We've all seen bad translation jobs in games before, but when you have a two-million word Korean MMORPG to make accessible to the West, where do you even start? The NCSoft team sounds off on the monumental task of localizing a game like Aion.Tell me if this sounds familiar to you: You find out about a new free-to-play MMOG from across the Pacific, and for whatever reason it catches your fancy. Maybe it's an interesting setting, maybe it's some cool concept art, but whatever: It's free, right? You're playing it, you're having a good time, you're immersed, and then you turn in a quest, and see, "You did make the congratulation!" A poorly localized game can color your whole experience - and that's exactly the pitfall that the NCSoft team is looking to avoid with its upcoming wing-based MMORPG, Aion.

If we can get gamers working their way through the game without even realizing that it started out in a completely different language, then we've done our job," added Conor Sheehy. In the case of Aion, then, this meant literally starting from the beginning - not just going through the game line by line and translating the text, but looking at "how each player learns the backstory while playing through their own personal narrative," said David Noonan. But even then, it's not always that simple - after all, Aion is a game developed for an Eastern audience by an Eastern developer. While Western fantasy is heavily steeped in Tolkien-esque mythology, Eastern games typically are not.