VincentASM Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 I didn't want to enter this conversation, but if you need any more reasons to suspect the official Japanese names, you need look no further than the original game involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momo Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Considering the last two became "Gordin" and "Jeorge", I think even the localization team has problems. Also is Asseray supposed to be a different name? I just assumed it was a really dumb sounding one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dondon151 Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 The closest I can think of is "Ashley," but it typically uses different kana, so I don't know what they were intending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anouleth Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 It shows that the "official" romanizations might be flawed. And to think I was sitting here thinking about how perfect and flawless a name Asseray was. Good thing I have people like you around to enlighten me. It shows that while they can be considered, they should be judged solely on their own merits as a name, with no preference given whatsoever on the basis of their being "official". If I think that Mars is a better name than Marth, would that make it acceptable for me to call him Mars in a translation? Not that Malliesia is anywhere near as "official" a name as Marth is, but at the same time, I don't think that a name being the official translation is totally irrelevant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arch Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) If I think that Mars is a better name than Marth, would that make it acceptable for me to call him Mars in a translation? Not that Malliesia is anywhere near as "official" a name as Marth is, but at the same time, I don't think that a name being the official translation is totally irrelevant. Speaking as a civilian (since I'm not part of the translation team anymore), I'd suggest that the translation should unequivocally go with what are official localizations (Marth, Gordin, Jeorge, Lorenz, Draug, Cain, etc.) and be willing (and unafraid) to take liberties with the romanizations in order to give characters sensible names. If someone proposes changing Marth to Mars simply because it's a better name, they're defying the official English localization. If someone proposes changing Malliesia to Malicia, they're simply taking an unofficial English variant of a Japanese name and modifying it to resemble an English name. Anyways, I thought we settled this months ago in the last "great Malliesia debate." Hilarious to see people still causing a fuss. Just let the translators do their jobs, they're all trust-worthy people. Edited February 7, 2012 by Arch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Red Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Just let the translators do their jobs, they're all trust-worthy people. Life is only as simple as people make it, and people would much rather throw their 2 cents in and make a fuss about something if they feel it's an "injustice", no matter how small or inconsequential. Being "trust-worthy" is probably not the problem in the eyes of the people who are arguing names... or else I'm wrong and I need to be corrected. Anyway, if people feel something isn't properly done for whatever reason, then they'll generally speak up against it or take some kind of action so long as 1) there is no fear of being punished for it, 2) there are no major requirements for doing so such as but not limited to money or status, 3) they have the free time to go out of their way to do so, and 4) they think they might have some sort of foreseeable impact by taking said action. For the small portion of people here, they don't think they're going to get punished for speaking out (and they'd probably try to argue against said punishment anyway), they have the time and means (typing a post is pretty easy or else lazy people like me wouldn't do it), and they think they might have some sort of impact because we'll either respond or seem like ignorant people who don't want to do things the right way if we don't respond, and I'd love to feign ignorance of the entire situation itself but it's not in me to be such a blatant coward. Arch, you probably know this because you're smarter than me though that's not saying much, I just like thinking about psychological matters like these so it's more of a humorous moment of rationalizations than anything else (like a lecture, explanation, etc... no, it's not any of those). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Banzai Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I actually brought this up because Othin and I are working on a translation of Berwick Saga and we've had to deal with more than our fair share of similar dilemmas. It seems to me like most fan translations operate with a different set of standards and goals than the Nintendo localization team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celice Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Most fan translations, as far as the romhacking scene goes, want to retain as much as the original tone as is possible. The goal is to bring across the same experience as it was meant to be expressed in its original language. This means, if for example, jokes which only make sense in the original language exist, finding an entertaining joke to fill the space. It does not involve rewriting characters because someone feels the character should be more fleshed out. When there are real reasons where a change is necessary, there's the wiggle room, but no one seriously believes it's an acceptable thing to liberate text because you have the opportunity, as a translator, to do this. Ted Woosley was on a pay roll, and a job, he did it for the work, not the idea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT075 Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) So you're telling me that this: Jeigan: Look, sire, there's a staircase going up! being changed to this: Jagen: Look, sire, there's a staircase going up! constitutes as rewriting the entire character of "that purple-armored paladin from FE1" ? Edited February 7, 2012 by Camtech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Highwind Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) vergiHAHAHAHAHA. They did what Square-Enix did with the DS versions of Dragon Quests--gave various people certain accents and manners of speech. Essentially, they tried to give more persona to the dialog (sometimes breaking the original character or adding new dimensions where none were there before). Things like, 'Come here, we need to patch you up.' become 'You, that's 'orrible! We need to get that 'o mended quicker than'a spaniel!' They took the script and attempted to prettify and substantiate it where it felt a little empty, and to color it with personality. What this led some players to see is text which felt pretty airy, but wasn't really anything more than air--since the original text is still pretty bland and empty to begin with. This is why I'm glad people like Celice don't work for the localization business. Edited February 7, 2012 by Blue Highwind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celice Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 So you're telling me that this: being changed to this: constitutes as rewriting the entire character of "that purple-armored paladin from FE1" ? You're the only one who's suggested that changing the name is "rewriting the entire character" :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Red Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 I actually brought this up because Othin and I are working on a translation of Berwick Saga and we've had to deal with more than our fair share of similar dilemmas. It seems to me like most fan translations operate with a different set of standards and goals than the Nintendo localization team. What you say has some truth to it, and I think it's only natural. We have different personnel, different resources, different perspectives, less training, less formality, probably more bias and objectivity, and naturally different goals--for one, we haven't made a penny off of this project. On the contrary, I've lost money on this. We're also a lot freer since we don't work for a higher authority that we have to answer to. We decide our own methods and regulations but this can turn out good if we use it to our advantage. I won't insult your intelligence by going over the details but fan translations can have good points over official localizations... Fucked up localizations kinda like the exaggerated example Celice posted are proof of that, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anouleth Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 If someone proposes changing Marth to Mars simply because it's a better name, they're defying the official English localization. If someone proposes changing Malliesia to Malicia, they're simply taking an unofficial English variant of a Japanese name and modifying it to resemble an English name. Except that Malicia isn't an english name. Type Malicia in google for me. If you'll notice, the first person that shows up is Instructor Malicia, a World of Warcraft NPC, or at least that's the result I get on google.co.uk. As I recall, it was originally mentioned as being, I think, a brazilian name. It's fine if you think that Malicia is a more attractive name, or if you think it more accurately reflects her personality, but it's not because Malicia is an English name. Anyways, I thought we settled this months ago in the last "great Malliesia debate." Hilarious to see people still causing a fuss. Just let the translators do their jobs, they're all trust-worthy people. Actually, this fuss was kicked up by General Banzai, who came in apparently to ask if you realised that Malliesia wasn't her name. Sadly, he has neglected to use his telepathic link to Shouzou Kaga to tell us idiots what name we should be using. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Banzai Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) I would call her Melissa or some variant form of that name, personally. However, I think that Mallesia isn't an awful choice--certainly better than Malicia (especially with another character named Malice in this game). Reading through interviews, the original Japanese writers, when coming up with names, try to make the names recognizable. Meanwhile, the localization team claims that their goal is to make it so it seems like the game was originally written in English. I think Malliesia fails on both goals; first, by having too many vowels (including an ambiguous dipthong right in the middle), and second, by not resembling an English name at all. And of course people will be quick to point to examples where the localization team seems to do weird things for no reason (Jeorge, Lorenz); but the localization team doing something that nobody liked shouldn't be used as an excuse for us to do the same. Edited February 7, 2012 by General Banzai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Red Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 We've been using Malicia and this has been common knowledge for a while. We're most likely using Maris for the sword girl whose kana I can't remember right now so that they don't interfere amongst other highly thought-out reasons. gg the end Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arch Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) I was recently doing some research into names, since I'm just planning on changing names myself if the team won't establish a better set themselves. Malicia is an accepted name (although HIGHLY uncommon). There's also a modern variant of the name, Melisha, which is itself something of a fusion between Melissa and the "cia" ending. I see Melisha as the best option, personally, a fusion compromise between the totally westernized option and the internal codename option. It's a plausible localization to boot, being the modern variant of the character's internal codename. Edited February 7, 2012 by Arch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Othin Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 (edited) Banzai, we made it one of our priorities to not succumb to the failures of this project, such as wasting time on such disputes. There's no reason for us to make them waste more time. And get in the Google Docs. Edited February 7, 2012 by Othin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Red Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Banzai, we made it one of our priorities to not succumb to the failures of this project, such as wasting time on such disputes. There's no reason for us to make them waste more time. I just lol'd SOOOOOOOOOO hard that it's worth a separate post to point out how funny I thought it was Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT075 Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) You're the only one who's suggested that changing the name is "rewriting the entire character" :) .... It does not involve rewriting characters because someone feels the character should be more fleshed out. Maybe I'm just interpreting context wrong but that's what it sounds like to me, pretty much. Edited February 8, 2012 by Camtech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dondon151 Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 oh look another imminent tantrum from blazer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celice Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) Maybe I'm just interpreting context wrong but that's what it sounds like to me, pretty much. The name of the character is a far toss from his personality in the game, how he responds to certain stimuli the player or the game puts the character in, and how that character affects other characters. Rewriting the character would be, this team decided to make him more arrogant because they felt "it was appealing to the audience," which is a haughty step outside translating text. It's malforming it with new properties, just as Arch hinted at doing with making Malliesia more of a prostitute promiscuous, impish character--traits which don't really exist, and which he interpreted on his own, effectively remodeling the character from what she originally was. Unless "rewriting characters" to you suffices to mean all of their character lies solely in a name .-. (which, to be sure, for some characters, it does! But Jeigan is hardly that) Edited February 8, 2012 by Celice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT075 Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) -lecture- Well see thing is I know that. What I'm wondering is why you felt the need to point out that rewriting characters is not to be condoned when (as far as I can tell) nobody has suggested anything in the slightest. Unless I'm just misinterpreting you by taking your infinite wisdom and applying it in context instead of using a more open 'objective' view that applies to any current, past and/or future discussion we may have. Edited February 8, 2012 by Camtech Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Othin Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) Tim O'Leary: Sure. Take the character of Bastian, who, while not a main character does have a lot of speech. We had to do a lot of work with his character. The way he spoke in the original Japanese version just didn't translate here. So I took and made him this sort of type character, if you read through his text you'll see that it's all in Iambic pentameter. That's an example of taking the character and making them adapt, at the core the character is still the same character and fills the example.Rich Amtower: There's no way to convey that character (Bastian), there's no way to convey what that character's speech means, a lot of that character's speech was cultural assumption, so instead of a straight translation, we have to remap it culturally. Iambic pentameter immediately calls up things to mind, even that subtle nudge pushes things in the right direction. Edited February 8, 2012 by Othin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Celice Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Well see thing is I know that. What I'm wondering is why you felt the need to point out that rewriting characters is not to be condoned when (as far as I can tell) nobody has suggested anything in the slightest. Unless I'm just misinterpreting you by taking your infinite wisdom and applying it in context instead of using a more open 'objective' view that applies to any current, past and/or future discussion we may have. Taking it from the absolute context available, it was a reply to Othin's post about what fan translations seem to him to be. You don't need a quote/quote to make that connection .____. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Red Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 @dondon151 if only I saw your post 6 minutes later it would have been the funniest post of the day. and the only nominee at that Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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