Zakamutt

>sonico
ＮＯッ！

I can personally recommend Gone Home, if only to see what everyone is/was talking about (well, apart from that it's quite good). Pretty much everything is delivered either through text or voiceover (voiceovers are triggered by finding and reading text on objects), with some context given by the 3d environment (such as a certain hidden whiskey (I can't actually remember the type of liquor) bottle you can spot in a room; interesting touch that one). As an amusing touch to show you what the focus of the game is, there's actually a key that makes you lean in a bit for a closer look at something.
I don't think it'd hold up that well if you actually were to publish it as an epistolary novel, but that comes with the territory; if the digital part isn't part of the story's power, why have it present at all?

I very much enjoyed Gone Home when I played it. I considered whether I would call it a visual novel afterward and during, but rejected the notion. Why? It's just too interactive. When I read visual novels, I don't consider myself in control apart from picking which pages i want to read at certain well-defined points. In Gone Home, I was in control at all times, able to move as I like through a 3d space (the closest analogue to Gone Home in the 2d space would be the non-3d versions of Actual Sunlight, by the way). The feeling of self-insertion was utterly unlike the visual novels I know and love; I started roleplaying that little grill's oneechan soon as I knew who I was. Don't remind me of how I felt during Lilly's bad end in Katawa Shoujo, it's way too embarrassing.
The argument the vndb mods would make against it, though, is that through the average play experience you might spend as much if not more time exploring as actually reading anything. Is this valid? Bugger if I know.
All in all, Gone Home may or may not be a visual novel, but it ain't no visual novel o'mine (as you say :P). That said, I quite enjoyed it and may check out other walking simulators, or whatever new epithet people will have given them by then, at some point.

Kouryuu gave his take on the topic recently on ask.fm. Since he's translated quite a few nukige professionally, it should be an interesting perspective.

I believe a few fan patches have a readme with a short gothrough of the various honorifics, so that's a possibility. Whether anyone except me actually reads them is anyone's guess.
Personally? I don't really care - but if I had to make a polarized choice either way I'd go the no-honorific way (naturally I chose the Fallout 4 option, though personally I'll be watching Psycho-Pass and reading Amairo instead.) I also think that your poll doesn't quite capture a potential "prefer it in only if it's somewhat plot relevant" position, which is more where I'd end up at. Keeping it is also less important in voiced dialogue, because I can probably pick it up from the Japanese anyway.
For an opinion less based on personal preference, I think it's best to leave them out so we can open up the medium to non-weebs. Leaving them in is generally the lazy choice, but given how lazy I am, I can't blame any translator for being the same.

Oh dear, looks like I'm in for a tricky time. Gotten a bit into Umi's route, but not really close to finished considering there hasn't even been any sex yet. I'll try to keep an eye out for the supposedly strange word choices though, since Sango's route didn't seem to have any of that - and I want to see whether Rooke's theory is correct .

Definitely not trash tier, not to mention that "tricky" was not the only word they used to translate ずるい to begin with. What mostly bothers me is the apparently MDZ-mandated transliteration-only onomatopoeia policy, but there's nothing you can do about your work parameters at times. The typos would bother me if I didn't find it so fun to screenshot them and post them with slight mockery for all to see on Twitter.

I think the problem isn't just with marketing, but how you market it. Your post on reddit some time ago illustrates this: first of all, you used a clickbait title, which is frowned upon. Second, you more or less threw three links out there, without much context. A more carefully written post which eased readers into the subject and gave more context to each link would probably have been received somewhat better. The commenters were still a bit too faggoty though, rip.
 
tl;dr the way you present your content is important

long may you Run

topic tip: http://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/8942-visual-novel-orders-good-deals-nice-steals/#entry241369