VN Article

[Rain Spectre]

1 minute ago, ciel_yuri said:

Yeah, for a list like this I'd agree the first one is a way better choice. That way if someone likes it they can play the others instead of being spoiled and wondering what's going on.

You realize I explicitly said people need to go through the first two games first?

[ciel_yuri]

2 minutes ago, Rain Spectre said:

You realize I explicitly said people need to go through the first two games first?

I didn't remember reading that part, but if it did that's good. I still don't agree that you should read V3 before you die though. (Maybe after, depending what VNs you have access to, I guess :p)

[Rain Spectre]

Just now, ciel_yuri said:

I didn't remember reading that part, but if it did that's good. I still don't agree that you should read V3 before you die though. (Maybe after, depending what VNs you have access to, I guess :p)

Last paragraph of the Why You Should Read. FYI, for those confused, my policy is to treat sequels which were planned when the original was released as an extension of the original work. Kodaka has said on multiple occasions this was never the case for DR, so ergo V3 is counted separately. 

[onorub]

It's a fine article for a "greatest hits" list to show to VN novices, but to make an above average article overall, it really needed some genre separation, and your neglect towards moege and RPG hybrids gets in the way of that big time.

[Rain Spectre]

5 minutes ago, onorub said:

It's a fine article for a "greatest hits" list to show to VN novices, but to make an above average article overall, it really needed some genre separation, and your neglect towards moege and RPG hybrids gets in the way of that big time.

While I'm not going to get into Moege or the exact nature of "Genre separation", what RPG hybrid could I even logically recommend? Rance I wouldn't because the sense of humor of the series and the character in general is something many would find extremely off-putting and tasteless, not to mention it's very difficult to get the full story in sequence. Eushully is difficult to find information for online, and it's doubtful the games would ever be localized due to the companies open distaste with the West. And I fail to think of any others which would appeal to any JRPG fans that would be somehow better experiences than the likes of Persona 5, Dragon Quest XI and the Kiseki series.

[ciel_yuri]

17 minutes ago, Rain Spectre said:

what RPG hybrid could I even logically recommend?

Maybe Seinarukana or Utawarerumono or something?

[Rain Spectre]

11 minutes ago, ciel_yuri said:

Maybe Seinarukana or Utawarerumono or something?

Utaware might have worked...though it was one of the works which completely slipped my mind while constructing. Whoops. 

[Stormwolf]

Be happy vn is a niche hobby and have a relatively small crowd, at least for now. Stuff always gets ruined once it gets popular enough, and gets scrutinized by all kinds of critics. And face it, vn's will get a lot of heat once the right (or you might saw wrong) people paints a target on vn's and the people enjoying them.

[Rain Spectre]

26 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

Be happy vn is a niche hobby and have a relatively small crowd, at least for now. Stuff always gets ruined once it gets popular enough, and gets scrutinized by all kinds of critics. And face it, vn's will get a lot of heat once the right (or you might saw wrong) people paints a target on vn's and the people enjoying them.

"This medium deserves to be niche and it's wrong to try getting more people in!" 

That the hill you're going to die on? 

[bakauchuujin]

32 minutes ago, Stormwolf said:

Be happy vn is a niche hobby and have a relatively small crowd, at least for now. Stuff always gets ruined once it gets popular enough, and gets scrutinized by all kinds of critics. And face it, vn's will get a lot of heat once the right (or you might saw wrong) people paints a target on vn's and the people enjoying them.

I think the current problem is that we currently have too few people buying VNs to actually support the current industry. The last few years there have been a lot of new english VN publishers and lots of new localised titles and it is uncertain if there has been a similar growth in terms of the VN community. Personally I would want VNs to become more popular to cope for this and also make it so that there are enough people buying them to warrant physical releases. However I would agree that there are some problems that would occur if it got very popular. As you said due to the content of VNs there would be a lot of potential controversies that could end up getting really harmfull. Another potential problem is that if an industry seems very profitable it attracts people who only want money and therefore only care about maximising profits at the cost of other thing (just look at the gaming industry). So personally I would want VNs to become more popular than it currently is, but that it still stays niche enough to avoid those problems.

[Rain Spectre]

When people make those sort of arguments, I just recall that infamous DDLC copypasta. You know the one. 

[Stormwolf]

3 hours ago, Rain Spectre said:

"This medium deserves to be niche and it's wrong to try getting more people in!" 

That the hill you're going to die on? 

I honestly dont know what to say when you either miss my point this entirely or force your own words in my mouth. Im not sure which it is in this case.

[Rain Spectre]

1 minute ago, Stormwolf said:

I honestly dont know what to say when you either miss my point this entirely or force your own words in my mouth. Im not sure which it is in this case.

Then what are you trying to say? Because I really see no other way to interpret what you said. 

[Stormwolf]

10 minutes ago, Rain Spectre said:

Then what are you trying to say? Because I really see no other way to interpret what you said. 

You were right with the core of the point, but my reasoning for it seems like it went way above your head as you made it into a black and white opinion, as if i want it to be niche. If the games would just stay like they are with the masses joining in then it would be perfect, but that doesnt happen.

[Rain Spectre]

6 hours ago, Stormwolf said:

You were right with the core of the point, but my reasoning for it seems like it went way above your head as you made it into a black and white opinion, as if i want it to be niche. If the games would just stay like they are with the masses joining in then it would be perfect, but that doesnt happen.

Oh, so you're just afraid of SJWs. In which case, friend, don't. It's not worth your time. 

[bakauchuujin]

4 minutes ago, Rain Spectre said:

Oh, so you're just afraid of SJWs. In which case, friend, don't. It's not worth your time. 

Honestly there are a lot of VNs with content that would really disturb regular people. If some of this got into the news it could lead to a lot of problems. The rapelay incident caused a lot of problems and I think it could be quite a disaster if the mainstream media went after VNs, especially now that so many are in the west. They could cherry pick some of the worst parts of things like Kuroinu, Starless, euphoria etc. and this would probably cause a public outroar from people who have no idea what a VN is since they might think that those few examples represent all VNs has to offer. Don't underestimate the power the mainstream, especially when they target niche things.

[Rain Spectre]

But this article doesn't have that sort of stuff, both because of my rules against nukige and because of sheer extremity of content. As for the argument of people still going in and seeing some disturbing shit...that's why there's content warnings. If you freak out over content when there's a big fat content warning, that's your own damn fault.

And what's "The rapelay incident"?

[bakauchuujin]

35 minutes ago, Rain Spectre said:

But this article doesn't have that sort of stuff, both because of my rules against nukige and because of sheer extremity of content. As for the argument of people still going in and seeing some disturbing shit...that's why there's content warnings. If you freak out over content when there's a big fat content warning, that's your own damn fault.

And what's "The rapelay incident"?

First of I didn't attack the article you wrote with what I mentioned, previously I also said I wanted VNs to become more popular but not mainstream so I think small efforts like what you attempted is valuable. What I meant with what I wrote was just that we shouldn't just think nothing of potential problems related to VNs becoming much more popular. Mainstream media don't care about content warning, the mere fact that something exist that they don't like is enough for them to attack it. The argument of people being responsible and checking content warnings only work on those with a functioning brain, unfortunatly lots of people don't have that and they can cause quite a lot of problems by getting things banned and putting harmfull legislations in place. Also news media tend to pick the things that are the most outrageous since that brings them the most views/clicks.

 

As for the rapelay incident it is pretty much some news channels getting outraged about a VN (seems to also have gameplay elements so not sure if it completely count as a VN) in which you played as a man raping a mother and a daughter. Because of this many japanese developers got scared and there are probably some who don't want their VNs localized because of this and many japanese VN companies has blocked access  to their site outside of Japan because of it. I am not an expert on the incident since I wasn't around the VN community when it happened so there are probably a lot more details other can tell you about it, or you could search it.

Edited November 21, 2018 by bakauchuujin

[Rain Spectre]

So, I looked Rapelay up and YIKES. I can see why that happened. And people wonder why I'm hesitant to introduce Rance to people...

Thing is, though, people have a very reactionary response to these sort of things, and a rape nukige is something that'll raise a thousand eyebrows. None of the works bar arguably Nukitashi are even built on sex. 

Edited November 21, 2018 by Rain Spectre

[Stormwolf]

1 hour ago, Rain Spectre said:

Oh, so you're just afraid of SJWs. In which case, friend, don't. It's not worth your time. 

Why not? and why not?

Edited November 21, 2018 by Stormwolf

[Rain Spectre]

Because SJWs just speak in a vacuum and the vast majority of people don't listen to them? 

[bakauchuujin]

Just now, Rain Spectre said:

Because SJWs just speak in a vacuum and the vast majority of people don't listen to them? 

Majority of people don't listen to them but many of the ones with power does.

[Stormwolf]

3 minutes ago, bakauchuujin said:

Majority of people don't listen to them but many of the ones with power does.

And that is the scary part. Their ideology is spreading like wildfire. Movies, games, comics etc. Not sure japan itself will change (at least for now) but what translators can do is rewrite stuff and people will have no clue.

[Rain Spectre]

So, this is something that has irked me for a while, but what exactly is the demand regarding "genre separation"? I genuinely tried to have a fairly diverse set of genres on display.

[Rain Spectre]

Update for those curious: Finally, after considerable delay, completed editing. Now in progress of figuring out how to get the article out there.