Darklord Rooke

Images were originally posted on Reddit: CGs may be cropped, but BGs look REAL good fellas. Old: New: EDIT: Got from https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/3ro1cy/gsenjou_no_maou_the_devil_on_gstring_has_been/

[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.

Tay – A rising tide lifts all ships. Depending on how often he says it, it’s one of the few times I allow myself to get drunk :3

I used to think it was funny, but now that I have zero time it just annoys me. Perspective – what a funny old beast it is

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.

We've been over this, did you really want to do it all over again?

I wouldn’t rush to assumptions just yet. They’re still finding their feet so mistakes are natural, they’ve been of a different nature than JAST and MG made but that’s natural too. You have to remember that there isn’t much money to be made in Visual Novels, it’s not the sort of industry you’d rush into to make a quick buck, so you wouldn’t enter the industry unless you were doing it for the right sort of reasons. As Darbury said earlier in this thread, there is a shit-ton of red-tape to navigate when you catapult yourself into this sort of business atmosphere, not to mention Sekai sort to expand quickly, not to mention they tried to do it with minimal staff. Lots of pressure, lots of work, learning to swim by leaping in and trying not to drown etc etc. It’s only natural for mistakes to occur, but people are very quick to judge and leap to conclusions these days. They've definitely made some missteps but to flay them for it is quite harsh. You seem to think they have a lot of influence over Japanese devs, but I think you'll find that Mr New-company Sekai needs them more than Established-Japanese-Devs need Sekai, so you have the power inbalance around the wrong way. Especially considering Japanese Devs are starting to look at localising themselves. Also, this is all happening while Dovac is fighting a legal battle over WAS for the fan's benefit. I keep saying that the internet's gonna be censored one day, and it'll be the people's fault for just becoming TOO crazy.

It’s an internet-wide phenomenon. I was on the Bethesda forums when their fanbase melted the joint for a year after Oblivion. The same thing happened with Mass Effect over the ending. More angst over Diablo 3. It’s happening all the freaking time these days, and yet the quality of the stuff we’re getting is consistently high. I remember the good old days when people voted with their wallet and didn’t whinge so much, it was much quieter… I should also point out to all those young hippies talking of boycotts and who think people power on the internet is all-rad: Bethesda faced a huge revolt from their loyal fanbase after they went in another direction with Oblivion -> look at the effect it had on Skyrim. Mass Effect faced a huge boycott over Mass Effect -> look at DA:O, in fact we were facing the ‘death of Bioware’ if you all recall. Boycotts only work when you have the majority of people on your side, more often than not you guys only have the noisy protest vote. I like to hang there when I'm in a certain mood, but I don't pretend it isn't a slummy place. I'm used to it though because RPGCodex is my favourite haunt and it's pretty much 4chan for old-school RPGers.

The only place you'll find majority community support for hatred of Dovac is on 4chan. I could make some disparaging comments here about the nature of 4chan and possible reasons why they hate Dovac, but I don't feel the need to. They're pretty well known

Agreed. The process is ruthless as hell!

I can't really comment, tech stuff goes above my head, but it's not SP's decision, it would be the Japanese devs. Sounds like a feasible workaround (but I'm clueless,) but the people you'd need to comment wouldn't be SP. A general comment regarding 'wasting artist's/writer's efforts: So I wanted to expand on this a little because I tend to see it from time to time. To put it bluntly, if you’re the sort of person concerned overly about ‘wasting people's efforts’ then you can forget about being on the creative side of things in storytelling. One of the first things you are always reminded of in the process of telling a story, is to “kill your darlings.” It’s termed so because it’s extremely traumatic for some, and yet it is viewed to be for the betterment of your story. It means to kill your most precious, most beloved, most time-consuming pieces of prose, those pieces you spent weeks writing, rewriting, ironing out, and agonising over. That is because the most important thing is the story, and things must always be viewed with that goal in mind. The same sort of attitude is applied to art, and indeed all aspects of the development process. Relating this back to the issue in question, the VN company in question (I don't know the name, sue me ) has obviously decided that the story will be better received by this generation if it is in widescreen, and so it has made the decision to crop images. You can view it as a lazy decision, whatever, that's the decision they made to try and best convey this story to the West. You may not agree with it, but it’s the sort of decision made all the time during story development. If you shy away from these processes not wanting to waste ‘people’s hard work’, then your story will suffer. That doesn’t mean you’re not entitled to disagree with the decision, I’m not saying that at all. It DOES reduce information, it DOES feel like you're getting an incomplete copy, there COULD be other options available. Sure. What I AM saying is a) ‘the waste of artist’s effort’ isn’t a valid reason to leave material in, 'effort' is valued cheaply in these processes and b) to have some perspective on the issue. Everything related to SP is always overblown by the fans these days, and whenever they have an issue they use it as an opportunity to air all their grievances with the company and then Godwin's law is invariably applied, this time by Bats, and then we get sacrifices, and blood, and naked dancing, and it starts to feel like the weird parties we had in 1999...

Considering how much art already ends up on the cutting room floor, and quite a number of BGs are already cropped before they're entered into games, the situation shouldn't be much more of a shame than it already is. The decision to cut these was the company in question, the decision to crop them further was likewise, so all you're talking about is the degree of waste which means we start heading into pedantry. Definition - Upscale: To increase the resolution of. It can have a vaguer sort of meaning but when used in that way it can mean anything. Lastly... Doddler is cool, why would you dismiss his opinion so

[1] The evidence you gathered is almost non-existent for what you’re trying to claim, which is that Maou wasn’t spamming links to his thread before he was banned. [2] You wrote in your OP that you were banned for promoting piracy. Companies, rightly or wrong, equate promoting fan-patches with piracy due to the radically small number of people who go out of their way to import a Japanese copy. Combine this with your ‘failing as a company’ statement, and remembering it was most likely the original Japanese devs who are doing the cropping, and maybe they considered that a stab at more than one company and as encouragement for people to seek out alternatives to supporting either one. Who knows, but it’s pretty common sense to not promote fan-patches on an official thread when the official release is imminent. [3] I don’t believe you wrt Maou, basically because you have nothing to offer but your word. [4] I would think it happened in the public arena and that if it happened the way you said it did, somebody would have disputed their version of events on Reddit. That's my initial gut reaction. [5] Indeed I am

Yay, you made it :3 'Dole' is British slang, also it's used all the time in Ozzie-land. Not used in America? This is the exact sort of story I wish someone would make as a VN. Deep world-building, characters, political, awesome space opera. I suppose anyone capable of writing something like this would be put off by the small fanbase that is open to reading VNs Cause of your recommendation, I'm currently reading the first book . It's damn good.

Sure thing. The statement from SP was this: https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/3rg7y9/sekai_project_and_rvisualnovels/cwnvo63 It was in response to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/3rg7y9/sekai_project_and_rvisualnovels/cwntsb5 EDIT: Doddler's was this: https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/3rg7y9/sekai_project_and_rvisualnovels/cwog2ut

You got banned for promoting piracy, you said as much in your OP. I'm assuming the other guy was banned for spamming or for another reason. Because there's a distinct lack of evidence available, all we have to go on is the word of the people involved, and let me be pretty frank by saying you don't come off very well when discussing issues relating to SP. Your stated objective was trying to raise awareness, and it isn't a very large stretch from this to the spamming of that link in every discussion thread on the STEAM boards, spend any amount of time on the internet and it's apparent that this is common behaviour, it's as though a certain section of the public believe that a good way to raise awareness is to shove stuff as viciously as possible into as many bystanders faces as possible. Furthermore, SP stated their reasoning on a very public forum, Steam is also a very public forum, you would think if they were lying someone would be along to dispute their statement. Yet it was posted almost a full day ago with no disputing comment and yet 20 upvotes. While not conclusive, that leads me to think that maybe there's a modicum of truth to that statement. Now, It IS possible that someone ELSE spammed the link, and SP just banned them and Maou, but who knows, it's a mystery and one I can't be bothered speculating on. Really, while SP have trouble communicating, you’re not a very trustworthy fellow when discussing the moral behaviour of SP. So no, I don't believe you, and I will continue to sit on the glorious and comfortable fence on the matter, which is what I'd like to think rational people tend to do when faced with emotional 'he said, she said' situations. I will nod my head and smile in a vacant manner, if it appeases you any. Back on topic: I should point out that while Doddler doesn’t agree with their public relations behaviour (for obvious reasons,) he says the game looks much better in 1280x720 than it did at 800x600, even with the cropping. So there you go, an endorsement from someone many in the VN community respects and adores. Maybe that will calm the hyperbole over the issue. Cropping itself isn’t a bad thing. They seemed to have exchanged a higher resolution for less overall information. It becomes a bad thing if important aspects are chopped out, so some kind hearted guinea pig really needs to play through and offer some feedback for the fans (didn’t enjoy the VN so it won’t be me.)

I think it would be best to get both sides of the discussion before making any decisions. For example, on Reddit SP has explained one of the bans by saying: The thread was deleted and user banned because the user started to spam the link to every discussion thread. As of a few hours ago, all bans were removed Taking a look at the initial post and it's fairly dickish and disrespectful manner of speaking, I wouldn't discount it. To put it another way, I make it a rule to not completely trust the viewpoint of those with an agenda to push.

I should point out that 'onion gravy' is what all the cool kids are eating their potatoes with. Also, it's tradition to post pictures of cute and moe anime girls in introduction threads. So here, welcome to the site:

That's what I thought as well. I was under the impression that the female demographic has a very strong representation in the field of doujinshi similar to how the female demographic has a very strong representation in fanfiction circles. And Comiket has a very strong doujinshi focus. I’d sooner watch your expression while you read Little Busters again then go to Comiket…

Mainly 4chan. Probably because 4chan represent the traditional, Eroge fanbase, and Dovac realising this fanbase consists mainly of pirates said 'fuck those people' and went looking for greener pastures. Not a popular decision, but a fairly logical business one. Zeno pretty much states the 3 reasons Sekai are hated, but personally I'm not fussed with good PR (because PR is meaningless, really) their kickstarter use (because if you don't like it, don't participate - simple), their lack of communication (because I'm too busy to care overly and things will happen when they happen) or Dovac (because I live in Australia, which is a country full of abrasive arseholes) and thus I'm fine with Sekai. Other people won't be. ~~~ On topic: I’ll only care about cropped images if they end up cutting out something unimportant. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was recently remastered into widescreen and released on some new-fangled format. Most likely Blu-ray. Unfortunately Whedon specifically shot the show for 4:3. To widen it, they got the originals and included more footage in the shot than what was intended. The result was footage of camera crew, actors off-screen acting out of character, actors off-screen who were meant to have mysteriously dropped off-camera, footage of camera and lighting equipment and so on. They also removed filters used for story and atmosphere purposes, like the scene where Angel was in Buffy’s bedroom at night has now miraculously transformed into the middle of the day.This is IN ADDITION to your standard cropping. This is what’s known as a severe cock-up, good job Fox. Can you see the crew member? In comparison, I suppose we have some cropping in G-Senjou’s visual novel. If this just reduces detail in the scene, I can live with that. EDIT: Double post to give the mods something to do.

When I feel like trying something new, and different, what I don’t do is paint the words ‘free love’ on my stomach and walk down the street wearing nothing at all. Because even though it IS new, and it IS different, that doesn’t mean it’s at all advisable, or appropriate, or good in any way. Teenagers repeat this phrase a lot, usually right after doing something monumentally stupid during their eternal hunt for new experiences. Every poll the Hunie devs have taken has shown their new artstyle just isn't liked, and they continue to ignore it because someone in that studio managed to get their taste buds lodged deep inside a certain orifice during one of their 'I can't believe how much money we made' parties.

I'm really having difficulty getting past that new art style. Jesus Christ, mate, what the hell was wrong with the old style? And which failure of a Haruspex guided the devs onto this new path with the promise of even more riches? Whoever it was, those devs should stop visiting him!

Really?! How interesting. Do it, Tiag! Eat that mouldy, and likely disease-ridden sandwich, you found behind the couch. It may be black, and it may smell funky, but this was how penicillin was made and that's undoubtedly good for you. Logic therefore dictates your sandwich will be likewise, so you should scoff it down if you want to be healthy.

How you manage to finish these long stories when you don't enjoy them is a mystery to me. If I don't like something, I drop it within the first hour