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SRPG eroge Venus Blood Frontier to get an English Kickstarter


sanahtlig

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Ninetail Director Keimaru responded to feedback on the Prefundia on Twitter, which I translated on my Twitter account with retweets linking back to the originals.  I've aggregated the Tweets here, starting with this one.

"Reception [of the Venus Blood Frontier Prefundia] has been generally favorable, but one request that has stood out is to add an editor to the team.  We're currently examining this.

"Ninetail's games truly have a ton of text and the cost of translation is no joke, making this a difficult situation.

"Though I think the situation has changed considerably, a previous translation estimate for a certain Venus Blood title rang up at $300,000--just for the translation--and we gave up.  For this campaign, that would work out to 75% of a $400k goal, and [would be] completely infeasible.

"Like magic, we managed to reduce the cost by 2/3, so it's painful to start piling on more costs again.  If the goal were $200k that would be one thing, but that seems like a pretty infeasible target.

"But I do want to respond to users' expectations as much as possible.  I think we've responded to almost every other request fans made of us with the Prefundia announcement.  Adding this as a stretch goal is certainly one possibility, but right now I'm not sure [about contractual feasibility?].  We'll look into it."

 

Edited by sanahtlig
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39 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

"Though I think the situation has changed considerably, a previous translation estimate for a certain Venus Blood title rang up at $300,000--just for the translation--and we gave up.  For this campaign, that would work out to 75% of a $400k goal, and [would be] completely infeasible.

 

that makes it almost sound like they´ve came across a similar bunch of "professionals" which previously frauded mikandi as fuck. granted translators/editors are severly underpaid, at least coming to eroge etc, and anyone paying better than it´s the common norm is always welcome, but 300k+ does feel a slight little off...

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5 hours ago, SaintOfVoid said:

that makes it almost sound like they´ve came across a similar bunch of "professionals" which previously frauded mikandi as fuck. granted translators/editors are severly underpaid, at least coming to eroge etc, and anyone paying better than it´s the common norm is always welcome, but 300k+ does feel a slight little off...

Yeah, that comment scares me a bit... It's also kind of silly that editing is considered as a stretch goal. Editing is something a translation must have, not something that could potentially be added through extra funding from fans... I hope they figure something out there. A game of this size going unedited will read very poorly, even if a brilliant translator handles it.

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20 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

Yeah, that comment scares me a bit... It's also kind of silly that editing is considered as a stretch goal. Editing is something a translation must have, not something that could potentially be added through extra funding from fans... I hope they figure something out there. A game of this size going unedited will read very poorly, even if a brilliant translator handles it.

Time to find some editors who really like peanuts then.

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7 hours ago, Dergonu said:

Yeah, that comment scares me a bit... It's also kind of silly that editing is considered as a stretch goal. Editing is something a translation must have, not something that could potentially be added through extra funding from fans... I hope they figure something out there. A game of this size going unedited will read very poorly, even if a brilliant translator handles it.

It's not that we won't have editing, it's that it'll be the translator's self-editing in that case.

I have to admit that we've simply been too busy to really polish up the prologue trial version and pretty much just used the old, unpolished version which may have been a bad move. 

I'm sure the next one'll be better though, so do look forward to it. 

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2 hours ago, assasinzassasin said:

It's not that we won't have editing, it's that it'll be the translator's self-editing in that case.

I have to admit that we've simply been too busy to really polish up the prologue trial version and pretty much just used the old, unpolished version which may have been a bad move. 

I'm sure the next one'll be better though, so do look forward to it. 

It's hard to edit your own work, as it's very easy to miss mistakes you made. Self editing can at best help kill some typos, but that's no better than simple proofreading, which is not at all what editing is about. 

For a VN this big, I strongly recommend you try to figure out a way to get an editor onboard. Self editing simply won't be enough. 

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I wholesomely agree with Dergonu on this one - you need a good editor, otherwise your work will read like a rough TL (with TLer as a proofreader of his own work). As for those numbers mentioned... yeah, that sounds like a scam to me too. From people I talked with, editors are never paid that well over here in the West (even if the title at hand is super-long like that).

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Regarding concerns about self-editing or lack of it in the prologue demo:

If Ninetail's translator didn't find time to edit a couple hours worth of promotional materials to help the campaign, priorities are HIGHLY unlikely to change when the campaign is funded, the incentive to impress disappears, and the scope of the job multiplies by 50x.  Ninetail's translator will always be busy, and there will always be higher priorities than polishing a translation that's already been paid for--like releasing the game sooner rather than later to fund its next game.  Steam players won't care, so if backers don't hold them accountable, no one will.

I have no doubt Ninetail's translator will try harder in the future, and the next gameplay trial might even be satisfactory.  But in the big scheme of things, this isn't a problem one person can try-hard his way out of.  The necessary resources need to be set aside, or it simply won't happen.  A good editor is a lot cheaper than Keimaru seems to think.  I talked to a source who HIRES editors for VNs, and he confirmed this.  If Ninetail is looking for professional English editors that speak Japanese or are affiliated with a group that is based in Japan--and can respond to inquiries in Japanese--they're doing it wrong.

Edited by sanahtlig
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16 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

If you didn't find time to edit a couple hours worth of promotional materials to help your campaign, you can't honestly believe that priorities will change when the campaign is funded, the incentive to impress disappears, and the scope of the job multiplies by 50x.  That's naive.  You'll always be busy, and there will always be higher priorities than polishing a translation that's already been paid for--like releasing the game sooner rather than later to fund your next game.  Steam players won't care, so if backers don't hold you accountable, no one will.

I have no doubt you'll try harder in the future, and the next gameplay trial might even be satisfactory.  But in the big scheme of things, this isn't a problem you can try-hard your way out of.  The necessary resources need to be set aside, or it simply won't happen.  A good editor is a lot cheaper than you seem to think.  I've talked to sources who HIRE editors for VNs, and they confirmed this.

Well, you make good points, and I will concede that you're probably right when you say I'll get busier. But in the end, even after I finish up translations, I still have to set aside time to edit everything anyway, so it will go through some polishing, i would say.

I however don't think it's in my director's nature to want to rush things out so that we can fund the next game or something. if I bring up a concern that could take time to fix, I'm sure he'd listen.

And also you seem to be under the impression that I "think" editors are expensive rather than know, which I do because my director tells me the prices quoted by places contacted. I don't know where whoever you talked to got their "cheap" editors, but we kind of have to go through proper channels when looking. If only it were so easy or cheap make me and my director's life easier.

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I was gonna make a smart ass remark, but it seems you peeps are srs and rightfully so.

Not having an editor is a bit... odd. It's extremely risky and the only advantage I see to it is less time spent and less money spent. I wouldn't go as far saying it'll suck, but I'm pretty concerned right now about the state of this VN. After researching it through one of ma best buddies it actually seems pretty fun. Regardless how this pans out, I'm hoping for the best. It's always a shame for a project's quality to drop due to financial constraints, among other reasons.

Just my two cents. Which rounds down to $0.00 in Canada, so it means nothing. RIP. Whoever is doing the updating, keep it up. I have this on my "want to play" list.

Edited by AdventSign
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JAST editor confirmed, I believe many of our worries have been answered. In fact, Ninetail has been pretty receptive to our feedback, not only regarding this issue but also the matter of mosaics and H-content. It's really nice that they're willing to communicate and listen to us, it makes me feel that they really care about their fans.

Edited by Ramaladni
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  • 1 month later...

Since people most likely wouldn't bother to read the comment in Prefundia, I decided to 'unearth' the surprising revelation by showing a link to a certain localization company below.

As we can see, JAST will work together with Ninetail to localize Frontier here. While naturally it's quite a questionable decision seeing that JAST have quite some unfavorable reputation (ie slow releases), seeing that Ninetail will work together with JAST here for the overseas release instead of JAST alone like usual maybe it would be turned out better than JAST usual release. Anyway, so far there's still no news in regard of KS but seeing that it's already been August (And already a third of that), I hope that we'll got the news about that soon here (Not JAST definition of soon obviously).

Erratum - Apparently it's already well known that JAST will handle this, so I'm kind of late for knowing this. But I figure that may as well if I say something about JAST being the one who will involved in Frontier here.

Edited by littleshogun
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Ninetail is quite fortunate to have JAST as a partner and @Ryechu as editor.  The project would truly be in bad shape if Ninetail had tried to go it alone.  The partnership with JAST provides the following:

  1. Full adult release (and a FREE patch for the Steam version)
  2. No mosaics
  3. A competent and proven English editor
  4. JAST's support in promoting the Kickstarter

I pushed heavily for this and I'm glad Ninetail acted on the feedback from myself and others.  While the partnership with JAST will likely limit Ninetail's ability to sell on other platforms, JAST has a vested interest in the project's success and will be working extra hard on publicity, as this is a big title for them too.

The project has progressed a long way since the initial announcement: an obscure project that appeared doomed to failure (along the lines of Kagura Douchuuki) is beginning to look professional.  I look forward to continued progress and hope for a hype-filled Kickstarter launch, maybe at the end of August but more likely in September.

Edited by sanahtlig
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8 hours ago, littleshogun said:

As we can see, JAST will work together with Ninetail to localize Frontier here. While naturally it's quite a questionable decision seeing that JAST have quite some unfavorable reputation (ie slow releases), seeing that Ninetail will work together with JAST here for the overseas release instead of JAST alone like usual maybe it would be turned out better than JAST usual release. Anyway, so far there's still no news in regard of KS but seeing that it's already been August (And already a third of that), I hope that we'll got the news about that soon here (Not JAST definition of soon obviously).

Please, stop shitting on JAST, they aren't that bad. While they do have issues with speed, they at least put some quality in their work, unlike companies like SakuraGame. And anyway, this time the speed won't be dictated by them as this is the project by Ninetail, and you can bet your ass that Ninetail is gonna whip them up to speed.

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10 minutes ago, Infernoplex said:

Please, stop shitting on JAST, they aren't that bad. While they do have issues with speed, they at least put some quality in their work, unlike companies like SakuraGame. And anyway, this time the speed won't be dictated by them as this is the project by Ninetail, and you can bet your ass that Ninetail is gonna whip them up to speed.

I want to say something in regard of the comparison, but I figure better not. Anyway, as far as JAST concerned while I admit that they have some effort in regard of their work, unfortunately their speed and lack of update weigh down their positive, so I can't helped but to criticize them a lot (Sorry about that). That's said, if JAST were willing to improve in regard of the translation speed of course there's no reason to not give them chance to do that. As for whether Ninetail involvement will improve JAST translation speed or not, let's see about that later.

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5 minutes ago, littleshogun said:

I want to say something in regard of the comparison, but I figure better not. Anyway, as far as JAST concerned while I admit that they have some effort in regard of their work, unfortunately their speed and lack of update weigh down their positive, so I can't helped but to criticize them a lot (Sorry about that). That's said, if JAST were willing to improve in regard of the translation speed of course there's no reason to not give them chance to do that. As for whether Ninetail involvement will improve JAST translation speed or not, let's see about that later.

Well, JAST will not be doing the translation, so that's +1 to speed, at least.

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5 minutes ago, littleshogun said:

As for whether Ninetail involvement will improve JAST translation speed or not, let's see about that later.

Edit, not translation. Ninetail is doing the translation. JAST only gave them an editor to help them out. And from what I see, they gave them someone capable (seems it's a well-known editor/QCer). So yeah, if the TL goes slow, blame Ninetail :D

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