Hello everyone, this is HunterSerge! Its been a while since any articles have gone up on the site - though the database has remained updated thanks to Orenji and Toolbox's efforts - but some recent occurrences warrant a formal announcement.
To start off, about two weeks ago, Lykun left. Eagle-eyed members of our discord may have noticed this, since it also meant the Crown icon indicating Server Owner was transferred to me. The big reason behind leaving was to focus his energies on his game, Spirit Tamer.
Earlier today, Orenji also came to a decision to take a hiatus, below is his statement:
I very much echo Orenji's sentiment that the fans should not be doing the company's PR. Its something that's been on my mind for a while - especially in the time since Ikeda stated that the EN sales are better, yet no changes being made in the PR strategy to take advantage of those better EN sales - and its something I've said myself in regards to Bushiroad and Spin Master in the past.
As for me, HunterSerge. I'm no stranger to primarily handling card game news - I did it for much of BuddySpoiler's life after all - but unfortunately I have not been very active here for the entirety of 2022. I really dislike blaming my disability, but in truth I've wanted to catch back up and resume doing work but my ADHD has made it very difficult for me to actually do that. Executive Dysfunction really sucks, and I'm still in the process of finding ADHD medication that actually works for me.
Part of it is related to something Orenji mentioned - the timing of reveals. Beyond just being often unpredictable, the timeframe reveals do tend to happen is in the middle of the night for me. Compare that to most other Japanese card games - like Buddyfight - where reveals happen somewhere in the 8:00 to 10:00 PM range for my time zone. Establishing those habits of handling card reveals was very easy in Buddyfight, because the reveal time was consistent and it happened at the end of the day. Whereas with Gate Ruler, handling reveals generally meant it was the first thing I did when I woke up and if I'm the one handling it, the card was revealed hours ago. Orenji's time zone positioned him better to handle reveals in a timely fashion, but it also meant reveals were handled by time I woke up, making it even harder to establish any sort of habit.
All of this combined means that I need to be realistic. I could promise to keep card news going in Orenji's absence, but now that I understand why I have these issues, I know that I would struggle to keep that promise.Plus, with Lykun's departure to focus on his game, which the site's coder is also working on, the remaining staff doesn't have much we can do if we should need new features to properly handle future cards. (EDIT: Just a quick update to add that we've now confirmed that the site's coder is available to add needed features in the future, so this is no longer a concern.)
So, in summation, the card database won't be updated with Japanese card reveals going forward.
This doesn't mean that the site will have no updates going forward. Toolbox, who has been handling the updates for English releases, has said he'll continue to do that, so you can expect the site to still be updated upon new English set releases.
The discord, facebook group, and subreddit aren't going anywhere either. We've maintained such pages for our past sites long after site activity ceased, and it'll be no different here.
Thanks for reading.
To start off, about two weeks ago, Lykun left. Eagle-eyed members of our discord may have noticed this, since it also meant the Crown icon indicating Server Owner was transferred to me. The big reason behind leaving was to focus his energies on his game, Spirit Tamer.
Earlier today, Orenji also came to a decision to take a hiatus, below is his statement:
I've been doing most card translations for this game, and it's a very time-consuming thing. Because the reveal season starts about a month before the release, and sets are 100+ cards, there are several cards per day to translate. Reveals always happen when I'm at work. I work from the office, so doing translations immediate is problematic, doing them in the evening after I'm back from work is tiresome, and doing them on weekends consumes a lot of time, and I have other things I would want to have to do. It's been hard to be a fan translator for the game because of this before when I had more free time, and going forward I can't see myself spending so much time on this.
What drove me to have a hiatus doing card translations is how the game feels dead. JP side is very chaotic and unpredictable, and lacks in communicating with community and addressing problems promptly. EN side is even worse, because Eye Spy. They are doing literally nothing for the game, and I have no idea what's their reasonings behind "we are not going to promote this game in any way and will not respond to people's concerns".
I'm not paid by the company to do promotion for the game. I've put enough effort to let people know about the game, but there's not much a single person can do when the company producing the game does everything for it to flop.
Just to clarify, I'm not quitting the game. I'm still a part of the community, I'll still play it, answer ruling questions, post news. But I can't afford and don't want to spend all my free time doing work that the company itself should do. I can see myself returning to do full news reports and timely card reveals if things change for the better in the future, both in the game and in my life. But for now that's how it is.
What drove me to have a hiatus doing card translations is how the game feels dead. JP side is very chaotic and unpredictable, and lacks in communicating with community and addressing problems promptly. EN side is even worse, because Eye Spy. They are doing literally nothing for the game, and I have no idea what's their reasonings behind "we are not going to promote this game in any way and will not respond to people's concerns".
I'm not paid by the company to do promotion for the game. I've put enough effort to let people know about the game, but there's not much a single person can do when the company producing the game does everything for it to flop.
Just to clarify, I'm not quitting the game. I'm still a part of the community, I'll still play it, answer ruling questions, post news. But I can't afford and don't want to spend all my free time doing work that the company itself should do. I can see myself returning to do full news reports and timely card reveals if things change for the better in the future, both in the game and in my life. But for now that's how it is.
I very much echo Orenji's sentiment that the fans should not be doing the company's PR. Its something that's been on my mind for a while - especially in the time since Ikeda stated that the EN sales are better, yet no changes being made in the PR strategy to take advantage of those better EN sales - and its something I've said myself in regards to Bushiroad and Spin Master in the past.
As for me, HunterSerge. I'm no stranger to primarily handling card game news - I did it for much of BuddySpoiler's life after all - but unfortunately I have not been very active here for the entirety of 2022. I really dislike blaming my disability, but in truth I've wanted to catch back up and resume doing work but my ADHD has made it very difficult for me to actually do that. Executive Dysfunction really sucks, and I'm still in the process of finding ADHD medication that actually works for me.
Part of it is related to something Orenji mentioned - the timing of reveals. Beyond just being often unpredictable, the timeframe reveals do tend to happen is in the middle of the night for me. Compare that to most other Japanese card games - like Buddyfight - where reveals happen somewhere in the 8:00 to 10:00 PM range for my time zone. Establishing those habits of handling card reveals was very easy in Buddyfight, because the reveal time was consistent and it happened at the end of the day. Whereas with Gate Ruler, handling reveals generally meant it was the first thing I did when I woke up and if I'm the one handling it, the card was revealed hours ago. Orenji's time zone positioned him better to handle reveals in a timely fashion, but it also meant reveals were handled by time I woke up, making it even harder to establish any sort of habit.
All of this combined means that I need to be realistic. I could promise to keep card news going in Orenji's absence, but now that I understand why I have these issues, I know that I would struggle to keep that promise.
So, in summation, the card database won't be updated with Japanese card reveals going forward.
This doesn't mean that the site will have no updates going forward. Toolbox, who has been handling the updates for English releases, has said he'll continue to do that, so you can expect the site to still be updated upon new English set releases.
The discord, facebook group, and subreddit aren't going anywhere either. We've maintained such pages for our past sites long after site activity ceased, and it'll be no different here.
Thanks for reading.
Edited by HunterSerge on 14th July, 2022 at 8:23pm CST