I noticed that this is published by xseed. Having just started the Ys IV (english patch & dub) I have to wonder if Ys Origins uses any of Nightwolve's translation. They're pretty much one and the same, aren't they? Ys IV and Origins.
As mentioned, "Ys IV: Dawn of Ys" and "Ys Origin" are completely different stories/games and were produced by different teams. The base story/script for Ys games originates with Falcom's internal staff, but with "Ys IV: Dawn of Ys," Hudson Soft took a lot of liberties with it after licensing. In the case of "Ys IV: Mask of the Sun," which was licensed to Tonkin House for development, the story didn't deviate from what Falcom had prescribed which is why it's mostly considered canon and "Dawn of Ys" isn't (If memory serves me correctly in all that). Incidentally, "Dawn of Ys" is far superior to the SNES "Mask of the Sun" version, and that's not just NEC fanboyism talking!
noticed that this is published by xseed - wonder if Ys Origins uses any of Nightwolve's translation.
The other aspect that you raised here is unlicensed fan translation work that I was involved in and XSEED's later use of it... Well, I got a lot to say about that as it turns out. Interesting coincidence...
But first, to correct a common misconception: my labor or role in fan translation projects is that of producer/project leader/programmer, etc. I don't know Japanese and am not responsible for actually converting it to English. I'm sure you're familiar with Gideon Zhi and his
http://agtp.romhack.net/ efforts. Same kind of thing with me. You can consider him a MAJOR producer of SNES fan translation patches (
there's nobody quite like him in terms of volume!) and you'll mostly only ever know his alias; you won't know any of his translators or other programmers, etc. He winds up getting most of the credit in the general sense because of his role in organizing/managing projects, running the website, handling actual patch creation, marketing, distribution, etc., but he doesn't read/speak any Japanese AFAIK as that is somebody else's role! Also, because most patch consumers don't bother reading the ReadMe's, they'll never know anyone else involved in the project beyond him, etc.
So, back to my case, when it came to Ys fan translation projects, the final or main translator that I wound up working with the most, right up to "Ys Origin," is DeuceBag or "The Flasher
TM" (AKA Jeff Nussbaum) who turned out to be a criminal as I will explain. But yeah, most of the time it was a 2-man team (programmer+translator), but others like MP83 would help with image editing and so forth, etc. Where I could find help with the small, needed tasks, I would.
To the point, they're not "my" translations per se, neither morally or legally, but I made them possible via my time/labor and software, AND, neither are they "his" translations either in a legal sense - morally, yes, it's his writing, but what's being done here is the conversion of a Falcom copyrighted story/script from one language to another without licensing/permission, so *nobody* in a fan translation team gains *legal* ownership of the translated results. It would be like, say, plagiarism to do so. Copyright law is technically being violated, and it's referred to as right-of-translation infringement, or, in the general sense, infringing on the rights of the copyright holder (Falcom, in this case).
Now, the legal ownership aspect is an important point because that's being used to disqualify what I refer to as my "step 1" labor from counting and to justify having cheated me (
as XSEED/DeuceBag did), what I call "The XSEED XCISE" - The fact that DeuceBag handed over 4 translated scripts to XSEED (Felghana, Ys I&II Complete, and Ys Origin) that were translated under my system and thanks to my script extraction/preparation labor, and that he got 100% of the credit, 100% of the profit, was never seen or heard from again relative to me (
not for 3 years, not till last month, which was just to threaten me with a "hush" lawsuit right after I REALLY went public with this story!!), etc. That first deal with Felghana was done entirely in secret, DeuceBag had not a word to say to me afterwards, and yeah, never again until last month, 3 years later... What he did was essentially sneak into the
MS Access database of my Translation Station software, create a 2-column query (Japanese text in Column A, English text in Column B) and export it to Excel as XSEED had requested. XSEED works in Excel sheets for script translations,
here's an example from the XSEED blog (
Original Source).
This disqualification technique selectively reduces the definition of labor to "typing" - I mean, essentially, that's what it does. The "final product" that was given to XSEED came in the form of a 2 column Excel file, the Japanese text that I gave to DeuceBag in Column A, and the English text that he typed in column B (
both columns were needed to do find & replace on script files). So having said that, the "technique" goes something like this: I, NightWolve, didn't type the Japanese text, Falcom did, I just extracted it and built software around it to get it translated, while DeuceBag typed all of the English text (so that's
his!), so TOO BAD NIGHTWOLVE, YOU LOSE! You get the idea! It also tries to frame the issue as if it was a legal sale, a legal transfer of ownership from one party (DeuceBag), to another party (XSEED, the Falcom license holder), etc. But, that is just plain wrong! This is akin to a case of an outside translation service acting as a contractor, being given the Japanese text to translate, and then returning the English results upon payment for such a service. That is paying the contractor or contractors for their service, for their time, having performed the necessary labor, etc. They don't become "legal" owners of the translated results of copyrighted material, just as if DeuceBag and myself were working inside of XSEED as staff members, we don't become legal owners, we're paid for our F#CKING TIME either by the hour or by salary!!
To my rotten luck, these deals were orchestrated by a former nemesis,
Thomas Lipschultz (AKA wyrdwad) who had translated the script for the "Ys Typing Tutor" and the 12 Manual images for Felghana before having been hired by XSEED. So, I had actually worked with him on fan translation projects in the past, but we had a nasty falling out due to a parallel project dispute with Ys Origin which he took public because he wanted to flame rally, cause public ugliness, etc. but later, he was willing to delete it all in the name of a truce. Anyhow, 2 months before the first
Felghana deal with XSEED that DeuceBag went public with, Thomas threatened/bluffed that he had reported me to the FBI crime center and to my ISP because I was trashing him on his Youtube account, and via email, etc. as I didn't feel he was holding to this phony "truce" of ours. Long story short, I made an enemy of the wrong man at the wrong time and DeuceBag turned out to be a callous, criminal backstabber-in-waiting so you can understand what happened here.
So yes, that Ys Origin Steam release by XSEED uses as a base translation that which began with a fan translation project, the last one that I worked with DeuceBag on... It's probably the best translation from all of our projects because I implemented runtime script dumping where as you play the game, the text is written to a HTML file (in the same folder as the EXE) in the exact order as it appears in-game and WITH the character names! The normal script files compiled into the game usually lack the character name that is speaking and are not stored in the exact sequential order as they appear in-game, sometimes they're in reverse like Ys II Complete.
Here's an example file.
All in all, I spent about 2 weeks for script extraction, preparation (
packing 1,721 SEPARATE script files to go into ONE database), setting up a copy of
my Translation Station software for the bastard, enhancing it to give him full control, editing, instant script rebuilding on his computer so I could offload the grunt work that I normally had to do, then Falcom released a patch which had more text in it, so I had to amend the database with that text, etc. and yeah, this runtime script dumping feature was also implemented. His idea was, instead of starting to translate text within Translation Station, the translator would first start translating the
runtime dump first which would help reduce context errors. For example, you would know, for the first time, who is speaking, whether male or female, and since you'd get the text in the exact order as you saw it in-game, you'd be more able to know what's going on, etc. leading to a better translated result the first time around.
Now, DeuceBag and I had an agreement with the Ys Origin project, but Lipschultz secretly intervened and conspired to help break it (
Given the secrecy, sneaking around, deucebaggery, I can't really tell you what happened when timeframe-wise, etc.). I did receive back about 1/3 of the translated results, specifically Hugo's story, as there are 3 characters in the game. But after DeuceBag finished the rest of the script, he went silent about everything that was going on, and he eventually redirected the results to Lipschultz's Italian buddy. Of course, after Lipschultz was hired by XSEED, the company also got a copy of the translated results post-Felghana and Ys I&II Complete. XSEED does post-editing, adding their forum jokes and particular style, etc. but basically, the base translation is that of DeuceBag's and that which began with me back in 2007 in terms of "step 1" labor, etc. In ALL 4 cases, I was entirely excluded from the process, any negotiations. Because I left my databases unprotected, DeuceBag exported all 4 scripts with ease (Ys I, II, Felghana, Origin), got paid (whatever amounts) and credited fully, so yeah, he basically made off with all the goods that he wasn't 100% responsible for, etc.
If using a fan translated script was done to save time rather than outsourcing the translation process to professionals or doing it internally (Lipschultz), my time in step 1 labor plus DeuceBag's time in step 2 labor, saved XSEED time as our work left us both with ready-to-go translated results! However, as stated, DeuceBag took 100% credit/100% profit for his time and because he could snatch a 2 column export from my databases with ease without telling me anything, etc. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how the "game" was played!
Well, I am boycotting XSEED and I recently went public with that sentiment - I will NEVER purchase any of their existing products, and will use whatever resources I have to encourage others to do the same... It was about early last year when a $66 donor was chatting with me and had mentioned that Felghana was being released on Steam by XSEED. He asked me to register with Steam so that he could buy me a copy of the game at ~$15 (I believe). I declined and told him about what Lipschultz and DeuceBag did, how I was cheated, excluded entirely, etc. and that I was personally boycotting the company. I did not want that $15 to partially go into Lipschultz's pocket! Even in explaining the whole story to him, he asked me not to hold it against him that he would still be buying a copy for himself but he understood my feelings. I couldn't of course, he donated $66 in total to me over the years; I just wanted at the very least to start getting this incident off of my chest at the time, but I think this was what led me to seriously consider publicly staging a boycott as payback to Lipschultz! Few days go by where I don't dream of prosecuting DeuceBag in some way, and Lipschultz himself...
Anyhow, if you care to read any further details, you can
check up on my site -
DeuceBag's first direct email to me in 3 years (summed: "STFU, I have a lawyer!") with a clear lawsuit threat has been posted. I went public in terms of more of the story and with the staging of a boycott... I don't give a f--k, I'm not gonna let the two bastards get away with it, at least in the court of public opinion, and it is what it is... You can hate me more or whatever the f--k, but I was cheated, plain and simple and I'm gonna stand up for myself like I should've done years ago! Part of the reason I didn't earlier was because I didn't want hackish a$$holes like Psycho John Schizomaniak or the Spinner8's of the Internet to know how pissed off I was about it (
so I pretended to clap for XSEED, cheer for the objective aspect of using a fan translation, etc.), I didn't want them to have the satisfaction, but in retrospect, that was a poor rationale...
Topic: YS Steam sale going on now - ends 7/22 (Read 886 times)
