Saturday, July 11, 2009

English Patch Release Plans

With the recent developments as they are, TDOMMX and I have talked, and we have come to a final conclusion that you all will like.

The release schedule will continue as planned with the English patch installer (CD required) being released on the 15th, give or take depending on play-testing issues. Two weeks later (I assume around August 1st or so), we will be releasing a no-CD version of the installer. If you have the disc, grats. You get to play the patch "early" or something. If you do not, you just have to wait a short while, and you can join in the fun as well. We will finally be releasing a third English patch that will work with the inevitable final release of the game that [erka:es] makes.

Hopefully this makes everyone happy. It makes me happy.

10 comments:

  1. Awesome news indeed. Can't wait!

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  2. Great work, guys ;-)

    I'm going on a trip, and will be back just in time for the august's release, perfect timing then !

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  3. I think that'll make everyone happy, as it were.

    If they're not, no one's forcing them to play the game in English anyway.

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  4. I have a question.

    Have you tested this mod for desyncs in story mode replays? The texts will not be the exact length, after all, and this might affect the replays if the texts are skipped as quickly as possible. Unless addressed it's possible it causes desyncs for original replays played in the translated story mode.

    This is probably obvious and tested already, but I decided to ask anyway since it crossed my mind when I was tinkering with replay related issues. Just in case it isn't.

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  5. nice, that means there'll be a no-CD patch, though this means that my 1 week searching for the CD was in vain (finally got it)

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  6. Good eye, Cremator. I know from my cheating experience that the game doesn't simply record what's happening, but moreso recrates it.

    So, say I fight a boss and I'm using infinate health and don't care if I'm hit. I'll beat the boss ok. But if I watch the replay I'll die when my hp would have reached zaero, and the rest of the replay is just the boss jumping around doing whatever they would have done.

    As for the patch, yeah, this is a good solution. I don't see anyone freaking out over this. And if they do then they're a scum sucking swine.

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  7. Heheheh. Glad to hear you like the revised plan.

    Naturally, [erka:es]'s comments had the biggest impact on my "change of heart", if you want to call it that. Truth be told, I was hoping to hear a compelling reason earlier to justify having to recode the installer from scratch since I had already completed all of the necessary work over a month ago (it's never fun to start over unless you have a good reason to do so). Instead, there were ad hominem attacks, hyperbole, indifference, and a very volatile Dramasbombe - a far cry from the motivation I was expecting. Letty presented some valid points in our discussions, I'll admit, but I didn't feel they were sufficient to justify a complete rewrite.

    Now that we know [erka:es]'s intent, I have the reason I need to start the work over. Since it would take some time to rewrite the installer, I thought it would be best to reward "the keepers of the faith" while I worked on writing the new installer, hence the two-week difference. I hope the rest of you will be patient. Unless the early birds come across a serious issue of some kind, the actual content of the two releases should be more or less the same.

    Cremator, I'm sorry to say that the Story Mode Replays for the original RKS will not be compatible with the English version (though the Arcade Mode ones should work flawlessly). English uses many more character to express the same ideas, and the replay files record only the button presses and their timing. Thus, a desynch is inevitable unless we essentially "dubtitled" the game to use the same number of characters as the original Japanese (which, as NES translations have shown us, is often not pretty). If I have to choose one of either accuracy or replay compatibility, I'll go for the former without a second thought. Also, I had to retime certain pauses and delays to preserve (and sometimes improve) the flow and impact of certain conversations (for examples, note the timing before the fights with Zorne (pre-Trau) and Luste). Believe me, beta testing would be considerably easier if we could preserve the replay compatibility, but due to the nature of each language, we just can't do it. Sorry.

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  8. I love you, you son of a digit! *bear hugs <3* :D :D :D Please don't take the "son of a digit" the wrong way, I'm just so happy to hear this... f^_^;;

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  9. Not compatible, hmm... well, I was kinda expecting that (couldn't think any way to get around it, myself), but it's good to know for certain.

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  10. That is really good to hear. I hope to be able to purchase the game when the online distribution model kicks in, and it's good to see I'll be able to play it in my second language (my first language is actually Spanish!).

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