Friday, June 27, 2014

The State and Status of Things

Some people have been wondering the current status and menu of Loe Quality Translations, and it seems now might be a better time to update than later.

For the record, Loe Quality Translation's blog has just quite recently broke the 100,000 unique views mark! Over 100,000 people worldwide have viewed (and presumably downloaded) from this blog over it's two year history. People from US, Canada, Russia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Britain, and other countries (no sign of any views from Japan, but maybe that's for the best); a truly international audiance. Hooray!

As if in commemeration of that, the laptop that Loe Quality Translations operates via has just recently started making these odd clacking noises. Hoora- wait, what?

I hear from various tech savvy friends that this clacking sound is neither natural nor a good thing, and that the harddrive may die. It's not the only problem (overheating and powerfailures are others), but it is certainly the most pressing. The laptop is dying, and it is hard to work on any sort of project without the necessary computing.

Fortunately, I have recently been sent an old desktop that, though old, is still in better condition than the laptop. Unfortunately, it is not entirely complete. among the things it is missing: a hard drive, cooling fans, a graphics card not on its deathbed, and speakers. These things aren't hard to acquire, but very unfortunately, they are costly to acquire, and my budget for the summer was not designed for this.

It is with deep regret that I must actually ask people to help me afford these things. I appreciate the donations that I have recieved thus far (all forty one dollars and fifty cents worth over the course of these past two years) but it isn't enough to cover these costs. I have to ask people to please donate to Loe Quality Translations.

"But why should I do that?" you may ask? Well, in addition to having already provided the translation of Mamankyoushitsu at a comprehensible, if not enjoyable, level of english alongside the two one shot manga uploads and 3/5ths of HaraPara, you will be helping to ensure the continuation and eventual completion of three definite projects, and hopefully the beginning of some new ones. I had wanted to wait to announce these, but the clacking of the hard drive makes me concerned that if the laptop shuts off, it might not turn on again, so here you go.

The Definite Projects:

Non-ero
Kiitarou no Shounen Enikki: An interesting manga series, regarding a young-boy and his dealings with various youkai that live around the shack he now finds himself living in. I've started on volume one, though could use a typesetter more professional than myself, if anyone might be interested and available.

Ero
HaraKano: I released the joke patch before, but this time I'm working on the actual thing. It'd be Marina Tachibana, Kaho Tachibana, Ayana Seno, and Ren Fujino routes + after stories for sure. I am currently almost halfway through part 1 of the common route (it has three parts) so it will be sometime, but HaraKano is much longer that Mamankyoushitsu (with much less erotic content) so that may be expected.

Haramiko: A short Swanmania titled released just a month after Harakano featuring two miko sisters and their relation with the wandering Akira. A nice little love story, it should be done much sooner than anything else (as it is much shorter).

These three are projects that I am definitely currently working on, much the same as Mamankyoushitsu was. As for the non-definite projects that I merely hope to begin if I can get the proper support

The Non-Definite Projects:

Tsujidou-san no Junai Road: This is a vn by Minato-Carnival, sharing the same setting as the famous and infamous Majikoi series. I have this title and would like to work on it, yet the reason it is a non-definite project is because, unlike the Swan games, I do not have access to the script files of the game's story, nor a means to extract them or repack them. If you are an anonymous that could aid with that, feel free to contact me.

Sakura Wars: I got the Sakura Wars game that was localized by NIS America. I enjoyed the hell out of it, and really wanted to try out the other titles in the series. Unfortunately, there has never been much of an effort to make a fan-translation of it like other Japan-only titles have gotten (Valkyria Chronicles 3, the unreleased Ace Attourney game, Princess Maker 5?). If anyone has the programming know how to modify the PC version of Sakura Wars 1, or the PSP remake of Sakura Wars 1 and 2, I would be willing to give whatever translation skill I have towards it. The odds of anyone like that existing are slim however, hence why this is a non-definite project.

So there you have it. Those are my plans for the future of Loe Quality Translations. I cannot give a date on any of them, and so many of them require the aid of other people, yet right now LQT needs aid in general. If you are interested in seeing any of these projects come to be, feel free to donate via paypal. I went through all of Mamankyoushitsu (it took awhile, but it was done) so I would like to think you can trust me to actually work on these projects that I have said I will, though I know people have been burned before. In the meantime I'll continue working on the three for however long this computer will last and hoping that some team will contact me regarding the latter two. I'm now backing up my work daily, but that doesn't mean anything if I don't have any device that can continue the projects (or a home, but that's another matter).

I thank you for all your support so far; it's really cool to have 100,000+ views. Shout out to Fuwanovel and Erogedownload for uploading my work as well, so more can enjoy it. It'd be cool if you could give definite credit though. (Speaking of: thank you again to Bonzaimonkey for making the Swan patches that I and Onaji-Sora Translations have been using. Wouldn't be possible without you.)


-LoeQT


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Speaking of Minato-Carnival, I have been approached repeatedly by people asking my to begin/finish/aid the Minato-soft projects. Specifically the Majikoi and Majikoi-A translation. However, as cool as that would be, I am hesitant to work on any project another group has already put so much effort into, without their actual go-ahead. As dead as Wairu might be, they have not officially given up the ghost, so it would be bad form for me to try and step in (especially when I haven't even read or watched any of the related material yet, though all the Majikoi heroines seem hella awesome from what I've seen). I once contacted Pun-kun myself, and he sent me part of Chris's A-route to translate as a test (which kind of supports the theory that Wairu ISN'T dead), but as I went through it, my lack of familiarity with the series showed and it became increasingly obvious I would have to learn the initial story better before I could hope to translate the sequel story properly and with the detail the fans deserve. Until I have done this (the other projects and real life have unfortunately gotten in the way), I will refrain from getting people's hopes up by joining or starting any official translation effort.

8 comments:

  1. Tsujidou-san no Junai Road? That would be amazing! I hope you get the help you need.

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  2. Hey I just came across you blog and it looks like you've done a lot of work. I especially appreciated the Mamankyoushitsu patch. I've been wanting to read that for a while, thank you.

    And are requests allowed? I see that you have other projects to do first, but is it possible to add something to the queue? I don't mind waiting since the one I want doesn't seem to be translated any time soon.

    In any case, I've left you something that might help you with any projects you have in the future.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, I definitely appreciate it.

      As for requests, while I am open to suggestions, I cannot guarantee a translation of said suggestion might ever happen, no matter how interested I am in the game. The problem is that I don't have the computer expertise to actually hack VNs or write patches for them; all I can do is translate the Japanese to whatever extent, so unless the game you would like to request already has a patch for it (a patch which would let me access the game's script files, translate them, and then re-insert them into the game), the best I can do is little more than write up a transcript of the game in a word doc, theatre play style.

      This actually is the reason for me stating my interests in Tsujidou-san no Junai Road, Sakura Wars, and all the other VNs I've mentioned on on this post and in this blog; while I have the games, I need help actually accessing the files which would let a translation project for them exist and am hoping some kind anon might have the skill to assist with any of them (people have before; it's how the Maman, HaraPara, and so many of these other Swaneye translation projects came to be).

      But that's all a different matter. tl;dr, request away but unfortunately, I cannot and will not guarantee anything. :C

      Also, I totally apologize for the lack of quality checking and revision on Mamankyoushitsu. Even readers of something named low quality deserve better than the current state of that translation :C

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    2. Actually a transcript would be fine. I contacted the "translation group" that did another game from that company but they said they had no plans so far. I'm not really expecting a patch to the game as much as maybe a summary to explain what was going on in the game. A transcript in a word doc would actually be better, no need to apply any patches to the game.

      As far as translation quality goes, as long as it gives me a general idea of what is going on in the game, I have no problems haha. I can look past any grammatical errors.

      Anyways here is the link to the vndb page: http://vndb.org/v7805

      I understand if you can't help, so don't worry about it.


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  3. Being cursed monolingual, while loving visual novels I have always admired, nay worshiped those kind enought to toil for the english peoples. So, naturally hearing that one of my beloved translators where in trouble I jumped at the donation button.... sadly I must inform that I still need to plan for a year and a half of college, so I could only muster a measly $75 in aid. It is my hope however that this amount will be high enough to guilt trip some of these 100,000 to throw at the very least a couple bucks your way. Cheers to good work so far and cheers to good work to come.

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  4. Approximately how much do you need? I think it would help those of us who would donate to have an idea of just how much to donate if we knew what the basic goal is. Obviously it's not definite, as few such things are, but we need to at least know where to start.

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  5. hey man love your work so far and would love to see ANY of these games translated. especially the sakura wars series. like you i found the 5th game a while back and loved it and have wanted to play the rest of them. i don't have any skills to help you but ill keep my eyes and ears open for anyone who can.

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  6. Have tou tried checking out Fuwanovel forums, I'm sure if you put up a post asking for someone capable to extract and repack the script files of Tsujidou-san no Junai Road, you'd get some help.

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