東方幻想魔録 ～ Devil of Decline Translation

[TheNewGuy]

Again,I sent out a bunch of untranslated files to around 4 different people explicitly in the hopes that during the time I was gone work could still be done. Work was not done. I don't blame anyone, so please don't blame me; or make assumptions that I just need to pass files around and everything will get done guaranteed.  This is not what I have experienced, I did a great deal of the work alone.

The last time I received a notice from one individual who would be willing to help was June last year. At that time I was hoping to begin work again, so I wanted to clean up the files I would send first. but then I found myself making periodic doctor visits. I contacted said person and told them I would alert them when I ready again. (which has been way longer than I expected) It's uncalled for to imply there is an excess of able people I have turned away, and to claim that the project could "theoretically be going at full pace" borders on insulting. It certainly feels like finger pointing rather than offers of help.

The work involved isn't so simple as 'done/not done', and different parts have different procedures. It's not clean, or pretty, or nice and it's lots of Japanese.

[Ghaleon]

I've been looking forward to this for a couple years or something too, and while part of me is bummed that it seems to be stalled, I wanna stick up for TNG to some extent... Back in the day when Genius of Sappheiros was new, some guy, I forget who, was planning on organizing its translation, and he seemed to be working pretty hard on it. But then a few dorks on some forum (poosh I think?) were bishing about the nuances of some literal or interpreted translation on something or other, and were over dramatic about talking about how much the translation was "butchered" or whatever... In the end, the translation efford stopped.

Then some other guy started, and...eventually, fans bashed THAT guy too for wtf reason... THEN, TNG took over and...and... Genius of sappheiros (AND its expansion) was actually effing done!

While I appreciate and respect the work and efforts of people who genuinely try to do these projects even if they don't succeed, I DO want to give particular support to those who have proven to make good on their words and prove they HAVE made an effort by actually releasing something. I don't know TNG very much at all beyond his posts in the patch threads, but I trust him because of what he did. Even if you think that's naive or whatever, I think a little bit more tact and less finger pointing to someone who has done only work for virtually nothing should get a little bit more respect. Yeah I'm frustrated that efforts cannot proceed once again, but anything TNG can supply you guys is a bonus, not a duty, and if he says he can't really do anything regardless, I think it should be trusted.

I don't mean to offend anyone or make anyone feel bad. I just think the whole translation/localization scene, both officially and unofficially should be given a LOT more love and less entitlement.

[Alcoraiden]

Okay, folks. After reading the last page, I saw that what this thread seems to want is someone to organize the people who were translating/working on things/unpacking the game/etc.

I'm willing to do that. I really want to see Devil of Decline translated and patched. While I am not a programmer nor a translator, I know folks who are, especially on the programming side, and I will do my best to fish up resources if we don't have them.

All right. Roll call o'clock for people who want to help. Post here answering these questions:

1. Who are you, and were you on the project beforehand?
2. How busy is your schedule? How often can we expect you to work on the project? What are the odds Real Life will destroy you completely and you will vanish with files in hand and we will have to redo?
3. What are your skills? (Translating, file tools, image editing, etc etc)
4. How frequently could we expect you to respond to our PMs/emails/etc.?
5. What materials relating to the project do you already have in store?
6. If you did work on the project earlier, what did you find lacking that you needed? (Resources, manpower, communication, etc.) This is not for finger-pointing; it's for making sure people can be assigned to places they are needed.


TheNewGuy, if you're being crushed by Real Life and/or don't want to continue the project, I'd love to know where all the materials were when you last saw them. Who had them; how far were they done; what logistics records do you have? If you *do* plan on sticking around, which would be awesome, let's communicate on what we can do to pull this back together and figure out what we need.

I will be talking to folks who were present back in this thread to find as many details as I can.

Note that I would vastly prefer an incomplete and/or rough patch to no patch. If all we can do is an inaccurate but at least somewhat relevant translation, I'm fine with that. If we can get it pristinely translated, that is of course preferable.

I'd love to see Devil of Decline localized. I liked GoS, and it seems like DoD has improved in many ways upon it, and it also finally has main characters who I rarely get to use in an RPG.

[Maiden Synnae ミ☆]

All I want is a Translation good enough so I can understand the gameplay and what's going on with the story.

Even if the translation end up a bit awkward, it'd still be nice if I could understand the stuff. I also love GoS and found its translation to be pretty good. So, if we make something on the same level for DoD, I'd be super happy.

(There's also another game I'd like to see translated, btw: Nightmare of Rebellion)

[TwilightsCall]

Well, I offered to help translate this before, so I suppose my offer still stands.


1. Who are you, and were you on the project beforehand?
Just some guy.  And no.

2. How busy is your schedule? How often can we expect you to work on the project? What are the odds Real Life will destroy you completely and you will vanish with files in hand and we will have to redo?
I'm a full time university student until April 14th, afterwards I should have mostly free time until at least late July.  Frequency of putting work out will vary considerably, but I should be fairly easy to get a hold of, so running away with the files shouldn't ever happen.

3. What are your skills? (Translating, file tools, image editing, etc etc)
Translating.

4. How frequently could we expect you to respond to our PMs/emails/etc.?
At least daily.  Generally I check my messages two or three times a day.  If something terrible happens to me, maybe a few days.

5. What materials relating to the project do you already have in store?
I have a folder called "Untranslated Images" and a notepad file called "globalreadout.txt."  I have no recollection at all as to where I got them from (probably someone in this thread) or whether any of the stuff in them is outdated.  They are timestamped January 2013 on my system if that's relevant.


Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

[brliron]

1. Who are you, and were you on the project beforehand?
I'm a french programming student.
I discovered this project 2 days ago, so I never worked on it.

2. How busy is your schedule? How often can we expect you to work on the project? What are the odds Real Life will destroy you completely and you will vanish with files in hand and we will have to redo?
I'm already on some projects, and I have my school, so I'm quite busy. But I think I can spend some hours per week on this project, if that's necessary.
I don't see any reason that should make me stop checking my mails. But for PMs and replies, I may stop coming (or at least come less often) if the thread die.

3. What are your skills? (Translating, file tools, image editing, etc etc)
I tried mauve's tools, and I managed to uncompress the files.
I still didn't try to repack them, but there's no reason it doesn't work.
(Edit : I just managed to replace an image in the files, now I see how it works)

4. How frequently could we expect you to respond to our PMs/emails/etc.?
I check my mails really often, and I come here 1 or 2 times per day. But I'm quite slow to write in english, so if I have to write a big answer, I'll wait until I have some time.
So it may take 2 days before I respond to a mail or a PM, I think.

5. What materials relating to the project do you already have in store?
The game (I'm not sure it's the last version), mauve's tools (http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/User:Mauve), and the uncompressed files (obtained with the 2 previous elements). So nearly nothing.


BTW, I saw somewhere in this threat that if you want to contact TNG, you should try to send him an e-mail instead of a PM.

[TwilightsCall]

Just so people don't have to feel like this has ground to a halt immediately after it started, TheNewGuy has PM'd me a good chunk of stuff to be translated (THIRTEEN THOUSAND LINES OF TEXT), which I will be starting on as soon as I've finished up some minor remaining bits of the 13.5 translation.

Just so everyone knows that things will start moving forward on the translation end soon!

Spoiler:

And don't worry, the vast majority (I hope) of those 13k lines actually don't need to be translated.  It'll take some work to sift through and find the ones that need translating, but it's no where near as bad as I pretend it is.

[Maiden Synnae ミ☆]

Wow, that's excellent news TwilightsCall. Now I have high hopes I'll finally be able to play this.

[Gadsu]

Just excellent *-*
I was looking for a Lets Play on Youtube to understand a little more the game, but i think i will wait for your patch then, when it will coming out, i will try it and report you all will be going wrong (i will try to screen all i can found, but i bet i will not have to make a lot )

I will prepare to clean this game to 100%, 5h per day :<

[Alcoraiden]

Great stuff! I'll see if I can get more info on the programming end of things.

[brliron]

As I said, I can do some things on the programming side.

[Krimmydoodle]

If the translation is starting up again, I'd like to voice my opinion that a "gameplay translation" that covers menus/equipment/skills/etc. should be a priority.  When this idea was brought up before, I recall there being about a 50/50 split between people who would wait for the story, and people who would eat up a gameplay patch and have no problem pretending that the entire plot is everyone screaming at Chen and talking about tea. 

Being able to read your character builds is huge when it comes to Bose games, and everyone playing the game should be able to read that.  Then there's a lot of dialogue, spread across the stories of four main characters, that a number of potential players would consider non-essential to their gameplay experience.  I'd hate to see the translation fall through, and imagine that no one can even read the menus because the translation never finished for the story of some character they're not even playing.  Put out a partial translation, then those who want to wait for the story can wait for the story, and those who just want to play the game can do so without worrying about four untranslated stories brickwalling the translation.  If translation comes to a halt once again, at least you've satisfied some players instead of no players.

[Reddyne]

If the translation is starting up again, I'd like to voice my opinion that a "gameplay translation" that covers menus/equipment/skills/etc. should be a priority.  When this idea was brought up before, I recall there being about a 50/50 split between people who would wait for the story, and people who would eat up a gameplay patch and have no problem pretending that the entire plot is everyone screaming at Chen and talking about tea. 

Being able to read your character builds is huge when it comes to Bose games, and everyone playing the game should be able to read that.  Then there's a lot of dialogue, spread across the stories of four main characters, that a number of potential players would consider non-essential to their gameplay experience.  I'd hate to see the translation fall through, and imagine that no one can even read the menus because the translation never finished for the story of some character they're not even playing.  Put out a partial translation, then those who want to wait for the story can wait for the story, and those who just want to play the game can do so without worrying about four untranslated stories brickwalling the translation.  If translation comes to a halt once again, at least you've satisfied some players instead of no players.

I have to agree at least from a gameplay standpoint. Strawberry Bose's RPGs are notoriously difficult and it takes every advantage available to make steady progress. Even in the early game when the number of skills are limited and so is the difficulty, knowing what's what really helps smooth out the experience. Once the difficulty goes from mid-JRPG to screw-you, the game requires strategy, exploiting weaknesses, etc. to continue. If all of this is masked behind the complexities of a language that people of the English audience have no knowledge of, then gameplay, which is the brunt of the game anyhow, will largely be comprised of guesswork, experimentation, and prayers to the RNG. This doesn't even cover players complacently sticking with a handful of moves instead of using a broader array of abilities. Just having a basic understanding of the language has drawn me to use certain moves and things to my advantage.

Rumia has a skill that decreases a foe's resistance to an element. The strength of buffs/debuffs is determined by a character's dexterity. Knowing these things either takes obscene amount of love for the scientific method and the game, or the ability to read the text that tells you this information. If the players' nerves aren't frayed by their inability to devise a winning strategy, they'll be bored with figuring it out. Lots of conversational text won't matter because the English audience will be more likely to give up along the way. Hence, I really think it's better to get the gameplay-related stuff QC'ed and out the door first. If the project falters or is delayed for any reason later on, at least people will be able to enjoy the game beyond hearing the shikigami lament on their current state of affairs.

[Gadsu]

If the translation is starting up again, I'd like to voice my opinion that a "gameplay translation" that covers menus/equipment/skills/etc. should be a priority.  When this idea was brought up before, I recall there being about a 50/50 split between people who would wait for the story, and people who would eat up a gameplay patch and have no problem pretending that the entire plot is everyone screaming at Chen and talking about tea. 

Being able to read your character builds is huge when it comes to Bose games, and everyone playing the game should be able to read that.  Then there's a lot of dialogue, spread across the stories of four main characters, that a number of potential players would consider non-essential to their gameplay experience.  I'd hate to see the translation fall through, and imagine that no one can even read the menus because the translation never finished for the story of some character they're not even playing.  Put out a partial translation, then those who want to wait for the story can wait for the story, and those who just want to play the game can do so without worrying about four untranslated stories brickwalling the translation.  If translation comes to a halt once again, at least you've satisfied some players instead of no players.

I am also thinking about this, and i guess we are not the ones, but it can be very usefull. It's like Labyrinth of Touhou 2, still in translation for history (and a few lines where not translated from the items and NG+ stuff) but we have all the 'gameplay' translated (the NG+ is avaible in a new patch but we still can play with the old EXE ~~ ) .

From what i seen they (people who take up the project) have a part of it translated, i just hope images are already done because i don't seen  any comment for this

[Alcoraiden]

I will completely agree that gameplay comes first. At the very least, story can be put into a text file and just sent out. Gameplay mechanics really need to be *in* the game.

[Alcoraiden]

As I said, I can do some things on the programming side.

Awesome. How familiar are you with mauve's tools? You said you had them, and the uncompressed files, but it'd be awesome if you could let me know if you foresee any hangups early on. What do you need in your hands to work? I'm trying to get acquainted with all this quickly so I can get up to speed.

[brliron]

I found how to unpack and repack the archives (and, to be sure it works, I put a ugly red line on the title screen). I still didn't searched how to extract or rebuild the srsdb files (which contains most of the texts).
I'm not sure if I will do some scripts to extract / repack the files, because once you understood how to do, it's quite easy. It depends on 2 things :

• Do you know how to run a program through command line ? Because mauve's tools needs parameters given through the command line, and my scripts may work with drag-and-drop.
• It also depends on if it is faster to explain how to use mauve's tools, or to do a small script.

[Validon98]

Guys, as much as I'm kind of both "eh" and "YAY" on announcing this, uh... Strawberry Bose is working on releasing a Weekend-style expansion for Devil of Decline known as 東方幻想魔録～宴, or "Banquet," which is supposedly making some balance changes in a similar way to Weekend along with some other things like changing how the recruitment of shikigami works (they said it's going to work more like it does in NoR now), so uh... in terms of patch-making, that might need to be put on hold for until after Banquet's release.

[Alcoraiden]

Oh that's interesting. Is there a release schedule for that yet? Also, if the actual images and such aren't entirely changing, we could at least start translating the menus etc.

[Validon98]

They're saying Reitaisai 11 for release, so in May.. I assume that's also when Nightmare of Rebellion's expansion is going to be released as well.

[Serela]

Oh that's interesting. Is there a release schedule for that yet? Also, if the actual images and such aren't entirely changing, we could at least start translating the menus etc.

That's already done. As far as I'm aware, at least. I remember seeing an image of it translated. It's waaay earlier in the thread and the image link could be broken by now :V But yeah.

[Gadsu]

Reitaisai 11 is the 5/11 http://reitaisai.com/

I guess also LoT 2 will have a update at 5/29 (from the image on http://www.geocities.jp/aaa_3peso/ )

BTW i hope someone will have enough courage time and motivation to start a translate project for NoR after this update :O

[Ghildrean]

I guess also LoT 2 will have a update at 5/29 (from the image on http://www.geocities.jp/aaa_3peso/ )

That was the release date for the trial last year. They didn't update that banner since then.

[Gravagar]

I've been lurking and keeping an eye on this project ever since I managed to beat GoS last year. I really like that game and I recommend it to any of my friends who I think will enjoy it. I want to join in on this project if you are recruiting new talent, primarily because I was just so impressed by GoS and all its translated-ness. I was reluctant to offer help before because I didn't think I had the skills necessary, but I want to offer whatever help I can actually give.

1. Who are you, and were you on the project beforehand?
Gravagar! A newcomer to the community. I briefly got into Touhou years earlier, but due to some negative pressure by a close friend, I backed off of the series. I got back into it 2 years later and I wish I had started earlier  :V
No I was not on the project.

2. How busy is your schedule? How often can we expect you to work on the project? What are the odds Real Life will destroy you completely and you will vanish with files in hand and we will have to redo?
I have plenty of free time for the time being. There is a good chance that my schedule will have a significant shift as I will most likely be starting a new job, but one of the advantages of working on a college campus is that individual study is encouraged. I'd be surprised if my new job didn't give me MORE time to work on it.

3. What are your skills? (Translating, file tools, image editing, etc etc)
I have a solid understanding of hiragana and katakana, but fairly weak kanji and grammar. I definitely want to learn more and contribute more to these projects and hopefully be able to start them up on my own one day. I really want to get into translating games as a hobby. I have not yet touched the file tools, I saw the name Mauve's Tools so I will search for those and become familiar. For image editing, I have some decent proficiency in Photoshop and a slight case of OCD. I can definitely image editing.

4. How frequently could we expect you to respond to our PMs/emails/etc.?
I can check them every day. The best way to get in contact with me would be IM.

5. What materials relating to the project do you already have in store?
Downloading everything from the OP as we speak.

Please PM me if you have anything you want to discuss~

[Ghaleon]

Yeah im kinda sad that the site got dumped like a hot potato. I wonder if that means lot2 wont get an expansion/specialdisk.... Id REALLY like a database thingie for it like specialdisk for lot1 gave.

[Gadsu]

Seems we will have a great team for translating/editing :O

I guess LoT 2 will have a specialdisk, but in a while.

I just hope you will doing same for other games, as NoR, Gensou Shoujo Taisen 2, Pocket Wars 2nd and etc. but i don't mind it, it's already very nice to see you translating this same. When this will be out (after Reitaisai 11 weekend patch) i will maybe launch one tread per game and try to manage to find people for each project

Since i can't translate or editing, i can do this :<

[Cjd2524]

New version announced shortly after NoR's expansion:

Code: [Select]

http://www.gensoukyou.org/bose16/
Besides rebalancing it's now using NoR capture system, where monsters have forced capture rates after a certain number of defeats (but may randomly be catched earlier via rng).

I am reading it right if it tells all priviliges shikigamis until now will be available (with no codes/etc.) ?, up until now I think you had to swap them (max 1 at the time), but now it will be possible to have all (?) of them at once, there will be new chests spread along the game that will contain these Shikigamis (there were a lot them), it's a big change if they're integrated as an actual part of the game.

[ZXNova]

So can someone summarize what happened with the translation of this game?

[Blazefire]

So can someone summarize what happened with the translation of this game?

Basically the head of the project has real life issues. Some other people are trying to get together and work on it, but with the upcoming update, it'll likely be stalled a bit longer. The project isn't dead, just inactive at the moment.

[ZXNova]

Ah, I see. Well is there a current translation patch made or at least translation notes?