Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-137.147.23.232-20151103062538/@comment-53539-20151104101413

I feel there is a lot of problems right now when when looks at English Vocaloid. With Luka V4x being released, everyone who wanted to jump into V4 has got her or Diva already. With the Kagamine English package on the horizon, everyone who wants an Engloid will be saving their pennies for that. Then we have Megpoid English coming up and Miku English likely after the Kagamines.

All the popular Vocaloids have English vocals coming up. This isn't a problem except as we've seen in the past western fans overstate the quality of a vocaloid and often buy these Vocaloids becausethey are popular. To top it off, Pocaloiding is increasingly becoming a problem as more and more people seek to get into Vocaloid cheaply.

I hlf suspect Yamaha know this and is trying to find its own means to resolve this. Vocaloid net has me feeling that eventually Vocaloid will go the way of Adobe and becoming a "cloud only" service. I don't think this will happen within the next 10 years, but they seem to already be taking steps toward this sort of direction

Its correct though, back on the subject of Ruby, that a lot of the drama was immature. As I said during the drama over the boxart, it was best the wikia stayed out of this and not engage in protesting because we didn't have all the facts. Once we had the facts, however, a lot of the fans didn't want to listen, people were doing actions that would have only ironic consequences, like boasting to only Pocaloid her to punish PowerFX, when the one who would be punished was only Syo who'd loose his sales bonus and chances of releasing extra vocals for her which would earn him even more bonuses.

Basically, fans tried to get involved on matters that weren't important to them, and most of those doing this either were going to Pocaloid her anyway, didn't care enough about Ruby until the event and still don't or are now running her down anyway like fans always do. She has the most dedicated fans and yet some of the harshest criticism since Sonika, even being seen as nothing more then "Cyber Diva with a didn't pitch", even though this isn't the case. Also, don't say many of the supporters were being genuine, because I've seen a lot of the people there running English vocaloid down before, so they were just following a "mob response" which is common when people feel someone has been a victim.

Ruby's blight also highlights the big issue with just being too open as a developer. Syo constantly top people about his job and this meant he sad things that in hindsight were best kept to himself. This was the first time it happened within Vocaloid.

Top it off the response to the original art PowerFX were going to use was crazy. The flame haired woman was not "ugly", it just wasn't in the style everyone was used to. This had happened with Sweet Ann; the irony is she is just an altered picture of a Lena Horne Poster, a singer who was both famous and considered in her day attractive... So they basically called Lena Horne "ugly". This also was a problem with Clara and Bruno and a problem about any art that drifts too far from the anime-desu-desu style. If its not anime "cute" nobody seems to want to know in the western fandom. Heck, look at VY2 and how often people lazily just use Roro to represent him.

Even then... The other issue with this is I don't see what the illustration drama was problematic. People got their own way... They can now show their support for Syo by giving him that bonus. Except, Ruby doesn't seem to have many fans now she is out.

Even sudden release aside, to be fair I've seen worst things within the Vocaloid fandom. SeeU is the most controversial Vocaloid overall, from her demos to her provider going to jail... She was a PR nightmare. And the recent stuff thats come to light to do with YANHE is by far the worst action by any studio itself. And also... Lets look at the Controversy Concerns page. Look at that page, read it, pay attention to it, who is the Vocaloid constantly coming up time and time agaib as a name? Hatsune Miku... So our most popular Vocaloid doesn't have a clean slate either.

Also, one last thing on the illustration. As I said before the other big issue with it is it doesn't really stand out. If you break down the basic design into shaped, Gumi V3 already did that design for the attaire... And we've had another vocaloid since. AndI don't think the design itself is overall that good. I never praised the alternative PFX put forward, as while it wasn't ugly by my books... The only trait that was unique to it was the hair, otherwise it was just a older Sonika with different colours. :-/

Overall... The point is that Ruby just isn't the vocal for one reason or another to put money on this generation... I'm afriad Cyber Diva has already taken the crown of "no.1 Engloid" for this generation. Even I, a Passionate and long term Engloid fan, am not relly into her. She is on the same boat as Diva, an impressive vocaloid whose voice doesn't appeal to me. I prefer Sonika and consider I own and loath Sonika's voice... This is saying something. And Sonika is a semi-successful Vocaloid don't forget whose almost always been somewhere on their top 50 products list except that one year ero-G only covered the top 25...