Hey guys...

[Arjak]

Umm...you might have noticed that I haven't been around much lately. After how badly I embarrassed myself the last time I was here in any real capacity, I decided to take a voluntary leave to get my head together.

Looking back on what happened, I really was quite an asshole. Regardless of how I feel about Nightwolve, I had absolutely no excuse to behave the way I did, flipping my shit and betraying his trust like that. On top of that, I then tried to garner sympathy by blaming personal issues and offering a half-hearted apology only to flip-flop right back the moment that didn't work. My behavior was childish and disgusting, and all over something that isn't any of my business anyway. My most sincere apologies.

With that said, I am hoping to possibly return in some capacity, that is, if I'm still welcome. I will try to keep a more level head and not nuke any more bridges, and perhaps even be a little more proactive in contributing to the community, and not just be that guy who sits in the corner leeching off of everyone.

I hope you all can forgive me, but I also understand if you aren't ready, if ever. Regardless, I want to do my best to make it up to all of you. I hope I will be able to...

[BigusSchmuck]

Raffle? Kidding, honestly though, you should probably pm Nightwolve if you haven't already.

[esteban]

Arjak, you are part of our dysfunctional family.

We are all (nearly all of us, anyway), misfits of some sort.

Welcome back, comrade.




Also: I would like to enter your raffle.

[Gredler]

[SignOfZeta]

Who the fuck is Arjak?

[OldRover]

I dunno what happened but hey, sometimes people just gotta forgive, forget, and move on... easier said than done sometimes but it seems to work for me and I'm a gigantic flaming asshole¹.

1. Or so it's been said by certain people.

[TurboXray]

Shit... no one is perfect on this forum.. except maybe esteban... which makes me really suspicious of what he's really hiding ;>_>

[PukeSter]

It's all good Arjak. Glad to have ya back.

Don't let Nightwolve scare you though. There's two sides to the xseed debate...and I have made a big risk just making this comment.

I will be buying Ys VIII when it comes out next year. No reason to boycott.

[NecroPhile]

Who the fuck is Arjak?

Heh, that's what I was thinking.

Number of fucks given: Zero.

[Otaking]

Welcome Arjak, I don't recall the drama you mentioned. 
Good to see people coming back as lots have abandoned here for those awful, awful Failbook groups.

[NightWolve]

Don't let Nightwolve scare you though. There's two sides to the xseed debate...and I have made a big risk just making this comment.

Who the f*ck is lukester and why should anyone be scared of little ole me ?? ;)

Necro still respects me and vice versa, even though he loves Ys too much to really not buy any product of theirs, so that doesn't make us auto-enemies, luke... They have a monopoly on US publishing Rights at present, they're the only game in town for officially localized Falcom games, so I knew FULL well I was "between a rock and a hard place" going into this when I finally got the guts to start a boycott...

Looking back on what happened, I really was quite an asshole. Regardless of how I feel about Nightwolve, I had absolutely no excuse to behave the way I did, flipping my shit and betraying his trust like that.

If I may, I'd like to take you through it again, just to try to see if it helps you understand my perspective further... You have to have been in my shoes, to see it from my perspective, you have to have dumped 5 years of your life into these projects, subsidizing them on your back, your savings, thousands of work hours... You don't ever forget something like that, and the passage of time doesn't ease the hurt all that much...

It took me ~3 years before starting my boycott, had to gain the guts, with ~2 years of mostly public silence, and one post pretending I approved to help figure out what was going on, who was the man inside XSEED that orchestrated these deals to give DeuceBag all the credit/money for translations he had produced because of my recruitment into our paperless partnership, with my translation system, with all the work hours to have started these projects, etc... Once I learned it was Tom Lipschultz, it was like a ton of bricks hit me... Oooooooooooooooooooooohhh, that's why DeuceBag is playing stupid, that's what happened, Tom happened... That's all I really needed to know why things went down the way that they did...

Gaining more guts over time, I called Ken Berry in summer 2012 to work it out diplomatically, I almost succeeded, he told me to give him a week after I just asked for proper crediting, to see how to get it done, then when he called back, his whole tone changed, he spat in my face overall, starting off with, "OK Nick, we really looked at this..." and his first point was to ask me if I had an "evil" PayPal icon on my website...? DeuceBag used to have one on his old website, so how you gonna pull that shit with me, ya know ?? I was caught offguard, confused... HUH ?? A hypocritical, knucklehead, red herring argument like that was your opener to conserve cheating me ???

Then he said twice, that DeuceBag was "adamant" my "work" wasn't used, it was spin, meaning, they wanted to restrict the definition of "work" arbitrarily/selectively to typing games, he who typed the English text wins (him), passes go, collects $200, he who was just a "text delivery boy" for Japanese text/images loses (me)... This is how I coined him Ken Berry Wrong, just found him not to be very bright... That he came from SquareSoft, another company I loved, was also like another sword through the back of my heart... :/ Ken said Tom questioned exactly when DeuceBag ceased contact with me, as I stated it was after the April, 2010 secret deals took place, so an attack on my credibility made it into this exchange...

Well, it ended with me pleading, give me a chance to make videos demonstrating my translation software, and I betted they never knew about it, which I was right, DeuceBag told them nothing and they were ill-prepared for it, but after trying 30 video recordings over the weekend, writing scripts for Ken, I just am not Joe Redifer, I wish I had his video cutting skills, then I got demoralized and told myself, dude, this guy made his final decision, he told me to go pound sand and that was it, only a lawyer option would ever work now... I dunno, better to have tried when I had the window, though, right ?? He told me, email it to comments@xseedgames.com and he'd look at it, but yeah, it just felt hopeless, he'd come up with another bullshit excuse...

Yep, that's how it ended with Ken.... Then next year, I got the guts a little more, started the boycott, and after 4 article-length posts, DeuceBag came out of his 3 years of hiding, of no direct messages to me, to cut me off at the knees, claiming he hired a lawyer, demanding for me to delete any and all references of him on my website... I chose not to "kowtow" to his demands because I wasn't gonna let him get rid of me that easily, and pressed on - they just wanted me to crawl away, live and die with their f*ck you prescribed outcome... I just think...you can't let people step on you like that, like you're dirt...

So, Arjak, just telling you my experience, and how I came about this path as best I can... I don't need nor want more enemies in principle, but I accept that's inevitable at times and it is what it is in this world... If I think I'm right, and have an educated opinion from knowledge and experience, I'll stick to my guns and defend my position; if I'm ignorant, I typically stay out of it unless I develop enough interest in a subject to learn more in the future. I'm 100% sure I'm right about XSEED, and it's NOT crying over spilled milk, they can fix it tomorrow and end this conflict, but they choose defiance daily, they want me to crawl away and "live with it" in a "too bad sucka" fashion... I'm just not gonna let them do that without a fight...

If you believe in solutions, you could've also emailed Tom, XSEED, etc. instead of trying to intimidate me into silence, into a only-positive-comments-for-XSEED-allowed, or neutrality, no more negative posts for you, Nick, you ran out the clock, too bad... Ya know ? Did Tom ever answer you back ? Probably not, they're just trying to ignore me away...till I get tired, and f*ck off as I was "supposed to do from day one" according to Tom and DeuceBag... :/

With that said, I am hoping to possibly return in some capacity, that is, if I'm still welcome. I will try to keep a more level head and not nuke any more bridges, and perhaps even be a little more proactive in contributing to the community, and not just be that guy who sits in the corner leeching off of everyone.

I hope you all can forgive me, but I also understand if you aren't ready, if ever. Regardless, I want to do my best to make it up to all of you. I hope I will be able to...

You're welcome to come and go as you please, nobody ever "banished" you... And I think there's a working ignore feature for those you don't care for.

I will be buying Ys VIII when it comes out next year. No reason to boycott.

See, the thing is, if they had cheated you, and you started the boycott, and I was just a regular Ys fan, would I bring myself to join your boycott ? I guess if I'm honest, I don't like you all that much, didn't like how you treated Black Falcon recently (and I know you dislike me, the "no reason" conveys you have no respect for my case), so I'm betting I'd likely play it the way NecroPhile does also... If you're intellectually honest about all the facts, I would be able to say they were dicks (not gonna defend their "typing game" talking point for sure!), and I feel your pain, but there's only one Ys series and would hope that you'd understand that, etc. I'm cursed, as like Nulltard says, at being able to see things from all sides...

[Gredler]

[Arjak]

If I think I'm right, and have an educated opinion from knowledge and experience, I'll stick to my guns and defend my position; if I'm ignorant, I typically stay out of it unless I develop enough interest in a subject to learn more in the future.

That's where I made my mistake. I didn't have an educated opinion, I didn't bother to learn more about the situation, and I shot my mouth off anyway. In fact, I'm pretty sure you told me your side of the story multiple times, and for some stupid reason, I never appreciated it. Instead, I selfishly looked for a reason to doubt it, and lashed out, much to my eventual embarrassment. My apologies.

By the way, Nightwolve, did I miss something? Are you a forum Administrator now? I noticed that you now have the title of King Drool! The only other person with that title that I'm aware of is Aaron.

[TurboXray]

NW:
So.. what exactly did XSEED team take from you? Did they use your tools you developed for the translation? Did they use the script that you extracted instead of extracting it themselves? Have you looked at the binary to see if they used your modified code for the font, print, etc routines? Even if it's not the exact same for same binary wise, is it the same 'code' method just re-written? I honestly was a little confused on the details of this issue. All I remember was Deuce pulled some shady shit, but I don't remember the details.

[NightWolve]

This is about teamwork, work hours, a 2 man job for the most part, a paperless partnership that produced translated results for 4 games that were ready-to-go...that's what they took, the translated results, just via my partner.

To understand this, consider the translation process in 3 steps:

Step 1) Programmer extracts all Japanese text/images, recruits a translator, prepares it for him/her, maybe develops translation software to speed up the process, then transfers it over. For Ys I, it took me 6 months.

Step 2) Translator converts all Japanese text/images to English. For Ys I, it took DeuceBag 2 weeks. The results go public for fans eventually.

Step 3) Corporation secretly contacts the translator, instructs him/her to export the translated results on over for 100% payment/profit/credit, and to keep it a secret from the programmer. Translator doesn't speak to programmer anymore for 3 years thereafter...

(Normally step 3 is it's exported back to me to put back in the videogame, but consider this alternate scenario for a moment.)

Question: Did the "step 2" translator profit from the work hours and translation software of the "step 1" programmer in this scenario ? Was someone cheated ?

It's a no brainer, the translator cheated the programmer and this is what the corporation wanted too! The ONLY people who claim I wasn't cheated are XSEED shills and trolls of my past that still harbor a grudge for me... If I get away from Ys/Falcom fans, present the same scenario, nobody outside of that sphere has yet to tell me it wasn't cheating/exploitation/profiteering!

Other details learned later, the guy in the company hated the programmer and was feuding with him publicly and privately before being hired, how does that look to you exactly ?

Did they use your tools you developed for the translation?

My custom translation software already did its job in advance, thereafter only an export was needed to provide to them, thus he had to use it one last time for commercial purposes to deliver the translated text to them! So yes, DeuceBag used it one last time for them in the export process.

DeuceBag had on his PC (as did I) 1,994 strings pre-translated for Ys I, 6,254 for Ys II, 5,104 for Felghana, and 11,539 for Ys Origin, that's a grand total of 24,891 strings pre-translated, ready for delivery to XSEED for the 4 Ys games in question!

Now take this hypothetical, he walks into the office of XSEED, opens up his laptop, fires up a copy of my translation app for Ys I, and begins exporting it there for them on the spot. Why does he have my app on his PC ? Why does he have 24,891 strings pre-translated for all 4 games in question ? Why does he have this advantage over 8-4 Studios and other professional translation companies ?? Because of our partnership, my IT work hours, my translation software, plus his translation work hours, etc.

XSEED saved time and money, because of *my time*, plus his time! How much time and money would they have lost if they hired 8-4 Studios again to translate 24,891 strings from scratch ? They would have to pay professional rates, 15 cents a word, or so, which amounts to thousands of dollars, and no time-saving aspect given our fan translation team had everything ready-to-go!!!

DeuceBag was like the illegal amigo day laborer that contractors drive around the big cities to pick up for construction work so they don't have to pay union guys $25 bucks/hr. They pick 'em up, pay in cash, $8-10/hr, no having the inconveniences of reporting it to the IRS, or all the other expenses when you're running a totally legit business, and they may even work faster than slow union guys who want every minute of their breaktime, etc. (Sorry to generalize, union guys! Heh-heh.)

In short, XSEED got a sweetheart deal on 4 translated results, they got to pay whatever they wanted (cause we were "just fans" according to Ken Berry and no way did DeuceBag haggle upwards), the turnaround time was weeks/months faster than professionals starting from scratch for 24,891 strings, and they got to discriminate against one of the partners that Tom Lipschultz hated conveniently enough... It's also learned later that Tom and DeuceBag had organized a double-cross against the programmer a year BEFORE he got hired by XSEED!!!

Gee, what's the problem here ?? 

What's their excuse ? Tom put all my troll posts under a microscope of years past, he presented me as a controversy, an embarrassment. The Felghana drama ? He told them about that. The Ys Origin drama that HE caused against me ? He told them about that... You get the picture. Then he sent them to my website where I had a photo of my middle finger Joe Redifer style... So, they had it both ways... I was an unprofessional embarrassment, if my name was credited, it would be "bad for business" but if they just hijack the translated output from DeuceBag, pretend I had nothing to do with it, they could "get away with it..."

By the way, Nightwolve, did I miss something? Are you a forum Administrator now? I noticed that you now have the title of King Drool! The only other person with that title that I'm aware of is Aaron.

I asked Aaron about fixing the Youtube embedding problem, to upgrade it to use HTML5 as it was still embedding with Adobe Flash which Youtube broke for a few days. I tried to guide him into installing another SMF mod, but it didn't work, then I asked if maybe letting me go temporary mod could allow me to figure it out, that worked, I could also mess around in the SMF package area. I worked on it across a few days, a few hours, and got it working well enough.

Then it was like, well, we might as well have an extra pair of hands to approve registrations and help out, and Aaron would like me to eventually help one day to move PCEFX off to another server, which I have done a few times with my own SMF install, etc.

So, that's how I got modded. I hang out here all the time like NecroPhile (who I asked Aaron to mod a year or so ago), so might as well in "me-too" fashion.

Also, if you click on my profile, you'll see I added more profile fields, this to help with legit registration pruning and add more member info, etc.

[Gredler]

Not cool about the whole exceed thing, but it is cool that we have more functional youtube linking, and that you're able to help the forum progress Bittersweet post, dude.

[NightWolve]

So here's how Tom said on 01/22/14 his "presentation of demonization" (as I refer to it) when down to Ken Berry "innocently" enough:

I don't want to be at odds with you, and frankly, I don't know why I am.
All I did -- literally, ALL I did -- was suggest XSEED use the existing
fan-translations for the Ys games to save time. I then went over the full
story of what happened with my coworkers, including the Felghana patch
leak and the subsequent drama surrounding Ys Origin. I didn't speak highly
of you, of course, but I didn't lie about anything either -- I made you
out to be the victim in the case of the Felghana patch leak, as that was
absolutely a dick move on the part of the leaker, and I made you out to be
the villain in the case of Ys Origin, because I absolutely feel you were.
But nothing I said was untrue, and I linked Ken to your website so he
could research the matter for himself and make his own decisions.

Nothing about DeuceBag's cock-flashing made it into this presentation of course, he was just the "good guy" from the forums, Tom just put me under a microscope...

Also, all of Tom's troll posts against me on the ALoY forums, he expunged/deleted in 2008 as part of a "nerd truce" with me... So you couldn't find that dirt on him if you wanted now (it's my fault, but it wouldn't have made a difference in the outcome, just sayin', he had all the power of influence in the world at this key moment, he cleaned himself up, he poisoned the well of first impressions for me, that's how he got the outcome that he wanted!)...

Notice the denialist propaganda-style, "WHY are we at odds with each other ?? WHY would you be angry about this ??? I DON'T UNDERSTAND!?!?"

"These aren't the droids you're looking for, Nick. Nobody cheated you, Nick. You were just a Japanese text delivery boy, Nick. You didn't translate a single word, after all, Nick... Get over it, Nick, etc."