also can you include other languages? currently only have 3

[Ridiculous Girl]

to this i can contribute, if needed, as a non-native though fluent in french.

 

i concur that most of names of people and places probably should remain untranslated because those end up being details that can quickly get muddied and personally they get a bit silly and lost in translation. 🙂

[Michiyo]

13 hours ago, Darkneblade said:

This project should be really in Crowdin, also can you include other languages? currently only have 3

Crowdin is only free up to 60,000 words, the main UI file is double that alone.  I can add as many languages I want, I just started with the 3 I've seen the most requests for, and that I thought would be a good place to start.

 

And for folks wondering "Well just how many words can there BE in the client side of the game", right now we're at 196,403 of *JUST* English, and I've not even loaded in the powers data....  There are 33k powers files, I MIGHT be able to sort through it and only include player powers, but they are mixed in with every other power in the game.  The closest I can get on the "Pro" plan on Crowdin is 360k words, for $104 per month, and only one user can be a "manager", really I'd need to go to the "Team" plan, and 400k words, for $204 per month.

[Michiyo]

I've pushed a new version of all three current languages for P2.  This doesn't mean the strings are translated, just they now exist so you won't get missing text in game.  I've built an automated system to build the mods and upload them as well so I can push updates out as folks help with translations.

There are 59 new badge texts to translate, a hand full of new menuMessages strings, and I think that's all for now.

ALSO with this update, I reverted the server names to English.

[DoctorDitko]

Best wishes to you all, this is a worthy project!

 

Sadly, I speak only English, Academic English, and Jargon English. (But I would dearly love to take an editor's pen to some of the late-game missions and dialog. Prolix, thy name is (insert name of real writer contributing for free)!

 

It's like Kevin Smith's comic writing: leave some room for the art, man!

[BlackSpectre]

On 6/5/2025 at 4:41 AM, Ridiculous Girl said:

to this i can contribute, if needed, as a non-native though fluent in french.

 

i concur that most of names of people and places probably should remain untranslated because those end up being details that can quickly get muddied and personally they get a bit silly and lost in translation. 🙂

 

[BlackSpectre]

Nothing is perfect. The first thought that came to mind was “Wouldn’t it be better to assemble a team to fix all of the incorrect power, command, enhancement, recipe, and inspiration descriptions first?” But in all honesty, the bulk of text that needs translating is free of errors and translating it opens up the COH world to players around the world. It’s a good idea.  😀

[WanderingAries]

On 6/3/2025 at 5:36 PM, jkwak said:

its just my humble opinion and i m a german player not a French one, but i would leave names and such like Ghost Widow and concepts like Task Force untranslated to avoid confusion

 

I agree with this one as even in the Tech world, certain terms are "universal" for a reason. Once you start translating, you enter the realm of "why does english have so many words for X?!?". Some words won't even directly translate as well.

 

As for personal contributions, My german is about a dozen words consisting of counting (thank Pink Floyd) and the obligatory "colorful metaphor". My french is more like Franglais. And my spanish is brought to you by vague memories of 80s Sesame Street. I can probably still sing Happy Birthday in Tagalog though.  >.>

[BurnTheWitch]

On 6/3/2025 at 8:11 AM, Archiviste said:

Yep, like Michiyo said, I agreed to volunteer (... me and my big mouth...) on this project. I am a native French speaker, but I only played sporadically on the old Vigilance French server, so if any former Vigilance player wants to give me a hand, it would be appreciated - especially when it comes to getting the names of characters (ex, Ghost Widow = "Veuve fantome"?) and concepts (Task Force = "Groupe de travail"? (Beurk on that one, I used "Force de Frappe") right.

 

Love this,  although my French is pretty bad these days, and certainly not strong enough to do anything well . . 

 

I would think

 

Ghost widow = Araignee Fantome (widow in this case is referring to a black widow spider, so I feel that just using spider is better here.)

 

 

[Raffzahn]

On 6/3/2025 at 4:50 PM, Michiyo said:

City of Heroes Translation Project

We're working on translating the client-side text of City of Heroes — things like menus, powers / power descriptions, tooltips, and other interface elements.

 

 

Lovely. Thanks a lot.  Having a good German translation was one of the (many) highlights of CoH. Will try to help.

 

I still have some reference material for lookup :))

 

(Anyone in need of a buddy key? 🤣)

 

BTW, what happened to the original language files? Could be helpful. 

 

Anyway - thanks a lot for starting this.

[Raffzahn]

On 6/3/2025 at 11:36 PM, jkwak said:

its just my humble opinion and i m a german player not a French one, but i would leave names and such like Ghost Widow and concepts like Task Force untranslated to avoid confusion

 

As usual: Yes, But :))

 

Yes, Names should rarely be translated - but it gets complicated when names are rather descriptive. I for one grew up with "Die Spinne", "Das Ding" (does anyone remember that really low quality print marvel had  around 1970?) and ofc "Supermann".

 

No, I'm not arguing to translate all names, just as a general reminder. Using as much of a target language supports immersion a lot. I've spend way too much time in the US (less in UK) and use English on a daily base for a good 50 yrs. Still, playing CoH worked way better in German than English. No matter how good one handles English as a second language, one's native language always hits harder. Unfamiliar terms are only unfamiliar because they are new, independent of language. Once learned, they seem like the natural ones. That's why people often ague that 'only original is right' - except it isn't. For CoH I assume we're doing this to help new players (after all, anyone playing now can handle the English texts, isn't it?

 

Bottom line: No reason to not translate as much as possible.

 

Especially for core terms.

 

A further area are cultural related terms. While CoH plays on a US background, the original design was rather careful to not include too many US-only tropes. For example fly along some roads and you won't find a lot of signage like on a real US road - especially none of those all text signs cities like to put on every other corner. Or take the street signs at tunnels between quarters. They show a number for distance, but no qualifier.  That way it works independent of distance units used 🙂

 

(BTW: it would be nice to get marker distance again noted in meter and km)

 

I just peeked into the translation tool and right the second badge string (for attending Manticore's Wedding) brings a nice example:

 

Quote

{Hero.gender=male Best Man|Maid of Honor}

 

Those titles are based on a cultural concept only partially fitting German tradition. Even more complicated by the fact that a direct translation (Trauzeuge/Brautjungfer) is not only rather old fashioned but also differs in various German regions (like Braut/Bräutigamführer in Switzerland). More common understood would be Trauzeuge/Trauzeugin for a somewhat similar function (Not to mention that these functions are also no longer required by law :)). So what to use?

 

Translation is never as easy as it seems.

 

(I' go with Trauzeuge/Trauzeugin).

 

Badges are a great source here - including examples where not to translate: For example the Man in Black badge. Not so much as the German term is bad, but rather as it's a word play with the topic of that badge (capturing aliens) - a term well known outside of CoH (and outside the US) due those neat films (There are only 3!).

 

 

Anyway, lovely project, will try to help.

Edited 8 hours ago by Raffzahn

[Raffzahn]

@Michiyo Two questions:

 

a) Is it possible to change a text alignment? Most notable for the nav bar menue. German texts are a bit longer wich results in a rather ugly rendering. Visible right at the login screen

 

 

Or at the nav-bar

 

(Will try to change the most obvious cases to a shorter/more appropriate text)

Back in the days the text boxes got adjusted to what was shown.

 

 

b) A more general question: Formal "Sie" or informal "Du" when addressing the player? Right now the automatic translated texts use both on a seemingly random base.

 

Edited 7 hours ago by Raffzahn

[jkwak]

1 hour ago, Raffzahn said:

 

As usual: Yes, But :))

[wall of text i could quote but that takes to much space]

 

my personal opinion here, i would try to look what names and concepts and such where translated in the live version of the game and which notm but there is a second problem that only things client side get translated sooo... lets say we translate Ghost Widow in to Geist Witwe (wasnt translated on Live but lets pretend we do it anyway), then we would have texts which are client side and mention her refer to her as Geist Witwe while everything coming from the server side would still call her Ghost Widow, we would just have confused players running around looking for Geist Witwe wondering who on gods green earth that is and where to find her

Edited 7 hours ago by jkwak