Ok, I know about Aurebesh, and when I saw it in game, I was pretty excited to bring up the alphabet on another screen and start reading it.

 

Everything was fine on my Sith Warrior on Dromund Kaas. In fact, it was getting to the point where I could read fairly quickly without having to reference my other screen.

 

Then, I started a Trooper, and.... Oh my god, is the Republic illiterate?

 

Let me preface this by saying I know this is just flavor stuff for the ultra nerdy people like me, and isn't a big deal. I know it's not a high priority to be fixed. That said, things get pretty funky.

 

Let's check out some examples, yea?

 

First, for reference, the Aurebesh alphabet: http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/c/cc/Aurebesh-GMSR.png

 

Let's start with the good, accurate stuff: Dromund Kaas

 

Poster: http://img857.imageshack.us/img857/2291/screenshot2011122223164.jpg

 

Translation:

Dromun Kaas [sic]

Long Live The Empire

 

Ok, so there's a typo, but the alphabet is right. (The "Dromun Kaas" part is really small in the upper right corner.)

 

Map Board: http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/2377/screenshot2011122223174.jpg

 

Translation:

Dromund Kaas

Home Of The Sith Empire

 

• Kaas City
  
• Kaas City Expansion Project
  
• Dark Temple
  
• Grand Colossus
  
• Dromund Kass [sic] Spaceport
  
• Grathan Estate
  

 

I'm not going to translate the big paragraph, suffice it to say that I did read it a few days ago, and it's in line with the Aurebesh alphabet we've seen so far. There was a typo here again, but as far as the alphabet goes, perfectly readable.

 

Things get a little odd when you enter the Bounty Hunter trainer's hut on Dromund Kaas.

 

First, someone accidentally put a poster upside down, and there are some random letters in the middle.

 

Poster: http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/6642/screenshot2011122223305.jpg

 

Translation:

Adventure

Awaits

 

x B x

 

Live offworld

for little or

no credit [sic]

 

Ok, A little odd. Poster being upside down is understandable, just a mistake. They made another typo, should be "Credits," but I get it, it's hard to proofread another alphabet. What's the deal with the XBX? All in all, not a big deal.

 

Then, you look to your left and find: http://img688.imageshack.us/img688/6642/screenshot2011122223305.jpg

 

Translation:

 

Ufjdk Fu

 

Ummm.... What? It's possible the U's are G's, but that doesn't help at all. Ok, so someone must have gotten lazy, decided "No one's gonna try to read this," and just spammed his keyboard. The letters are at least in correct Aurebesh.

 

Then you go to Ord Mantell and things get really strange.

 

Let's start with the discernible:

 

Poster: http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/1645/screenshot2011122223090.jpg

 

Translation:

Join the Revolution

Free Ord

 

Ok, this one is normal enough to understand. Using the context of the other letters, you can figure it out. Still, O uses the "OO" letter, The F looks like it COULD be a highly stylized F, and R uses the "NG" letter. I don't even know what that J is supposed to be.

 

So on this one, I almost feel like I know what happened. Aurebesh has more letters than the Latin alphabet, because it has combination letters. Many fonts you can download off the net to type in Aurebesh use lowercase letters to fill out the main letters, and because Aurebesh doesn't use a capitalization system, uses capital letters to add in the extras.

 

So it's possible someone didn't know about this and typed it in all caps. Perhaps the font in question mirrored the proper alphabet in places where they didn't replace the letter with a combination letter? That's probably it.

 

So, ok, honest mistake, ought to be fixed but definitely not high priority.

 

Then we have THIS: http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/3829/screenshot2011122223071.jpg

 

Translation:

 

Ok guys, this is gonna get crazy. First of all, the characters are flipped both horizontally, and vertically. Despite that, the words are typed in the right order for normal reading. I have NO idea how this happens.

 

Top left corner:

BH(?)

Dead or

Alive

 

Comments: Again, the O's and the R's are wrong. I'm not even sure what the last letter in the acronym is. Based on context, I assume it stands for Bounty Hunter _______, but that's odd as this is a Republic world and BHs are Imperial. Moving on....

 

Top Center:

Most

Wanted

 

Comments: We'd got the wrong O as usual here, The M is a little odd, but I can see what they're going for with it. The W has a strange little mark to it, maybe done to differentiate from the O (Which might matter, if they used the proper O) The N looks like an E because they didn't properly curve it, and without the curve it's just an inverted E. (And the letters are inverted which makes such a mistake even worse.)

 

Top Right:

Weird symbol with a little D next to it.

 

Comments: Ok, just gonna go with I don't know what that's all about.

 

First Row:

Bendix Fust (Strange symbol that looks vaguely like the "EO" character.) $5200

 

Comments: Besides the oddly stylized F and confused N, we now have a random character that I have no idea what it is. Maybe it means "Caught" or something. The most interesting thing is that here, we see that the prices for these bounties are not flipped about like the rest of the characters.

 

Second Row:

Ona Rissuk $3800

 

Comments: No new issues here, except we see a new stylized letter, K.

 

Third Row:

 

Raim Blastwell $7250

 

Comment: Nothing new to note.

 

Fourth Row:

 

Ganja Dacko (Weird Symbol) $5020

 

Comments: Ok, G is stylized, and I'm thinking that must be a J cause that's the closest character I can find. Still, it doesn't match the J in "Join" on the poster above, but it's also not in a place to be capitalized and the other J is, so the other J may be an error. So this guy's name is seriously Ganja? Ha. That's kinda funny. Also, who tacks on an additional 20 bucks for a bounty? Just leave it at an even 5000. Or, since his name is Ganja, make it 5420.

 

Fifth Row:

 

Rn?? Gixola $2500

 

Comments: Whoooooaaaa.... What happened here? No matter what, the letter flipping just got crazy. The R is the right way (Still the wrong character though) but then we have either an N or an E. If it's the right way, it's an N, meaning this guy's name starts with "Rn." Makes more sense for it to be an E, but that means we have a random flip here. Then we have two of those characters which I couldn't identify from the top left corner, but they are flipped about from what we saw before. So either they are right, (Following the logic from the first letter being right) and the top is wrong, or the top is right (That letter is the only one in the acronym that is not symmetrical.) and the only correctly oriented (but still wrong) letter is the first one.

 

Then we move on to the last name, and we start with a G. Again, this letter is properly oriented (and, disregarding the styling, the right character.) The rest of the name's characters are again flipped horizontally and vertically. What happened here?! I don't know how this whole thing happened at all, but now we have a whole new layer of mystery....

 

Sooo.... again, this isn't some big issue that needs fixed now. They have better things to do. And for the most part, these strange mistakes CAN be decrypted. Still, some of these signs are pretty seriously messed up. I mean, wow.

Surprised they just don't use an Aurebesh font to write stuff out and then just cut & paste into graphics where needed. Might avoid all these problems.

Surprised they just don't use an Aurebesh font to write stuff out and then just cut & paste into graphics where needed. Might avoid all these problems.

 

I think they did, actually. I think the problem is that since Aurebesh doesn't have lower and upper cases, the fonts they used put the extra letters in the place of certain capital letters. I think the people using the font didn't always understand that, and typed like you would with the Latin alphabet, resulting in some letters being wrong.

 

That accounts for most of the errors I've found, but that bounty board is really bizarre. I don't know how they managed to invert the characters on both axis while still typing the words out in the proper sequence.

 

Then there's places where it's obvious they needed a texture and someone was lazy and rushed and couldn't be bothered to at least type "Placeholder" or something so they just facerolled the keyboard.