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Several years ago I wasn't doing a thing with my life, but then I found VNs. Now, a bit over 2 years later I'm sill not doing a thing with my life, but I'm also playing porn games.

I found more ways to waste my time thanks to visual novels.

Shame, the Fuwanovel logo as it is is already a forum trademark and I feel that tinkering with it every so often would ruin the image. I thought the colors of the first four letters would be a memorable thing, like the Google logo. Nevertheless I'm quite fine with Tay's idea, hopefully the designs don't get too overboard.

thanks to everyone on the FuwaForums and everyone who said hi on my introduction topic i don't want to be the guy who say's thanks allot but i guess that's just me in that case THANKS! lol I still have allot of people to meet on the forums but i'll cross that bridge when i come to It. I have a lot more confidences cus of all you guys sooo thanks for that.....wow this getting cheesy lets make it fun tell me your 2 fav songs mine are Daft Punk: Give Life Back To Music Muse: Resistance lol my big 50 aka 50 posts special thanks to Monmon

*Raises glass* Here's to the spirit of the Fuwanovel forums, which you channeled so well. #1 Favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8craCGpgs #2 Favorite (this week. Changes often): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLO7tCdBVrA

How have visual novels impacted my life? Ya know, I've always thought about this question and how to best answer it and after much thought I can honestly say I can boil it down to one simple sentence: Visual novels are culture. I've used the phrase "language is culture" with my students many times before, but when I really stopped to think about it, it was the same for me with VNs. Visual novels aren't just games anymore, they are gateways into another culture that intrinsically motivate those around them. Sure, they may not always be rich in story or make much sense in the grand scope of things, but overall I can say that visual novels are one of the main reasons I wanted to teach English in Japan to begin with. It all started with a DeviantART friend of mine introducing me to Katawa Shoujo. After that game visual novel reading became a hobby of mine, one I still enjoy to this day. I read all the "popular" games and learned about new ones when I finally found Fuwanovel. For me to say visual novels alone changed my life is an understatement. It may seem like I'm kissing everyone's ass and singing the praises of everyone for all the land to hear, but in reality it is more than that. Visual novels made me interested in pursuing projects on this site, it made me interested in seeing the podcast stay alive, it made me interested in its people. Visual novels, no the entire fandom of the genre, are the people. Without the people you lose the excitement, you lose the joy of sharing a game with others, and you lose the force that breathes life into these games. Sure you can sit alone in your room and enjoy the fun of an awesome scene in a novel, but what good is it if you can't talk about how awesome it is to others? I'm not saying you need to share the experiences with every person you meet, but isn't it that much better when you yourself can say, "well shit, that game was amazing" and someone agrees? Visual novels made me proud to talk about what I enjoy, it made me want to teach more Japanese students English, and it made me motivated to learn another language. The friends I met through this medium make me proud to talk about what I enjoy and not be ashamed. Sure, everyone can use the argument that "internet friends" aren't "true friends," but what good is that? To me some of the people I have met through the common interest of visual novels are incredible people. I may not share the same interests as them in some cases, but you're damn right they are pretty awesome to talk to and a joy to have met and keep in touch with outside of the net. The people are the core, and the medium is the house that shelters them all. Visual novels impacted my life like I am sure they have other people, and I'm sure everyone has their own story to share.

I've held off on this debate til now, but I've been asked to weigh in so I'll do so. I think my conclusions will be a bit different than what some were expecting. I also address some misconceptions in this thread regarding the role of Steam and other content distribution platforms in increasing VN sales. VNs are not freeware Commercial VNs cost hundreds of thousands of US dollars to produce. Developers do this for a living, and they're not paid very much to do it. It's a labor of love. They need support to continue making more games for us to enjoy. This doesn't change whether a game is untranslated, fan translated, or localized. People that play VNs without paying are essentially parasites freeloading off the paying fanbase. In the end, if too many people freeload instead of supporting a company, the company goes out of business and no more VNs get made. The parasitic ecosystem collapses. To maintain a healthy ecosystem, people must support the games they love. When you buy a game, you're basically investing in the company's future. You're saying "Here's my money--make more games like this!" The role of fan translation More than 95% of Japanese VNs are untranslated. Fan translators provide a service by allowing us to enjoy titles in English we otherwise wouldn't have access to. Many fan translators choose high profile titles that are currently beyond the grasp of the nascent localization industry. Others choose titles that would never be localized due to controversial themes (e.g., lolicon). Fan translators provide their fan translating services free of charge--but they don't own the game license. All they can lay claim to is their translation, their derivative work. When you play a fan translated game, you're expected to own the original Japanese version. Few people actually buy the original game. This behavior is typically written off because in the end, no sales are lost as a result of the fan translation. The people playing the game in English weren't the target audience for the game in the first place. Also, the customer's dollars won't be achieving their intended effect. "Make more games like this" really means "make more games like this that I can play". If a fan translator has to act as a middleman, financial support does not have its intended effect. You end up with more titles you want to play but can't, since 95% of titles won't be translated. In the end, fan translation does not grow the paying fanbase. The true role of fan translation is to promote localization, allowing consumers to support games they love, to see more such titles in the future. Fan translation promotes localization by calling attention to the medium as well as particular titles. Many localization deals wouldn't have happened if fan translation efforts hadn't highlighted to Japanese developers/publishers that there was interest in these titles overseas. The role of localization Localization completes the support circuit by bringing Japanese VNs to us in a language we can understand--with the promise of more such titles in the future. It also promotes the medium more effectively than fan translators ever could, since official localization brings marketing and media attention. When fan translation undermines localization by providing an excuse for people to freeload, its usefulness ends. This is why fan translations, in general, should not be distributed once official localizations are available. On content distribution platforms (e.g., Steam) These gather funding by attracting a different audience than the VN fandom that typically follows JAST and MG. The DRM that Steam uses increases sales, but not by converting pirates to customers. Rather, it was designed to prevent resale, ensuring that every customer is funding the developer/publisher rather than funding resellers such as Gamestop. Basically, releasing a VN on Steam exposes it to the Steam ecosystem (an ecosystem highly enriched for people willing to support the games they like), attracting customers that otherwise would not have known about or been interested in the product. My stance on Planetarian and Grisaia With my general philosophy on the issue explained, I'd like to qualify it a bit in this particular context. While there's no issue with Planetarian, the release of Grisaia will be a different version from that which was translated--the all-ages version rather than the original 18+ version. There are no plans to release the 18+ version. Putting aside my personal views on this decision, the fan translation has added value for some people, and therefore there is justification for retaining the fan translation on Fuwanovel. I have strong views on this topic, but they are related to my personal interests in the VN scene and thus are outside the scope of this argument.

http://www.reddit.com/r/YouShouldKnow/comments/2a82sm/ysk_daemon_tools_lite_the_popular_image_mounting/ Just a heads up that the free version of Daemon Tools is now likely bundled with Malware.

VNs & Anime changed my life for 360 degree. It could be even sad that they saved me. Before I become Otaku I didn't really enjoy anything, my life was boring and I didn't care for anything, I was just moving form day to day not careing for anything and was just killing a time with whatever comes to my mind, I was high or/and drunk all the time and when I wasn't I was doing crimes to get money so I could buy more drugs and alcohol (Witch is how most people in my country live). I was fighting in bars and street fights all the time I even killed someone before (Judged as self defense on court). And some things happened and I ended stuck in hose and after some times of playing games and watching movies/TV shows all day while searching a net for something to kill a time with I stumbled across an Anime that I used to watch as a kid (bleach), and as I was bored I decided to watch it to kill a time. What come as surprise is that I actually enjoyed it, in that point of time I couldn't even remember the last time that I enjoyed doing something, I tried most of the things life has to offer and I didn't really enjoy any of them but while watching this Anime I really enjoyed it. After that I started searching for something similar and started watching more Anime and I enjoyed them even more but what surprised me even more is that I actually cared for what happens in those Anime to those characters, I newer cared for anyone, friends, family, girlfriends it was always just about mutual benefits I never cared for any of them nor did any of them cared for me and it was just natural that way but I cared for those characters in Anime. After that in a very short period of time my life, personality, opinions everything about me changed completely even my look changed I become a new person, I like to say that the old me died and the new me was born. I still don't care for anything in RL if anything my opinion about it gone even lower then it was but this time I simply choose to ignore it and to interact with it just as minimum as is necessary. And when I discovered VNs they expended my life that resolves around Anime as the only thing that has worth in this world. I doubt that there are many people who's life was changed so much by VNs and Anime as they had mine.

Tacchan! Yay! (Long time no see, have a song.)

I love your country.

... I suggest you hide in a bunker somewhere. The internet will try to kill you.

...So you licked Tomoyo?

I don't think there's any one perfect solution when translating. There's never going to be a single translation that satisfies 100% of people, as babiker said. Staying as close to the original as possible while still conveying as much of the original meaning in a manner that the target audience will understand is not an easy thing to achieve, and is more of an art than a science. That's my opinion at least.

Ooh, you dirty.

I play because of the comedy and the moe itself though....so no H = less pain holding ctrl for me~~~

Removing h-scenes from a romantic moege like this is like heresy. This is the type of eroge most people play for the h-scenes to begin with because the story is incredibly simplistic and average. Regardless i think you should stick with the pc version just for the sake of platform simplicity.

It means that a seller is selling the product it question via Amazon. There is still a guarantee as far as I know, though.

hey look

Have to disagree, because some H-scenes in it are amazing (for example, the first imouto scene). Well, I think romance/moege are useless w/o h content in general...

For instance u can use ITH Hooker together with Atlas V14. Atlas is Translation soft from Fujitsu i guess. Game is playable but don't expect nice clean English. U can find out more HERE or u can also Try Visual Novel Reader. more info HERE

Here are the ones I've read and enjoyed straight from my VNDB list: Clannad, Da Capo 1 and 2 (2 is better though), ef A Fairy Tale of the Two, Ever17, Fate/Stay Night, Grisaia no Kajitsu, G-Senjou no Maou, Higurashi, Hoshizora no Memoria, Katawa Shoujo, Little Busters, Muv-Luv, Rewrite, Steins;Gate, Tsukihime, and Umineko.

It's official, Saber (Can I call you this?). I founded it. We're currently the only members. But the ratio of lolicons is high, so I hope we get full fast! I made the recruiting poster!

I define pornography as bullet points 1 and 3 (invoking the common social concept of pornography as lacking literary or artistic value, as established prior to the sentence you quoted). By saying "it's not protected by the 1st amendment", I invoke bullet point 2--it's legal until a law says it isn't. I'm basically invoking the legal concept of obscenity. It would be legally incorrect to call story-focused eroge "porn" in this fashion, and that's part of my point--our social concept of porn is "wrong", and ends up arbitrarily lumping story-focused eroge together with simple collections of sex scenes. Nonetheless, that doesn't stop these broad legal statutes from having a chilling effect on eroge localization, to the point that JAST USA censors loli content "just in case", and even Mangagamer has outlined a "line in the sand" it won't cross regarding loli content. 1) The market is a lot older than these digital distribution platforms. 2) Steam's ruleset is evolving. JAST tried to get Aselia the Eternal on Steam and was denied. 3) Valve doesn't allow sexually explicit content on Steam. Steam isn't the magic bullet that solves all problems. If we have to rely on censored releases on Steam to fund localization of story-focused eroge, that's as much of an issue as relying on nukige sales as a funding source. The base product still isn't selling itself. It's just an omake thrown to the scavengers to keep them at bay. That's still not where we want to be.

Pretty much the majority of all the VNs I've read I didn't want them to end. It's hard to accept the end when you get so attached to the setting and characters, and especially so when immersed in the world within the VN. I'll practically imagine myself as the "MC" or someone existing in these "worlds", interacting with the characters and such as I please. This supposedly makes me very opinionated towards anything, as I could read a VN of general low-quality or pure slice-of-life with little substance and still regard it highly due to that ability. The number one VN where I didn't want to even see the ending, that I had the most feelings for... would have to be Subarashiki Hibi, of course. First off, I was already so unhealthily obsessed with it in the beginning. But most importantly, I had only half of the feelings mentioned above for Subahibi, and the other half were towards another reason entirely that I cannot specify for various reasons. This mixture proved to be a bit too much for me in comparison to most of the other VNs I've read thus far, and I ended up dropping it right before the last chapter for months of time. Which then after, I marathon-ed the entire thing from the very beginning to the very end in one go.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=vnts Gave me Vereniging Nederlandse Transmissie Specialisten VNTS - Vereniging Vrienden Nederland - Tsjechië & Slowakije Vnts Jobs, recruitment in Borivli, Maharashtra | Indeed.co.in [VNTS] Venatoris | Clans | World of Tanks WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS.

That's not a problem there is a emulator for PSP.

Just finished MIchiru's route. I guess you can say it's a 2 in one route. There were a lot of fun moments where I'm reminded of Great Teacher Onizuka. I'm utterly speechless at Yuuji in this route. Some of the things he said and did to Michiru should have been illegal. I'm going to flip a coin on Makina and Sachi now. I wish there was a harem ending. edit: Sachi has er... disturbing fingers. My whole image of her is destroyed.

http://howtoimproveatosu.tk/ An in-depth look on how to improve at osu

<11:33:47> "DrKleiner": hmm <11:33:52> "DrKleiner": fuwanovel got founded by a girl <11:34:03> "DrKleiner": so you'd think that it means that it has a female genitalia right? <11:34:16> "DrKleiner": but i dont think aaeru was yuri <11:34:29> "DrKleiner": sooo <11:34:33> "DrKleiner": fuwaaaaa <11:34:38> "DrKleiner": what makes girl go fuwaaaaaa <11:34:40> "DrKleiner": A PENIS <11:34:44> "DrKleiner": case closed

Well the PC version would be better, because there are no Contests Removed (H-scene). I dont watch them in generally, but if they are not there (like in Eien no Aselia), I really miss them :/ Why do people dont say, that they are retiring? Would be more easy for others to take over the poject and it does only taking a minute for writing

It just shows there's a huge market for story-driven doujin games, be it jrpg's, simulations or visual novels; Carpe Fulgur is a good example of that as well. Ero content aside, there's a whole lot to reach out for. I only hope SP remains as perceptive.

That's a broad generalization and an incorrect one. It's like saying people don't buy Danielle Steele novels for the smut. Sure they do. And as you say, the porn is there for a reason--because some people like it. Westerners aren't a different species of human from the Japanese. Why would it be so shocking that many Westerners would share the same tastes? While it has only tangental bearing on this discussion, their choice to localize the all-ages version only is why I won't be buying Grisaia. That's simply not the direction I want the VN industry going in.

This is going to be long so take a seat. And don't you dare skimming through it or not reading any of the linked articles. 1. Misinterpretation of Fuwanovel mission statement I will start with this as it should be simple to explain. The portion of the mission statement that is used in the forum logo (and forum logo only) is just part of the whole mission. As you can notice on the main website, the main logo there actually describes the website differently. "Fan translated visual novels repository" And if you browse the website and visit the mission statement section, you can see the mission is actually different from what the forum logo says, it is: "Visual Novels for the World" As even included with the logo of the section: Following up in the mission statement, three main objectives are mentioned there There are three main objectives, they are: 1) Make visual novels popular in the West. 2) Promote fan translation 3) Create a community that celebrates fan translation and fan sharing. When the forums logo was made, only the first part of the mission statement was put there, because otherwise it would be too long. And many people misinterpret "West" as "America", where as it just states the general mission statement Visual Novels for the World but with different words. West in that case means outside of Japan (where Visual Novels already exist), so basically the rest of the world. What I am getting at is that nowhere on the whole website it states anything about promoting Localized copies, ensuring sales of Localized copies or celebrating success of Localization companies and commercial market. Instead it focuses on fan translation, fan efforts, fan sharing, fan creations and fan improvements to the original version. The only reason Fuwanovel doesn't share licensed versions was out of Aaeru's "good will". She decided not to include those releases as a gesture of friendliness to the companies. How those companies responded to this good will and attempts to build a friendly relationship is a different matter entirely. 2. Piracy vs Sharing The whole word "Piracy" is just wrongly used since the beginning of the internet. If you imagine piracy in a pirate movie, they invade a ship and deprive people off their possessions. But in the case of games, movies, music - that is never the case. "Piracy" on the internet just stands for "Sharing", but people for some reason needed a word that sounds evil. Instead of taking away possessions of someone else, you are being offered a shared copy of what someone already has. You are being offered a flower seed out of unlimited supply to grow your own flower and ultimately build your love for flowers to the point you want to support the people who originally imported these flowers from different parts of the world. Aaeru and Fuwanovel was always for "Sharing" and as so you could say also for "Piracy" since they are the same thing. The stuff about flower seeds and building love for flowers is much better explained in the "Spreading culture does not decrease supporters. It increases it." part of fuwanovel About section. Please read the whole article if you haven't already done so. You can notice there the part of why true fans pay money. "Your labour IS the scarcity not the copies, for it cannot be pirated." And are you going to argue that it doesn't work? Even the mentioned Steins;Gate release says exactly the opposite, many of the fuwanovel staff bought the copy even though we still direct people to the shared copy. It is not because they had to buy it, they wanted to buy it, partially thanks to the fact that the game is popularized thanks to Fuwanovel. The article mentioned above wasn't directed at localization companies however, it was mainly directed at Japanese developers and why Aaeru decided to share the copies with the improvements of additional language version. You can even see similar examples here of people buying a Japanese version if they liked the fuwanovel copy. I can even say it for myself - I am struggling to make a living and pay rent, but after finishing Iroseka (shared torrented version), I became true fan of FAVORITE, It is one of my dreams that once I solve my situation and get some more money, I will not buy some expensive food or a car or any other pleasure like that, I will buy the games with all the stupidly overpriced little perks in the box, because I want the companies to make more of it. But in the meanwhile, all I can really do is spread the word of how good the games are, link people to the Fuwanovel Hoshimemo page, praise Iroseka and make more people try to play it in Japanese now, make more people interested in translating it for even wider audience - because I know that I can find people who will fall in love with those games just like I have and maybe they will have the funds to afford the support to the companies. I was able to talk to a Japanese FAVORITE fan yesterday in pso2JP, uniting together we can get more and more fame to the company that deserves it, even though the Japanese person can buy the game with earnings from an hour or 2 of his time, and all I can do is spread the word. But I am willing to spread the word for many hours, writing reviews and comparisons, because that is all I can spare, my time. If I haven't "pirated" the games in the first place, I would never be able to do this, I would never be able to extend the fandom because I would never be able to play the game. 3. Localized releases vs Fan TL releases So as mentioned above, we are still trying to carry Aaeru's good will of not sharing localized copies, a good will even after all the things the companies have done to her in response. The good will might weaken in times of controversy we can sometimes see, but since we believe that evil should not be repaid by evil, that eye for an eye is just the wrong approach, we still continue this good will and are not sharing English licensed releases of games. But there was never such will for Japanese releases, as with those, following the points mentioned in point 2 of this post, the creator will have more success in building fandom and true fans. And as such we are sharing Japanese copy of Planetarian, a game Aaeru added to the website, improved by a collective fan effort many years ago. It is the same version a lot of you (Including me) were able to enjoy for free, thanks to the original fan effort and Fuwanovel sharing service. And the same version, translated out of passion for the game, shared between fans of Key to make their games even more popular. Without this fan copy and all the other fan translated Key games, most of us would not be able to enjoy them. Without the effort of fan subbing, lot of people would not be able to enjoy Key anime. And without that the English Key fandom would not become what it is today, a fandom that is able to organize a giant project like Key 15th Anniversary Letter. A project that will even be collaborating with Sekai project to deliver their letter, signifying their dedication. A project full of TRUE fans who will buy the official Sekai release even though they have probably played Planetarian several times. And you are asking us to simply remove all that from existence so only you and other people in the past were so privileged to enjoy it for free and become a fan. That new people cannot join the club anymore, become a fan of a free version to later potentially evolve into a true fan supporting Key by buying figs and games all over the place, just like many Fuwanovel members do. And the same goes for Grisaia, we are sharing a Japanese version of the game improved by fan translation, a version that was able to build pretty big fandom of its own. A favorite game of many thanks to the free fan translation and the free availability on Fuwanovel (among other places). A fandom built thanks to a collaborative effort of not only translators and other people on the project, but also seeders on the torrents, page creators, article writers, even people just saying "I loved this game" in a public place - all those efforts however important or hard they might be created what Grisaia true fandom today is and as such tons of them will be able to afford the steam release, while others can keep sharing the word and original fan project for free, to get even more people on the board to be able to spend their money, time or effort or combination of those to further support their beloved game. And in the end by removing the original fan translation patch you are not only depriving newcomers of things you were able to have yourself, depriving them of the sun that used to shine on you. But you are also undermining all the efforts of the people trying to share and make the game as popular as possible with the means available to them. Some people have money to import the game from Japan or later buy the game on Steam, some people only have words. But power of the words might in the end turn out more powerful than power of money. By sharing a VN and making more people be interested in it and talk about it, you are essentially trading words for words - effort and words of the original creator for the good words and effort of review writers or simply people telling their friends to play it. And in the end this trade will result in a profit for the creator, as more and more people will be interested in the words the creator has to say in their games, more and more people will want more of those words and become a true fan, patron and supporter, trading their currency for more words. 4. Fuwanovel as a negative profit website Since this was already said, I will keep it short. But Fuwanovel, unlike many other sharing websites such as nyaa, generates ZERO profit of any of this. Quite the opposite, running website and fees connected to this actually costs money and we rely on charity of people, paying their money to host and run the website, offering their seedbox so we can spread the game torrents as quickly as possible. And even the times when many of us together collected the money to buy the forum software, with whatever we could put aside at that moment. And still there is not a single ad on the website, not a single cent was generated on Fuwanovel and that is how it is going to remain. Efforts of all the people working on maintaining the website, work put into coding and additional features, forum moderation, creating new pages for newly released projects, maintaining good upload speed by seeding - all those efforts are done with 0 compensation and 0 profit. And as such everyone can expect everything on Fuwanovel be equal to everyone, whether you came a year ago or now, you will have access to the same games for the same equal price, 0. That's because 0 is the ONLY price equal to everyone in the world and even though $1 might seem equal to all Americans, it is not equal to everyone in the world, only 0 is. And as the mission statement goes, Visual Novels for the World.

I was really angry at Katawa Shoujo. Misha was my absolute favorite girl, and her route was the only one that didn't exist. GAAAHH.

We need more Date A Live here, all girls from Date A Live are very kawaii.