OldUnreal (Engine)

One thing about the Universal Translator has been bugging me. The Universal Translator has No Vocal Translation. The Universal Translator is able to Translate Writings on a Wall or in a Book or on a Skaarj Computer but not Vocal.

I know that Unreal was made back in 1998 but Unreal is based around the 21st - 22nd Century, so Technologically the Universal Translator should have that Function already Built into it.

Hopefully UT3 Legacy will have this Feature.

It is always easier to translate something written with more accuracy than something spoken + environmental noise (not to mention the fact that people never speak accurately or shorten words which is not always the case in written language, I'm not talking about the "I am" and "I'm" part, but about other things, just think of "imma" as "I am", it's not official, still people use it).

And nowadays the technology we have is very young, it's in its kids shoes, has tendencies to misunderstand stuff or not understand it at all (yes, I'm looking at you, speech recognition tools in smarthphones!) and can usually only be optimized for one certain human "voice"/dialect - for now at least (see computer programs for people with inability to write due to being disabled).
The spoken would probably end up being a text of Google-Translate-quality. You can still recognize the core message, well, at least in most cases, but certain stuff can be misunderstood - see my example below.

"Du hast Kohlmeisen" = "You have great t*ts", of course this is a correct translation from German to English, but you can misinterpret that...

Yes, I know, technological progress. But progress cannot cover everything and I assume the translator was a tool to decipher foreign languages based on the language data it already has and to read/display logs. After all, it would make sense to have one on a spaceship if you possibly could get in contact with some other species, especially since you can - if they have proper technology - get in contact with them by translating the messages they send.

i agree, look at sony. they coudnt even translate the XMB from the psp to a proper dutch. there is one part where it says ''indien u dit zet naar [aan] u van het systeem de uitlees frequentie van de UMD kunt verlagen'' which would be something like this if i translate it to english in the same context: ''if you turn this to [on] you from the systen could decrease the readout rate of the UMD''. so let alone human technology could translate speech.

Like i Said 21st - 22nd Century.

It can, it was just damaged in the crash of the VR, so the speaker is dead. Use your imagination people.

I do. Often I see these beautiful tripple-rainbows and the land of awesome and loads of Unreal sequels...

However, nice explanation, Hellkeeper!

21st - 22nd Century.

We live in the 21st century and text to speech doesn't simulate a human voice properly, voice recognition is flawed enough to understand butt instead of but and personally I like to read things. The Metroid Prime series used the Translator-concept too, I loved that, people seemed to welcome that too. Feeling of being left alone. Just like in Unreal. No voices, people liked it, probably because it adds to the "you're the only human left"-feeling, if you hear a human voice, it makes your hope grow. That is of course counterproductive for the feeling of Unreal. The Metroid Prime games were basically the same as Unreal: Shoot stuff, no humans. With some somewhat harder riddles than in Unreal, but other than that, mostly the same. Shoot stuff. And last but not least: You can still pay attention to your surroundings while dealing with the Translator message due to not having a voice going "bla" all the time and the message popping up word by word while the "blas" continue. And reading lets you go on in your own pace. Other than that, if a Nali dies, a Translator message dies too.

I don't see why a Translator with voice recognition would be needed, except for Nali most alien races are like "GROAAAR" anyway, and I bet it means either "AAAA" or "IMMA KILL U NAO!" and seeing how talkactive Nalis are having only a little range of words they use around the player which probably mean "hi", "I'm afraid" and "I'm praying to the Gods now, please do not disturb me"... I doubt it would be of any use.


And last but not least, here's a short and rational explanation:

Someone at Epic Games:
"Wouldn't it be cool to have something to create an optional background story so you can answer some questions the player will most likely have? Like, maybe, uh, some kind of Universal Translator that works like "show it some text and it will translate" or maybe some alien speaking and you get a translation of it, would just require some voice acting and-"

Someone else at Epic Games:
"Voice acting? OH C'MON! Let's just make it translate text only, saves us a bunch of money and time. HABOODI!"

Pretty much everybody: *nodd*

True but Technology is advancing every day.

Yet another possibility:
They saved money when producing it or the crew just bought the cheap model. Or maybe it's just one of the first models and doesn't contain voice-recognition and translation yet because the process for deciphering unknown languages was already expensive enough.

PS: I just realized that linguists who were previously deciphering unknown languages were probably in search for a new job during the time of Unreal. The Universal Translator... it stole their jooobs!

It is odd that the Translator can Translate a Races Language that has never been Encountered Before.

It is odd that the Translator can Translate a Races Language that has never been Encountered Before.

maybe it analyses the text before translating. and i am happy the game doesn't have voice acting seeing how cheesy most voice acting in 90's video games where. and yes, i know RTNP has voice acting but that was just an actor reading a piece of paper which must sound like the player is making an log.

It is Possible to use a Robot Voice. and Like I said I hope this is added in UT3 Legacy.

Yep, I assume it analyzes the text, too.
It's the future, the process for that is probably way faster than what a (nowadays) modern supercomputer could do.
Let's assume this translator is v.1, the first type of Universal Translators ever produced, then it would make sense to put the focus on the translation process and make it simple, check if people like it, make an improved version based on that. Why waste money after all?
The process for scanning, analyzing, trying to find some logic in that cryptic signs, etc, is already something we can only dream of. Who wouldn't want to just hold a tablet PC in front of an ancient egyptian wall in a museum and get a translation within like a second? However, the difference here is the type of language, my example shows human language, but on Na Pali we have alien language.
Having such a feature is already luxury, the company which made the translator might not have had enough money for voice-translations and maybe it did even read the text, maybe it even had a microphone for voice recognition and translation, but as Hellkeeper stated, the speaker could have been damaged because of the crash.
Not unlikely, my GameBoy Color's speaker died because it fell and crashed on the hard floor as well (luckily everything else is intact and headphones work which sounds actually better than the mono-speaker anyway). The fact that you have a device in the future that survived a hard crash with a spaceship is surprising me, especially since all modern tablets for example look like they will break when you just let an apple (no pun intended) fall on them from 1m height.

And most probably do break.

Maybe the Universal Translator is - technology-wise - as good as a supercomputer of our time?
Maybe they had not enough space for the voice function because they had to make it stable? Maybe the guys who designed it were just greedy and lazy? Maybe it was damaged due to the crash? Well, the latter one is probably the case anyway, as you see loads of scratches.

We can only speculate.
But speculating is fun, honestly.

why can't the translator keep an list of translated messages? that would be a cool fuction to add.

Lame explanation:
They didn't have enough RAM to do so because they needed space for other stuff.

Other possibility:
Crash.

Thanks, Hellkeeper!
This explanation is awesome, one can use it for everything related to the Universal Translator, mostly to explain missing features though!

Sly Now that our Hard Drives can hold more it shouldn't be a Problem making Voice Translations and Translating Alien Vocals.

Here is a Video of some Log Books being Translated through Voice.

I know the video.
However, the "lame explanation" was directed at the device itself, not at the PCs at the time Unreal was developed.

Then we shall call the New Translator the Universal Translator Mark 2.