Vyse The Legend
Member
They've charged $50 for, I think, every one of their games starting with SMT4.
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SMT IV Apocalypse has unlocalized lines, QA too good, might not be fixed
- Thread starter Eolz
- Start date
They've charged $50 for, I think, every one of their games starting with SMT4.
A Link to the Past
Banned
I do not consider it good that this happened, but it's relatively minor.
I'm sure it depends on the developers. Altus JP really doesn't seem to give a shit about NA. They seem to throw Atlus NA the scraps and say do with it what you will. Persona 5 proved that to me.
Pinko Marx
Banned
Quick slightly off topic question. I know IV:A spoils a good bit of IV and is pretty much a sequel. But is it 100% necessary to finish IV before going into IV:A?
Or is it just simply a good idea?
Or is it just simply a good idea?
R_thanatos
Member
That is my feelings on the matter as well.
As QA you're supposed to play the games in multiples way to be sure everything is fine.
That didn't happen here
ShadowSoldier89
Member
NX handheld games will most likely be $60. Handheld games have really eclipsed the cost of $40 with their production values at this point
granted, a variable pricing model is still the only real answer, console = $60 handheld = $40 doesnt work
SpaceBridge
Member
Free DLC as a consolation ?
I'm more concerned with if it's digital-only or not (bawk)
Maintenance
Member
When / If NX games turn out to be 60$, watch Atlus ask for 70$.
Immaculate
Banned
How many lines are we talking?
I remember this being the case for soul hackers and p3 but it was very rare
I remember this being the case for soul hackers and p3 but it was very rare
SuperDowns
Banned
Considering they price their games at 50, we should definitely hold their feet to the flames.
Captainbojanglesiii
Banned
What an overreaction. It's what, three difficult to find lines that made it unscathed? Give me a break. The process of patching this in is probably pretty difficult, and with apparently very few people ever finding these lines in thousands of other lines of dialogue in this game, it probably doesn't need to be patched urgently anyways.
Atlus made the tiniest of mistakes and suddenly this above all else is "inexcusable"? foh
Pricing their games at $50 is an entire different issue here. It's ridiculous that people are getting this worked up over a few lines that even the devs couldn't find.
Atlus made the tiniest of mistakes and suddenly this above all else is "inexcusable"? foh
Pricing their games at $50 is an entire different issue here. It's ridiculous that people are getting this worked up over a few lines that even the devs couldn't find.
AcademicSaucer
Member
And their games dont have dual audio, something Xseed, NIS , Aksys , etc do
radios shipping overview
Member
Why wasn't a document provided to QA, and by extension to Atlus USA, outlining all the possible dialogue trees and cases that should be tested?
Are they really black-boxing these games during localization and QA?
Are they really black-boxing these games during localization and QA?
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
I know there's some complicated explanation that some ass came up with as to why the game is $50, but when you're charging $10 above what normal games retail for, shouldn't you do a good job?
RyougaSaotome
Member
People would be surprised by how much unused text pops up in excel files either marked, not marked, or incorrectly marked. It can be absurd at times, depending on the game.
R_thanatos
Member
I expected the product i'm buying to be properly localised.
QA is no fun but QA should still be done well.
It wasn't in this case
IdreamofHIME
Member
Just pretend it's a weird Easter Egg, like that random NPC in Pokemon XY that says something about her chair in German.
I think the actual problem (the untranslated lines) is a non-issue. It's something most people will never see and it's nothing to really worry about. I do however think that their explanation for how it happened reflects very poorly on the process of their work.
Saying that the QA team is "so good at the game" that they never tested a possible semi-fail state condition trigger is nonsense. QA isn't about playing a game well, it's about testing all possible cases to determine if they work as intended. If there was a bug that would crash the game if certain party members died on a certain boss, are they suggesting that it might not have been caught because the QA team was "zomg too good at the game"?
And saying that they flat out didn't know such a condition was possible suggests that the localization process isn't as professionally handed over between companies as we should expect. Atlus Japan and Atlus USA are both companies under the same group umbrella. This isn't some case of an obscure licensing deal with a developer who might be unavailable for assistance. They don't have proper documents listing all possible triggers?
The explanation is more embarrassing than the actual problem.
I think it has to do with the fact that while it is pretty conditional, this line of dialogue in particular is with one of the final bosses instead of a random npc line.
charlequin
Banned
In this particular case I wouldn't call it "too good" but I do think it's a reasonable thing for QA to miss in the normal course of business -- this isn't a type of circumstance that occurs throughout the game, so it's entirely possible to not realize different behavior is possible in that scenario and not test it. In order to actually be thorough with what's usually a small staff, QA people need to be able to figure out what's worth their testing time, so this is definitely the kind of thing that gets missed.
The real question is why they didn't have a program or something that scanned their finished script for Japanese characters and alerted them that there were unfinished strings....
pete_clarf
Member
I like the people pretending to be outraged.
If Atlus had said nothing, you would have bought the game and never found out about it. So, basically, people are mad because Atlus was forthcoming about their mistake.
If Atlus had said nothing, you would have bought the game and never found out about it. So, basically, people are mad because Atlus was forthcoming about their mistake.
Like others have already said, its more their explanation than the actual issue. Coupled with the fact that they're charging a premium for the game, i can see why people would be annoyed.
Doesn't sound like a problem people should care about too much. Try to value that these games are getting localisation, and hopefully more will come. Backlash over a couple of missed lines you will never see will only bring bad press to Atlus, and make the industry even more scared about investing in localisation.
Maintenance
Member
Nah, stopped buying Atlus handheld games for a premium price since DS2, and I got that because the rest of the store just had a price hike while that game didn't, so in the end the weak CDN made all the games the same price.
Yes, how dare we speak against something like this. We should be grateful they even localize those games.
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
Man. Seems pretty minor but I can't even remember the last time an untranslated line slipped into a game through some rare trigger
I don't see how it's an 'entirely different issue' at all. If you ask for a premium price, you should deliver a premium product. It's not unreasonable to expect better if they ask for more. Especially when games that ask for less deliver more polished scripts under more complex scenarios.
No one mentions anything about what 'the devs' could or couldn't find either? This was entirely on the QA, and more specifically a failure to find something they should have been specifically looking for.
It would be significantly less big of a deal if this game didn't cost 10 more dollars for reasons that apparently had nothing to do with creating the best possible product.
mrmickfran
Member
radios shipping overview
Member
Critical path testing is straightforward. You can count on manual testers to be able to do it fine, especially people who are already familiar with the style of the game, the systems, etc. Edge cases like this should be called out in a document with big, bold letters and bullet points. It sounds like communication broke down at some point in the process - and/or the US project manager(s) just didn't have a comprehensive grasp of all the possible cases.
The pic with the untranslated text has been around since SMTA leaked/broke day one a week ago or so.
Heck, they even said that themselves:
Whao, did that actually happen?
Considering the absolute dogshit that passes for scripts from various localization outlets that almost never get called out, this seems rather minor. It's two lines that most players will never even see.
The complaint over the price because of only these two lines is laughable. NISA's currently charging 50 dollars for the Psycho-Pass game, and while I still enjoyed playing it there were frequent and obvious errors in every single scene.
The complaint over the price because of only these two lines is laughable. NISA's currently charging 50 dollars for the Psycho-Pass game, and while I still enjoyed playing it there were frequent and obvious errors in every single scene.
Pandora012
Member
Thought that was because it was the limited edition.
mrmickfran
Member
Regardless, it's still a small reason to boycott the game.
Tacorona72
Member
This isn't that big of a deal honestly.
It's not likely that this is going to stop people from buying the game or hinder their gameplay experience(s).
That Walter part is so true. Made me chuckle.
It's not likely that this is going to stop people from buying the game or hinder their gameplay experience(s).
That Walter part is so true. Made me chuckle.
Wowfunhappy
Member
I still don't quite understand how this happened? Shouldn't translators get a list/script of all the text in the game?
People are mentioning boycotts? ?_?
Most people seems to be "lol how does it happen" or "That's why they charge 10$ compared to everyone else?"
pancakesandsex
Member
The original P3 had a couple instances of this too. I forgot what triggered the one I found. It had something to do with talking to party members during a dungeon.
The localization of that game made me so mad. Especially the half-dub, since what little was there was great.
The localization of that game made me so mad. Especially the half-dub, since what little was there was great.
Odin sphere and persona 4 area have dual audio. Some Xseed games like cold steel don't
charlequin
Banned
They are -- when they work for global publishers who actually design games for multilingual release. The people working on Assassin's Creed don't have this problem. Smaller devs don't either when they use middleware like UE4, which includes a powerful localization module that can save people from having to work in Excel.
No this absolutely isn't QA's fault. The description of the scenario makes it very clear that normal, correct quality assurance testing would not catch it: you need an NPC who auto-revives to be dead on the exact turn that the final boss says something. QA testers absolutely shouldn't be spending their time on that sort of thing unless they have an indication that there's likely to be odd behavior there -- otherwise you have your limited staff hours going to people running into walls and swapping inventory items 30,000 times and such instead of actually catching issues that come up in typical playthroughs. As others have mentioned, the responsibility here is on the developers to identify that this is a discrete behavior path, so the QA know to try it out.