akualung wrote:
It's really interesting all this about how the Masai see people's stages in life. I recall reading time ago about some meso-american or Inca civilizations having similar points of view in this regard.
I don't know if so many veteran members quitting is related to mid-life crisis, but the general toxicity that's permeating the scene (and the society in general) sure has a lot to do with this. I'm glad Tom decided to return, but that only leaves me thinking "how long until another 'incident' happens again to him or any other translator/romhacker?". The only thing I can do is keep forcing my brain into assimilate as much of the Japanese language I can until there's a day I no longer need to rely on the translation scene (if that day ever comes. With this language sometimes I feel as if I'm trying to destroy a concrete wall via headbutts).
I keep thinking the best and more sensible approach nowadays would be to modify the most popular emulators and implement some kind of "soft" translation feature that reduce to the minmum having to tinker with the innards of the game rom (it's a lot easier to find Japanese translators than seasoned romhackers). I know Retroarch currently does it, but the point would be getting the translation from a text file created by a person instead of handling the translation task to an AI that still doesn't offer satisfactory results and is prone to errors and nonsensical phrasing and mistakes.
I am sorta worried about the toxic behaviour exhibited by so many people too, but it always passes, once people are bored enough to gang up on something else. The best way to deal with this is just not to use too much social media and focus on more practical stuff instead.
While this "soft" translation would probably be a good solution for now, I don't see that working all too well with how the community is structured. There aren't many raw scripts lying about at all, usually it's a team effort anyway, so if you translate something it will almost certainly be hacked. To be fair, there are games which will never be translated - mostly the ones with vertical text - so this could be useful for those in particular. My opinion is that we will get AI translation at some point for sure, but it will likely be military-grade stuff at first most likely. I mean, AI that could translate every major known language accurately in the blink of an eye probably won't be easily obtainable by an average Joe. Many people would also lose their jobs that way, as usual when new technologies take over, but that's inevitable regardless.
As for learning Japanese... well, it is a difficult language for most people who speak European languages, unfortunately. Wish anime and console gaming took off first in France, Spain or Italy instead, hahah.
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)