Translation Patches: Partial vs. Complete

[flame1234]

What are the pros and cons of partial vs. complete translation patches?

The only thing I can think of is:
If there are other groups competing (not often the case), then by releasing the partial patch, you are catching them up to where you are. It only matters if you're ahead, but it's still there as a consideration.

What am I missing? Is it just personal preference most of the time?

 

[FAST6191]

Depends upon the game for me.

If you are going to translate the menu of a puzzle game that everybody knows/can learn elsewhere/can learn easily then I will happily get it before it is due. If that means I am not able to understand the training, token mission mode, some other oddity that I do not need to know about to play a version of the core game then sweet. Similar things for a lot of shmups.

I suppose it could be a nice advert for someone to join you if you lost a team member but the only one with a given skillset -- if a hacker was lost but had a basic insert of a translation then that serves as quite a nice advert. If your translation people went missing but you have a rough draft...

Catch up could be a thing but in practice it tends not to be. Competing teams is not really an issue I have seen where it is necessary to catch the other up -- each tends to be happy enough to plod along and do their own thing, maybe merge but it is rarely a major issue.

Cons. Give or take the menu example above then I am usually of the option that a poor translation stands significant chance of being worse than no translation at all. If you have hit a major wall, usually inserting/going to require a serious hack to continue then maybe it is worth considering.

 

[endoverend]

It depends on whether you want to play the game to A. get the basic idea of the story before other people or B. to actually enjoy it