Hoping to make your life's design a bit more dynamic!

Well, I can't speak for #2, because I didn't look at it. I tend to prefer to work in games in chronological order ;)

I have just updated my original post which was from February 2011. Good to see that some progress has been made for the previous four years.

I still hope that somebody will translate Oni II, Far East of Eden Zero and Traverse: Starlight & Prairie. Furthermore, it would be great if someday Dragon Quest 6 and Romancing Saga 3 would get a proper translation.

Well, at least we have the DS and upcoming iOS/android versions of DQVI. Though, I also would REALLY like to see the SaGa series get more respect. Even if nobody wants to handle the SNES versions, I wish Square-enix would localize/update/release them for portable/mobile systems.

I will do DQ-VI if Bongo will build the system for it. I have learned enough about translating and have gathered enough other resources to follow the DQ-IV style and put the whole thing together perfectly with very little outside translation support. I figure I would need about two years.

What's currently out here now is darn near done. Not sure why it has not been completed? I try
and stay away from these games. Too much nit picking, etc.

Pete, first of all, thanks for keeping this post going. Second, come back on here and tell us the details of why the "fan" translations of SNES DQ-VI are inadequate. I already know why these previous efforts don't satisfy hardcore old school gamers, and I further submit that the partial DQ-VI translations floating around out there will NEVER be completed. But I'm too busy right now to make this point. Besides, it might carry more weight coming from a gamer other than myself.

Pete, I'm busy because I'm working on four never-released-in-any-form SNES RPGs simultaneously, right this very minute, all of which are in the latter stages of story-writing. Also, Bongo`'s hacking tasks are 99.999 percent completed. After these four games go out the door, I have nothing on the horizon except the DoaE GB story. Now, I'm perfectly willing to divert the time I spend helping create RPG patches into other hobbies such as fishing and hunting. It seems I have more hobbies that I have time! However, I might be persuaded to sink my teeth into another game project started from scratch.

I actually proposed that we do our own version of DQ-VI about five years ago. At the time, Bongo`, you suggested that the game was a hacking nightmare. Well, if it's outside of our expertise, then so be it. But if it's not, Bongo`, I happen to know that you dream in code. Oh, you make a lot of racket when you come up against a coding challenge that frustrates you for a while, but dang-it, you know very good and well that you really love it!

So, there it is, from my viewpoint, and I'll finish with this:

Only three concerns about this hobby matter to me.

1. The creative expression and art form that accompanies it.
2. The challenges, including solving tricky codes and mustering the discipline to spend a thousand or two hours constructing every detail to perfection.
3. Enjoying the comments of the 15 or 20 people who drop by through the years to say they enjoyed the game patch and express their appreciation.

Nothing else - AND I MEAN NOTHING - matters.

Hey Wildbill, Bongo', Draken! It is great getting feedback from almost the whole team of DD. First of all, thank you for the extensive answers to my update.

Concerning Dragon Quest 6: It is a great game and it deserves a quality translation. Obviously, the already existing partial translation does not have the quality of the work you guys at DD have to offer. But this ist not the point. I do not think that you would have to start the project from scratch. Just finishing the existing translation, maybe improving some aspects of it, would be fine and completly suffice to me. I just would like to play the full game in English, understanding every aspect of the storyline etc.

Of course I do not know if it is possible to do this. I think you would have to get the permission of the people having built the original patch. I do not know if they are still active and can be contacted. But as far as I have understood, the case with Shell Monsters Story 1+2 was similar. There was an existing translation that you have improved and completed. Maybe something like this would also be possible with DQ 6?

By the way, Wildbill, if you would really like to start a game from scratch instead of going fishing and hunting - which I would totally understand bearing in mind the enormous accomplishments you guys at DD have contributed to the ROM-hacking community in the previous years - do Oni II. I know that you like this game, too. I mean, Dragon Quest 6 and Romancing Saga 3 can at least partially be played in English. And this is better than nothing.

Finally, as you can see, there are some people (I guess more than 15-20) caring for your work and the enormous amount of time you have invested in this passion. We do not take this for granted. It is highly appreciated.

I remember playing Romancing SaGa 3 and Dragon Quest VI with the patches in question a few years ago. They were both certainly playable, but I think the RS3 patch had a lot more issues. I remember running into Japanese script occasionally in both and the English in both could have used a little more work, especially RS3. At least with Dragon Quest 6, we got the DS game. With the SaGa games it is kind of sad that the best games in the series are the ones we missed although we did get the remake for the PS2. I'm hoping the new SaGa game for the Vita returns to the SNES type games.

i translated Dragon Quest 6 DS pretty much to completion myself (the WiFi/sharing stuff is the only thing that's incomplete iirc). I enjoyed both the official translation as well as my own (Hors, Horschuk I'm fond of). I think that the official translation was accurate enough although as with most commercially-motivated translations it does leave/change things that may not interest the target audience in the same way as the original audience. Mine is like that, but without any significant changes to the original text.

Maybe you should give it a try. Patch is floating out there..

Thank you, Pete, Ultpaladin, and Gerb!

Gerb, FYI, I am taking a short hiatus from SSMS-II to get Aretha-II at V-0.99. Compared to the complexity of SSMS-II, A-II is breezing along. That underworld in SSMS-II, however, goes on and on and on, not to mention finding and searching all those secret holes in the crater (post-crash of the floating continent), mopping up the never-ending intricacies of MyTown, finding every single side-quest, and finally, sorting out that danged clock, the wells, and the time temples. But I should be back into the heavy breathing mode with SSMS-II by the beginning of February.

So, if we do get something rolling on SNES DQ-VI, Gerb, can I have a copy of your translation of the DS version? SSMS-II is gonna be so amazing, I would like to sink my teeth into yet another sprawling effort such as DQ-VI. No matter if old groups let us have their systems or not, I know from long experience that Bongo` would just up and redesign the whole doggone insertion engine from the ground up again, as usual! Heh, it's just his way!

As for old translation scripts and FAQs and commercial strategy guides of DQ-VI floating around, Gerb, I like the way you put translation scripts together better than any I've seen outside groups do. Yep, Filler and you are the best! That Filler... He's got me rolling in stitches as I cruise through the downhill side of Aretha-II! That game uses a Consult system, and the party members are constantly on each others cases about any and everything, most of the time!

Pete, you know I was hot to trot on Oni-II for a number of years, but for a reason I won't go into, that ship has sailed and propelled me toward seriously thinking retirement, these days. There's a lot of fish in the waters out there and game lurking the woods, just-a waitin' for my dinner table!