September Progress Report 5

Hello and welcome to the final scheduled progress report.

Before you get your hopes up (if you haven't been keeping up with the blog recently), this does NOT mean the patch is almost done. Well, it is sorta, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. It just means I won't be posting any progress until the patch is ready. Although, if I'm bored, I *may* post some cryptic images.

Current progress looks nice. About 75% of the text has been verified. The entire story has been verified, placing the total progress at 94% or something.



Slight spoiler image
(Name is in capitals to test something)

All that's left are the 211 "My Unit support conversations". Oh boy... Starting next week, I'll be slaying these conversations, making sure they don't break the game. When those are done, there will probably be a few days of "final verifications", where the translators give me the final A-okay and where I make any last minute arguments about certain, sketchy phrases.

Then comes the final phase--the closed beta testing and fixing. I don't know how long this will take, but hopefully not longer than two weeks.

Just to clarify, please don't volunteer and ask to help with the beta testing, unless you're a Heroes of Shadow staff member who we accidentally left behind. We've, fortunately, got all our bases safely covered, so we don't need any help (yet). And if you're THAT anxious to play the game, I'd be slightly worried for your health X D

With everything said, I bid you adieu until the good news or a silly, cryptic post--just in case you get a heart-attack when I post again and it's not the patch.

September Progress Report 4

Hey there and welcome to another weekend progress report.

Text verification is approximately 60% complete. I'm lazy to do the maths, but that puts the total progress at 90% or something.

At the moment, all the menu files have been checked (again!), as well as all four BSFE chapters and the three downloadable chapters. Currently, I'm recontinuing progress on the main story and am up to Chapter 14, so progress looks good.

By the way, I have to wonder if people wonder what goes in the verification process? I mean, the text has been translated, edited and proof-read, so what's there left to do? Well, the proof-readers did a fantastic job, but there was one thing they missed--and that's checking the text in the actual game.

So my job is to fix lines that overrun the text boxes, like in the above screenshot:

LEFT: Original | RIGHT: After verification


That's the obvious part. The other thing I can do is make some final adjustments to the text, like in the remaining two screenshots, just to make things sound slightly less awkward and/or to spice things up. I'm a bit picky sometimes!

By the way, the next progress report will probably be my last. At this stage, there's not much left for me to ramble about. I'll of course be furiously working on the patch, but I figure it's about time for me to take a short break from the public.

Iwata Asks ~Heroes of Light and Shadow~

Here's the cool thing I was just talking about earlier.

It's obviously not the translation patch, but it's probably the next best thing. Thanks to epic translator Sami R and a legion of proof-readers (I got way more help than I anticipated, so apologies to everyone who applied and weren't accepted), I'm happy to present to you the "Heroes of Light and Shadow" Iwata Asks interview, located here.



It's a fantastic read for any Fire Emblem fan and please do share it with your FE friends if you like it!

September Progress Report 3

Hi and welcome to another scheduled progress report. I'm going to be a bit quick today, because I'm kind of overrun on time.

I mentioned earlier that I've been doing some more trivial work, although no translation work can truly be that trivial. I've now ironed out all the miscellaneous text files, including the death quotes and the "How's Everyone" (formerly known as "Everyone's Conditions") quotes, some examples of the latter shown below.



And more recently I've started verifying the BSFE episodes, with episodes 1 and 2 now complete.



By the way, I chanced upon a message that somebody left, where they volunteered to help verify the text. I should clarify (and I think TheEnd mentioned this once) that the verification process, ideally, should be done by the chief editor of the translation, which would be me in this case.

Nobody needs to be worried about the speed the project is going, nor of my personal sanity. At least, not yet! The project is still on course for completion within this year and although the verification is a bit tough and time-consuming, it's a perfectly doable task.

Oh, and there might be something cool coming soon (or sooner than later, at least)...

September Progress Report 2

Hi guys, I'm back again. I figured I'd try and update every now and then, to take my mind off actually working on the translation.

Last time I mentioned how 50% of the main story has been verified to be working in-game (and makes sense); well I've been busy and I can now confirm that 42% of the 366 base conversations have been verified.

To account for the huge amount of content that is the base conversations, the estimated release date has been revised as anywhere from 15th October 2012 to 31st December 2012. To clarify, this will be the date the next and complete version of the translation patch will be released.



Unfortunately, all this quality checking is taking its toll on me, so I'm currently taking a short break and working on some slightly less intensive, but still rather important work, which includes a bit of this:

September progress report

Okay, it's been a month since the last progress update, so what exactly is new and how is progress?

Well, currently, thanks to NomadicTrooperGirl, all the graphical text is now complete and all--but 1 one of them--have been inserted into the game. I've really got to hand it to NTG, originally I feared graphics would be the toughest hurdle, but she made it look too easy.

This screenshot sums up my summary of her work:


(No funds because she doesn't get paid and no exp because she's such a pro)

With the graphical text sorted, that means ALL the text in the game is in English. But, before you get too excited of yourself, there's still a long way to go before the patch is ready for human consumption.

The final step, which I fear is what ultimately killed Blazer, is to check the text works in the game, making sure lines don't over-run the text boxes and that the lines are being said by the correct characters (which, admittedly, is difficult to tell unless you're playing the game) and don't sound *too* silly.


(I bet this sums up some peoples' worries)

And, trust me, this sounds easier on paper, than it is to do. Although, of course, it's a far easier task than translating the game or even proof-reading it. But, in any case, I can confirm that just over 50% of the main story has been verified in such a manner--at the moment, I've just completed Chapter 10x (the above screenshot is from Chapter 10).

I'm too afraid to do the maths, but that's probably about 25% of the whole game and at the rate I've been working, procrastination aside, we may be finished by the end of September. But, add in procrastination, and who knows when the patch will be done. But it will be done before the end of this year.

And I forget what was the random date TheEnd set, before he'll unload an incomplete, broken mess of a patch (because I worry if he even knows how to create a patch).