Umineko Project

So I tried the latest update and I just want to say absolutely great job. If you guys release all of the episodes I will definitely be donating. Few things/questions though:

1. This is an onscripter fork right. Is it possible to decompile the script files with the same tools that you can use to decompile nscript.dat in a copy of the normal game?

2. In the very beginning of episode one when first Battler first talks to George while they're waiting for the plane the background suddenly changes to the outside one, and then back inside when Eva starts talking. I believe this is an error.

3. Also in the very beginning of episode one, the game says "Since the Ushiromiya cousins consist of two boys and thee girls" but the original Japanese as well as the Witch-Hunt translation say two boys and two girls. Aren't you guys using the Witch Hunt translation?

Hi! Thank you for your warm words. We will surely release all the episodes with time, just that's quite a long-lasting project due to its complexity and team busyness. Stay tuned for updates, we will roll episode 3α out very soon. We are pleased to hear our work is valued by the audience, but as stated in the FAQ we don't and won't accept the donations. We have reasons for that, don't worry about our motivation: it is as strong as ever

As for your first question, why would you need to decompile these shameful code snippets ? For example, if you are willing to insert a different translation, you would rather ask us directly at a later step. At this moment neither the script, nor the translation are complete for any of the episodes (though they are very very close), and we may not want people attempt any actions. Speaking of technical details, the packing is slightly different, since we have to update the scripts regularly, we compress them for faster delivery.

Regarding your second question, are you talking about these backgrounds?

[+] Spoiler

Снимок экрана 2015-11-24 в 15.09.09.png (1.34 MiB) Viewed 10517 times

Снимок экрана 2015-11-24 в 15.09.17.png (1.3 MiB) Viewed 10517 times

If so, I might not understand what the error is. To my eyes Battler and George are heading to the airport, which is implied by the first background of a second half situated farther from the building. They talk in front of the entrance for a little bit, and then go inside where they have a talk with the rest. PS3 does have some background mistakes, in episode 1 in particular, and we have fixed them; however, I cannot find any mistake in this exact scene.

Reason wrote:3. Also in the very beginning of episode one, the game says "Since the Ushiromiya cousins consist of two boys and thee girls" but the original Japanese as well as the Witch-Hunt translation say two boys and two girls. Aren't you guys using the Witch Hunt translation?

We are editing the WH translation to improve the translation quality (in terms of both errors and style) and update the lines to the versions used by PS3.

This particular line was changed between the Japanese versions of PC and PS3,

[+] Spoiler

to include Ange -- the three girls are Jessica, Maria, and Ange.

The original line:
右代宮のいとこは男２人、女２人なので、兄貴とはいっつも一緒に遊んでた。
PS3:
右代宮のいとこは男２人、女３人なので、兄貴とはいっつも一緒に遊んでた。

For a while thought you guys died. God bless you're still alive.
I guess I'll patiently wait for next chap. Hope the forum will revive by then.

vit9696 wrote:
As for your first question, why would you need to decompile these shameful code snippets ? For example, if you are willing to insert a different translation, you would rather ask us directly at a later step. At this moment neither the script, nor the translation are complete for any of the episodes (though they are very very close), and we may not want people attempt any actions. Speaking of technical details, the packing is slightly different, since we have to update the scripts regularly, we compress them for faster delivery.

Regarding your second question, are you talking about these backgrounds?

[+] Spoiler

Снимок экрана 2015-11-24 в 15.09.09.png

Снимок экрана 2015-11-24 в 15.09.17.png

If so, I might not understand what the error is. To my eyes Battler and George are heading to the airport, which is implied by the first background of a second half situated farther from the building. They talk in front of the entrance for a little bit, and then go inside where they have a talk with the rest. PS3 does have some background mistakes, in episode 1 in particular, and we have fixed them; however, I cannot find any mistake in this exact scene.

I asked about the scripts because I was curious how your fork would display Japanese text as you guys must have done some cool stuff to get the text to display how it does. It's not a big deal though.

And about the airport scene oh I see. I remembered incorrectly. I had thought they spoke inside in the original game.

Knox wrote:

Reason wrote:3. Also in the very beginning of episode one, the game says "Since the Ushiromiya cousins consist of two boys and thee girls" but the original Japanese as well as the Witch-Hunt translation say two boys and two girls. Aren't you guys using the Witch Hunt translation?

We are editing the WH translation to improve the translation quality (in terms of both errors and style) and update the lines to the versions used by PS3.

This particular line was changed between the Japanese versions of PC and PS3,

[+] Spoiler

to include Ange -- the three girls are Jessica, Maria, and Ange.

The original line:
右代宮のいとこは男２人、女２人なので、兄貴とはいっつも一緒に遊んでた。
PS3:
右代宮のいとこは男２人、女３人なので、兄貴とはいっつも一緒に遊んでた。

Oh I see that's interesting. So R07 made a mistake or just originally decided to leave Ange out of the count then.

I'm curious about some other differences. For the line in episode 2, during the chapel incident, when Rosa says "真里亞、その気持ち悪い声で笑うのをやめなさいっていつも言ってるでしょッ！" Witch-Hunt has this as "Maria, don't I always tell you not to laugh with that creepy voice!" and the updated game has "Maria, how many times have I told you to stop laughing in that creepy voice".

In this case I believe Witch-Hunt's line is correct because Rosa is not using any past tense. She's saying "言ってるでしょッ！" which I believe has an "aren't I always telling you" feel and not a "how many times have I told you" feel.

Not to nitpick or anything.

Reason wrote:I'm curious about some other differences. For the line in episode 2, during the chapel incident, when Rosa says "真里亞、その気持ち悪い声で笑うのをやめなさいっていつも言ってるでしょッ！" Witch-Hunt has this as "Maria, don't I always tell you not to laugh with that creepy voice!" and the updated game has "Maria, how many times have I told you to stop laughing in that creepy voice".

In this case I believe Witch-Hunt's line is correct because Rosa is not using any past tense. She's saying "言ってるでしょッ！" which I believe has an "aren't I always telling you" feel and not a "how many times have I told you" feel.

Not to nitpick or anything.

Don't worry about that... the key is to nitpick in the right places

Yes, this WH line was literally accurate since it is present tense and it does have "always (いつも)" in the line. This was a stylistic change and not a "this is technically an incorrect translation" change.

Firstly, WH's original line has a bit of "literal translation syndrome". It uses the "always" and the tense directly, unthinkingly, without regard to the resulting tone of the English, or how natural or common the resulting English line is. I just Googled "don't I always tell you not to" and found that there are only 2 pages of results (ignore the incorrect result count...), and 7 of the results are themselves from fan translations of Japanese works.
"How many times have I told you" is vastly more common (even appearing 35 times in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) vs. 0 for WH's.)

Secondly, regarding the tone, it originally lacked "angry punch" to me. "How many times have I told" feels firmly like a lecture or angry criticism, which could very well be directed at a child, and I can feel annoyance in the line. With your suggestion and WH's original, they both feel a little more clunky and verbose, and sound more like they would be used in a well-spoken and calm reminder or advice. It's not just about matching tense, but tone as well.

I can definitely see an argument for a different wording, but my main point is: for lines like this, they should be made based on your feelings of how the tone of the line matches up to the tone of the original, and not based on the strict tense or grammatical structure, because that's less important than it seems, especially for speech. That's what I've learned over many years as a translator

Hey, how about "Maria, I keep telling you to stop laughing in that creepy voice!" or "Maria, I keep telling you not to laugh in that creepy voice!"? Those seem good in both tone and tense. Do you like either of them?

We have a thread (which is currently empty on the β forums) for this kind of thing by the way

I see. Thank you for the response. So that's an example of one of the tone changes you guys are doing. I didn't know you were going for the non-literal approach so I assumed it was a mistake.

That's interesting though. I mean the line you use is up to you guys as it's your project, so you and your team should pick the line you feel is best. Although Witch-Hunt's version vs this version is kind of subjective as long as it's held to high standards and still accurate I don't think people will mind the translation updates.

Though perhaps you could leave a note in the FAQ for the occasional person who gets confused over the line differences.