Vacation over
Just as it says- my vacation is over. I plan to make a jump in on everything this week, though Friday and Monday have been holidays in Japan, so nothing really for me to write about, unless I wanted to get through the backlog, and that was just too much of an ordeal, it’s best that I get myself ready to go now instead of be dropped right in when something big, such as the Dengeki leaks next week.
Website Updates
I’ve been doing some backend work on Endless History, tweaking some widgets, modifying the mobile version, etc etc. I will be soon linking the Falcom Discord to the site, but I need to customize the CSS of the widget to make it work in this theme. That will take a little more time than I expected.
I have updated some of the CSS framework on the back end- it’s all super minor, of course. And the most important thing I talked about on twitter already a couple of months ago- it’s that I’ve launched SSL on the website. If you find any pages that come up with a scary red ‘no’ mark over the padlock in your URL, feel free to send me the exact URL via the contact form as a bug or error, and I can look into what’s happening with it.
I also, quietly, added a donation link at the bottom of the page in the past few months. As a note, anything you provide will go in towards the website’s hosting or materials used for the site. I had played around with the idea of a Patreon, but I’m not 100% comfortable with that step of the process yet. I will also, absolutely, never run advertisements on this site. I’ve stood by this promise since day one, and I will remain beholden to it. I hate banner ads on the internet, and I know I’m not the only one, so I would not ever subject my readers to this.
That Ugly Neogaf Situation
Now for an elephant in the room: neogaf.
I want to preface this by saying that I do everything in my power to keep my actual opinions off of this site, and simply relay the news. You can go to my twitter account for that. However, I feel the need to be open about another major change on my site, but I need to set out some history on it first.
For the past few months now, I’ve been feeling more and more negative towards the attitudes I’ve seen on neogaf. The primary reason I even registered for an account there was because the members of the forum continuously misread my posts, or put words in my mouth on them. Hilariously, my initial attempt to apply there was denied, because the admin decided my email address was a free internet service. It was not. It was on a domain I purchase and operate myself. I have been directly threatened by a poster on there in the past, because I don’t confirm to their way of thinking, and see that there’s no communication with the posters there beyond ‘our way’ when it comes to sticky situations. I saw their faux caring for Boogie2988 when he was banned- simply for trying to be impartial and work out a situation, and they became extremely toxic towards him. While I think he’s better without neogaf, I also think that neogaf was partially responsible for his mental state at the end. I saw when Tom was banned, and it floored me because it proves to me that they think they’re better than the industry individuals that take the time to post on their website. I had a neogaf poster make a random account on twitter for the express purpose to harass me in the past. He didn’t do well with it. And got suspended afterwards as well.
This past year has shown me that not only is the toxic nature of neogaf is something that I should not interact with, but I should not let the ‘problem posters’ on there hurt me anymore. On top of that, I’ve also noticed that they hold little influence on Endless History as a whole. My website metrics have shown me that surprisingly little of my traffic comes from gaf- the majority of it comes from Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit to be exact. (And I love you guys for the support you have shown me!) As a result, I’ve decided to make a stand to show that I don’t need neogaf either.
That said, some of my backend work on Endless History has included a modification to the website that will block all referral traffic from neogaf. If you click on a URL on neogaf to send you to a page on Endless History, you will receive a 403 forbidden error. I do not believe my website will be harmed by cutting off all direct linking from gaf. If you are really determined to use URLs on gaf, it’s easy enough to get around, I’m aware.
But I’ve decided that I’m not willing to compromise my principles and show the people there who have upset and harmed me (and others) over the past couple of years that they have little power and influence in this part of the internet- I don’t need them.
Additionally: why do I feel the need to even bring this up? Because I want gaf to know why that 403 error is happening, instead of leaving them to wonder and, ultimately, misinterpret it. They misinterpret a lot of my other articles anyway, afterall. That, and I don’t like making changes without letting people know what’s happened on the back end.
Final Words
Last, but not least- I want to give a shoutout for everyone who’s been patient and supportive of me these past few months. I know my life hasn’t been that hard, and I’ve been blessed with great friends and family IRL, but I do struggle with personal issues on a day-to-day basis. There are so many people who have had my back through these few months and helped me see things that I’ve struggled to see by myself. There are days when I feel utterly alone and hopeless, but it’s amazing that, in this community that has so graciously taken me in, has helped alleviate those feelings.
There are the obvious people- my family, my friends- both online and offline, the viewers of my streams, the people on the Falcom discord, people on twitter, and my regular readers and followers of this website and the others that I run.
I don’t think I’d still be here to fight these problems of mine if you all hadn’t been there. You all make this all worth fighting for and remind me that, despite the people who have made me want to do horrible things to myself- there are those who are more than happy to make me laugh and smile and just understand that not all of the world is a scary and dark place.
I’d insert a picture where I’m making a heart with my hands for you guys, but it looks like you guys have to put up with a random doggo picture, instead. (I hope you don’t mind. Scooter is insanely adorable. It’s how he gets out of trouble all the time!)
Now that I’m done pouring my heart out to you guys- I’m going to try to catch back up and get going with these things, and hopefully be ready to tackle the Dengeki leak next week.
Until then, stay wonderful, everyone. And thank you, once again, for everything you’ve done for me. You all rule.
And instead of heavy real world problems, let’s get hyped for Trails in the Sky the 3rd to come out tomorrow. I know I am!
Dude just have a taco, relax, and watch some cat videos on YouTube. It’ll do wonders for stress.
That’s the best thing you could ever have done.
They sink reputations of devs and fan projects for fun, and try to harm the industry continuously. Their ongoing hate for Tom and wanting Xseed to fire him more than on one occasion, in part because of the translation accuracy opinions he has and that they hate (see the Persona 5 threads where they openly want some stuff to be culturally-adjusted and cut), is simply shameful. The culture isn’t any better. Sniveling buffons licking sociopath moderator boots while having a mistaken sense of self worth.
Even besides not wanting to associate with a questionable site… Your bandwidth is better spent elsewhere. You’re not the first content creator they’d be assholes at only then to steal their content and articles long after the ban and have the gall to slander his character, much like ZhugeEx.
I had seen plenty of their opinions of Persona 5 and so forth. And nowadays, even though I’m banned and don’t go there regularly, for the first time since this week, I took a peek there and I’ll admit that I feel uncomfortable standing alongside neogaf when I’ve seen posts say that a scene in Trails in the Sky the 3rd should have been left cut, as Falcom had it in the PSP version. Especially since said scene has a great deal of importance to Zero no Kiseki, and I’m currently involved in that fan translation, as well.
Regardless, that site wasn’t taking up a lot of my bandwidth. This wasn’t an overnight decision- it was something I had been considering for some time already. As I said on twitter, I did some research into the metrics that I get from neogaf, and a majority of my traffic comes in via search engines with twitter being the second by a longshot. (I imagine it helps that I’m pretty active on twitter, too.) However, one of the lowest direct site links I have is reddit (though I’d like to change that!), and neogaf couldn’t even get half of that.
So whatever. No big loss there. ;)
(Also, thank you.)
You’re involved in the Zero translation? You’re my hero. You mentioned having been part of that forum for a while, and if so I hope you didn’t suffer from their hate boner on any fan translation ever, especially that one in particular. Vicious stuff, even accusations of being machine translated before the thing is even out. I’m confident in your work and really grateful to you and everyone working on it (and btdbs, the “controversy” about one project member saying hyperbole about it being better than Xseed isn’t that big of a deal at all now that everyone moved on, to anyone other than miserable lowlifes grasping for stuff to smear and drag down more achieving people) and would really want to ensure you the hate for it you saw there isn’t representative of the general opinion. That’s for me one more reason to look forward for tomorrow.
Re: 3rd, I get which scene you meant. It’s a pleasant surprise Xseed kept it unlike Joyland and in the PSP port (whose cuts were mandated by Sony Japan’s guidelines on sexual content – come to think of it it really makes sense for them to applaud any return to 90’s Nintendo of America direct censorious policies) and the eventuality of it being removed has been bugging me a bit – apparently the “white liquid” is some extremely plot important thing in the two later games but who cares about policies? I wouldn’t be shocked if they now wanted NISA to take over the series.
It’s all clear when you see stuff like “Project X Zone and Fire Emblem Fates are my favorite localizations because of the utter disrespect to the source material – except when Fates covered up some pairings I care about” and their honestly scary attempts to get fan works C&D’d or insert their plants in said projects like what they attempted with Dai Gyakuten Saiban (apparently with Japanese names and undiluted social commentary about Victorian racism, and we can’t have that do we).
Cheer up. And may you have only good days ahead. I’m looking forward for more of your content and celebrating Falcom’s legacy (perhaps breaking the news of a new Zweii port :P) And let’s leave this ugly association and whirlpool of negativity behind our backs forever and just enjoy and support Xseed’s outstanding work on the Sora no Kiseki series. I’ll even try and get an extra copy of 3rd, and that Akiba game even if it’s not my thing.