Tuesday, February 2, 2010

More Wiki Madness

Some things have come to my attention, and perhaps it is my fault for not really making any notice of it, but the RKS Wiki is under fire once again. This time, I won't be fussing at anyone in particular!

This is from the interview in the back of the RKS doujin that zaku6 made:

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Zakuro: Oh, by the way, there's a wiki that the foreigners made, too. Can't help but worry that they'll post content the creators don't want up or just write down crazy things. Like, they wrote something about Iris and Light from Death Note having the same aim (becoming the god of a new world).

Hissatsu: Whaaaaat. Is it really alright to put up stuff like that on a wiki?

Zakuro: They might be using their wiki as more of a place to put up personal thoughts on the game. I'd at least like them to draw a line between official and unofficial information... Really, if you're going to do something, do it right. That's what I think.

-----

I don't remember when I gave the okay to post things like entire sprite rips or zaku6's doujin, but I certainly do remember telling everyone who contributes to it to only put up verifiable, factual information. Well, you didn't, and this is what a portion of the Japanese RKS fanbase thinks of us. Great job, guys!

Please remedy this for future reference. I still don't know how exactly the wiki works, but most of the images and information need to be taken down. Period. The way things are now reflects very poorly on us, and with certain people going around putting up terrible information and other people posting entire graphic rips, we now have to run damage control.

zaku6 is absolutely right: If you're going to do something, do it right.

48 comments:

  1. Who the hell goes around adding non-canonical stuff?

    Are they out of their minds or something? Way to go, jerks!

    Seriously, but locking it seems like the only solution..

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  2. I defiantly knew something was up with the Wiki, when I had noticed this were just getting posted at random.

    Remember, it's a Wiki, so there are going to be flaws. If something isn't right, change/remove it, and only add anything that is official. (Believe me, I have seen Wikis that look much worse) I have been editing many Wikis in my lifetime, so I could be of assistance when it comes to some things, but since I'm not at admin rank, I cannot delete the unnecessary images Letty had mentioned. (I did not add the majority of the FNY: H scans and the RKS mugshots, that was someone else)

    @Robotnik:
    "Seriously, but locking it seems like the only solution.."

    No. Locking should only be done if it becomes a severe problem, when one user constantly reverts the content of an article back from the changes an admin did, to what it was originally.

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  3. Well I don't know how it works since I didn't contributed to the Wiki , but is there a way to know who posted this stuff mentionned by Zaku6 ?

    Or is it a completely anonymous posting system ?

    As for me, I prefered not to work on this. My english may not so bad, but still this isn't m bey native language: there's some room for bad interpretation while translating.
    And a wiki should be all about accuracy, not unprecise stuff in my opinion :-/

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  4. Man, oh man...

    I'll admit that my actions contributed to this problem, but only to the extent that someone keeps taking my off-the-record comments (like my character write-ups for Mint's RKS waifu poll) out of context - rather poorly paraphrasing them on the Wiki without my say-so. The whole point of a Wiki is to compile relevant information from verifiable sources, but I see a lot of stuff that's either unsubstantiated, irrelevant, or both.

    I know that I made a comparison way back between Iris and Light Yagami, but that was just to point out the similarities in their personalities (they're both bored geniuses with delusions of grandeur). While I did quote Light to demonstrate his God complex to those who hadn't seen / read Death Note, I didn't intend for anyone to try and further connect the two characters. Sure, I had Light's personality in the back of my mind when I was writing Iris's English lines (evil geniuses unite!), but that's as far as any supposed connection goes. One is a vigilante who becomes drunk with power; the other is a sociopath who would do anything to alleviate boredom. Yes, a "new world" is mentioned several times in RKS, but not once does Iris ever bring up the subject (Freu, Sichte, and Zeppelin do). Claiming that Iris and Light have the same aim sounds like something out of the Jack Thompson School of Research.

    Yes, there are many verifiable references to other games, anime, and manga in both the original game and the English release. Personally, I'd rather see side-by-side screenshot comparisons over bloated Trivia lists containing nothing but heresay. I mean, does anyone really care that someone once misromanized Talos's name as Daroth? Seriously?

    That said, I hope some Japanese players are willing to give our English release a look and let us know if we botched any of the intentional references.

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  5. Perhaps you should look into a way of locking the articles.

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  6. "Perhaps you should look into a way of locking the articles."

    Locking articles has been addressed already, as I had stated we are not locking articles.

    But here's something else that should work: Each article has its own talk page, and we can discuss content we want to add to the articles on them, so maybe we could use them and get Letty's official approval before we insert the text into the articles.

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  7. On the Iris/Light comparison: I think I've seen that before. I may be mistaken, but I'd swear I saw it in a Final Fantasy game. But which one? Great, now I'm going to have to play them all to figure out which one it is.

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  8. Isn't there gameplay videos of Rosenkreuzstilette that points out the references and whatnot at Nico Video? As for the RKS h-doujinshi scans being uploaded to the wiki, the one who was responisble was someone called "kirbyfan" or something. So if Mint should scream at somesone, it should be him for uploading the scans.

    This is why I stood away from the editing wiki because someone is gonna be bound put something stupid as "Grolla has similarities to Tiff from Kirby of the Stars anime" and I don't get blamed for it.

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  9. Kirbyfan uploaded nearly every sprite rip to the Wiki. Does anyone have his contact info? Does he post here? Does he even read this?

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  10. Other than the person's talk page on the wiki, I have no flipin' clue where to get in touch with Kirbyfan. So I guess you can scream to him/her there or block the person from the wiki entirely (if that's even an option).

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  11. If I recall correctly, KirbyFan also has a deviantART page, if any of you wants to have a chitchat with him there.

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  12. Why don't you do it for us? You're a bit more familiar with it.

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  13. "Why don't you do it for us? You're a bit more familiar with it."

    Was this comment directed towards me, or Viper? Just wanted to know because I'm confused.

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  14. Oh, and one more thing:

    @JesusJoseph:
    I think you just spammed.

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  15. I knew that already. It's sad to see one come and attack this place. =_=

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  16. I find it hilarious you guys basically endorse Justin's personal wiki, which is full of crappy and non-accurate information regarding the RKS characters, but you're making a fuss about a few innocent comments about characters being similar to other characters.

    Hipocrisy at its finest. Justin's wiki is infinitely more harmful to the English fanbase if the Japanese fanbase finds it than anything we could ever write on the official RKS wiki.

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  17. Anon: Be that as it may. The negative effect of these "innocent comments" on the perception of the english fanbase has already been immortalized in zakuro's doujin. Rather than play the "which is more potentially harmful" game, we should work on maintaining the quality of our wiki independent of any outside rubric.

    Oh, and Justin's wiki was never endorsed here. In fact, I think it was pretty thoroughly lambasted.

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  18. *sigh*

    Exaggerated accusations? Check. Obvious lack of research? Check. Holier-than-thou attitude? Check. Blatant disregard for the truth? Check. It seems a student of the Jack Thompson School of Research is among us.

    Jokes aside, Mint has repeatedly condemned the Super Justin Wiki through this blog and comments on Justin's DeviantArt account. In fact, he tore Justin a new one in a lengthy tirade back in September, and I confronted Justin via email and the Rockman Perfect Memories forum on a few occasions myself.

    You obviously care enough about this topic to make your opinion known, so care to tell us why you'd brand someone a hypocrite when you didn't bother trying to get the facts straight? This sounds about as justified as the poster that claimed I was crushing people's hopes with a sledgehammer before the English RKS release - for pointing out that the English patch would only work with official releases of the game. What the hell...

    I'd say the DeltaShade's Fanon is much more toxic to the English RKS fanbase since newcomers can't easily tell the difference between canon and fanon (not to say that the Super Justin Wiki is much better - they both show a blatant lack of respect for the author's characterizations). So it's clear: I don't endorse anything about a game's story or characters that isn't based on official material (ie: the game script and official documentation like the manual & [erka:es]'s blog). Theories and speculation are fine as long as they're clearly labeled as such (and I'm sure you're aware that theories have no place on a facts-only Wiki).

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  19. Yo' TDOMMX. Chill. Take George Lucas's attitude toward Family Guy and Robot Chicken.

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  20. Someone really needs to get cracking on a fool-proof internet sarcasm detector - I'm surprised at how many people can't distinguish my mock anger from the real thing (...to be fair, they're not in the room with me...). I'm proud of having a really long fuse, so if you see a seemingly angry post from me, odds are I'm deliberately exaggerating my reactions. Did you really think I'd be pissed over something like calling Talos, "Daroth"? (^_^) I might get annoyed while online, but I'm almost never seriously angry.

    On the other hand, I've never been one to stay silent when someone is wrongly accused of something, so don't be surprised if you see me speaking up whenever something like that happens. You have to admit, that drive-by insult at Mint was pretty out-of-line. My response to that one was very matter-of-fact (I thought I sounded like a shrink after I wrote it), so if you detected any rage in it, that's purely your imagination.

    The Internet. Serious Business. :-P

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  21. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  22. Be careful when you are being sarcastic online. I remember that fanart "showcase" you guys did and it made at least two people take down their art which was actually better than some of the stuff on deviantART, like Bubbleplash's Link and Recht Refraktia. Please be more careful.

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  23. Though I had nothing to do with that one, I completely understand your point. I haven't made a single on-the-record post about the Chinese RKS localization for that same reason: my personal opinion is that the graphics work on the Chinese RKS needs serious improvement, but I don't want to discourage anyone from translating the game into their own language. Hell, if any Francophones are up to it, I'd be willing to offer Darkside's full support (j'habite au Quebec, alors il faut que je parle les deux langues officielles).

    On a semi-related note, a while back, I redacted the pair of Valis77 quotes in my "YouTube RKS Showcase". I thought leaving them online only amounted to making him look like an asshole to everyone else. Like the anonymous poster before, he seemed to take a lot of stuff way too seriously and interpreted sincere corrections as attempts at picking a fight (his response: flat-out insulting someone for buying a legitimate copy of RKS - not cool by any standard in my book). I've downplayed my comments considerably while leaving my original warning intact (ie: be careful around a guy with a hair-trigger fuse).

    Rest assured that whenever I make a front-page post (here or at Darkside Translations or Romhacking.net), it's intended to be taken seriously. I can't speak for any of the others, but you won't see any biting on-the-record remarks (sarcastic or otherwise) from me. In the forums and in the SASA comments, on the other hand... :-P

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  24. Ah, that is good to know. I have been thinking about that fanart showcase far too long. I need you to know that criticizing people harshly on a public site makes you look like a bully, and I know you work hard on mods to Rosenkreuzstilette, so I know you don't want that. I was also rather upset that you guys pushed the deadline for the fanart contest farther and farther away, and I feel that was unfair because some people made their art with the first deadline in mind.
    I hope you will take this into consideration when posting more stuff on this site.
    If you weren't in charge of the art showcase, was it Mint? It couldn't have been Viper because his art was featured...

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  25. The art contest was all Viper's doing. He participated, but the judges were not to take anything he did into account. Any issues with how that was run are to be directed to him. I was nothing more than a judge.

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  26. @Mint:

    Okay. I don't mean to be really annoying here, I just had no idea.

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  27. Ummm... Mint, I'm pretty sure he was talking about the Art Showcases (here and here), not Viper's contests...

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  28. @TDOMMX:

    I was rather upset with both, but mostly the art showcases, you are right.

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  29. Oh, my bad. I take full responsibility for those art showcases. The biggest problem with DA users is that they often end up circlejerking each other. They just leave comments like "cool!" or "this is great!" and leave no criticism. I was a bit mean-spirited at the time (this was 7 months ago, and certain other things were happening at the time), and I apologize for that. Even so, when you make art, you prepare for criticisms, and when you get them, you either use them to improve yourself or you don't. If you can't take them, I don't know what to tell you. And seriously, if you upload an RKS screenshot and call it art, you're pretty dumb.

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  30. Even so, when you make art, you prepare for criticisms, and when you get them, you either use them to improve yourself or you don't.
    This is very much what I've told Justin time and time again (though my attitude was more on the supportive side). Truth be told, his art has improved somewhat since then. Some people, however, respond quite negatively to criticism of any kind (I'm sure everyone knows of at least one game-based filmmaker that fits that bill).

    If you can't take them, I don't know what to tell you. And seriously, if you upload an RKS screenshot and call it art, you're pretty dumb.
    Though I'd argue an RKS screenshot can be art (take any of the Game Over screens, for instance), a DeviantArtist shouldn't expect to get any credit for simply hitting F12 and uploading a file. Last I checked, DA was supposed to let artists showcase their own work, not plagiarize the work of others or fish for undeserved praise.

    ...The term "circlejerking" brings a very disturbing image to mind that, sadly, is completely appropriate...

    With the exception of maybe a single website, I haven't seen any external criticism of our RKS localization. I chanced upon a site that claimed we'd made a bunch of mistakes and overlooked a thing or two, but the only examples the author cites were entirely deliberate (Zeppelin, Xanatos, Waffenenergie). I'll admit, the page amused me enough that I decided to take another stab at the Status subscreen, and both Mint and I are satisfied with my latest attempt (so, yes, it will be included in 1.06a English). Still, I'm annoyed that the person didn't attempt to contact us to find out if those were indeed oversights. The author also placed the blame for the Dramasbombe squarely on Darkside. If you'll recall, I had the entire translation staff (myself included) under gag order until the demo was ready specifically to prevent any drama. Accusing us of causing exactly what I was trying to avoid is, to say the least, insulting.

    Well, at least s/he didn't call us self-fellating drama whores like 4chan branded NNL...

    The Wiki also compares our stage title localizations with "translations" of the German, oblivious to the fact that a) the original German is what Bernd and Kevin refer to as "Germish", b) the translations they provide are riddled with mistakes ("reducing" instead of "mining", "slip angle" instead of "lair", etc...), and c) some of the German text is NOT a translation of the Japanese ("Bloody Tears", for instance). I don't mind being criticized when the critics know their stuff, but I take offense when someone who didn't do their homework claims to be smarter than those who did.

    Remember that I'm never actually as angry as I might seem to be (at least, whenever I'm online).

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  31. @TDOMMX: "Truth be told, his art has improved somewhat since then."

    I'm glad to hear that.

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  32. @ Mint:

    Criticism is a great thing. I love criticism, and am close to begging people on deviantART to tell me what is wrong with my art. However, I felt that what you said was quite destructive, and as a fellow artist (and one who does much more then draw pictures of erka:es characters and cartoons,) feel that it is my duty to make the art world a welcoming place. Like, you do know the furry doll maker is only for making Sonic-styled characters, right? So that person did a pretty good job on Freudia, in my opinion. Even if you had hit a rough patch in your life at that moment, there is no good reason why you should post destructive criticism on the internet for all to see.
    I hope you make another art showcase in the future with this in mind. (By the way, why showcase art that sucks? Learning from good examples is a good idea.)

    @ TDOMMX:
    I thought that making the title of the stage "Xanatos" was not a good idea. I would have preferred it to be death bringer or something. It is not a horrible thing though.
    By the way, my father who speaks German told me the strum and sturm are interchangeable. However, I am not stupid enough to dog you with that and rant.
    I'm only twelve, and I know better! What the hell!

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  33. ShivaDF, I think Mint was probably showcasing whatever art he came across (there wasn't exactly a lot of RKS fanart at the time), and many of the pieces he featured just happened to be bad. I distinctly recall him being impressed with a few of the ones he commented on (Kiora, Viper, and Masakichi's work come to mind).

    I've already explained the reasoning behind Xanatos, but I'll repeat it here for the sake of convenience:

    Both Thanatos and Xanatos are different spellings referring to the same Greek personification of Death, similar to how Cerberus and Kerberos are different spellings for the guard dog of Hell. I didn't want to use Thanatos twice on the same screen, nor did I want to dilute the reference by using The Reaper or Deathbringer (or, worse, Shinigami). However, I agree that Thanatos should have been the primary spelling and not Xanatos (it's Seyfarth's nickname, after all). The names have already been reversed for v1.06a.

    Now, I just need to wait for Ryusui and DekuKirby to finish with their editorial work so I can package everything up for release...

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  34. Correction: "many of the pieces he featured just happened to be bad in his eyes". One man's opinion is not a fact.

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  35. As long as it makes sense, a criticism should be a good thing for the author. If it's some dumb comment, of course it's not, that's obvious.

    And I don't think criticism should be only seen as bad. That's rating the work of someone and give him hints for improvement, not just to overlook at it !

    Sometimes I look at Justin's blog, and it's true he's slowy improving, that's a good thing and it's worthy to be said. We all keep improving...

    I'm glad some of my friends gave me advices for my own works, even when it's not pleasant to hear. We'll see if the result is good at the fan contest...

    TDOMMX> Pour l'instant, aucun projet de traduction francophone pour RKS, la communauté francophone étant vraiment très réduite...
    A part Jimbond007 et nous-mêmes, je n'en connaît guère.
    Mais si Darktranslations projette de le faire un jour, je serai ravi d'aider ;-)

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  36. Until people learn to recognize their own faults, accepting and reflecting on feedback is the only way a person can pinpoint and address problems with themselves. Believe it or not, when I was in grade school, I was a real problem child and thoughtlessly hurt quite a few people. Nothing malicious, mind you - I was just really dense then. However, I now understand why my actions would have been construed differently, and I regret much of the harm I caused (which makes the treatment I received from a pair of brothers in high school a form of karmic retribution)...

    Since then, I've become very sensitive and considerate, though I'm sure there's still room for improvement. Still, I'm not infallible, so I'm always willing to accept constructive feedback.

    Faites attention, Killing_Doll: Darkside Translations et Dark Translations ne sont pas la même groupe. Darkside a été établi en 2001 et aspire à traduire plusieurs genres de jeux et histoires. Dark a été établi en 2008 et traduise seulement des jeux érotiques (souvent concernant le viol). Les deux groupes n'ont aucun lien à l'autre.

    DoujinSuki, un site français, était un des premiers à republier l'annonce de Mint le janvier passe (quand il a reçu la permission d'[erka:es]). J'avais l'impression qu'il y avait plusieurs de fans francophones...

    (...Figures I'd get rusty after not using it in three years...)

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  37. There should be other fans there, you're right: but the fact is we're not united, unlike the english community here ;-)

    Sorry for the mistake and confusion, I haven't written darkside-translations to make short... Never heard about "darktranslations" alone to be honest >_>

    No worries for the "rusty" French, I figure my english shouldn't be perfect too sometimes, but as we said before, practice means improvement ^_^

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  38. The header of our Megaman X Complete release back in 2002 is prefixed with the letters "DSX" (the letter 'x' is shorthand for the "trans" in "translation", which is why you might see terms like "xlate" floating around). That's technically the "official" abbreviation (along with just "DS"). I personally use just "Darkside" for short, both written and spoken, since it rolls off the tongue quite nicely.

    I'm amused that we beat Nintendo by a full three years on the DS acronym... Then again, I'm sure at least a dozen non-game-related applications of DS already existed even then.

    Yeah, practice makes perfect. Sometimes, I have a distinct anglophone accent when I speak French. Other times, I sound like a native. I find it odd that my Japanese pronunciation is near perfect despite not being fluent, yet my French pronunciation is terrible in comparison...

    In other news, it seems Valis77's The Gaming Experience videos have been taken down for "terms of use violation". My question is: why? All of the other RKS videos are still online, and I never once criticized anyone for simply posting videos of our work on line (in fact, I expressly encouraged it in the Terms of Use). Any ideas on what might have happened...?

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  39. Scratch that. Apparently, his account was suspended for multiple unrelated copyright violations - uploading Goof Troop & Family Guy clips, among others. As a result, all of the videos in his accounts were removed.

    Considering his response to my earlier comments and to corrections from other posters, I'm surprised at how maturely he's reacted to the account suspension. Then again, I've never seen him pissed off in any of his videos, so his anger might only be obvious when he's writing. I don't really know the man, so I can only guess.

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  40. Hmmm...

    Just an observation I'd like to make a note of. I'm not saying this to gripe, though I know people are going to misconstrue this comment as such:

    The English translation patch for Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke wo ~A Kiss for the Petals~ was released yesterday, and the game has been purchased a total of 46 times at DLsite since then. Compare that to RKS's 24 copies in exactly seven months (both figures reflect English-language purchases only)...

    I guess I was onto something when I joked that RKS would have sold better if it was actually porn...

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  41. Thought this was a joke, I think you were right when you said that...

    The fact is, RKS is probably not know enough as independant series, it's mainly mentionned in Rockman hacks websites such as RM perfect memories.

    The launch of a second game, RKSF, will probably turn the spotlights on the whole series... The fans would also bring new players to know the game, it takes time.

    Hentai games are part of a bigger business and community, even a new circle could be well-known with just some teasers or exposure at a Comiket, now, knowing the amount of websites talking about H-games... :-/

    By the way, no nws from erka:es about RKF these days ? Do you now if the game will be sold as a download too for foreign players, when it's released ?

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  42. To be fair, nobody cared about Megaman until its sequel was released. Here's hoping something similar will happen with RKS & Freudenstachel. It'd be nice to see the developers get the recognition they deserve.

    I'd imagine that RKSF will first be released as a packaged game, with an online version becoming available once the batch is sold out. I hope I'll be able to snag a copy through one of my contacts in Japan (if not, I can just go through HimeyaShop or PaletWeb while they still have it in stock).

    I'm surprised that Rockman Perfect Memories hasn't said a word about the English version of RKS outside of Viper's review. VixyNyan was pretty psyched about the project when I spoke to her last, so I figure it'd at least have warranted a mention...

    On a completely unrelated note, what does a Lucky Star PSP game have to do with Megaman?

    Actually, I'm a fan of visual novels (both mainstream and adult). I don't care if a title contains sex as long as the story is well-written; naturally, shallow or gratuitous titles never fly well with me. Unfortunately, American publishers have gone on the record as saying that they won't release games in English that don't contain at least a certain amount of sex.

    So much for a domestic release of the original Clannad game...

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  43. Oh, I see... "Mega Kona-tan"... Nevermind, then.

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  44. Japanese porn spam now, that's just stupid...

    No RKS news, guys ? It's pretty calm, these days :-/

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  45. @Killing_Doll

    Yes, indeed it's stupid. Now we have a Japanese person spamming this blog's comments.

    But to answer your question about the RKS news part, no. There isn't much in the RKS community to talk about, aside from a few new RKS-themed fanarts (including a picture of Iris just recently completed by Kiora.) and a few things here and there, but otherwise, no official [erka:es] update since November of last year. I'm hoping that sooner or later, WOMI will post offical concept artwork of Pamela Arwig hopefully soon, (Since we've already seen his artwork of all the other ~Freudenstachel~ newcomers, and he has yet to do Pamela as of yet.) and not to mention more screenshots and previews of RKSF, which is something I'm dying to see. :D

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  46. Thanks for the tip, Justin, I'll check Kiora's blog ;-)

    I had a lot of work to do these days, so I'm not very active too...
    But you're right, I'd happy to see some news artworks from Womi, his Eifer art was just my taste.

    With the next Comiket slowly approaching, we'll see some features about RKSF for sure. ;-)

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