/vn/ - Visual Novels

The whole VN is priceless.

Amane is best route

>>58
Besides her interesting backstory, Amane's route was just sex sex sex.

>>137
The backstory was what defined her route and the H only made it better.

>>139
Personally thought that the H-scenes were meh. Her backstory was probably the one which stuck on me the most also Kazuki was half the reason it was good, coupled with how things slowly fell apart and then the climax of it was very shocking. Amane's epilouge was a treat to read as a proper end to it.

>>160
I wish I could tell you but I can't into moon.
The three Grisaia's are being retranslated by some Jewish company that'll release it for a price.
>tfw fansubs going extinct

>>163
The trilogy got greenlit on steam. They're probably going to cut out the H-scenes but hopefully it will be possible to patch them in like Nekopara.

Anime adaptations for the two sequels are set to begin next month though, I'd rather ignore it until I play through all of them.

>>200
>God forbid koestl gets paid for busting his ass and putting out translations that don't suck
Yes, god forbid he get paid for translating titles when others are doing comparable jobs better, faster and for free.
>they're paving the way for more and more big name titles to be localized.
Which has literally no positive to it. More big name titles being localized means nothing, big name titles already get fansubs. All they're doing is strongarming fansub groups out of the community, like CrunchyRoll did.
>The English only fanbase should be jumping for joy
Go home Koestl.
Trying to kill fansubs and form a monopoly on translation that will ensure smaller titles go forever untranslated is not a positive.

>>200
Why is Daiz browsing /vn/?

>>202

First of all, I'm not koestl. I'm just a guy who knows what's going on in the VN translation scene and has been playing eroge for several years. I'm not trying to be inflammatory here, but it's pretty clear you have no clue what you're talking about.

There is literally no one else doing a better job or faster. You have Makoto with JAST who is extremely good, but JAST is so unbelievably slow releasing anything that they're not really a viable alternative. Peter Payne is a huge retard and projects get caught in black holes because he just doesn't give a fuck about his company and is extremely detached from what the scene is like. For example, Seinarukana has been done for a solid year and it's nowhere to be found, not to mention the whole Sumaga clusterfuck.

The only person doing it 'faster' is Ixrec and he's honestly not very good at what he does, despite having a huge following for pushing stuff out relatively quickly.

Big name titles absolutely do not always get translated. In fact, very few of the actual really good high profile games that are out there have translations. You've got games like WA2, Baldr Sky, Oretsuba, Eustia, Dies Irae, Muramasa, Asairo, Tsuriotsu, the Majikoi series, Kiminozo, Natsukuru, Harukuru, Mahoyo, etc. etc. that are insanely popular and have been in massive demand for years that have no translation project in sight.

Once again, there is a HUGE difference in fansubbing anime and translating eroge. Translating Kajitsu alone required more translation work than most fansub groups do in their entire run. It's the equivalent of subbing several hundred episodes of exceedingly complicated anime from scratch. "Killing fansubs" just doesn't apply here because there's no one to strongarm out. There simply aren't any people out there with the language skills and who are willing to spend thousands of hours to translate this stuff. The fact that there is any activity at all in the VN translation scene is something to be happy about, and that is my point.

Sekai Project is not even really a major player in the game, but the fact that they even got licenses with Frontwing and KEY is a very good thing for the English only community. SP as a company is terrible and their Kickstarter shit annoys the hell out of me, but it's not like they're doing anyone a disservice with the Grisaia series.

You're free to believe whatever you want, but those are the facts. It's not going to effect me whether you believe me or not, because, well, I've already read most of the stuff the west is waiting on translations for. And at the end of the day I just don't give a shit about what's getting TL'd and what's not. I just thought it might be a good idea to get off on the right foot as opposed to continuing to spread misinformation in a small community like this.

>>205
>it's pretty clear you have no clue what you're talking about.
Always a great way to start off a post.

>In fact, very few of the actual really good high profile games that are out there have translations.
And this will continue to be the case. Fan translators of VNs have often been people (like myself) who learned Moon and then decided to translate the titles they wanted others to read. That way, titles we wanted to be translated got translated, and titles that there wasn't a demand for didn't. If you really wanted to read a jap-only title, you learned the language. But Sekai forms a circumstance in which there is no motivation to learn Moon and fan-translate your own titles due to the pressure put on by them (again, same thing that happened with CrunchyRoll). There are plenty of good, niche anime-series that don't have subs because the market isn't big enough for official subs to be profitable and less people are learning the language to try subbing their own. Given the effort needed to TL VNs, this will only be worse in our community.
>"Killing fansubs" just doesn't apply here because there's no one to strongarm out
There are plenty of people to strongarm out. VNs have relied for the past decade or so on Fansubs. Official translations are a very recent thing, and very unreliable as far as releases. It's also hilarious how you tout official releases as a good thing, then list 2 guys getting paid for their work whom are worse off in terms of releases then if they'd been doing it as a fansub group. Their are plenty of people to kill, including up-and-coming translators. It happened the exact same way with Crunchyroll, complete with people trying to claim how great it was going to be and then the end-product which was worse for the community in the end.
>The fact that there is any activity at all in the VN translation scene is something to be happy about, and that is my point.
There has been activity for ages and continues to be, the only difference is that the activity occuring is done on a fan translation basis and doesn't set up a kickstarter asking fools to pay for every business venture it sets up.
>Sekai Project is not even really a major player in the game
You underestimate them. They've got the Steam market here. The same market who made Sakura Spirits an actual success and whom think Clannad is the epitome of story-telling. What this means for the English-only community is that when the monopoly eventually occurs as it did with Crunchyroll, we'll be seeing the same thing we've got with MangaGamer and JAST: Only the shit with mass appeal will get translated, while something like Kiminozo will likely remain untranslated due to the lack of revenue it could potentially generate, and now the lack of fan translators.
>SP as a company is terrible and their Kickstarter shit annoys the hell out of me
This is another part of the problem, the fact that Sekai is actually absolving itself of all responsibility to consumers as a company is another point of concern. But just because they're doing something that doesn't mean they should be encouraged. Progress isn't one way. Steps back happen far more often than steps forward.
>it's not like they're doing anyone a disservice with the Grisaia series.
Nobody is implying that by translating the Grisaia series they're somehow doing the series harm (though taking down the already complete fan TL in order to make a paid release is scummy and you can't deny that), what is being implied is that there business practice will end up having a worse effect for the English community than their translations do positive.

>the fact that they even got licenses with Frontwing and KEY is a very good thing for the English only community.
Explain this one. In what way does this benefit the English community? How is this a superior scenario to the prior one?

>>205
Welcome to /vn/, where I try to compensate for my lack of social skills by throwing walls of text at strangers on the internet.
> There simply aren't any people out there with the language skills and who are willing to spend thousands of hours to translate this stuff. The fact that there is any activity at all in the VN translation scene is something to be happy about, and that is my point.
Taken straight from visualnovelaer (http://visualnovelaer.fuwanovel.org/2015/02/vn-translation-status-822015/):

Fan Translation
12Riven- Fully translated, 3/75 scripts edited, editing on hold until tech problems resolved
Air (Project 1)- Through QC, some tech work remains before patch
Amagami – 1st day patch Released for PS2/PSP, “1318/2308 original edition scenario scripts translated (57.1%)”
Amairo IsleNauts – prologue and common route fully translated, Shirley route 10% TL, Masaki 18.5% TL, Konoka 40% TL, bonus 20% TL, prologue patch out
Aokana – 482 lines translated
Clover Day’s – 100% of the common route + 74/722 KB and 78.5/711 KB of 2 routes translated
Daitoshokan no Hitsujikai – 28539/69128 (41.2%) lines translated, 25533/69128 (36.9%) lines edited, demo released
Dot Kareshi – 1st title released, 2 and 3 are being translated
Gensou no Idea – Common route 21% translated
Hanahira – fully translated, being finalized
HaraKano – 25% alpha patch released
Haruka Na Sora – Sora 11.29% translated, Kozue 23.73% translated
Hatsukoi 1/1 – Being translated
Koichoco – 100% translated, 317/397 files edited
Koiken Otome – 95.29% translated, 83.09% edited, prologue patch released
Koisuru Natsu no Last Resort – 34930/36325 (96.16%) lines translated
KoiTate – 34139/38001 (89%) translated
Kurukuru Fanatic – 74.79% translated
Lamune – Nanami route partial patch released, Hikari route 1436/6085 lines translated
Little Busters – Original released, work ongoing with EX./ME content, now a joint project with Doki. 29712/30163 new lines translated
Lovely Cation- 6.39% of lines translated
Magical Marriage Lunatics – 11,856/64,062 = 18.51% lines translated
Majikoi (Fuwanovel resurrection) – all remaining side routes fully translated and quality checked. Miyako route 100% tl 0% QC.
Muv-Luv Altered Fable – 65% partial patch released
Muv-Luv TDA 01 – 75% translated
Noble Works – 39,650 / 57,690 (68.7%) lines translated, partial patch released
Nursery Rhyme – 3403/33014 lines translated
Oreimo PSP – Scripts finalized, in testing
Oreimo Tsuzuku – 236/268 scripts translated, 130/268 through TLC+Editing, 66/268 scripts finalized
PersonA – 42% translated
Princess Maker 5- 86.06% lines translated, 32.91% of lines finalized
Rance 5D – 40% translated
Rance Quest – 20.01% messages and all strings translated, 13/198 quests finished
Rewrite Harvest Festa – 7954/30040 (26.48%) lines translated
Rose Guns Days 3+4 – 100% translated and 60% edited
SakuSaku – Common route + Konami route fully translated, 26590/49257 (54%) lines translated, 22891/49257 (46%) lines finalized, Konami + Mio route released
Sanarara R – 15/124 scripts translated
Sayonara wo Oshiete – 4269/14309 (29.8%) lines translated
Sonicomi – 984/18196 (5.2%) lines translated
SonoHana 10 – Being translated
SonoHana 11 – Being translated
SubaHibi – Down the Rabbit Hole I patch released, 50371/53290 (94.5%) lines translated and 40597/53290 (76.2%) lines edited
Supreme Candy – ~14573/43261 (~33.7%) lines translated
Tasogaredoki no Kyoukaisen – 100% translated, in editing
To Heart2- 67% translated- “The final product is still years away unless I get more help. “, new alpha patch released
Ushinawareta Mirai wo Motomete – 4282/35056 (12.2%) lines translated
Witch’s Garden – 18711/67201 (27.84%) lines translated, prologue patch released
White Album 2 – Opening chapter fully translated with a “rough patch”, Closing Chapter: 3892/35275 (11.03%) lines translated
Yosuga no Sora – Translation status is Common route 100%, Sora route 100%, Nao 76.12%, Kazuha 100%, Akira 89.73%, Motoka 31.40%, Common and Kazuha fully edited

MangaGamer
No Thank You – Feb 27 release
Princess Evangile – Spring release
Yome no Imouto to no Inai – Through Beta
Kara no Shoujo 2 – Fully translated, 22.1% edited
Bokuten – 51.6% translated, 2.3% edited
Da Capo 3 – Prologue + Ch. 0 complete, Common route 72.9% translated, overall 34.3%
Higurashi (retranslation) – 14.5% of Watanagashi TL, Onikakushi in QC
Gahkthun – 52.5% translated, 18.9% edited
OZMAFIA – 16.9% translated
Euphoria – 80.9% translated, 72.1% edited
House in Fata Morgana – 30.3% translated
Free Friends – Translator assigned
Free Friends 2 – On hold
Supipara – Intend to fund through Eden’s sales

JAST
Hanachirasu – Feb 10th release
Starless – March 10th release
Shiny Days – Translation finished, in editing/timing, 2015 release
Seinarukana- Fully translated, being tested and edited
Raidy III – TL finished, in insertion
Django – Couple more months of translation
Sumaga- Fully translated, in editing
Trample on Schatten- translation about half done
Sweet Home – In translation
Sumeragi Ryoko – Picked up

Sekai Project (Barely doing anything at the moment)
World End Economica- Chapter 2 Spring
Grisaia trilogy – Kickstarter finished
Clannad – Kickstarter finished
WAS Lepidoptera no Sunadokey – Kickstarter finished
Fault Milestone 2 – picked up
Hitomebore – picked up
Kokonoe Kokoro – picked up
Ame no Marginal – picked up

Totals
Fansubs: 51
MangaGamer: 11
JAST: 9
Sekai: 1

VN fansubbing is by no means dead, m8.

>>206
>In what way does this benefit the English community? How is this a superior scenario to the prior one?
Support for the original companies, I'm guessing. Much better alternative than paying some company that didn't even create the VN.

>>207
>Support for the original companies, I'm guessing. Much better alternative than paying some company that didn't even create the VN.
When I want to support the companies I buy a physical copy from their site.
From my experience "official" translators take a too large a cut to be considered supporting the company.

>>209
I'm all for nip companies making more profit from fans of their works buying their VNs, but the idea of a middleman is one I'm just not supportive of.

Of course it's easier for the less devoted in the community to give to companies, but at the same time using Steam as a sales platform brings in normalfags which (and I know this sounds elitist and shit) bring the community down in quality as a whole.

If a TL company sees 100 people asking for Dies Irae to be translated, and another 10,000 asking for "generic moe-garbage No.3753" they're going to go with the profitable one. That's the biggest reason I view fan translation as the superior one, since it's not subject to the will of anybody but the translator.

>>210
Agreed, fansubbing is superior more often than not. I see the new companies the same way I see crunchyroll: I'll use their TLs only if I have no other option and even then, I won't be paying for it.

>>207
>In what way does this benefit the English community? How is this a superior scenario to the prior one?
>Support for the original companies, I'm guessing. Much better alternative than paying some company that didn't even create the VN.

I don't get it. The official companies pay royalties to the original creators, how is that not supporting the original creators? The cut the official companies take are to pay for the localisation work they do; the production of the physical copies (if any); storing said copies in a warehouse; sending them around; paying their employees and making a profit to keep being in business.

Conversely: if you do make an unofficial translation, people can download that and the original game and not buy from the original creator.

I admire those that pick up media that don't have an official translation or whose official translation is really shit, but you can't really make an argument as if you were supporting the creators more when you're undercutting the licence holders in the west.

>>224
Because the cut the official TL company takes is money that could potentially be going towards the original creators if you really cared about supporting the original devs. If somebody wants to support the devs they can and will do so, official translation or not. All the official translation does it expand the audience into those less devoted to the medium and in turn causes translation work to shift onto worse projects.

>Conversely: if you do make an unofficial translation, people can download that and the original game and not buy from the original creator.
People can easily pirate official translations too. I pirated ImoPara easily before deciding to give money to MangaGamer.
>you can't really make an argument as if you were supporting the creators more when you're undercutting the licence holders in the west.
You very much can, because the the license holders can only give to the original creators a portion of the profits they make through official sales. If I buy directly from the Devs, I'm giving them a significantly higher sum of money proportionally than in an officially licensed scenario.

Besides this discussion is more geared towards Sekai, whom are taking larger portions than other companies and are using kickstarter to undermine the free market sorting out quality.

>>209
I honestly just want a better distribution platform from which I can buy the games, like with Steam, I can just enter a code, with no credit card that can be tied to me, and buy a game, but if the sites listed here already have such an alternative, I've missed it

>>226
>Besides this discussion is more geared towards Sekai, whom are taking larger portions than other companies

Wait, really? It's not out of character for Sekai, but do you have some evidence?

>>263
I'm not really sure where to find Sekai Project's budget spreadsheet but their kickstarters are pretty ridiculous.
>$140,000 to translate Clannad (Throwing out most of the current translation and redoing it. Then making it available on Steam.)
What the fuck is this bullshit and why did they get $541,000 for it? Every time they're asked about the breakdown of funding in their projects they avoid the question and give extremely vague answers or "I don't yet but we'll see." (For example, dovac said, "Voice costs is the majority of the cost is licensing a VN these days. Would love to go in to details but NDAs.")
They also go on to say that IP license, engine license, voice license, and music license are the main costs of getting the Visual Novel ready to be put on shelves. Does anyone have any idea what these would cost? I have a hard time believing they need $140,000 to cover those costs (much less $541,000).

>>263
Also forgot to post my findings on VN distribution in the west.
>"The distributors get approximately 40% ~ 60% of the selling price. How much the distributors get is usually determined by the power balance between the maker and the distributors, recently there have been distributors that provide funding to the maker for the game’s development, so in these cases, the distributors hold more power."

>>255
Steam already ties your purchases to your identity, just not through your credit card details. Even then if you have entered card details into steam, bet they can be traced back to you.

Steam is nice and convenient, but it is one giant DRM service. You don't own things there. They just lend you permission to buy games.

>>263
As Beph posted, Western VN distributors take around 50% of selling price. Japanese distributors by and large take less simply due to the way businesses work in Japan, where content creation is not an avenue of the rich and famous. Most of the money needed goes towards licensing Seiyuus (because they demand HUGE sums of money), but even in Japan actual writers, artists and company managers get pittance compared to Western Business. Western distribution cuts into that already paltry sum.

The VN market in Japan is very unlike media markets in the West, where devs and publishers make mad bank a lot of the time. That's why so many studios have gone under recently.

>>264
>>265
>>266
Ah, okay. I suppose I understand now why so many VN companies were so unwilling to work with Western localization companies until the recession.

Also, an important thing to note is that Sekai Project originally simply wanted to edit the original Clannad translation for maximum jewry. I honestly dislike them more than JAST.

>>270
Yeah, they're fucked up. I'd support some English Localization groups, but I could never understand why a person would support Sekai.

>>271
I think people are simply convinced they are helping Key, Front Wing, the author of Spice and Wolf, or some doujin group and simply don't know the extent of Sekai Project's greed.

How they arose to become a localization company in the first place baffles me though. I wonder what happened during the time they partnered with JAST to release School Days.

>>271
Are JAST USA someone trustworthy to buy from?

>>608
Well they're "trustworthy" in the sense that they aren't as mad for shekels as Sekai Project is, but I'd suggest you refrain from supporting them because they're just not a good localization group in general.

Sumaga STILL isn't out, and we've had no word on it for ages. They're not bad people, but they're a horrendous localization company simply because they don't release anything on schedule.

>>609
Are their translations good though?

Who's good enough for our money in that case?

>>609
>they aren't as mad for shekels as Sekai Project is
How are Sekai for translations? They're picking up a Korean game I want to take a look at. If they're awful, I won't waste my time.

>>626
>>630
Sekai and JAST will do as good as other fansubbers, but they do it for shekels. If there is no other translation, go ahead and get it. I wouldn't buy it though.

>>631
I don't believe there's any intention for a fan translation. It came out in 2010.

I wouldn't buy it. I don't use Steam.

>>632
Supipara doesn't really have hype behind it though.

Didn't it flop in Japan? I doubt it would have done well in KS.