I'm all for clever localization but please don't just leave out important story.

I don't get what you are complaining about. All of those stuffs are hinted/implied quite well during your dialogue with Midgardsormr and you don't lose any plot point. Sure the English localization team tends to embellish the text a little bit to make it an interesting read and it can be tough for non-native English speakers but that's what you have to live with. We are playing a localized version, not a directly translated one.

Also, who cares if Midgard's line might have been a reference to an internet meme? His message fit the context of the scene and succinctly show the harsh attitude of that his kind toward Ishgardian/humans.

Lastly, I find that your condescending attitude toward the localization team is uncalled for. There is a rigorous process that the team follow and they always doublecheck with the JP loremaster before making any outstanding changes to fit the regional taste. They aren't paid to fool players like you suggest. We aren't watching anime subbed by high school freshman in JP 101. Once again, we are playing a localized game version that is catered to the western audience.

I know Japanese and play with the Japanese voices on, and have noticed a few times already where "oh, they forgot to mention that in the English script, but everyone suddenly knows anyway." The differences in this scene in particular stuck out for me much more than usual, possibly because of how much longer I had to wait before advancing text.

The "sins of the father" vs. "will sin again" thing is a HUGE difference in tone between the two versions. One presents the Dravanians as simply seeking vengeance for past deeds regardless of the deeds of present Ishgardians, while the other explicitly mentions that present day Ishgardians are committing the same sins, not just guilty by heritage. I was aware of Fernehalwes official statement on the matter, but in this case it's actually not true that everything was properly conveyed. The conflict is presented in a completely different light than in the original script, enough so to cheapen the Dravanians' motivations as presented.

This is an entirely unrelated point but I'm also not happy that only the English version of FFXIV refers to spells as Fire, Fire II, and Fire III and all the other languages use the Fire, Fira, Firaga convention for some unknown reason.

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Originally Posted by Illya

This is an entirely unrelated point but I'm also not happy that only the English version of FFXIV refers to spells as Fire, Fire II, and Fire III and all the other languages use the Fire, Fira, Firaga convention for some unknown reason.

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to join you off topic for this as a quick unwires they assumed the western audiences (spanish germans and french as well) would be confused by the spell names unsure on what is a AOE or a single, as well as some attacks being 'confusing' when it comes to there second spell e.g medica and medicja.

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Originally Posted by DracotheDragon

to join you off topic for this as a quick unwires they assumed the western audiences (spanish germans and french as well) would be confused by the spell names unsure on what is a AOE or a single, as well as some attacks being 'confusing' when it comes to there second spell e.g medica and medicja.

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Why would they suddenly decide this after 13 previous installments of Final Fantasy which used the convention?
The new spell names make even less sense, since Fire is single target, Fire II is AoE, but Fire III is single target again.

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Originally Posted by Illya

Why would they suddenly decide this after 13 previous installments of Final Fantasy which used the convention?
The new spell names make even less sense, since Fire is single target, Fire II is AoE, but Fire III is single target again.

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short awnser for new timers to the franchise

I, for one; think people should stop making mountains out of molehills. We are all getting the exact same story. It's just presented slightly differently. If someone doesn't like one presentation, they are free to change the language to one that has their prefered version.

I have seen a couple of speculation threads, in both the players were trying to figure why was Midgar sealing, taking a way or even stealing our protection, that fact is that a lot of people failed to understand what was happening, you can be smart and "read what is not written" to figure out, or you can understand Japanese and complement the text with it like me, but again the average user will not get it, i had to re-watch the CS just to confirm if i got it right.

If you ask me, something went wrong in this localization work, and as someone said i understood why Midgar was so "chatty" in Japanese, he have all the time in this world to talk and have passed more than a decade since the last time he could talk with someone, be it dragon or human, look at the Ents in lotr as an example.

To be honest, having played several games or dungeons and dragons style games with GM hosts, there are several ways it can be handled better. You can have a dialect AND not leave too much grey area for interpretation. It's not at all shunned upon when done like that either because the story in itself benefits from users having a clear understanding of it's transition. The only time open interpretation is a good thing, really comes from open ended scenarios in a completed plot line which generates reflection, inferences and hypothesis, which is being done the same here but were still trying to understand what is happening and what has already happened as well.

I would have preferred a better constructed combination of the two. I do like what Fernehalwes was doing and love the direction but at the same time, there needs to be a careful balance of details included. Things that have stronger plot points should be stated in some form even if its only present metaphorically, instead of simply eluded to into a grey area of interpretation. I think the problem is the short dialect + metaphor is omitting details in the process here, which to be fair can be remedied simply by adding a few more lines of text without taking anything away from what Fernehalwes was aiming for. I mean you can clearly read the EN text versus that translated JP text and some don't even hint of what the other truly means.

On a related note, its the exact SAME thing that went into hunt clues. The EN version s rank hunt clues were abysmal and more then not rarely actually hinted correctly how to properly spawn the S ranks. The JP text translated however gave far better clues and pointed players in the correct direction.

This is simply the debility of managment people who where not hired because of passion for japanese and their games, but because they good at their own language games and market. Yes he knows japanese, yes he knows cultural differences, but their thinking is that they are marketing a game to some senile hill billy and need to localize it so heavily just to make them grasp anything what is being said. True fans and inteligent people in general know that the best way to learn anything and to understand culture is to consume it unchanged and unlocalized.
I am so heavily dissappointed in english localization that i completly ignore english text whenever voices are present. And I cant stand the way they have chosen Limsa areas inhabitants speaking. I literally get sick feeling all the time when I read those drunk sailor accents. Garolts lines has left me in feeling that ill kill on the spot the person who localized it.