Jump to content

Muv Luv: A Pretty Sweet Visual Novel Series Kickstarter [MILLION DOLLAR BABY]


Down

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Mkilbride said:

I read like October or November.  Seems quite aways away. I mean the script is almost the same as it was before, when you do a side by side comparison, so I can't guess why it's taking so long.

You could not possibly be more misinformed on the difficulties of proofreading, editing, and TLCing a flawed translation. I recall you elsewhere posting a figure citing a 94.7% likeness to each other. I heavily doubt that figure, but even still, they're both based on the same source material, and a good percentage of Ixrec's script was okay. This does not mean it was a good translation or that the improvements they made weren't dramatic. Changing a single word in a line can lead to huge effects in its accuracy and readability.

An example of this in the excerpt I posted a few pages back was the "It's your fault" -> "It's your own fault." Adding one word to a thirteen word line changed its tone by a fair amount. It wasn't a dramatic difference, but it's still a noticeable difference. Some lines won't be changed at all because they're fine. But if most lines have these kinds of minor differences, which they do, combined with the much larger sweeping changes you see every so often, it creates for a dramatically better reading experience overall. You will almost always have a high likeness rating when working with the same script.

I'm working on the Dracu Riot completion patch. I am the lead editor on the project and have been leading an effort to give the entire existing translation editing, QC, and TLC passes. I can assure you that our team has been working our assess off for months now, me included, yet you will probably see a very similar likeness rating from us. These constant "minor" changes require you to analyze each and every line and then come up with ways to make them better. The number of total line rewrites end up actually being pretty low, and even then they tend to use a lot of the same words. That's just how writing works.

TL;DR: You are misunderstanding your own statistics and what it means to accomplish them, and their effect on the translation overall. It is way more work than you're imagining, and I can assure you the efforts do pay off well. Maybe you're not able to appreciate the efforts as easily because you're not a native-level english reader, that's fine. The new ML translation reads way better for me and practically everyone else I have talked to about it. I hope you know that to suggest that their efforts are worthless and shouldn't take much time is extremely disrespectful.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Decay said:

Snip

I think you are reading a bit too much into what he said. It's true that he might have underestimated the amount of work it takes, but I think calling him extremely disrespectful simply for coming up with a hopeful ETA is going a bit far.

It's not abnormal for people to start guessing when things will be done, and considering the fact that this does indeed at the very least have parts completed already, it's not strange for people to assume that the work won't take as long as certain other projects at the very least. I seriously doubt he meant any disrespect with what he said.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

I think you are reading a bit too much into what he said. It's true that he might have underestimated the amount of work it takes, but I think calling him extremely disrespectful simply for coming up with a hopeful ETA is going a bit far.

It's not abnormal for people to start guessing when things will be done, and considering the fact that this does indeed at the very least have parts completed already, it's not strange for people to assume that the work won't take as long as certain other projects at the very least. I seriously doubt he meant any disrespect with what he said.

You do not have the full picture and haven't seen the pattern of behavior he has exhibited here, on reddit, and on the official muv luv forums.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Decay said:

You do not have the full picture or have seen the pattern of behavior he has exhibited here, on reddit, and on the official muv luv forums.

That might or might not be true, but that still does not make it okay to jump at him like that here on Fuwanovel.

I appreciate the detailed explanation behind the nature of editing and such, but the part targeting him specifically seems completely uncesessary, especially if the reason for it is something he said elswhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Extremely disrespectful ... of the process involved.

Yes, seems I kind of misunderstood the situtation, @Decay sorry for that. Seems my posts were rather pointless. I still meant well, so I hope that came across at least. :wafuu:

 

I really have a track record of saying silly things in this thread.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So, the CG Backrounds ahve been bothering me, as they're upscaled poorly. I have not seen this before.

 

Even Tsukihime doesn't upscale this badly, though it has few CGs.  F/SN was made in 2004 and upscales without any artifacts like this.  It really bothered me how awful it looked on my monitor.  So I tossed an example in Waifux2, with no refinement - meaning the image could get much better than this with just 5-10 minutes of refining the image, smaller size, overall better quality.

 

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/179468

 

But I think it's a drastic difference. There is -some- smudging, but overall the image, looks better, much better.  The default images are 1024 x 600 (Displayed in game), stretched to my monitors resolution...looks as you see above. The second result is with Waifux2. A JPEG screenshot is infact the same size with no real noticable quality difference.  Honestly I hope something can be done about this, because the in-engine upscaling is among the worst I've ever seen in a VN. I played YUNO recently and it looked fine in full screen. Nothing nearly as bad as this.  What's wrong with the Engine they use?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nothing I saw during the Kickstarter made me feel the need to rebuy these after already having the original Japanese releases.  If @evan or anyone else from their team wants to chime in, these are things you could do to get money out of me.

- Fixing the backgrounds as Mkilbride suggested obviously should be done. Clearly this is something not too difficult and will take a negligible amount of time. Age could get away with that 13 years ago in days of smaller monitors and resolutions, but not so much now. 

- The audio in all of the games needs to be at least CD quality. 24-bit would be better if it exists, but as the ML and MLA CDs are easily found in Japan there is no excuse save laziness or not caring about producing a quality product not to have CD quality audio. To be clear, when I say CD quality I don't mean some lossy MP3/AAC/OGG garbage some will falsely call "CD quality." That will get you a chargeback and a BBB complaint. True CD quality, 16-bit, 44.1KHz WAV or FLAC. Having done this myself on other games, I know it doesn't take more than an hour or two, and most of that time is wasted reverse engineering the audio storage in the game's file system. I might even be willing to do it for you, for a modest fee.

- I don't buy all ages versions of anything. Restoring the 18+ content from Altered Fable would go a long way to get the bad taste of releasing an edited version of ML before the real game out of my mouth. I understand you're starting with the PS3 port in this case, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm not keen to give you money for it if the ero content isn't restored. For people who were talking about adding real routes to MLA cutting and pasting a few scenes shouldn't be a problem.

- I may be in the minority, but I don't like Steam, and I won't buy products on Steam. Or anything with any kind of digital licensing that could theoretically restrict my access to content I buy if my disc is damaged/HDD dies/your server goes down in the future/want it on my laptop and at home/etc. This is the reason I will not buy anything from Mangagamer save physical copies that don't have that crap. Given that replicating DVDs with cases and nice artwork is a negligible expense in quantity (around $3 total the last time I had a few thousand double DVDs/cases/artworks run for a local band), I want something nice to put on a shelf in my library if you want $30+. 

- If you guys need more on your plate, I'm open to buying a quality physical package for KimiNozo (and Special Fan Disk and Duelist and Daikuuji Kiki Ippatsu and AyuMayu Alternative and Akane Maniax) and KimiIta ~Primary~, but have found I have little interest in the expanded Alternative universe based on the games/anime already translated. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not buying from Steam? Definitely minority.  Steam has patches for all of their games and download server sin the case they ever ago down. But that's unlikely to happen in the next 15+ years, unless some major crash happens, and even then, Valve has so much money. There is a Non-Steam version - I think I read about that, so you should be solid for that.

 

They also have a 18+ Patch in the works, for Extra, Unlimited, and Alternative, so don't worry there. I have no clue about the side-works. As for your other points, I agree. I showed that you can have an immense increase in image resolution at no expense to size, with only a few hours of work, and that was with an untuned Waifux2.  Right now I find this version ugly due to the way the game upscales. Like nothing I've ever seen. I can boot up 90's VNS that look better, free VN's, ect.  This is a commercial product, the upscaling Engine in this 7.0 Engine is among the worst in all of VNs.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup. There was a 'proper review' as somebody called it on reddit, of MuvLuv Alternative and it was pinpointing every single flaw and plothole and stupidity. It was entertaining it as hilarious, and he was right. I still love MLA though.

And same here. This vide made me laugh. I acknowledge that MLU have a lot of stupid bullshit, but I still liked it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aye. Added the H-Scenes back in. No idea WHY  it was removed though...I mean...September / October is still a significant amount of time away, are they saying it won't be out even by those dates? October extends all the way to the 31st, so...if they're saying it'll take longer than that...for a 18 patch...yikes.

|||||||||||||
 

Also, Rock, Paper, Shotgun reviews Muv Luv and it's as awful as you expect.

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/08/02/muv-luv-english-review/

 

The reviewer simply complains about Meiya's wealth and how unrealistic it is.  They also complain that Unlimited "Doesn't change the story enough to be interesting."  Also complains the game seems like it's written by a Teenager who is going through puberty.

 

Not the Target audience for VNs, but still, disappointing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

Whenever it tries to be funny, it falls flat. There is no lightness to the dialogue. In 21 hours of play, I laughed aloud twice. I wrote both times down in my notes. I felt they needed to be marked somehow. Whenever it tries to be tense, it lacks urgency. There is no speed, there are no palpable stakes. Events that are supposed to be surprising, or produce tension, are so flatly predictable that I was able to conclude their storylines in my head hours before I saw the game play them out. Characters become likeable purely through exposure, the overall impression being one of having been stuck in a lift with these people for days; upon release from the lift, a sort of camaraderie is formed, but no more than that.

I closed my eyes and wished for the game to surprise me. I opened them and it gave me a 20 minute lecture on the importance of staying together as a squad that I had already seen twice.

Seems like a pretty valid review to me. People may not like the review, but it doesn't judge the game unfairly (like bemoaning its lack of gameplay.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...