Waiting on XC2

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#101
quote:
Originally posted by perigee:
It doesn't fly with me because the originals were almost certainly drawn uncensored and they must be archived somewhere. They lost the original artwork because it was done so long ago? I don't buy it. That's like saying a software company can't support their own products because they misplaced the source code.

Not really. Remember, the artwork is intended for games in Japan, under Japanese censorship laws. Knowing this, sometimes the artwork is drawn with the mosaic integrated in, sometimes those areas are just left blank in anticipation of the mosaic being placed over it. Granted, some do the originals fully, but it's not a given fact that they always do.

As for losing the artwork, it does happen. The bishoujo market is rather big there, and they do churn out quite a number of games each year. Things get lost in the shuffle. That's what one of the problems with LMM was, they had trouble locating the original artwork.

#102
quote:
Originally posted by ekylo:
Not really. Remember, the artwork is intended for games in Japan, under Japanese censorship laws. Knowing this, sometimes the artwork is drawn with the mosaic integrated in, sometimes those areas are just left blank in anticipation of the mosaic being placed over it. Granted, some do the originals fully, but it's not a given fact that they always do.
If that's the case, it makes one wonder about the design process. You'd expect that the art was commissioned for the game by the developers. Why would they ask for pictures to be drawn in such a way that mosaics would have to be added later? That would be more work than just creating 'acceptable' images at the outset. I still think the original drawings are ordinarily uncensored. Why make things more difficult for production? Is it to accommodate some Japanese tradition of using mosaics? Doesn't sound likely. Regarding lost originals - I'm sure it happens, but I know the Japanese adhere to good business practices. One of the key rules is to protect and preserve your masters, especially for a product whose primary element is the artwork. A more likely explanation is that the companies that do the localization are only supplied with materials that were used to do the production version and they failed to acquire the originals as part of their contract. It would be interesting to hear the full story of how these things come about.
#103
quote:
Originally posted by perigee:
It doesn't fly with me because the originals were almost certainly drawn uncensored and they must be archived somewhere. They lost the original artwork because it was done so long ago? I don't buy it. That's like saying a software company can't support their own products because they misplaced the source code.

I can, in all honesty, say that this is not only not an impossible scenario, it's more common than you might think. I once worked for has the exact same situation--we run an automated ordering system, and some very old data was lost when the CD it was on vanished. At another job I held there was a bug in THEIR over-the-phone ordering system where, under certain rarely-occurring circumstances, the system would improperly allow access to services which the customer was not entitled to.

The key thing is "a company" never does anything. At some point, somebody somewhere has to actually do the work, and accidents will happen. Hard disks do fail, they get run over by a truck, wiped clean by a virus...any number of unfortunate events can wipe out the CG. Yes, you should have backups. There are a lot of things that "should be done" but aren't.

Someone somewhere at Microsoft greenlighted putting a full fledged Visual Basic interpreter--a complete coding system that can be used to do ANYTHING--inside of Microsoft Word with no security precautions whatsoever. And so now we have macro viruses, which do things that should never be in ANY word-processing scripting language. Your word processor has no need to make fundamental changes to your operating system. So why was the capability added?

Because they dumped Visual Basic into Word, and nobody thought to turn off unsafe parts of it.

#104
quote:
Originally posted by Spectator Beholder:
Hmm? Nani?

Throwing in the towel means "to give up after a struggle". It means you tried to do something, but you are acknowledging that you have failed and giving up.

#105
quote:
Originally posted by ZEN:
I think the vast majority of us H-fans could care less about "Little My Maid." Too cutesy for us pervs.

As for "Brave Soul," well nothing beats "Knights of Xentar."

Maybe H-fans in general, but certainly not US H-fans. Your assessment that there is no market for non-hardcore titles isn't something I buy into at all; otherwise you'd expect Water Closet to be doing far better than it is, and you wouldn't expect Tokimeki Checkin! to be popular at all, because it's too hard to get to the h-scenes.

#106
quote:
Originally posted by ZEN:

I'm still amazed PeaPri would even attempt to bring LMM over to America, it's not like "The Maid's Story" was some sort of huge hit for Himeya Soft.

Remarks on the state of the US market aside, there are huge differences. The Maid's Story was, more or less, shovelware. It was very repetetive in terms of its text, it wasn't very well translated, and just...in general wasn't a very good example of a sim. Little My Maid is a far more complicated game.

And for the record, yes, Little My Maid is one of the titles I am very much looking forward to.

#107
quote:
Originally posted by Crimson:
i don't know whats going on with PP, they haven't given us any release dates and i don't know why. they said BS and XC2 was going to be released early this year, now we are heading towards april, still nothing.

the only updates we are getting is about G-Collections games, like we don't know about them already.

I just hate the fact that PP has people that pre-ordered, and want the game waiting so long without any news about the games, thats not how a consumer should do bussiness, and it will drive away customers so they should keep that in mind.

the time we've been waiting, they might as well send us a free copy of BS for the people that pre-ordered like 1-2 years ago.

I mean G-Collections been around less than a year, and they already have more releases that PP, that is a total embarassment to PP who've been around for some years now.

The only two games i'm waiting for is XC2, i don't really care for BS anymore.

lastly, not that i want this to happen but, the way PP is going right now, they might go out of bussiness. I just have the Tingle fealing....

anyway, untill PP releases something G-C will is my number 1 sourse for games, and they will continue to be.

Unfortunately, that's the way it works. It doesn't reflect badly on Peach Princess as much as it reflects the unfortunate reality that Peach Princess doesn't have as much pull as G-collections apparently does.

Now, as for their culture--it changed A LOT when Dave E/Kumiko left. Dave E's Kumiko persona was, more or less, the Peach Princess board emissary. The updates were far longer, Pea Pri was a lot more open...and I have come to believe it was a bad thing.

Little My Maid should never have had preorders opened. The new titles should never have been announced until there was real headway being made on them. Then we wouldn't be where we are now.

As for Peach Princess going under, I doubt it. They already have the rights to a bunch of titles, and they are more or less a fan company, in the "this is cool, let's bring it over" mindset.

#108
quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
and you wouldn't expect Tokimeki Checkin! to be popular at all, because it's too hard to get to the h-scenes.

Huh? You just download the cheat guide from gamefaqs.com and hit the text skip button. You get all the h-scenes in under an hour.

#109
quote:
Originally posted by perigee:
If that's the case, it makes one wonder about the design process. You'd expect that the art was commissioned for the game by the developers. Why would they ask for pictures to be drawn in such a way that mosaics would have to be added later? That would be more work than just creating 'acceptable' images at the outset. I still think the original drawings are ordinarily uncensored. Why make things more difficult for production? Is it to accommodate some Japanese tradition of using mosaics? Doesn't sound likely. Regarding lost originals - I'm sure it happens, but I know the Japanese adhere to good business practices. One of the key rules is to protect and preserve your masters, especially for a product whose primary element is the artwork. A more likely explanation is that the companies that do the localization are only supplied with materials that were used to do the production version and they failed to acquire the originals as part of their contract. It would be interesting to hear the full story of how these things come about.

Actually, if it's the law that they have to be released with mosaics, why bother to draw the pictures "uncensored" at first at all? They'd still be completely useless - maybe not to us, but for them. And regarding lsot artwork and source code - I believe that Lamuness once said that he was irritated about the way the Japanese handles their works soemtimes - it happens that thye don't save anything of it at all. The thing is, that the Japanese don't do things the way it's done her ein the west. Her eint he west, the companies _always_ hold their PC game titles in mind for a possible re-release or soemthing like that later, so her e in the west, very few gmaes are ever really "lost" to us. Anyway, because of that (lost source code and artwork), there is some games that may be lost to us forever - or would cost a fortune for PP to release, and perhaps would take even longer to release than Transfer Student *shudder*.

#110
quote:
Originally posted by perigee:
They lost the original artwork because it was done so long ago? I don't buy it. That's like saying a software company can't support their own products because they misplaced the source code.

Well, if I recall correctly, that's exactly what happened to Dokusen...

(That is, if they didn't simply make up this story in order to avoid a third picket-line pushing them to buy the rights for this game.)

#111
quote:
Originally posted by Faust:
And also, alot of H fans like kawaii girls.

quote:
Originally posted by olf_le_fol:
*is waiting for LMM for than any other games from PP*

quote:
Originally posted by ekylo:
And for the record, LMM is on the top of my list as well...

quote:
Originally posted by Nandemonai:
And for the record, yes, Little My Maid is one of the titles I am very much looking forward to.

That's very much better!
*Picks up the towel with determination*

Of cause, I am also one of those who very much crave for LMM. And since Spec-san sometimes proudly wears his LMM-shirt, I suppose he is on our side too.

#112
quote:
Originally posted by ZEN:
Huh? You just download the cheat guide from gamefaqs.com and hit the text skip button. You get all the h-scenes in under an hour.

Ermm... you have lost me totally, Zen. If this is the way you view these games why do you even bother wasting the money on them? If pictures are what you are after there are many other items/websites out there you can purchase and get a lot more bang for your buck.

To each there own, I suppose.

#113
quote:
Originally posted by Allarian:
To each there own, I suppose.

That's the main reason why I chose to ignore that post completely.

( The other one is: My towel starts to become terribly dirty... [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img] )

#114
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
Of cause, I am also one of those who very much crave for LMM. And since Spec-san sometimes proudly wears his LMM-shirt, I suppose he is on our side too.

... and don't forget that I have a LMM poster over my bed ^_^.They watch over me from the wall as I sleep ^___^

#115
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
(That is, if they didn't simply make up this story in order to avoid a third picket-line pushing them to buy the rights for this game.)

If that's what they've done, then the lemons will eat them alive! Or they will at least threathen to bite of a VERY sensentive part of their anatomy [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

#116
quote:
Originally posted by perigee:
If that's the case, it makes one wonder about the design process. You'd expect that the art was commissioned for the game by the developers. Why would they ask for pictures to be drawn in such a way that mosaics would have to be added later? That would be more work than just creating 'acceptable' images at the outset.

You sort of lost me on this. Even if the original images are fully detailed, they still would need to put in the mosaics. Having the integrated mosaic would be less work for the developers, leaving the pelvic region blank would be less work for the artist. Although I suspect it depends on the artists personal preferences. Look at how manga are drawn. The three main ways they do the images is with the mosaic, those irritating black censor bars or to leave the pelvic region blank. This is pretty much the same thing.

quote:

I still think the original drawings are ordinarily uncensored. Why make things more difficult for production? Is it to accommodate some Japanese tradition of using mosaics? Doesn't sound likely.

As Spectator Beholder-san pointed out, it's not tradition, it's the current law in Japan. That's why J-List sells and distributes the uncensored games from the California offices, not their Japanese ones. It's also why, both G-Collections, PeaPri, and most of the others have disclaimers saying that they cannot sell their games (the uncensored ones) to people in Japan. There's also probably a licensing issue with that as well, but the primary reason is that it'd be illegal to sell such uncensored products because of the Japanese national law.

Is the law outdated? To me it seems so, but I'm looking at it from an American perspective, not a Japanese one. Will it eventually be changed? Possibly. Companies are continually pushing the envelope of what they can and cannot do. (The "super fine mosaics" on things and such.) We'll just see how it goes in the coming years.

[This message has been edited by ekylo (edited 03-13-2003).]

#117
quote:

Originally posted by ekylo:
You sort of lost me on this. Even if the original images are fully detailed, they still would need to put in the mosaics. Having the integrated mosaic would be less work for the developers, leaving the pelvic region blank would be less work for the artist. Although I suspect it depends on the artists personal preferences. Look at how manga are drawn. The three main ways they do the images is with the mosaic, those irritating black censor bars or to leave the pelvic region blank. This is pretty much the same thing.

Sorry for not being clear. What I meant was these are commissioned works. The game companies decide what pictures are needed and the artists draw them. Why would they request images that include mosaics or space for mosaics when they could simply ask for graphics that don't require censorship? So my conclusion is that the game companies ask for explicit drawings. The original artwork is drawn on paper, scanned and mosaics are added digitally.

I guess it may be a matter of personal and cultural bias. I don't find mosaics aesthetic and don't see why the Japanese would either. The AV industry produces both hardcore and softcore material. If the intended market is softcore, that's the way it's filmed. Why should it be different for hentai?

#118
quote:
Originally posted by perigee:
[quote] [b]
Originally posted by ekylo:
You sort of lost me on this. Even if the original images are fully detailed, they still would need to put in the mosaics. Having the integrated mosaic would be less work for the developers, leaving the pelvic region blank would be less work for the artist. Although I suspect it depends on the artists personal preferences. Look at how manga are drawn. The three main ways they do the images is with the mosaic, those irritating black censor bars or to leave the pelvic region blank. This is pretty much the same thing.

Sorry for not being clear. What I meant was these are commissioned works. The game companies decide what pictures are needed and the artists draw them. Why would they request images that include mosaics or space for mosaics when they could simply ask for graphics that don't require censorship? So my conclusion is that the game companies ask for explicit drawings. The original artwork is drawn on paper, scanned and mosaics are added digitally.

I guess it may be a matter of personal and cultural bias. I don't find mosaics aesthetic and don't see why the Japanese would either. The AV industry produces both hardcore and softcore material. If the intended market is softcore, that's the way it's filmed. Why should it be different for hentai?

[/b] [/quote]

I see the upshot of your argument, and it's true that a lot of the time I see Doujinshi and Erotic manga obviously drawn with the original detail with a black spot (sometimes so pathetically small it's obvious that it doesn't really cover anything) or some dotted screen placed over it, but if you see a lot of the databooks for Bishoujo games, the original artwork really didn't contain those details. The mosaic is annoying when it obscures the other artwork though, I hate it when it blurs up a character's lips or mouth or hand, so I'm all for the transparent private parts, at the very least it doesn't seem as much as censorship, a happy medium to satisfy prude American gamers who eschew the 'disgusting depiction of sexual acts.' (Really, this was the central argument for quite a few Bishoujo gamers who played the clean versions of Air or Kanon for PSX).

#119
quote:
Originally posted by Unicorn:
That's very much better!
*Picks up the towel with determination*

Thank god for that. Can we all give Unicorn a round of applause for not flashing us?

#120
quote:
Originally posted by ekylo:
You sort of lost me on this. Even if the original images are fully detailed, they still would need to put in the mosaics. Having the integrated mosaic would be less work for the developers, leaving the pelvic region blank would be less work for the artist. Although I suspect it depends on the artists personal preferences. Look at how manga are drawn. The three main ways they do the images is with the mosaic, those irritating black censor bars or to leave the pelvic region blank. This is pretty much the same thing.

He means that, because the areas in question are just going to be censored anyway, the artist may not bother to draw the to-be-censored areas very well, or even at all.