[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Remilia]

But the person who is collecting the tales and telling them is a cat. :| Would you feel less irked by it if it had been called Khloe's Wondrous Tails?

Nope, just as irked.

[Kaelwryn]

I guess the pun just isn't for you then.

[Anzaman]

*Sobs in corner*

Went through some Squadron Optimizer, hoping for solution to my squad problem. Instead it just slapped me with "Your Squad is too weak!". How am I supposed to go from this point? That isn't giving any pointers what to fix and how.

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I was missing 5 tactical points from all 3 required stats to complete level 20 rank-up mission. My recruits got level-up and it moved from 5 to 4.

So.. just "few" more levels up and I'll get it done.

[Kazgrel]

On the topic of squadrons...

Aside from being a gate to the new GC rank, what is the point of this thing? I recall at some point they stated that the squad members could join you for dungeons or something of the sort. Even so, in a game with a matchmaking system for most content (Duty Finder), I simply don't see the point of this stuff. Thankfully, it doesn't wall off any super important content a la garrisons in WoD...but the squadron thing definitely gives me flashbacks to garrison crap.

[Faroth]

I'm very well aware what a pun is, but that's one huge stretch even for a pun and chalk it up to shitty localization team either way. -insert usual bitching about localization-.

A localization team that is responsible for lore and caused a dust up because English players were getting more game lore than Japan is not a "shitty localization team" in my mind.

I know some of their text translation choices can be debatable, though. The changes to the vibe of the Midgardsormr first discussion comes to mind. Wonderous Tales being Wondrous Tails doesn't bother me, though. Khloe's a child. It seems like it would amuse a child, so I'm fine with it.

But the localization team is responsible for "Thal's balls" as a swear in Eorzea.

I'm sort of torn on the localisation. I love the pseudo-Shakespearen stuff (Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII are among my favourite RPG's and boast a similar style) but then the game also has all these weird references to pop culture. Some are admittedly clever but it feels 'too much' at times in the same way that WoW went from subtle, tasteful and intelligent pop-culture references and towards territory where they relied upon them far too much at the cost of integrity. At least we're not at the point where entire FFXIV zones are knockoff movie plots though...

Koji-Fox has said they are mindful of that. Their standard rule is if it's something the player sees, pop culture reference is okay. If it's something the characters are seeing/hearing, they don't use them. Hence why they'll use pop culture references to name FATEs and quests, but it's not in the text or dialogue.

Hildebrand might blur the line (my friends tell me the "a three headed goobbue" distraction is a Monkey Island reference) since it's Hildebrand.

[Berethos08]

I'm very well aware what a pun is, but that's one huge stretch even for a pun and chalk it up to shitty localization team either way. -insert usual bitching about localization-.

FFXIV has one of the best localization teams in the business, that also has the advantage of working directly and in-house with the Japanese developers.

That you think they are a shitty localization team because you either don't like or don't understand a simple pun is quite honestly mind boggling.

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Cause it's a book, not a cat, and no such pun was in the original language, and nothing in the dialogue remotely even noted some sort of joke, it's extremely out of place. It's just something the localization team added on cause reasons.

You do realize that the various puns in English (and as I understand it, puns, jokes, and references are also in the Japanese language version, but obviously are catered to both that language and that culture) for various achievements, FATEs, and other names, that are unique to the English (and in the case of other languages, unique to those languages) are done so with the blessing/permission of the Japanese developers?

This isn't a Nintendo of America situation, where they do everything from top to bottom and then send it off to a different place, who then do their own silly jokes. Everything Koji-Fox and his group do is done with permission.

[Granyala]

FFXIV has one of the best localization teams in the business, that also has the advantage of working directly and in-house with the Japanese developers.

That you think they are a shitty localization team because you either don't like or don't understand a simple pun is quite honestly mind boggling.

I can only speak for EN -> DE localization, but it's actually atrocious.

Texts don't align, oftentimes the German text has a totally different vibe (sometimes even meaning) than the English audio.

And then there is the BS of creating new names making cross language communication such a pain because you can't just translate the names.

[Berethos08]

At least we're not at the point where entire FFXIV zones are knockoff movie plots though...

And thank goodness we never will be.

As Faroth pointed out, that stuff is left to the player side of things (with Hildibrand toeing the line - three-headed goobue and the gazebo jokes are direct references to things in video game or nerd culture, but also not strikingly obvious and also fit in entirely with the humor of the Hildibrand stuff).

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I can only speak for EN -> DE localization, but it's actually atrocious.

Texts don't align, oftentimes the German text has a totally different vibe (sometimes even meaning) than the English audio.

And then there is the BS of creating new names making cross language communication such a pain because you can't just translate the names.

Probably because they are catering the German text to German readers, rather than doing a direct translation of the English audio.

And that's why I say they are a good localization team - they take the overall meaning of the scene and then customize it to the language it's being presented in. I'd hope you're already aware that different phrases and expressions can carry different meanings and imply different things, so a direct translation is not typically the best option. If, by the end of the scene, it has conveyed the same overall information, but done so in a way better tailored to that particular language, then it was a successful localization rather than a shitty one.

So yeah, direct translation is rarely the better option - while you do end up getting the exact same stuff as was said in another language, you often lose nuance that can be better shown by localizing it (which, after all, means that they are adapting the text/lines/names for the area, not just translating).

The one time I can think of where this bit them in the ass was with Haurchefant, where they changed lines because the positive archetype used in the Japanese version - the lovable debauchee - is one that doesn't really exist, especially in NA, and the overall goal with him was for the character to be considered a positive and well-meaning individual concerned with helping the WoL. Tough to do when the closest archetype for us would have been considered a pervert (and likely just creeped people out). As the story went on, however, some of the animated reactions and such were based on the Japanese version of the character, so those reactions didn't fit the character the English version had presented...

They've even acknowledged their mistake on that.

Basically, if the end of a scene or quest leaves all players with the same overall information while also catering to the language it's presented in, it's good localization. If the scene ends with information or characters changed, particularly in significant ways, then it was bad localization. Considering how frequently people on the lore forum pull together the various language versions of different things to better understand the nuances presented rather than compare completely different presentations of information, I'd say the former outnumbers the latter in this game.

[Azmoden]

What pun is there with Tails? Honestly I'd say the localization team is just fail...

As a translator myself, I have to disagree. FFXIV has probably the best localization team I've ever seen.

Maybe the joke wasn't to your liking, and that's fine, but I think insulting the whole loc. team over one joke is a bit harsh.

Edit: talking about the JPN to ENG team, the others teams I wouldn't know.

[Granyala]

And that's why I say they are a good localization team - they take the overall meaning of the scene and then customize it to the language it's being presented in. I'd hope you're already aware that different phrases and expressions can carry different meanings and imply different things, so a direct translation is not typically the best option. If, by the end of the scene, it has conveyed the same overall information, but done so in a way better tailored to that particular language, then it was a successful localization rather than a shitty one.

I understand that, but characters can come across completely differently.

You already gave an example with H.

Imho, a translation should always stay as close to the original in both information as well as presentation as possible. That does not mean word for word translation, I know enough of both languages to realize that this would be impossible.

Where I'd expect word for word translations would be spell names etc. Esp when you expect people of different languages to communicate on the fly.

[Deleted]

As a translator myself, I have to disagree. FFXIV has probably the best localization team I've ever seen.

Maybe the joke wasn't to your liking, and that's fine, but I think insulting the whole loc. team over one joke is a bit harsh.

Edit: talking about the JPN to ENG team, the others teams I wouldn't know.

I have to agree the localization in FFXIV is probably the best I ve seen from an Asian MMO. Most achievements that are meant to be puns are usually very clever, wonderous tails includes (tales= tails cause Khloe is a miqote etc etc)

[Remilia]

FFXIV has one of the best localization teams in the business, that also has the advantage of working directly and in-house with the Japanese developers.

That you think they are a shitty localization team because you either don't like or don't understand a simple pun is quite honestly mind boggling.

You do realize that the various puns in English (and as I understand it, puns, jokes, and references are also in the Japanese language version, but obviously are catered to both that language and that culture) for various achievements, FATEs, and other names, that are unique to the English (and in the case of other languages, unique to those languages) are done so with the blessing/permission of the Japanese developers?

As a translator myself, I have to disagree. FFXIV has probably the best localization team I've ever seen.

Maybe the joke wasn't to your liking, and that's fine, but I think insulting the whole loc. team over one joke is a bit harsh.

Edit: talking about the JPN to ENG team, the others teams I wouldn't know.

If it was just only one joke it'd be fine, but... no... the easiest example that I can think of right now is "The Vault". In Japanese it's イシュガルドの教皇庁, Holy See (Vatican) of Ishgard. I'm pretty sure @Granyala mentioned it once in DE that it's something similar but EN gets "The Vault", why.

The whole Midgar scene was also an issue that's been discussed quite a long time ago, really lazy to dig that up atm.

Things like spell names, very simple ones get changed cause reasons. Miasma Burst in Japanese is called Fester.
ALL the names for the items in palace are different, not even exaggerating in that term.
I had to ask what the hell, witching, rage, lust, etc were. Well in Japanese the names are extremely simple, mainly cause the name tells you exactly what it does.
形態変化 = Witching for example.
And most of SCH's spell are completely different in meaning and name.

This isn't a Nintendo of America situation, where they do everything from top to bottom and then send it off to a different place, who then do their own silly jokes. Everything Koji-Fox and his group do is done with permission.

As for this, the permission thing is a pointless as I've seen. Their first language and more often only language is Japanese deferring to other people for localization.

And I've noted this somewhere before, but if you can't have two people from different language talk about the same thing without getting confused then you've done it wrong, and yes this easily happens especially when I've been the one to come across it.

I play in JP client, and my friend who knows Japanese plays in EN client with JP audio already notes how some things don't match up.

[Berethos08]

Fun fact - item names, place names, monster names, monster attacks, are made in English first, THEN translated into other languages, including Japanese. So no, things like Witching and Lust didn't get changed "cause reasons" they were given those names in English because of what they do and/or what they connect to (and the English often leans heavily on thematic connections when naming things anyway, which is how it helps to reinforce immersion and world building, and is also why the Scholar names in Japanese are pretty literal and in English are fantasized in style, though they have the same meaning - Adloquium is basically latin for friendly or reassuring words, and I believe a truncated direct translation, as the literal translation would just sound awkward in English, from Japanese is something like "encouragement plan" if the source I'm looking at is right, and where I'm willing to bet the shorter direct translation would lose any nuance or subtlety found in the Japanese name).

Witching - transformation of things. Refers to the common trope of a witch turning others into a frog or newt or some other creature. Turns enemies into chickens.

Lust - turns you into a succubus, and succubi are commonly portrayed as lustful and sex driven demons.

Rage - turns you into something that hits really hard. That it happens to be a manticore is probably more to do with how manticores are typically portrayed as dangerous and violent creatures.

Relevant quote - "One of the things that they do is instead of making things solely Japanese and then ask us to translate those, they’ll talk with the localization team and collaborate with us to get more western ideas in the game itself. This comes down to things like monster names, monster attacks, place names, item names… these are all conceived by myself and the other members of the English team and we work directly with the world lore planners to come up with these, and then help them translate them back into Japanese."

From this article, which goes more into the localization process and why they do it the way they do it: http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/06/...tion-and-lore/

But by all means, keep thinking they are a shitty localization team because they don't rely heavily on direct translation, and do silly puns in one of the languages that you don't like.

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Where I'd expect word for word translations would be spell names etc. Esp when you expect people of different languages to communicate on the fly.

Which is why the auto translate function exists and is continuously being expanded upon.

You choose what it is in your language via that feature (on Mouse+KB, you hit Enter to open chat then hit Tab), it automatically shows up in the language of the game client that the other players are using.

If I put Fester in using on my English language version using that feature, for anyone using Japanese it would appear as the Japanese name, anyone using German would see it as the German name, and anyone using French would see it as the French name. Someone could have used that function for the Rage, Witching, Lust, etc., Pomanders, and wouldn't even have to know what the word is in the other language, just their own, and communicate exactly what it is they are talking about.

And it goes well beyond the spell names...there's a ton of auto-translated phrases in there, from directions to comments to items...there's 42 different categories alone.

All told there's currently 2,466 phrases or names that can be auto-translated into any of the other languages that are supported by this game. They've got you covered when it comes to expecting you to communicate game related things.

[dope_danny]

So i may have spent a million gil on a poncho...

[Remilia]

But by all means, keep thinking they are a shitty localization team because they don't rely heavily on direct translation, and do silly puns in one of the languages that you don't like.

Cutting down cause a lot and really pointless justifications that you had to actually explain to justify it, which illustrates the issue. WHY do you need to explain something so simple as a name. It shouldn't be needed to be explained to be the same thing.

You're acting as if that every name is English first than Japanese when that is obviously not the case, especially with Kanji written spells be. And really you're so hung up on puns when I've pointed out various story related like Midgar and hell even the name of the Vault doesn't match up with two different languages. I already known that article, it's what got brought up like a year or something ago and it's still a terrible justification when tones and such aren't even conveyed the same. The tone actually does matter by the way. It's not even asking for literal 1:1 translation for everything, but everything should match up in meaning and intent.

There are some things that I'd say are hard to convey from Japanese to English text, stuff like using variations Hiragana/Katakana or Kanji to show difference speeches capabilities or deficiencies. However when consistently shown that English is different than any other language then something is done wrong. Gran already noted it for DE, JP as I've already noted.

As for the auto translate, that's not going to carry you everywhere and it needs to be implemented and if it isn't well, good luck. While loosely connected, someone from Japan was looking for an NA server to play on (don't know why, didn't ask that), and whispered me (guessing JP client search) about it. Talking about how the server is, players to play with, etc etc. Now try to do that in auto translate, then try to do that for story. It's not going to work.

[Berethos08]

I've been thinking about one of those, though I don't which class/job I'd glamour it for yet. Also, I just spent a million gil on a piece of paper (Footsteps in the Snow Orchestrion Roll - one of my favorite songs in the game - is going for about 2.3 million right now, and someone posted one for less than half that and I was lucky enough to snag it).

[Remilia]

So i may have spent a million gil on a poncho...

[IMG]http://i1006.photobucket.com/albums/af187/dope_danny/CuBWe5WWgAAfoSu_zps3hpahyzq.jpg[IMG]

Is it bad the first thing that comes to mind is "The Emperor's New Groove" movie?

[Granyala]

Which is why the auto translate function exists and is continuously being expanded upon.

You choose what it is in your language via that feature (on Mouse+KB, you hit Enter to open chat then hit Tab), it automatically shows up in the language of the game client that the other players are using.

Yeah no. I'm 10 times faster when I type it myself, even more so if I use well known English shorts.

[Berethos08]

Cutting down cause a lot and really pointless justifications that you had to actually explain to justify it, which illustrates the issue. WHY do you need to explain something so simple as a name. It shouldn't be needed to be explained to be the same thing.

You're acting as if that every name is English first than Japanese when that is obviously not the case, especially with Kanji written spells be. And really you're so hung up on puns when I've pointed out various story related like Midgar and hell even the name of the Vault doesn't match up with two different languages. I already known that article, it's what got brought up like a year or something ago and it's still a terrible justification when tones and such aren't even conveyed the same. The tone actually does matter by the way. It's not even asking for literal 1:1 translation for everything, but everything should match up in meaning and intent.

Hardly hung up on the pun bit, that was me being cheeky.

What I am hung up on, however, is this claim that they are a shitty localization team, and your reasons behind that appearing to be that they don't do direct translation enough.

I've provided my thoughts on that (which you pretty much told me to fuck off on with that arrogant dismissal), as well as linked to the explanation of why they do it the way that they do given by the head of the localization team, which also happened to disprove some of your claims about it being changed from the Japanese version "for reasons."

In case you missed it, it largely comes down to either it was named in English first, and there's a lot of that in this game, or the teams worked together, including talking with the Japanese story writers about intent and other such important things, so that the end result in each language carries the same overall meaning while also being better customized to the language of that version.

I mean sure, for English they could call Adloquium "Encouragement Plan" or a more literal "Plan of Drum-Dance-Extreme-Encouragement" but in the end they all mean the same thing. And honestly, with how important kanji and other nuances in the Japanese language can be toward meanings, doing a direct translation is a goddamn disservice. Far better to search for an English version that leads to the same overall impression than try and make sure the English is a direct translation, in both item/spell names and in elements of the story.

And as for story elements, except for Haurchefant's issues midway through the 2.x series, I think the differences are entirely overblown (the Midgardsormr thing, for example, isn't nearly as different as people make it out to be).

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Yeah no. I'm 10 times faster when I type it myself, even more so if I use well known English shorts.

Congrats?

The point was that they provide you with a tool that auto-translates names and phrases to aid communication when language is a barrier. This means that different names in different languages are no longer a concern because it will be displayed in your own language, eliminating confusion.

Your typing speed has exactly fuck all to do with that.

[lawow74]

On the topic of squadrons...

Aside from being a gate to the new GC rank, what is the point of this thing? I recall at some point they stated that the squad members could join you for dungeons or something of the sort. Even so, in a game with a matchmaking system for most content (Duty Finder), I simply don't see the point of this stuff. Thankfully, it doesn't wall off any super important content a la garrisons in WoD...but the squadron thing definitely gives me flashbacks to garrison crap.

It's pretty much just a hole to throw GC Seals in at this point so you can increase your rank for...some way overpriced seal gear. But I imagine eventually they'll add some other items available for seals that might be valuable, further ranks to the GC...and maybe, maybe something to do with your squadron besides bitch about what a waste of time they tend to be.