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tymmur

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Everything posted by tymmur

  1. Cooling seems to be very overlooked compared to how important it is. It doesn't matter if you have a 3 or 4 GHz CPU if your cooling won't allow it to go faster than 2 GHz. You want a case where the entire front can be covered with fans, ideally at least 120 mm. The bigger the better because not only will bigger ones move more air, they are also less noisy while doing so. You also need to avoid the stock CPU cooler since it's noisy and not cooling very well. The 212 EVO is popular because it's arguably the best CPU cooling without going into the high cost CPU coolers. You need a proper power supply. The price difference between high end and cheap ones is minor compared to the entire build and a noname power supply comes with the risk of over voltage, which can toast every single part in the computer. Do not plan to use more than 70% of max load when all components use max power. It's a bad idea to push a power supply to the limit because it shortens the lifetime and reduces efficiency. Also the numbers usually apply to 20°C and computers are usually hotter than that. I would recommend Corsair both because of quality and because the warranty lasts 10 years, meaning you can easily end up using it in multiple computers within the expected lifetime of the power supply. If you build your own computer, this is what you should focus on because this is where home build computers really stand out from pre assembled computers. Nobody advertise on "better cooling" or "higher grade capacitors in power supply", meaning they cut corners here. In fact we can suspect they want to run computers so hot that it shortens the lifetime because selling computers, which won't die within 10 years is not a way to increase sales. Picks for CPU, GPU and RAM really depends on what you plan to do. If your main goal is gaming, you should go for fast CPU cores rather than many because most games are not good at spreading the workload between multiple CPU cores and will be throttled by how much a single core can do while keeping the others mostly idle. It also depends on the game if you should invest more in CPU or GPU. Which RAM to pick and how much it affects you is a really complex topic and it highly depend on what you plan to do. Keep in mind that regarding RAM and CPU, more expensive doesn't always mean better. There are expensive components, which are optimized for tasks like databases and will actually perform worse in games than some cheaper alternatives.
  2. Easy solution: buy both and build two computers. Who cares about money if you can end up playing two VNs at once. That must be twice the fun, right?
  3. Building steam pressure is good, but 8620 is not a steamroller
  4. If you actually look through the posts in the link, you will notice JAST is surprised about it and wants to investigate. Right now it looks like somebody at JAST did it without telling JAST. I don't think it's fair to blame JAST yet because all companies can experience a worker acting against the wishes of the leadership. The real test is now that they have been made aware of the issue and how the leadership responds. I mean so far it's not like Sekai and the Maitetsu incident where the only responds is a worker (project manager?) tweeting that he doesn't really care about the VN in question. I fully agree that just removing contents without being open about it is an issue and this will be an issue unless JAST leaders take action within reasonable time.
  5. I figured out the meaning of Reina's talk about engine upgrade. It makes perfect sense, but really, shouldn't you be able to figure this out from the VN itself without prior knowledge about engines? Once again it's a really nice idea, which is severely overshadowed by poorly written text/translation. Admittedly unlike the other issues I mentioned, this one is not easy to google, meaning at least translator and editor have valid excuses for missing this one. It's not just a question of recognizing words you have seen before. It's a question of understanding what the text is trying to tell you.
  6. It's actually very fitting. Anybody who can't even spell their own name could be classified as "hopless" Hiro is fitting too, but that's for actions after you made your account
  7. I finally decided to give Maitetsu a go. I'm still not happy with the way the release is officially handled, but at least we have the fan made patches now and it sounds interesting based on what other people have said so far. I'm mid scene 5 (as in still early) and so far I have to say I really like the story and characters. However what's up with the info dumping? It sounds a bit like an Amerian otaku explaining Japanese high schools based purely on anime and VNs, but with trains instead of schools. To make matters worse, the translation is clearly done by people who had no prior knowledge of railroad operation or words related to it as a number of the concepts seems to be analogue translations (word by word translation) rather than using the existing English word for the same item/concept. Apparently whoever edited this didn't get the idea to google the concepts because they are easy to find online and well explained. The intro makes little technical sense, but it works well for the storyline, so whatever. Dripping steam exhaust. Steam exhaust is steam, which is blasted out of the chimney (actually called "funnel" on steam ships and locomotives), which is what causes the well known puffing sound. The water is unintended condensed steam, which has to be drained from the lowest points, usually cylinders. Those two are mixed up in the translation. Hachiroku explains that an engineer drives a locomotive while a driver drives a railcar where the driver and passengers are in the same chassis. Attempts were made to call those two different names, but they never caught on. Engineer(US English) and driver(UK English) are 100% the same thing. Apparently they have different names in Japanese and for the sake of a translation we could have accepted this if used consistently. However the Kiha has an engineer (should be a driver according to the explanation) meaning the translation itself doesn't even use this explanation, which really makes the entire explanation pointless. Steam engine vs steam locomotive: in US English engine and locomotive can be used interchangeably. However steam locomotive and steam engine can't. Steam engine is used for both steam locomotive and steam engine despite those two being different things. It's like an "all dogs are animals, but not all animals are dogs" kind of case. Sidetrack: should be passing loop. Another note about this is the passing loop is being observed according to multiple lines in the text, yet there is clearly none in the CG, making it even more confusing. Diagram, emergency diagram: while technically correct, it's horribly explained and I would suspect nobody understands it without having seen a diagram prior to reading what they wrote. Trains crossing at passing loops is a name, which makes no sense in the text because it doesn't mention that each train has a line on the diagram and the trains meet when the lines crosses each other on the diagram. You can read more about diagrams here. I assume emergency diagrams are new plans made up to recover from unexpected events (broken train blocking a track or whatever). Driving plan: sounds like schedule/timetable to me. Engineer room, driver stand: actually called cab (US English) or footplate (UK English). It's mentioned a Kiha 07 is stronger than it looks and can be used for freight. I looked it up and I pity whoever tries to use it for freight. It weights 27 tons, yet delivers just 150 hp of continuous power. If that wasn't bad enough, it's diesel mechanic (transmission/clutch like a car). Railroads always tries to avoid clutches because they doesn't work with the torque needed for starting multi car trains. A Kiha 07 has room for 125 passengers and that's it. It looks like a decent budget passenger transport when it was new in 1934, but freight is completely out of the question. The station sign is made of wood, yet it's unreadable due to rust? The list will likely be longer the more I read, but the actual length is kind of besides the point. Somehow I feel like this is a missed opportunity for teaching VN readers about railroads. Ironically I learn more from online studying/crosschecking than I did reading the VN itself, which is obviously not good considering the VN actually does a serious attempt in teaching something. While it's popular to bash Sekai for Maitetsu, I really do get the feeling that at least some of the issues exist in the Japanese version as well, particularly the mismatch between CG and text and explaining a diagram without graphics. There is also the issue of picking specific concepts to explain rather than starting with the overall picture, which is clearly an issue from the Japanese version. I wonder who the target audience is for Maitetsu. Somehow it seems better suited at getting train otakus into VNs than it is getting regular VN readers into the world of the train otaku. Just think about it. If the reader is a train otaku already, the overall picture doesn't matter and the info dumping will explain stuff where the reader goes "oh I know that. Feels familiar" and suddenly the step into VNs is not as big as it would be with other VNs. The story about preserving heritage trains (or imperial railroad if you like) also sounds like an epic tale for train otakus. I have no idea if it has worked in Japan, but at least it's a nice attempt. The English version will however not be able to really attract railfans because the translation quality of railroad specific words is way too amateurish. Despite my harsh words here I do like the VN and none of those issues will make me stop reading. The main question regarding a VN is "do you enjoy the time you spend reading it?" and from that perspective it's actually one of the best I have encountered in years. Despite the flaws it's actually still a decent VN, both in story and visuals. I just wish it had a better quality translation. Note: I intentionally skipped mentioning raillords or aircra because they do not aim to be realistic. The railroad infodump however tries to be accurate, hence should be evaluated for the quality of such an attempt. EDIT: found a math problem. It says 500/2=277. More specifically 500 kg of coal weights the same as 277 two liter bottles. Apparently whoever wrote that has little insights in the metric system because 1 liter = 1 kg (for water) is one of the cornerstones in understanding why the metric system is vastly superior to any other measuring system ever used.
  8. tymmur

    .

    Title: Eroge! ~Sex and Games Make Sexy Games~ Apart from the missing title, I kind of agree with your summary. It starts out with some info dumping, which gives the impression that you will learn a lot. However once the protagonist is trained to start working, there will not be anymore downright teaching anymore, just whatever the protagonist happens to see. It's surprisingly informative for a nukige and for once there is a nukige where the information provided isn't made up, but at the same time it's not intended to teach you how to start your own VN development.
  9. What are you talking about? We all know the perfect editor will pronounce such dialogues using a dildo and then write whatever sounds comes out. In case it didn't come through clearly, I was being sarcastic because naturally that is what is going on in Japan. Censoring of genitals can only be at least somewhat effective in a pre internet era. Generally speaking, that's the wrong gender. Odds are that those most interested in lack of mosaic aren't blessed with unrestricted access to the opposite sex. And once again this thread has been hijacked by talk about genitals rather than Maitetsu or the patching itself.
  10. Am I the only one wondering who the thread starter is? It's somebody who signed up, started the thread and then left. The person haven't even logged in during the nearly 48 hours since this thread was started, making me wonder if that person even reads the replies. Who is collecting the votes and why is it gathered?
  11. I on the other hand do know quite a bit about what the work here involves and I have to say knowing what you guys are doing doesn't make it any less impressive. In fact knowing about the issues you face might make it even more impressive and I'm grateful that you will take the time and effort to do it.
  12. Here we go again. Whenever anybody mentions this topic, it will produce a lot of replies, but not consensus. The reason seems to be there is no single definitive answer. It depends on a number of factors: The VN itself: some VNs makes heavy use of honorifics to tell about interpersonal relationships or personalities. Others just add -san to everybody. Target audience: are you translating for a steam VN where it's the first VN people will read or is it a fan translation for people who read 30+ VNs already. Personal taste: we will never agree on acceptable loss of accuracy vs natural sounding English. Going to the extreme of either is bad, but where is the right balance? We spent a while considering this issue for Musumaker, or in broader terms: what to do about hard to translate contents. We ended up deciding to keep honorifics because they play a role and would result in a severe loss of insights in heroine personalities if they are cut. If honorifics are translated to English in a way to preserve the meaning, the result would be that most of the meaning would be lost anyway and it would sound much worse than keeping honorifics. It does come with a problem though, which is we can't except the reader to know all of them. The answer is a list where each honorific is written and explained. There is a twist to this though. Because the VN engine is fairly diverse, it allows displaying a png in the corner and if you move the mouse to it, it will pop up with another png. This allows adding the explanations ingame the first time a word is used and remove the need to jump in and out of the VN. This system can also be used for other hard to translate words like Tanabata. The goal of a translation is to give the same reading experience to the English speaking VN readers as Japanese get by reading the Japanese version. Diverting too much from the original contents in order to make "natural English" will lose the story while being too literal might keep all the story elements, but results in a written English, which isn't a pleasure to read. It's a question about finding the right balance between those two. Spamming words the reader needs to look up (even in the popup approach) will hurts reading pleasure, but never explaining anything hurts the understanding when some common knowledge about cultural references is needed to figure out what goes on. My conclusion is the same as every thread about a topic like this one: there is no single right answer, which universally applies to every single VN ever released. It is a topic to consider for every single translation project and even for a specific translation we will likely never get everybody to agree on honorifics.
  13. You should really treat your mother better
  14. Good valid arguments. However it reveals one giant flaw in this thread. How do we define "being as famous as Rance"? You made the connection that the more sales, the more famous. It's a decent metric, but it completely overlooks one very important aspect: everything in the Rance series have one thing in common: Rance. Most other titles have characters made for that release and then they are never reused. Rance is used again and again, meaning even if you played just 10% of the Rance games, you know Rance. If you play 10% of the Eushully, you know the characters in 10% of their titles. The power of Rance's fame is that it doesn't rely on one big release. Sure there will always be one title, which sold more copies than any of the other ones, but even then you can take it away and Rance is still famous. You can remove top 5 and Rance will still be famous. Maybe not as much, but still far from gone. You can't do that with any other VN character. Most rely on fame from just a single release. In fact most exist in just a single release. I feel like debating this is pointless, because I can't see a way where it won't just be an argument about how to define the word famous. Another issue is the definition of Rance. Is it the character himself or any VN where he is the protagonist?
  15. Point and click adventure is not really VNs, but whatever. The question is interesting nonetheless and could be interesting for VN creators as well in case they want to make a heavily branching plot. Sadly I'm not sure I can come up with a simple solution. The best thing I can think for getting an overview of something this complex would be a database. Think something like VNDB. You can enter a VN and in that VN you can get a list of characters. You can then enter a character and get a list of VNs where that character is mentioned. You should build up something similar with quests and characters. Perhaps add a third entity for items, allowing specific items to be used in multiple quests. Build the game, have notes for each quest and character and once quests are well defined, you will have the ability to look up a quest and see all the interesting points in that quest, possibly with notes about order. You can also look up a character and get a list of quests that characters should take part in, which is the first step in planning a dialogue tree. Another interesting point is that you should plan dialogue trees rather than dialogues. It seems you have different text depending on event flags. You should know the branching layout, possibly make notes about what topics to touch in each branch and then the last step is to fill out the details of each branch. The most important issue with designing is to only try to accomplish one thing at a time. Do not try to design quest, dialogue tree and dialogue in the same step because you will end up focusing on one of those and sacrifice the other two and you will end up with two or three of those three parts being messed up. I can't really answer the question of which software to use. I wrote that it is supposed to do, but I can't think of anything, which delivers such a functionality and telling you to code something from scratch is likely not a useful approach either.
  16. I would go one step further and ask this for games in general, not just JRPG. What comes to mind is Civilization from 1991. It's still around and is currently at Civilization 6. It used to be much better for reach release. However the leader resigned after Civilization 4 was released. It didn't show in the expansion packs, except perhaps the last, but once civ5 came out, it clearly showed it was made by new people. Long time fans point out a series of bad design decisions and stick to Civilization 4. Civilization 5 and 6 are apparently selling, but according to what people write online, it's because they managed to get a new fanbase rather than keeping the old one. It seems being experienced with 4 and then go to 5 and be happy about it is a minority. In other words Rance doesn't just stand out for having many releases through the years, it's also because for the most parts if you like one Rance game, you will most likely like them all or close to all. This means if you get into Rance now, it seems like an endless list of releases to go through. Furthermore each release adds new characters and story, but none of them really removed between releases (generic characters excluded). As a result the character base is gigantic, the background lore about the various countries is better defined than most other storylines. Despite never really info dumping, the huge amount of lines through the years have managed to build an even more complete world than most info dumping titles will ever manage. In other words it's not the age itself, which makes Rance stand out. I should have been more clear on that. It's because the huge number of releases have given the opportunity to make widespread world building. Another world building aspect is time. Many of the releases are a product of the time they came out. If you watch an anime from the 90s, you can tell that it's very different from modern ones and not just in drawing style. The same is true for all computer games and Rance is carrying on some relics, which were added in the 80s and 90s. One of them is Rance himself. It's clear his personality was well defined decades before #metoo and all that stuff. However unlike retro gaming or remakes, this is brought into new releases, which too are a product of the time they are produced in. This creates a hybrid between trends through the decades in a way I haven't seen anywhere else. Last, but not least, before internet downloaded games became common, the production and distribution of boxes was such a financial issue that the concept of spraying out junk releases was less of an issue. Rance was well known and could live on the reputation alone when the internet started spamming new releases, most of rather questionable quality. If you release something today without a previous reputation, good luck on standing out.
  17. If you are right about this missing line, it begs the question: where is the screenshot from? If it contains a line, which isn't in the released version, then how was the screenshot made? I assume it's a real screenshot (no photoshop because that would make no sense at all), then how many versions exist and why is it is at least one version, but not the released version? I really hope either this claim is incorrect or it turns out to be a trivial bug in the patch because I don't want to think through what it means if we are presented with fake screenshots.
  18. Some female artist made a boat shaped after her own genitalia (referred to as the pussy boat) and she got arrested. Japan is apparently working really hard to make sure the general population will have no idea what genitals look like. This talk has nothing to do with the Maitetsu patch. I propose splitting the thread into two in order to keep the patch thread dedicated to the actual patch and not debating Japanese laws.
  19. I'm not aware of any official localization with de-censored HCGs. A number of them have used pre-censored versions of the HCGs. In other words it's a question of getting existing images from the developer. When pixel blur is used in an English release, the reason is most likely that the original pre-censored images have been lost or drawn horribly because nobody will see anyway. One approach is to not draw anything at all and then just add severe pixel blur and the viewers will assume there is something. Think about it this way: why should an artist spend time on something, which the customer won't see anyway? Do you want 10 HCG with nice graphics behind the pixel blur or do you want 11 made in the same time without anything worth watching behind the pixel blur? For many Japanese developers the answer to this is fairly simple, particularly if western licensing seems unrealistic at the time. In other words official localization will try to get uncensored images if they are available, but lack of access to those will not prevent a title from getting an official western release. No, the law requiring censoring affects published material. You are free to have uncensored images in your house as long as you do not do any kind of publishing. Shooting a porn movie would be impossible with a complete ban. They record uncensored and then they edit it to become censored. There is no ban on the internal uncensored version as long as it stays internal.
  20. There will never be another Rance. The reason is history. Rance is old, much older than most old games. To put this into perspective, you can be born 11 years after the first Rance release and still be old enough to buy adult VNs. When Rance 3 was released, the Soviet Union still existed. This means unless you are a Japanese in your 50s (or older), your first contact with Rance was not contact with a game. It was a series of games with a world building legacy. Rance kept getting new releases, which were updated for the modern era of the time, meaning Rance will most likely represent the era of when you started playing computer games regardless of how old you are. That is without being retro because it was new at the time. You can make new VNs/games now and they can be well made. However regardless of how perfect they are made, they can't be made with the legacy from day one and with the high amount of releases today, odds are that any good releases now will not last multiple decades without being killed by competition. In other words Rance is big not just because what it has done, but also because of when it has done so. Just think about it. Releasing unvoiced VNs today indicates low budget productions, possibly of questionable quality. Rance started before anything had voices and just didn't add them (remake of Rance 3 excepted), meaning Rance is likely the only VN today, which can make a AAA VN without voices. That's what legacy can do to a series. Also the size of the new Rance releases indicates a gigantic production budget, something which is only realistic due to a legacy, which will sell a lot on the name alone. It's not uncommon for people to complain about Rance and how he isn't treating women nice. However remember that this style is decided back in the 80s. According to the ingame "behind the VN" in Rance 1, protagonists back then were all heroes. They wanted Rance to stand out and made him a jerk, somebody with an attitude and behavior you don't want to copy. This means people are right. Rance isn't a gentleman and it's completely intentional. However Rance is a hero and he is more comedy than dark themed. It's quite possible this hero and anti-hero in the same person, which have made Rance stand the test of time.
  21. I already wrote that I did to see what all the talk was about and then regretted doing so. It was mainly because at the time I haven't really been exposed to the dark themed stuff and with so many other cases where people cry wolf, I wondered what it was really about because clearly it could not be as bad as they make it out to be. Sadly in this case the public outcry is spot on and I wish I could go back and stop me from making that mistake. It does however give me the ability to bash Rapelay with knowledge of what it's all about and it is indeed the most rape encouraging media I have ever seen. And you keep derailing the thread.
  22. I'm not sure about that statement. Ookami to Koushinryou - Umi o Wataru Kaze Ookami to Koushinryou - Boku to Horo no Ichinen However requesting translated VNs indicates that it is indeed the light novel version, not an untranslated VN.
  23. It was and it's rather obvious why you made the comparison. You got something against Musumaker apparently based on assumptions rather than knowledge about the contents and you feel the urge to tell me even in threads where it's not related to the topic. The comparison is farfetched for anybody knowing the contents of both games and making the comparison (particularly out of thread context) makes you look like whoever wrote that blog entry you linked to.
  24. Looks like you completely missed my point. You started to make baseless negative assumptions about me and my reply regarding Germany is based on the fact that Finland and Germany were allies during WW2. Linking that to you personally and your point of views is as baseless as what you wrote about me. The article is disturbing in multiple ways. It presents a warped impression of hentai combined with horror stories of how bad people are affected. All examples have one thing in common: they are written in a way where we have no chance of verifying the stories. It also touches the topic of the rights of fictional characters. It has all the telltale signs of fanatic propaganda written by somebody on a crusade against whatever. It doesn't matter what they are against, it's about gathering a group of people you can control, hence gain power. It's a decent example of the case I wrote about in the "make VNs popular in the west" for why I'm not sure we want VNs to be popular. It will attract nutcases. If they really want to protect children from sexual exposure, start with the schools. If some boy (or girl, but it's usually a boy) finds it funny to display hardcore gay porn on the classroom projector to expose preteens to the contents, make the school responsible for avoiding repeated offenses. Right now stuff like that happens and the teachers are like "I told you before not to do it. If you do it again, I will tell you to stop again" and that's about it. Anybody talking about protecting children from sexual exposure, who doesn't start with the widespread forced exposure at schools aren't in the talk for the children, but rather for personal reasons unrelated to children. This is going off topic. Looking back, the trigger condition for the derailment was you calling me a lolicon (or more precisely saying I can't understand issues with lolicon contents). Not only did it come out of nowhere (you didn't reply to any talk about anything loli related), I find the statement both incorrect and offensive. Making an offensive statement out of the blue, which will trigger an off topic reply sounds a bit like trolling to me, though I don't think you actually intended to troll the thread.
  25. Fakku just announced that Sekai is waiting for a reply from Lose regarding some aspect of the fixes and "Things are happening". That's all. No ETA or any other details. However as little as it is, I'm actually fine with it. It's the first official statement that Sekai acknowledges the problem and is actively trying to do something about it. Now if Sekai had said this once the community discovered the issues, then they would have avoided the severe backlash. Instead they waited two weeks. Also they let Fakku announce it, but if it only affects the 18+ version and Fakku is the only source of the 18+ version, I guess that's a valid option. Not perfect, but at least valid. The more the unofficial patch (and 4chan) have discovered about the issues, the more it looks like a genuine mistake, one which most people/companies can make. The cutoff lines seems to be a bug in the script builder, most likely due to windows vs linux style of newlines. Any programmer exposed to both kinds in a set of files will have issues fairly frequently. I can forgive that mistake, though I really wonder about the pre-release testing, which failed to discover that some lines are cut off mid sentence. If we give Sekai the benefit of the doubt, it could be possible that it works in the Steam version and then they applied the 18+ patch, they tested the added scenes and never realized the 18+ contents broke something in all age scenes. A proper test would be a complete test of every single version they intend to release, but Steam, patched and direct 18+ makes 3 versions. Making a complete test of 3 versions is rather time consuming, meaning expensive with paid testers. Test one and assume that scene to work on all versions isn't farfetched, but apparently it failed. What remain is PR: Sekai really blew this one. Why did it take two weeks (14 days and some hours) from community detecting issues until any announcement that there will be an official fix? They should have known that complete silence combined with a history of poor post-release support would create a publicity backlash. Surprisingly the silence might be the only issue where they are aware, but acted incorrectly because the rest can be a series of bad luck events, which both caused the issues and prevented testers from discovering them. Sekai can claim one victory though. If it was a junk title, which people don't care about, then people would just move on and not complain. The fact that people got upset and that there is a (partial) fan patch out shows that they have a winner regarding the VN title.
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