Narcosis

That's why TOS exists and when people buy a product, they agree with it's terms of usage. It's like trying to blame weapon dealers just because someone can buy their gun and shot himself.

We simply don't read and don't want to anymore, mainly because TV and internet is taking most of our precious free time, remains more entertaining and less of a hassle to focus on. Asking whether vn's may become more popular on the west is a lost cause. It's like trying to compare US and european cinema. The sole reason why european movies are so niche, is because they are much more difficult than your average Warner Bross show, longer and have far bigger word count. I used the word "show" on purpose, because that's exactly what the majority of american films are. This of course makes them far more easier and thus accessible to your average joe. Conclusion? It's not about being niche, or people reading less. People literally became more stupid and lazy and can't tackle certain things anymore, until their IQ's and general perception of the world changes again.

Reminds of Arena Net and late incidents with cheaters, where their GM's simply logged into the accounts of said cheaters, publicly shamed their characters, undressed them, got them killed and then proceed to delete those characters and accounts. Everything was filmed and posted on game's community hub and cheaters obviously got banned. As brutal it may seem, this is actually a very effective and fair way to deal with any abusive players. There's nothing worse than people who ruin the gaming experience for everyone else.

Anime quality is degrading. Not in graphics and animation, but storylines and characters. Current trends are mixed and over the years, studios came to the point where shows are often a hotchpotch and rarely stand out. This is mainly because of the market oversaturation and consumers who have a lot more impact on actual development, than they had ever before. The number of series produced every season grew expotentially, but at the same it creates way too much competition. Due to the fact that sales had fallen down, it forced studios to seek a wider audience in order to stay in the business. You may know it's very difficult to please everyone, while producing original content. In order to succeed, they had to start producing shows that cater to more people. That's how the current trends roll. As much as better tools allowed us to create higher quality animation and reduce the costs, there's also a lot of friction; animators tend to have the lowest possible wages in the entire industry, and as if this wouldn't be enough, a lot of japanese studios already outsource much of the animation work to korean and chinese studios, simply because it's even cheaper. With huge oversaturation, most series rarely sell enough to cover the production costs and fees from the TV aren't enough for the studios to grow. If you're even slightly interested in the industry more than just watching what they produce, you can tell a lot just by visiting certain japanese community hubs; a lot of people working in the industry states awful times came, even though the technology allowed us for so much more. I have to admit, I'm worried those trends will continue to affect the whole industry untill some sort of a disaster will struck the market and force both the creators and consumers to change their attitude. It would definately fix some things, but disasters like these usually leave terrible mess behind.

Why not simply list all the TL'ed vn's on VNDB and pick something on a whim? People will start suggesting nearly anything that's been translated anyway, from mainstream major titles to oldschool doujin games, so I doubt you'll leave less confused than you're already are. That made me laugh.

Cross Channel. Period.

Still in T1. Haven't used any gems till yesterday noon ┐(￣ー￣)┌

There's something incredibly fishy about the charges, not to mention schools, universities and labs like these are often fraught with interpersonal conflicts between various bodies. I wouldn't be amazed if someone actually did the dirty on him out of a personal grudge. The articles themselves don't reveal much on actual background of the man himself; whether he had similiar issues in the past, held interest in child pornography or was directly involved in other incidents. I can only say one thing - if he was really carrying real child porn on his personal pendrive, it was incredibly short-sighted of him to leave it in a place like this, regardless whether he had those pictures for his own enjoyment, or were they actually some research materials. If he's an actual pedophile, I can't really defend him, but if this was some sort of an hilarious misunderstanding, he has no one else to blame than himself. Extensive? Twenty pictures and few movies, some of which were "cartoon" porn? Or perhaps all of them? Please. I'm so fed up with all that inapropriate lolicon and hentai nagging and modern pursuit of cheap sensation. I can't even comprehend how some cultures and societies - a lot of them belonging the the so called first world countries - find having their hidden sexual desires as something immoral and punishable. I'd only like for the govs to actually start taking care of REAL things that matter, instead trying to put the blame on fiction, because it's the easiest way to contribute to the general, public conviction that something is being done with these things, while in reality nothing had progressed for years. I wonder whether goverments will actually begin to help those people, instead jailing them for possesion of child pornography and keep things as low-profile as possible, to avoid any unnecessary commotion within the mass media; no actual harm ever happens to anyone in such cases, it's really hard to discuss even whether the children in such pictures become direct victims, when there's no actual correlation between them and the accused. It's widely different with people who abuse those children and get involved in distribution of such materials and thus gaining financial profit. In this case though, they are clearly looking for scapegoats to shuffle everything under the rug as fast as possible, while the actual goverment and laws do nothing to protect those in need and remain incredibly sloppy in bringing the real culprits to justice. In the end, the real wrongdoers will still continue to do what they did, someone who might have problems has his whole life (and not only his own life, but everyone around him) irremediably ruined and we - fans of media where boundaries between certain topics are draw thin become the real, actual issue for the rest of society and any constructive discussions often get derailed into nothingness. Society itself is increasingly becoming more of a problem, rather than a useful feature.

Most vn's are still built around the so called "tabula rasa" factor in terms of protagonists; it's prevalent in the entire genre of eroge, charage and galge. They are meant to be as generic and average, so the average player will be able to connect with them better. This is not a case with heavy, story-centric vn's where the major difference remains in the quality of the writing and the sole fact they are often based more on actual prose (NVL), than a script (ADV). All of those aforementioned traits would create a seemingly perfect character, and those do not exist - at least not in good prose and neither in real life. For a character to be realistic as possible, he or she needs to be as humane, as possible; in other words - they can be good or bad, or neutral but never perfect. Characters we often care the most about are a mix of those two bags - they are either decent, but fraught with conflicts and personal issues, or evil while whatever they do can still be justified in a sympathetic kind of way, which makes us root for them nevertheless. This turned up to eleven makes a grey-grey (or actually grey-black) characters, which are often straightforward, honest and carry on holding up to their own morals and beliefs; they will often do both good and bad things, but they do them because "it was the right thing to do", not because something says so, but because it's what they do. The issue with vn's is that most heroes of eroge often tend to be two dimensional, paper characters because it's what the market demands. This is mainly because:

[DISCLAIMER: I know it's a bit unusual, and I never expected myself to post about a western yaoi game all of a sudden, but I just had. For the greater laughs!] https://datenighto.com/game/starfighter-eclipse# So, here it is. I guess this will mostly please the majority of fujoshi audience (and perhaps some of you guys... yes, I'm talking to YOU!). The long awaited... Starfighter vn is here. Can't say much, since I'm more into monstergirls (dicks excluded), unimaginable horrors and catgirls but I bet it looks solid enough for a western production and the sole fact it's yaoi (and we don't get much of these games around here) deserves some attention. The only thing I can complain about from a completely neutral perspective is it's ludicrous price tag (currently at 20$, might change and propably will but for now it's twenty bucks), which prompted me to start this thread. Personally, I find it a bit amusing for a game like this to demand that much, while other indie vn's usually sell for a lot less (5-10$ are common price tags). I mean, even freaking Nekopara (which can be considered a pinnacle of an indie vn) is currently priced at 10€; Toko just got released and it's another one of those nice low-key vn's, with a price tag of 5 bucks. Now, don't get me wrong - it's all nice and stuff, but isn't this a little bit too much? I don't think being a western yaoi game is enough of a reason for that. Homobait Hypebait much? Before you fangirls begin to maniacally tear apart your purses, screaming in ecstasy - I need to disappoint you, since the game is slated to release on May 19. For any news regarding the game, or the vn tools it's running on, you can reach the team through their official twitter feed: @datenighto Now, don't get me wrong. I'm straight, but this is hell of a fun. DISCUSS

Perhaps Key is finally back on the right track. Too bad it's still reheated stuff, but I guess we can't demand much at the moment, judging from their current animu/game industry state. That player choice is rad, tho!

'Nuff said

B-but they haven't really removed anything! Steam ain't convinient at all for your ero games.

Shouldn't be a problem, really. Not sure about W10, though. We'll see. As long as kernel and libraries stay intact, I'd say the backwards compatibility will be fine as well. I've ran even fairly old visual novels on W8 myself and they all worked like a breeze. The system itself is still shit, though.

> Depleted nukige folder Is that even humanly possible? Ayy, lmao. Also, why include Nekopara?

Nevermind. I'm such a derp myself to not know of this, but then I was never particulary picky about knowing every slightest detail in terms of ingame scoring. It's nice to learn something new once in a while, though~

I don't mind using any of these two. It reminded me just in time to check, as it seems my LP replenished already. Time to play~

They are both the same. The difference in names came from EN translation. In JP, they are called loveca stones and that's the version I'd like to stick with. Oh? I didn't knew that. The base stat says it's 4270. With that, it would actually mean 5270. Is there something I missed in terms of scoring, or is it just KLab devs being derpy with the way they are handling the stat variables?

https://soundcloud.com/2sid-inside/hokuto-nata-2006 [Doesn't seem like there's any viable way to embed these]

Depressed? Never. Sad? Always. The last one was when I finished entire Cannonball and grew so genuinely fond of the main duo, I couldn't sleep for the next few nights, knowing it's all over and I won't see, nor hear them anymore. I also felt a sting in my heart when I finished Everlasting Summer. YMMY in it's case, but I'm sure it's a story a lot of people from the ex-Warsaw Pact countries - as much as some of us both loved and hated those times, to the utmost extent - will enjoy. If you finished something and felt completely nothing, it's a bad sign. It usually means the writer failed to convey his or her feelings through their writing. Reading is like a dialogue with the writer, the only exception him not being around, but leaving a pre-recorded message beforehand; we usually don't talk to people who have nothing to say.

This doesn't happen often. The artwork samples you provided look solid, I can only hope everything turns out good for the both of you and any future dev team you might fund. Hopefully, that is. A lot of amateur projects often get struck by mental burnout and lack of planning, if people working on them won't run out of time beforehand; Although any kind of experience is valuable and failures often teach the most, it's still a bitter lesson to learn. Skilled artists rarely work for free; they already know their position and value that comes with it, a lot of them is usually already working in the industry as well - either freelancing or hired full-time; they have to make a living. It's quite difficult, since a lot of people usually starts before that; a lot of them are usually in art/game design schools and treat it as a hobby. That is, until the time comes, when they also have to become financially independent. If some of them are even open to small, part-time projects they might see interesting, they often don't have enough free time to lend help and art schools tend to be very time consuming. It's important to value that and be supportive, if the need arises. In worst case, it might save you from losing someone, who illustrated your whole story and it's often difficult to replace artists, if not nearly impossible in certain cases. As for the writing, it would be more appropriate to prepare and preview at least a synopsis of the whole story, before asking for help. Don't be surprised, if there's no response at all; Since this isn't a paid job, there's a need to show others why it would be worthy to help. I'm sure there are other similiar, aspiring people looking for opportunities to either raise their skills, or learn something in the process. The only thing that needs to be done is giving them a reason, why should they pursue exactly this project, instead of any other. Synopsis is a must, don't expect people to get interested and start PM'ing, just because they saw a bunch of blurry pictures and know the genre you're interested with. TL & DR Provide more content and notes on the project and actual story itself, along with precise reasons why do you seek for another writer and what kind of job he/she would be tasked with, otherwise expect no help at all.

When it didn't made me cringe and the good things overwhelmed those that weren't. Otherwise I just pit them into oblivion and pray to the universe for them to fade into obscurity, before someone, somehow considers them "decent". Judging from the ammount of current, horribly written eroge being successful on the market, it isn't particulary effective.

You can be my kouhai anytime~ Score Match events may not be as time wasting as the normal events, but put a toll on the loveca stones. People got the wrong impression with the last event being fruitful in terms of rewards, mainly because of Nozomi UR. Judging from the current state of things, I'd have to use up at least 2-3 stones per day besides the normal playthroughs (4 songs in the morning, 4 in the evening), just to keep my current ranking. It will definately get worse before the end, when everyone starts to spam loveca stones like crazy and there's still a lot of time before that happens. I still believe it's a lot better to participate in events, rather than gather stones for 10+1 draws and rely on RNG, as the events are, in fact, a lot more rewarding; in this case though, it's going to be an awful waste to use up all the stones just to remain in the top. Who cares about the rankings anyway, I definately do not

That's how the whole danmaku genre works. It's all about self-perfection, patience and repetition till your fingers fall off. Playing them on the easiest setting is a sacrilege.