Forbidden Snowflake
take it out on me
Does anyone know why my iPhone's shuffle mode of music (on its library) resets its playlist and quits from it without me doing so? then I have to press the music icon again and reshuffle it
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General Chat Thread - Come to #spp-misc on Discord! https://discord.gg/3u9nKEa
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GrizzlyB
Confused and Dazed
Wow, we finally got to the next page since the last time I posted... five months ago. I would say, "Never change, SPPf!" but, well, that doesn't seem necessary.
I kid, but didn't the new Pokemon games just come out? Would've thought that would bring people in droves but evidently the internet isn't what it used to be. btw, does anybody wanna chat on MSN Messenger? For some reason I'm not getting any replies from the people I know.
Also, why did Photobucket put those horrendous watermarks over everything? Now my sig is ruined! I have a copy saved so it's not a big deal, but I don't know what image hosting service is preferred by SPPfers, so I don't want to upload it to some lame site by accident. halp
I kid, but didn't the new Pokemon games just come out? Would've thought that would bring people in droves but evidently the internet isn't what it used to be. btw, does anybody wanna chat on MSN Messenger? For some reason I'm not getting any replies from the people I know.
Also, why did Photobucket put those horrendous watermarks over everything? Now my sig is ruined! I have a copy saved so it's not a big deal, but I don't know what image hosting service is preferred by SPPfers, so I don't want to upload it to some lame site by accident. halp
Misc Discord is fun, general Sppf Discord has gotten a lot better after the initial influx of bad people.
They want people to pay for using it. So basically any image that's posted on a site using a free account is being watermarked and blurred. I use Imgur myself and it seems to work well enough.
Jb
Tsun in the streets
Eh, I wouldn't say everyone moved to misc discord, i joined a few months ago and i just checked and it doesnt really seem that active there. Maybe there's a hidden channel in the server only certain people can use but idk. Forums did take a noise dive tho, I really only use Gamefaqs since each forum there is game focused on a certain game so it's not hoping that some pokemon fans are interested in ur interest, i also use Reddit
On more of a "life" update, I somehow made a discord that has over 1k users. It is a easier way to get in contact than forums but kinda seems more hollow but whatever.
On more of a "life" update, I somehow made a discord that has over 1k users. It is a easier way to get in contact than forums but kinda seems more hollow but whatever.
GrizzlyB
Confused and Dazed
It's not so much "translation" problems as localization problems. Can we get me doing some kind of Spongebob meme or something with the word "localization" here
Differences can be lost kind of easily, but I'll throw in two examples from my favorite game ever -- which is itself not immune to translation issues (its localization is fantastic 99% of the time and "localization quality" is subjective anyway -- although people who advocate for super literal translations hate fun and I hate them as a result).
LOCALIZATION:
The panel on the left reads, roughly, "Welcome to the ass end of this traffic jam!" Setting aside content stuff for a moment, the big change is "the world's longest traffic jam," a phrase not even really alluded to in the original, added for some "local flavor."
TRANSLATION:
The line "I don't think you've ever really gotten into bad trouble" looks like crap and that should clue you in a little. The Japanese line better translates to "I would never do anything to displease you."
(Man, if Clyde Mandelin knew how much I talk about his stuff, he'd be demanding royalties.)
Anyway I mostly just wanted to come in here and say **** the Midwest winter, but then I saw a lot of this and like... the general tenor lately has been that NISA do bad localizations, not necessarily translations (but the quality on those is kind of... buried... by bad enough localizations, sometimes). tl;dr localization is kind of an underrated thing. But I guess people hear "localization," think of Ted Woolsey, and have spasms (even though I actually quite like Ted Woolsey's classic-era localizations, by and large, save a few bits in Super Mario RPG and Secret of Mana, so maybe I was dropped on my head as a child (mind, I actually don't like Secret of Mana anyway, so w/e on that one)).
So, this is quite an old post, obviously, but I recently started playing Trails of Cold Steel III, which originally spawned this conversation, and I was hitting some localization issues, and remembered this conversation from back when. And when I saw this post I had to say -- SPOT ON ADMIRAL YOU ARE A GODDAMN GENIUS. I was trying to poke around some boards to see if other people were as rankled with it as I, but it's a plot-heavy game and spoilers abound (like I said, I've only just started), so I don't want to dig too deep and the discussions that I did find mostly immediately broke down into firestorms. But this sums it up perfectly: the translation itself is fine, but the localization is lacking, to put it kindly. I don't pay much attention to what companies work on the games that I've played, so even if NISA usually does fine work (or even if it's usually much worse and this is the best thing they've ever put out), what follows is my impression of their localization of Trails of Cold Steel III alone.
There are numerous typos, both in dialogue and in items/menus which affect gameplay, which is pretty bad (I/II didn't have any item/menu fubars that I know of, and 10 hours into III has at least doubled the total number of typos in I/II put together), which is... well, it's bad, but if they put out a patch or something, at least they're objective errors that can possibly be fixed -- though I have no idea if there's any plans for that or if it's even common to do so. But the thing that really chaps my hide is just the general tenor of the language from the dialogue. It's definitely the difference between translation and localization, because while I haven't seen any text where I'm just like, "... okay, what the **** is this supposed to say?" the writing is stunted and choppy and doesn't feel believable from the characters it's coming from.
Call it a weakness, but I'm the type of player who has to go around and talk to every NPC and look through every nook before I move on. (I think that the main advantage games have over other forms of fiction is that you can control what's going on and explore the world yourself -- so not doing so is somewhat of a waste.) Some people claim that XSEED, who localized I and II went out of their way to fabricate dialogue and tics for NPCs and that it wasn't in the original games... but I don't think that's true. Even if it is, NISA had a magnificent template to start from, and from I've seen so far, they've mostly pissed on it. Like, I don't know what they were called in Japanese, but in I/II there were titles held by nobles in a hierarchy that went Baron < Viscount < Count < Marquis < Duke. I've run into a marquis and a count, so those are probably the same, but I've also run into several "Sir"s and some "Lord"s, and multiple "Lady"s who are clearly of different standings. I'm speculating that the new order would be Sir < Lord < Count < Marquis < Duke, but that's stupid because a huge part of the backstory in the country where the games take place is that the nobility are the ruling class who inherit their titles -- but Sir is a given title, which COMPLETELY undermines that premise. So we're seeing unforced errors when they could have easily checked the script from the first two games and avoided a haphazard and wrong term like Sir. "Lady" is also stupid because it's used for the wives of Sirs (where I suppose Lady isn't totally off-base), Counts (... Countess?), and somebody used it to address the princess as Lady Alfin (aptly called 'Princess Alfin' in the earlier games, and I know they called her hime-sama in Japanese. 'Lady' seems awfully flippant for a society that structures itself around noble hierarchies).
The titles are stupid because it would have been so easy to be consistent with the earlier games (which also used terms that make much more sense for the setting), but the biggest problem is that, as soon as I strayed away from the main story and started talking to NPCs, the dialogue fell completely flat. Like I said, the setting is in a country where nobles hold most of the wealth and the power and prestige, and a lot of them like to flaunt it. So when I run into a foppish gentleman named "Lord Stanley" who says his wife is unwell, does he use any kind of high-speak that you wouldn't expect to hear out of the common rabble? No, his dialogue is, "My wife often gets sick. Sometimes, it can be really bad. The maids at my house work really hard." Aside from the overuse of really (which I've noticed from a number of other nearby NPCs)(and funnily enough, I've been reading Stephen King's On Writing where he rails against adverbs and says to avoid them as much as possible -- dialogue can be a different matter, but I feel like it crops up here because of crappy copywriting rather than because of the character), this guy just doesn't sound like a Lord Stanley. How about the pompously-named Louvre, who runs some kind of art gallery and wants to boast to the party about the culture of the noble city of Saint-Arkh? "It really makes me happy to see young people here. Saint-Arkh is known as the 'Capital of Art' thanks to their art and music. We have tons of nice products here. As an art vendor, I like to think I have a good eye for art. Now, please take a look." If you speak to him again, "Saint-Arkh has produced many famous artists. We have tons of good products here. Now, please take a closer look." So, Mr. Fancy Art Vendor doesn't use any adjectives besides 'good' and 'nice'. Okay. There's another clothing vendor at a high-end boutique (all of these character are in the same city) who says, "Clothing from [city] is durable and feels very nice to the touch. If you touch it, you will notice the quality right away. Please take a closer look at them." I know some salesmen prefer the high-pressure approach, but from the sound of it, it's not only the cloth that he wants us to 'touch'.
Anyway, I'm just disappointed after looking forward to the game for so long. I've heard that XSEED dumped most of the people who did the first two games, so there's nothing to be done about that, but is this really acceptable for a script? Couldn't another company have done better? Couldn't NISA have done better? (I mean honestly, to produce strings of words as bad as some of what I've seen, you either have to try hard or not try even a little bit.) I don't play as many games as I used to, and I'm probably a lot more critical than I used to be, but -- even putting comparisons to the first two games' localizations aside -- this is simply bad writing. Many of the NISA defenders from the discussions that I have read act like this bullplop is just par for the course, which I dunno about -- I've still played enough games that I think I'd have noticed if any of them read as jilted and stupid as this one (granted, after the first two games, it is more noticeable when a shopkeep who caters to nobility sounds like a creepy moron). They also act like we should be grateful to get any kind of localization at all which... well, that may well be right. I don't doubt that the translations and whatnot are accurate, but it feels like they left it at that. And even if I should be happy overall that it did get localized, I still get pissed-off when I'm exposed to crap.
tl;dr - Got Trails of Cold Steel III. NISA bad.
Yeah, I think my biggest issue with bigger sites like Discord/Reddit/Twitter or whatever is that they're much more impersonal than a community like this (or what SPPf used to be, at least), where you have people in the same place over longer times, as opposed to users either being transient or so numerous that you're usually interacting with new people all the time. I do find it concerning, that the further we get into the internet age, the less platform diversity there seems to be. The most appealing thing about the internet, in principle, should probably be that it's so easy to visit/use any site or service that's available, but people still congregate overwhelmingly to only a few websites, who can (at least in theory) control a disproportionate amount of what we're exposed to.
The Admiral
the star of the masquerade
Good timing that this comes up now because I'm scripting a YouTube video about localization which I hope to have out early January, for similar reasons of "people on the internet don't seem to get what all this entails..." as detailed in above post.
So, yeah, re: Cold Steel III, going by what you're saying, that is some remarkably jank-ass script assembly where it sounds like... good lord, I don't really know what to actually say here. I don't think this can be pinned down to one issue. I'd guess that the project was split into multiple small teams for translation and the end result was duct taped together at the last minute with nobody caring? Tonal issues are definitely a thing that can happen as a result of that if they aren't in the original script (which I wouldn't know, not knowing anything about the game myself). And indeed, sometimes some parts of scripts are altered in the localization to add character, often because without, the character feels dry (comedy tends to translate very poorly, especially if it's wordplay-related. You're a man of taste and I think you mentioned Gintama eons ago, so I suspect you know that Gintama is like that). But yeah, there's definitely an issue here with not conforming to the previous world-building. There are very few times when you'd want to do this, mostly if you goof the translation up really bad. Like, if... hmm. I'm realizing a lot of games I play don't have the most direct sequels. But let's say you mistranslated Liquid Snake's name as "Sea Serpent" or something. You goddamn well should go back to Liquid Snake. The changing of titles in this case is incredibly confusing. Like, I get that "Viscount" is a little obscure, but that's not even a great excuse. It produces a serious disconnect here. Especially because "Sir" and "Lord" are very nonspecific (and "viscount" is indeed between "baron" and "count"). That "calling the princess 'Lady'" thing absolutely sounds like a case where a word was not interpreted correctly at all. You know, SUPER rookie mistake. Especially considering all the other stuff...
But basically? This is what a lot of people say they want when they complain about Woolsey-esque localization. I highly doubt they actually want it, obviously, they just don't know better.
anyway I can't believe I've been here for fifteen goddamn years, going on 16
GrizzlyB
Confused and Dazed
Continuing on from where I saw all of this dire dialogue, it did get better, so I'm inclined to go with the "patchwork teams" explanation. Even at its best it's a bit flatter than the prequels, but there's a noticeable difference between main story writing (especially if it's accompanied by voice acting) and the NPC-type stuff I sampled above. I was worried because it had been... acceptable... up to that point and suddenly fell off a cliff so I was worried that it would be that way for the remainder of the game, but I think it's safe to say now that it's up and down. There's other things that point to this, like someone calling the princess "Lady [name]" but on a scene where she spoke her dialogue box was labeled "Princess [name]" unlike a great number of other characters who were labeled "Lady [name]" (I guess it's possible the character misspoke and they translated it correctly... but I really doubt it considering the setting and the specific character). Also there was a part where a character repeated something he'd been told earlier (in quotation marks), but it was different from what the original quote said (again, possible he repeated it wrong, but it seems more like they just translated the line two different ways). It's a long game, with a lot of text, so I get that it's difficult to keep track of all this stuff, but it doesn't mean they didn't do a bad job. Like, I'm no expert in Japanese, but I'm pretty sure they have a lot of different ways of saying things that are different but would get translated to English the same way (pronouns, for instance). So lines like I cited above, with the noble saying his wife's illness, "... can be really bad," while I don't doubt its meaning is accurate, I'd also bet he originally said it in some fancy noble-speak and not in a way that sounds like a high school sophomore describing anything. It lacks nuance, even if it's accurate. So I feel like that's when it's appropriate to add dialogue in English, even if it wasn't originally there, because Japanese can imply things without actually stating it (like your wordplay example, just a bit different application).
As for the whole "Lord" or "Sir" or "Lady" thing, I'm pretty sure they're doing it for characters called "-sama" (all of them come from the speaker labels on dialogue boxes, so I haven't seen them used in context -- and I still haven't figured out the difference between Lord and Sir). But even accounting for the discrepancy with the prior localizations (which, as you said, is stupid to ignore in the first place), it leads to weird lines like servants calling the children of the noble houses they serve, "Sir [child]" -- same thing with some characters being called "Mr./Mrs. [first name]". I guess this goes with the Woolsey thing, because I'm sure most of these things are in the original script, but don't translate cleanly to English. I dunno -- for anime, I usually prefer the more literal subs, but that's different because you're also hearing the original lines so I prefer them to match up (and I've watched enough that if I hear a word I've heard before that has kind of an in-between meaning -- say, 'nakama', but it's translated as 'friends' -- I can mentally note that, well, it kind of means what the sub says but also kind of has another meaning. But you can't do that without hearing the original, so in a video game where that's not an option, how it's crafted in English is paramount). This game is also pretty Western-styled, with most of the main characters calling each other by their given names and only a couple using honorifics with those (and most minor characters aren't given family names), so I feel like a lot of their use in the original Japanese is extraneous to the setting in the first place. I definitely think it's possible to over-localize things, to the point where you can take out nuances that were there in Japanese and replace them with nothing (like how honorifics can say something about the relationship between characters), but I feel like it's the opposite here. So whether to Woolsey or not to Woolsey depends on the original material, I think.
Also, I haven't watched Gintama yet, because I was waiting for the manga to finish, which happened a few months ago, but the last anime aired over a year ago. So it's higher up on my list now that the work is finished, but I was planning on watching the anime so I'm going to hold out a bit longer to see if I can't watch the whole thing (since if I hit the end I would probably just switch over to the manga). Also also, 15 years is a long time (I'm at 12 I guess, but I remember when 2004/05 members seemed to have been here a lifetime longer than me), but I do like seeing members who've been around since like the 90s or whatever on other forums. It's, like, commitment or something.
Also also also, unrelated to anything else, I just saw that JOHN FRUSCIANTE IS RE-JOINING THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS!!! How cool is that? Hope they release some new albums and don't just tour with old material or whatever.
Vernikova
Champion
You'll be proud to know that we've finally gotten the first post of 2020 as well.
GrizzlyB
Confused and Dazed
Well, that's cause for celebration if I've ever heard one! Congratulations to all the fine folk who made this achievement possible!
I hope everyone is doing okay right now. The coronavirus has taken the world by storm, and it's not slowing down. I'm laid off from my job. There's a good chance that I might be laid off until May at this rate. Well, I definitely have the time now to catch up on my backlog of video games, shows and movies. Stay safe and healthy everyone.
GrizzlyB
Confused and Dazed
Oh man, if it's not one thing, it's another, huh? Well, hopefully the fire incinerates that KILLER VIRUS everyone is talking about!
****'s crazy, but I look at it like, at least everybody's on a level playing field, in terms of economic hardship and whatnot. But on the downside, I'm realizing that most people don't seem to know how a virus works. A lot of dumb information out there, and a frustrating amount of both paranoia and dismissiveness. My state actually just handed down an order (or recommendation, IDK) for people to jury rig masks from old T-shirts and **** and wear those every time they step out the door. Some people are really pumped up about this, so I don't want to ruin their fun by pointing out that they're orders of magnitude less effective than actual surgical masks (forget about N95s), or that the time for marginal preventative measures like this was several weeks ago. I probably won't do it and will be labeled an anarchist now.
But yeah, good time to get some screen time in. Unfortunately, I've wasted most of my time so far on playing Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age and soft-resetting Fire Emblem: Three Houses on my third run. TZA is a lot better than the original because the job system makes customizing and balancing parties more fun, and the 2x/4x speed options are a blessing, but I was also reminded all over again of how threadbare and derivative FF12's plot is and how much Square-Enix sucks now. Also, my damn internet was out for like a week because my moron landlord didn't pay the bill. Gah!
Also, since nobody responds to this thread anymore, I've decided to spice it up by randomly pulling conversation starter questions off a list (which was how this thing originally operated, for some reason). Question!
Which sport is the most exciting to watch? Which is the most boring to watch?
Well, that's a bad question because I think most people here don't like sports (and also the answers are obviously American football and NASCAR). Other question!
What’s the best way to discover new music?
Oh geez, I'm not good at discovering new music. Most of what I listen to was made in the '60s and '70s, so there's little/no new music stemming from that, and I can't think of a single artist who started in the last decade I like (probably not even the last two decades, if you go by the year they actually started). I guess I've been on a kick listening to weeb music as well, so for that, I look up the songs on Youtube and just... randomly click around the suggested videos, listening to it in the background while I'm doing other stuff -- which actually often works better, because I tend to focus on lyrics too much, so I can't be distracted by them if I can't understand them. I feel like I'm behind the times and that there must be vastly better sites for music listening, but I still use Youtube because you can look up specific songs and I have ad blockers in place (neither of which apply to Pandora, which I occasionally use).
Vernikova
Champion
Oh, dead sppf. I've hit the sweet spot of "not essential enough to need to go to work" and "not expendable enough to fire," so I just work from home now. ow that I don't go as much, though, I've saved a bunch of money and have really caught up n my reading and learning. Another positive is that I get to be here all day. Woo!
It's been so long since I've watched sports. I can't really stand watching them anymore. I guess.
I use Sptofiy to dosvocer music these days. I never use YouTube to listen to new songs, and the only time I hear the radio is when I get into an Uber. Naturally,it's blocked right out once I put my headphones in.
It's been so long since I've watched sports. I can't really stand watching them anymore. I guess.
I use Sptofiy to dosvocer music these days. I never use YouTube to listen to new songs, and the only time I hear the radio is when I get into an Uber. Naturally,it's blocked right out once I put my headphones in.
Rezzo
Occasionally
Hi everyone, good news I'm furloughed, hope the past 4 or so years has been kind to you all
Gonna give you a trans-Atlantic take on this one - answer's obviously football being the most exciting with Formula One being the least. Golf is also pretty terrible to watch live, we all just wait for the highlights right?
Good question; I'm a bit of a music junkie to be honest so I don't think what I'm about to say applies to most people, but it generally goes like this for me:
Last.fm is sort of good for finding genre buddies and mixes of similar artists. The website has been a bit crap for a few years now after they repainted it and I still haven't found out why they scaled back the actual usability in some ways without fixing that, but it's still worth a shout nonetheless.
Aggregate sites like Metacritic are good for finding out the trendier stuff and what people are generally agreeing on to (hopefully) be a good listen. Review sites like Pitchfork are good for impressing your friends and not much else (I find that these kinds of sites tend to be quite narrow in flavour but if you're locked firmly into a particular style of music there's like a review site / publisher out there for you and your taste(s)).
Streaming platforms are just generally good. You get an endless line of rope that you can continuously reel in for something new and interesting. The only problem is that as long as this piece of rope is, once again it is only a single piece of rope and doesn't really offer you any new dimension. YouTube has a funny habit of funneling its users into the same direction (all hail the almighty algorithm!), whereas dedicated services like Spotify and Amazon seem to have a bit more metadata associated with the types of music it recommends its users, and also has dedicated playlists for genres, moods, themes, whatever you like really.
Finally, there's platorms like RateYourMusic, which is essentially a music discography database forum. You can browse user reviews, generate charts and contribute to them by cataloguing your listening habits as well as stuff you like. You do have to be a tad dedicated to take things to this level but it's extremely helpful if you find yourself wanting to dive deep into all different kinds of music and keep track of what you like in one place. There's other platforms like MetalArchives and Discogs which also serve a similar purpose but I've honestly never taken a proper look at them.
Gonna give you a trans-Atlantic take on this one - answer's obviously football being the most exciting with Formula One being the least. Golf is also pretty terrible to watch live, we all just wait for the highlights right?
Good question; I'm a bit of a music junkie to be honest so I don't think what I'm about to say applies to most people, but it generally goes like this for me:
Last.fm is sort of good for finding genre buddies and mixes of similar artists. The website has been a bit crap for a few years now after they repainted it and I still haven't found out why they scaled back the actual usability in some ways without fixing that, but it's still worth a shout nonetheless.
Aggregate sites like Metacritic are good for finding out the trendier stuff and what people are generally agreeing on to (hopefully) be a good listen. Review sites like Pitchfork are good for impressing your friends and not much else (I find that these kinds of sites tend to be quite narrow in flavour but if you're locked firmly into a particular style of music there's like a review site / publisher out there for you and your taste(s)).
Streaming platforms are just generally good. You get an endless line of rope that you can continuously reel in for something new and interesting. The only problem is that as long as this piece of rope is, once again it is only a single piece of rope and doesn't really offer you any new dimension. YouTube has a funny habit of funneling its users into the same direction (all hail the almighty algorithm!), whereas dedicated services like Spotify and Amazon seem to have a bit more metadata associated with the types of music it recommends its users, and also has dedicated playlists for genres, moods, themes, whatever you like really.
Finally, there's platorms like RateYourMusic, which is essentially a music discography database forum. You can browse user reviews, generate charts and contribute to them by cataloguing your listening habits as well as stuff you like. You do have to be a tad dedicated to take things to this level but it's extremely helpful if you find yourself wanting to dive deep into all different kinds of music and keep track of what you like in one place. There's other platforms like MetalArchives and Discogs which also serve a similar purpose but I've honestly never taken a proper look at them.
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The Admiral
the star of the masquerade
Discogs is useful if you're a ****ing nerd like I am about releases and stuff and having encyclopedic reference for them. I use it pretty regularly to dig up stuff about some of the things in my collection, but it seems like it's no good for finding opinions about new music -- not only because of its user base (seems to cater heavily to vinyl snobs -- yeah, sure, guy who wants an LP release of Art of Life, a 29-minute record consisting of one song where inserting a break point to turn the record over would not work well), but because it seems designed so you search up profiles of artists you already are aware of. You do get a "similar records" listing for the albums, but I don't think it's that good -- pretty sure very little of the old-school prog I listen to could be considered similar to Rumours aside from being over-mythologized boomer music (maybe Tusk, though).
I tend to forget RYM exists and I should probably use it.
I tend to forget RYM exists and I should probably use it.
Rezzo
Occasionally
My only proper flick with Discogs was a few years back when I used it to differentiate Zappa releases as some of them underwent ugly remastering on Rykodisc, but by your description it does sound like I'd get a little bit of use from it for other things too.
As well as your rock staple, Discogs is also pretty handy for digging up 90's EDM cassettes and CDs that have been long out of press circulation.
As well as your rock staple, Discogs is also pretty handy for digging up 90's EDM cassettes and CDs that have been long out of press circulation.