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Which religion is the best?
This poll is closed.
Shintoism 59 9.58%
Buddhism 77 12.50%
Taoism 66 10.71%
FEAR CLOWNPIECE 414 67.21%
Total: 616 votes
[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

 
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ElMaligno
Dec 31, 2004

Be Gay!
Do Crime!

Ranpire posted:

Thanks... I think?

Like Namtab said, this thread has been slightly aggravating on the last few pages, so you comming out here and discussing how you delt with the hacking/programing and translation of the games is not only really cool, but also very informative.

leather fedora posted:

wow ok sorry for trying

Sorry but there is no I in team, therefore its only partially your fault.

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BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn

Clarste posted:

they're certainly not under any kind of obligation to.

Well actually, they kind of are. Unless the programmers were getting paid for each line of code (which would explain a lot :v:), it's in their interest to make the code as smooth and efficient as possible. It simplifies the team's coding process, makes debugging a lot easier, gives the artists more leeway, and probably makes the game run smoother. It's very much a thing in programming to make your program as short as possible!

I mean, don't get me wrong, you could totally just enlist some scanlators to help out and skip out on the nitty-gritty coding entirely. But, personally speaking, I've never seen a successful "put long english phrase into short text bubble" that did not look terrible. Either the font's too small, the text goes out of the bubble, there's a translator's note on the side, or I just haven't been reading very good translations.

(It's probably the last one.)

EDIT: Anyways, Reitaisai 10 is in 20 days right? Anybody know when a demo trailer will be released?

BlitzBlast fucked around with this message at 18:46 on May 6, 2013

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

BlitzBlast posted:

Unless the programmers were getting paid for each line of code (which would explain a lot :v:), it's in their interest to make the code as smooth and efficient as possible.

They're not getting paid at all. It's a doujin circle. I mean, they sell it for money and who knows how they distribute that, but it's not a company. Although I agree that it would also make it easier on themselves if it was coded better. But they didn't.

As for the quality of someone squeezing something into a text bubble, isn't it common sense that whenever it's successful you wouldn't even notice? You wouldn't think anything is out of place because it fits naturally. You say "long English phrase" as if it isn't within the power of the editor to change the length of a phrase by rewording it.

ElMaligno
Dec 31, 2004

Be Gay!
Do Crime!

Its another bleak and dark zounose doujin! Wait never mind, its just about Chen raising a goldfish so she can eat it. :3:

Spoilers for Superman Red Son and this comics I guess?:

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn

ElMaligno posted:

Wait never mind, its just about Chen raising a goldfish so she can eat it. :3:

This one could have really stood to explain its point better. I think the goldfish in the bag is supposed to be a metaphor for youkai in Gensokyo, and the wizard's implying that Yukari trapped everyone. Also random, Reimu sighting!

Clarste posted:

They're not getting paid at all. It's a doujin circle. I mean, they sell it for money and who knows how they distribute that, but it's not a company.

...Why would them being a circle mean they don't get paid? Am I missing some part of how circles work or something? Obviously they're not corporations (though Team Shanghai Alice stock would be hilarious), but I don't see why that doesn't mean they can't work out some kind of wage.

Clarste posted:

As for the quality of someone squeezing something into a text bubble, isn't it common sense that whenever it's successful you wouldn't even notice? You wouldn't think anything is out of place because it fits naturally. You say "long English phrase" as if it isn't within the power of the editor to change the length of a phrase by rewording it.

No, I've pretty much always noticed whenever some translator had to wrestle with tiny text bubbles because in the stuff I read it always looks like

BlitzBlast posted:

the font's too small, the text goes out of the bubble, there's a translator's note on the side,

and stuff like that. Again, I probably haven't been reading the best translations ever, but I haven't seen anything that really made me think "wow I am impressed how this translator balanced brevity and meaning."

...Okay, that's a lie. I have.



:v:

In any case, I think we should probably cut this argument out here. I understand your point, you understand mine, we just disagree. No need to drag it out across another page.

Leviathean
Oct 22, 2012

?

Ranpire posted:

There've been three generations of patchmaking.

EoSD and PCB -
These were before my time, and the entire crew that made them seemed to disappear shortly afterward. Leviathean no doubt knows more, and I'd love to hear about them.

It's been almost 8 years, so I had to contact the Wayback Machine to remember what happened during that time. According to this thread, one of our forum members named s'' showed up one day and announced that he had successfully unpacked the .dat file for the PCB demo, and was able to make and save changes to the story script. At that point, the interested people in the forum went into overdrive, trying to support s'' in any way they could, such as cleaning up the translations in the wiki, making localized art assets when required, or acting as beta testers for patch revisions. It was a haphazard community effort to be fair, but people were excited for it, and a few months later we managed to get the patch for the full game developed. Looking over the thread itself can give you some insight on the troubles they faced, as beginner patchers.

Later on, we also made an equivalent patch for EoSD with the same team. I believe it was a bit harder due to the text window's constraints being even tighter than PCB (32 characters by 2 lines), but most of the tools could be reused. J5983 mainly lead that effort, I think, with the rest of us acting as support. I think other members like RacidalR and JSeabolt were involved too?

On a side note, it's amusing what we treated as news back in those old days. "Oh man, people cosplaying as Touhou characters in Thailand! Someone made a doujin game of a doujin series! Maybe one day more people in NA will know about Touhou, but it's probably wishful thinking" :3:

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

BlitzBlast posted:

...Why would them being a circle mean they don't get paid? Am I missing some part of how circles work or something? Obviously they're not corporations (though Team Shanghai Alice stock would be hilarious), but I don't see why that doesn't mean they can't work out some kind of wage.

I hope this isn't construed as continuing the pointless discussion, but a doujin circle is basically a club. For the people involved, it's a hobby. They all have day jobs doing other things, or are university students. Even ZUN himself doesn't earn a living from making Touhou games. He used to have a job as a programmer at some other company, but quit once he became a professional manga writer. Yes, his job is writing the spin-off manga series that no one reads, and his hobby is making the ultra-popular games they're based on. That's how little money doujin works are expected to earn.

Now, I don't think it's theoretically impossible for a doujin circle to work out some kind of wages, but I also don't see why they would. The whole premise behind it is fans working for free out of love for the product. That's their pride as doujin creators. If they wanted to make money they could just "sell out" and become a real company. That's not unheard of: TypeMoon started as a doujin circle before they started pimping their cash cow Fate franchise.

Clarste fucked around with this message at 00:04 on May 7, 2013

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
Huh. Thanks for the information, I didn't know that. I had pretty much assumed circles were equivalent to small businesses.


quote:

Earlier this month, ASAPIN managed to set a new Perfect Cherry Blossom Lunatic record with a high score of 2,569,613,890. ASAPIN's inhuman accomplishment barely passes the record set by the equally-inhuman PCB player GIL of 2,548,706,100.



:allears:

Copycat Zero
Dec 30, 2004

ニャ~

Clarste posted:

He used to have a job as a programmer at some other company

Taito, to be exact. He worked on, among other games, Graffiti Kingdom, and even slipped in Reimu as "Flying Maiden":

Takoluka posted:

Depends on what game you're playing.


ElMaligno
Dec 31, 2004

Be Gay!
Do Crime!

BlitzBlast posted:

This one could have really stood to explain its point better. I think the goldfish in the bag is supposed to be a metaphor for youkai in Gensokyo, and the wizard's implying that Yukari trapped everyone. Also random, Reimu sighting!

I think its more Gensokyo is a place where fantasy goes to a very slow and prolonged death. Kinda like the heat death of fantasy, the sorcerer also implies Yukari might be tricking everyone into thinking nothing is wrong. Keep in mind Gensokyo is supposed to be only a hundred years or so.

RadicalR
Jan 20, 2008

"Businessmen are the symbol of a free society
---
the symbol of America."
Wow, someone is talking about the old Imperishable Night patch? Man, that brings back memories. I was the so-called "leader" of that group back in the day. I did a lot of stuff wrong, but somehow we managed to release that patch mostly functional. I'll be the first to admit it, the IN translation isn't the greatest, but I think given at the time we released, we did a bang-up job of it.

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn
I'm surprised so many of the patch team are on SA.

Also everyone with a heart agrees that the IN translation was excellent, don't worry about that.

ikaragu
Oct 24, 2010

BlitzBlast posted:

I'm surprised so many of the patch team are on SA.

I'm impressed that, between the users posting on the last page of this thread, there are people who've worked on translation patches for every official Windows Touhou game, several unofficial ones, scanlations of Wild & Horned Hermit/Forbidden Scrollery and wiki translation of Cage in Lunatic Runagate (and probably other things I'm not even aware of). That's a lot of material! I remember resigning myself to the fact that IN wouldn't ultimately be translated after s" stopped updating his threads on MotK, with Embodiment of Scarlet Devil's patch left at version 0.8. It's crazy to think that new games in the series are getting patched within months of their Comiket release - it's easy to take for granted nowadays. Kudos to the team.


Clarste posted:

Now, I don't think it's theoretically impossible for a doujin circle to work out some kind of wages, but I also don't see why they would. The whole premise behind it is fans working for free out of love for the product. That's their pride as doujin creators. If they wanted to make money they could just "sell out" and become a real company. That's not unheard of: TypeMoon started as a doujin circle before they started pimping their cash cow Fate franchise.

Is this true for all doujin groups? I know that some of them make their non-commercial status a badge of pride, but with regard to Touhou derivatives specifically it's frequently suggested that, due to Touhou's popularity, a lot of groups are producing Touhou derivatives because creating anything else is leaving money on the table. There seems to be the idea of a Touhou event horizon, where Touhou derivatives dominate the doujin sphere to the extent that the only commercially viable doujin that can be produced are more Touhou derivatives. But from what I read about the doujin scene there are people who believe that doujin and Touhou have already become inextricably linked, and money is cited as a reason. It's talk I tend to dismiss as hyperbole, but every time I look at the Touhou scene I'm amazed by how large it has managed to get. The Reitaisai catalogue is well on its way to becoming a phone book!

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

ikaragu posted:

Is this true for all doujin groups? I know that some of them make their non-commercial status a badge of pride, but with regard to Touhou derivatives specifically it's frequently suggested that, due to Touhou's popularity, a lot of groups are producing Touhou derivatives because creating anything else is leaving money on the table. There seems to be the idea of a Touhou event horizon, where Touhou derivatives dominate the doujin sphere to the extent that the only commercially viable doujin that can be produced are more Touhou derivatives. But from what I read about the doujin scene there are people who believe that doujin and Touhou have already become inextricably linked, and money is cited as a reason. It's talk I tend to dismiss as hyperbole, but every time I look at the Touhou scene I'm amazed by how large it has managed to get. The Reitaisai catalogue is well on its way to becoming a phone book!

I suppose that's possible, although the business logic there doesn't make a huge amount of sense to me. I mean, if Touhou is so popular that everyone else is already doing it, wouldn't that make switching to Touhou less attractive of an option? It'd be hard to stand out from the crowd and you'd be at a disadvantage against all the others with more experience, popular character interpretations, etc. I can see how there might have been a perfect moment to capitalize on Touhou's popularity, but that would have just been one moment and everyone else is late to the party.

But yeah, obviously not everyone is going to have exactly the same motivations. On the other hand, ZUN's been friends with Tasofro since before it was really that popular, so Tasofro is unlikely to be composed of people in it for the fame or money.

Ranpire
Nov 6, 2012
Well, even then, that's still not quite everything - we didn't do the patches for PoFV or the camera games, and I don't recall RadicalR being on those either (though I could be mistaken).

As I've understood it, the doujin market isn't about being "free," it's about the line between amateur/hobbyist work and commercial enterprises. The majority of doujin works are sold for money, and there are definitely some number of people who use them as a primary income source. Where the "commercial" line is drawn is a matter of some debate, but it's important to define because (at least in Japan) it's sometimes used as a basis for companies deciding to tolerate unauthorized fanworks.

ZUN's defined the line for Touhou derivatives by distribution. Conventions, small scale personal sales, and recognized doujin goods shops like Melonbooks (including some forms of internet distribution) are okay, but traditional retail outlets and large-scale internet distribution like Steam are not. When pressed on what was "too big" for internet distribution, he cited global availability as a good determinant. That caused some controversy with other doujin groups, resulting in some unfortunate events like Frontier Aja pulling Koumajou Densetsu 2 from web sales, but contrary to what I've seen a lot of whiny fans try to say, he's got nothing against selling goods to foreigners per se, the issue is one of scale rather than xenophobia. [Citation: Conversation between ZUN and one of our loosely affiliated staff over a beer at Reitaisai]

What ZUN's really interested in is preserving the doujin scene as A Thing That Exists for creation and distribution of creative works. That's getting harder and harder to do, as it's opposed by big companies being less friendly to fanworks, other big companies appearing more friendly to fanworks and then turning around to try and bootleg themselves, media and legislative hysteria trying to blanket label the entire scene as awful pornography, and awful pornographers trying to cash in because the media says this is the scene for it. It's not really that Touhou's gotten THAT much bigger, relatively speaking. More that the rest of the scene's been hit hard and a lot of it's shriveled up.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
And then the deathblow comes in with the currently-under-negotiation TPP treaty that's likely to make derivative works flat-out illegal with no option for the copyright-holders to turn a blind eye.

RadicalR
Jan 20, 2008

"Businessmen are the symbol of a free society
---
the symbol of America."

Ranpire posted:

Well, even then, that's still not quite everything - we didn't do the patches for PoFV or the camera games, and I don't recall RadicalR being on those either (though I could be mistaken).


Ever heard of a group called Non-Directional Translations? I didn't have much of a hand in other games.

Ranpire
Nov 6, 2012

RadicalR posted:

Ever heard of a group called Non-Directional Translations? I didn't have much of a hand in other games.

I came up with that name, long time no see. :ssh: Just didn't know if you hooked up with the other crews.

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

While y'all talk about the dying doujin scene or whatever I just wanted to let everyone know that this VN EoSD for busy people is literally changing my life as we speak.


Namtab fucked around with this message at 00:21 on May 8, 2013

Artificer
Apr 8, 2010

You're going to try ponies and you're. Going. To. LOVE. ME!!
Where did you get it?

GeeCee
Dec 16, 2004

:scotland::glomp:

"You're going to be...amazing."
Finnish touhou : http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1412930?tags=setz

:3:

nftyw
Dec 27, 2006

It is a game... where you will put your life on the line.
Lipstick Apathy
I think there is a youtube of it. I think the one I found by searching just now is different? The one I remember had branching paths that led to bad ends/continuing storyline, and had Aya of all people alongside Reimu.

Hazdoc
Nov 8, 2012

Muscovy Ducks are a large tropical breed, famous for their lean and extremely flavorful meat.

Hazduck!

~SMcD
Ugh, reading some of the comments on the touhou tag team wrestling comic on danbooru... well I don't know what I expected. So many people complaining about the dumbest stuff. I probably shouldn't have expected anything more, though.

Karasu Tengu
Feb 16, 2011

Humble Tengu Newspaper Reporter

Hazdoc posted:

Ugh, reading some of the comments on the touhou tag team wrestling comic on danbooru... well I don't know what I expected. So many people complaining about the dumbest stuff. I probably shouldn't have expected anything more, though.

Internet comments are stupid as poo poo, and ones on touhou stuff are possibly literally the second dumbest thing in the world.

Not Dave
Aug 9, 2009

ATAI SUPER DRY IS
BREWED FROM QUALITY
ENGREDIENTS BY USING
OUR PURE CULTURE
YEAST AND ADVANCED
BREWING TECHNIQUES.

Elliotw2 posted:

Internet comments are stupid as poo poo, and ones on touhou stuff are possibly literally the second dumbest thing in the world.

Compound that with comments about wrestling and you've probably hit the stupid internet comment jackpot.

Trihugger
Jun 28, 2008

hello

Not Dave posted:

Compound that with comments about wrestling and you've probably hit the stupid internet comment jackpot.

Part of the spectacle of wrestling is the crowd being loud and stupid. I read some of the comments just to get some of that genuine effect. But if you don't really have the stomach for it, the comic by itself is still great.

Ranpire
Nov 6, 2012
Touhou 14 - Double Dealing Character is officially announced.

The theme is "neo-retro," eliminating complex systems to get back to a more basic danmaku experience. No crazy meters, hypers or UFO systems, just graze (although lives and bombs are still being awarded in increments like 10 Desires, probably simply from enemies dropping fragments?)

Three playable characters, Reimu, Marisa and Sakuya. Story is something to do with their (danmaku?) weapons beginning to move on their own, and the youkai are getting restless, the usual incident resolution business.

The game engine's been improved under the hood, and is now able to output up to a true 1280 * 960 resolution (previous games were 640 * 480 upscaled).

A trial version will be at Reitaisai on May 26, alongside the full release of Hopeless Masquerade. Full version of DDC is expected at summer Comic Market as usual.

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

Sakuya!?

Way to get back to basics with this outdated third character I guess.

HGH
Dec 20, 2011
Well, the whole religion arc is over so I guess Sanae gets to go back to the sidelines now. Time to bring back the old guard.

Nice to see Marisa has finally brought back her flamethrower Hakkero. Speaking of which, that's not the usual shottype select it seems. Seeing as it's a Weapon Selection instead, maybe you can mix and match the various kinds of bullets and bombs?
Anyway, in that screenshot of Marisa, she has the Hakkero equipped, along with Illusion Laser and Hakkero Flames. Her bomb however, is called Dark Spark. Now I wonder if it's just a big black laser or is more intricate.

Not sure what's up with that boss in the last picture. Looks like it's wearing a red hood? Although she does have a sword it seems. EDIT: No wait that's just Sakuya's knives going through her hand. Woops.

HGH fucked around with this message at 22:04 on May 10, 2013

Meowywitch
Jan 14, 2010

Yes finally, it's Mountain of Faith (2.0) with a spell practice. Now just make the difficulty be between UFO and SA and you'll have the perfect Touhou game.

a cartoon duck
Sep 5, 2011

Sakuya's playable again? That's kinda disappointing when there's lots of stage 5 and/or 6 bosses who didn't get a chance to be playable in a shmup yet.

Ah well who cares, the important part is Needle Reimu is in the game who even cares about other shot-types.

Edit: also one of the stages looks basically exactly like TD Stage 2, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised at ZUN recycling resources at this point.

a cartoon duck fucked around with this message at 22:08 on May 10, 2013

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

a cartoon duck posted:

Sakuya's playable again? That's kinda disappointing when there's lots of stage 5 and/or 6 bosses who didn't get a chance to be playable in a shmup yet.

Ah well who cares, the important part is Needle Reimu is in the game who even cares about other shot-types.

I get the feeling that he's intentionally saying "the religion arc is over now".

a cartoon duck
Sep 5, 2011

Clarste posted:

I get the feeling that he's intentionally saying "the religion arc is over now".

Yes, but it still feels kinda silly to bring back older characters anyway is what I'm saying? But who knows, Youmu in TD was actually awesome so maybe I'll change my tune once this comes out, who knows. Also I guess maybe ZUN just wants to stick to humanish player character nowadays.

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

a cartoon duck posted:

Yes, but it still feels kinda silly to bring back older characters anyway is what I'm saying? But who knows, Youmu in TD was actually awesome so maybe I'll change my tune once this comes out, who knows. Also I guess maybe ZUN just wants to stick to humanish player character nowadays.

Sanae isn't human-ish?

But yes, "human" has always been one of the criteria for being playable in a main Windows shooting game. The exception being IN where canonically they were all human-youkai pairs (although you can play solo youkai as bonus content)..

a cartoon duck
Sep 5, 2011

Clarste posted:

Sanae isn't human-ish?

But yes, "human" has always been one of the criteria for being playable in a main Windows shooting game. The exception being IN where canonically they were all human-youkai pairs (although you can play solo youkai as bonus content)..

I was thinking of Shou and Futo not being made playable characters, not Sanae being removed from the roster.

Namtab
Feb 22, 2010

Mima confirmed?

Fighting Falken
Aug 13, 2012

Ranpire posted:

Touhou 14 - Double Dealing Character is officially announced.

The theme is "neo-retro," eliminating complex systems to get back to a more basic danmaku experience. No crazy meters, hypers or UFO systems, just graze (although lives and bombs are still being awarded in increments like 10 Desires, probably simply from enemies dropping fragments?)

Three playable characters, Reimu, Marisa and Sakuya. Story is something to do with their (danmaku?) weapons beginning to move on their own, and the youkai are getting restless, the usual incident resolution business.

The game engine's been improved under the hood, and is now able to output up to a true 1280 * 960 resolution (previous games were 640 * 480 upscaled).

A trial version will be at Reitaisai on May 26, alongside the full release of Hopeless Masquerade. Full version of DDC is expected at summer Comic Market as usual.

No gimmicks doesn't sound too bad at all, they can be fun but there's nothing bad going back to the basics. Sakuya being playable again isn't bad either, I would have preferred seeing one of the newer characters but since they'll most likely be in HM it's not that much of a problem. It doesn't really matter as long as the games are fun.

Falls Down Stairs
Nov 2, 2008

IT KEEPS HAPPENING
It's always a weird feeling to see what ZUN-art looks like nowadays.

And what it looks like nowadays is :buddy:

No super-noticeable anatomy mistakes though! He is learning.

BlitzBlast
Jul 30, 2011

some people just wanna watch the world burn

a cartoon duck posted:

one of the stages looks basically exactly like TD Stage 2, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised at ZUN recycling resources at this point.

Probably means another trip to Myouren Temple. I hope all future Touhou games will have the main character stampede through Myouren for the hell of it.

Also all "Double Dealing Character" makes me think of is gambling. Is it time for the Pachinko parlor youkai??? Though looking at the mirror on the title, it'll probably be the ability to clone people. Hence the weapons acting funny.

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GeeCee
Dec 16, 2004

:scotland::glomp:

"You're going to be...amazing."

Namtab posted:

Mima confirmed?

Keep that hope alive.

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