So, 2009 (November 17th, 2008)

[Cless]

Early 2009 release is probably more likely at this point. Nusakan says he'll need some more time to achieve the best results (the work he's submitted is still just a first draft, after all), since he's currently swamped with school work. As nice as things are turning out (already WELL past any of my initial expectations), I'd prefer to give him as much time as he needs to polish (and repolish) every nook and cranny of the script.

The project'll be nine years old then. We've got a lot to live up to for such a crazy amount of time, even though it seems as if the number of people anticipating this project has declined greatly in recent times, and as much as I wish to be through with it. I don't know if any amount of polishing will realistically make it look like it's had nine years put into it, but we just have to keep doing our best.

For what it's worth, I look back at some of the early work in 2002-2003 and think that if we had released something then, it wouldn't have been anywhere near what we have today. I mean, just the other day I dug up a couple of script file translations that were passed to an uncommitted translator to mess with back in 2002...

From the Forest of Spirits file (present time period)

Old translation: (reading the sign in front of the tree)

"Tree Of Departed Spirits"

"They say this tree is like an Inn for departed spirits."

"To avoid injury everyone's cooperation is requested.
-Yuukuriddo Sightseeing Association."

New translation/current edit:

The sign reads:

       ``The Tree of Spirits''

``It is said that a Spirit inhabits this tree.''

``We request everyone's cooperation
in keeping the tree undamaged.

      -Euclid Tourism Association''

Some pieces of dialogue on the file...

Old translation:

Cless
"Huh?"

Cless
"I lost sight..."

Chester
"No mistake, something's coming towards here isn't it..."
Cless
"If I'm not mistaken, I can feel something coming towards here..."
Chester
"(it?) Didn't stay here"

Chester
"How about over there?"

Chester
"Cless, what's wrong?"

Cless
"Ahh..."
Chester
"Return already?"

Chester
"There's nothing else to get here."

New translation/current edit:

Cless
 Huh?

Cless
 I lost sight of it...

Chester
 It's gotta be around here somewhere...
Cless
 I was pretty sure it went over this way...
Chester
 Well, I didn't find anything.

Chester
 Did you?

Chester
 Hey, is something wrong, Cless?

Cless
 No, nothing...
Chester
 You want to go home already?

Chester
 Come on, man, we haven't even caught anything yet!

Some of the really old translation is fine, a lot of it is painfully literal, and some of it's just way off the mark. I don't recall even batting an eye to most of that old translation. Clearly, I wasn't ready for the localization track. I started playing games like Disgaea and Tales of Symphonia which gave me a swift kick in the ass over things like this.

Anyway, at least we're still on track to beating Duke Nukem Forever.

[throughhim413]

Sorry to hear about the date sliding again, but I'm sure that when you do release, it'll have been worth the wait. You know it better than anyone, but it's always best just to take your time and do your thing. As long as you produce something that you're personally happy with, there will always be others that will appreciate it.

[Demon000]

...even though it seems as if the number of people anticipating this project has declined greatly in recent times...

Well I'm still here checking on it on a regular basis. I think there's still a lot of people anticipating it but we are kind of quiet since it is in its last stages. Everything is assigned to someone and the aesthetic details have been covered, I think that's the reason for the lack of movement around here.

Don't worry about the time, I think this is going to be one of the most complete/high quality translations ever and it's gonna be worth the wait.

[Cless]

Everything is assigned to someone and the aesthetic details have been covered, I think that's the reason for the lack of movement around here.

Yeah, all that really remains is polishing off the text, and doing more technical work. Hell, I'll break down precisely what we're currently aiming to do.

1) Finish polishing both the skit and main scripts, and the menu text.

2) Fix bastard skit #44, we currently cannot sub it due to a technical issue:

• It's the largest skit by file size in the game
• The game only allocates enough RAM to just to fit it, so there's no room to add the subtitle text nor add more scripting commands to it
• Yep, it's going to take a number of man hours just so you can see this one skit in its 20 second or so splendor properly.

3) More technical enhancements:

• Five lines of text allowed in a dialogue window, an upgrade over four.
• Auto text formatting in code. While I'm generally quite happy with my external text formatter, there are some situations where this will be useful and better. External formatter will still be useful in that it'll show me how all the text will appear in the game without me having to playtest it.
• Redo the World Map menu. All the town and shop names are currently rendered with graphics. I want to change these to real text. It'll allow the proper outlines around the letters, and for shop names, they won't be limited to an off-color palette. Oh, and one of the shop names is an arte name, so it needs to be affected by the name selector, which is impossible with a graphic.
• More subtitling: there are events where words are spoken by voice but no text on regular maps; particularly in events where Klarth summons or Mint uses a spell. There's also a patch with a bunch of voice impressionists. Gotta sub 'em all.

4) Optional technical enhancements (if there's still time left to implement them)

• Something that determines whether it's more appropriate to use 'a' or 'an'.
• Something that determines whether it's more appropriate to use ' or 's.
• Text centering in dialogue lines (without using annoying, hacky methods)
• In at least one place, I'd like to use something to effect of "MIIIIINT!", but since characters are renamable, it's kinda impossible to otherwise do without things seeming wrong. For this, I'd like to add something that checks to see if you've renamed the character. If you haven't, it would print a special word (in this case, the "MIIIIINT!"), if you have, it'll just display the character's changed name.

Some of that optional stuff is damn nitpicky, but hey...anything to continue to raise the quality while we await a finalized script.

[andwhyisit]

In at least one place, I'd like to use something to effect of "MIIIIINT!", but since characters are renamable, it's kinda impossible to otherwise do without things seeming wrong. For this, I'd like to add something that checks to see if you've renamed the character. If you haven't, it would print a special word (in this case, the "MIIIIINT!"), if you have, it'll just display the character's changed name.

Juuuuust fiiiiind theeeee fiiiiirst vooooowel in theeeee naaaaame thaaaaat is nooooot theeeee fiiiiist leeeeetter and exteeeeend it tooooo fiiiiive leeeeetters. As yooooou caaaaan seeeeee it wooooorks quuuuuite weeeeell.

[Kajitani-Eizan]

not a bad idea. let's test it...

AYLAAAAAAAA!!!

pass.

STEEEEEELLA!!!

bzzzz

CLAAAAAAAIRE!!!

pass.

RIIIIION!!!!

ehhh. nani koreee?

it might be a better idea to extend the LAST vowel in the name. something like "Jane" would then look silly, though. hmmm... perhaps ignore both first letter vowels and final "e"s?

[NFITC1]

it might be a better idea to extend the LAST vowel in the name. something like "Jane" would then look silly, though. hmmm... perhaps ignore both first letter vowels and final "e"s?

Closer, but still not right. You'd need to find the first vowel of the last syllable of the name and extend that. That's much harder to do. Just leave it in all caps and put a "~" after it to make it look like the character is drawing out the name. I'm kinda surprised that FF games didn't have the ability to capitalize letters (at least in the English version) when someone was shouting. That's all that this would need, however.

[Demon000]

What if someone decides no to use vowels??

[andwhyisit]

How about extending the last vowel that isn't the first letter or a final "e", and in the case of having no vowels, either extend the final "n" if there is one or drop the name extension if the name doesn't end with "n". Also if the vowel to be extended is an "i" and there is an "a" or "e" directly before it then you should extend that instead.

AYLAAAAA!!!

STELLAAAAA!!!

CLAAAAAIRE!!! (trust me, this is how you would normally extend "Claire")

RIOOOOON!!!!