By Jim Rossignol on December 1st, 2011 at 3:47 pm.
We’ve received a mysterious link from Ludocraft, who are currently making a “HD” version of one of RPS’ favourite mods, the bizarre airship combat game, Air Buccaneers. It’s a link to this image, which is inscribed with words – possibly Finnish? (my understandening of anything outside basic English is deplorable) – which apparently contain some clue to what will be contained in the remake. Ludocraft describe it as “a small bit of info on one quite interesting and unique new “thing” we’ll be adding to the game.”
Meanwhile the Ludocraft team have put up a server of the original mod. They explain: “It can be found in the Unreal Tournament 2004 server browser under name “LudoCraft’s AirBuccaneers 1.6 Server” or via direct IP: 80.75.107.152:7777.” Details for the mod itself are here, and obviously you’ll need UT2004. Anyone for a game tonight? 8pm UK time?
That is indeed Finnish. Wish I had paid attention more in class to translate it properly though.
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It says “And there shall in that time be rumours of things going
astray, and there will be a great confusion as to where things
really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those
little things with the sort of raffia work base, that has an
attachment that will not be there.
At this time a friend shall lose his friends’s hammer and the
young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their
fathers that their fathers put there only just the night
before…. “
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Even as a Finn this proves out to be a tricky one to translate; if it should contain some hint of the game-play maybe it is a reference to a hero characters? There is some destruction and general mayhem on going with all earth shattered. As I haven’t played the original I have no clue what else this could refer to.
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@julianbenson
That sounds very much like part of a Monthy Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail transcript.
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@limEJET well spotted :)
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A holy hand grenade? Or a carnivore rabbit thrower?
I’m hoping for both.
Edit: Ah, it’s a quote from Life of Brian.
Hmmm… Can’t be a flying saucer, right?
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Sounds like it’s from the Kalevala…
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Vainamoinen is the first man ever born but he left the Kaleva to return again. This somewhat reads like he’s returned and is singing the song of destruction of the world…
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Oh, I’m definitely game (arf); I just hope I have it installed….
P.
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Any time something about this mod is posted, my whole body salivates….
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Ick.
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The secret to making your mod great is to get it Finnished.
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Out. Get out.
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Indeed.
.
There’s a Fin line between Vaporware and a WiP.
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If I’m not completely mistaken this is from the finnish national epic Kalevala. The drawing shows Väinämöinen, the most awesome magician and demigod there ever was. My translation goes (I’m sure there’s a better one out there):
A long time ago it was told
the chords from a kantele (finnish instrument)
will awaken the powerful
man of the past land
from the neverending sleep
from death eternal
to rise from his rest
steady old Väinämöinen
Awakened he will descend
into the heat of battle
eyeing the grounds
the tired warriors
playing his last tune
on the mighty kantele
carved from a pike’s jawbone
steady old Väinämöinen
The last of songs blares
the crust of the earth cracks
the trees of the woods burn
the waters boil to the skies
lastly the university will collapse
silence settling
playing the kantele
his last song
steady old Väinämöinen
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The Wikipedia page for Kalevala doesn’t mention mushrooms at all – that’s good, I always hated the mushroom god.
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As a Finn myself I congratulate you, that translation was perfect. Väinämöinen is indeed awesome.
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I think it’s more serious old Väinämöinen than steady old Väinämöinen, as in vakava, not vakaa. And university -> universe.
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Yep, that’s pretty much spot on. Well done, sir.
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Wertymk, as a matter of fact, it’s a bit of both. See http://fi.wiktionary.org/wiki/vaka
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Well translated. It’s not actually from Kalevala though, I checked from a Finnish online version of Kalevala and the part in the image is not there. It’s just written in the same style.
Edit. Meant to make this a reply to the above post but oh well.
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Fucking Ludo(craft).
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The comments just made me realize how many fellow Finns visit this site. Nice. And I’m really glad that someone else already translated it so I didn’t have to, that would’ve been a pain to translate.
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Kyllä :)
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Yeah, we’re a running gag of the Internet. There’s as many of us as there are people in Minnesota, but from the noise we make, you’d think we were California.
Most likely because Minnesotans seldom feel the need to mention where they’re from. Finns represent!
But yeah. The text mimics Kalevala, Finland’s national epic. This is apparently the heavy metal version, since Väinämöinen doesn’t die in the original, nor does he waken to sing the song that ends the Earth, and I’m reasonably sure that he stays less than two meters tall throughout. The meter and word choices could drive linguists crazy, but full points for effort. Thanks to FoolsHope, too!
What this means about Air Buccaneers is anyone’s guess. If it involves Väinämöinen, you should know that he’s a wizard, a sage, and a musician, and I’m not sure if those are different things in the source material. I don’t think it involves Kalevala as a whole. The thing is not worth the trouble as a setting, since it’s pretty much Generic Iron Age to the casual eye. The details wouldn’t fit in a game unless you were doing a survival sim (but that said, did you know that they harvested their iron from bogs?)
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ggs :)
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That was great fun; the game really comes together when you have multi-person crews who know what they’re doing. And I figured out some things which I’ve never guessed before (you propel the balloons using combos – for example, Down-Down-Up-Up moved it forward, Up-Up-Up-Up sends it upwards – and also the gliders allow you to automatically return to the nearest manned balloon). I’m hoping they keep the server up; I’ll drop by tomorrow as well. It really is a great game, and the HD version has huge potential with some gameplay tweaks.
P.
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there’s a handy forum post listing every combo here:
http://rockpapershotgun.com/rpsforum/topic.php?id=2872
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Very useful – cheers!
Does anyone know if the server will be up tonight?
EDIT: According to the guys from Ludocraft, they’re intending to keep it up 24/7. Great news.
P.
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oulu <3
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Air Buccaneers…One of my best video games memory ever… So many evening spent fighting in the sky, that was epic.
Was even member of a clan, the (in?)famous “Half-Eyed Musketeers”, though we often had problem to fill up a whole team :p
I’ve waited for so long to see this mod rise again, as a stand-alone game if possible, cause it’s really fun and nice. And the community was very good, very pleasant.
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Oh joy!
I will fly again!
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Just wanted to tell you all that we have an official thread set up in our forums for the server and there’s already a small bit of the old (and somewhat new) community in there. So you’re all more than welcome to join in.
Here’s the thread:
http://www.ludocraft.com/forums/showthread.php?80-Official-AirBuccaneers-1.6-Mod-Server-Official-Thread
Also, the server will be up and running 24/7 at least for the time being.
Have fun at the Skies,
LudoCraft
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