Fire Emblem 12 Translation Project

[Arch]

http://fe12ds.blogspot.com/2011/05/response-to-poll-entering-preparation.html

Announcement about the project (other than myself being officially on-board, which I am).

Edited May 14, 2011 by Rodimus Supreme OVERTROLL

[fredrocks]

i see no reason to wait anymore I highly doubt they are still translating this while in the midst of all the new 3ds games and whatnot to be announced

[Blademaster!]

If you guys were to start a translation project along the lines of something like FE1-6's, I would at least wait until after E3 before going overboard with it.

[VincentASM]

i see no reason to wait anymore I highly doubt they are still translating this while in the midst of all the new 3ds games and whatnot to be announced

Well, E3 is only a month away and Nintendo has expressed interest in localising DS games even when the 3DS is out.

That said, I'd like to sign up as a potential script editor, advisor and (partial/full) translator. I should mention in advance that a lot can happen in 2 months and I may not be available at that point in time (especially since, if I'm guessing right, my dissertation results should be arriving at around that time and I may need to do some follow-up work).

Edited May 14, 2011 by VincentASM

[Crimson Red]

We're doing exactly what you said.

And then a month, I don't trust Intelligent Systems to actually announce something during E3, whoever the crap leads this shit (I forgot) might just be like "oh hey guys let's wait until after all the game hype has cooled down to finally announce our localization of a game that came out over a year ago!!!". >_<

EDIT: Didn't see your post, Vincent.

Worse come to worst, yes, we could use you as a translator. But we all know you're busy so we're looking for someone else who can also do the job but commit themselves a little more. I am not trying to be negative: I am ECSTATIC about your offer to help with this project. I am just saying that I understand that I'm not going to be like "hey, wtf is this, y u no translate?!" if you have other things you want to do.

And once again, we're just preparing. If it's announced, no problem--we only lost a few hours of our time. I'd always like to think that IS wouldn't pull a Scamco (Namco-Bandai) on us and not consistently localize games even after they've done so since Blazing Sword and that'd save everyone a bunch of work, of course. I'd also like to legitimately buy the game if it came out, for once. :\

Edited May 14, 2011 by Luffy

[Blademaster!]

I'd always like to think that IS wouldn't pull a Scamco (Namco-Bandai) on us and not consistently localize games even after they've done so since Blazing Sword and that'd save everyone a bunch of work, of course.

But Bamco did decide to localize two tales games for once.

[Crimson Red]

Key word is consistently

IS has been consist so far but is either letting us down with the speed of localization (or at least announcement of) or has decided to forsake us altogether. (Which doesn't make much sense IMO, they don't even need voice actors to translate this game, it should be a piece of cake with their resources... >_>)

But yeah, at least Tales of Graces F is coming out, eventually. And to side-track things even more, I once owned http://www.talesofgraces.com... but then I stopped paying for the domain. lulzy, huh? :P

[Lord Glenn]

Why is it that everyone thinks that the people who develop and make the game are the ones that translate it? IS is the developer. NoA/NoE have translation staff members translate the text, etc. for their respective regions.

Aside from that small semantic issue, all I can do is to wish you the best of luck. I never much cared for Shadow Dragon's archaic mechanics (heck, I'd rather play FE4 with its silly pawning system than FE11), but I've heard that FE12 is a significantly better beast. Still doesn't mean I'll play it, but for the sake of the fans who *do* want to play it, I think this is wonderful. So, good luck.

[Crimson Red]

@LG technicalities that I don't adhere to aside, thanks for the good luck wish, and since I've beaten FE12 (although not understanding a lick of what's going on aside from the bare basics like the fact that Medeus and Hardin are bad guys and Marth is the good guy fighting some war) I can say that the game was relatively good (i.e. much better than FE11).

[Celice]

What's hard to understand? A basic idea of Katakana will get you though most item/character names (especially sense the romanized versions are English words, and the plot's been translated and publicly available for years now. Even in a translation path some years ago for the Super Famicom version.

The only thing that's not readily available as a translation is the new content, mostly having to do with characters speaking directly to My Unit. Of which, there's a good, sizable amount. Otherwise it's all mostly stuff that's been around for a decade and some :E

[Crimson Red]

Most people don't know katakana, nor do they want to learn. There are plenty of people who aren't smart enough to learn it without tons of studying, either. There's also a feeling of comfortability, and enjoyment. Having to translate from Japanese to English or read the script off of a text file or website isn't as great as being able to play the game as if though it's actually in English. There are also base conversations and side-quests, aside from the My Unit conversations. Not to mention the possibility of altered scripts, i.e., FE3 scripts might not be the same as they are in FE12.

Just throwing out reasons as to why a translation patch would be useful. Also I apologize in advance if I misunderstood something you said.

Oh and a quick off-topic post, I like the last part of your signature.

[VincentASM]

Worse come to worst, yes, we could use you as a translator. But we all know you're busy so we're looking for someone else who can also do the job but commit themselves a little more. I am not trying to be negative: I am ECSTATIC about your offer to help with this project. I am just saying that I understand that I'm not going to be like "hey, wtf is this, y u no translate?!" if you have other things you want to do.

Sure, that's not a problem. The more the merrier : )

Although, is it alright if I can start bugging you about some technicalities like the new characters' names or My Unit creation?

[Crimson Red]

Well I'm still in school so I can't do too much, but you're free to bring up whatever issues you want.

[VincentASM]

I guess I'll start with the most important one that I can think of. I'd suggest looking into the name input during the My Unit creation as one of the first goals of the project. As you may know, the Japanese version doesn't enable English characters when choosing a name for My Unit, unlike the Wi-Fi teams.

I have a feeling the nameinput folder is where the characters should go, but no clue where they are read from.

[Arch]

I think investing in making a text editing tool would be hugely beneficial. If all the files are structured the same way, we would need a program that automatically decompresses the LZ11 when the file opens, checks the header for pointers to the in-file arrays, reads the arrays to find where the text is stored and which label is associated, then displays the text in an easy-to-edit (FEditorish) way. The program would handle repointing of text for us, and that alone would cut a lot of the time-consuming work out of the project. It could also display Japanese fonts, which is another huge advantage over using a hex editor.

For example, I redid item/weapon names from Blazer's patch, using FE11 precedent, to get a feel for DS text editing. I repointed every item/weapon name in the text file that stores that information, here's the result:

->

On the surface it looks like nothing to write home about, but that was about 2-3 hours of work....

Edited May 16, 2011 by Rodimus Supreme OVERTROLL

[Celice]

Are you guys just porting over preexisting names, or are you going to use actual translations? Barst is blahrdhhfhahds

Most people don't know katakana, nor do they want to learn. There are plenty of people who aren't smart enough to learn it without tons of studying, either.

There's some 40 basic katakana symbols, which are more like ten, once you understand the pattern. You don't even have to take lessons if you're just doing some basic game playing--you just need to familiarize yourself with what means what. It's not learning a whole new language--it's learning how to read English as if it were all shifted into some really base code-language.

It's not Japanese. And it's not hard. I understand people being lazy, but sometimes the fear of moonspeak is just deafening :o

EDIT: oh yeah, one of you two (Arch/Blazer) ported over the prettified sprites from FE12 to FE11--which one of you did that and where's the patch for it? I wanna go back and replay FE11 but its blurry graphics are just sad christmas :(

Edited May 16, 2011 by Celice

[Arch]

EDIT: oh yeah, one of you two (Arch/Blazer) ported over the prettified sprites from FE12 to FE11--which one of you did that and where's the patch for it? I wanna go back and replay FE11 but its blurry graphics are just sad christmas :(

That was I. But unfortunately it was only map sprites, I wanted to port map tiles and face sprites but eventually just lost interest. But nevertheless, here's the patch if you're interested.

[Crimson Red]

There's some 40 basic katakana symbols, which are more like ten, once you understand the pattern. You don't even have to take lessons if you're just doing some basic game playing--you just need to familiarize yourself with what means what. It's not learning a whole new language--it's learning how to read English as if it were all shifted into some really base code-language.

It's not Japanese. And it's not hard. I understand people being lazy, but sometimes the fear of moonspeak is just deafening :o

I feel ya, I learned katakana in like 3 days, but as I said, some people have a hard time dragging ROMs onto files called "DRAG ROM HERE", so I guess I really just don't expect much from people.

@Vincent, I'll look into it, as soon as I get a way to read Japanese text in my hex editor. I just feel that will be beneficial in general.

@Arch, that's a swell idea, but who's going to make said program? Making a program to decompress the text and compress the text that we can just drop it on would be great and not that hard (at least in theory), but a program with a GUI is going to take someone at least moderately skilled. Which isn't me. I guess this is where we'd go skill hunting.

EDIT: I made a dropbox for the translation project. Post or PM me your e-mail so I can invite you (Vincent). Arch and I are already in, and of course I'll invite anyone else who might join the project. Of course this takes some trust on everyone's part, i.e. to trust each other not to do something dumb and like, delete all the files.

Although if that did happen, we should still have copies of edited files in our personal folders. :\

P.S. to accept the dropbox request you have to be on the dropbox site, I think. And the folder is called "FE12Translation".

Edited May 16, 2011 by Luffy

[Celice]

If you get the format all documented and have everything as cleanly organized as possible, you can request someone to code a very simple program from you on sites like ROMhacking.net. Though naturally it's best to just get someone interested in the game, rather than asking for help--once you get their help, they may disappear, and then you might be stuck with a program that isn't exactly fool-proof. Unexpectancies and whatnots.

[the cool guy]

Now while we wait let's try to help Tearring saga in some way...

[Parrhesia]

Are you guys just porting over preexisting names, or are you going to use actual translations? Barst is blahrdhhfhahds

Can I veto this on account of WHY? Barts is arghljgfijgl.

[Feaw]

Celice, do you even understand that not everyone (including me) wants to learn Japanese (or whatever it is, I don't care), or play a game in Japanese when, if they wait a bit, they can play it in English?

I don't care how easy it may be, I just want to play it in english, and so do like 90% of the non-Japanese people.

Your way of thinking is rarely the way other people think, and if you like something or find it easy doesn't necessarily mean someone else likes it and finds it easy, so stop saying people should get into things they don't want to get into.

And why would Barts be better than Barst? If anything I'd say Barst is better since there's already Barth and Bartre in FE, so another Bart name isn't exactly exciting.

[Arch]

I feel like, if Shadow Dragon weren't released in 2008, and if the fandom hadn't already adopted Shadow Dragon's official names, maybe an option patch with the old names might be plausible. But hey, it's been over two years. We should have gotten used to Barst, Caeda, Ogma, etc. by now.

[Crimson Red]

We can easily make alternate patches later, but for now, as to stay consistent with localizations (consisting many ppp don't know the fan translations) well use the official names, or for new characters, the most plausible name (e.g. Catalina, Roro).

[VincentASM]

I suggest being careful with the "plausible" names. Katarina may not be as well-known as Catalina, but it still has almost 20 million search results in Google.

My e-mail is:

aveyn_knight {at} yahoo {dot} co {dot} uk

EDIT

In case you miss it, a member posted the font format for FE11 here, which should be helpful for FE12 (the info there is probably better than anything I can tell you about the font).

Edited May 17, 2011 by VincentASM