astro

Yo, astro here, and I just read your updated patchv2. In case you don't know who I am, I'm a professional freelance translator, and a friend of Kionachi - the main scenario writer for AoKana. While I don't speak for Kionachi, I honestly find this patch to be an insult to the years of sweat and blood he put into putting this story and world setting together. Now, with my frustration out of the way, please don't take this personally because I'm just speaking about the quality of the script from an objective standpoint - I'm not here to flame you. Seeing that it's Christmas, I'll try to word this as nicely as I possibly can. Bottom line: find a new translator. Your current TL has very limited understanding of the Japanese language. The entire script is littered with errors, so it's not something you can just TLC, or have other people pick out errors and fix. As it stands, the entire thing needs to be redone from scratch because of how inaccurate it is. Sure, some fans might not care about quality as long as it's in English, but they honestly might as well be reading a fanfiction at this point because that's how bad and frequent the errors are. The readers are not going to be reading AoKana - they're going to be reading a butchered interpretation. If you love and care about the game as much as I do, please consider taking this advice to heart. And if you don't believe me, I've taken a look at the first 50 lines of your script, and then some. There were significant errors in every other line. If this is the quality I can expect in the very beginning of the game, I'm scared to see what the rest of it looks like: If the images don't load, refresh the page (or alternatively, click on them to open them in a new window).

I don't see any problems

Can you guys be stupid elsewhere?

Twincest is wincest is incest and Sora is fucking hot

Naruto is the best anime ever.

https://vndb.org/v14965

K-Kataywa Shoujo?

S-Steve...?

[1] Anybody familiar with such processes knows it isn’t actually a lame excuse. The business world isn't a friendly place, in case you aren't aware. Take a deeeeeep breath Deep Blue, because asking questions while unwilling to accept any answers merely because you want to ‘maintain the rage’ is a philosophy I stopped entertaining a long time ago. [2] Apart from the section on the Kickstarter page where SRL THEY were enhancing the game, optimising systems, and preparing it for overseas release? [3] You backed Sekai to get a product. [4] Because internal business operations are generally none of your business? Sekai aren’t the only ones that have to bow down to the wishes of Japanese Developers, it’s fairly common knowledge that they hold considerable sway and veto power. And some pretty lofty expectations, and weird ways to conduct businesses. A lot of JAST's delays wouldn't happen if working with Japanese Devs were all rainbows and lollipops. [5] To localise the game. [6] I'm not saying this to be mean, but that sentence is completely incomprehensible to me, but that sounded fairly conspiracy in any case. [7] Probably because as a young company just starting out and uncertain of how things are done, they were unsure of what they could and could not disclose to the public? It is obvious there is much they cannot disclose. I make it a point not to defend the indefensible, but people angry at Sekai tend to feel the need to justify the rage with weak excuses . Do you have a right to be disappointed and angry? Sure. But I draw a line at conspiracy theories, and mob-like or abusive behaviour. That isn't good. I won't follow this topic and this conversation further on because it won't change anything and I'm really tired about this issue with WAS, Senjou and everything else related with this. I just wanna say that sekai project was the one that funded the project they gave their company name to S.R.L to finance their game, we pledged to them (SP) and not to S.R.L even if they are saying that they are not keeping the money (which im sure is true) they still are jointly liable with S.R.L for this issue. This was a big mistake on part of SP and I'm mad because they can't apologize to the backers, everyone makes mistakes specially in the business world but if you do something wrong, because is clear that helping S.R.L or whatever the company that is making WAS it was a poor choice of Sekai project (and yes it is our problem because we as backers are in the middle of this problem) and the least thing they can do is to say it "yeah we got screwed up, we are sorry about it" and not just come up with the legal issue thing. Or maybe there really were legal issues...? I don't know why you're so adamant on writing it off as an excuse, but if that's the attitude you're going to take then it really doesn't matter whether SP gives an answer or not because you're so dead set on hating on them. Also, I'm not sure if you fully understand how a publishing company works. Might want to do a bit of research before you start pointing fingers.

Why does... that even matter...? And why is that surprising at all? Sekai Project is a publishing company - almost all of the games were produced by companies other than SP. You're basically getting the same product no matter what, so let's not blow something so minuscule out of proportion (like that hasn't been done enough...)

Due to legal issues, on the advice of our lawyers, we cannot talk about WAS - NJ eta: We are still committed to delivering it, we just can't talk about what happened. https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/3rg7y9/sekai_project_and_rvisualnovels/cwnvo4o There's been problems with the Doujin group in Japan, so that project's been a bit of a clusterfuck it sounds like. Why should we accept that lame excuse? why didn't sekai project tell us from the beginning that it wasn't them managing the project. sic "All production work was managed by the circle initially.After September of this year we've taken over" Why did I back sekai when it wasn't them who were in charge of the project and why didn't they tell us on the KS page? And why did they make a contract with them if that was the case? Something isn't right. What does anything have to do with the fact that they uploaded an old patch because nobody really checked anything to begin with and then ignoring repeatedly everything related to that issue (deleting a post on steam that told them about that mistake) and a month later giving that shitty excuse of legal issues which isn't related to the bad management and poor service customer that they have, so did "the circle" manage their steam account and upload files for them? or did their lawyer advice them to do that too huh? Why did we get to know that they were having legal issues after 9 month of the project being delayed? Come on, stop defending something that cannot be defended. I will love to give a lame excuse like that in my life and get away with it. When people don't get an answer, they start making conspiracy theories. When people do get an answer, well, they still make conspiracy theories. Literally no way to make people happy, but I guess that's the community for you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You are saying this basically "we don't answer because you are going to start making conspiracy theories" Will answer you "we cannot answer you " are you kidding me or talking for real? I think sekai project should change the company name to "Plead the fifth" is much more fitting. I don't know how you made that logic jump, but the whole premise of that statement is flawed because the question at hand was answered... Once upon a time I thought you were one of the few people who actually had sense in this community, but now I'm not so sure anymore

True story. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Due to legal issues, on the advice of our lawyers, we cannot talk about WAS - NJ eta: We are still committed to delivering it, we just can't talk about what happened. https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/3rg7y9/sekai_project_and_rvisualnovels/cwnvo4o There's been problems with the Doujin group in Japan, so that project's been a bit of a clusterfuck it sounds like. Why should we accept that lame excuse? why didn't sekai project tell us from the beginning that it wasn't them managing the project. sic "All production work was managed by the circle initially.After September of this year we've taken over" Why did I back sekai when it wasn't them who were in charge of the project and why didn't they tell us on the KS page? And why did they make a contract with them if that was the case? Something isn't right. What does anything have to do with the fact that they uploaded an old patch because nobody really checked anything to begin with and then ignoring repeatedly everything related to that issue (deleting a post on steam that told them about that mistake) and a month later giving that shitty excuse of legal issues which isn't related to the bad management and poor service customer that they have, so did "the circle" manage their steam account and upload files for them? or did their lawyer advice them to do that too huh? Why did we get to know that they were having legal issues after 9 month of the project being delayed? Come on, stop defending something that cannot be defended. I will love to give a lame excuse like that in my life and get away with it. When people don't get an answer, they start making conspiracy theories. When people do get an answer, well, they still make conspiracy theories. Literally no way to make people happy, but I guess that's the community for you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm really happy that they decided to hire someone to help them with PR, but there's still a lot of unresolved problems: - Sekai Projects forum is dead for over a month, no one beside dovac(last post a month or more ago) answers any questions or hold up any discussions here with community - Their twitter focus mainly on promoting OEVLNs/cheap/unknown japanese VNs (It was so active though when Witchboy KS or how this VN is called was up) - We still don't have any progress updates on their BEST localizations (Root Double, Tenshin Ranman, Chrono Clock) We just know that they're picked up, and we have no news beside that, I'm not saying they should post progress updates every week or month, but they should keep people updated... For now we have silence since Otakon/AA, if nothing's going on or translation hasn't started and they're busy with other projects just say so... It won't hurt. - What I think is really bad from their side is their releasing style. In order to gather hype you should set up release date... Like MG does with their titles Higurashi Ch2? 13 November, yay Euphoria? 27 November, if it'll get delayed it'll get delayed(rarely hapens, right?) Anyway they have set up dates and now they promote by twitter/forums/reddit other things, and boom they get a lot of pre-orders, and fans swarm their VNs all at once(then write reviews and they get more pick ups) And how it looks for SP? Clannad, we still don't know the release date(hello? it's november? date could be nice, even something like 30 Nov) G-Senjou?(Oh it's released tomorrow, surprise?) Mangagamer = translated interviews, pre-orders etc. SP = spontaneous releases At least from what some guy from SP told me on reddit they're preparing relaunch of their website+forum for months, I hope it'll work out, and they will actually post things on them. Also I'm not telling SP to be like MG, because MG is in the business much longer, but they should take an example from them. I hope SP will look like MG right now in like 2 years or so~~ As for the Kickstarter and rewards, even if Clannad gathered like 540k, 54 k goes to Kickstarter guys, so it's already 490~~k translation/re-translation/translation checking/QCing also isn't free, so some of the money needs to go there, then there's physical goodies (tshirts, discs, albums, tapestries, artbooks etc.) and of course license for voices etc. And yeah, dovac have to be fuck*** rich, because he earned 1,5m$ on Kickstarters... and SP stopped getting more licenses(G-senjou/Tenshin Ranman/Wagamama/Chrono Clock for example) Some guys may not like how SP is doing things now, to be honest I also don't like how they do them... But, we can say they just started and I hope it will get better, and they won't go Steam route only, and still release 18+ versions for hardcore/"loyal" fans. And their 18+ versions won't get X months of a delay and won't go out without proper QCing(I'm keep telling everyone that Denpa's Grisaia is full of typos(they might just put old koestl/Doddler release with AppLocale fix and new font and bugged text display... but w/e) What I can't stand is that dovac or anyone official from SP didn't provide any fixes to text issues O_O And I got ignored by them on forum, god bless that Doddler/koestl are responding on IRC... Can't wait to see how 18+ Meikyuu will work out. - I'm not too sure who manages the forums, but 90% of the questions are asking about future plans instead of questions about the releases that they currently have out. It's kind of weird to be asking a company about their future business plans, if you ask me. It's like asking Disney how their newest movie ends before it's even released in theaters. Questions like "where do you see SP 5 years into the future?" are fine, but questions such as "are you going to license ___ ?" are just what. Do people actually ask that hoping to get a yes or no answer? They're not necessarily stupid questions, but people tend to ask questions that are difficult to answer. - Those are the games that need more promotion. - SP will announce news when they get it, or when they're allowed to announce it. The team is really excited when we get news in, so we won't knowingly withhold news unless we're not supposed to talk about it yet. If there is nothing announced, then that simply means there is no news. People have mentioned that they could at least post "May 18: No updates," "May 26: No updates" to let people know that they're not dead, but this is a company we're talking about here - not a capricious fan TL team - so they're not going to die halfway. Even with the newest Final Fantasy game, Square only uploads a trailer like once every 4-8 months as they leave players to anticipate what's to come. When you really think about it, is there really a point? I think people are just being impatient about waiting in silence and I can understand that, but posting "No updates" every other week really isn't going to change the fact that we have no news to announce. - I think you have a point there. Release dates give people something to look forward to. However, when you are forced to delay something due to unforeseen circumstances (*cough* Shiny Days), you are going to get grilled for it. As a translator, I really appreciate not having a deadline set in stone because then I won't have to feel bad about spending more time on a line that I'm having trouble wording, and aim to really refine the script. But yes, I agree that the G-Senjou release was like "oh what, it's releasing tomorrow?" I haven't heard anything about the website+forum overhaul because I am not involved in it, but I look forward to it as well. Steam allows us to reach a wider audience, but we're not abandoning the hardcore fans because we are all hardcore fans ourselves~ As for QC errors on Grisaia, I think some of that might have been attributed to engine/import issues due to some of the more bizarre mistakes (like words disappearing), but I'm not too sure myself. If memory serves me right, the patch was addressed on the steam forums but approval from Japan is still pending. I really can't say too much about that since I'm not involved in the Grisaia project, but I'll try to ask around about it.

We've been over this, did you really want to do it all over again? This is exactly why I hate debating on these forums... People refuse to back down and bring up old points again. The conversation ends up going in circles