Ask Localization Megathread

[Unelonborro]

Hi everyone,

I've shared with you all a few stories about Localization and the work we are involved in here, and a couple of you mentioned you enjoyed hearing my anecdotes. I've opened this thread so that you can ask me anything you like about the localization process, the work the we do, or whatever else you would like to chat about. Keep in mind that there may be some topics I cannot comment on, such battle content; job balance; future plans the team has; and other proprietary information, and depending on how busy I am I may not be able to respond to your questions right away.

Tell your friends and linkshell members and let's chat!

Regards,

Unelonborro
Localization Lead

[Draylo]

I like the effort, thanks :)

[Sapphire]

Woo!

From the linkshell - Why Paladin and not Knight? (someone was very adamant about that one).
How hard is it to make the tarus rhyme all the time?

From me: So who is responsible for the Green Thumb Moogle's Awesome Alliteration Abilities?

[Unelonborro]

Good day, Sapphire!

Thank you for your questions!


From the linkshell - Why Paladin and not Knight? (someone was very adamant about that one).

I'm afraid your compatriot might not like the answer to this one, but it comes down to what the difference between a knight and a paladin is to your average gamer. Since fantasy gaming became a popular thing (starting with D&D, and possibly before--my memory only stretches back so far), a knight has been associated with loyalty and martial prowess: lances and shields, jousting and riding on horseback, codes of chivalry, dedicated service to a monarch...things of that nature. Paladins, on the other hand, often assumed a more protective, spiritual role. You'll find paladins gaining access to traditionally cleric/priest spells stretching back to, again, D&D, and themes often associated with the class include morality, piety, dedication to a faith, protecting the meek, and carrying out justice. Given the tropes our non-Asian player base is familiar with, and in no small part due to the paladin's ability to use a subset of white magic spells, we use the word "paladin" rather than "knight," even though "knight" is a direct one-for-one with the Japanese. This is indicative of our greater philosophy: when conflict arises between a literal translation of the Japanese and a translation that is more grokable to a Western player, we often side with the latter.

As an aside, you may notice that in earlier Final Fantasy games--or in those that intentionally evoke a retro feel--the class is translated as "knight." However, as our localization processes and standards as a company have changed over time, so, too, have our goals--and that's how we arrive at the term "paladin."


How hard is it to make the tarus rhyme all the time?

Actually, I don't find the Tarutaru too difficult to characterize, once you discount the terror of the deeps that is Shantotto. Historically, we have had to to put more time and effort into moogles and their amazingly alliterative absurdities!


From me: So who is responsible for the Green Thumb Moogle's Awesome Alliteration Abilities?

That would be Ordostrillicus, who since inception has been your one-stop shop for all Mog Garden-related shenanigans!

EDIT: I mean since Mog Garden's inception, not Ordostrillicus's inception--although one could say he was born to do it.

[Malithar]

This is going to be a really awesome thread, color me excited! :D

A few off the top of my head:

Dating back to my first Final Fantasy game, FF II in the US, but the original FF IV, I was always under the impression that all localization was done locally. With you being so open about the process though, we've all learned otherwise. :D How has handling the English localization shaped your knowledge of items and such? How long have you been handling the localization? You mentioned in the above post that in many of the earlier retro games, we may remember such classes as "knight" that are now referred to as "paladin." Are there any other such examples where SE's stance has changed in order to provide a better name to a class, item, area, etc? One that I THINK I remember from the old days was Dragoon being known as "Dragon Knight" but I may be remembering that from a different game.

In the same vein, how about the names of many of the relic, mythic, and empyean weapons? Many of these take on very classic names that players are familiar with, such as Excalibur, Ragnarok, Apocalypse, Mjolnir, etc. Are these names able to accurately be named in Japanese, or do they follow a similar pattern to the knight >> paladin example above, and Excalibur is known as, in example, "the holy sword" in Japanese?

Concerning in game holiday events, I'd imagine many (myself included) westerners are unfamiliar with Japanese holidays, and just as well for Japanese people being unfamiliar with western holidays. How did you guys decide on which to include and omit? How important are some of these in the Japanese culture? Sometimes in dev posts, we'll see them dressed in Yakutas or other festive wear, and I'm surprised to see that. Is that akin to say, someone coming to work in a Halloween costume for one day as a celebration, or are the festivities much more ingrained than that?

This might sway to the battle content end, but instead of bumping my previous Idris topic or creating a report, I was curious if you could shed any light onto why it was decided that Ergons would not received the +30% bonus damage to the Ergon WS, as the Mythic weapons do. Perhaps an oversight?

I greatly look forward to this thread taking off. I hope you're up to the task of keeping up with it, I'm sure you'll get all sorts of comments and questions from many players! :)

[Balloon]

I am curious about the process involved in taking player feedback - In the past we have seen responses come from the community teams that seem vague, confused or perhaps just factually incorrect, additionally I'm curious as to what extent what we say has been sent over. Are threads distilled down to their most basic points, or are specific points and ideas taken by players and translated? For instance, if someone were to suggest in a thread about job balance a new ability would that get sent over, or would the finer points of the thread such as requests for a buff be taken into consideration. At any time during this are you or other staff on the team asked to clarify some points on the NA/EU forums?

I also am curious as to what qualifications are necessary to become a community representative - I'm assuming experience with the game is in there, but what else? It must be hard being one, the amount of misplaced shouting..

How do you decide what does and does not get added to the autotranslate? And is there a possibility for the short versions of Job names to be added - I ask, because when trying to create a shout asking for certain jobs you'll find that the text buffer gets too full to accomodate everything you're asking for. Also, is it possible for Difficult, Very Difficult, Easy, and Normal to be added?

To what extent to the developers play FFXI and other MMOs, and RPGs? It must be hard to both develop and enjoy a game at the same time, seeing how the sausage is made and what have you.

What difficulty is there in translating story elements? Are there any common idioms that would be hard to explain to a western audience that get changed? Any jokes that rely heavily on japanese pronunciation or culture? What decisions then have to go into translating these, and how much creative freedom do you have to do so?

What are some of the most difficult tasks you have had to overcome as Localization leader?

While you can't answer battle questions would it be possible to at some point mediate a question and answer to the developers thread? That'd be just terrific.

Unelonborro, you are fantastic. I really appreciate the level of transparency, and the interesting anecdotes you have to share in other threads, and the speed to which you answer threads. You are awesome.

[Zhronne]

I like the effort, thanks :)
^this x 10.000
Thanks Ule!

I'll start with a recent question.
While "Alluvion" can be considered correct, "Albion" would have been kinda correct too as a transliteration fo the japanese kanji used for the newly added content "Alluvion Skirmish".
Yet Albion bears no particularl additional meaning (other than the ancient UK island references), whereas Alluvion has several meanings related to water.

I wonder why did the localization team choose the latter one? Are there similar semantic references in the japanese kanjis? Was it just a matter of it sounding better?
(I'm not criticizing btw, I'm just being curious!)



Second and last one, it's about the romaji transliteration of "Amanomurakumo".
Why "Amanomurakumo" instead of the more common "Ame no murakumo"? Clear reference to the japanese mythological sword "Ame no murakumo no tsurugi" used by Amaterasu.
As far as I know both transliterations are correct (Ame and Ama), but Ame seems to be the more common one, especially in english language transliterations?

[Xsilver]

I have a few questions relating to FFXI's localization versus the naming conventions of previous Final Fantasy games:

Why Inferno and not Hellfire for Ifrit's Astral Flow?(Is it because of the ESRB rating that you can't use "Hell"?.
Why Earthen Fury instead of Gaia's Wrath for Titan's Astral Flow?
Why Tidal Wave instead of Tsunami for Leviathan's Astral Flow? (Is it too sensitive in Japan to use Tsunami?)
Why Aspir instead of Osmose? (FF4/FF9)
Why Spirt Surge instead of Lancet(Dragon Sword) as it's called in the JP and FFV)
Why Sabre Dance instead of Sword Dance as in FFV?
Why Ryunohige instead of Dragon Whisker as in FF9/FFTactics?
Why Souleater instead of Darkness for DRK's job ability?


Also I'd like to mention that playing FFXI has helped me with my vocabulary. Here's a list of words from various FFXI cutscenes that actually showed up on the GRE exam I took two years ago. You guys must be either married to a Thesaurus all the time or have an outrageously masterful lexicon.


-Lilliputian
-Ambisinister
-Arcipluvian
-Wherewithal
-Cavorting
-Crestfallen-Despirited
-Pandiculation
-Constutional
-Recondite
-Bombastic
-Platitudes
-Paroxysm
-Candor
-Palavar
-Aphorism
-Levity
-Gumption
-Deleterious
-Minutia
-Daft
-Dearth
-Tumescent
-Acerbic
-Epicene
-Surly
-Din
-Deign
-Sanctimonious
-Surreptitious .
-Effusive
-Sordid
-Nonpereil
-Abstemious
-Redoubtable
-Lethologica
-Tarantism

[Karbuncle]

I have some questions that aren't why why nots.

When it comes to Thief, were there anythings the dev teams wanted to add based on previous FF titles but couldn't fit into the realm of XI? (Like stealing things from enemies hurting/killing them, ala Riku + Machine parts) Later you added Despoil, which felt like something you might have wanted THF to have from the beginning.

When it came to SMN, was there any debate on making it a heavily focused pet job vs making Summoner a nuking job and Summons perform more like traditional FF Titles, such as casting Magic and they would appear > do damage > Disappear like in other FF titles? Similar to how Alexander and Odin work. It just feels like Alex/Odin were maybe a remnant of what SMN could have been.

On the topic of RDM, did you ever think RDM would become the absolute king of Solo like it did at the 75 cap? Were you impressed by some of the things RDMs did back then? (especially one specific Taru). Also, when it came to RDM, did you envision it as a Melee-mage from the beginning or did you expect people to adopt it as a healer/support job it became today?

A non-job related topic. Did you guys ever consider adding "Limit Breaks" in the traditional sense, like in XIV, but to XI? I know we have Weaponskills and our 1hr abilities which could be construed as a type of limit break, but did you ever think or want to implement a Limit-Break type system in XI?

Lastly, You all do realize how much most of us here appreciate you and all the community team despite being the harbinger of bad news sometimes, yes? Cause we do. I do at least. Even if I get batsh*t sometimes like that guy in the movies whos like "hey buddy.." but secretely has a knife and sh*t and you're just like "smile and say yes to anything he asks" and even though he sounds friendly you know hes like, 10 seconds from snapping and screaming about potatoes eating his eyes while he stabs blindly in the dark.

[Poo]

Hi everyone,

I've shared with you all a few stories about Localization and the work we are involved in here, and a couple of you mentioned you enjoyed hearing my anecdotes. I've opened this thread so that you can ask me anything you like about the localization process, the work the we do, or whatever else you would like to chat about. Keep in mind that there may be some topics I cannot comment on, such battle content; job balance; future plans the team has; and other proprietary information, and depending on how busy I am I may not be able to respond to your questions right away.

Tell your friends and linkshell members and let's chat!

Regards,

Unelonborro
Localization Lead

Wow, I cannot begin to express my excitement regarding this thread!

I recently had a chance to whiz back through the level cap quests and I have to say...

The whole "brown mage" storyline had me rolling on the floor laughing.

How much of that is a direct translation? How much of it had to be ad-lib?

Brilliant!

[Selindrile]

That was an awesome read Grekumah, and I'm extremely amused and pleased by your use of the word "grokable".

[Sapphire]

Good day, Sapphire!

Thank you for your questions!



Why thank YOU for your answers!

I'm frankly impressed there was an answer (much less so in-depth) to the Palandin/Knight question given how long ago that call had to be made!

I for one, will admit to have the Fear of Shantotto put in me early and it is strong. After she hit me with a Bind and then nuked me... Yeah any CS where she asks me a question I pick the most groveling way I can acquiesce. Cause she'll kill me. And then laugh.

So Ordostrillicus, eh... Alliteration is amongst his amazing abilities? (Someone stop me.)

And for some background to why I find your answers to fascinating, I work in the US anime industry, and lived with someone who is a J->E localizer for years. The fact that you get to be right there next to the people writing this stuff is rather amazing, I'm used to not just an ocean between creators and localizers, but so many middle men! Pretty sure almost every translator I've ever worked with/been friends with would kill to be able to pick the original creators' brains when they come to a sticky-wicket translation issue.

[Unelonborro]

Good day, everyone!

Wow! That's a lot of questions! I'll try to work my way down the list, but it'll be a bit, since I've got a lot of bug fixing to do today.

[Unelonborro]

Dating back to my first Final Fantasy game, FF II in the US, but the original FF IV, I was always under the impression that all localization was done locally. With you being so open about the process though, we've all learned otherwise. :D How has handling the English localization shaped your knowledge of items and such? How long have you been handling the localization? You mentioned in the above post that in many of the earlier retro games, we may remember such classes as "knight" that are now referred to as "paladin." Are there any other such examples where SE's stance has changed in order to provide a better name to a class, item, area, etc? One that I THINK I remember from the old days was Dragoon being known as "Dragon Knight" but I may be remembering that from a different game.


This is a really good question. I am not in charge of SQUARE ENIX's localization department in any capacity (just in charge here on XI), but I can certainly talk a little bit about background information.

Back when I was a young'un and Japanese video games first started making their way to the US, localization was handled by Japanese nationals who may or may not have had a strong grasp of English--not just at Squaresoft or Enix, but at pretty much every company at the time. This is how we came up with such classics as "A winner is you" and "All your base are belong to us." As the niche for Japanese games grew, so, too, did the need for competent localization, and most companies started shifting from Japanese natives to English natives (and eventually branching out into other languages as well). At various points throughout the company's history, the localization department has had to make a choice: do we stick to older ways of doing things, because players are familiar with it and that's part of the charm? Or do we update things in a way that might break with past conventions but increases the fidelity of the final product? Here's the kicker--there's no right answer, and different projects within the department have come, do come, and will continue to come to different conclusions. During the remake of FINAL FANTASY IV, for example, there was a huge debate surrounding Tellah's "You spoony bard." During FINAL FANTASY XIV, the question arose of whether to use the Cure/Cura/Curaga or Cure I/Cure II/Cure III naming conventions. It's all a matter of what the team decides best matches the needs of the game.


In the same vein, how about the names of many of the relic, mythic, and empyean weapons? Many of these take on very classic names that players are familiar with, such as Excalibur, Ragnarok, Apocalypse, Mjolnir, etc. Are these names able to accurately be named in Japanese, or do they follow a similar pattern to the knight >> paladin example above, and Excalibur is known as, in example, "the holy sword" in Japanese?

These weapons are, indeed, very classic names that most Western connoisseurs of fantasy and mythology are familiar with, and they are rendered faithfully into katakana (transliterated) in the Japanese. There are very, very few weapons and armor in the game that use kanji and are not ninja/samurai gear (and those we transliterate character-for-character.)


Concerning in game holiday events, I'd imagine many (myself included) westerners are unfamiliar with Japanese holidays, and just as well for Japanese people being unfamiliar with western holidays. How did you guys decide on which to include and omit? How important are some of these in the Japanese culture? Sometimes in dev posts, we'll see them dressed in Yakutas or other festive wear, and I'm surprised to see that. Is that akin to say, someone coming to work in a Halloween costume for one day as a celebration, or are the festivities much more ingrained than that?

I was not around during the times that these decisions were made, so I can't speak to the thought process behind them. I can say, though, that the devs are always mindful that we have players from around the world, and make decisions accordingly. For Japanese-flavored events, the doll festival is probably the most overt, and it's something of which every Japanese person is intimately aware. Other things, like the Sunbreeze Festival, are more "Japanese-inspired" than actually Japanese, kind of like most MMOs' Christmas events are "Christmas-inspired".


This might sway to the battle content end, but instead of bumping my previous Idris topic or creating a report, I was curious if you could shed any light onto why it was decided that Ergons would not received the +30% bonus damage to the Ergon WS, as the Mythic weapons do. Perhaps an oversight?

This is something I don't have any knowledge of, and my feeble attempts at answering it would only leave you wanting. Sorry.

[Martel]

I have a few questions relating to FFXI's localization versus the naming conventions of previous Final Fantasy games:

Why Inferno and not Hellfire for Ifrit's Astral Flow?(Is it because of the ESRB rating that you can't use "Hell"?.
Why Earthen Fury instead of Gaia's Wrath for Titan's Astral Flow?
Why Tidal Wave instead of Tsunami for Leviathan's Astral Flow? (Is it too sensitive in Japan to use Tsunami?)
Why Aspir instead of Osmose? (FF4/FF9)
Why Spirt Surge instead of Lancet(Dragon Sword) as it's called in the JP and FFV)
Why Sabre Dance instead of Sword Dance as in FFV?
Why Ryunohige instead of Dragon Whisker as in FF9/FFTactics?
Why Souleater instead of Darkness for DRK's job ability?
Whoever decided to leave this in the original JP, good call!

While the literal meaning may be the same, the western and eastern concepts of dragons are so very different that you don't get the same feeling from the names.

Heck, the classic western interpretation of a dragon doesn't typically even have what could be called whiskers. You say dragon whisker around a westerner and they're like... "Dragons have whiskers?"

Because of this, the name felt really silly to me when I first encountered it(which I admit, was a really long time ago.) It'd be kinda like finding some boots called snake's boots.(Not boots made of snake skin, but boots for a snake.) Evokes that, "Huh? what?" kinda feeling.

I think silly is not the feeling we want to get from the names of our legendary weapons.

But Ryunohige doesn't give me that feeling. And leaving it in JP links it to the eastern concept of dragons. Which are more symbols of power, good fortune, wisdom and benevolence. And do tend to have what can be seen as "whiskers", and "beards".

So thank you, localization team, for ignoring the precedent, and leaving it as Ryunohige. ^^

[Unelonborro]

I am curious about the process involved in taking player feedback - In the past we have seen responses come from the community teams that seem vague, confused or perhaps just factually incorrect, additionally I'm curious as to what extent what we say has been sent over. Are threads distilled down to their most basic points, or are specific points and ideas taken by players and translated? For instance, if someone were to suggest in a thread about job balance a new ability would that get sent over, or would the finer points of the thread such as requests for a buff be taken into consideration. At any time during this are you or other staff on the team asked to clarify some points on the NA/EU forums?

I also am curious as to what qualifications are necessary to become a community representative - I'm assuming experience with the game is in there, but what else? It must be hard being one, the amount of misplaced shouting..

I honestly cannot speak to the community team's processes, because my contact with them as a member of the localization team is somewhat limited, but I can say I know they work very hard to ensure your voices are heard in ways that I cannot. The community teams for both languages relay what information they have, and report back whatever they can (there's no conspiracy, honest!) On the Japanese forums, the non-Matsui devs will sometimes chime in, but more often than not it's the community team relaying information. As for me, I speak to you as someone from the dev team whose involvement in the process is rather specific, and I hope that my being here adds something positive to your FINAL FANTASY XI experience.

As for the requirements for becoming a community rep or GM--that's something I have absolutely no knowledge of. Sorry.


How do you decide what does and does not get added to the autotranslate? And is there a possibility for the short versions of Job names to be added - I ask, because when trying to create a shout asking for certain jobs you'll find that the text buffer gets too full to accomodate everything you're asking for. Also, is it possible for Difficult, Very Difficult, Easy, and Normal to be added?

Autotranslate is a bit of a tricky one, especially when we had all four languages, but the planner in charge is always adding things as the situation arises. As for the short form job names, that's been brought up before, but the problem is that because the entries in Japanese would be so short, it would almost certainly cause issues when people try to use it in unintended ways.


To what extent to the developers play FFXI and other MMOs, and RPGs? It must be hard to both develop and enjoy a game at the same time, seeing how the sausage is made and what have you.

Although I can't speak to the gaming habits of all of our devs, the answer to FFXI is a resounding yes, we play it. A couple of our newer planners applied to the company specifically because they were XI players who wanted to work on the game. A lot of our battle planners are hard-core users. I can think of at least two people who met their spouses in-game. As for me, personally, I play pretty much anything and everything, from MMO to FPS, RTS, turn-based strategy, smartphone, PC, console, and more!


What difficulty is there in translating story elements? Are there any common idioms that would be hard to explain to a western audience that get changed? Any jokes that rely heavily on japanese pronunciation or culture? What decisions then have to go into translating these, and how much creative freedom do you have to do so?

When translating story elements, our general rule of thumb is that the story should always be the same, but it should read as if it was written for a Western audience, not a Japanese one. We are a Japanese company, and the original text is in Japanese, but there's one factor that trumps all--Vana'diel is not Japan. One of the critical missions that the event and story planners have to is create a Vana'diel that feels comfortable, familiar, and believable to a Japanese audience. My job is to take their framework and create a Vana'diel that feels comfortable, familiar, and believable to an English-speaking audience. Both of our English MMOs have extremely wide latitude in our translation processes, and we are able to change things like patterns of speech, jokes, dialogue structure, and the like if it means creating a final product that will resonate with the playerbase.

One example I like to give is what anime fans will recognize as the "tsundere" character. You know, the stereotypical "B-but it's not like I like you or anything!" This works for a Japanese audience. This works for an anime-enjoying Western audience. The problem is that it's a character trope that is incredibly vexing if you're not a Japanophile--and we don't create games for Japanophiles, we create games for a broad Western audience. We don't want you to have to have any prior understanding of Japan to enjoy yourself.


What are some of the most difficult tasks you have had to overcome as Localization leader?

I'd say the most challenging aspect is naming. I've mentioned this in another thread, but the localization team is in charge of naming all weapons, armor, NPCs, content name, ability names, spell names, target names, etc. etc, and it is my responsibility to make sure our proposals are sound. With weapons, armor, and NPCs there's a bit of leeway, but content and ability names in particular are quite difficult. The words need to accurately describe what the content is while also being easy enough for a Japanese player to understand. We get the naming request from the planner in charge together with a spec sheet, and spend half a a day or so coming up with upwards of twenty different suggestions. We throw about fifteen out and propose our favorites of the remainder to the devs, who have the final say. Sometimes they like it right away. Sometimes they like the meaning of the word but feel it's too long, which is why we have "Skirmish" in English but "Skirm" in Japanese. Sometimes they don't like any and it's back to the drawing board (I think it took about a week to finalize "Alluvion Skirmishes.") For an even more recent example, I spent about four hours researching waltzes to come up with "Contradance," including watching a bunch of youtube videos.

I'll lead this into another story. In Japanese, the Trust Initiative is called "Faith." We originally proposed the name "Trust," which the devs absolutely loved, but then right before QA started Japan's Prime Minister Abe gave a widely-panned speech about the Tokyo Olympics in which he used the English phrase "Trust Me"...aaand that was it for "Trust" in Japanese. They decided to go with "Faith," but when considering what the system is about (you earn the NPCs' trust--they dont put blind faith in you) we decided to keep it as "Trust" in English.

[Raydeus]

One example I like to give is what anime fans will recognize as the "tsundere" character. You know, the stereotypical "B-but it's not like I like you or anything!" This works for a Japanese audience. This works for an anime-enjoying Western audience. The problem is that it's a character trope that is incredibly vexing if you're not a Japanophile--and we don't create games for Japanophiles, we create games for a broad Western audience. We don't want you to have to have any prior understanding of Japan to enjoy yourself.

This is the reason why I've been very tempted over the years to just mod the Japanese text into my game. Unfortunately I've been very lazy learning Kanjis to do actually it. =/


And my Question(s) :

How satisfied are you with the changes NPC's personalities suffer when localizing their dialog?
Which characters do you think are the most affected (if any)?
And if there are, which characters would you personally like to go back and rewrite the dialog for because of this?

[Zubis]

One example I like to give is what anime fans will recognize as the "tsundere" character. You know, the stereotypical "B-but it's not like I like you or anything!" This works for a Japanese audience. This works for an anime-enjoying Western audience. The problem is that it's a character trope that is incredibly vexing if you're not a Japanophile--and we don't create games for Japanophiles, we create games for a broad Western audience. We don't want you to have to have any prior understanding of Japan to enjoy yourself.



Gotta say I appreciate this a lot, there's nothing worse than playing a game and having an incredibly dry story because someone decided that a direct translation from Japanese to English was better than localising it.

I think FFXI's quest and mission dialogues are certainly more fun and quirky in the last couple of years - some of the very early stuff was not perhaps as entertaining as it could have been.

Some related questions:

Is there a huge story bible for the game?
What happens if a quest is added involving a NPC that maybe hasn't been in use in 5 or 6 years? Do you have to go back to the original quests involving the NPC to get a feel for how they speak?

[Nyerieri]

Unelonborro,

Are you the localization lead on FFXIV as well? If not, do you help out at all? If you help out, is there anything different between localization of the two games?

Why do some pieces of gear flow over with one word or number on the second page? Buremte gloves for example have +13% by itself on the second page of the text :)

[pancakesandsx]

I have a more recent localization question, why delve and not menace inspector? I personally like the way the latter rolls off the tongue, so if there's a story behind the change on that one I'd like to hear it.

Also, when you use a delve shard to get plasm, the message has said menace plasm instead of mywea since the event was introduced.

[Unelonborro]

I'll start with a recent question.
While "Alluvion" can be considered correct, "Albion" would have been kinda correct too as a transliteration fo the japanese kanji used for the newly added content "Alluvion Skirmish".
Yet Albion bears no particularl additional meaning (other than the ancient UK island references), whereas Alluvion has several meanings related to water.

I wonder why did the localization team choose the latter one? Are there similar semantic references in the japanese kanjis? Was it just a matter of it sounding better?
(I'm not criticizing btw, I'm just being curious!)


For content names, the devs give the localization team a naming request, a spec sheet, and a general guideline of what they want to name to sound like. We then come up with an English name proposal, which the planner in charge either accepts or rejects and tells us to come up with another one. So in this case, "Alluvion" came first and the Japanese reading came after.




Second and last one, it's about the romaji transliteration of "Amanomurakumo".
Why "Amanomurakumo" instead of the more common "Ame no murakumo"? Clear reference to the japanese mythological sword "Ame no murakumo no tsurugi" used by Amaterasu.
As far as I know both transliterations are correct (Ame and Ama), but Ame seems to be the more common one, especially in english language transliterations?

One of the devs is in charge of, among other things, coming up with Japanese names for ninja/samurai weapons and armor. He then provides us with the readings he would like us to use, and we put them in the game that way. In this case, he preferred "Ama," and that's the direction we took.

[Unelonborro]

I have a few questions relating to FFXI's localization versus the naming conventions of previous Final Fantasy games:

Why Inferno and not Hellfire for Ifrit's Astral Flow?(Is it because of the ESRB rating that you can't use "Hell"?.
Why Earthen Fury instead of Gaia's Wrath for Titan's Astral Flow?
Why Tidal Wave instead of Tsunami for Leviathan's Astral Flow? (Is it too sensitive in Japan to use Tsunami?)
Why Aspir instead of Osmose? (FF4/FF9)
Why Spirt Surge instead of Lancet(Dragon Sword) as it's called in the JP and FFV)
Why Sabre Dance instead of Sword Dance as in FFV?
Why Ryunohige instead of Dragon Whisker as in FF9/FFTactics?
Why Souleater instead of Darkness for DRK's job ability?

I'd love to be able to give you an explanation for these, but they are all way before my time, so I'd rather not provide false information. I would instead point to my above response concerning that different projects take different directions in where they choose to stick to precedent and where they choose something new.

[Unelonborro]

Hi Karbuncle,

I have some questions that aren't why why nots.

When it comes to Thief, were there anythings the dev teams wanted to add based on previous FF titles but couldn't fit into the realm of XI? (Like stealing things from enemies hurting/killing them, ala Riku + Machine parts) Later you added Despoil, which felt like something you might have wanted THF to have from the beginning.

When it came to SMN, was there any debate on making it a heavily focused pet job vs making Summoner a nuking job and Summons perform more like traditional FF Titles, such as casting Magic and they would appear > do damage > Disappear like in other FF titles? Similar to how Alexander and Odin work. It just feels like Alex/Odin were maybe a remnant of what SMN could have been.

On the topic of RDM, did you ever think RDM would become the absolute king of Solo like it did at the 75 cap? Were you impressed by some of the things RDMs did back then? (especially one specific Taru). Also, when it came to RDM, did you envision it as a Melee-mage from the beginning or did you expect people to adopt it as a healer/support job it became today?

A non-job related topic. Did you guys ever consider adding "Limit Breaks" in the traditional sense, like in XIV, but to XI? I know we have Weaponskills and our 1hr abilities which could be construed as a type of limit break, but did you ever think or want to implement a Limit-Break type system in XI?

These are all really good questions, but none of which I can provide any good insight into. Wish I could help!

[Unelonborro]

Wow, I cannot begin to express my excitement regarding this thread!

I recently had a chance to whiz back through the level cap quests and I have to say...

The whole "brown mage" storyline had me rolling on the floor laughing.

How much of that is a direct translation? How much of it had to be ad-lib?

Brilliant!

You know, I was talking with the two translators involved in that quest line just now, and they each claim amnesia. However, I can confirm that they took what the Japanese had and dialed it up to 11!

[Malithar]

Thanks much for the answers! ^^/ Loving this thread.


Back when I was a young'un and Japanese video games first started making their way to the US, localization was handled by Japanese nationals who may or may not have had a strong grasp of English--not just at Squaresoft or Enix, but at pretty much every company at the time. This is how we came up with such classics as "A winner is you" and "All your base are belong to us."

Those are indeed classics that I remember well lol. Out of curiosity, with western game developers really booming over the past decade+, has there been any such cases that happened with shoddy localization into the Japanese market? Do you find that western games are localized well, or did they go through a period of infancy as well?

Your bit about actually targeting a western audience with the localization, rather than just a translation, is really interesting. I've never really thought much on it before, but it makes a lot of sense the way you laid it out. Looking back, I've certainly read/played my fair share of media that hadn't had such care given to it. Looking at some recent quests as examples, Saved by the Bell, To Catch a Predator, I'm on a Boat, Don't Ever Leaf Me, Hide and Go Peak, and many others, make sense through English and our culture, they're phrases that we know from life, shows, music, etc. Out of curiosity, do quests like these take on relevant names that may invoke similar "I know what that's from!" feelings for the Japanese community? Any examples to share that we might know?

Is there any chance that someday you may be able to give a bit of a description to some auto translate terms that are ambiguous, or that are misused often? I'd be interesting to know what they actually say/mean in Japanese. "Please use a weak weapon to attack" seems straight forward enough, but I've had a few Japanese players use that in party (not during something like Void Watch) and I was left confused at what they were getting at. Some terms of our's that may not be well known is "Excuse me..." "Are you alone?" "Can you hear me?" and many others. They seem straight forward enough, but whether due to the language barrier being too much of a bother to communicate through, or our knowledge of what the terms come out to be on the Japanese side, it's difficult to get a clear answer from Japanese players.

[Dragoy]

What a delightfully surprising thread indeed!

It's times like this when I want to ask about a plethora of things, but can't think of anything!


Hrm... Something does actually come in mind, that which I have oft pondered about. Why trust and not fa...


I'll lead this into another story. In Japanese, the Trust Initiative is called "Faith." We originally proposed the name "Trust," which the devs absolutely loved, but then right before QA started Japan's Prime Minister Abe gave a widely-panned speech about the Tokyo Olympics in which he used the English phrase "Trust Me"...aaand that was it for "Trust" in Japanese. They decided to go with "Faith," but when considering what the system is about (you earn the NPCs' trust--they dont put blind faith in you) we decided to keep it as "Trust" in English.

...okay. That was quick.

How about del...


I have a more recent localization question, why delve and not menace inspector? I personally like the way the latter rolls off the tongue, so if there's a story behind the change on that one I'd like to hear it.

Also, when you use a delve shard to get plasm, the message has said menace plasm instead of mywea since the event was introduced.

Goddess dang it!

I'll just be here in the corner then. -.-'

That is to say, I, too, have hoped for menace inspection and menace plasm.


Anyblue, I guess I'll stay in the corner until I manage to think of/remember something to ask!

'Til then, I would comment on the need to adjust for the audience. While I do understand and even agree on that it's probably for the best in the bigger-like picture of the schemes and things, I have always been in favour of the “original”. I can't fully enjoy (though at times it can be hilarious) watching a Japanese (or any other language) movie/anime with an English (or whatever) dub for example. English isn't my native language; I probably dislike native-to-me dubs even more, but thankfully that almost only happens with things geared towards children on the TV here, or perhaps similar things screened at movie theatres, but I don't watch the TV or the theatres, boring as I am, so that is as they say, that.

I probably do agree with that Vana'diel should not be Japan, however, and in that sense, it makes sense... I maybe guess!

Speaking of dubbing, that's something that has almost made me angry with the more recent games that have voice acting and no option to switch it (a big thanks to those who did it for titles such as Soul Calibur III, though I realise that such games are likely to have a little less dialogue than, say, FINAL FANTASY X, but I take that as no excuse!). FINAL FANTASY XII might be the last one for me, and I sure am glad XI doesn't have this problem. Not that it's a huge issue since I don't even want to play new games any longer (which makes voting with my wallet most effortless), but I digress!

The so called 'international' releases were/are pretty annoying, too!

Another reason for not always appreciating the variance is that I've played nearly half (4-5 years) of my time here (9'ish years) with German players who are not too skilled with doing the English. While we still had German and French clients around, it was more than a few times confusing when names of something (atma and different events for example) are completely different from locale to another. That is, even though it might make sense to adjust to the specific area, those areas do play together, and when each have an event named wildly differently, it can make things confuddling to say the least. Of course the confuddle will only be initial, and when people learn about the differences, it's not such a big of a deal.

A couple of more examples could be jetton, which was used for two different currencies in the German client, and signet and (kindred's etc.) seals (both siegel in German). The in-game text-command for translating items was most helpful, but it didn't help with key-items, and many of those could not be 'fetched' with the auto-translate function either.

Some, if not most of that is of course a thing of the past now, since those locales are not supported any longer. My personal experiences are no doubt a tiny droplet of minority in the vast ocean, but I simply felt like sharing them.


My gargantuan apologies for not actually having any questions (yet), but I'll work on improving upon that!

Many thanksies to you, and everyone else in the team for your work.

Special thanksies for the quite in-depth indeed replies so far!

[Karbuncle]

Hi Karbuncle,


These are all really good questions, but none of which I can provide any good insight into. Wish I could help!

Da...rn!

Ah well, I appreciate you getting to them :), If I think of any more less old questions I'll pick your brain :3

[Olor]

Thanks so much! This is a great thread.

Why did the team choose rune fencer instead of rune knight? Is it similar to the reasons for PLD above?

How come Red Mage is referred to as a fencer via equipment (Fencer's earring & Fencer's ring both RDM only) yet doesn't have the ability fencer?

How do you come up with the names of BST familiars?

[Karbuncle]

Thanks so much! This is a great thread.

Why did the team choose rune fencer instead of rune knight? Is it similar to the reasons for PLD above?

How come Red Mage is referred to as a fencer via equipment (Fencer's earring & Fencer's ring both RDM only) yet doesn't have the ability fencer?

How do you come up with the names of BST familiars?

Follow up to BST names, are they different based on region? Cause it feels like some of the inside jokes might not translate well (Voracious Audrey for one). Whats your favorite, maybe a reference we missed o-o?

[Poo]

You know, I was talking with the two translators involved in that quest line just now, and they each claim amnesia. However, I can confirm that they took what the Japanese had and dialed it up to 11!

Thank you!

Too freaking funny.

[Unelonborro]

How satisfied are you with the changes NPC's personalities suffer when localizing their dialog?
Which characters do you think are the most affected (if any)?
And if there are, which characters would you personally like to go back and rewrite the dialog for because of this?

I wouldn't use the word "suffer" when I talk about character personalities in the English localization. It's comparing apples to oranges. The other day I was watching an episode of a popular American spy spoof cartoon and thinking about what kinds of localization processes would be needed to successfully localize that show into Japanese, and the only conclusion I was able to draw was that the viewer would need to have a relatively deep pre-existing knowledge of America to make half the jokes work. The characters need to be American for the show to work, and if you don't have knowledge about American culture, it's simply not going to make sense.

I'll give you a recent example: in the "A Thirst for the Eons" quest (which you should go off and do if you haven't already--the planner had a field day with it) the character Palomel is characterized as a "fujoshi" -- a woman who is into comics and other art forms depicting male homosexual love. Western players don't have that trope in their collective consciousness, so if we kept her as blatant about it as she was in the Japanese, someone without a knowledge of Japanese culture would come across with entirely the wrong impression of what the planner was going for. The planner was going for "comical quirky archetype", but if we kept it in wholesale, it would come across as "crazed sexual deviant" in English. So we changed some aspects of her to maintain the "quirky" attitude the planner was going for in a way that your average English speaker could understand.

In terms of who I would rewrite if given a chance...I can't think of any off the top of my head. Obviously, there are things that I would go back and brush up or change if I had the chance or more time to do so, but most of that is from the earlier days of the game before I joined the project.

[Unelonborro]

Is there a huge story bible for the game?

Without getting into too much of our internal workings, I can say that we do have an extensive list of resources to draw on!


What happens if a quest is added involving a NPC that maybe hasn't been in use in 5 or 6 years? Do you have to go back to the original quests involving the NPC to get a feel for how they speak?

Oh, most definitely. Every time we have a Trust NPC with an accompanying event, I go back and look over all the quests they were involved in. In terms of the amount of time it takes to translate something, an individual alter ego takes me about three to four times as long as something more recent like the Tarutaru Sauce quests or the Seekers of Adoulin missions. These NPCs are beloved by the playerbase, so we have to do them justice!

The one exception was Ingrid, because she was released nearly simultaneously with her breakout mission and thus was already ingrained into my consciousness.

[Unelonborro]

Are you the localization lead on FFXIV as well? If not, do you help out at all? If you help out, is there anything different between localization of the two games?

My involvement with XIV is virtually nonexistent, and I have never done any translation for them. However, XIV has many references to XI, so every so often I'll get a request for a specific snippet of an older mission or the like. But this is also somewhat rare, because half the XIV localization team worked on XI at some point!


Why do some pieces of gear flow over with one word or number on the second page? Buremte gloves for example have +13% by itself on the second page of the text :)

I'd love to squash these as they pop up, so let me know if you see any and I'll whack-a-mole them out of existence!

[Unelonborro]

I have a more recent localization question, why delve and not menace inspector? I personally like the way the latter rolls off the tongue, so if there's a story behind the change on that one I'd like to hear it.

I don't want to get too much into this one, because it involves people other than localization and the devs, but "Menace Inspector" is pretty long for a content name.

The one comment I can make without incurring someone's ire is that "Menace Inspector" was originally supposed to refer to the Anomaly Expert, not the content as a whole.



Also, when you use a delve shard to get plasm, the message has said menace plasm instead of mywea since the event was introduced.

This...should not be the case. Let me see if I can find and fix it for September.

[Unelonborro]

Those are indeed classics that I remember well lol. Out of curiosity, with western game developers really booming over the past decade+, has there been any such cases that happened with shoddy localization into the Japanese market? Do you find that western games are localized well, or did they go through a period of infancy as well?

This is getting into the realm of personal opinion, but I think that the video game industry as a whole does a much better job of translating games INTO English than we do of translating games FROM English. Translations From EN to European languages tend to be higher quality than those to distant languages like Japanese and Korean, but there are many, many examples where mistranslations occur even with languages that are "closer" to English. I don't feel it's appropriate to call out any specific examples, but if you're interested in the topic, a quick google search will provide you with a plethora of mistakes and missed opportunities.

Speaking from a more general perspective, English is a relatively risk-free language to translate into. You can just go with American spellings and language conventions and people will understand it quite easily, even if they come from non-American English speaking backgrounds, due to the permeation of American culture into the global mindset. Spanish, French, and Portuguese are very risky languages, because the discrepancies between the European and North/South American dialects are high enough that players feel a huge of disconnect if they play a version intended for another region.

Sometimes I will play a Western game with a Japanese language pack just for fun, and the translations are really all over the map. Some are very professionally done, with excellent nuanced localizations; some have outright mistranslations that impede the player's ability to progress; and others are borderline incomprehensible. We've still got a ways to go.


Your bit about actually targeting a western audience with the localization, rather than just a translation, is really interesting. I've never really thought much on it before, but it makes a lot of sense the way you laid it out. Looking back, I've certainly read/played my fair share of media that hadn't had such care given to it. Looking at some recent quests as examples, Saved by the Bell, To Catch a Predator, I'm on a Boat, Don't Ever Leaf Me, Hide and Go Peak, and many others, make sense through English and our culture, they're phrases that we know from life, shows, music, etc. Out of curiosity, do quests like these take on relevant names that may invoke similar "I know what that's from!" feelings for the Japanese community? Any examples to share that we might know?

A lot of this comes down to player expectations and translator/writer preference. Even in the Japanese, some of our planners prefer light, playful names, while others like something more serious, so it's not a set rule. The Tarutaru Sauce questline for example: The planner always uses a play on words by replacing one of the kanji in the quest line with the kanji for "to laugh." The planner for the Svenja questline plays it straight. Because the Japanese is relatively freeform, we make things light hearted in the English whenever we feel we can fit in something good that fits the story.


Is there any chance that someday you may be able to give a bit of a description to some auto translate terms that are ambiguous, or that are misused often? I'd be interesting to know what they actually say/mean in Japanese. "Please use a weak weapon to attack" seems straight forward enough, but I've had a few Japanese players use that in party (not during something like Void Watch) and I was left confused at what they were getting at. Some terms of our's that may not be well known is "Excuse me..." "Are you alone?" "Can you hear me?" and many others. They seem straight forward enough, but whether due to the language barrier being too much of a bother to communicate through, or our knowledge of what the terms come out to be on the Japanese side, it's difficult to get a clear answer from Japanese players.

Ohhhhh I can give you a very good one. I was talking with the planner in charge of the auto-translate dictionary the other day about this very topic. He remembers one instance in particular where he was just chatting with his linkshell, sitting in Jeuno and someone in /shout was looking to buy some item or other:

"{Please} {Reward} 300k"

The problem is that the player selected "Reward" from the Job Abilities category, not the Trade category, so it popped up in Japanese with the beastmaster ability, which in Japanese is "Itawaru"--a verb rather than a noun. "Itawaru" means "to treat someone nicely," so the guy was basically sitting in /shout going "Please treat me nicely 300k."

Long story short: make sure you took before you translate!

[Karbuncle]

lol... please treat me nicely...

the real reward has a : in it too :O

[Nyerieri]

My involvement with XIV is virtually nonexistent, and I have never done any translation for them. However, XIV has many references to XI, so every so often I'll get a request for a specific snippet of an older mission or the like. But this is also somewhat rare, because half the XIV localization team worked on XI at some point!



I'd love to squash these as they pop up, so let me know if you see any and I'll whack-a-mole them out of existence!


You can whack-a-mole it for the September version update :) Since it is still there!

[Nyerieri]

When the text description for items was moved to 2 boxes (now sometimes 3) It was said that the main text description for items can hold 7 lines I believe. Why do some items not follow that rule? I've seen some items where the main text for the item only has 6 lines before moving to the second page.

[ZoMBie343]

I just wanted to say you guys do an amazing job.

Thank you for making some really funny quest names and dialogue that reminds us of real world events (I remember some quest names had a really good ring to them!)

[Zubis]

Without getting into too much of our internal workings, I can say that we do have an extensive list of resources to draw on!

These NPCs are beloved by the playerbase, so we have to do them justice!

And you did, it's fun going back and seeing the new dialogue for NPCs I haven't spoken to in 8 years :3 Thanks for the reply and thanks for all your team's work on the game.

[Suteru]

lol... please treat me nicely...

the real reward has a : in it too :O

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?

[Karbuncle]

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 know, was implying today :D

I remember back when Reward was all there was, there was basically a PSA on BG about it being something like Ul said lol

[Perrier]

I think this falls into the purview of localization, since maybe something was lost in translation trying to get this to fit into a tiny spreadsheet box: In the patch preview for the September version, when you say WoE 2 is "a high-tier version to occur at a set percentage" are you saying there's a chance on entry for it to be either WoE 1 or WoE 2, or does WoE 2 open up when WoE 1's completion rate or whatever reaches a certain percentage?

[Mitruya]

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...)

[Xsilver]

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?


"Good day! I'm a Merry Map Marker, and I'd be emphatically ecstatic if you'd allow me to mark your magical map! A markless map of Al Zhabi is like a motherless maiden, meandering through a miasmatic mire of misery. Marvelous! Now allow me a minute to make all my marks!". "Our local minstrel of melodies can be found here. His mirthful musicalities may help you to recall misplaced memories.Ah, and in the case you might wish to mask a meritorious moniker and replace it with one a mite more merited, a traveling bard strums upon his melilflous harp here. And mayhap you are immeasurably motivated to compete in the medieval mayhem of Conflict? Might I suggest you mingle with the modest Pursiviant located here? Methinks I have marked your magical map with as many marks as I might manage.Monitoring and managing your marks as a simple as merely opening your map and selecting Markers from the main menu. If the marks on your map might vanish mope not like a melancholy milksop. Make another meeting with me and I shall make it my mission to mark the map once more. Good day mi'lord. May your marches across meadow and mountain be markedly memorable!.

Whoever wrote this deserves a huge promotion.

[pancakesandsx]

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?

[Dragoy]

Also, when you use a delve shard to get plasm, the message has said menace plasm instead of mywea since the event was introduced.

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:


Is anyone able to tell me since when did Sakura speak languages other than Japanese?

I always figured her speech was intentionally not translated during the chocobo races. For those who never went to one, all she says is: “ピヨ！”(piyo!) and: “ピヨピヨ！”(piyopiyo!), which Markovich (http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Markovich) interprets.

I understand that having her speech not 'translated' might confuse players, but I, for one, dislike inconsistency. A lot. It's only made worse by the fact that the Sakura Biscuit (http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Sakura_Biscuit) is consistent regarding this matter, like so:


http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/w/images/d/d3/Sakura_biscuit.png

That is, of course, assuming that not translating her in any way was intentional in the first place. ^^

Perhaps whomever was in charge was unaware of how Sakura has been handled in the past, or it was a conscious decision so as to not “confuse” players. Or I'm confuddled myself. Either way, it seems to me that it's not the alter ego of Sakura at all, but a nisemono!

'Tis simply wrong. A kind of a translation error from what I see, which I actually was/am debating with myself on reporting it as.


Blubb!

(Note that I'm not as angry as I may have made it (intentionally) seem like, but inconsistencies truly are more and/or less silly, annoying, and even maddening to some!)

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!

[Malithar]

Unelonborro, you still with us? D: Lots of questions left unanswered, had assumed perhaps you were just busy with the conclusion of the SoA missions, but many questions and issues reported in this sub forum have been left unanswered.

[Unelonborro]

Hello, everyone!

The past version updates have had me running around like a madman, but now that the December update is upon us I can get back to this thread for a little bit!


Thanks so much! This is a great thread.

Why did the team choose rune fencer instead of rune knight? Is it similar to the reasons for PLD above?

How come Red Mage is referred to as a fencer via equipment (Fencer's earring & Fencer's ring both RDM only) yet doesn't have the ability fencer?

How do you come up with the names of BST familiars?

Rune Fencer vs. Rune Knight was something that was debated quite a lot internally, and there were many arguments to be made for both sides. How often does a knight run around with a great sword? How about a fencer? The answer is...not much, for either of them. In the end, we settled on Rune Fencer because the term had been used before in other Final Fantasy games, so we went with something that had a bit more visibility.

For Red Mage being a fencer via equipment but not having the ability Fencer--that's something that was before my time, so I cannot provide a definitive answer. However, I agree with you that the disconnect is a bit disconcerting!

The names of BST familiars tend to take the form of adjective + name, and when it comes down to it we try to think of combinations that either sound well together or have some special meaning. There are a couple names I've been trying to work in, but I can't seem to find the best timing for it...

[Unelonborro]

When the text description for items was moved to 2 boxes (now sometimes 3) It was said that the main text description for items can hold 7 lines I believe. Why do some items not follow that rule? I've seen some items where the main text for the item only has 6 lines before moving to the second page.

I'd have to ask around to be sure, but I think part of it depends on whether or not the list of classes that can equip it spills over into two lines!

[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

[Unelonborro]

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?

Good day, bungiefanNA,

The Vana'diel Tribune certainly was a highlight back in the day, and I understand the desire to get some of the earlier issues translated. That would be a large undertaking, and I'm not sure how feasible it would be to localize them at this juncture with the amount of content coming between now and November--and, unfortunately, it's not my call to make. But consider the request duly noted!

As for the PlayOnline viewer, I'm afraid I can't help you terribly much. The community team would certainly like to hear your feedback about it, so be sure to post it in a subforum that'll grab their attention more quickly!

Unelonborro
Localization Lead

[Draylo-]

Thank you so much for your work, I greatly appreciate it.

[Merton9999]

I love this thread. For many years I’ve appreciated the work the localization team does on XI. You guys do a fantastic job. I could list many examples from story moments and character dialog, but I’ll stick to one of my favorite elements: artifact, relic and empyrean equipment names.

The names of artifact and relic equipment were a way to imagine my character graduating to the next level of his discipline. Through hard work and study I was promoted from a Red Mage to a Warlock! And then a Duelist! It was like getting a fancy new title at work, but with a more badass name. Just as important, it reminded me of the famous class evolution of FF1 that I’ve loved since I played the original on the NES decades ago.

Artifact and relic names were mostly familiar to anyone with a fantasy background. This wasn’t a bad thing; they evoked nostalgia along with that feeling of graduation to the next level. However, when the Empyrean armor sets came out, you guys took the title promotion up another notch with obscure references that were totally fitting, but also new to many people. I actually spent a few hours one night researching all of those names. Some of them were good but obvious, like Creed and Savant, but I had a blast with Goetia, Orison, Estoqueur, Mavi, and many others. Once again Final Fantasy was teaching me something. Excellent job on these!

I was happy to see this become a trend. When reforged armor was announced, my secret hope was for new titles, and not just bland “Duelist’s Tights +3”. I was ecstatic to see more interesting names used in all three reforged sets, as well as the GEO and RUN armor. My favorites are Arbatel (which I had never heard before but enjoyed reading about) and Azimuth (which I actually vaguely recalled from my college days as a math major).

Now for my questions:
1. What exactly is Vitivation from? I can make sense of vitiation, but not vitivation. I have to admit though, vitivation actually rolls off my tongue better.
2. I know absolutely no Japanese. Are the JSE names translations of the same word in Japanese or do you guys come up with your own “new titles” for us?
3. I would love to know more about the process of deciding on these names from empyrean to reforged sets. I think it’s fantastic that you watched YouTube Waltzes for hours to decide on Contradance. What kind of research went into Arbatel and Azimuth? Where on Earth did you pull Estoqueur from? By the way, I still find it funny that Duelist and Estoqueur sets have no melee stats on them while the Warlock set does, but the names themselves sound great :)

[Ophannus]

Would it be possible for the localization team to clue us in how the proper pronounciations of this extremely difficult names?

Xzomit? (Zomit? Exzomit? Kisomit?)
Hu'Xzoi (Hu exoy? Hu soy?)
Pso 'Xja (So Ja?)
Abdhaljs (Abdal-jis?)

Also what compelled you guys to name placed that have unusual consonant pairs. It almost seems like you slam your head on the keyboard or throw darts at a board with random letters. Sorry if that was insulting but these are the strangest name out of any MMORPG I have ever played, or any video game for that manner.

Also finally, I know this is more of a lore kind of thing and you guys may not be able to answer it but will we ever learn what the naming convention prefixes for Zilart things mean? I would hate for FFXI to end without these questions being answered either in game or through whoever's in charge of story boards. There must have been a reason behind these prefixes.

Ru'
Ra'
Hu'
Aw'
Au'
Ix'
Om'
Ul'
Eo'

etc...

[Dawezy]

Another name question! (sorry! ^^;.)

Back when I first unlocked PUP and went through the Automaton naming process I was blown away by the variety of options - I went for Herzog because it reminded me of an old game on the SEGA Genesis that I used to ace as a kid, Herzog Zwei, but there was a mountain of other options I probably would picked.. so, that being said; Did the Devs just scribble down a army of random names and pull them from the hat and chose those for the in-game list? or were all these names related to something irl?

One name I could call out from the list is Calcobrena, that was from FFIV.

[Raydeus]

Since you handled localization and know about the new character introduced in Rapsodies...

My question is :

In your opinion, will she be an even better waifu than Arciela?

[Unelonborro]

Good day, everyone,

I have some more time to answer your questions now that my work for the May patch is done. In terms of text volume, it's approximately equal to the November patch, when the final chapter of Seekers of Adoulin was released--and this is the shortest of the three chapters in Rhapsodies of Vana'diel.


I love this thread. For many years I’ve appreciated the work the localization team does on XI. You guys do a fantastic job. I could list many examples from story moments and character dialog, but I’ll stick to one of my favorite elements: artifact, relic and empyrean equipment names.

The names of artifact and relic equipment were a way to imagine my character graduating to the next level of his discipline. Through hard work and study I was promoted from a Red Mage to a Warlock! And then a Duelist! It was like getting a fancy new title at work, but with a more badass name. Just as important, it reminded me of the famous class evolution of FF1 that I’ve loved since I played the original on the NES decades ago.

Artifact and relic names were mostly familiar to anyone with a fantasy background. This wasn’t a bad thing; they evoked nostalgia along with that feeling of graduation to the next level. However, when the Empyrean armor sets came out, you guys took the title promotion up another notch with obscure references that were totally fitting, but also new to many people. I actually spent a few hours one night researching all of those names. Some of them were good but obvious, like Creed and Savant, but I had a blast with Goetia, Orison, Estoqueur, Mavi, and many others. Once again Final Fantasy was teaching me something. Excellent job on these!

I was happy to see this become a trend. When reforged armor was announced, my secret hope was for new titles, and not just bland “Duelist’s Tights +3”. I was ecstatic to see more interesting names used in all three reforged sets, as well as the GEO and RUN armor. My favorites are Arbatel (which I had never heard before but enjoyed reading about) and Azimuth (which I actually vaguely recalled from my college days as a math major).

Now for my questions:
1. What exactly is Vitivation from? I can make sense of vitiation, but not vitivation. I have to admit though, vitivation actually rolls off my tongue better.
2. I know absolutely no Japanese. Are the JSE names translations of the same word in Japanese or do you guys come up with your own “new titles” for us?
3. I would love to know more about the process of deciding on these names from empyrean to reforged sets. I think it’s fantastic that you watched YouTube Waltzes for hours to decide on Contradance. What kind of research went into Arbatel and Azimuth? Where on Earth did you pull Estoqueur from? By the way, I still find it funny that Duelist and Estoqueur sets have no melee stats on them while the Warlock set does, but the names themselves sound great :)

Thank you for your comments and questions, Merton9999!

I've commented a bit about the way we name equipment earlier in the thread, but here's the Reader's Digest version: has to fit in 9 katakana or fewer when rendered into Japanese, has to match with what the equipment does, and has to be a word we haven't yet used in equipment to date. The process was a lot easier when all we had were wax swords and cesti, but it has grown very complicated now that we have over 20,000 pieces of equipment, items, and attachments and are still tied to the same restrictions.

That said, we have had a numerous number of translators over the life of this project, and each lead has their own philosophy of how items should be named in a way that still evokes fantasy images that are worthy of the Final Fantasy brand. For me personally, artifact/relic/mythic/empyrean armor and weapons should have a much more special feel about them that makes the player feel "this is cool, and the name just fits with what a white mage/corsair/thief should be using." Interestingly enough, this restriction breeds a lot of freedom: when a piece can be equipped by 10 different jobs, the name naturally becomes more generic, but with the above types of items we can really dig deep into what a particular job would use or where. I'm glad to hear that you liked them! As for your questions:

1. Vitiation is a word, whereas vitivation is not. We argued this one back and forth for probably a week, and eventually decided that "vitivation" rolled a little bit better of the tongue, so that's what we ended up going with. What do you think? Does it sound better to you, or would you perfer we stay faithful to the word? There's no right or wrong answer, so feel free to offer your insight!

2. Most things in the game are named by the localize team and then put into Japanese from there. The armor, weapons, monsters, spells, abilities, monster abilities, beastmaster pet names, attachments, NPCs, actors (things like veridical confluxes), most titles, and content and system names (like Vagary or Unity) are all named by the localization team. Things that the Japanese devs name and we translate include quest names, usable/unusable items, key items (almost all the time), some titles, and ninja/samurai equipment. There's probably some stuff I'm missing, too, but that about covers it.

As for number 3, see my comment above! I will say that we try to nail down one aspect of each job to focus on. For the azimuth attire, for example, one aspect of geomancers in XI is their focus on circles and spheres. You can see it in a lot of the ability names (concentric pulse, etc.) and also in the way the geocolure and indicolure spells operate.

[Unelonborro]

Would it be possible for the localization team to clue us in how the proper pronounciations of this extremely difficult names?

Xzomit? (Zomit? Exzomit? Kisomit?)
Hu'Xzoi (Hu exoy? Hu soy?)
Pso 'Xja (So Ja?)
Abdhaljs (Abdal-jis?)

Also what compelled you guys to name placed that have unusual consonant pairs. It almost seems like you slam your head on the keyboard or throw darts at a board with random letters. Sorry if that was insulting but these are the strangest name out of any MMORPG I have ever played, or any video game for that manner.

Also finally, I know this is more of a lore kind of thing and you guys may not be able to answer it but will we ever learn what the naming convention prefixes for Zilart things mean? I would hate for FFXI to end without these questions being answered either in game or through whoever's in charge of story boards. There must have been a reason behind these prefixes.

Ru'
Ra'
Hu'
Aw'
Au'
Ix'
Om'
Ul'
Eo'

etc...

Good day, Ophannus!

As for your first question: here we go:

Xzomit: ZOH-mitt
Hu'Xzoi: who-ZOI
Pso 'Xja: SEW-ja
Abdhaljs: AB-dolls

As for our unusual naming tendencies, you'll notice that over time we have moved toward more grokkable area names, particularly in the Adoulin areas: less "Bostaunieux Oubliette" more "Kamihr Drifts." This reflects the tendencies of whoever was the lead translator at the time. I make it a point to visit fan sites and unofficial forums, where players tend to be more frank about their opinions, and I know that many of you refer to Bostaunieux Oubliette as "Boston Omelette." This tickles me to no end, but when I became lead, the devs and I agreed that things should take on a more direct approach--something that was memorable yet easy to remember. What do you think about the shift in direction?

As for the Zilart names--let me see if I can find someone more knowledgeable about the topic than I. Saito-san is currently swamped with event-related content, but I'll try to catch him over the weekend when he's more relaxed.

[Draylo-]

That's so awesome, I wish you guys had like a dev notes thing where you talk about how you came to different decisions and stuff. I find it interesting to read, thanks!

[Unelonborro]

Another name question! (sorry! ^^;.)

Back when I first unlocked PUP and went through the Automaton naming process I was blown away by the variety of options - I went for Herzog because it reminded me of an old game on the SEGA Genesis that I used to ace as a kid, Herzog Zwei, but there was a mountain of other options I probably would picked.. so, that being said; Did the Devs just scribble down a army of random names and pull them from the hat and chose those for the in-game list? or were all these names related to something irl?

One name I could call out from the list is Calcobrena, that was from FFIV.

Good day, Dawezy!

The puppetmaster stuff was a bit before me time, but there may be someone around who can remember how they chose the names. Almost certainly someone in localize named them, though, so I'll hit a couple people up.

[Unelonborro]

Since you handled localization and know about the new character introduced in Rapsodies...

My question is :

In your opinion, will she be an even better waifu than Arciela?

I'll like you to decide if she's a better waifu than Arciela, but since the patch releases in less than a day I'll tell you that she's a bit more stoic!

[Dragoy]

Hies!


Xzomit: ZOH-mitt
Hu'Xzoi: who-ZOI
Pso 'Xja: SEW-ja
Abdhaljs: AB-dolls

As for our unusual naming tendencies, you'll notice that over time we have moved toward more grokkable area names, particularly in the Adoulin areas: less "Bostaunieux Oubliette" more "Kamihr Drifts." This reflects the tendencies of whoever was the lead translator at the time. I make it a point to visit fan sites and unofficial forums, where players tend to be more frank about their opinions, and I know that many of you refer to Bostaunieux Oubliette as "Boston Omelette." This tickles me to no end, but when I became lead, the devs and I agreed that things should take on a more direct approach--something that was memorable yet easy to remember. What do you think about the shift in direction?

I, for one, don't mind it. However, being Finnish, I might automagically think of, and pronounce all these very differently. I may often prefer the old ways, but if I do think of these “in English”, I certainly understand the change. ^^


Many thanks again for all your replies here, as well as for all your (and the rest of the team's) efforts in general! (Past and present, as well as the crescent... I mean future!)

[Merton9999]

1. Vitiation is a word, whereas vitivation is not. We argued this one back and forth for probably a week, and eventually decided that "vitivation" rolled a little bit better of the tongue, so that's what we ended up going with. What do you think? Does it sound better to you, or would you perfer we stay faithful to the word? There's no right or wrong answer, so feel free to offer your insight!

Thanks for the answers, Unelonborro!

I appreciate the process of starting with something classic or official, then adding a unique and personal, but subtle, twist to it. Your approach was similar, and I think vitivation does in fact sound better. Good choice!

One other thing I find interesting is that when I first read vitivation, I immediately thought of vetiver, an essential oil I've used in the past. It's used to relieve stress and emotional trauma. Vitiation + Vetiver = Vitivation? Spoil (Enfeeble) + Relieve (Heal) = RDM? I like your "it sounded better" answer but this was fun to think about too :)


For the azimuth attire, for example, one aspect of geomancers in XI is their focus on circles and spheres. You can see it in a lot of the ability names (concentric pulse, etc.) and also in the way the geocolure and indicolure spells operate.

Yeah, azimuth made complete sense to me as being fitting for geomancers. I was just trying to imagine how fun it would be to pore over old math text books and websites looking for that perfect word that was both fitting and obscure!


I know that many of you refer to Bostaunieux Oubliette as "Boston Omelette." This tickles me to no end...

This has always been one of my favorites. It's up there with Temple of Ugly People.

[Ophannus]

Drakesbane in the JP is 雲蒸竜変 which according to Google Translate is "Strange Cloud". I'm sure this is an idiomatic phrase only understood by Japanese people in the context of their culture's mythos surrounding eastern dragons (e.g. Mistmelt/Cloud Evoker). I couldn't find anything on the interwebs about it but I was wondering if you could provide a brief description of what 雲蒸竜変 really eludes to. I know it was localized to "Drakesbane" before your time. I'm presuming that dragons require clouds to fly, and 雲蒸竜変 related to disrupting clouds somehow which I suppose would result in a dragon 'falling'. And an attack which destroys the clouds necessary for a dragon to fly, would be a bane to a dragon? I'm just using deductive logic here based on my extremely limited japanese, but was just curious!

Also I was wondering why Ryuken (Dragon Sword) DRG's SP1 was localized to Spirit Surge in FFXI when in previous FF games it was simply called Lancet/Lancer/Dragon Sword. Was Dragon Sword/Lancet not 'cool' or dramatic enough for an SP name? I also remember getting hyped about DRG's SP2 before it was released, back before you guys actually named it "Fly High", and I remember being so disappointed at its name. 1) because 'Fly High" sounds so mundane, and 2) I was halfway hoping you guys would name it "Highwind" after Highwind being a very prominent term relating to DRGs throughout the FF series (and also the name of DRG's ultimate Jump attack in several other FF games). Seeing as Manafont, Benediction, and Summoner's Astral Flow abilities are all names of ultimate skills those jobs use in other games, Highwind would have been a better name than "Fly High", which I think is actually almost seems like a synonym for High Wind as both terms allude to altitude/flying, but I think Fly High as not having as much fan service as Highwind, in the same regard as Hellfire, Gaia's Wrath, Tsunami, Dark Messenger being renamed Inferno, Earthen Fury, Tidal Wave and Ruinous Omen. Even if the latter are more 'accurate' translations.


I know that many of you refer to Bostaunieux Oubliette as "Boston Omelette." This tickles me to no end...

While true, the newer zones are easier to pronounce, the former stylized naming conventions were probably more 'grown-up' and actually preserved more accurate meaning. A dungeon is very generic, but an Oubliette is a very particular kind of french-style dungeon, and Sand'Oria is very much based on medieval France. Calling it simply a dungeon wouldn't confer the same 'feel' as calling it an Oubliette, though 90% of players don't care about that sort of deeper connection to lore and maintaining meaning, but moving forward it probably is a better choice to use terms like "Drifts" or "Fields" rather than archaic terms.

Also one more thing. I'm extremely proud of the FFXI localization team for sticking with FF style naming conventions of items. I groan when I play any other RPG series and items are named like "Staff of Fiery Striking" or "Sword of Frozen Spite" or "Helmet of Magick'd Fortitude" I hate RPGs that use "[Blank] of [Blankity] [Blank]" for items, it's so cheesy and feels too D&Dish. Whereas FF games typically name items after a noun or a single adjective Cleric's Robe, Bloodsword, Masamune, Noble's Tunic, etc... It's less pretentious and a lot less annoying, also it's more fun reading about the lore behind some of these items and their terms (i.e. Estoqueuer) rather than boring names in other games e.g. Shield of Divine Light---BORING.

[Unelonborro]

Good day, Ophannus!

Let me get to your questions one by one.


Drakesbane in the JP is 雲蒸竜変 which according to Google Translate is "Strange Cloud". I'm sure this is an idiomatic phrase only understood by Japanese people in the context of their culture's mythos surrounding eastern dragons (e.g. Mistmelt/Cloud Evoker). I couldn't find anything on the interwebs about it but I was wondering if you could provide a brief description of what 雲蒸竜変 really eludes to. I know it was localized to "Drakesbane" before your time. I'm presuming that dragons require clouds to fly, and 雲蒸竜変 related to disrupting clouds somehow which I suppose would result in a dragon 'falling'. And an attack which destroys the clouds necessary for a dragon to fly, would be a bane to a dragon? I'm just using deductive logic here based on my extremely limited japanese, but was just curious!

雲蒸竜変, pronounced "Unjo-ryohen" (for you kanji fiends out there, the third character is actually prounced "ryo" in this instance, not "ryu"), is what's called in Japanese a "yoji-jukugo," a four kanji compound phrase that plays a role very similar to what we would term an "idiom." A well known example of a yoji jukugo is 一石二鳥 (isseki-nicho), which in English is "Kill two birds with one stone." Many of these translate into phrases rather than single words. When we coming up with a skill or ability name, anything longer than about two words is out unless there's a really good reason (I know there are a couple with three, but they usually contain filler words like "of" (Knights of Round, Chant du Cygne, etc.))

Now, let's talk about the meaning of "Unjo-ryohen." I'm creative licensing this a little bit, but it essentially means "a great leader or hero will appear in times of need to save the land." The third character, 竜, (usually pronounced "ryu") refers to a dragon. Let's take the two of these aspects together: In western lore, our fantasy heroes often do things like saving kingdoms, rescuing princesses, and--you guessed it--slaying dragons. With a term like "drakesbane," you get a triple whammy: you keep the dragon present in the original Japanese, you call forth an image of of heroism, and you have a short, pithy word that sounds like an ability name.

As you mentioned, it was named before my time, but I have a feeling my guess is pretty spot-on.




Also I was wondering why Ryuken (Dragon Sword) DRG's SP1 was localized to Spirit Surge in FFXI when in previous FF games it was simply called Lancet/Lancer/Dragon Sword. Was Dragon Sword/Lancet not 'cool' or dramatic enough for an SP name? I also remember getting hyped about DRG's SP2 before it was released, back before you guys actually named it "Fly High", and I remember being so disappointed at its name. 1) because 'Fly High" sounds so mundane, and 2) I was halfway hoping you guys would name it "Highwind" after Highwind being a very prominent term relating to DRGs throughout the FF series (and also the name of DRG's ultimate Jump attack in several other FF games). Seeing as Manafont, Benediction, and Summoner's Astral Flow abilities are all names of ultimate skills those jobs use in other games, Highwind would have been a better name than "Fly High", which I think is actually almost seems like a synonym for High Wind as both terms allude to altitude/flying, but I think Fly High as not having as much fan service as Highwind, in the same regard as Hellfire, Gaia's Wrath, Tsunami, Dark Messenger being renamed Inferno, Earthen Fury, Tidal Wave and Ruinous Omen. Even if the latter are more 'accurate' translations.

I find it very interesting that you bring up Highwind here, because it was originally on the short list of ideas that we thought up during the naming process but ultimately discarded it. It's a term that we have to be very careful about using, because Highwind has been a bit over the map historically: sometimes it refers to dragoons, sometimes to airships, sometimes to Cid. (of course, sometimes Cid is ALSO dragoon-like, but that's neither here nor there)

I believe the most recent main title we've used Highwind in was the ios/android Final Fantasy Dimensions (good game--if you're interested in retro Final Fantasy I would give it a go), and there it was an airship.

So that's the background behind "Highwind" as a term. That in and of itself wouldn't be a reason to cross the name off the list, but there's one other consideration--at the time of naming, we were right in the middle of the Adoulin questline involving Midras, and Cid pops up as a guest figure. This gave me pause, because bringing Cid back into the picture at this juncture opens up the possibility that the planner in charge of the quest decides to trot out the name. As such, it was decided to discard the name in favor of Fly High.

What do you think? Would you have kept it as Highwind, or would you have looked for something else? If something else, what direction would you liked to have seen it go in?

As an aside, most of those continuing Adoulin subquests will be getting closure in the next few months, so you'll be able to find out exactly what happens to Roskin, Nashu, the Blackthorn Coven, and a bunch of other Adoulin characters.

[Ophannus]

Awesome, very cool indeed! I guess I figured the words Fly High were already so near in meaning to a more parsimonious and no-brainer name like Highwind which would have been gratuitous fan service, but I do see your logic. I just wondered if it even came up or if it flew over your heads (no pun intended of course :P)
A minor correction, I think in Dimensions, it was Highwind Tower during the Dragoon Chapter.

I asked a Japanese friend of mine to translate the idiom for me and his definition was similar to yours:
"From turmoil, a hero arises to save his people, like a dragon ascending from dark clouds towards the sky/heaven."

I also hope the devs make reference to the "Drake Tamers" we heard about back from Achtelle in WoTG, an Adoulinian DRG NPC who makes mention that Adoulin is home to Wyverns....which we've seen 0 of either Tamers or Drakes in the entire expansions :)
I think they mentioned the Mummur's Coalition being Drakestamers but I don't think it's ever been shown/mentioned at all, and I heard they were working on a quest...keeping my fingers crossed for this update.

[Economizer]

First, I've heard a rumor a very long time ago that the /check function has or had a phrase that could be considered rude in Japanese. NA players can spam /check (Player examines you.) quite a bit. Is this or was this ever the case? If it is the case, could this be fixed?

Second, the autotranslate function in this game is a work of art even when not talking to people who don't share your language. When I've played FFXI heavily and switch to other text based communication, I can spam the tab key quite a bit (to be honest, I'm sad the forums themselves don't support this feature... we don't even have open and closing brackets as emoticons!).

I remember "back in the day" that there were guides on how to talk to JP players with romanjii phrases, such as FFXIclopedia's Japanese-English Bard Song List (mostly written in 2007), or their Auto-Translator: In-Depth guide explaining what the auto-translate phrases exactly mean. Additionally NA player's vocabulary has always been affected by JP players, everyone should know what D2 means.

However, it can be frustrating when JP players don't use Auto-Translate at all. Whereas I don't blame the players, it is still a source of annoyance. You can only type in romanjii if you're on the NA client. There is no copy-paste function to even throw in phases into a poor quality online machine translator. If only this game had official support for fan made add-ons, or allowed the usage of the infamous third-party client I don't even need to name, this could be remedied by the fans. I've read about fan based auto-translators that detect Japanese text and compare it to an FFXI specific dictionary. It isn't perfect, but it would certainly help bridge the gap between the two communities FFXI shares.

[Unelonborro]

Good day, Economizer,

Sorry for not getting back to you about this earlier. I'm unable to answer all your questions, but I can definitely hit back on this one:


First, I've heard a rumor a very long time ago that the /check function has or had a phrase that could be considered rude in Japanese. NA players can spam /check (Player examines you.) quite a bit. Is this or was this ever the case? If it is the case, could this be fixed?

I'm in no position to judge what the JP player base as a whole feels, but the Japanese version of this text is じっと見つめる, which is much more aggressive sounding in JP than it is in EN. Let's take a step into the wayback machine.

I'm a bit of an MMO player, having gotten my start in Diku MUDs back in the dark days of 19XX when I was in high school. Eventually what we would consider the first MMOs came out, starting with Meridian 59 back in 1996. UO was released a bit later, and eventually we ended up with the genre-defining giant that was the original Everquest. Whereas today the influence of WoW is undeniable, back then the same was true of Everquest, which anyone familiar with the genre knows is a diku-style mmo. Because of this, many things that would come to be done via a graphical user interface in later years were still done via text commands: /check is one such thing.

Now, keep in mind that more western players were familiar with MMOs when XI came out in EN than JP players were when XI came out in JP. We were already used to working with text commands that echoed things to the recipient, such as /check. However, Everquest did not have a Japanese version, so there was no preconceived notion for what a "/check" command would return in Japanese (there already was in EN). The JP that was eventually chosen (literally, "[Player] stares at you") can be read more aggressively in Japanese, especially if /check is done multiple times in quick succession. The EN reads much softer because, again--it's what an existing EN-speaking MMO player would have expected. (I can't speak to the FR and DE sides of things.)

I'm oversimplifying things slightly, but that's a brief history behind /check in both languages! Why the JP didn't go with the much more neutral verb 調べる like they did in the help text for /check is a mystery for the ages.

[Olor]

This is my favourite thread. Thanks so much for everything Unelonborro.

You talked about making place names more grokkable... but where do they come from? Do you just put some syllables together that sound good? As far as I can tell Morimar isn't a word for example. How do you come up with those names? I think they sound very authentic - like real names of real places.

I am a gamemaster for a tabletop RPG, in a homebrew world and I find coming up with good place names is hard. What's your process?

[Unelonborro]

This is my favourite thread. Thanks so much for everything Unelonborro.

You talked about making place names more grokkable... but where do they come from? Do you just put some syllables together that sound good? As far as I can tell Morimar isn't a word for example. How do you come up with those names? I think they sound very authentic - like real names of real places.

I am a gamemaster for a tabletop RPG, in a homebrew world and I find coming up with good place names is hard. What's your process?

It really depends a lot on the context. We have a list of stock NPC names that we draw from whenever we have characters who are relatively unimportant in terms of lore--for example, Affi and Dremi in the Escha areas were drawn from our pool. Every so often we run out and have to think of some more.

Most Elvaan, you have noticed, have French-sounding names. These names were always thought up by the French team, so when the FR and DE versions were canceled I had the FR team come up with 200 male and female Elvaan names before they got reassigned to different projects.

Obviously, other names need to have specific directions based on how they are being used. For example, over in Vagary one of the bosses is Perfidien. We wanted to make a name that sounds like "Melvien" but is more sinister, so I asked a former XI French translator who now works on XIV to come up with an evil-sounding French name, and that's what we ended up going with.

Balamor is another recent example. When we were coming up with names for important figures in Adoulin, we were given concept art, background stories, roles that they would play, and dev names. Balamor's dev name was "Death Jester," and he looks a bit like a clown, so we decided to come up with something cool-sounding that went along those lines. "Balatro" is a Roman word for someone who is a professional buffoon or jester, and those of higher economic classes often hired them to perform at their feasts and banquets. "Mors" is, of course, the latin word/root for "death." Combine those two and you end up with Balamor!

Sometimes we just want something that has a certain "ring" to it. For example, we have the Celennia Memorial Library over in Adoulin. Celennia, whose full name is Celennia Wexworth, was actually originally intended to have a bit more of a role in the Seekers of Adoulin story, but we ended up not finding the proper timing to fit her in. The event team wanted someone who sounded pure and heavenly, so we took our cue from the word "celestial" and massaged it into a very feminine sounding name. As an aside, the reason we ended up at "Celennia Memorial Library" instead of "Wexworth Memorial Library" is because Celennia is easier to pronounce in JP.

[Draylo-]

That's awesome, I love reading this kind of stuff about the game :)

[Mnejing]

Speaking of naming npcs, was Quemaricond's name intentional? Because it means "How Gay" in Spanish.

[Ophannus]

There needs to be some kind of FFXI Ultimania guide released that has a compendium of all of these behind-the-scene tidbits. A guide that reveals all of the hidden latents for random items which players have still never discovered and are long forgotten, mechanics for how to actually defeat PW at 75 in under 2hrs, and a digest on all of the behind the scenes lore/naming conventions/mythos, etc...

Maybe this will happen after FFXI ends, because I'm sure the community has tons of burning questions like how SE intended PW to be defeated at 75 with only 1 alliance and less than 2hrs(were there mechanics which were never discovered?). I guess the best we can do is keep thinking of cool localization questions to ask...

[Unelonborro]

Speaking of naming npcs, was Quemaricond's name intentional? Because it means "How Gay" in Spanish.


Uh, where is this NPC located?

Edit: Never mind, I found him. Let me ponder what to do about this.

Edit 2:
I asked around a bit, including getting the advice of one of our Spanish translators and bringing it up to Matsui-san.
First, the name of this character is unintentional and unfortunate in hindsight. There is no intention to have the character be interpreted this way--and as far as I can tell in-game, the character has no text that can be construed as negative stereotyping. Another factor in the decision to have the NPC remain in the game is that we have no Spanish version, either now or historically. Finally, when we checked with a Spanish translator within the department, he said that it might not be the most pristine of names but that it read like an off-color joke rather than an attack on someone.

So for now, our stance is to keep the name in-game as it is.
As to how it got named like this in the first place, no one can remember for sure, but it's likely someone just came up with something off the cuff.

[Raydeus]

Quemaricond's name is funny. And just for the sake of clarity the phrase in Spanish is "Que maricón." Which can be used as "How/So gay" or "How/So cowardly" depending on context.

_____

But anyway, I'm posting because I'm very curious about how the random names are picked when you are creating a new character. Is this a set list of names that was created all those years ago OR is it randomly generated using a certain set of parameters?

Also, is there any way of knowing such naming parameters? Like with Tarus where Male names have 2 words that usually rhyme while female names tend to repeat the last syllable, etc.

[Raydeus]

Another question.

About the Avatars, when you fight them and they say "Are you ready, you who is one yet many?". What exactly are they referring to, and what is the text in Japanese? Because it sounds like they are breaking the fourth wall for a second to acknowledge players fought these fights in groups even though every cutscene plays it like we are soloing.

The full intro says:

"...Who interrupts my slumber?
Was I dreaming for but an instant, or an eternity?
The radiance that illuminates all, lost...
Which is the real world, and which is the dream? Am I...?

But enough...
Wager your life to prove your skill.
Let us see if you can provide me with a moment of amusement.

Are you ready, you who is one yet many?"

[bungiefanNA]

Most likely it's referring to us having many jobs.

[Nyerieri]

I forgot to ask this question a bit ago!

During the Rhapsodies of Vana'diel mission "Over the Rainbow" Koru-Moru sounds.. a bit more normal when talking compared to normal missions when he is rhyming every other word. Was this intentional when the quest was translated? Just curious! :)

[radarbabyeater]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if this is even the right place to post this, but...

The Loess Barbuta and Loess Barbuta +1, despite being ilvl119, has no Evasion+, Magic Evasion+, "Magic Def. Bonus"+ or Haste+. Are these attributes not being displayed properly? Or does this piece of equipment actually not have the standard attribute bonuses that every other piece of armor that is ilvl119 is supposed to have?

Bug or localization error? I'm not sure. Unelonborro can you find out?

[Daisansha]

Shouldn't Indi/Geo - Voidance be Avoidance?