sanahtlig

You mean Starcraft II? RTS seems a bit too ambitious for current VN makers to pull off. Eushully tried, and even in their skilled hands the result was mediocre. G.J? also tried, and the result was really bad. Good RTS titles require beefy game engines that your typical shoestring VN budget won't be able to support.

I found a snippet from the report that discusses an issue I've talked about before: http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/future-climate-change http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/appendices/faqs, T. Are there tipping points in the climate system? To reiterate what I've said before, we're on a dangerous course we're only beginning to understand--and it's quite possible that by the time we see the most alarming changes playing out, it'll already be too late.

The U.S. has released an updated National Climate Change Assessment: http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/highlights/overview/overview It's a comprehensive synthesis of the science intended for public consumption, broken up into sections for easy browsing. This could be the biggest push yet to educate the public about the dangers of climate change.

The idea that piracy doesn't cause lost sales in the localized VN market is silly. I've even seen people publicly admit that they'd buy a game if they couldn't find a free download somewhere by X date. If someone wants something enough, they'll pay for it. If they can get it for free effortlessly--in most cases they will. If a person really wants 2 things, one which they can pirate and one which they can't--they'll pirate the one they can and save their money for the thing they can't pirate. I've seen this theme repeated multiple times among console players who also play VNs. They pirate VNs because it's easy and they can. They buy console games because they have no choice / it's too much of a hassle to pirate them. People like to hide behind a facade of morality, but in the end, people are opportunists--all the moreso if there's no obvious victim to confront them. Confront them with the categorical imperative--that if everyone did what they did, there would be no VNs to enjoy--and they just shrug. "Not my problem." "I have more important things to spend my money on." "Everyone else is doing it."

The promo video doesn't actually show anything about the game, and the screenshots are so blurry it's difficult to make out text, much less make any inferences about the game.

I can read a decent amount but I can't write at all, since I don't know how to draw the characters. I can type using the IME, but it's an extremely time consuming process. I can understand many basic clauses unassisted, and can read large texts with translation assistance.

I actually really liked School Days the VN. Like Zakamutt, I should point out that you can't judge the VN based on the anime--the anime is a fixed route, while the game has a great deal of choice. The experience of the VN is defined by the choices you make, and without those choices to pull you into Makoto's shoes the scenario ends up falling flat. It's the difference between watching a train wreck and actually being inside trying to survive. A lot of people criticize Makoto, but I think the game does a rather masterful job of crafting difficult situations where there's no easy way out--and where being indecisive can seem like the best course of action, just like in real life. I'll repost my quickie review of School Days from VNDB: I should also mention that this is the only VN I could ever get my brothers to play. It has the sort of "mainstream appeal", especially to fans of anime, that most VNs lack.

Some games machine translate well. Others do not. "Simpler" language does not necessarily improve the machine translation. Colloquial dialogue actually translates very poorly. I find machine translation most helpful for narration, which tends to be more grammatically complex than dialogue. I started off relying on text hooking (Interactive Text Hooker) + ATLAS, and found most games perfectly understandable. I still use it when I'm feeling impatient and want to read through text at native language speeds. JParser (ITH plugin) is a good backup when ATLAS spits out gibberish and you want to explore alternative translations, or if you want to actually try and learn some vocabulary as you go.

Kara no Shoujo. I was getting into it before the voice patch was announced, then I never got back to it.

Anime-style choose-your-own-adventure stories with voice and illustrations. VNs aren't for everyone. Giving them inflated expectations won't do them or you any good. It's usually best to use a hook from one of their other interests. If they like anime, give them the VN source material from an anime they liked or an interactive movie VN (like School Days). If they like RPGs, give them a VN with a gameplay focus. If they like romance novels, give them a VN with heavy romantic drama elements. The medium is diverse, but if the person doesn't like reading, they probably won't like VNs.

I think some people see me as responsible, when I'm really not. They tend to judge certain superficial characteristics about me and form an impression of me based on the standards of a neurotypical. This tends to result in inflated expectations, as my uncommon strengths come paired with uncommon weaknesses. Also, people assume that because I contradict them or express a different viewpoint, I don't like them or I disagree with them. The former is almost never true, while the latter is not necessarily true. Rather, it's my nature to be contrarian and challenge viewpoints I see, especially consensus viewpoints.

Text hooking works for me. If I couldn't text hook Japanese VNs, I wouldn't be playing them, and I certainly wouldn't know the Japanese I know now. Perfect machine translation of Japanese isn't possible. The language is too vague / context dependent, resulting in missing information that the English langugage demands to formulate a sentence. A human (you) will always be required to fill in the blanks using context. Those who currently thrive on machine translation have learned to piece together the understandable fragments and glue them together with what they already know about the situation.

Ikusa Megami Zero has possibly the best fantasy epic storyline I've ever read in a VN. It completely destroys anything in English right now except for Aselia the Eternal (which had adult content stripped). If you value story over gameplay, you should give the series a try. One is being remade, and Two is still quite old, so Zero is a good starting point. Verita shouldn't be played until you've completed Zero and Princess General 2 (since it brings together the protagonists from each).

As an avid fan of Eushully, I felt Madou Koukaku was a weaker title. The storyline was good, but the gameplay was tedious (micromanagement of 30+ territories and constantly pausing battles to micromanage unit actions and movement), imbalanced (difficulty spikes in mid-game and then drops off like a rock), and suffered from control issues (precise movements and maintaining attack range). With other titles that have strong storylines AND more refined gameplay (like Ikusa Megami Zero and Verita), it's hard to recommend Madou Koukaku as *the* Eushully title to play--though it provides a good contrast to Kamidori Alchemy Meister, which had a weak storyline and great gameplay. That said, when it comes to gameplay titles Eushully doesn't have much competition. Only 23 Japanese PC titles with the VNDB RPG or Strategy tags were released in 2013. Around 30% of those were doujin and therefore had no production values behind them. The only other notable full-length gameplay titles during this period IMO were Pastel Chime 3 Bind Seeker (Alicesoft), Gears of Dragoon (Ninetail), Venus Blood -GAIA- (Ninetail / Dualtail), and Bunny Black 3 (Softhouse Chara).

Give School Days a try. It's the only PC interactive movie eroge you'll find in English. Despite its polarizing tendencies, it's the bestselling English eroge for a reason.

Sounds like interesting functionality. I don't understand the need for a separate app to do this when VNDB-esque features could simply be integrated into the main site.

I recommend ITH and Translation Aggregator as suggested above. The JParser plugin can be configured to display furigana, and also performs word-by-word lookup on mouseover. The MeCab plugin also displays furigana (but with a different algorithm), and can be used as a cross-reference. One of the perks of digital furigana is that they can be morphed to whatever font / size you want. I've come across games where the game resolution is so low that the kanji look like blurry blobs.

RPG, Strategy Game, Action Game, Simulation Game, Incest / Imouto heroine, Netorare. Most of the games I play in Japanese have at least one of those.

JAST's release is more expensive than the Japanese retail version + fan translation patch?

Softhouse Chara has not licensed any of their titles for localization. The developer / publisher have to be brought on board before any sort of commercial localization project can begin. Most eroge companies have little or no interest in the overseas market. Personally I think Softhouse Chara games have the potential to do well in the West due to their (usually) strong gameplay. But it matters little if the developer isn't interested.

If you'll review my statement, it's not the data I called into question. It's the analysis by said conservative blogger. Proper data analysis requires expert knowledge of how the data was collected and the experience to place these data in proper context. Contrary to popular belief, data does not speak for itself. Proper analysis of this dataset may or may not show that your claims are correct. But even if such analyses did show what you claim, that doesn't necessarily support your implicit claim: that recent changes in the cryosphere are natural, temporary, and will quickly revert in the near future irrespective of human activity. Nor would it support your main argument: that the scientific consensus for climate change is a manufactured conspiracy intended to redirect money for the profit of some unspecified group. I'll just leave this here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_of_sea_ice

Yes, if it prevents you from coming to a coherent conclusion about an important topic. Being openminded does not mean considering every viewpoint or piece of information equally. It merely means examining the evidence without bias and a willingness to consider evidence and viewpoints that contradict your own--and change one's stance accordingly when necessary. Just two days ago I looked at a graph of sea levels in the past 10 millennia and wondered if the changes that have occurred in the past 2 centuries even mattered in historical perspective. Then I read further and realized that these changes are happening in what was a period of equilibrium, a period of unusual stability. Our civilization depends on a stable climate. The world will go on whatever we do to it. The same can't be said for our current civilization. It doesn't matter all that much in the big scheme of things if water levels rise a bit and the coastal landscape changes ever so slightly. But people care when their homes get flooded and swept away in the process. People care when droughts devastate harvests that people in the region were relying on to just to survive. Climate change is bad--no matter which direction it goes. If we can prevent it, fine. If not, we better understand how it works so we're prepared for the consequences. The scary thing is: we barely understand the climate changes we're causing at all. Our models suck at predicting even short-term changes. We can see changes happening, but as for the future? Anyone's guess. Humanity's Grand Experiment: just how far can we push the Earth until dramatic change occurs? The results will be interesting for sure. But is this an experiment we want to be conducting?

From the same link: 9-year-cycle. 1 year is just a blip. As I said before, this isn't about individuals. It's a public policy issue. I'll respond as I did before:

To oppose change, you don't need to convince people of your position. You simply need to cast uncertainty on the other position, whether it be through valid arguments or simple disinformation campaigns. Confusion tactics are a standard ploy used by those who would preserve the status quo. To avoid falling into this deliberate trap and getting lost in the din of voices, you have to choose the voices you pay attention to very carefully--in other words, gauge the credibility of your sources and ignore all but the most credible ones.

A recent study polled climate scientists to determine the consensus on climate change. 62.7% of climate scientists believed in human-caused global warming. 35.5% expressed no opinion. 1.8% rejected human-caused global warming. Confirmation of global warming was defined as agreeing with the following statement: "Humans are the primary cause of recent global warming". Scientific consensus is there. The public seems to be more ambivalent. Interestingly, the divide is mostly along party lines--almost as if one's political ideology influenced one's willingness to accept the science! The author of the NASA article has the following to say: And that's really a takehome point I think. In general, once people have established a set of beliefs about a topic, they're unlikely to change their minds no matter what evidence you give them. People see what they want to see, and believe what is convenient for them to believe. And that doesn't just apply to the climate change debate.