Community The Visual Novel Council | All Choices Lead To Here

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
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I've never seen this before and based on a lot of shit that finds it's way to Steam I'm guessing the reviewers at Valve haven't either.
The rules are only enforced when they fit the reviewer's agenda.
Also, someone at Valve likes to change them post factum when they find a game they want to ban, but can't find a matching rule - like with that Super Seducer 3 game.
 

KingKrouch

Junior Member
Dec 14, 2021
79
273
53
Best thing we can do about that is to send emails and tweets at valve or publications.
If people just sit by, it'll just get worse.

This is a case that can make a difference this time.
I think that the priority first should be to organize something in a civil manner (can't emphasize this part enough) to campaign positive change, with the idea of spreading awareness.

I've grown tired of Valve's selective quality control. This has become a bit of a frustrated vent of sorts, but I've gotten burned out from too many bad game launches that often never get resolved. Steam forum users have no backbone to speak up about problems (and they actively defend them), these same people positive-bomb games with useless joke reviews despite only spending seven minutes in the game, and people think it's all acceptable now that a refund system exists and "don't preorder" r/PatientGamers circlejerking (that is tonedeaf to problems) is constantly being peddled. The only way Atelier Ryza, Nier Automata, or Batman: Arkham Knight ever got fixed was because of consistent feedback and utilizing customer outlets. It's also impossible to find interesting indie games or Visual Novels on the Steam store (Because it's flooded with shovelware), and yet Valve somehow thinks that what they're doing now with their inconsistencies regarding what stays is going to be remotely sustainable. I've known that their quality control has gotten worse over the years, but this is a new low. Steam forum users will whine about Disgaea 6's pricing (despite being a good port and coming with the DLC), just to then buy Omega Labyrinth or something similar for $60 (with an extremely barebones/flawed port for the asking price) and a ton of DLC shoehorned in, it's hilariously twisted priorities at best. Or the fact that Steam users campaigning for a restoration patch for Mary Skelter 2 stopped at that and bent over despite the many other problems with that release. The plenty of straight PSVR ports that are locked at 60FPS and have insane judder and reprojection problems on 75Hz/90Hz/144Hz VR headsets that pose as a health/epilepsy risk despite being certified for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive (both which are 90Hz)? Or dare I speak about Elden Ring and it's plenty of port problems that haven't been resolved outside mods that require cutting a chunk of the game out (multiplayer) to use? I've seen my fair share of Steam releases where you are frankly better off buying on Switch, dumping a ROM of it from your system, and then emulating it with whatever resolution or controller you want.

Valve has also made it progressively more difficult to roll back game updates (and also hampering sites like SteamDB's ability to operate, despite being a useful tool to many) because certain publishers got mad. The community had to petition Capcom to add the old RE3/RE2R/RE7 builds to a beta branch on Steam because of how behind the times Valve is in that regards. Valve has actively prevented tools like Special K from getting a Steam release while also allowing borderline malware or snakeoil tools in their software section. Valve pulled a Nintendo regarding Team Fortress 2 Classic having to reverse engineer how the game worked. They don't care about modders actively being forced into making games better (Because there's this growing expectation in the community of modders having to fix everything for free when the skills to do that are high AND are quite often hard to find (or gatekept by certain online sources)), only if it improves their bottom line, I don't even recall the last time Valve has actively hired modders.

You can also make an alternate region account on consoles to buy region locked games, and yet Valve still makes account switching on Steam (My Steam Deck is the most convenient thing to play Idolm@ster and a couple of other games on because desktop mode constantly requires entering your password and Steam Guard code) or creating an alternate region account increasingly difficult to do. This is just going to further incentivize piracy (I don't recommend it for many reasons), because Steam has a massive service problem from years of neglect, complacency, and being pushovers. People love to talk smack about Epic Games being publisher pushovers, but people really don't criticize some of Valve's decisions enough because of a handful of positive things.

There's really a ton of things that could be glanced from a campaign, we'd just need a public figure to bring awareness to these many problems with Valve and Steam.
 
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skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
1,230
93
In short, bullying big companies with stupid policies is a good thing actually.

On the bright side, I've had a gift card sitting in my amazon account for half a year now with nothing to spend it on cuz i dont really buy shit from there anymore so I guess I'll pick up the Switch version and dump it onto Yuzu.
 
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GhostTrick

Banned
Oct 20, 2018
94
216
33
I think that the priority first should be to organize something in a civil manner (can't emphasize this part enough) to campaign positive change, with the idea of spreading awareness.

I've grown tired of Valve's selective quality control. This has become a bit of a frustrated vent of sorts, but I've gotten burned out from too many bad game launches that often never get resolved. Steam forum users have no backbone to speak up about problems (and they actively defend them), these same people positive-bomb games with useless joke reviews despite only spending seven minutes in the game, and people think it's all acceptable now that a refund system exists and "don't preorder" r/PatientGamers circlejerking (that is tonedeaf to problems) is constantly being peddled. The only way Atelier Ryza, Nier Automata, or Batman: Arkham Knight ever got fixed was because of consistent feedback and utilizing customer outlets. It's also impossible to find interesting indie games or Visual Novels on the Steam store (Because it's flooded with shovelware), and yet Valve somehow thinks that what they're doing now with their inconsistencies regarding what stays is going to be remotely sustainable. I've known that their quality control has gotten worse over the years, but this is a new low. Steam forum users will whine about Disgaea 6's pricing (despite being a good port and coming with the DLC), just to then buy Omega Labyrinth or something similar for $60 (with an extremely barebones/flawed port for the asking price) and a ton of DLC shoehorned in, it's hilariously twisted priorities at best. Or the fact that Steam users campaigning for a restoration patch for Mary Skelter 2 stopped at that and bent over despite the many other problems with that release. The plenty of straight PSVR ports that are locked at 60FPS and have insane judder and reprojection problems on 75Hz/90Hz/144Hz VR headsets that pose as a health/epilepsy risk despite being certified for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive (both which are 90Hz)? Or dare I speak about Elden Ring and it's plenty of port problems that haven't been resolved outside mods that require cutting a chunk of the game out (multiplayer) to use? I've seen my fair share of Steam releases where you are frankly better off buying on Switch, dumping a ROM of it from your system, and then emulating it with whatever resolution or controller you want.

Valve has also made it progressively more difficult to roll back game updates (and also hampering sites like SteamDB's ability to operate, despite being a useful tool to many) because certain publishers got mad. The community had to petition Capcom to add the old RE3/RE2R/RE7 builds to a beta branch on Steam because of how behind the times Valve is in that regards. Valve has actively prevented tools like Special K from getting a Steam release while also allowing borderline malware or snakeoil tools in their software section. Valve pulled a Nintendo regarding Team Fortress 2 Classic having to reverse engineer how the game worked. They don't care about modders actively being forced into making games better (Because there's this growing expectation in the community of modders having to fix everything for free when the skills to do that are high AND are quite often hard to find (or gatekept by certain online sources)), only if it improves their bottom line, I don't even recall the last time Valve has actively hired modders.

You can also make an alternate region account on consoles to buy region locked games, and yet Valve still makes account switching on Steam (My Steam Deck is the most convenient thing to play Idolm@ster and a couple of other games on because desktop mode constantly requires entering your password and Steam Guard code) or creating an alternate region account increasingly difficult to do. This is just going to further incentivize piracy (I don't recommend it for many reasons), because Steam has a massive service problem from years of neglect, complacency, and being pushovers. People love to talk smack about Epic Games being publisher pushovers, but people really don't criticize some of Valve's decisions enough because of a handful of positive things.

There's really a ton of things that could be glanced from a campaign, we'd just need a public figure to bring awareness to these many problems with Valve and Steam.


I think we should organize a huge campaign indeed aimed at the people at Valve, send civil and polite mails to Gabe Newell but also the people in charge of the publishing policies on Steam.

This sets a really bad precedent when such a release that is carried by major retailers isn't carried by Steam.

Steam Direct became what it wanted to avoid being: Everything allowed except what they don't like.
 

Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
4,149
10,267
113
Downunder.
catasplurge is one of Geofront's editors.

readme.md said:
This is a patch to help fix the various mistakes and inconsistencies with Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen on steam. This includes translation mistakes and making the terminology more consistent with the Mask translations.

 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,706
15,611
113
Honk if Tatcher’s dead, err, if Chaos Head works on Deck.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,706
15,611
113
How was the first Meteor World Actor ? Can I hope for some relatively lighter VN than the usual Murder ! Death ! Misery !
Or is it a nukige ?
 

Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
4,149
10,267
113
Downunder.
Don't tempt me with the Switch version...
I'm a sucker for art books, so I already preordered it. :flare_lmao:

Mildly excited about it. People said Nasu's prose has improved a lot in Mahoyo, so hopefully the English localisation is competent.
 

skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
1,230
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I'm a sucker for art books, so I already preordered it. :flare_lmao:

Mildly excited about it. People said Nasu's prose has improved a lot in Mahoyo, so hopefully the English localisation is competent.
Honestly just going from F/SN to F/HA alone, you can see so much improvement in Nasu's writing. He added more of a human element and multiple dimensions to characters that got virtually nothing in F/SN like Sakura, Lancer, Medusa, Caster, etc. and the new characters he added like Bazett, Caren and Avenger were all such fantastic additions it feels like their inclusion in the world of Fate just felt so natural. Even the more mundane events just feel more interesting because the cast just plays so much better off each other now and the scenes are paced much better.

I wouldn't take old (poorly edited) Nasu scripts like Tsukihime and F/SN as indicative of what Nasu is fully capable of. While they're great games with some real creative writing for the time, he was also clearly much more amateurish and imo continued to grow a lot as a writer with each new game he worked on.
 
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Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
4,149
10,267
113
Downunder.
I'm still early on in F/HA, but I hope Shinji has a better characterisation in it. Everyone loves to hate on him in F/SN, but he's such a caricature that it's kind of sad.
 

Cacher

Romantic Storm
Jun 3, 2020
4,133
12,610
113
DMM Fanza is doing an insane deal on GIGA's title. 10k yen for 10 games including the Baldr series (sadly no Sky Zero 1 and 2) and Kiss series.
 
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AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
2,811
7,247
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Is there seriously no plans for Witch on the Holy Night to comes to steam later? If not why not?

I’ll get it on ps4 but I’ll hold off if it’s likely going to come to steam later, but vibe seems to be “it’s not happening”?
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
2,438
6,000
113
Is there seriously no plans for Witch on the Holy Night to comes to steam later? If not why not?

I’ll get it on ps4 but I’ll hold off if it’s likely going to come to steam later, but vibe seems to be “it’s not happening”?
Type Moon famously hates PC and doesn't have a corporate overlord that would make them force to release there, like in Atlus or Gust case.
 
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ZKenir

❀ Child of Raikou ❀
May 10, 2019
3,312
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I think any porting effort would have to come from aniplex of america in that case.
Aniplex is the only reason FGO was localized, back then Delightworks (the back-then developer) and Type-Moon were not interested.

Despite their constant silence on issues such as region-locking of games (FGO before expanding to europe and thet Emiya Family cooking game) things have changed with Witch on the Holy Night, and they released FGO globally, so at the very least feedback is being taken into account

also
 
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AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
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Type Moon famously hates PC and doesn't have a corporate overlord that would make them force to release there, like in Atlus or Gust case.
Even though the game originated on pc??

i’m not going to question it, from their reputation it seems TM make Atlus look sane
 

Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
3,962
11,271
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Even though the game originated on pc??

i’m not going to question it, from their reputation it seems TM make Atlus look sane
They want to distance themselves from their Eroge past, which PC is still strongly connected with in Japan. Be seen as a "respectable" media company.

It completely ignores that there's a large market that they can easily exploit and in fact get more revenue from per sale than on literally any other platform. Just shows how some people handicap themselves due to their dogmatic thinking.
 
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ZKenir

❀ Child of Raikou ❀
May 10, 2019
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Tbh I think they're just stuck in the same mentality that JP publishers/devs were in 10 years ago, aka "consoles are enough and PC is not worth it".
And that's unlickely to change unless a 3rd party involves themselves in the matter (i.e. Aniplex)

They re-released the OG PC version of FSN some years ago along with Hollow Ataraxia for the 15th anniversary, while Nasu certainly regrets writing porn back then, they don't seem on a crusade to scrub everything off as if it never existed.
Their "mana transfer" through sex appears in subsequent games for example, just off-screen, and they keep designing characters like Kiara (extra CCC and FGO) whose goal in FGO was to literally use the world as a giant dildo.

This is literally her noble phantasm in extra CCC

 
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skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
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Yeah a PC port wouldn't be Type-Moon's decision to make (or even their work), that'd be all on Aniplex. Fwiw I still think it'll eventually happen. If they were so worried about piracy then releasing a Switch version is far worse than releasing a PC one.
 

Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
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That would imply it was actually Spike Chunsoft's translation and not whatever $5 walmart translation Mages outsourced for C;H Noah.
Is Mages involved? I assumed they have the same model as Falcom, where the international partner does everything, and Falcom just waits until the money from Western sales comes in.
 

skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
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Is Mages involved? I assumed they have the same model as Falcom, where the international partner does everything, and Falcom just waits until the money from Western sales comes in.
Mages is the one who handled the translation, dev work, etc. while Spike Chunsoft was really only in charge of marketing and distribution in the west.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
7,277
12,382
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Bamboo has confirmed that there will be a sequel/follow up to "Go! Go! Nippon! With You!" a few days after the graduation of the two Misaki sister VTubers.
Hopefully they can have a cameo role in the new game. He's self creating and publishing it so it's not coming out under the OVERDRIVE banner and won't be out until probably 2024 at least.

 
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Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
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Mages is the one who handled the translation, dev work, etc. while Spike Chunsoft was really only in charge of marketing and distribution in the west.
Interesting, so Mages takes a much more "hands on" approach to the Western release than some other Japanese developers. Not that it seems like they really know what they are doing then, it seems.
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
2,438
6,000
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Interesting, so Mages takes a much more "hands on" approach to the Western release than some other Japanese developers. Not that it seems like they really know what they are doing then, it seems.
That's true for both West and Japan.
 
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ZKenir

❀ Child of Raikou ❀
May 10, 2019
3,312
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wtf gore screaming show on steam (released in the same way as Wonderful everyday ofc)
 
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skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
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Damn that really sucks, they were so close to making it to their 30th anniversary too. Baldr Sky's one of my all time favorite games, well wishes to all the very talented people in that company and hope they can find new work quickly.
 
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Cacher

Romantic Storm
Jun 3, 2020
4,133
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Got something cool today. Going to start playing it soon.


Edit: This is going to be my first sci-adv game. I have always wanted to start the whole series from the beginning. And yep, I have never played Steins;Gate before haha
 
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skLaFarebear

MetaMember
Dec 4, 2019
653
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I saw Steins;Gate a very long time ago where I've completely forgotten what happens besides the big mid story twist so I'm also looking forward to reading it as well. Waiting for the CoZ patch for C;H Noah first, I've been wanting to read it for like 5 years now lol.
 
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EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
7,277
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I got my Switch Chaos Head double pack with steelbook the other day, i really should play the rest of the games, ha.
I have had them in my steam library for AGES.

Also, this trailer just dropped.
 

Knurek

OG old coot
Oct 16, 2018
2,438
6,000
113
I got my Switch Chaos Head double pack with steelbook the other day, i really should play the rest of the games, ha.
I have had them in my steam library for AGES.

Also, this trailer just dropped.
Pity we're not getting the sequel on PC...