Improving the Genealogy Translation Patch

[bookofholsety]

That should totally be subject they teach at college or something.

"Good morning, class. Today we will be continuing our study of the ancient Bronie civilisation with the analysis of this papyrus scroll, found as the centerpiece of a reliquary full of equine iconography and hats of questionable repute. The body of its text has, alas, been eroded by millenia of disuse in a dusty chamber. The only legible remaining part of it is what appears to be its title; according to experts in the Cloptic script, it translates roughly to "Cupcakes". The contents of this tome have been lost to time, and we can only guess at its original meaning: was it a holy text, written in tribute to their horse gods? Was it a historical record, or a piece of mythological fiction? Perhaps one day, we may be able to reconstruct its contents and see for ourselves. Isn't the thought exciting?"

[Soledai]

wow you don't say nobody would ever have guessed that Falaflame is named after Fala =OOOOOOOO

Nintendo sure didn't...

I'm gone for a week and this topic got weird

Also, I has question about this Fandom study, does using the names from the TCG count as 'Fandom'? because, that's certainly what I used until I learned Japanese

Can anyone here even get in touch with the patch creator(s), or is feeding information to him/them? I wanna converse with him/them about this (I'm probably not the first to ask, though)

[bookofholsety]

Nintendo sure didn't...

You honestly can't blame them for not being 100% familiar with the minor details of a game they've never touched for international release (and considering the worst they did was give Scathach a name which strongly resembles that of an unrelated Jugdrali city, I think they did pretty well). Honestly, the Valflame change is hardly completely ruining anything or making things more difficult in future; should they ever do anything with FE4, all they really need to do is change Fala to something like "Vala" or "Val" (or Valtome). Hell, that's the sort of thing that this fan translation patch could benefit from doing.

Also, I has question about this Fandom study, does using the names from the TCG count as 'Fandom'? because, that's certainly what I used until I learned Japanese

The overwhelming majority of common FE3, 4 and 5 fan names have indeed historically been rooted in NoJ's official romanisations as seen in the TCG, the Treasure artbook or the Museum website; similarly, the majority of names used in the patch are NoJ names. Of course, there are quite a few exceptions (Sigurd, Julius, Julia, Lachesis and Levin come to mind) which mostly derive from the NoJ names of those characters being awkward or obviously "incorrect". Either way, the fact that for these games NoJ names are so widely used makes the strong resistance to FE13's NoJ names a few months ago kind of hilarious.

[Soledai]

You honestly can't blame them for not being 100% familiar with the minor details of a game they've never touched for international release (and considering the worst they did was give Scathach a name which strongly resembles that of an unrelated Jugdrali city, I think they did pretty well).

..............No, I can't give them that excuse, if you're not "100% familiar with the minor details" as you put it, .... research it, you can't tell me you wouldn't do that much at least, you just can't

.... Also, changing Scathach to Ulster, really isn't the worst, but I'm just splitting hairs here

Honestly, the Valflame change is hardly completely ruining anything or making things more difficult in future; should they ever do anything with FE4, all they really need to do is change Fala to something like "Vala" or "Val" (or Valtome). Hell, that's the sort of thing that this fan translation patch could benefit from doing.

I agree, it doesn't ruin a thing, but see above... if you had done any kind of prior research, you would see, in clear english, "Fala", namely on the Holy blood chart, I could do this with Forseti/Holsety thing... but there'd be no point, as I recall seeing Folsety/Forsety back when I playing FE5

The overwhelming majority of common FE3, 4 and 5 fan names have indeed historically been rooted in NoJ's official romanisations as seen in the TCG, the Treasure artbook or the Museum website; similarly, the majority of names used in the patch are NoJ names. Of course, there are quite a few exceptions (Sigurd, Julius, Julia, Lachesis and Levin come to mind) which mostly derive from the NoJ names of those characters being awkward or obviously "incorrect". Either way, the fact that for these games NoJ names are so widely used makes the strong resistance to FE13's NoJ names a few months ago kind of hilarious.

So, having that said, would you or could you jump ships so easily, after embedding these names into your FE memory bank? Even the more obscure names? I don't want to get misunderstood for wanting some, if all, of these names to stay in these translations

I agree, again, the powerful resistance towards FE13 names was miserably funny, at most, I just thought some the changes were plain dumb

[bookofholsety]

..............No, I can't give them that excuse, if you're not "100% familiar with the minor details" as you put it, .... research it, you can't tell me you wouldn't do that much at least, you just can't

.... Also, changing Scathach to Ulster, really isn't the worst, but I'm just splitting hairs here

In terms of research you do raise a valid point, and I don't think we can ever really know what NoA's modus operandi was when it comes to researching legacy elements of FE13. All things considered I'm inclined to suspect they at least familiarised themselves with the general gist of the games in question, though it's unlikely they obsessively pored over whatever sources actually talk about the Crusaders.

I agree, it doesn't ruin a thing, but see above... if you had done any kind of prior research, you would see, in clear english, "Fala", namely on the Holy blood chart, I could do this with Forseti/Holsety thing... but there'd be no point, as I recall seeing Folsety/Forsety back when I playing FE5

NoA has changed graphical text like that plenty of times before (see: Ciaran -> Caelin in FE7), and they can do it again if they ever want to translate FE4. Whether or not a different game in Japanese prints one thing in plain English shouldn't affect their decisions here; the holy blood chart alone would require, in addition to the Vala change, Baldo -> Baldur, Holsety -> Forseti and Narga -> Naga, and don't get me started on the world map. From the perspective of official localisations which would likely have access to all the development tools, changing graphical text is really not a big deal at all.

I digress, though; back to the main meat of the name change happening in the first place. Fire Emblem as a franchise is certainly no stranger to names being changed for the English version even if they're clearly spelled out in the Japanese version (again, see Ciaran -> Caelin). The Valflame change was quite clearly a very deliberate choice rather than a screwup of any description; it's not like the Japanese name was ambiguous at all. Valflame certainly isn't pulled out of nowhere, with the "Val" part pretty clearly being a corruption of "Fal(a)", one arguably entirely within the rules of straight-up romanization of Japanese. Seriously, it's not like they called it Ikeflame or Penisflame or whatever; its name has barely changed at all, relatively speaking.

(also I'm pretty sure the FE5 patch still uses "Holsety" in gameplay, though who knows what kind of inconsistencies snuck into the story script when nobody was looking)

So, having that said, would you or could you jump ships so easily, after embedding these names into your FE memory bank? Even the more obscure names? I don't want to get misunderstood for wanting some, if all, of these names to stay in these translations

I agree, again, the powerful resistance towards FE13 names was miserably funny, at most, I just thought some the changes were plain dumb

Yes, I could and I have jumped ship with no problems, beyond briefly puzzling over "saias wtf" on the first day. That said, I can sort of see where you're coming from, and the way I see it, nothing's stopping you from personally continuing to use the fan names in conversation. For example, there are plenty of people who still call the Altean paladin Jeigan rather than Jagen, even though it's been four years since FE11's English release. However, your choice here won't really have all that much influence on what the SF main site or fan translation patches go with, unless you end up in charge of either of those things personally. And hey, once the patch is updated to say Seliph, Lewyn, Grannvale etc, it's not like it's going to suddenly become excruciatingly painful for you to play (and if it does I recommend you seek professional help).

[Soledai]

In terms of research you do raise a valid point, and I don't think we can ever really know what NoA's modus operandi was when it comes to researching legacy elements of FE13. All things considered I'm inclined to suspect they at least familiarised themselves with the general gist of the games in question, though it's unlikely they obsessively pored over whatever sources actually talk about the Crusaders.

Probably barely any research involved on their end... I would've suspected none at all if not for Chalphy... even though I still don't, because you can 'familiarize' yourself, to a degree, when you recruit said DLC char from their respective game(I haven't played it yet, so)... and I... just doubt they would've used them sources

NoA has changed graphical text like that plenty of times before (see: Ciaran -> Caelin in FE7), and they can do it again if they ever want to translate FE4. Whether or not a different game in Japanese prints one thing in plain English shouldn't affect their decisions here; the holy blood chart alone would require, in addition to the Vala change, Baldo -> Baldur, Holsety -> Forseti and Narga -> Naga, and don't get me started on the world map. From the perspective of official localisations which would likely have access to all the development tools, changing graphical text is really not a big deal at all.

I digress, though; back to the main meat of the name change happening in the first place. Fire Emblem as a franchise is certainly no stranger to names being changed for the English version even if they're clearly spelled out in the Japanese version (again, see Ciaran -> Caelin). The Valflame change was quite clearly a very deliberate choice rather than a screwup of any description; it's not like the Japanese name was ambiguous at all. Valflame certainly isn't pulled out of nowhere, with the "Val" part pretty clearly being a corruption of "Fal(a)", one arguably entirely within the rules of straight-up romanization of Japanese. Seriously, it's not like they called it Ikeflame or Penisflame or whatever; its name has barely changed at all, relatively speaking.

(also I'm pretty sure the FE5 patch still uses "Holsety" in gameplay, though who knows what kind of inconsistencies snuck into the story script when nobody was looking)

You raised a point, once again, I agree that it barely changed, although, assuming that event you propose even remotely happened, should it not have been Valaflame, or rather, why not Valaflame?

And just when I had a higher opinion of you, you make a penis joke? Man, tighten up

Oh, It definitely does use Holsety, I believe I saw Forsety, in some old patch that wasn't by Shaya... maybe

Yes, I could and I have jumped ship with no problems, beyond briefly puzzling over "saias wtf" on the first day. That said, I can sort of see where you're coming from, and the way I see it, nothing's stopping you from personally continuing to use the fan names in conversation. For example, there are plenty of people who still call the Altean paladin Jeigan rather than Jagen, even though it's been four years since FE11's English release. However, your choice here won't really have all that much influence on what the SF main site or fan translation patches go with, unless you end up in charge of either of those things personally. And hey, once the patch is updated to say Seliph, Lewyn, Grannvale etc, it's not like it's going to suddenly become excruciatingly painful for you to play (and if it does I recommend you seek professional help).

Exactly, nothing can and nothing will stop me, and I don't really care for influence, like I said I didn't want to be misunderstood, as I've seen people express this matter the wrong way... and two things....

1. NoJ names=Fan names?...

2. Don't tempt me... Or I'll really end up in charge of the patch, and if that happens... I'd want you on my team/playtest it first(No, that's not a snub or meant as an insult)

Finally, It most definitely will not be "excruciatingly painful" to play, *see above* nothing will stop me from having my opinion, just like you roll with the waves, I stand like the mountain

[Gharnef]

Not that I want to take ownership of the patch but "Serlis" bugs me so much that I wanted to edit and rebuild it. Has anyone successfully rebuilt the patch from source? I'm very familiar with *nix and building software from source (I'd better be, I do it for a living) and I'm getting a pretty specific and repeatable error I can share if anyone with technical aptitude and familiarity with the patch wants to see it.

Seriously, Serlis ... ? :/

[Guy Starwind]

Not that I want to take ownership of the patch but "Serlis" bugs me so much that I wanted to edit and rebuild it. Has anyone successfully rebuilt the patch from source? I'm very familiar with *nix and building software from source (I'd better be, I do it for a living) and I'm getting a pretty specific and repeatable error I can share if anyone with technical aptitude and familiarity with the patch wants to see it.

Seriously, Serlis ... ? :/

I believe most people share your views with the name.

[CT075]

it'd be a tad harder than rebuilding the software from the source (although i vaguely remember a makefile for some text editor that would be substantially easier) since you're essentially hacking into an archaic game format with hardcoded stuff everywhere, trying to insert data that isn't meant to be there

[Gharnef]

it'd be a tad harder than rebuilding the software from the source (although i vaguely remember a makefile for some text editor that would be substantially easier) since you're essentially hacking into an archaic game format with hardcoded stuff everywhere, trying to insert data that isn't meant to be there

Sorry, I didn't phrase it well. I'm not trying to edit the binary patch directly, that definitely won't work :) I just want to edit the scripts and rebuild the patch from source.

I'm close. There are some errors in fe4p/fe4p.c relating to the row/col preprocessor macros that I fixed myself. This enables compilation at least. But then during cross comp of the .ips it blows up:

../bin/65816 -c -hi dcenc.asm

...

[entering second pass]

assembling code at $91FAB0...finished at $91FBD3.

*** glibc detected *** ../bin/65816: double free or corruption (fasttop): 0x08063b20 ***

And it pukes out the BT too. I don't mind making requested edits and sharing this if it works, but it's gotta work first - I was hoping to not be the only soul brave enough to try this at home.

Still smh @ Serlis :)

[Shin]

I've had a toy with it. Unfortunately, I'm not great with compiling and actually made it explode... still, something worth looking into.

[CT075]

instead of fooling with the patch itself, there was definitely a makefile for an accompanying text editor that you could probably use pretty easily

[Gharnef]

instead of fooling with the patch itself, there was definitely a makefile for an accompanying text editor that you could probably use pretty easily

Any idea where that might be? I've combed this site, grandbell and the web in general - didn't find it. This is my first foray into FE hacking so it's possible I missed common resources. Thanks.

[CT075]

It was on twilkitri's website, i don't have a link to it right now

you might try asking shin, he would know better than i would

[eefara]

Have you considered going onto the Romhacking forums and asking for their expertise, Gharnef? I'm positive they'd be able to help out at least a little.

[Tetragrammaton]

Sorry, I didn't phrase it well. I'm not trying to edit the binary patch directly, that definitely won't work :) I just want to edit the scripts and rebuild the patch from source.

I'm close. There are some errors in fe4p/fe4p.c relating to the row/col preprocessor macros that I fixed myself. This enables compilation at least. But then during cross comp of the .ips it blows up:

../bin/65816 -c -hi dcenc.asm

...

[entering second pass]

assembling code at $91FAB0...finished at $91FBD3.

*** glibc detected *** ../bin/65816: double free or corruption (fasttop): 0x08063b20 ***

And it pukes out the BT too. I don't mind making requested edits and sharing this if it works, but it's gotta work first - I was hoping to not be the only soul brave enough to try this at home.

Still smh @ Serlis :)

I guess you are looking for something like this?

http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=32307#entry1961807

[Gharnef]

I'm close here ... with some hackery I compiled a patch where the only change I made was Serlis -> Seliph. Some of the text doesn't line up correctly now though, and while I haven't done anything more than rudimentary testing that's the only issue I see. TBH I just did a batch replacement of Serlis to Seliph so likely that is what caused text alignment issues.

Text overrun:

Serlis no more!

[SM Nick]

I'm close here ... with some hackery I compiled a patch where the only change I made was Serlis -> Seliph. Some of the text doesn't line up correctly now though, and while I haven't done anything more than rudimentary testing that's the only issue I see. TBH I just did a batch replacement of Serlis to Seliph so likely that is what caused text alignment issues.

Text overrun:

Serlis no more!

Hooray! At least we see some progress! Now if only Twilkitri could at least update soon.

[Gharnef]

Hooray! At least we see some progress! Now if only Twilkitri could at least update soon.

Twilkitri's MIA

Bwahahaa I think I fixed the text overrun issue. Gonna do more playtesting.

So I guess what I'd really like to do is make the stuff in FE4 consistent with the current etymology and mythology. Off the top of my head, here's what I know I'd change (aside from Serlis):

• Holsety -> Forseti
• Eltshan -> Eldigan
• Scathach -> Ulster
• Alvis -> Arvis
• Aless -> Ares
• Lakche -> Larcei
• Sety -> Ced
• Swanchika -> Helswath
• THammer -> Mjolnir (though I love reading THammer...)
• Falaflame -> Valflame
• Hmm, Narga vs. Naga?

Thoughts on what the community at large would like for an update? I don't have the official list of stuff that's changed or been updated in the etymology, this is what I've gathered from FE Awakening. Any playtesters interested in trying a new patch?

[Booton]

I think JrLord should be changed to just Lord.

[Klokinator]

Yeah, let's keep it consistent with newer titles in the series, JrLord sounds really odd. Also, studies show that Jr. in a title leads to inferiority both in how they act towards others and in how society sees them. If there has to be a prefix or whatever, make it Sir Lord or someshit. (But just Lord is best obvs)

[Gharnef]

whatever, make it Sir Lord or someshit. (But just Lord is best obvs)

I'd go Lord -> Great Lord if anything.

[Booton]

Knight Lord should remain the same in my opinion, especially since it was later used for Eliwood too.

[bookofholsety]

Twilkitri's MIA

Bwahahaa I think I fixed the text overrun issue. Gonna do more playtesting.

So I guess what I'd really like to do is make the stuff in FE4 consistent with the current etymology and mythology. Off the top of my head, here's what I know I'd change (aside from Serlis):

• Holsety -> Forseti
• Eltshan -> Eldigan
• Scathach -> Ulster
• Alvis -> Arvis
• Aless -> Ares
• Lakche -> Larcei
• Sety -> Ced
• Swanchika -> Helswath
• THammer -> Mjolnir (though I love reading THammer...)
• Falaflame -> Valflame
• Hmm, Narga vs. Naga?

Thoughts on what the community at large would like for an update? I don't have the official list of stuff that's changed or been updated in the etymology, this is what I've gathered from FE Awakening. Any playtesters interested in trying a new patch?

the full list of changes (or lack thereof) made by FE13 is here. pretty much all the class, weapon and skill names as of Twilkitri's last patch release (save Great Shield -> Pavise) are already consistent with current English releases. as for stuff i'd recommend, how about adjusting "Mage Fighter" to "War Mage"? it lines up neatly with the War Monk and War Cleric of FE13

additionally, since the name change list on SF doesn't seem to address it, the markings caused by possession of holy blood are now called Brands. admittedly, this isn't that important; off the top of my head, the only time they're even mentioned in FE4 is when Azmur is talking about the Naga Brand on Deirdre's forehead confirming her identity as his granddaughter

Edited May 5, 2013 by bookofholsety

[King Marth 64]

the full list of changes (or lack thereof) made by FE13 is here. pretty much all the class, weapon and skill names as of Twilkitri's last patch release (save Great Shield -> Pavise) are already consistent with current English releases. as for stuff i'd recommend, how about adjusting "Mage Fighter" to "War Mage"? it lines up neatly with the War Monk and War Cleric of FE13

additionally, since the name change list on SF doesn't seem to address it, the markings caused by possession of holy blood are now called Brands. admittedly, this isn't that important; off the top of my head, the only time they're even mentioned in FE4 is when Azmur is talking about the Naga Brand on Deirdre's forehead confirming her identity as his granddaughter

Also, I think Twilkitri said that the previous patch did have Dragon Riders as Wyvern Riders and Altena's class as Wyvern Knight, that Dragon Knights were definitely called Wyvern Riders (not Wyvern Knights) and I think that its probably need to be change Dragon Riders as something else with changing Dragon to Wyvern and also needs to avoid with Rider part too from "Wyvern Rider". And I am not too sure if the Levin Sword was fixed as "Levin Sword" or not in the previous patch (that I'm still trying to get that IPS file working)

Edited May 5, 2013 by King Marth 64