To cut to the chase, I have a bit of downtime on my hands, and have started tackling a project I've been meaning to start for a little while now, namely, cleaning up Operation Na Pali and bringing it much closer to Unreal's 'fluff'. The main goals of the project are:
- A complete rewrite of the in-game text, cleaning up grammatical errors and changing tone where necessary.
- Renaming of characters where necessary (i.e. the 'comedy' Mercenary and Nali names).
- Removal of as much of the in-game dialogue/monologues as possible.
- Removal of all unnecessary cutscenes, including the introduction and as many of the interstitials as possible without breaking the game.
As an example of what I have been doing, here's a translator message, quoted verbatim (from NP15Chico):
Personal Notes , Lieutenant Krawanuk'h, 3rd Infantery Unit of the Dark Orb: I' m starting to be pissed off by those Skaarjs... they think they can give us any orders they want and they consider us as if we were their slaves...When I was at the Bluff Monastery at least we had fun with prisoners but since the war with Mercs has begun, good times are over...
And how it will appear after:
Personal Notes, Lieutenant Krawanuk'h, 3rd Infantry Unit of the Dark Orb:
The Skaarj commanders here are really testing the patience of my men and I. They treat us as if we were common Nali slaves! When we were stationed at Bluff Monastery at least we had fun with the prisoners, but since the mercenary attacks have become more frequent we were moved to this derelict old temple, where my men are at constant risk from magma and falling masonry. I can only hope Commander Saa'Kitrha falls victim to a tragic 'accident'...
Any thoughts? Would this sort of thing make ONP bearable to play? What else would you like to see? I have some other ideas that are a bit more ambitious than a straight rewrite of the text, but my level of technical expertise is not that great. Let me know what you think!