Thread:Velt211/@comment-2003:D6:4722:2E2A:DD17:3F8A:F36C:2C58-20190924042015/@comment-80.144.147.209-20201024111658

Same here. Though, we Germans usually get shafted when it comes to translations these days. Considering that from a young age on we are told that our culture sucks and being bombarded with American "culture" at the same time, we throw away our own and embrace American one instead (the internet made it much, much worse). So instead of supporting German translations, we stick with English ones. I honestly wish we would be more like the French in that regard. They have at least some kind of backbone when it comes to their language. For instance, one forwarding service is available in a lot of languages, not German though, despite Germany being the 4th largest economy (and that's not even counting Austria and parts of Switzerland). Of course, I shouldn't really whine as smaller countries have it worse...but still, it's annoying, especially because English is a worse language. There aren't that many H-RPGs, so it wouldn't be "all the time" but it changes things up which is good.

Hm, they did post some numbers which I've basically already forgot about again. Was it 100k+ pre-registrations for the game? Something along those lines which doesn't seem too bad at least. Meh, I don't like them though. It's nice for companies I guess but it's annoying if they can dictate how stuff is done simply be being on Twitter or Reddit or some awful Discord channel. Considering I've been playing VNs on and off for about 15 years, I've been around for a while. The non-weeb fanbase who used to be around in forums (Hongfire and such with actual Japanese around) and is now...somewhere, got and gets kinda shafted. No clue how it was and is for 4chan, as I've always steered clear of that place. The new "VN fans" are so very much different from the old ones and they tend to blindly, ravagely consume everything (crap included) as they tend to have too much money apparently. Just now there was/is a questionnaire by some DMM-owned company/storefront who polls Western fans for the first time. For the question of where you get your information regarding VNs from, they offer Reddit, Twitter, Discord, Website, Other. Bah. Ah, and regarding Alicesoft's Twitter account. Apparently it's some Italian guy who moved to Japan (something you probably already knew). I just hope Alicesoft Japan doesn't become more "international" aka English. Their Engrish has always been bad, to the point of ruining one of the guidebooks for a 90s game they did (repeating mistakes ad nauseam), botching that commemorative plate of the user club etc etc. Though, aside from that, it seems like they really hired a lot of people in recent months. That doesn't spell too well as higher salary expenses mean more constantly flowing money needed which means steady flow of incoming money which means focussing on mobile games which have a lower risk but still can slowly drown you to death. Seems like they are shovelling their grave by building a more elaborate money sink this time (unless their mobile game is at least a decent success for years to come). Whichever it is, it's not good for traditional games.

No clue who "Zankuro" is. I don't need too much variety. "Normal" and "yuri" would be fine for me but since they don't tend to have much normal, meh. Haha. Yeah, I don't get the point of dakimura anyway and the size of it makes importing not ideal anyway. In the end, I went for Sofmap since they have a B2 poster...although it costs a lot more in total. Their official FANZA shop would have been 8000 Yen + 700 Yen shipping, Amazon.jp would have been 9680 Yen + free shipping and I bought it for 9680 Yen + 500 Yen shipping. Oh well, I will take a look at the quality of that poster. Some old (~2000) Falcom poster I have is of excellent quality, so this one might be too, regardless of the quality of what's on the poster.

No clue, I'm not following the gaming industry anymore since I've quit basically all gaming forums (which was only NeoGAF in the end but that was dying anyway since the split). There is also nothing interesting in gaming going on right now, except for consumers getting squeezed further and the like. Are those doujin CDs games or music CDS? The latter seem more difficult to find, I guess. At least you can, theoretically, sell whatever you bought again. Can't do that if you gambled away all your money, hehe. Different packages but if they arrive at the same time, apparently they look at them together basically. No no, the box being weirdly shaped means the box is just weirdly shaped, not bent or warped or anything. It has a handle, so that you can carry it etc. That's why I'm super happy that the shrinkwrap is in excellent condition. Weirdly shaped means higher pressure in some places, so tears are more likely which isn't the case here. Yeah, we had that topic before. Eroge tend to be better, as the floppies are usually in some air-tight plastic box. Normal PC-98 games are more problematic, as cardboard offers basically no protection against humidity.

Though, now to the things that have happened since. As they wrote my message, apparently it only took 7 days to ship, so my package arrived. Was happy for a while...until it switched back to it taking two weeks to ship a package again. Got finally done sending all my packages and the last one is currently on the way. My 15kg package with all the artbooks arrived. Transportation via sea took 2 months. I had paid an extra 1000 Yen for protection, so that was fine. The artbooks are in excellent condition except for one which has a super torn obi which is maybe the fault of the forwarding service. Still, now I have artbooks of several old eroges, lol. Got some Alicesoft hint booklets. Got some Alicesoft membership cards. Got one old new Alicesoft games (AmbivalenZ) for Windows. Got Boku dake no Hokenshitsu (finally, the normal package version, not the DVD one), although the shrinkwrap isn't too ideal. Got the old new Falcom game which I mentioned last time: Legend of Heroes III PC-98, 3.5'' release from 1994. The shrinkwrap isn't actually as bad as it looked on the pictures even. Also got two other new PC-98 games this week: Dangel and Branmarker 2. Pretty happy about the latter especially. I've also bought some new stuff and got into a bidding war over some Alicesoft membership cards and magazines. It started out low but some annoying bot always raised by 100 Yen, thus extending the auction by 5 minutes. After like 30 minutes someone apparently took notice and raised it by a lot. In the end, I had to pay almost 8000 Yen for it...despite me only wanting a couple of items of it, lol. Due to getting more magazines, I also looked into getting the ones I'm still missing and bought some for more money off Suruga-ya and YA. Welp, one that arrived two days ago at my forwarding services is torn...which is annoying. Well, still more to go and the latest magazine is still way overpriced. Some asshole bought a super dirty copy for 2500 Yen off Mercari (that was the price of the entire goodie back which included a clean copy of the magazine) and is now sellit it on YA for...8000 Yen, I think. So yeah, still as crazy as ever the situation regarding that. When it comes to Alicesoft games and if we ignore copies I'm somewhat unhappy about due to the shrinkwrap basically, I still need Ultra Mahou Shoujo Manana vol.4 (convention sale), Ultra Mahou Shoujo Manana vol.2 (convention sale), Tsumamigui 2 and from then on backwards basically. The early 00s/late 90s games are technically available on Amazon.jp but typically the shrinwrap is meh and I don't want to overpay enormously again, so I will stick to buying something where I have pictures. Ah, I've also bought a nifty little floppy which isn't an option or hint one and is not really a game. Should be somewhat rare. Will tell what it is once it arrives in...like 6 weeks :P

Something of note: Seems like there is a whole lot of selling going on. Some seller is selling boxes of new and used Windows games on YA. I'm really hoping some old Alicesoft games will be part of it, considering some boxes had Windows 95/98 titles in them. Some other items I'm looking for also just appeared today/yesterday. Now I wish I hadn't pre-ordered that Alicesoft games because if I go for what I want, I will go massively over my self-imposed limit T_T