Darklord Rooke

Hmmm, why should he? He's questioning the worth of some discussions on Fuwa and I see no problem with that. I don't see him trampling on the opinions of others. Every forum has a set of rules in place to curtail the behaviour of the members. You cannot just have people run around free to do whatever they want and tell others to ignore such behaviour. In the real world this will lead to anarchy, and in the virtual world this leads to... well, a jumbled mess. There are rules in place right now that limit what people can do in the G&C section. An acquaintance of mine was warned recently about continuously derailing threads, and while she was having a lot of FUN doing so, and ENJOYING herself immensely, and while some fun conversations were springing up, forums (like anyplace really) do have behaviour codes to make places a)more appealing to the public and b)further their aims and ambitions. Where they draw the line is always a juggling act though, and shutting down discussions concerning what should and shouldn't be allowed wouldn't be a healthy thing to do. Whether Maef is right or not, well that's up for people to decide. I do think the question of excessive spam in the G&C is a legitimate issue. For example, in a certain thread which used to be for translation, members have continuously entered asking for the status of the project and bemoaning the fact they can't find any information in that thread. Now, the members of said thread instantly reply that the question has already been answered, too bad these answers are instantly buried under pages and pages of spam. Spam about... God knows what. The moderators should have taken action against that thread a long time ago. And more than just moving it to G&C btw. I don't care how much the people in it are enjoying themselves, it was a translation thread, not a thread to fuck around in. G&C is NOT a dumping ground for threads which are 'too fucking hard to moderate.' As it was, it got to an absurd state before the moderators could even be bothered to take action... what minimal action they took. Another example, I'd like to see the AMA threads consolidated into a SINGLE THREAD. Having 100 different AMA threads popping up about members fills the front page of the thing with...many topics all about the same thing, all about getting to know members of the community. If you want to introduce yourself to the community (AGAIN), and want people to know ALL ABOUT YOU, isn't that what the introduce yourself forum is for? It doesn't have to be only for new members. It's about Games and Chatter, it's not a 'getting to know everybody' forum. Go to the Introduce Yourself place for that. In short, yes the place is for chat, but it needs some moderation. Concerning Ren's thread, I like the guy. He's a decent fella, he does some good things around the community. I thought his thread was a circle-jerk though.

No. Good post Maef + IceD. EDIT: Oh Bats, why would we want to make the moderators lives easier. You need something to do in the boring, hum-drum hours of the afternoon after all...

LEWYCOOL: *Heh heh*

That gas-mask cool. POST-APOCALYPTIC All the way!!!!! PS: Wink's is perfect!

Which leads to its own problems. For instance, the price of VNs in Japan is about $100, and the target audience for VNs in Japan are students. This is a lot of money for students to fork over. This and oversaturation is part of the reason only top VNs in Japan sell more than 30,000 copies, which in turn means a lot of studios are struggling.

Number 1 - Sosuke Sagara. He knows what to do Number 2 - Minsc, for his negotiation skills. Number 3 - Ryoko, because who doesn't like Ryoko?

The point of attacking people has long since passed. I've only added to the pile. If you believe I have inconsistencies, name them. I'll happily debate the matter all day with you. EDIT: Hmmm, feel free to report my post if you feel it goes over the line, I won't be changing it though. The fan-tl scene has been pissing me off with all its whining for a long time now. Heh, the moderators should have involved themselves in this thread long ago. I suppose some action is better than none, even if that action is against me *shrugs*

Clephas made an excellent thread focusing on beginner level VNs you may want to look at. https://forums.fuwanovel.net/index.php?/topic/3493-for-love-of-vns-for-beginners/

That's just... that's just mean

It's not that useful, it's a mollycoddling pile of ... shit, useful only if you agree on the handholding method of edification. I'm more inclined to let people leap into the fire and see how many come out the other side *shrugs*. @Wahfuu: Nobody cares about you criticising the project. I take issue when your little translator friend and people on the forum start taking aim at someone individually. Blank's attitude sickens your little translator friend? Who gives a fuck. He's obviously got too much fucking time on his hands if he has the luxary to be sickened by the attitude of a fan-translator. Homeland thinks people like Blank is a toxin? I don't care for that remark either. And you defending such treatment? Get bent. I don't give a rats what you think is pathetic. @Chrono: Your argument is only valid if the translators themselves are translating for accolades. If they have, as you say, a deep respect for the literature, they'd translate purely to give the material the treatment it deserves. So YES, it's the TL's fault only one TL of each game is getting released, and if they want to complain about individuals being disrespectful to the literature in question, without first seeing the patch, then they can retranslate the game themselves, or take a seat and shut up. This teenage drama is what makes the VN community a laughing stock, the metaphorical equivalent of a grade-school playground. Grow the fuck up.

Ugh, that sounds like too much work. You could always do the humane thing, and draw a swirly moustache on the blue-haired girl in your avatar.....

Get different avatars *chucks rotten vegetables*, I can't tell which spammer is which anymore.

You can translate something already translated because you respect the literature and want to service those in the community who want it. It'd be a lower percentage, but that's not your concern, after all. Or you can not do that, and translate something else because you want plenty of accolades. Now that is completely understandable, you are spending plenty of time on things and you definitely want some return. If any translators do go down this route, kindly shut up about how bad translators don't respect the literature. Because if you obviously cared so badly about a patch being released disrespecting the work, you'd set about fixing the translation, but you don't so you won't. The question was never IF they cared about translation accuracy, but whether they care on the same level as losing a boatload of money. Stein's Gate isn't on Steam because Japan is risk averse and are not familiar with it. And ALL VN developers are struggling to sell their games, 10 years ago top visual novels were selling 100,000+ copies in Japan, today they struggle to sell 30k. Do you want me to link you to the latest Air translation drama? As for his concerns that someone picked it up disrespecting the work, once again it's not an issue if translators were willing to translate VNs that were already complete. And once again, I couldn't care a whit about somebody whinging about a situation which stems directly from such a selfish attitude. Stein's Gate won't prove a western market exists, it won't sell through the roof. Fan-tls are NOT responsible for holding up the chance of VNs being localised in the West, JAST was releasing VNs in the 90s, and no they don't do fabulous work. And yes, I've read EF, and others. It's nothing but an okay source of cheap labour. And I suppose the word for that is tough. I'm not here to entertain your entitlement attitude, you don't have a right to get this game, you don't have a right to get it translated in a respectful manner, you basically have a right to sweet fuck all. You getting this game is a privilege, you getting it translated well is an incredibly lucky stroke of fortune you may or may not be lucky enough to receive. You ARE free to criticize it in open discussions just like the moderators are free to start taking action the moment your posts cross a line.

Localised copies sell barely anything. Barely a year ago, MG's top selling title barely registered 2,000 copies. JAST can't stay afloat by themselves, it needs to be propped up by JList. And translator's at MG rip through shitty nukige in a couple of weeks because they're poor and need the extra money. Compare this to Christine Love, who sold 30,000 copies of her indie VN and you'll start to realise how bad their situation is. It's hypocritical to talk about respecting an author while pirating their works. Whether it's expensive to obtain or not, respecting someone is to take into account their wishes and feelings, like their desire to be paid for the stuff they do. You can talk about respect for literature as much as you want, but once you start talking about respect for the author, you start treading into hypocritical territory. And while the writer has already been paid, you forget they work at a developing studio, many of which are struggling to stay open in Japan (the creators of EF, for example, have almost had to close down.) Purchasing their game and flooding money back into the developer will directly affect the writer and the situation they are in. I am calling the fan-tl community hypocrites if they want to discuss the feelings of the original author, because while you may import your games, the majority do not. Let's not pretend anything, the majority of the people who use the fan-tl patch will be playing it on a pirated copy, so when you're discussing the feelings of the author, you should know they would care sfa about how badly their work is being butchered and more that thousands of people are downloading it without paying. That would be the concern of the writer, NOT 'God no, Joe Black has missed all my sweet Japanese nuances, how dare he!' Game writers and small game developers are struggling to stay alive, their first concern would be the money their company is missing out on. If you want to translate something because you have respect for the work and you want a high-quality translation for everybody to enjoy, then do it. It shouldn't matter if it's been done before or not. If you don't want to because some group has already done it, then don't do it. The translators can stop fucking whinging that somebody has got to a project before they could and is doing a bad job, though. That's called 'time to grow up', and it's sickening to see this teenage drama flooding the translation field. If they want to do a better job, they are welcome to do it. And the fans who can't read Japanese themselves? Well, it's just tough luck. Until people start buying more products and making visual novels profitable to localise, you're stuck with the inconsistent nature of fan-tls. And yes, that means taking the bad with the good.

There is nothing stopping another group taking up a project that's already been translated. It may not regularly happen, but there's nothing stopping people from doing it, ala the Flyable Heart's translation. If the translation community want to stop anybody who doesn't meet their standards from translating visual novels, then that is elitist and excusionary behaviour. If translators are pissed at a translation, then they can release their own patch. They don't tend to do this because they worry their version won't be read, and frankly I don't care a whit about those selfish concerns. Yep, once again you should stop right there, the fan-tl community who pirates most of this stuff shouldn't be using the artists feelings in their argument. It's hypocritical.

Are you sure you don't want...... *heh* ... this one:

Now why would you do that? Every fan-translation group should be able to post a thread on the fuwa forums. If you have a problem with some people's behaviour in that thread, then you should deal with that behaviour and/or delete the offending posts. Locking the thread is a lazy solution to the problem and will punish the fan-translator as much as the offenders.

I'll add another point and say trying to reserve good visual novels for the better translators to work on, and actively seeking to discourage more ordinary translators in participating is beginning to tread into the area of elitism and exclusive behaviour. It's not really the direction I like to see communities head in.

Strangely Compelling you mean. Which Little Busters avatar did you want Aneki XD

@Chronopolis: I find it very scary that you followed that argument so closely. Impressive... but scary. Scary! I agree with this by the way.

Well, firstly I'm happy he's coming back to Grisaia. However, I meant most of the talent can find employment as professional translators outside of the visual novel industry (in international companies, for example.) You may get a couple of very passionate people who want to stay inside, but it's hard because the pay isn't good. I understand the impact on VN fans by shoddy translations. I don't think turning on them is the best way to resolve such issues, though.

Then you should say so, I ain't a mind-reader That is most definitely true. However, most translators who are both knowledgeable in Japanese and English literature can find employment as a professional translator, which is why they are rare in the fan-tl field. Grisaia was an exception, and was quite well done. Very surprising. Well, I never said you should be welcoming them with open arms. I doubt, however, people are in any position to complain. They're providing a product, they're not getting any compensation from anybody for that product, so that would mean they don't have to answer to anybody concerning it's quality. Not quite what I've been saying. I'm saying it's being provided for free and so you should get used to poor translations, most of the really talented people don't exactly go around giving things out without recompense. You don't have to accept it, that's never been my argument, just don't be surprised if that's really all that's being offered *shrugs*.

*Grimaces* I'm not comfortable talking about 'disrespecting the original authors' while sitting in a community where most of the members pirate the game for free. As much as I sympathise with you regarding the possibility that this translation will be bad, I think it's something you'll have to get used to in the fan-tl field. The field is plagued by poor translations, with the occasional exception. Even if you stop this translation from going ahead there's no guarantee that the next one will be any better (the previous one by Yandere looked pretty bad as well, for example.) If you're young and don't have a job, sure. I what now? When did I say that? MangaGamer's translations are mostly poor speckled with mediocre, for example. I don't think JAST's is anything to write home about either.

@Hometown-and-life: There are no high-quality fan-tl's in my opinion (if there are I haven't read them), but you're right, the better ones do have a single translator. That being said these teams are doing stuff for free and RL and earning money does come first. So I'm not going to lambaste the dude for having multiple translators on something he's not getting paid for. Yes it means the quality will most likely be inconsistent, but time's precious and a lot of people don't have boatloads to spend.

Most fan-tls have more than one translator. Unlike professionals, these people can't spend all day on these things, and there's many hundreds of thousands of words to translate.