nohman

Thanks so much for letting me play this game! You guys are doing an excellent job and should be very proud of yourselves. Keep up the good work.
 
Also, here are my thoughts on the current status of the game:
 

 
I don't think it is obvious enough who the shining star in this photo is...

1. Smiling Jack from VTMB - Why? Well...uh...he's Jack, man. Also he is unbelievably violent and badass. Also I'm a sucker for characters who can so efficiently paint a perfect picture of psychotic violence in a single sentence.

 
2. Suoh Mikoto from K - Calm, collected, yet passionate. He is immensely powerful, cares endlessly for those who have no place to belong to, he isn't petty, yet he is passionate (in a subtle way). Besides, he is my favourite male character within my top anime.

 
3. Takigawa Yoshino from Zetsuen Tempest - He doesn't easily show his true emotions and has interesting secrets to tell and actions to take. Can't go into too much detail for Spoiler reasons and simply can't be bothered to say everything I love about his character.

 
My favourite characters are in constant flux, but I can say these three have been the contenders for quite some time. Also, I'm probably forgetting a few of my favourites so these may not be 100% accurate, but off the top of my head the top three it's these guys.

Hi everyone . I have just published Unhack:Destruction, a three episode prequel to the original tale. Seems like short works draw no interest from most VN readers, but I poured a lot of heart into the game, so thank you for possibly giving it a chance m(_ _)m.
 

 

 
Unhack:Destruction is available here:
 
http://unhack.invertmouse.com
 
Just visit the Play section and you are all set. If there are any issues, please be sure to let me know so I can fix it as soon as possible. Big thanks as always to forum peep Flutterz for helping me test the game.
 
Thank you m(_ _)m!

Welcome to:
Cooking with Ara



A little backstory before we begin! In the last month, I've once again moved away from the home of my mother and into an apartment where I continue my life as an indebted university student. During this month, I've attempted to live extremely frugally, which makes me kind of happy but has been the result of 80% of my meals being spaghetti, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, peanut butter and anything anythings, cereal, and four pounds of shelled peanuts. Needless to say, it's been a little rough, so I'm looking to expand my culinary repertoire, even if it costs me some money and time.
And what better a way than by making interesting food myself!? And you should help me. I want you guys to give me some recipes. Exotic is good. Tasty is good. You know what's good! So, if you post a recipe that I think I'll enjoy, I'd love to spend some time and effort trying my best at making it. I could do it like a blog and post pictures of the process and the final product and talk about what I thought about it and rate/review it. I could do whatever we want!
Are you picking up what I'm layin' down?
Note: I have extremely mediocre cooking skills, but a willingness to eat many a botched recipe regardless. Hunger is the best of spices, they say! So I'll try my best, but we'll see where the wind blows us.
So, I guess I'll let popularity see whether or not the community has any interest in this. Any recipes you've always kind of wanted to try but never got around to? Any weird dishes that would require a trip to an Asian foods market? Dishes you simply want to see someone make? Tell me about 'em! Help me to be a true culinary king and engage with me in the process!

My preference is main dishes over deserts


 
Let the journey begin?
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
 
Cook Number: The First
Yakisoba
dedicated to Mr Meogii
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chicken-yakisoba/
 
On this lovely, wet and cold Friday night, I made the first meal that I'm going to show you. This one was one that I had been planning for a long time, and had the ingredients for! After this, it'll be up to you guys to keep the suggestions spicy.
 






 
From what I can gather, yakisoba is a noodle dish often sold at festivals as a sort of cheap and simple-ish pseudo-fried-food type meal. Meaning that the cooks probably just throw a ton of stuff together and cook it over noodles. The meat type and content varies, but I chose to cook chicken yakisoba because I very much enjoy the taste of chicken and it's a wonderful meat to fry. Anyway, it's supposed to be easy to cook, simple, and tasty! I dont have a very good track records with ethnic foods because my tastes tend to be conservative and bland, but that's something that really makes me click with what I hear about Japanese food: That it focuses on mild flavors that hide subtle qualities. I havent been to Japan, and almost all the Japanese food I have gone out to eat is sushi, so I'll give it some time before I say for certain that I like Japanese food, but it's definitely one of the only regions of the world where I would probably have a great time eating authentic food. Personal tastes, cultural tastes, and tangents aside, yakisoba is neither subtle nor mild, so let's have some fun!
 
As seen above, I gathered all my ingredients, about ten in total. I readied a few more knives than I probably needed (3). I cut the cabbage head in half, and then sliced it in quarter-half inch wide slices of varying lengths (2-4 inches~). I also cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces and minced two cloves of garlic for my first time ever.
 
I also had some water boiling for my noodles. I used soba buckwheat noodles. They are kind of brown-ish gray and much more porous than the usual flour noodles I cook for spaghetti all the time. Muuuch more porous, I wish I had a picture of the pot after my pound and a half of soba noodles had cooked. They had soaked up more than half a gallon of water and filled the entire pot! It was absurd. And because of those properties, they are also less sturdy than my spaghetti noodles, so you had to treat them somewhat delicately or they would mash.
 
Meanwhile at station 2, I was setting up the (giant) frying pan for the rest of the ingredients. First up is to cook the chicken and garlic, then add the chili paste and half a cup (so much!) soy sauce to the mixture while cooking on med/high temp. I cooked it about four times as long as the recipe called for because i was worried about the chicken not cooking through, and wanted to cook more soy sauce out of the mixture before I put that part aside. But after fifteen minutes, I had myself a nice looking chicken and sauce combo:



 
After emptying this mixture into a holding container, I rinsed and reused my big pan for part two: the variety! Here is where I fry the cabbage, carrots, onions, and add a lot of salt! So I turned the heat back on, added the cabbage, and then decided that the pieces were too big. I'm not proud of this exactly, but I decided that it would be best to just try to cut the cabbage while it was frying... so um yea, didn't work. But the important thing is that it didnt *not* work horribly! Thumbs up for valuable life experiences! And then I had trouble cutting the carrots into matchsticks, because I forgot that I had to cut anything other than the cabbage, so I was hurriedly trying to cut the carrots and add them to the pan before the cabbage cooked through too much! The idea is to cook the cabbage and carrots and onions (which I likewise forgot until the end) until they are soft and wilty. And I also forgot the salt. But I managed to add all of these things over time as the cabbage cooked and it actually turned out quite fantastic. Apparently it's quite hard to overcook cabbage, who knew.
Side note: cabbage friend in oil with salt is actually very tasty. My friend took a bite of a piece and said that it tasted like pickled cabbage or something, and also that it was very good despite him not liking cabbage. I like cabbage both ways, so... ^^
 



 
When that finished cooking, I added the chicken mixture to the heat and mixed it all together. Add a pound of soba noodles and cook until it's all nice and warm!
 



 
And that was that! The recipe lists 35 minutes as the total cook time, given the noodles have already been cooked. It took me just under two hours from start to finish, counting 45-60 minutes of noodle cooking (very weak heaters take over half an hour to boil a pot of water x.x). I cooked everything at least twice as long as they suggested, generally more like 5 times longer, but it somehow still turned out well. Probably since I tried to rely more on my common sense than the recipe. Either way, I got some sassy comments from my friends, whom I invited to hang out while I cooked, about how I took forever. Which is true: I learned today that I am very casual in the kitchen. But I enjoyed it a lot and dont regret spending a lot of the time doing silly things and having fun with it.
The final product?
 



 



 
As a whole I really enjoyed the yakisoba. Making it was fun and I can imagine it would get faster and faster over time. It's easy to cook in bulk and quite inexpensive, so it's perfect for the good ol' college lifestyle. As far as taste goes, on a scale from hate to love, 0 to 10, I'd give it a strong 9! I really do like it a lot, but there are some things I would change. The only other time I've tried to make yakisoba, many months ago, I used udon noodles (kind of defeats the whole idea of soba I guess) and rice wine. I really really liked it that way, but I'd have to say that this yakisoba is fundamentally different, through the use of chili paste instead of vaporized wine to create the primary taste (the secondary being the materials and the soy sauce). That said, I'd probably use udon noodles next time, because I love them so much. Honestly, while I do like these soba noodles, I can't get those udon noodles out of my head. They are the best noodles I have ever had. Cooked with so much salt~ mmmm. This dish has the pleasure of being somewhat spicy, which is very appealing to me, while the rice wine version had no such spice. I'd recommend this recipe to almost anyone, including cooksmiths as inept and silly in the kitchen as myself!
 
And finally, a big thanks to everyone who posted in this thread and made me feel valued and squiggly inside. I hope you enjoyed reading this at least a little. I'll try to work on adding more of a story-like flare to them as I continue to be under your care. u.u

I hate you all

Update 001:
 
- Behind-the-scenes moderator work (due tomorrow) - complete
- Board Moderator program selection (successfully started, was due by midweek) - complete
- Server tech stuff (due sometime) - progress
- Logo switching permissions - complete. Nosebleed's now the Minister of the Logo!
- Blog work - conversations started, work to do itemized
- Server Host tech stuff - hopefully all sorted out
- Blog-Social Media link - waiting for server work to be finished
- "Comprehensive Proposal" for Rooke (proposal due in next 2 days, plans confirmation within 2 weeks) - not so done, but I'm working on it 
- Global and Board Moderator Handbooks (due before BM program starts next week) - They're written in my head... promise! But nothing on the page yet.
- Twitter challenge: @Flutterz has taken an early lead! Fate Tay Night (the upcoming sequel to FSN) looks HOT.
 
 
If you didn't read carefully:
A note to those who said they were interested in being board moderators: the global mods are going through the list over the next few days. After they're done I will set up the teams. Some of the selections will be based on global mod requests, others by me.

Hello everybody,
 
As some of you know, I've been extremely sick lately. It's been more a dangerous-sick than just I-hate-life-sick, and so my absence on the site was unavoidable. I'm getting better, I've had solid medical care, and I'm putting my life back together. Thank you for your patience. This couldn't have come at a worse time (for my personal life and for Fuwa!)
 
I know that many of us were starting to get really jazzed for upcoming site changes. I want to spell out a timeline for everybody so we all know what's coming and what to expect. I also hope it'll help assuage any anxieties about stagnation.
 
The "cleaning house" period has been extended through October (since I've been out of action for almost all September!) Between now and next Wednesday I will be finalizing some behind-the-scenes changes among the staff and writing materials for the board moderator program By the end of next week I hope to have everything in place to roll out the board moderator program (members can be given moderator roles over particular "boards" on the forums and work under the guidance of a global moderator). I made a call for interested parties (https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/6292-are-you-interested-in-helping-moderate-a-corner-of-the-fuwanovel-forums/) and the initial roster will be selected from those who stepped forward in that post. If you're interested and fit the qualifications, speak up in that post! Again, at least the selection of board moderators should be done by next week, at which time I should have the training materials finished and in the hands of the global mods (and then we'll see how it goes) I'm working on getting an up-to-date picture on where our server move is and what front-site changes are ready to be made. Nothing to report yet, but I have submitted a 2-page list of high-priority changes to our web development team I finished my site analytics and I'm very pleased with the VN forums changes (traffic and participation are both up across the spectrum of user groups). I think the data also shows that the "Ongoing Projects" board has been very successful at driving traffic and attention to the projects featured within it. I can't say that for sure (I'm not awesome at the form of statistics my program is using), but if I'm reading the data right, then it's driven >3x as much traffic to each project than they were receiving before the ongoing projects board was made. I don't know about you, but I'd say that's exactly what we'd want for our fearless project leaders! Still waiting to hear the details on software changes before I commit to any tagging add-ons for the Development boards (it could take a while, but it's a high priority for me. Don't give up, developers!) The forums changes, like I said, have been very encouraging. The biggest (most important? controversial? fabulous?) issue to tackle, as we all know, will be the general discussion board with the G&C sub-board within it. Before I go into any details about the changes, I'l reemphasize that my priorities in changing up the organization will be: maintain a space for true general discussion, provide a separate space for Fuwanovel-centered projects and community work/discussion, give an out let for getting to know each other and having fun, and then filtering out the posts which are fluff or worthless and really just deserve to die (more on this in a minute ; )). (In summary: better differentiate between topical discussion, friendship building, Fuwanovel work, and "fluff" posts which deserve death) The details are yet to be finalized, but the current plans (written in a super secret notebook) are as follows:      A. To create a community hub (focused on Fuwanovel) which will be dedicated to community projects, the improvements board system, a leadership council, etc.      B. Restore the "general discussion" board to its true purpose (topically-based and focused discussion about stuff)      C. There will be a Lounge section which will be the spot for getting to know each other, having fun, a little goofing off, etc.      D. The newest addition will be something akin to an "Arena of Death" where pointless, fluff, and/or scum-and-villainy types of posts will be sent to die (or fight for survival). Details forthcoming. One really big thing that needs to be addressed is site media (blog and social media). There will be some long-overdue changes coming to the blog, and a better workflow for how all these services work together and how they're to be used There's more. I could talk about MOTM, for example, which has had a bumpy road due to my illness, or stances on games and translator groups and requests for takedowns. There's a lot more to discuss, but I don't have the energy atm to get it all down on paper. I ask for your patience as I recover. I'll put out as much info as I can on a regular basis. Within the next week I will be finalizing the list of torrents which will no longer be linked-to on our front site. The links will go "offline" the last week of October. The leadership structure of the community to which we're headed is going to be a leadership council structure with voting and non-voting members. I'm not going to say a lot more at this point (since it's still early, there's still too much to do, and because I need to maintain a tyrannical dictatorship power structure in order to accomplish everything listed above ), but I wanted to clearly state that nobody realizes better than I the logistical problems facing the site. I just wanted to assure everybody that soon enough we'll be in a position where responsibilities are better spread out and no life-threatening illness of any one of us puts all the forward momentum in jeopardy ; ). I want to apologize to the logo contest winners! I'm sorry that I haven't been rotating the banners as I promised. I will be appointing somebody to do this and giving them restricted ACP access so they can make the changes per schedule in the future.   
 
Immediate Timeline:
I still need some rest time, but I should be in a better position by Tuesday By Wednesday night I should have a fairly comprehensive proposal ready for my inexhaustible and ever-patient counselor and friend Rooke to examine. Details of above proposals will be discussed and refined for up to 2 weeks or until we're both happy. No later than that point I'll reach out for additional opinions and thoughts/further refinement Concurrently: I should have the staff worked out by Tuesday. The global mods (at least the ones who head board moderator teams) will be given several days to choose from a list of willing members to build their teams. I will also be selecting board moderators and assigning them to particular global mods/boards. While the global mods are working on their team (and, again, this is concurrent with Rooke and I working through proposed changes), I will be finalizing the staff handbooks which will contain rules, policies, important information, and workflows for typical tasks. Once that's done and the global mods have built their teams, the new board mods will be contacted, I'll set up their permissions, and the global mods will conduct training for their teams. Front site: This is an email-based workflow which I'll initiate tomorrow (Sunday). The upcoming forums changes will be enacted once we have  a set plan (on my end) and an army of board moderators willing to help us manage the transition. I estimate this'll go down within 1-1.5 weeks Some basic blog changes are going to be happening in the next week as well: integration with social media, aesthetic changes, and additional un-annouced changes should roll out.  
That's probably as much detail as is helpful right now. Please note: I have >40 PMs and emails to go through, so if you don't hear from me right away, don't think I'm ignoring you!
 
 
 
 
LAST POINT! The Bonus Twitter Challenge!
I'm not currently able to spend a lot of time up and about, meaning my time for working on Fuwa is somewhat limited. "Working on Fuwa" includes stuff like PMs, emails, reports, TL group sessions, and photo shoots. (<- one of those has yet to be requested. Wonder why...). SO! I'd like to suggest that anybody who urgently needs to contact me should do so through Twitter (at least for the next few days). 
 
My twitter handle is @ArchmageTay
 
I'll try to get up and be here on the site, but again, if you have a pressing concern or issue, send me a DM/Tweet. Also! The challenge part: my twitter avatar is pretty bland (but awesome! Yay HP!). If you're tweeting at me and get bored of my avatar, feel free to send me alternates you think I should use instead. If your submission is really awesome, you may just see it go up ; ).
 
That last bit was just for fun, but really -- it's difficult for me (at least in the short, short term) to get up and around, so if you need me, let me know through Twitter. (Unless you're batman. Then just send me a bat signal through Skype).
 
 
(read the post below- elevator music to accompany things, placed here by me, Kaguya)

 
 
 
If you read all of this... wow! Way to go! Thanks for your time, and I'll see you soon.

I joined Fuwanovel because of visual novels, but I stayed because of the community and the people here. I don't really see the problem: people still discuss visual novels and upcoming news, they are active projects on the forums, and most of the forum's real estate is devoted to visual novels. I wouldn't no where near call the VN portion of the forums barren. Not all of the discussion there has merit or is interesting, but that's a matter of personal opinion.The fact that people are able to contribute more to general discussion topics isn't really that surprising, nor is it anything to decry. General discussion topics are more digestible and more easily added to. That's how it has been on the majority of forums I've frequented.
 
As for the topic directly at hand, I feel for Tay. Since I've been a member, I've seen at least of couple of admins come and go. It always felt like Tay sort fell into his current position (that is being the sole one driving the direction of the site). He seems like a decent guy and the fact he continues to stick around, even through his prevailing health issues says something. I have faith in him that he will earnestly try to implement the changes that are being talked about, even if they don't really come to fruition. There may be a time where we arrive at a crossroads if he's no longer able to continue these efforts or the community as a whole becomes fed up with their lack of expediency, but I don't think we're at that point yet.
 
As for the state of the forums and people of the community, people have always come and gone and popped up when they felt like it. I'm sure there's some specific cases, but I'm not sure if on the whole it has anything to do with the current "languishing state" that the forums find themselves in.

In relation to the spam topics. We removed them from new posts so that new people wouldn't be exposed to them so much, allowing vn topics to flourish.

No one has ever underestimated the effort translators put in, but it's not for those looking for quick adoration.

All are welcome to express your feelings in this topic, just know we haven't dropped the ball and the patience you have shown so far will not be unrewarded.

A lot of us aren't as interested in those things, Down. Or at least that's what the relative subforum popularity suggests. I don't like reading reviews, I'm not big into analysis, and I don't have a big enough list of completed vns to be able to read most of the threads on vntalk anyway. Should I just leave?

The problem is that you're seeing this as a new development. Which it is, but that's completely natural. The first people to join this community were heavily entrenched in the work of spreading vns, or at least the vns themself. As you get more popular, you attract a wider array of people. People who enjoy vns, but not as much as maybe anime or manga; who enjoy the community and try to help spread it's message just by making the community more vibrant. That's just because you've already trrapped a lot of the hardcore visual novel enthusiasts already.

If you want a strictly visual novel forum, you're going to have to implement changes that will effectively take this site back in time, removing the more stray fans such as myself. Or you could just produce more content, but whining about how we don't produce enough as is won't do anything. We are in our natural state.

And furthermore, for outsiders, the first thing they see is the front page, then the vn talk and projects subforums. THEN, if they like the site, they'll join or start lurking around GD and Anime/Manga. You only see all the non-vn stuff because you're here all the time. My first days as a lurker were spent in the vn focused subforums.

Yay Tay

After reading what everyone has had to say I have come to a few conclusions.
The biggest thing is that simply because Tay is the man in charge of this website does NOT mean he is to blame for the lack of updates to the main page and changes to the site overall. Its Tay's responsibility to himself to ensure his health, and no website is more important than that. But perhaps it is a wake up call that he cannot and should not go it alone in running this site.
 
I think we do need to have more independence from Tay. I have made my complaints about the MotM, and looking back I will admit that I was being quite ignorant. However, Tay is not the only one on this site who is capable enough to implement changes (especially simple ones such as that).
 
 
Perhaps we should have a MotM solely based on contribution to a translation project or other major project. This brings me to my next topic...
 
This is bullshit. If we wanted a site strictly about the localization of visual novels, we would have all just joined Lemma Soft. Although you have made meaningful contributions to this site, I don't appreciate the lack of faith you show. If you are going to complain like that you can just leave. This site appeals to more than just those who have the ability to work on a translation project. Without the community members that frequent the other boards we would not have the fan base to achieve our goal of making visual novels a commonplace medium. The fact that this site is a friendly place where we can all discuss more than just VNs allows us to spread the good word. Translation projects are still a big part of this site, and I can agree that it doesn't seem like as much work is being done in general. However, people don't just get recognized for posting a thread saying they're going to be working on a project. As many people have stated, we all can't have the skills to make a difference, but it is still important for us to have a diversity of members who can still spread the news.

Like I said, it's easily among my favorite games of all time. It also has some of my favorite voice acting out of any game. I've probably played through it 10+ times over the years. The character creation isn't as daunting as it may look. If you do a little digging, you'll find that a lot of the stats are redundant (from a gameplay perspective, not a roleplaying one) and not all of them are that useful. If you get the mind to ever play it again, looking at the introductory stuff of a walkthrough would probably help you make sense of everything. Also, be sure to grab the unofficial patch and maybe even look into the handful of content mods available for the game. They really flesh out the experience and even turn it into a different games in some ways.

For a relatively straight forward style, focusing on combat would be ideal I guess. I'd probably go Toreador if you want to shoot things (this will give you some social options to boot) or Brujah (or gangrel for unarmed) if you want to smack things. Guns are better for end game. The Tremere are my favorite race in the game, I'm a huge fan of killing people with blood missiles and blowing them up from within. Malkavians are absolutely not recommended for a first play though, the PC malkavian is of the absolute nonsensical, batshit crazy variety and the dialogue is changed to reflect that. Not the best for getting a cursory view of the story. Plus, once you play through the game once, you'll be able to pick up on some of the prophetic hints that are contained in the Malkavian PCs dialogue and hallucinations. 

Easily among my favorite games of all times. I don't think I've played through a game as much I have VtM:B. I was a bit bummed when I heard the World of Darkness MMO got canceled. 

Haven't played Chaos;Head yet and I think I need a break from non stop translating lol.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZgN0PFzt-Q

Week 21
 

Weekly Line Count: 965 lines 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmkySNDX4dU

As a fellow lazy perfectionist, welcome to the forums. I hope you'll enjoy the community.

Awfully lonely in here.
 

I guess one of us should sing part of a certain Bon Jovi song

Mayuri's Route
 

It's so good to have you, .

Welcome to the community, Acix. I hope to see to you around the forums.

Little Busters is great if you like suffering through a shit tier common route devoid of anything interesting, forced comedy situations, pancakes, and Kurugaya ruining everything with her stupid looking face. The routes are about as bad as it gets with the exceptions of Haruka and Rin. Haruka's is only good because she's awesome. Every other route is horrid (Kud's was fine until the ending). 
 
And then comes Refrain which is awesome until the ass pull piece of shit pussed out ending that negates almost everything that Refrain did right. 
 
Rewrite is perfect if you dont like any of what I just described.