VN Ren'Py Abandoned Ecchi Sensei [Day 22-23 Final] [BlueCat]

[Blackdragon0083]

Whatever Blue used though actually came out better than Latecomer, for the most part, and QA on the translation can be done during the usual Alpha and Beta periods. He can extend the Alpha and Beta for a week or two if he feels that could help. If Skummy is right about his writing habits, then he's never going to get a translator to take on this job without a significant pay raise, and I'm not sure the Patreon money is going to be able to cover that.

This is probably the only option open to him at the moment, and it's honestly not even a bad one. He either uses MTL, or Ecchi Sensei just doesn't come out. New Content may not equate to better quality, but New Content prevents this game from dying.

The problem with games that use MTL, is that most of them are first time devs, working alone, with no Alpha or Beta. Ecchi Sensei doesn't have to worry about that. It's still in a pretty decent position to make use of MTL without compromising the quality. Despite the constant shit talking, most of the people here would chip in on the QA to put an end to this drought of content. No one bitches and moans about something this much if they aren't invested. If the content comes, they'll eat it up.

I really couldn't agree more, the MTL does look better then the previous work in most areas anyways, so it may not be as good as this hypothetical professional translator the game may one day receive. It IS for the most part a quality improvement with a knock on effect of increasing turn around time and reducing work load from the deliverables of the past.

As much as we joke about how ever entertaining the drama is here, the cold hard reality is most of us here bitching are not doing it to shit on the game, we are doing it because we ARE intensely frustrated fans that actively want to see the product succeed, we are the people still passionate enough to give a shit about what bluecat wans to make and rather then doing what he can to support what little passion is left in his "Magnium Opis" he jerks us around obfuscates everything, refuses to talk, refuses community provided solutions to problems, and refuses to ever show proof of work, all the while hiding behind skummy like a human shield.

If he was honest he would have ether show something to the community to back up his claims, or he wouldn't have hide status updates behind a pay wall. or he would change his Patrion to extract money on release delivery rather then monthly if he was not confident that he could release an update on a timely manner. Any one of these things would have restored some amount of credibility.

the reality is is ether by intention, incompetency, or cowardice bluecat is continually choosing every option that disrespects the people who care about what he is trying to make, as well as those who care enough to trade there life's labor on the increasingly vain hope that he will release an update one day. all at a time all of us are hurting and its only getting worse. its enough to make me a little irate.

 

[Wafflewaffuru]

The problem with games that use MTL, is that most of them are first time devs, working alone, with no Alpha or Beta. Ecchi Sensei doesn't have to worry about that. It's still in a pretty decent position to make use of MTL without compromising the quality. Despite the constant shit talking, most of the people here would chip in on the QA to put an end to this drought of content. No one bitches and moans about something this much if they aren't invested. If the content comes, they'll eat it up.

I mean that's fair, but do you think he has enough backers in the native english speaking community tiered high enough to go through and alpha and beta, and have them critique the quality? He's obviously not going to reach out to a pirating community to ask us to quality control it before putting it out for public.

With the exception of example 3, I find the machine did a better job, better adjectives and verbs. imo
Looking at the samples posted above, it seems Machine translation has got better sense I last experienced it.
I'm also a fellow german fan and have to say, LC's translation is crap. He translated word for word, one thing that also german english teachers don't approve. Most basic mistake. The MTL is WAY better and is as close to the german text as it can be to make sense.

3 was something interesting for sure, idk. I'm not a german speaker myself, I just know that MTL more often than not doesn't make sense. But he really doesn't have many options available to him. I can't speak for anyone I just don't think MTL is exactly the best option. There could be others we just don't know about, but he did say in the thing you shared that if it comes down to it he will use MTL. I just more often than not have an awful experience when it comes to MTL. Hotsprings academy is a good example of a popularish game that just has dogshit MTL that doesn't make sense.

 

[RandoCard3]

I mean that's fair, but do you think he has enough backers in the native english speaking community tiered high enough to go through and alpha and beta, and have them critique the quality? He's obviously not going to reach out to a pirating community to ask us to quality control it before putting it out for public.

Yes, and once he's back to consistent updates, he'll have more.

That's not really relevant though, because as far as I can tell, it's the only option available to him. He either needs to move forward with this, or he is actively letting the project fail.

Besides, he doesn't actually need to reach out to the pirate community. The Alpha/Beta will probably leak, and as long as the Feedback channel remains open to everyone, people will point out bugs and any awkward translation issues.

Be honest with me here. Does Blue, Latecomer, Skummy or you have a better alternative to the MLT? Or any alternative?

 

[Wafflewaffuru]

Yes, and once he's back to consistent updates, he'll have more.

That's not really relevant though, because as far as I can tell, it's the only option available to him. He either needs to move forward with this, or he is actively letting the project fail.

Besides, he doesn't actually need to reach out to the pirate community. The Alpha/Beta will probably leak, and as long as the Feedback channel remains open to everyone, people will point out bugs and any awkward translation issues.

Be honest with me here. Does Blue, Latecomer, Skummy or you have a better alternative to the MLT? Or any alternative?

I legitimately don't know the answer to that. Only bluecat, and the others do. I'm not trying to speak for them, nor defend them. I'm just playing the devil's advocate because people here are quick to shill on devs for things they don't know or understand.

 

[___abbas___]

What the hell happened here ?!!!
I remember playing the last update a year ago and saying what a lovely game, I can't wait for the upcoming updates and I forgot about it only when I was cleaning my pc and found it again I said oh man it has been a year I wonder what this gem turned out to be only to come here and see this circus. Countless arguments, the community that once loved him so much is grilling him and sadly the game that bluecat always described as his baby is dying.
So can someone please explain what happened throughout this year or refer me to a post that does?

 

[Deleted member 3482284]

Skummy takes the vague statements from bluecat, and expands them to make it seem like more is going on. When nothings happening. Everything that skummy has said has turned out to be false. Which is what PR is built upon; spinning stories and deflecting. His biggest mistake was openly admitting he was doing that. It was a pretty stupid thing to do

I legitimately don't know the answer to that. Only bluecat, and the others do. I'm not trying to speak for them, nor defend them. I'm just playing the devil's advocate because people here are quick to shill on devs for things they don't know or understand.

Playing bluecats advocate has no benefit to anybody

Maybe if you were playing these games with people a year ago, your reasons would seem convincing for a few. But they seem pretty dense (Understatement) after an 18 month delay. There's only so much time that can pass before every excuse is worn out. Playing games with people is just a waste of time

 

[sklttles]

They died to coronavirus move on to the next game

 

[Soulpuppet]

Well just think everyone. In a couple weeks this will be marked as abandoned here unless BC gets a game update out, not a patreon post with some more BS on why there is no update. Then BC can finally just keep doing what they're doing now without any type of effort to "update" his community

 

[DoverDad]

Well just think everyone. In a couple weeks this will be marked as abandoned here unless BC gets a game update out, not a patreon post with some more BS on why there is no update. Then BC can finally just keep doing what they're doing now without any type of effort to "update" his community

Hate to burst your bubble but he is active on discord as well he posts shit on the 28th of Feb meaning it won't get the ab tag

 

[Dukez]

There is more:
View attachment 1701902
Plan A ... are we back to waiting on the merge?
That question was asked. And the answer:
View attachment 1701908

You know, It's probably been said before but BlueCat is a very poor businessman. You would think he would acknowledge his dwindling paying customers over time and think about releasing some substantial information to try and get those people back who left.

Also, can I shit on him for a second? That's not even Plan C, It's Plan D.

Plan A = original merge with all features
Plan B = merge with some features dropped
Plan C = merge on hold / worked on separately, new content made in a separate project to put something out.
Plan D = New content in separate project getting translated through MTL instead of a person.

So his lost even within his own plans, but can he use some critical fucking thinking for once and acknowledge Plan "C" will never work because it's translated by the guy who's working on PLAN A. Plan D could proceed without Latecomers help whatso-fucking-ever because he doesn't need to do shit, much like he already does for this game.

To sum it up... there is no Plan B etc put in motion because BlueCat just made it abundantly clear it's Plan A or nothing and all this MTL talk, dropping features was only a distraction to get away from the original and still very much only plan, the full original merge.

Who knows if it'll come out, but it'll be 100 years too late if it ever gets "finished".

Also @ Skummy, the unpaid fan / "friend" of BlueCat with the self appointed PR role as if they were paid, if you still can't acknowledge how BlueCat has fucked us, you, everyone around on purpose with lies and deceit I have no nice words for you, they would even be appropriate given this community but I'll leave them out.

 

[Soulpuppet]

Hate to burst your bubble but he is active on discord as well he posts shit on the 28th of Feb meaning it won't get the ab tag

No. It's been stated that if there isn't a game update by April it will be marked as abandoned. 18months without a game update=abandoned. So no you aren't bursting my bubble. What he posted wasn't a game update, it was dev "update".

 

[DoverDad]

No. It's been stated that if there isn't a game update by April it will be marked as abandoned. 18months without a game update=abandoned. So no you aren't bursting my bubble. What he posted wasn't a game update, it was dev "update".

It's that the case about time but we c won't we if it gets AB tag or not but normally if dev is active on Patreon or subscribe star or discord then it usually won't get the Ab tag even if it is a shity dev note.

 

[Deleted member 3482284]

It's that the case about time but we c won't we if it gets AB tag or not but normally if dev is active on Patreon or subscribe star or discord then it usually won't get the Ab tag even if it is a shity dev note.

Yeah, except it'll be one and a half years worth of shitty dev notes. It's gone on for too long

 

[OctoSky]

Hmmm....wonder if they put the character cards back into the merge? After all, it didn't come out in 2021 without them. Did they say fuck it and put them back?
Asking the real questions here.

 

[RandoCard3]

Hmmm....wonder if they put the character cards back into the merge? After all, it didn't come out in 2021 without them. Did they say fuck it and put them back?
Asking the real questions here.

MTL would actually chop a good portion of the work on those down, I would think. So, it's more possible than it previously was, maybe. Of course, if the MTL doesn't happen neither does anything else, so who knows.

 

[Blackdragon0083]

What the hell happened here ?!!!
I remember playing the last update a year ago and saying what a lovely game, I can't wait for the upcoming updates and I forgot about it only when I was cleaning my pc and found it again I said oh man it has been a year I wonder what this gem turned out to be only to come here and see this circus. Countless arguments, the community that once loved him so much is grilling him and sadly the game that bluecat always described as his baby is dying.
So can someone please explain what happened throughout this year or refer me to a post that does?

Reposting my old answer to this and updating it to fit new info.

Here is the long and short: The merge was announced. initially, BC gave updates regularly on Patrion, there were somewhat unknown complications but work progressed and positivity was high. Months dragged on, excuses mounted, promises were made promises were broken, then months turned to years. He locked his update posts behind a paywall, Every month it's a new excuse for why the merge is not done and no one has seen any actual proof of progress at any point. a month or two ago, a member named Dukez did their own merge in about 8 hours, it was a hack job but a proof of concept that to achieve a baseline of what we want is not that hard. Nonetheless, so a fan-made merge does exist and you can find it linked here if you look for it. this showed us there is a lot more going on here than simply merging things together or no work at all has been done.

At last report, the merge has been abandoned after a 2-year delay with no work to show for it and supposedly they will be releasing the next few days of game content independent of the merge but that magically came into issues too, I think it's translators now? It's hard to keep up with the latest excuse of the week.

but then there are statements by blue cat that now latecomer his chief translator and his coder are going to continue to work on the merge while BC himself starts work on the next update. then due to a lack of interested translators that new update is dead in the water. so the community asked him to just use machine translation he said it might be crap and should examples of latecomers translation and MTL next to each other and put it to a vote, the community overwhelmingly said the MTL looked better then the translation from his coder (who may have just been using google translate all along), when asked if he was going to go forward with MTL and get the update out BC said he is refusing to use MTL and will continue to tread water hoping a translator interested in his game comes along one day and that if people want to know the status of the game and whats delaying it he will only tell people that pay him money to do so. the community is pressing him to explain why he is refusing and once again to show proof of work and receiving only silence.

A bit ago Octosky assembled a combination of statements from BC that were contradictory and pressed Skummy ecchi (the supposed PR representative of BC's company) for some tangible proof that development happened. this set off a bit of a firestorm and a tonal shift of this place from amusement and cynicism to genuine anger. Rather than present said proof he apparently stepped away from his role and decided to no longer act as a shield and add fuel to the fire.

This week most everyone seems to truly have had enough and are now calling this a scam. at this point, most people watch this tread for the slow-burn drama. The forum has become ironically more entertaining than any update the game itself could provide.

As a personal note, it's a shame, this game for all its flaws is what got me into independent porn VNs, it was my first one. And without it, I never would have found some of the truly great titles I enjoy to this day I have been hoping for a merger and a continuation for 2 years now and at this point I am just accepting that it's not gonna happen.

 

[Blackdragon0083]

Hmmm....wonder if they put the character cards back into the merge? After all, it didn't come out in 2021 without them. Did they say fuck it and put them back?
Asking the real questions here.

you know as well as i that he almost certainly did.

MTL would actually chop a good portion of the work on those down, I would think. So, it's more possible than it previously was, maybe. Of course, if the MTL doesn't happen neither does anything else, so who knows.

Ohh your right, just another reason to go MTL.

 

[Skalli]

3 was something interesting for sure, idk. I'm not a german speaker myself, I just know that MTL more often than not doesn't make sense. But he really doesn't have many options available to him. I can't speak for anyone I just don't think MTL is exactly the best option. There could be others we just don't know about, but he did say in the thing you shared that if it comes down to it he will use MTL. I just more often than not have an awful experience when it comes to MTL. Hotsprings academy is a good example of a popularish game that just has dogshit MTL that doesn't make sense.

How good a MTL is depends a lot on the two languages translated between gets. Services like Deepl are very good for languages like English/German. I've tested it a bit when it was released out of curiosity, translated news articles and was surprised by the quality. There were very few errors and just a few things where some touching up was needed. In the examples posted earlier in this thread the chunky english is the result of grammatical errors/weird expressions in German. They were also translated accurately, e.g. the same mistake made in German appeared that way in the English MTL.

A friend of mine translates French texts for her company, she's not a translator but it's part of her tasks. She also uses services like Deepl and just touches up a bit on the results.

Seriously, in the examples posted the English is as good as the German.

If you're curious, go to deepl.com, grab some random German text and throw it into the translator and see how good the result of the translation is.

Also, can I shit on him for a second? That's not even Plan C, It's Plan D.

Plan A = original merge with all features
Plan B = merge with some features dropped
Plan C = merge on hold / worked on separately, new content made in a separate project to put something out.
Plan D = New content in separate project getting translated through MTL instead of a person.

I would go as far and say it's Plan E. Because Plan D was to hire other translators instead of having Latecomer do the work. But all 6 of them were enthusiastic but jumped ship when the work was due...


On that note, it's been a while since the use of MTL was proposed, if they had just gone with it at that point, test it on the next day, it should be finished by now, right? They could just release that version as an Alpha so we can see the MTL in action. If they were serious about releasing they should have something now.
I guess it's in this state of limbo where they WANT to finish the project, but can't give up on it yet, but motivation is down so there's no to little progress. I've been there too and it took half a year to finally admit to myself that a project was dead. I've seen it in other projects too. Usually there will be no announcement, the communication just gets worse and worse and at some point there is complete silence.

I mean, right before Christmas they announced some progress and again to show something soon. (The thing with the plans.) When new year came and they were asked about it, they admitted no progress because of vacation period. If one announces to work on something and right after that takes two weeks of, that calls for no motivation to me.

 

[OctoSky]

I stopped ignoring you after we reached a truce, I just also don't care enough to answer the questions

I'm an asshole, and I figured it better to shut the hell up rather than be banned for getting into too many fights, but yeah I'm highly restricted as to what I can say, and I have limitations on what I can influence Bluecat to do.

My assholery does not end on here, I can also be a dick on Discord, especially about shitpost memes about the delays :3

Hey Skummy, I got a question that is not hindered by your limitations..or at least it shouldn't be but if it is than you are being tied down and gagged by Blue.

The merge has been in development for almost 2 years. Bluecat or Latecomer, not sure, uses the github. My question is this: Why can't Latecomer or Bluecat tell people in a post how much percentage is done?

Its not new content but already existing, meaning that if they don't add anything to it the total amount of stuff stays the same. So, why can't Latecomer or Bluecat just give a 30%? Or 40%. Or just say something like "We've merged weeks 1 and 2 and are now working on 3"? Pretty sure this is not something that is in your "do not speak of" folder, or it is, what the fuck do I know.

 

[opiex942]

The merge has been in development for almost 2 years. Bluecat or Latecomer, not sure, uses the github. My question is this: Why can't Latecomer or Bluecat tell people in a post how much percentage is done?

Because when people started bringing up the git-lab channel and asking why it wasn't getting updated, they realized that it was a way to keep track of what work, if any, was being done. Also raising the possibility of people doing what they do with other VNs where devs are more transparent about what they're doing and interpreting the data available to figure out how much is being done and what's left. And if we're all right and they've done a grand total of barely anything for the past 16 months...that would be bad.

Also, I remember being told by Skummy to shut the fuck up about the git-lab channel and that it wasn't important a while back so, I wouldn't hold my breath for an answer.