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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.991)

« on: 2021-08-26 07:01:16 »

I had a couple minutes to actually do some research, let me know if this sounds about right:

• I use Makou Reactor for most of the heavy lifting. The most absolute braindead implementation of TL notes would be to put {CHOICE} dialogue boxes asking users if they'd like to see a TL note or not, but I'm not a fan of it long-term.
• I point Makou Reactor at flevel.lgp on a NT 2.0 patched PC installation of the game.
• To test how stuff is working in-game I can use a Trainer of some kind, I saw Ochu 3.4 which allows saving anywhere. I haven't actually tested if this works with NT, but I'll get around to testing that tomorrow. Otherwise, do you have a recommendation for being able to save/load anywhere for testing convenience? I'm sure you've gone through it a ton... emulator save-state style functionality would be amazing.
• I can use toughScript to dump to plain text files which I can then clean up a little for my own plain text releases / versioning.
• For distribution, a 7th Heaven iro file is probably best.

I'm testing out Makou Reactor now with some basic naive edits and it seems to work like a charm. I'll mess with stuff a little more tomorrow.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.991)

« on: 2021-08-26 00:15:01 »

I think I'm supposed to be making a version of NT with The Reunion's translation work transplanted into it, but I'd personally find a literal translation from the Japanese quite interesting so if you're wanting to do that then I can offer assistance with tools or questions if needed. A Japanese version of NT would be really interesting as well, but I feel I should warn you that either project would likely be a lot of work. The game contains a lot of text and it'd be a big time commitment to see even one project like that through let alone two.

I'm not sure how things would work with getting a japanese character set into the game though, mind. There are Japanese releases for FF7 on PC (Japanese Steam has one for instance) but I've never gotten the opportunity to have a look at the files for them.

Ah, yeah, we'd probably run into encoding issues. Wonder how tough that'd be. Well, in any case, we can focus on the English TL for now.

Yeah, I realize this would be a lot of work, I can't 100% say whether or not I'd truly see it through until I get a feel for the workflow and get started, but I'm not a stranger to translating RPGs with massive amounts of text. It'd probably take me quite awhile, but FF7 is timeless, so even if it takes a couple years and perhaps I have to deal with NT version ups, I'd still be willing to sit down and try it.

I'd love it if you could point me to a place to get me started on text insertion, in terms of tools and perhaps any tips/recommended workflows you've developed. Getting off the ground is usually the hardest part so any assistance there would be highly appreciated; then I'd probably be in contact about stuff while I'm working on it...

Like right off the bat I'd have to ask if you can think of any novel/interesting/easy ways to implement translation notes without them being obnoxiously inserted in the middle of a dialogue box. There are a few initial thoughts I have, such as putting an indicator at the end of the line that signals "this line has a TL note"... then either pressing a special button to open new dialogue boxes, or just having an external reference PDF or whatever. Anyways I completely lack any FF7 modding experience so yeah, there's a lot to learn, but that's OK.

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Releases / Re: [FF7PC-98/Steam] New Threat Mod (v2.0.991)

« on: 2021-08-25 21:44:05 »

Thank you Sega Chief for your work on creating this mod. I think you have done an incredible job in making one of my favorite story-based games have engaging gameplay as well. It boosts FF7 up from a nostalgia fueled soft recommend to easily one of my favorite games of all time. It's hard for me to overstate how much I love this.

I do have one question, though. I must admit that the translation is not my cup of tea. This isn't due to NT's script changes (I think most of those were handled pretty well), I am simply not a huge fan of some of the character depictions and line TLs in the original FF7 localization. I am aware that you were not going for a re-translation in your work, so I am not appealing to you to do anything about this. However, I am wondering if you would be open to someone else (me) re-translating the script based on the original Japanese text?

I would do a literal, but readable translation focused on accuracy to the original Japanese script. I would base this off of NT 2.0, because I really love NT and I'd prefer to work on this over the original. It would take me some time to complete, as I have a lot going on and I'm a slow translator, but I would like to take a crack at it. I think it would be appealing to people who prefer scripts that lean less towards localization, as well as perhaps to the handful of people out there that do FF7 character analysis in the western world, as they'd have a source to reference which is closer to the original writing (I'd probably release the whole script in some plain text file too). But again I must stress, this would be mainly for people who prefer less localized TLs when actually playing.
In the process, if no one else is working on it, I'd probably also "translate" NT to Japanese, aka stick all the original FF7 lines into NT and then translate the NT-specific stuff into Japanese.

In my experience, literal translations of Japanese media are a really touchy subject to some, so I want to make a couple things extra clear: I love your work on the game, and the script, and I am not trying in any way to detract from that. The NT additions to the dialogue are fitting and appropriate given their context and I think you executed it well. Secondly, this is not my first rodeo, I come from the old fansubbing world and I've done significant work on some other game hack TLs in the past.

Anyways, I've already taken a look at some of the other translation projects for NT to different languages and I think they are cool, I would basically be mimic'ing their workflow.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, my work would focus on New Threat Type A clearly, as it is the one with the Japanese source text to look at.

there a very few games i ever played that i wish didnt end yet after finishing it, this was 1 of them, thats why i asked about the extra content
...valkyrie profile 2 and re2 remake being the others

(hell yes, vp2 is the best game ever, man)