In the last weeks i began to play DK with the 1.3 patch and the spanish translation pack, and soon i realise there are some problems with them. I created some bugs here in that time but at the same time i use that to do some research about how the translations works, the content of all the transations packs and, in my case, the original content of the game in spanish.

First of all, i realised the Spanish translation originally is a little mess for some reason. But i see too the other ones has problems too, and all of them has a heavy problem with the content of the game in every translation. Let me explain:

I see that first with ~~#196~~, when in e1m3a, playing the game in Spanish, one of the prisoner say a line in other languages (German (Voice) and English (Text)) instead in Spanish. I realised first, the german voice is for some original problem with the original 1.2 spanish patch (i will talk about this later) but the text is because that line doesn't exist in the Spanish version of the game. I tried the original 1.2 spanish Daikatana, and that dialog of the prisoner doesn't happens at all, maybe, because the spanish publisher deleted some dialogs of the game for budget purposes. That brought me to see the content of all the translations packs, and comparing it with the original files. Talking only with amount of files in the subtitles folder packed in pak1.pak and in the translations packs, we have:

Pak1.pak English 1.2: 1380 files.
Pak1.pak Spanish 1.2: 738 files.
Spanish Pack Translation: 737 files.
Italian Pack Translation: 723 files.
German Pack Translation: 742 files.
French Pack Translation: 267 files (!).

With the actual packs, we have a game what is trying to access (a lot of) files there aren't there, and never weren't, but can be created and restored as a fan upgraded translation. And can be upgraded the english text too, related to the voices.

The thing is, through here, if we can do a work to audit the files, have all information of what is missing in every translation (including something about the original translation), and maybe post all the information in the Daikatana 1.3 Wiki somehow, and if some people want to do the work, post the upgrade translation alongside the official one, for not mixing the original work with the fan work, although they could be delivered in the same zip file.

Details

UI Texts

Although images needs to be packed with the translations, seeing how works when you do some UI text changes, seems the UI texts should be stored with the Patch and not in the translation packs, if i'm not mistaken. So, the UI text should be fixed one by one via bugtracker (like ~~#197~~)

Subtitles

I extracted all Subtitles folder of all translations packs, the original subtitles folder from pak1.pak (1.2 GOG version) and the pak1.pak subtitles folder from the original spanish 1.2 version (the spanish translation pack is a diff of this version).

I did a little script to compare what files are missing in two directory trees to have a list (for the Wiki) and, with little changes in that script, i can have a folder with only the no coincident files copied, to have the files what need to be translated in every translation pack and are actually missing compared with the english version, to make it easy to translators.
This can be useful to the english version too, because there are voice files without subtitles (#19) and with the same script can be listed. If you do that, the translations have to be updated with the translated versions of these files too.
It could be useful to know what every kind of subtitles is for what, for priorities reasons. I said that because all subtitles (and voice files too) have a filename with some kind of "codes" of what content have (Examples: e1m1_ebi_01.mp3.txt is the 1º line of Ebihara in the intro (e1m1), but there are others like noname_hiro_01.mp3.txt, sid_m_XX.mp3.txt, sid_s_XX.mp3.txt, sid_s_push_getoffme.mp3.txt in the Spanish version, and other there are only in the English version like cmd_mi_pu_XX.mp3.txt, e1_armedguard_XX.mp3.txt, e1_ct_XX.mp3.txt, m_cmd_attack_XX.mp3.txt and a lot of others what i can have a clue about what they are but i'm not sure, and should be useful to know).
Related with the two last ones, something i realized with the script: there are some subtitles files in the 1.2 spanish version where there aren't in the 1.2 english version (!). I realized too there is one missing subtitles file in the spanish translation pack comparing it with the 1.2 spanish version (see ~~#204~~). That's why should be good to have a list of the problematic files for seeing what they are, and seeing why they are missing in between two languages.
About the "packaging" of the translations, i think the original translation and a fan translation shouldn't be mixed. Maybe can be shared in the same zip file, but in two paks (like a pak44.pak for the original translation, and a pak45.pak or something like that for the expanded/upgraded files) to have the ability to work above the original translation, and not change it directly, without mixing.

Voices

With the voices, we can't do anything to restore the missing voices for obvious reasons, but we can have a list of missing audios, and to fix a lot of S_StartMP3() Warnings with the missing files (at least in spanish, i have a lot of them since i was with SuperFly), we can create a bunch of silent mp3s or a fix like that to avoid that problem. There are some bug related to missing audio files (like #35) but i don't know if it's related with this.
It's should be important too to audit the audio files, because, for example, in Spanish there are a lot of mp3 in German (because the spanish 1.2 patch is a mess, talked in ~~#196~~) not needed and making the pack bigger. I want to do this when i have some time. I don't know if other translations packs have similar problems, but with that, should be good to make a categorization like the subtitles files, because they used the same filenames, to know what is missing (and what, where and who says the text in that missing audio file).
The packaging could be the same as now, but if the original voice files of the official translations are audited and cleaned, if there isn't any other problem could be stored in other "pak" for making it easier to put in the game. The only problem is the files "not in pak" have preference to the game engine to the paks stored ones, so the original english voices have to be deleted or moved. That make the problem if there is a missing sound, you will have S_StartMP3() Warnings. Maybe can be a intermediate solution or using "silent" mp3s in the translation pack.

Misc

If you decided a determinate solution, a discrete number of pak files to work, it can be possible in the future to add to the Windows Auto-Updater the official translations and upgrade translations if you want.

I will upload some of these comparison lists, but i can do more when it's needed. I will open an issue about the missing spanish subtitle file too (~~#204~~).

Thanks in advance.

Translations: Documentation, audit, and upgrade translation management proposal.

Details

UI Texts

Subtitles

Voices

Misc

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