Darklord Rooke

Pffft, yeah right. Also can confirm, I did have too much time on my hands yesterday.

PS: At the beginning of his essay he referenced Professor Peterson: Quick note: You don't use pronouns to 'address' somebody, and especially not 'gendered pronouns'. I don't 'address' anybody here as 'he' or 'him'. Not much of a philosopher if he let THAT slide.

Has anyone read Mr. Moody's borderline terrible essay? I really don't advise it, you never know how much of somebody's stupidity rubs off on random passers-by. Let me quickly explain why this 'philosopher's' essay on transgendered pronoun is the stupidest thing I've read this week. First some history. A very long time ago, English used to be a gendered language (probably due to English's tendency to steal from other languages) with nouns expressing a gender like in France. Le horror. A simplified explanation can be found here: Or for a more in depth explanation you can read the book - English Historical Linguistics 2006: Syntax and morphology However this wouldn't last. In the 1300s gender was eliminated from English nouns, and there was a concerted push to do the same for pronouns. This is why you had people like Shakespeare using the word 'they' in the singular - this was the word that was designated to for a non-gendered third person pronoun. Examples can be found here: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html Unfortunately later on, many centuries later actually, grammarists struck this down telling people it was wrong. 'They' is plural, they said, and therefore using it to indicate a singular pronoun is obviously terrible English. So after this people tried using 'he' as a universal pronoun that included both the sexes, but this is obviously quite controversial these days. Now knowing this, how can anybody read Daniel Moody's essay with a straight face when he opens with: You have permission to laugh, I certainly did. What he does is take a system everybody agrees is obsolete, and have been happily finding ways around for 800 years or more and atrributes a reason for its existence that is not only non-sensical but is incorrect. A third person pronoun denotes a person, it does not NEED to denote more than that, just like ‘it’ just denotes and object and ‘they’ denotes a group of people. Details are lacking because they aren’t needed, and can be added later if they are. That gender/sex was used was a hangover from an obsolete system of English which attributed gender, or sex, to many nouns. So he’s wrong. But not only is he wrong, he ludicrously writes an essay extrapolating from his wrong assumption. He then concludes with this statement – People have been trying to get rid of the system for almost a millennia because 'it works', apparently. Referring to people via sex is a pain in the arse. Why? Well the first obvious reason is that the sex of an individual is not always known. A less obvious one is when you’re looking right at somebody, and still can’t figure out a person’s sex. But watch out you don’t slip. Ever call a woman a guy mistakenly? It’s not fun. So as an ‘anchor’ for communication, it’s a pretty lousy one. It's also unclear what he means by 'transgender pronouns'. He actually doesn’t say anything about this at all. However, the term has been thrown at gender neutral pronouns which is quite hilarious. Gender neutral pronouns are a way to refer to a person without referring to anything else about them. Recalling from before that a third person pronoun by definition refers to a person in the third person, not a GENDERED or SEXED person in the third person. But this is quite beside the point. Daniel Moody begins with a misunderstanding, and extrapolates that until everything he says is an embarrassment, and is an example of extremely shoddy and wishy-washing thinking. This is why you do your research BEFOREHAND. Daniel Moody describes himself as a philosopher and has released a book about … who cares. If this is the type of thinking coming out of the mouths of modern day philosophers, then maybe the field is in as dire shape as people say.

People keep saying that Tenchi invented the harem genre as it currently is, but you're right - Ranma is Haremish and was around before. I also forgot about FMP and Banner of the Star 0.0

Not particularly. People don’t defend ‘bad’ OELVNs. However, people who come from a Japanese eroge background will tend to put a heavy emphasis on a) sex and b) art, and therefore dismiss OELVNs out of hand. People from a Japanese storytelling background will put emphasis on c) play time. This causes problems because these are not areas the industry outside Japan excel in. OELVNs tend to take the medium in a different direction than Japanese VNs. Japanese VNs are heavy on story and light on agency in games. OELVNs place a higher emphasis on agency, utilising to a fuller extent the ‘choice’ mechanic that the Japanese developers tend to use as a gimmick, but sacrifices overall length. Because of this, many people from the Japanese world will deride OELVNs for being crap because they don’t follow the priorities of the Japanese industry. Hypocritically though they then mock them when they’re TOO much like the Japanese industry. People into VNs for the ‘eroge’ will never like the direction OELVNs are going in. People into VNs for lengthy stories won’t appreciate that (currently) there isn’t the budget to make such things, or if there is more budget is spent on adding branches and consequences rather than length (like a book.) VNs are one of the unique mediums that can take advantage of non-linear storytelling. Interactive storytelling. Player choice and consequence. OELVNs are heading in a direction where all of these things are explored, Japanese VNs tend to be books with pictures. In the Japanese industry, hardly any of the advantages of the medium are currently being explored, and most VNs can easily be written as books. On the whole it's a stagnant industry. I find the Japanese industry comparatively boring. That is, they don't tell as good a story as a novel, but they want to pretend they are. Maybe one day they'll awaken to the potential of the medium they're writing in and I'll be interested, but at the moment I don't get anything from a Japanese VN that I don't get from a novel. I can go into more detail, but suffice to say that the OELVN industry is one with incredible potential, is growing rapidly, but is often derided by people unwilling to give it a chance. That is why they’re defended so vigorously. PS: I'd apologise for using the dreadful term 'OELVN' so much but alas, there's no suitable other atm.

To be fair, regarding Dischan the decision to pay his staff a salary and not on commission was a pretty ludicrous move. Compounding this ridiculosity (if it isn't a word, it should be) he admits that they (as a group) completed work slowly - 'at their own pace.' If any of them had any experience in business they would realise one of the biggest money sinks is wages. Therefore, business 101 dictates games should be released quickly and regularly or developers start losing money. It’s not about management being hard, but rather he wasn’t careful with money. Basically if you don’t want to face the realities of the small business world, don’t try and copy the business world. Everybody else pays people on commission, or they share profits, Dischan wanted to be different but they very quickly found out WHY people don't get paid salaries in the VN community.

The game has been available for a while now, but only recently put on Steam.

Macross for the dogfights Patlabor 2 for the politics Nadesico for the satire Evangelion if you like pseudo-philosophy Planetes for the realism Harlock because you like pirates Gundam if you like war robots, but then again if you like war robots then why not watch ... Voltron Legendary defender (new series) - I know it’s not anime, but bite me.

Happy Birthday, Kurisu. May you be at peace on your special day

The main writer left after the first one, which is why ME1 had a plot and ME2 was a glorified recruitment drive. It's not. ME1 is considered the strongest RPG, ME3 is the strongest gaming experience (and most polished.) ME2 is considered the weakest RPG of the three. Some RPG mechanics were put back into the 3rd one after complaints. The people who tell you ME2 is the strongest game are a) not hardcore RPG fans and b) still sad over the ME3 ending. 95% of the ME3 game is quite superior to ME2.

It isn't hairsplitting, actually. Nothing exists in a vacuum, everything exists relative to something else. I do 80 km/hr in my car RELATIVE to the ground. I'm happy RELATIVE to my default condition. This ice cream is tasty RELATIVE to my normal food (and especially when compared to this side of brussel sprouts.) The ball was passed forward relative to the passer, not travelled forward relative to the ground. When someone describes something as 'meaningless' they usually mean 'meaningless RELATIVE to my ideas of worth and what I perceive to be entertaining and important'. Unless of course they mean 'meaningless' relative to the games goals, but usually they'll explicitly say this in this scenario. Because the idea of a meaningless activity is relative to the person, it's useless as a general definition of a concept. Each person will have a different definition of the genre. So just some background material first. Diablo involves grinding for loot, which tends to be a bit different than grinding for levels. There's not much point grinding for levels in Diablo, when you started the original game people sought to get to nightmare as quickly as possible. You reach the level to unlock nightmare before you finish the game. I don't see much purpose grinding for levels TBH. Grinding for loot means the consumer is consistently rewarded for his activity, or anticipates the prospect of being rewarded for his activities. This is why so many people get addicted, it's a reward mechanism. Grinding for levels features no such reward mechanism. It's why it's an inferior mechanic when talking about consumer entertainment. It's inferior because there's nothing to make those activities enjoyable (except possibly a detailed combat system.) So what is grinding? Grinding for levels is gathering experience points for no other purpose than to gather experience points. When grinding for loot, the sole purpose behind those activities is searching for loot. In Etrian Odyssey the player's purpose is usually to reach the end of a dungeon, it's not grinding. In most Western RPGs there's a purpose other than gathering levels, which makes it not grinding. This isn't splitting hairs, it's getting to what grinding is and why grinding for levels is looked down on. What about those games where there's set monsters on the map and they don't regenerate? I answered the second question just above. What makes Fata Morgana an ... English style VN? Dear Western VNs, feel free to use as much English voice acting as you like. Go long, go hard :3

I'm on the way out the door, so this will be quick. 'Grinding' has the goal of 'level increase' implicit in its meaning. That is, if the goal of those 'meaningless battles' isn't to gain levels, then what you're doing isn't 'grinding' (going by how the majority of people use the word.)

And no, grinding is not endless spam of meaningless battles. If you define it as such, you can describe anything as 'grinding' simply by fiddling with the term 'meaningless' ... which is actually quite subjective.

Most modern western RPGs don't require grinding to open up different areas. Skyrim and Oblivion had a level scaling mechanic, in Oblivion's case it made it so most areas were accessible from the start and actually became more difficult the higher level you got. BG and BG2 were natural level progressions. Same with Icewind Dale and the like. Shadowrun games have zero grinding. Diablo has no grinding. Fights don't give you experience in Pillars of Eternity. No grinding in Spiderweb's games. There may be a few around, but Western RPGs tend to stray away from that mechanic. These days anyway ...

Sceneries and it isn't. The scenery is repetitive to the point where they shoe-horn the same backgrounds into situations where ... they almost shouldn't. It's definitely a budget thing, or it was just pretty shoddy. If people are meeting in a castle it's always the same room with the same items strewn in the background, and the corridor is always the same corridor, and the hall is always the same hall and etc etc etc. Nier was just commenting that the sceneries in Sunrider would get repetitive and monotonous, and he said he hadn't seen a Japanese VN like that. I'm just telling him that they're out there

Doing the extra stuff? Which require you to be about level 90 when you're level 40 odd? That's a pretty terrible mechanic. It's not that customers want a grindy game it's what they have to engage in if they want to complete certain parts of the game. And that's never a mechanic that makes sense to me, but to be fair I grew up with Western RPGs which incorporate a different design mechanic. To be honest, I much prefer H-strategy games to H-RPGs. Sengoku Rance was a game which took real strategy and thinking, and I enjoyed that a LOT. Kamidori was fun with the first play through, but the new game + gameplay turned me off.

Kamidori is a grind-a-thon. Not my kind of gameplay, though I suppose if you like Disgaea you wouldn't mind it. It's very Japanese though, as in grinding is an acceptable part of Japanese RPGs, but not so Western RPGs. I wouldn't recommend ripping this gameplay off. It's boring, imo. There's nothing special about grinding your way to victory, it just requires time and therefore as a combat mechanic ... it's lacking. The most recent VN I played, FUNBAGS Fantasy, had a very big and obvious problem regarding recurring sceneries. The sceneries repeat as often as EVNs do. However, I don't see anybody complaining about it. I suppose because they read it for other reasons, heh. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ As for the question in the OP, I think people around here are familiar enough with my opinions by now. There's very few Japanese VNs I enjoy, mainly because I'm not impressed with how most Japanese VNs are written.

I should point out that the one constantly working, usable, specimen of magnificence has been Rooke’s Awesome Default Theme. Every other theme has had problems ... Just sayin’.

Happy B'day, Arc. Have a moe:

Happy B'day, Tiag + Babiker.

An eternity. 'Just watch the anime' would be my recommendation

I find the concept to be flawed game design, TBH. The purpose of choices in games or stories is so you can mould your playthrough according to your preferences. The idea of a ‘True Ending’ is contrary to this purpose, and the idea of a ‘True Ending’ which requires you to first go through multiple other routes is often annoying. Mainly because some people may not want to play the same story multiple times, over and over, for the actual ending. If there's a required path for you to take so you can experience the story in it's true form, make the thing a kinetic novel and be done with it. Because the 'choices' serve little purpose. Possible exceptions are Type Moon stuff.

I'm lucky if I find 2, which is not me trying to be hipster but merely a statement of fact. It's rare that I'd recommend an anime/manga that wasn't made at least 10 years ago

To be honest, if all you're worried about is the removal of h-content, the option SHOULD be available to buy it from the localiser's site. So, Mangagamer for example, any localisation hosted on their site is pretty decently translated (these days) and should be uncut. Sekai is slower to get adult versions out, though. But anything which appears on denpasoft would most likely have all h-content intact. So if you don't want to buy from Steam, that is an option. Their adult versions will (in future) be released on Nutaku, and they have some minor censorship issues so that would be something to look out for. Nothing very major I think (although other people say otherwise.) Tomoya After, I have no clue what they've done but once again it's a Japanese developer company doing the job themselves. Key did the localisation, and released it on Steam, so I continue to think that official translations done by the Japanese developer tends to have the most problems. I should point out that during these instances, the whole argument of 'the original creators don't get to make the decision' sorta goes out the window. You're assuming a lot here, that the original developers don't decide what is modified. MoeNovel, for example, is owned by the same parent company as the one that the developers work for. That is, the decision to modify content originated from the creators. Keeping in mind that 'creators' are different to 'writers' and 'artists' because writers and artists that work for a large dev would have very limited input as to what is included. The Japanese are very wary of h-content in the West since the Rapelay incident, so don't be surprised when censorship decisions originate from the company that developed the game. That is, the original creators. People attribute a lot of worth to what the original creators want, but keep in mind that the original creator is a company who's primary concern is making money, and the individual artists involve are (to a large extent, and of course exceptions apply) bound by what the company wants. Writers don't get a great load of artistic freedom (in general, again exceptions apply) unless they go to novels, or comics, or stuff like that. Which is partly why some do. Because even when company gives writers 'free reign', it really means 'free reign but do keep in mind the budget, and our target audience, and a whole bunch of other stuff'.

It really depends which VN you're talking about. Steam doesn't remove adult-centric humour, that was MoeNovel's (think that's the name) own decision in their quest to target a younger demographic. Story VNs often have sex scenes shoe-horned in to target the horny demographic in Japan. Some of these could have the h-scenes removed, or censored, with minimal disruption to the plot because the h-scenes weren't a part of the original intent. But obviously not with stuff where sex is central. So case by case. Patches available for Steam copies that restore h-scenes are also an option.