EdwardWongHPTIV
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Posts posted by EdwardWongHPTIV
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Bah, I forgot to grab this while it was still discounted. Ah, well. I already have a huge backlog. I'll get to it...eventually. Maybe it'll go back on sale during the steam winter sale but I doubt it. At any rate I'm looking forward to this. Need to put the jrpgs I've been playing on the back burner and get thru some VNs.
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Lol I don't think anyone is really disagreeing with your input Rooke. Probably just a matter of degree.
If I had to make an analogy that suits my perspective it would be about programming. You can write a unreadable, gnarly, mess of a code base for a program and it still can be functional. Difficult to fix bugs (edit)? Yes. Difficult to maintain (continuity in a series)? Yes. But if at the end of the day it provides it's intended function, it can be tolerated somewhat. Well so long as they endeavor to improve. Unlike writing fiction there really is a "best practice" for most things in programming. Well ignoring different design philosophies.
I recently read an article about IBM researchers claiming their work would lead to the holy grail of universal translation via AI (more specifically embedding NVRAM into a CPU designed for simulating neural nets). I had a good laugh considering the opinion of machine translation in this community. But one thing occurred to me. If an AI can be taught to translate, it stands to reason that it could also be taught to write original works. I'm not even a writer and it sent a shiver down my spine. Not from a robot overlord perspective but from the standpoint of both programming and writing fiction. What type of horrific writing do you think an AI trained with the best the internet has to offer will be like? Code produced by an AI? Garbage in, Garbage out. You better be feeding it some prime examples.
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3 minutes ago, Down said:
So yeah, idk. Maybe the best thing you could do is to read theater. Theatrics is probably what's closest to ADV dialogs. Reading great english prose books certainly can't hurt anyway. But contrary to previous advices I wouldn't say to avoid VNs, because you need to understand the medium you're using too.
That's actually a good point. VN scripts certainly have more in common with theater in that the stage/set provides a visual component. Learning to write vivid descriptions of the Story's setting is only going to help the artist or story boarding? At any rate the player isn't going to experience it firsthand.
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17 minutes ago, Rooke said:
Most authors start off mimicking their favourite writers ... kinda. It's a natural stage in a person's development as a writer and one of the first steps toward developing your own style. A person reads a lot to get an understanding of what works, what doesn't, what they enjoy, and how they pull that off. This includes mimicking stuff you think is awesome, and shunning stuff you find terrible.
I hear what you're saying. It's just the OP started off by saying their writing was viewed as generic and formulaic. This got me in the mindset that it was the plot or characters themselves that needed attention. I can see where mimicking another writers style in search of your own would be a natural thing. Insomuch as we do as we learn spoken language growing up. Our mannerisms are influenced to one degree or another by the family and friends around us. But copying the style *and* the plot elements/characters would be more akin to a fan fiction, right?
/shrug. I do agree with most of what everyone has said. It's just that if perfecting your style really is the work of a lifetime then it seems the OP should put priority on writing something interesting?
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I'm not a writer, but isn't looking for a work/style to mimic only going to make things worse? Go from generic and formulaic to being in danger of being a clone? 90% of Japanese fiction is recycled. Not that the problem isn't worldwide but Japanese writers cater to fans with some pretty single minded tastes. Probably the easiest way to breath some originality in a script for a western audience is to *not* look for Japanese inspiration. Especially a OELVN that tries hard to mimic a Japanese VN.
That's not to say you can't use Japanese character archetypes or tropes but use them sparingly and focus on telling a story that is your own. If your own experiences or fantasies can't serve as inspiration talking to the people around might serve as a catalyst to spark an idea.
Just my 2 cents. Which isn't even worth that much considering I don't write myself.
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At first I assumed that was from chrome but after searching on it apparently it's implemented in firefox and safari as well. When I searched for that domain on their transparency page it said there was no "dangerous" content as of today. But the page implies that it has been reported in the past. It could be a false positive. It might have been hijacked at some point or a false report submitted. There's a small chance that there might have been something wrong too. The timing seems suspicious given the 3 year hiatus. Is the new patch already out and someone has tried it? I was left with the impression it would be out soon? Or did I misunderstand and it's just nearly fully translated now? As in almost complete rather than almost released?
*edit* It seems a little less likely considering the translator was tweeting about the release according to a VNDB post questioning if it was real or a April fools joke. It also seems that it's 90% complete now? At any rate unless someone owned both the website and the twitter account it's probably a false positive. Probably.
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Well, shit, I had planned on this being the title I learned Japanese with. But apparently I put it on the back burner too long. I've been busy and hadn't heard this is getting a full release. I guess I'll have to find another title for that. Not that I'm complaining. I was looking forward to reading this and I can't imagine how much it would have sucked to wait the better part of 3 years for it. Cheers nonetheless.
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12 minutes ago, Bolverk said:
I feel visual novels are usually too nonsensical to provide any realistic portrayal of love. I might end up loving the characters. But I can't actually think of the story and the love development as realistic. To be honest. I think Visual novels are even worse to at reflecting real life than dating sims are. Even the thought of it is so far out there. I find it hard to point where it stands.
Although I think the concepts of dating sims are overly simplified as well. I do have a certain lack of faith that some people might understand this. For an average sociable guy I guess it won't be much of help. But a person who has never understood social settings. Or perhaps never really had much normal social contact with people. Perhaps It would be in some sense worthwhile? If actually dating sims makes people understand some social concepts, I can't say they are useless. Hopefully the people playing will have some hobbies or interests to talk with other people as well. Rather than just talking about dating sims, or the weather.
Alright. Then I'd just say. "Then I'll give you Flutterz a glass of cognac." And you will be like:
There are exceptions to every rule, no doubt, but I agree with you. That was what I was implying. At least dating sims make you work towards a pairing in a semi-realistic fashion. A VN protag is basically the most interesting man in the world no matter how average he most likely is.
Using a dating sim as a teaching device without some guidance and/or common sense is a slippery slope. Dialog in a sim is not a very good example. It might cover the basics of small talk with varying success but there is one critical flaw. The topics are predefined and the girls largely dictate the flow of the conversation. I think a lot of women would find a guy that can't hold a candle to their ability to be conversation starters... ultimately boring. Of course that's not always the case. As far as social norms? Hard to say Japanese game would be helpful to a western audience in that regard. For example, a goodnight kiss at the end of a enjoyable first date would probably not happen in a Japanese game. But in the west a girl might begin to think the guy lacks interest if he doesn't display a desire to kiss, hold hands, etc.
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What?
Melon bread has no melons?!?! I'm so confused! Mind blown.
Seriously though I suddenly have the urge to bake something. Hungry...
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While certainly some of mechanics of dating sims apply in principle, the actual methods used are over simplified or over the top. Remembering details about what you talked about on your dates is certainly important to most women but it's more of a minimum requirement imo. Sadly a nebulous concept like chemistry is probably the most important and then just having experience dating and/or talking to the opposite sex. I'm not talking about the over the top shame/embarrassment routine in Japanese games. I just mean knowing how to avoid potential land mines during conversation.
Incidentally getting involved with someone married is often a quick path to the goal. The forbidden nature tends to amplify the lust factor, but... drama.. complications.. and probably not the first choice with the average moral compass. But never say never. These things happen. Live and learn.
But getting back on topic I'd say 99% of VNs I've read have completely unrealistic portrayals of love. At least when it comes to initial chemistry. At least VNs don't suffer as much from "will they or won't they" as manga tend to do.
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2 hours ago, Fred the Barber said:
Totally with you on this point. I think there are a variety of ways these localization teams scrape by on such low funding. Here are a few things which I think are true and which would contribute to that substantially:
- The wages being paid are seemingly quite low (not minimum wage, I'm sure, but probably not more than, say, double minimum wage) despite the high amount of domain knowledge required.
- Probably literally none of the people paid out of that Kickstarter money are full-time employees, thus saving on big costs like employee health insurance
- They likely have no physical office (or at least these people probably aren't in one), reducing some of the costs of "keeping the lights on"
It's definitely an astonishingly small sum of money when you consider that they're basically trying to operate a small business on it, though.
Hmmm.. so basically the ideal translator is young, most likely in college or beginning the job search, and looking for work on the side for some pocket change. Yeah employee benefits and taxes add quite the overhead. Offices are so old school. Who needs em?
Why drive around when there's so many ways to handle things remotely? Well until AR becomes ubiquitous I guess showing up in person is better than trying to walk people through things over the phone. Lets hold off on the robots and ROTM for now.
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2 hours ago, Decay said:
There are also editors, proofreaders, testers, programming/scripting, project management and other overhead costs, etc.
Well, yeah. I was trying to keep it simple. Management, overhead, and programming should be in the other categories. Well in theory, but their budget only accounts 10% for "development". You're right though. The devil is in the details and it seems like a lot of people only look at the big picture - the goal of a KS versus other KS in the same genre. 210k is a drop in the bucket for a normal business with several FT employees. In retrospect I'm surprised higher goals like this aren't the norm. I guess it also depends if the KS is the only source of funds.
All I know is that a great many OELVNs seem to under appreciate the costs involved in making a VN. Or try to low ball things by using talent around the world. Only to be shocked that they either weren't that dependable or unwilling to do additional work for peanuts. That's just my wild arse guesses/theory though.
44 minutes ago, Toranth said:Worse than that normally sounds - there is no common route. Each of the chapters is entirely new text. On top of that, it's all Japanese history all over the place. Notice how the characters are introduced with the "Estate: xxx Koku" line? That's rather important, but how many Westerners do you think are going to understand it?
Translating this would be a Grade-A [female dog] of an effort to begin with. 6 months on the cheap? No way in hell.
So they'll do a hack job and strip out anything that is even remotely hard to translate and still take over a year? Time to play the crowdfunding shell game. Kidding.
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8 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:
There's still the bad tiers and a lot is still wrong with the Kickstarter so it probably would've made more money if it hadn't have been released the day it was, but it would not have made its goal. It's way too high for a VN without a giant fanbase like Grisaia, Clannad, and Muv Luv do.
Yeah, according to their chart I saw earlier only 50% of the money is going to localization and I believe there are 3 translators? They claim they'll have it done in 6 months. So roughly speaking they are paying each one 35k for the job (or 70k FT salaried). I'm not sure how that compares to other projects but I'm guessing that's on the high side. Still the KS goal is steep comparatively and I have no idea the size of the script.
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19 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:
This Kickstarter has been sketchy since the beginning. I don't know why anybody is actually willing to fund this other than people who just looked at the girls and immediately funded.
Guess you didn't detect my initial sarcasm. That was my point. No matter how they dress it up now it's left a nasty taste. I was just surprised they even bothered after starting the KS like that. If they had just waited a few days and released it in it's semi-corrected form, hardly anyone would be the wiser.
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24 minutes ago, VirginSmasher said:
These guys take laziness to a whole other level. They set up the Kickstarter and then abandon it in hopes it will get funded. That's a pretty stupid plan. Also, I believe this company is serious. They just don't know what to do with Kickstarters and are an overall lazy company who will put up Kickstarters and see which ones will get funded while not caring if they don't. This Kickstarter is gonna fail and I'm happy about it. This game deserves to be brought over, but by a company that actually gives a shit.
They actually have done something! They posted a greenlight on steam.
Seriously though they're going to get some serious negative reaction.
*edit* Actually they've updated the page quite a bit. I'm surprised. They've outlined the tiers and gotten rid of the otome bit at the end. They even mention Gloczus is doing the localization. Which is... yeah. Sill feels sketchy to me.
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25 minutes ago, Fred the Barber said:
Nah, don't worry, those fools won't be parted from their money - this KS doesn't have a snowball's chance to make it (this from the optimist who claimed Root Double was going to be fine), so they won't get charged. The Kickstarter just doesn't have the name recognition it needs, between the VN and the localization company, for the amount of money it's asking for, and the initial screw-ups are going to scare away everybody who might have been interested enough to try to pull it along based on the VN's reputation alone. Like others have said, hopefully it fails hard and a competent localization company is employed instead.
I've heard enough positive sentiment towards it that I'd definitely kick ChuSinGura if I thought the resulting localization was going to be acceptable. But in this case, I kind of don't.
Oh, I know. I'm just taking shit. They'd need around 4200 backers at the average of $50 to close the deal. That's a long haul from the 77 they have at the moment. Not to mention using an average skews things considerably. Most of the backers have only spent $15 and for unknown reasons that's capped at 300 backers. Once that tier is gone I doubt they'll get many more backers.
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15 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:
It's probably not illegal or against Kickstarter's rules, but it's sketchy as fuck, and considering the average Kickstarter project, most people (smart people anyway) would like to deal with the smallest amount of sketchiness possible when backing a Kickstarter project. It's not that hard to tell who it is if you do some searching, but still, not a smart move to do when you're essentially trying to elicit donations from people. It makes them suspicious.
True enough. I certainly wouldn't touch this KS with a ten foot pole. Then again I've never backed a KS so I guess that's not saying much. That's not to say I haven't been tempted by a few with some considerable talent/backing. But those are the only kinds of KS I would even consider.
*edit* Da hell? They're well on their way to 4k raised? I figured they'd be lucky to break 1k this weekend. I guess fools and their money...
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5 hours ago, Deep Blue said:
Japan content? Don't you mean........*dramatic pause*............. B2G STUDIO, INC.
btw are you guys really comparing this atrocity of campaign to libra and root double? Really? this campaign has some really shady stuff is not just bad, why the same company will use 2 different names and supposedly also has 2 physical addresses one in HONOLULU and the other one in Los Angeles(they dont give the address of this one...)? why are they using 2 names in the first place... with one they failed 2 campaigns already.
I will say it again this doesn't look just bad it looks like some kind of scam. They are not answering any questions so far either. Again comparing it to root or libra is a bit( A LOT) too much.
Sounds like someone wanted an excuse to expense a flight to hawaii. Tax write off? I mean someone had to go setup the PO box or rent the office space for a month. Oh, wait. You mean Japan Content(s) doesn't have a physical address? Hmm.. strange nothing out of whois either.
It's definitely disingenuous but unless KS policy itself somehow prohibits the use of alternate DBA's or front companies I don't think they're breaking any laws at this point. Honestly not sure how they would be able to without performing investigations of reported companies. Require a personal guarantee from an owner/stakeholder in the business? Though that would be simply a deterrent for legitimate businesses.
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1 hour ago, Tiagofvarela said:
About Noble Works:
-A couple of endings may not deliver. Others do.
-The focus is effectively on comedy, and not usually at the girls' expense.
-Conclusions to the drama sections may not be your cup of tea. These focus on comedy over drama. The drama never hits anything too serious on purpose.
-There's a character with no route that some people wanted a route for.
-The protagonist is fairly analytical and smart so far as moege protagonists go.Thanks for the run down. Sounds like it's worth a try. For a game like this I actually prefer that the drama not get serious. I mean the very idea of a random guy being thrown together with a bunch of ojou-sama's is kinda beyond belief to begin with. Not taking things altogether seriously is good, imo.
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Of course it's our fault for not embracing their bridge to "Japanese contents, people and services". Because nobody does that here.
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20 minutes ago, Tiagofvarela said:
Noble Works is by no means bad. If you like the common route and if you like one of the routes, you should like the title entirely.
The title itself focuses on rich Ojou-samas, so long as you like the trope and variations of it, you should be fine.
For an English player, the translation is actually rather good.
Do note, however, that you will only enjoy the VN if you enjoy moege with no serious plot to speak of. Dracu-Riot seems to be heavily praised due to having an actual plot and many other uncommon characteristics in moege. Do not expect the same of Noble Works.
Well it's hard to say with Ojou-sama's. It's sorta hit or miss for me. There is some manga with them that I've enjoyed but as far as VNs go I did not enjoy Princess Evangile. Heroines just a tad too naive for me and the plot itself was formulaic to the point of making large chunks of the routes feel rehashed/redundant. The endings... well I won't get into those. Not to mention failing to deliver routes for girls that inexplicably didn't have them despite their involvement in the common route. Afaik the fandisk addresses the later point, but I'm not exactly motivated to read it.
Generally speaking I'm more apt to enjoy them if the focus is on comedy and not primarily at the expense of naive girls. Tbh I'd rather have a smart/proactive protag but it seems like there are far more that aren't.
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Right on, now that I think about it starting with a partially translated VN does have it's merits. Insomuch that I won't be going in completely dark about the characters, story, setting. Easier to catch your own mistakes if you have some context, in theory?
Alright, I'm going to stop procrastinating and at least get the tools I need this weekend.
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Ahh.. that's right. I was ready to try Dracu-riot until I realized there was no full patch. Would it be an ok title to start learning Japanese with? It should lack any major infodumps at least being a moege?
Seems the only game with full translation is
noodlenoble works. Is it really that bad? Well the summary does worry me a bit. It's a well traveled road, that scenario. -
There are competent english translation companies?!
Kidding... mostly.
But yeah the train wreck is ongoing. Last I checked they had only raised about 500 bucks. They're living the dream man. Go, go, crowdfunding!
LoveKami -Divinity Stage- released~!
in Visual Novel Talk
Posted
Personally, I think there is such thing as too much plot. If nothing else it's good to have variety just for the sake of contrast. If everyone is exceptional, exceptional becomes the new normal, and that's just boring.
Anyways, I'm glad I waited.