Ask Localization Megathread

[Unelonborro]

They added the "Reward:" in response to it, there was only "Reward" as referring to the job ability earlier than that.

Also, I just found Mano-Amano. Is it me, or is it weird that Spanish is a language found in Vana'diel?

I remember Mano-Amano. I had to make a judgment call when we were working with him--do I play him straight Tarutaru, or do I go a bit crazier with him? In this decision impacted by the fact that "mano a mano" is a Spanish phrase? This could have gone either way, but I decided to run with it.

[Unelonborro]

How do you decide which "r" to roll when writing Mithran dialog? Does it depend on the character?
Are the Mithran accent and Tarutaru speech pattern represented in a similar way in Japanese?

I'm not sure if this next question is outside of the topic, but -
Are any characters based on famous personalities? Or, has the dev team ever thought of any actors/voice actors that would represent some of the more colorful characters of Vana'diel? (I vote Tom Hiddleston for Lehko...)

Which "r" to roll with mithras largely depends on what we feel sounds good and flow better with the sentence. I know that sounds a bit flaky, as localization if more of an art than a science, but we do have several guidelines:

* We try to roll the Rs on syllables that are stressed.
* We avoid making multiple Rs rolled in the same sentence.
* We avoid rolling Rs on any syllables that would end up making the Mithra sound like a pirate.

For accents in the Japanese, occasionally Mithra will make cat noises depending on what the dev is going for in Japanese, but randomly having Mithra meow is rather...weird. When that come up we usually make puns about shooting fish in a barrel, or describing something as the cat's meow...something that evokes cat imagery without mimicking cat sounds.

Tartaru do not have any racial inflections in Japanese like they do in English, barring a couple of iconic characters (like Koru-Moru). Having them talk differently in English was a decision made long before my time. I'm not convinced I would have made the same decisions were I at the helm. Due to things like linguistic drift, I'd prefer to have a Windurst accent, a Bastok accent, and a San d'Oria accent. But if we did it that way, we wouldn't have the cute Tarutaru accents we do today! There's definitely arguments to be made for both sides.

I'm not sure if the devs have in mindany specific voice actors for particular roles, but I'm picturing Cree Summer as Shantotto and I'm not laughing...

[Unelonborro]

Is it hard coming up with word play? For example, I was extremely impressed by the Map Marker npcs, the ones that only speak in words using 'M'. How long does it take to write dialogue for NPCs like that?



Whoever wrote this deserves a huge promotion.

Alliteration is always a tough one to handle, as it often dictates the grammar you can used while still having the sentence flow naturally. If you notice, over time our moogles have used more and more alliteration--I'm not sure when, but somewhere along the line the whole song and dance took them over!

[Unelonborro]

Delve localization question:

When fighting the transcendent scorpion, the battle message reads "the spring has returned to your step" when a debuff wears off the scorpion. This does not make sense in context. Is this message a mistranslation that was supposed to refer to the scorpion rather than the player?

I'll have to take a closer look into this one. Let me see if I can get something fixed for January.

[Unelonborro]

Hmmm, wasn't that fixed? Reported here, and I recently used a russet yggrete shard IV which did indeed speak of mweya, not menace (sadly). Are these something different?


Anyblue, I remembered something at last, and I shall quote a thread of mine so as to not just type it all over again:



Sheesh. That truly seems a bit more angry than I cared to remember. I'm not a fan of trust/faith in general, so it really doesn't matter that much to me. Definitely not angry, but curious. Yes.

I'm still guessing it was very much intentional since I can see people thinking it would be weird to have the same thing going on in the party channel.


Danks!

You raise a very interesting question, and I think there are a couple factors at play. Note that these apply to pretty much every MMO out there.

* When dealing with something that happened in the past (either in real life terms, or in-game terms), to what extent do you remain faithful, and to what extent do you reimagine it?
* How has the direction of the game changed or remained the same?
* What are the players' expectations?
* How would the decision look if viewed in context? In a vacuum?

There are no cut-and-dried answers here. In Sakura's case, you have two arguments: 1. Sakura should continue to speak in katakana, because that's how she is originally, and 2. Sakura should make her noises in English, because that's easier to understand for people who aren't familiar with her backstory. Ultimately, the team opted for the latter. Sakura's alter ego is not tied to any specific event, and you can receive it regardless of whether or not you've had any interaction with her at all. In the context of first meeting Sakura, the player is initially confused--why is she speaking in Japanese?--but Markovich is there to steer you in the right direction, so you are able to understand right away. But put yourself in the shoes of someone who's never met her in person and just grabbed her alter ego. "Why is she speaking in Japanese? That's got to be something the translators overlooked!" It breaks their immersion in the game. So we have to ask ourselves the following question:

"Do the positives of staying faithful to Sakura's characterization outweight the negatives of new players feeling uncomfortable?"

Different leads might have taken a different approach, but I chose the latter, given that I cannot guarantee that the player would have interacted with Sakura before.

However, I can understand and sympathize with the opposing argument!

[Ophannus]

This may be an easy question to answer. In the English version, many pieces of equipment have names in other languages(French, German, Japanese, Spanish). For example the general word for Sword in French is Epee, but there is a piece of equipment called Epee already in FFXI. For English speakers, Epee refers to a specific kind of thin French fencing sword. In the French version, is the item named "Epee" called something else to not confuse it with other 'swords', because it would be weird for English users if there was a skill called "Sword Skill" and there was a weapon called literally: 'Sword', but I imagine that's what happens with the French version? Schwert is a general word for any Sword in German but in FFXI Schwert refers to a thin rapier, so in the German version I guess Schwert remains Schwert, but what are other weapons and the sword skill itself called? Eisenbrust in german means Iron Breastplate but there's already Iron Mail/Breastplate in the English version, do they keep the English name 'Breastplate' for the item Breastplate or are they both translated as Eisenbrust for the german version? XD

Another confusing thing is that the word for "Spear" in french is "Lance". There are two weapons in the Polearm category in FFXI that in English are called Spear, and Lance. When playing the French version, what are these two items autotranslated into for french players? I wonder if the French version uses borrowed english words like 'Spear' to keep the same cultural relevance and meaning intact, similar to how Great Katanas and Katanas are called by their Japanese name and not things like 'Flying Swallow' or 'Helm Splitter' or 'Cherry Blossom'?

[Dragoy]

Many thanks for the answer(s), Unelonborro!

With regards to my question, it is then as I suspected (and hoped), pretty much on the dot! While I did fear a bit that the detail had not been taken into consideration, I didn't really believe that it could have been the case. I do have more faith available than that!

Thanks again!

Will need to think of something else to ask now, hmmm...

[Malithar]

As a brief aside, the reason I am able to get information relatively quickly is because I sit next to the devs (if I blew hard enough, I could probably make Matsui's hair move, although for a variety of reasons I have yet to try this.)

I think FFXI players as a collective would implore you to blow his direction, or a firm smack.

With that said, wanted to thank the Localization team. You guys are a big reason that FFXI was enjoyable for a good long while. I'll miss many of the creative quips from NPCs, everything from the Green Thumb Moogle, the JSE Cape NPC, the Marry Map Markers, and many others that I don't need to list because their awesomeness is known.

[bungiefanNA]

Now that the game is winding down, will is be possible to have the first 17-18 Vanadiel Tribunes translated to fill people in on the lore that they gave? We got all the ones after NA launch, but the earlier ones were neglected.

Also, in PlayOnline Viewer, my avatar icon doesn't show up. I picked Elly Van Houten when I started on JP PS2 back in 2002. I noticed that after I got my account region changed, she doesn't show up in the English PlayOnline Viewer. There appear to be several avatar categories that don't display on the English client. Could we have those listed?

[Unelonborro]

I think FFXI players as a collective would implore you to blow his direction, or a firm smack.

With that said, wanted to thank the Localization team. You guys are a big reason that FFXI was enjoyable for a good long while. I'll miss many of the creative quips from NPCs, everything from the Green Thumb Moogle, the JSE Cape NPC, the Marry Map Markers, and many others that I don't need to list because their awesomeness is known.

Good day, Malithar,

Thank you very much for your kind words of support! As the announcement stated, we've still got a lot of stories to tell--not with just the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel series of updates in May, August, and November, but also Adoulin quest lines that we have yet to wrap up. If you like event-based, lore-related content, you'll be very pleased with the sheer volume of what's coming up over the next eight months.

It's the support of people like you--and everyone else in this thread--that make localizing the world of Vana'diel such a joy. I love going on both the official forums and fan site forums (you know which ones) to read what people have to say. In each word of praise and note of criticism I can feel the passion that everyone has for FINAL FANTASY XI, and I'm very privileged to have contributed in some small way to your experiences.

In the immediate future, however, we've got the March patch coming up in just a few short days, so be sure to give the Xol Triumvirate the what-for!

Unelonborro
Localization Lead