Starcraft 2 Armory - Unofficial Starcraft 2 Fansite

Due to it`s prolonged development, StarCraft II is very often a hotbed of rumours and speculation. One of the most recent ones was that the game would be released in Italian and Polish, with a picture of an announcement stating as such dated for August last year.

But while most rumours end up being incorrect, this one turned out to be true. Xordiah, Blizzard`s European RTS community manager, revealed today that Italian and Polish StarCraft players will indeed be getting their own version of the sequel. This brings the number of supported languages up to 9, along with English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Korean and Chinese:

We are happy to announce that we have added a new language to our StarCraft II site. Italian speakers can now check out the latest news about StarCraft II in their own language. We have also added a landing page for our Polish community which will be expanded upon in the near future. In addition to translating the site into these two languages, we will also be releasing StarCraft II itself in Italian and Polish! Take a moment to check out the new StarCraft II sites and the new Battle.net forums for Italian, Polish, and Russian speakers!

Italian website: http://eu.starcraft2.com/index.xml?locale=it_it
Polish splash page: http://eu.starcraft2.com/index.xml?locale=pl_pl
Italian media alert: http://eu.blizzard.com/it-it/company/press/pressreleases.html?100120
Polish media alert: http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/press/pressreleases.html?100120pl

In addition, Xordiah also responded to the question of whether or not players will be able to switch between languages in StarCraft II:

First of all, we are of course also localizing in Russian, since this has been announced from the beginning, you can check out the Russian site here: http://eu.starcraft2.com/index.xml?locale=ru_ru
We have also added russian forums today (http://forums.battle.net/index.html?sid=3007) as well as Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/StarCraftRU) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/starcraft_ru) pages that will soon fill up with more content.

Concerning switching between languages, to start off you will have the language of the box that you purchase. We are planning on releasing language packs at some point, but this will not be for release. We will get information on this to you most likely after release of StarCraft 2.

Source: Battle.net

Wow, blizzard finally figured out we're here! Cool!

I just hope for the english langueage to be aviable also, because after more than 10 years it's hard to stop calling units in english and starting calling them in italian...

Anyway the comparison between voices will be fun...

To be honest, I am suprised Blizzard made this move. Italian and Polish is not spoken much outside their respective countries of origin, meaning that the market for games in these languages is fairly small. One has to wonder whether the sales will be large enough to justify the costs of translating the game into these languages. While it is always nice to see as many languages covered as possible, I would have sooner expected Blizzard to choose a language such as Portugese then Polish and Italian.

But regardless of the motivation Blizzard had for this decision, it is still very praise-worthy. I know that many Italians struggle with understanding the English language, so an Italian version is going to make SC2 much more accessible to them. Also, Poles represent a strong part of the StarCraft community. So in a sense, their own version of the game serves as recognition for their efforts.

It is going to be interesting to see how Blizzard`s decision not to include language packs from the onset will affect the unit name controversy in Korea. It could very well intensify the already sharp dispute regarding whether or not units should have English or Korean names.

Yeah tht is very cool. I just hope they make it in latino spanish, because I don't really like the spanish from span, its weird. It would be cool. I hope that they sell the game with different languages in the US though, I can never find any.

YaY for non English speakers!

SO when I get on to B.net and find my self playing against a player from another country using a local language version of SC2, can I talk to him/her?, will B.net run slower trying to leave my units in English and theirs in Italian? If they try to talk to me will B.net be upgraded to translate what we are saying? I think the problem with coordinating games in SC.BW was that you couldn't talk to your opponent. I hope Blizzard understands this and releases something to allow for communication in the near future. It would revolutionise the gaming industry.

Are their any online games that already do this?

More word from Blizzard, nice, i do hope that with all the new language packs, they make all languages for all type of people who are thinking of investing to buy SCII.

Quote by CoruPTd_VoID

Are their any online games that already do this?

i doubt or at least i think, there hasn't been a game that translates your opponents language to yours.

but i do think this aswell that blizzard should have a translator installed, so that players can communicate, and this would open a large community for SCII from all over the globe.

Quote By Random Marauder

but i do think this aswell that blizzard should have a translator installed, so that players can communicate, and this would open a large community for SCII from all over the globe.

See Blizzard games are enjoyed by people all round the world. Having a translational package would be a huge step forward in the gaming industry, and it would allow more players to take on the game. GOne will be the days when trawl through B.net looking for someone to play. I have MAC so I am not allowed on other servers. SInce there is no anti hack available for MACs atm.

To be honest i'm just wondering how much they will gain from that. There aren't many people relative to the world population who only speak latin or polish who don't know some other supported language. And how many people who have internet who have a computer that only speak those languages.

I mean don't get me wrong, i'm all for making the starcraft community bigger and having as many people play as they can but it just kind of me wonder exactly how long that took

OMG YES!!!!!!LOL Im Polish,so you know.I as have a ton of cousins in Poland,and friends,who are some of the greatest SC addicts out there.They always have complained about how they never understond the campaign,or anything else really.

I by the way live in the USA,speaking Polish and English,but Im still pretty happy.Im going to phone my cousins later to tell them of the good news!

EDIT:I know my small country of Poland is small,but you woudnt believe just how many people play Starcraft,Tom Phoenix.I visited my cousins in a small,rural village,and every kid had Starcraft and a computer,and thats in a village,not even a town.Blizzard can make big bucks again.BTW why do you think there is even an offcail Polish website for SC2?There are a lot of people...

The portuguese version of SC:BW sucks! sounds riduculous! not because the language, because portuguese is beutiful! But the actores where terrible! I hope in the polish and italian they do a better job.

To be honest i'm just wondering how much they will gain from that. There aren't many people relative to the world population who only speak latin or polish who don't know some other supported language. And how many people who have internet who have a computer that only speak those languages.

Ehm, in Italy people speaks italian, latin is not the official langueage since what, 1000-1500 years ago

Anyway yes, I also find strange for blizzard translating it in Italian, in any case a lot of italian people doesn't speak English, expecially teenagers.
I would have no problem in playing it in english, and I played all other blizzard games in the original langueage, but it's allways nice to see that the care of us...

yay my girlfriends polish.... wait she doesnt play it.... POLISH THO!

Dude that is great, its sad sometimes when people type in iccup and all it is is funky symbols and I don't know what they want me to do : ( so this makes it great : D