Just some thoughts I have noticed since starting to play

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

First off, heya Peter.
I lived in Iwakuni for about 2.7 years. Worked on the Military base there for a civilian contractor. I love the stories you post via your mailers and do remember many things you meantion in your E-Mails. Unfortunetally, I am suffering from being Languisticly challanged; IE, I suck at languages. I tried learning French and German, I failed in both. Oh well, on with some ideas I have noted.
First, a Calendar; why not, where are they, you have plenty of material to draw on for nice Bishoujo based Calendars. I think they might sell well at least to those of us who follow the various games.
Second, I am not asking specificly for tenticle. More like Sword and Magic based games. Cruising a few websites, (although I could not read them) I noted a number of games based on adventurers of the sword and magic veriaty. FYI, I beta tested and played UO for MANY years, over 5. But, truth to tell, I am not up for Brave Soul.
Which comes to my third note; which is a bit long winded. Please note, I love the story telling style of these games which is like reading a book. However, two things that sorta put me off of note were, while reading long sections of texted there should be some style of picturing other then screen backgrounds. Example, is like when the character sums up the previous events, give us a preview style picturing, pic some main event pictures and crop them together in a montage style that flows with the sumation. Another thing I noted, though I found via search so will only meantion. The text in english does not flow right in some cases and has been broken or sounding jagged at points. I guess maybe if the American market picks up enough, the game writers might make their programs more english friendly. Well,

Thanks for your time and Laterz; Dave.

PS. If this is in wrong thread area, don’t be affraid to move it, I wont mind.

[ 07-04-2006, 03:48 AM: Message edited by: Dave ]

#2

I was stationed there between 1996 to 1998. Lived in an apartment near Shin Iwakuni station, where is where I met my first Japanese girlfriend. :stuck_out_tongue:

I miss seeing the palace and river during the Sakura blossoms.

#3

thank you for your comments
however, please keep in mind that we are not the developers for the games; we only localize them into englihs, most (if not all) of your issues mentioned regarding the games are more on the technical side and we have no control over how events are delivered; we stay true to the original version in terms of game flow and stuff

#4

Is there any way to tell the devs about whatever ideas we might have for the games? I presonally would loved calendars for games such as X-Change series, but as you said, you’re not the devs.

#5

its really rare that they will do anything extra for us since they are too busy with their own schedule

however, one exception was brave soul when i directly talked with the programmer myself (who left the company unfortunately shortly after brave soul was released here) and i made some major change requests to the game (such as a smaller font to fit all the text in one page and a larger text window for the english version). he was very nice to make the changes for me…and in a very timely manner as well (as in within 24 hrs). and as an icing on the cake, allowed my personal request (this was not peter’s idea) to manipulate the staff room and add us english staff as well by giving me all the codes (with documentation) and which walking sprite we can pick to stick ourselves running around in the map.

again, this is a very rare situation and i do not expect to happen again at all in the future. i guess it all goes down to if the person you are talking to is nice/friendly or not

[ 07-05-2006, 11:12 PM: Message edited by: Lamuness - BBS Admin ]

#6

I hear ya.
But wouldn’t it be nice if there was a kind of community site of such games that the devs actually visited to see what we users where thinking of their products? Or do such sites already exists? (And yes, in english would be nice :slight_smile: )

#7

Since the topic has turned to language… Lamuness… I am assuming that you can write and speak Japanese correct… how long did it take you to learn each aspect… I am just cerious… I think I am doing ok learing the spoken aspect but I wonder about the writen aspect… can you give me any idea… thanks (and I do know oh noble one that everyone learns faster or slower than others), Thanks

#8

this applies to any language, but the speed of learning depends on:

  • your willingness and passion to learn it for good/real (are you simply learning it to watch anime, or really learning the language and culture as a whole?)
  • prior knowledge of a similar language (for me, i am familiar with chinese so learning japanese was a cinch, and i am familiar with french so learning italian was a cinch)
  • simply going to classes or reading textbooks is never enough; practical applications will help/force you apply what you learned: do you (or at least try to) read newspapers or websites of the language you are learning to see if you are really understanding and remembering what you have learned? i visit japanese websites on a daily basis, keep a japanese blog (although not updating too often), and make and sell doujinshis in japan
  • constant usage will help you remember things; since i dont nearly use my french and italian as much, it becomes rusty and i dont think i can speak as much anymore (but can still read to an extent…if you give me a website or newspaper…or even italicus’ death threat emails…i can still understand the gist of it)
  • due to the nature of the internet, you can easily find literary material to practice writing and reading. improving your conversational skills will likely to be harder since you will need a person to speak to

ADD:
my japanese isn’t too strong if you are wondering, enough to get by in japan and converse with local people verbally (from elderly people to bgame company staff); but not strong enough to be a professional translator. at most i think i can pass level3 of the japanese proficiency exam (never took any exam though), nothing higher.

and you are missing the most difficult aspect of learning a language: listening. usually, if you can read and write you can prolly speak ok since you will likely be able to compute/construct your sentences in your brain first (even if slowly) before spitting them out from your mouth, but usually you will find native speakers to speak too fast for you to comprehend. not much advice here except to just listen more

now lets get back to topic here…

[ 07-05-2006, 11:02 PM: Message edited by: Lamuness - BBS Admin ]

#9

I agree with you there Lamuness.
The Internet gave me opurtunity to improve my writing skills in english, and later on when I used TeamSpeak to chat with my guildmates in Star Wars: Galaxies improve my speaking.
I hope someday I’ll be able to learn japanese, just need those studies to fit my working schedule.

#10
  • they prolly dont even understand english
  • from a realistic standpoint, what good will it do to totally revamp an old game that they do not plan to sell in japan (besides a xp-compatible executable)?

i forgot to mention one important thing. many lines in bgames are pretty much locked since they have voices to go with it. therefore we cannot simply take out things or add things in the script since we cannot do the same with voices (at least not as easily and pressing backspace with your keyboard)

[ 07-05-2006, 11:36 PM: Message edited by: Lamuness - BBS Admin ]

#11

I have a goal to learn it compleatly in 4 years to be able to move out there… I want to experience the culture… live it … learn everything I can about it … and the most effective way I see in doing that is to learn the language and learn the culture in their language… the way it was ment to be taught. If anyone has any sugestions I am open compleatly. again thank everyone very much here. … sorry for going off topic again lamuness

[ 07-05-2006, 11:20 PM: Message edited by: ms308680 ]

#12

Hmmm… 4 years sounds ambitious to me, but not impossible.
Let’s see - after all I took a very similar approach as yours. I am still learning after 5 years, but my approach has been not very systematic during the last years…

First I started with self-studying a book-course that tought me the grammar, a set frequently used words and the kana. However, that couse discouraged learning the kanjis at the same time in order to focus my efforts first on the course’s main topics.

So, I later bought another book that tought me how to remember the meanings of the kanjis - and thus brought me closer to being able to read the very meaning of the text - just not in spoken japanese.

However, I found no course that helped me to continue from here in a systematical manner. Instead I play the games and listen to how the characters pronounce the written text.

Another pratical way for me to learn listening to japanese is watching my animes in original language without having my eyes glued to the subtitles-line…

Oh, and I think there are worse cases of off-topicness than talking about how to learn the language.

[ 07-06-2006, 08:50 AM: Message edited by: Unicorn ]

#13

Naw I don’t mind some off topic it will always happen. Personally I really did try to learn french; but, in those days BBC’s and such were barrly being created, most were buisness, very very few private owned. (1976 to 1978) Today it is much easier to find material to practice with, although I still found it overwhleming to try to learn german.

Also, back on topic a bit. The Calendar could be created by your distribution company as a form of advertisement for the company; thus, allowing use of pictures from within the games. I know for a fact several distribution companies of Comic books have done forms of this to promote sales, while selling the customer the very calendar which advertises for the company. But, again it would be up to your boss(es) as to whether they think it would be worthwhile to create one. Personally I think it would, I know I would buy the calendar if it sported decent pictures and such.

[ 07-06-2006, 05:51 AM: Message edited by: Dave ]

#14

The Japanese devs are going to have close to zero motivation to make extensive changes, for a few reasons.

  1. The games sell several times as many copies in Japan as they will in the US

  2. They sell for $70-80 (well, the equivalent in yen)

  3. In Japan the market is very cutthroat and highly competitive, with companies going under often.

  4. Most makers are small companies.

It’s quite likely that if a company started catering to the US, they would be redeploying their resources in a way that would make them less money. Because of 3) and 4) this could be enough to cause one to go under.

Similar reasoning is why you don’t see Mac-exclusive PC games too often.

#15

Well sometimes those pricetags include other goodies and the quality of the stuff they put into it is much higher. My copy of CRC came with a hardbound color manual. Most companies in the US, if they put a manual, its not hardbound (if its even bound. If they can, its might be stapled). Half the time they don’t include a manual, maybe a piece of paper explaining how to install the game if need be.

They never offer extra fanboy/fangirl stuff…well amost never. Only stuff like Halo2, Morrowind/Oblivion, WC3…

They also in the US almost always release beta-quality software as first-run market software (not sure how often this occurs in Japan, but it doesn’t seem to be as prevelant). This is ususually because of the drive to meet a deadline, the deadline is more important than the final product most of the time and if it doesn’t sell, they just push it under the rug and forget about it.

Also computer games are in general not much cheaper than what you say. While it’s rare to see an $80 game, $50 is the minimum a retailer will sell something for. Even expansions they want to push at $50 tag price. I have seen several games for $60 coming out now for PC, so the price differance, while there, isn’t as large as it seems.

Of course these aren’t Bushoujo games, but the market for video games in general for Japan is similar. In general it’s just the US market doesn’t want to pay for anything more than a disk and a jewel case.

#16