We will not be releasing any more interim patches until everything is complete. There may be at least one beta test stage, but until every part of the text has been translated and gone through at least one TLC (meaning that it's at least at some stage of completion), there won't be any more in-progress patches.
There are a few reasons for this:
- I've seen people playing the game with the current patch for fun and posting screenshots, and while there isn't anything inherently wrong with that (nor do I think people shouldn't have done that), it means that bits of an unfinished, unpolished translation are circulating around even though they shouldn't be considered reflective of the full version of the patch. Because the original intent of the interim patches was to test out technical functionality, I'll probably be having some people run tests on it, but I never wanted people to treat them as an objective way to enjoy the game.
- After some consultation, I've decided to strip out the honorifics from the translation, and with that I realized I need to do a serious reconsideration of my translation consistency. It's one thing to have a few minor differences between one half of the game and the second half in an in-progress patch, but it's another thing entirely to overhaul the entire translation style after a certain stage. Because of that, I'd rather people not see that until the rest of the text is redone.
- Even though story text is my priority, there's still a lot more to be done after that, but I know people are just going to take it and walk off with it like a finished product and that really just doesn't sit well with me.
- Some earlier lines are just outright mistranslated and I really want those fixed before anything else.
So yes, I know this is pretty upsetting (and a lot of people may think that I'm making a big deal out of nothing, but I think it's something you'd understand a little better in my position). I really hope this can eventually lead to an overall better quality patch and a much more enjoyable experience for everyone.
In order to make up for this, I've decided to finish up my style guide now and post it here, as reassurance that I'm using this time to have a clear goal in mind for the rest of the translation. It was something I was lacking for the first part, because I'd figured I'd just fix it again in the TLC, but after putting the patch team through this much work I'd like to spare them as much effort as they need.
I've posted them below (click on the "Read More" link on the bottom right). I may make some edits to it later as needed, but for now this should be a solid guide.
Also, if you're interested in seeing more detailed updates on progress, I've opened a Tumblr blog - I've actually had it open for a while, so some of you may know this already - where I post other translations, many of them Digimon-related (usually while I wait for my next text dump from the hacking team).
All romanization will follow modified Hepburn romanization, with the exception of:
- Japanese terminology that has entered the mainstream (see below) with a certain romanization that differs from modified Hepburn
- Japanese location names with official romanizations
- Long vowels, which will be handled as based on the situation, but will not involve macrons (as they cause more technical issues than it's worth).
Human names will be written in Western order (given name - surname). They will use the Japanese names, and will follow the same romanization rules as above.
Digimon names:
- Names with Japanese etymology will use the official romanization used by the Digimon Reference Book; if one is absent, they will follow the same romanization rules as above.
- Names with etymology in other languages will use the natural spelling of the word (for words with Roman character spellings) or the most commonly accepted romanization in the mainstream.
Other Digimon lore-related terminology:
- 紋章 - "Crests". (One of two official translations; both are pretty much the same, but "Crests" holds more familiarity among the English-speaking fanbase due to being the translation favored by the English dub.)
- 知識 - "Knowledge". (One of two official translations; closer to the literal meaning of the word, used by the English dub.)
- 純真 - "Purity". (One of two official translations; closer to the literal meaning of the word.)
- 誠実 - "Honesty". (One of the God-knows-how-many official translations; close to the literal meaning of the word; avoids confusion regarding "Sincerity" being the English dub's translation for 純真.)
- 幼年期, 成長期, 成熟期 - "Baby", "Child", "Adult". Most commonly accepted fan translations, and manage to get the meaning across as reasonably as the more literal but awkward "Childhood", "Growth Phase", and "Maturity".
- 完全体, 究極体 - "Perfect", "Ultimate". Official translations.
- 進化 - "Evolution". Official translation.
- The "Digi-" terms with full words at the end (e.g. "DigiEgg") will be CamelCase with no hyphen, and the second word translated.
Translation style
- Japanese terminology that would require most people to do research to understand what it is will be accordingly translated in-line. (If it doesn't have a Wikipedia article in English dedicated to it, it's getting translated.) Only Japanese terms that have entered the generic mainstream will be left in.
- Generally I will be following what I call "loose literalism", which means trying to preserve the flow of the sentences and not making any major alterations, but rewriting the sentences when necessary to avoid odd flow in English. The priority is keeping the "feeling" of the sentence, without making the reader feel awkward.
- No foul language that would kick this game above an ESRB rating of E. (But no content censorship, either; we're not dealing with the actual ESRB.)