The Flowers demo is a hot mess

[Chuee]

The problem is that they somehow managed to edit words spelled correctly into being incorrect spelled, even in sentences where they literally changed nothing but that single word's spelling (such as an is into an it, when the line was already correct). I'm not even sure how you manage to do that. Either way, the "new" demo isn't really inspiring, and the overall quality is still atrocious. If it stays like this, I'll probably avoid this title altogether, because as it is now, the errors are way too distracting. 

[sanahtlig]

28 minutes ago, Rooke said:

Not really concerned with typos, they're the last stuff to be dealt with and a month is plenty of time for that. There's a reason proofing is the last (and least important) duty of an editor, and if they're busy proofing at this stage, when there are so many other errors in the script, they have their process around the wrong way. 

What I'm worried about is that JAST isn't taking this seriously.  Reputable voices are calling for a complete retranslation, and I'm inclined to agree.  There's TL accuracy errors that suggest the translator didn't understand what he was reading.  You can't fix that in a large script with a simple TLC pass.  TLC presumes that you can identify problematic passages and get a second opinion.  If the whole thing is problematic then TLC is essentially retranslation.  It doesn't matter if it looks ok to an editor if the translations are simply wrong and don't make sense to players who are in a much better position to gauge overall coherence (having played the game from start to finish with graphics and voices) than the editor.

[Scorp]

I think Jast would not retranslate that. As I agree with Chuee, if Jast did all that for speedup, they definitely have a tight timeframe. So they will release it no matter what and after would do patches (engine have no problem with that). Or not. I am actually more interested how they suppose to fight with technical things, as this music laggin happen not only in config. And playing entirely silent game... not what I want to do.

[Darklord Rooke]

16 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

 It doesn't matter if it looks ok to an editor if the translations are simply wrong and don't make sense to players who are in a much better position to gauge overall coherence (having played the game from start to finish with graphics and voices) than the editor.

I should point out that at least two, probably three of the 4 lines BDH pointed out above could really use a rewrite. Either partially or wholly. So it doesn't look okay EVEN to an editor  

But yes, accuracy problems first, editing, then proofing. It's going to take much longer than a month 0.0

[Darklord Rooke]

Who here is interested in writing? Anybody? Ah I see, nobody at all, I knew it!

Okay, well then I'm going to bore you for a little bit with a very quick and easy tip for beginner writers who want to write in 1st person or 3rd person limited. I like this piece of advice because it doesn't take long to explain, and is incredibly easy to implement. I will use a couple of examples from the Flowers demo:

So these 2 screenshots have been snagged from BDH's incredibly useful ... erm, Twitter thingy. Kudos to him for all the hard work  So let's talk about filtering.

What is filtering? Filtering is when the narrator filters what they observe to the audience. This is considered 'bad' because it adds an extra layer for information to pass through before it hits the reader. (I.e. The information is being filtered through an unnecessary person.) Secondly in first person (and a lot of the time in third person close) it's unnecessary and unwanted, because the reader is in the head of the narrator. So, logically everything the character sees, the reader sees. And everything the character hears, the reader hears. What the character thinks, the reader can share in these thoughts. And in fact most of the time it would count as a bad error on the writer's part to include any information the character who's narrating does not have.

So, including the words 'I see' or 'I hear' or 'I thought' are unnecessary 'filters.' Thus:

Quote

"I see the words 'Wuthering Heights' written on the spine." 

Is a classic example of 'not cool' writing. The filter is the words 'I see' and they are unnecessary and create distance. Very easily solved with:

Quote

"The words 'Wuthering Heights' are on the spine."

Another example:

Quote

"On Rikka's bed, which she usually never fails to make, I see books scattered about."

Another case of filtering. Replace with:

Quote

"On Rikka's bed, which she usually never fails to make, books are scattered about."

Do you see how the reader is automatically closer to the action? And to be honest, 1st person is partly about getting close to the action.

So with 1st person and 3rd person close, you should eliminate those filtering words. And to whoever is editing the Flowers demo ... ditto.

[VirginSmasher]

2 hours ago, Dergonu said:

Dear lord ...

Why did this have to happen to this title... The one JAST release I'm hyped for

Of course it would be you yuri freak. 

I'm also sad too because I just realized Kara No Shoujo 3 could possibly be released by JAST 

[Darklord Rooke]

An example from BDH's twitter:

"The way you said that, it sounds like it could also be that Shirahane panicked hen Sasaki saw her putting the books on my bed, you know?"

Now, BDH highlighted the obvious typo on twitter (in a bland, grey highlighter , I don't know how to highlight on Fuwa so I've italicised it) but why bother highlighting the typo when the sentence is so deficient as a sentence, and so full of clutter, that it needs to be completely reworked? Not to mention the obvious tense problem. I dunno why people are pointing at the typos like they're a big deal, I'm not concerned whether they were newly added or old ones, they are so very far down the list of priorities ...

[Decay]

Because that's the one you can easily point to and laugh at. JAST isn't going to fix the terrible writing style the translation is plagued with, no matter how much we complain.

[VirginSmasher]

38 minutes ago, Decay said:

Because that's the one you can easily point to and laugh at. JAST isn't going to fix the terrible writing style the translation is plagued with, no matter how much we complain.

And because of the news of the awful translation, it's not gonna make a lot of money and therefore the other VNs in the series won't be released and Innocent Grey will probably break off the partnership with JAST and go back to Mangagamer.

At least, that's what I want to happen.

[Tyr]

5 hours ago, XReaper said:

in light of the fact that mg has been basically ready to work on this particular title, i do asume the fellows at innocent grey are already start loosing hair for ditching them, which resulted in a pretty much subpar outcome as things stand by now :/

It's like the slut noticing she better had not cheated on her hubby because the new guy just saw her as some kind of trophy to conquer, not really caring about her at all.

[ChaosRaven]

Oh great, if they just fix it with patches afterwards, it'll mean that the hard copy will be full of bugs again.

And isn't it funny, if I want to figure out which of my hard copies are from Jast that's usually a very easy task to do - I just have to grab all the ones which are only playable with a bunch of patches and hotfixes and I get exacly the ones from Jast.

Looks like this tradition won't change so fast. *sigh*

[Chuee]

1 hour ago, VirginSmasher said:

And because of the news of the awful translation, it's not gonna make a lot of money and therefore the other VNs in the series won't be released and Innocent Grey will probably break off the partnership with JAST and go back to Mangagamer.

At least, that's what I want to happen.

Well, at least if JAST does do the rest of the Flowers series, they'll probably get someone who knows what they're doing. This whole situation makes me think JAST sought out someone to do this translation because they had no one else to, and ended up finding a sub-par translator, but now it's too late since they have to release it soon. All of the other localization groups seem to have a good amount of translators in their pool to choose from, but it seems like JAST doesn't. A lot of their recent translations have been done by translators that mostly work for Mangagamer too. Maybe that's why they aren't picking up many new titles or partners. 

[KuroganeHomura]

 

Edit:

 

 

Edited February 27, 2016 by KuroganeHomura

[Darklord Rooke]

6 hours ago, VirginSmasher said:

And because of the news of the awful translation, it's not gonna make a lot of money and therefore the other VNs in the series won't be released and Innocent Grey will probably break off the partnership with JAST and go back to Mangagamer.

Because the Innocent Grey titles released by MG made lots of money?

Cartagra didn't sell that well, KnS didn't sell well, Doddler was crying on Twitter over the very low pre-order numbers for KnS2, TBH I'm surprised Innocent Grey agreed to release any more titles for the West.

[VirginSmasher]

Just now, Rooke said:

Because the Innocent Grey titles released by MG made lots of money?

Cartagra didn't sell that well, KnS didn't sell well, Doddler was crying on Twitter over the very low pre-order numbers for KnS2, TBH I'm surprised Innocent Grey agreed to release any more titles for the West.

And now they're gonna regret it with Flowers because with the reputation it has currently, it's gonna be low in sales as well. This is probably the last time Innocent Grey will release anything over here in the West if they didn't sell much with MangaGamer.

[Decay]

Also, lol if you think the bad translation will mean that people won't buy it. You clearly don't know how the VN market works if you think that.

[VirginSmasher]

4 minutes ago, Decay said:

Also, lol if you think the bad translation will mean that people won't buy it. You clearly don't know how the VN market works if you think that.

Which sucks to hear. People shouldn't have to tolerate bad translations like this one.

[TheFantasm]

I now have little to no expectations for Seinarukana when it gets released in 2026.

[ChaosRaven]

3 hours ago, Rooke said:

Because the Innocent Grey titles released by MG made lots of money?

Cartagra didn't sell that well, KnS didn't sell well, Doddler was crying on Twitter over the very low pre-order numbers for KnS2, TBH I'm surprised Innocent Grey agreed to release any more titles for the West.

Apparently KnS1 was a bit of a late bloomer. It had a pretty bad start but at the time when the hardcopy was released it seemed to have recovered because it also got some official reviews that helped with sales. That probably still didn't turn it in a best seller though.

Cartagra surely wasn't able to make such a come back so far and I don't know how KnS2 has developed meanwhile.

But Flowers can't really be compared to them because of the ultimate financial deciding factor that separates it from them - Steam!

[KuroganeHomura]

5 minutes ago, ChaosRaven said:

Cartagra surely wasn't able to make such a come back so far and I don't know how KnS2 has developed meanwhile.

https://ask.fm/The_Doddler/answers/132270886129

Not all that bad it would seem.

3 hours ago, Decay said:

Also, lol if you think the bad translation will mean that people won't buy it. You clearly don't know how the VN market works if you think that.

I think Flowers might be the kind of game where a really bad translation actually could noticeably affect sales, at least those of the sequels. It's not like it's "tits, the game" (Sakura et al) or has "uncensored sex" (Kindred Spirits) or anything of the sort.

[Scorp]

11 hours ago, Rooke said:

Who here is interested in writing? Anybody? Ah I see, nobody at all, I knew it!

It I would ever release a thing I am working on and which will require an actual editor - I think I know whom I will ask

4 hours ago, VirginSmasher said:

Which sucks to hear. People shouldn't have to tolerate bad translations like this one.

People are like that. They would tolerate anything unless it have completely no sense (and Flowers are readable at least). So it would be fine sales for Jast no matter what. As you know, this shitstorm is very local, and people on Steam are not that 1% of fans who are pro-active, but your mere 10 billions of players, who do not know anything about translation and stuff and actually do not care, they want to see anime grlls doing lewd things, that's all.

 

[DarkZedge]

16 hours ago, Dergonu said:

Dear lord ...

Why did this have to happen to this title... The one JAST release I'm hyped for

They've messed up your yuri dose senpai! that's unforgivable

[kingdomcome]

Anyone tried the updated version?

[sanahtlig]

11 hours ago, KuroganeHomura said:

 

Edit:

 

 

That seems like a trademark Clinton response--lead the audience on to think you're agreeing with them while actually saying nothing.  Notice the words "entirely" and "retranslated" are missing from the second response, completely changing the meaning.

I get the impression that JAST is missing the point (perhaps purposefully).  The TL quality of the demo is not what people are worried about.

[solidbatman]

14 minutes ago, sanahtlig said:

That seems like a trademark Clinton response--lead the audience on to think you're agreeing with them while actually saying nothing.  Notice the words "entirely" and "retranslated" are missing from the second response, completely changing the meaning.

I get the impression that JAST is missing the point (perhaps purposefully).  The TL quality of the demo is not what people are worried about.

I mean, it isn't like they have much time left to fix what seems to be an issue of the TL-er flat out not understanding what he is translating. It makes no sense though, that with this rabid of a community with VN fans, that they released such a disaster of a demo.