Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXVII Lore Discussion

Yeah, her "crystallization" makes me think that she won't be with us in the physical sense, but spiritually ... meaning instead of linkpearl, she'll use telepathy to communicate with us :)

Though, on a more serious note, I do wonder if this was Elidibus' plan? Nabriales did say that Elidibus had plans for her, so he bound her to Zodiark's crystal ... now she's bound to a White crystal.

By the end of 3.0 we saw that the "true power of the echo" allows for beings to merge with each other ... perhaps what we're seeing is truly Minfilia merging with Hydaelyn?

Maybe this will be the change that'll color our perspective regarding Hydaelyn? That she's a parasite and not as good as we thought?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Theodric

I'm not particularly pleased by Minfilia's return. Why are we losing the likes of Haurchefant, Estinien and Ysayle only for the Scions to be given a ridiculous amount of plot armour? The end of 2.0 appears to be very anti-climatic in hindsight since we didn't lose anything, really. Everybody but Teledji survived. Yes, Raubahn lost an arm but every single Scion survived. I'm not very happy with that. :(

---

The only ones who seemed definitely dead were Y'shtola and Thancred... and they got saved by a deus ex machina, more or less. Yda and Papalymo had an easy escape route, while Minfilia ran back into a collapsed tunnel for reasons we don't yet know. Aside from how we, the legendary Warrior of Light, were played for a fool and thrown around by the Monetarists / Crystal Braves, it's easily my biggest complaint with what happened during "The Parting Glass."

I need to watch... video... if is up...

But Antitower is Ipsen's Castle / Memoria styled? Hmm... and a research studium trying to discern the nature of the Mothercrystal? Very intriguing... Memoria is easily my favorite end-dungeon, and if it's Memoria-styled it might have some real answers.

Minfilia coming back into the picture is... a bit anxiety-inducing. I have nothing against her as a person, but being her servant in all but name was annoying. That said if she's being held somewhere... gotta go save her. Especially if she has made contact with Hydaelyn, who limits her contact with us to "Good job, beloved child! Repel the darkness more!"

Sephirot should be MSQ. I'm expecting it to be, the HM (normal) version at least. From Elidibus talking about them, it sounds like the Garleans' and the Triad's fate is linked... which is hardly surprising, given Garlemald is the Gestahlian Empire in almost all but name. (They even have the same magitek armors!)

Let's just wait a month and see what happens...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AstralKaos

Exactly, I want them to have the stones to kill off someone at the least, from the Scion's (no, Moony doesn't count) and have them stay dead.

---

Oh, it's this debate. Again. (I'm one to talk. :P) I wonder what kind of world we live in where it's become the norm for audiences to demand that characters die.

Killing characters off isn't a matter of having "stones" or not. Well, it is if you're a hack writer with no ongoing plans for any of your characters and just going for shock value and one-off emotional manipulation, but as a rule characters only die to suit the demands of the ongoing narrative.

Moenbryda and Haurchefant, at least, continue to have an ongoing presence in the narrative even after death, and the jury's still out but signs suggest that Ysayle will play a role in whatever happens to Estinien. Granted that still leaves a ton of other "lesser" allies who have been killed off and forgotten, but I want to believe that the writing team is capable of learning from the backlash they've got over that.

This Scions aren't expendable and never will be. Sorry. It also wouldn't be right to kill anyone off after Nanamo came back as easily as she did, unless something were to cast doubt on the current, otherwise "happy," resolution of that arc. I suspect if anyone's dead for real it will be Yda, because Yoshida keeps a list of my favorites on hand just so he can check them off one at a time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cilia

Sephirot should be MSQ. I'm expecting it to be, the HM (normal) version at least.

---

It sounded like the NM is MSQ and the EX is an independent unlock that won't require the NM. Not sure how that's supposed to work.

Characters dying helps move a plot forward. It also makes the antagonists seem like a genuine threat. Killing off characters for the sake of killing them off is silly, of course, but at the same time...when we have a massive plot device such as the WoL in play then we need other characters to take the fall because we're obviously not going to be killed off. :p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fenral

Oh, it's this debate. Again. (I'm one to talk. :P) I wonder what kind of world we live in where it's become the norm for audiences to demand that characters die.

Killing characters off isn't a matter of having "stones" or not. Well, it is if you're a hack writer with no ongoing plans for any of your characters and just going for shock value and one-off emotional manipulation, but as a rule characters only die to suit the demands of the ongoing narrative.

Moenbryda and Haurchefant, at least, continue to have an ongoing presence in the narrative even after death, and the jury's still out but signs suggest that Ysayle will play a role in whatever happens to Estinien. Granted that still leaves a ton of other "lesser" allies who have been killed off and forgotten, but I want to believe that the writing team is capable of learning from the backlash they've got over that.

This Scions aren't expendable and never will be. Sorry. It also wouldn't be right to kill anyone off after Nanamo came back as easily as she did, unless something were to cast doubt on the current, otherwise "happy," resolution of that arc. I suspect if anyone's dead for real it will be Yda, because Yoshida keeps a list of my favorites on hand just so he can check them off one at a time.

---

Please not Yda. She's my favorite Scion after Alphinaud. D:

But otherwise, I can't second this enough. I think the desire to kill characters off comes from the reasoning of 'death=dark=good story'. But a story that kills off characters ala Game of Thrones can be just as bad as a story that cheats everyone out of dying. On that subject, FFXIV has actually handled the matter of character death exceptionally well. Even the impact of the Waking Sands attack is still felt, as Urianger has stated that the attack, along with Moenbryda's death, has motivated him to ensure such a tragedy does not happen on his watch again. This fueled his motivation to agree to hear Elidibus out, however begrudgingly.

Heck, even the death of otherwise-minor villain Livia came back to hit us like a boomerang when we found out Lucia was her sister. A couple have theorized that was why Lucia was rather cold to us at the start. And if you talk to Wilred's father in Little Ala Mhigo (I forget his name) you find out he hasn't learned of his son's death yet. Yeah, that's not going to crop up again if we're heading into an Ala Mhigo expansion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fenral

snip

---

I'm saying it because seeing all our "beloved" Scion's get killed in a big old scene only for them to be crapped back out takes any scene involving death and so on have zero urgency or impact.

Nanamo, Thancred, Y'shtola, Papalymo, Yda, Minfilia... all apparently done over... big drama etc... oh, nope! The only folk that do die are those who were only made to die, Moenbryda for example, who, might I add is more deserving to come back than that useless little crumpet.

I'm also not demanding anything, I just find it meh that they can't stick to their guns at all when it came to killing off anyone in that scene.

Edit: It also isn't about dark, edgy wow things either, it's them not sticking to things they do, the first time in the whole game we deal with our bestest friends for everest being done over and all of them just come back. Moenbryda, Haurchefant, Ysayle, Louisoix... all fair game, dead, gone etc. But from the way they've handled the Scion scene, why should I not think that any of them will come back, or any other person who dies will just come back, why would I care if they make some scene about some guy dying if deep down I don't know if I believe it's going to stick?

I actually think Minfilia coming back completely warped might lead to an interesting parallel. It was pretty clear when she left us that she was the one in the least amount of danger. So we might have underestimated how much trouble she ended up in and might actually have been the one most challenged by the affair. She might have been summoned for a completely different purpose than everyone expected.

I'm also looking to see some Thancred character development. Y'shtola, while a fun character, didn't really develop per se. She died and came back and that's it, very static. yay for her fans, I guess, but it left a sour taste in my mouth on the character development front. Thancred is in a prime place to either grow or at least be tested in some way. If you talk to him after the 3.1 quest, he's really fierce about his desire to find Minfilia. That can mutate and go too far very quickly.

That being said, I'm quite fond of the idea that the crystal there is more metaphorical and Minfilia was trapped by some of the more, ah, hardcore Sharlayans and they're using her to study the Echo against her will. Hence the appearance of being bound by the crystal, and a Sharlayan facility that seems to have been warped. I know it's probably not going to happen, but I like it, okay?

Alternatively, and to me more realistically, it could be that she is bound to her duties to Hydaelyn and she feels imprisoned by them.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AstralKaos

I'm saying it because seeing all our "beloved" Scion's get killed in a big old scene only for them to be crapped back out takes any scene involving death and so on have zero urgency or impact.

---

Um, that scene happened to put them in limbo, not to kill them off, as a lead-in to a story arc where we reassess their value to us and reestablish the core ensemble. Nobody was ever meant to die there. Nanamo was certainly a cop-out, because hear death had serious game-changing potential, but she's the only one of that sort so far.

If they were to, say, kill off Minfilia in a way that made it clear that it played into the plans of exactly nobody, that could have some serious potential, as it would leave Eldibus, Lahabrea, and even us struggling to fill the void left by her absence. This isn't quite the same as axing a character before they're allowed to have lingering implications (i.e. Ysayle), which is just a cop out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Morningstar1337

If its any consolation, Y'shtola's trip to the lifesteam gave her blindness and an allegorical cancer so she might die in a few years (give or take), Also, Minfilia might not be dead, but I don't think she's gonna rejoin the Scions, if anything its more likely that she might wind up to be shall we say "severed" from the material realm if that splash art is any indication (well either that or she's just gonna go l'Cie on us, making the most polarizing character int he game even more polarizing by having elements of the most polarizing game int he franchise)

---

Also, from the sounds of it, Thancred has lost the ability to use aether, kinda like the Garleans, meaning he has to physically travel around the realm, rather than teleporting. Everyone seems to have lost something... aside from Yda and Papalymo.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Theodric

I'm not particularly pleased by Minfilia's return. Why are we losing the likes of Haurchefant, Estinien and Ysayle only for the Scions to be given a ridiculous amount of plot armour? The end of 2.0 appears to be very anti-climatic in hindsight since we didn't lose anything, really. Everybody but Teledji survived. Yes, Raubahn lost an arm but every single Scion survived. I'm not very happy with that. :(

In my opinion even the major characters shouldn't be immune to major consequences or death. It makes for a more interesting story overall. Putting that aside, however, I'm eager to see what the story brings us moving forward.

---

I fully agree with you. What makes me even more angry with none of the scions dying is that it makes Alphinaud's character growth kinda pointless. His character growth is something Yoshi-P was proud of, however now him learning from his arrogance is pointless because in the end, 'Hey your Crystal Braves didn't kill anyone, buddy!' So now I feel that Heavensward's story is kinda more lame because it takes away so much from Alphinaud's journey.

But what I fear, is that 3.2 will have only a couple of cutscenes dealing with Ishgard, then all the rest dealing with pointless Minifilia and the utterly boring scions just like 3.1. Maybe if they take some characters from this expansion and they were to join us and make this all worth wild then maybe I would be less critical. But we are just going back to the 'good old days', or so it feels.

I dunno, Yda was looking kind of blood thirsty at the end of 3.1. I'm thinking she's lost some of her happy-go-lucky nature.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anselmet

I fully agree with you. What makes me even more angry with none of the scions dying is that it makes Alphinaud's character growth kinda pointless. His character growth is something Yoshi-P was proud of, however now him learning from his arrogance is pointless because in the end, 'Hey your Crystal Braves didn't kill anyone, buddy!' So now I feel that Heavensward's story is kinda more lame because it takes away so much from Alphinaud's journey.

But what I fear, is that 3.2 will have only a couple of cutscenes dealing with Ishgard, then all the rest dealing with pointless Minifilia and the utterly boring scions just like 3.1. Maybe if they take some characters from this expansion and they were to join us and make this all worth wild then maybe I would be less critical. But we are just going back to the 'good old days', or so it feels.

---

They killed plenty... including Wilred.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

They killed plenty... including Wilred.

---

Minor characters, yes. Many of whom showed up only once or twice. Killing at least one major Scion, however? That would make it much more personal. It'd also highlight the fact that they're not invincible...which is sorely needed. It's not just an immunity to death that's the problem either. Thancred got himself possessed by an Ascian, betrayed the location of the Scion's hideout in the process...and it was brushed aside within a matter of moments after we freed him from Lahabrea's control. Livia was the one to assault the place, true, but Thancred is at least partly to blame for what happened.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

They killed plenty... including Wilred.

---

Name one main character other than Haurchefant and I guess Moonbryda that they sincerely killed off. The main reason Haurchefant's death is so impactful is because he is truly gone and not coming back (unless Yoshi-P wants to mess up on that one). The story had more heart behind it when we thought we were trying to move on and over come our failures by trying to help Ishgard. The scions all living negates that. One of the final cutscenes has Tataru even saying we need to rebuild the scions (and we need money). Well now we don't because all of the major players are still alive. So Tataru, start becoming unuseful again because we have five other characters to take your place.

EDIT: But seeing how we are stuck with scions, we could have had them come back gradually. Imagine if Yshtola had to deal with the impact of her forbidden magic, thinking Thancred is dead only to find him patches later. Or to have Yda and Papalmo show up in the next expansion. I think my main critique is that its all a happy ending one patch after Heavensward which had a solid story.

If Minfilia had ended up just dead it would have been very sloppy writing. She gets a message, runs off into the tunnels apparently perfectly healthy, and oh now she is dead.

Honestly in 2.55 I didn't think any of the Scions were dead. What was the critical issue with 2.55 wasn't the Scions dying. Us being scattered, outcast and alone served its purpose enough. The mistake was that Nanamo survived. It was her survival that undermined all the drama of 2.55 and made it lose it impact. Having Minifila dead would have done nothing to get it back.

So far they seem to have handled the Scions return reasonably well. I'll wait and see what they are doing with Minfilia. It isn't what I was expecting but honestly we have so little to go on its impossible to speculate how this will change things. At the very least what we have seen so far is both an attempt to flesh out the Scions a bit while at least showing the events of 2.55 had a cost on them.

I cant help but think people want Minfilia dead just cause they don't like her :/ Seriously if Minfilia had ended up dead, the way she generally seems to be talked about a lot of people would just say 'good'. That's no impact at all. If a death is supposed to have impact you have to care that the person has died.

Anyway they haven't held back in killing off characters in HW. I don't think they are lacking that narratively. Frankly doing it too much would cause it to lose it's impact.

Most Final Fantasy games had the decency to stop after one or two major deaths, for the above reason. The ones that didn't, like II or IV, are also well-regarded as having handled death badly, to the point that FFII's sloppy handling of character deaths was directly called out in FFIX.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Belhi

Nanamo's dead

---

I will say and i will say it again. Nanamo's survival was kind of spected, behind all that impact and drama, there were lots, LOTS of things that didnt make sence
We also have the city state leader "plot armor "
The most important thing of this, is that, Let you remind all, you guys think the dev team think this overnight? The develop of 2.55 story had long ended, ever before 2.2. On this very moments they are working with the 4.0 story and by the end of 3.3 they will have enought material to show us something, possibly even the teaser video.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Theodric

I'm not particularly pleased by Minfilia's return. Why are we losing the likes of Haurchefant, Estinien and Ysayle only for the Scions to be given a ridiculous amount of plot armour?

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Belhi

I cant help but think people want Minfilia dead just cause they don't like her :/ Seriously if Minfilia had ended up dead, the way she generally seems to be talked about a lot of people would just say 'good'. That's no impact at all. If a death is supposed to have impact you have to care that the person has died.

---

This, pretty much. And that explains why it's mostly characters that people did care about that have remained permanently dead thus far.

It's less that I want Minfilia dead and more that I feel the Scions have started overstaying their welcome. XI handled it better; the main characters of each expansion and post-expansion content changed each time, so it kept them fresh. When you did go back and see those characters, due to side stories adding them all together (Apocalypse Nigh, for example, or Rhapsodies), it really makes you go I missed them.

But if, for example, every expansion had Prishe in it, I would have burnt out on her, the same way I'm burnt out on the Scions in XIV. Which includes Alphinaud, by the way. I don't really need him holding my hand through every event for another expansion.

Edit: That said, I enjoyed 3.0 a good deal more because of the focus on Ysayle and Estinien. It's really just this 3.X series I'm not terribly thrilled about. It's too early to make any comment about 4.0 yet.

I think killing any of the Scions off would have been a waste, they have so much more to give character wise, exchanging that for a little shock value is pointless in the long run, we will likely see a Scion death at some point, but this isn't it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuwagami

And in 7 month form now we'll be once again working lurking in the shadows :p

---

More like LORKING EH????

Wonder if Dancing Doll Calcobrena will play for the boss fight in Antitower

or is it Calcabrina or Calbrina or Calbrena dear lord MCKF wasn't kidding

Given it's obvious Ipsen's Castle parallels (and that the game is seriously lacking in FFIX references), maybe a remix of Ipsen's Heritage (itself a remix of FFIX's main title theme The Place I'll Return to Someday) is more likely?

I'm more disappointed the Warring Triad battle isn't including a remix of Dancing Mad though. :( *Sad cat*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Given it's obvious Ipsen's Castle parallels (and that the game is seriously lacking in FFIX references), maybe a remix of Ipsen's Heritage (itself a remix of FFIX's main title theme The Place I'll Return to Someday) is more likely?

---

Nine ranks among the few Final Fantasies I've never played, so I was basing my rambling based off:

Quote:

---

It was hard coming up with the name for the boss inside this tower. A boss from a previous FF title can be found inside this tower, and we had to figure out how we’ll bring them together. This was because the previous title was made before the Localization team was created, and there wasn’t any uniformity in translation. The Localization team was created 15 years ago, and since then we have been trying to keep it uniform.

For example, Typhon comes from mythology but in previous FF title it was called Chupon. This is essentially wrong, but we didn’t know if we should go with Chupon to prioritize memories, or to change it to the official name. In FFXIV it’s named Typhon.

---

I have absolutely no frame of refence for the Ipsen/Memoria parallels :S

And the obvious two sets of dolls we see before the Antitower fades out @ http://www.twitch.tv/finalfantasyxiv...96?t=01h21m45s is what lead me to Calcabrina; combined with Ferne's bit about the localization

Quote:

---

I'm more disappointed the Warring Triad battle isn't including a remix of Dancing Mad though. :( *Sad cat*

---

While I wouldn't say no to Dancing Mad eventually appearing in FFXIV-- they did pick the correct track for the homage to the Triad fights! It's the same that plays when you fight them in VI within Kefka's Tower!

Ipsen's Castle was a dungeon in FFIX which... looked like a mirror image of itself. It started out normal but halfway through things turned... weird. The bottom half was a mirror reflection of itself that was upside down, literally. And connected to that was a unique mechanic where suddenly enemies became... extremely hard to kill. This was because the aforementioned mechanic made it that your strongest gear suddenly became weak, and vice versa, it literally reversed the levels and stats for gear, so level 1 gear ironically became the strongest in that dungeon. Luckily level 1 equipment was scattered around the dungeon in treasure chests for those players who had long since disposed of their original starting gear.

Because of this, the parallels with the upcoming 'Antitower' are quite pronounced, hence how I think that aforementioned music track would be a nice reference to it. ;)

As for Dancing Mad that's not quite correct - the entire track of Dancing Mad consists of four separate tiers, each tier changing as you defeated each member of the Triad in turn before finally ending up against Kefka. So I guess you are right, from a certain point of view... but as I listen to the whole piece usually I associate all four tiers as the one track (rather than regarding each tier/fight separately). But I digress...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Enkidoh

As for Dancing Mad that's not quite correct - the entire track of Dancing Mad consists of four separate tiers, each tier changing as you defeated each member of the Triad in turn before finally ending up against Kefka. So I guess you are right, from a certain point of view... but as I listen to the whole piece usually I associate all four tiers as the one track (rather than regarding each tier/fight separately). But I digress...

---

Au contraire mon ami! You fight the Warring Triad individually BEFORE the Statue of the Gods fight & Kefka.
You seem to be conflating the Statue of the Gods and the Warring Triad, which it definitely feels like there are parallels (hell, we might even go Fiend > Demon > Goddess in XIV which would support the idea of Statue of the Gods being a rematch)

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/G...nal_Fantasy_VI)
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/F...nal_Fantasy_VI)
http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/D...nal_Fantasy_VI)

And a youtube for good measure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GYClcIhlqc

These individual fights against the Triad within the tower, as you can hear, use the theme present in the Containment Bay S1T7 shown off in the Live Letter. (Which is also used for our friend Atma/Ultima Weapon on the Floating Continent)

Opinion time: I'm of mind Dancing Mad is one of the weaker boss battle themes in VI, not bad, just weaker, so I'm extremely pleased they went with Battle to the Death, which is my second favorite.

Dancing Mad is more an elaborate Kefka's theme. It shouldn't really be played with the Triad members individually.

The mistake many people make - including quite a few writers - is believing that most character deaths are for 'shock value'. They're not - and quite a lot of people simply cry foul just because they happen to like a character and never, ever want to see them die. This is dangerous, however, since it quite easily leads to stagnation. When you have the same characters showing up to save the day frequently whilst remaining largely unscathed then there reaches a point where you know they're never going to truly be harmed and that every antagonist they cross paths with is going to fall before them.

Estinien is one of my favourite characters. I think he's pretty interesting, cool, and I love a good tale of someone falling prey to that which they seek to do battle with. He may or may not survive - we'll have to see - but if's he's redeemed, I hope it's done tastefully. If he dies, again, I hope it's done tastefully. Yet either option has the potential to be great for the story. The same applies to the Scions. They don't need to die for the sake of dying yet nor do they need to stick around for the sake of sticking around.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Anselmet

I fully agree with you. What makes me even more angry with none of the scions dying is that it makes Alphinaud's character growth kinda pointless. His character growth is something Yoshi-P was proud of, however now him learning from his arrogance is pointless because in the end, 'Hey your Crystal Braves didn't kill anyone, buddy!' So now I feel that Heavensward's story is kinda more lame because it takes away so much from Alphinaud's journey.

But what I fear, is that 3.2 will have only a couple of cutscenes dealing with Ishgard, then all the rest dealing with pointless Minifilia and the utterly boring scions just like 3.1. Maybe if they take some characters from this expansion and they were to join us and make this all worth wild then maybe I would be less critical. But we are just going back to the 'good old days', or so it feels.

---

No-one needed to die for him to learn his lesson, he just needed to think that they died. All that their survival really meant was that he was alleviated of some of the guilt that had followed the realisation that he had been an idealistic fool. In the end, a lot of people were put in serious danger if not killed. The fact that he might have been a bit closer to the Scions than some of the lower key characters doesn't really count for a whole lot considering that their deaths/wounds/grievances would still have been on his conscience. Not to mention the fact that he completely destabilised the Ul'dahn government and indirectly threatened to bring about a civil war as a result. He spent the entire MSQ fighting for a united Eorzea that could stand strong and repel the inevitable return of the Empire only to perceivably shatter the existing alliance following the tensions that 2.55 would only have surely brought about between the three powers - again, not even mentioning how Eorzea's strongest military force was now further crippled and sent into disarray so soon after it had been disrupted by the discovery of Garlean agents and sympathisers among their ranks. To add another layer to it, a lot of Brass Blades that were killed or maimed during the course of the 2.55 storyline were very likely just following orders and had no idea that they were on the wrong side of things. As well as that, at least some fragmented remnants of the Crystal Braves continued to function for at least a while without his leadership following his forced departure, meaning that he had a powerful and potentially rogue military force acting on their own beyond his control.

Guilt aside, talking to the NPCs between every dialogue exchange often reveals a lot of extra information and it was clear that Alphinaud was very eager to prove his worth and redeem his past mistakes. That would include, though not be limited to, searching for and potentially rescuing the missing Scions, all of whom were put in jeopardy because of his actions and only continued to remain missing all throughout the storyline and up until now. His motives aren't simply 'doing the right thing' and striving for a united Eorzea as they had once been, he is still seeking to make up for the damage he has caused. Hell, he even insists on joining you and fighting by your side on a number of occasions despite the serious risks it poses to himself. If I'm not mistaken, he even intended on joining you for your encounter with Ravanna(or perhaps it was Nidhogg) before being discouraged by Estinien. None of that was a return of his arrogance, that was his way of trying to do all that he could to make things right.

Alphinaud has come a long way from just being a mere political figure, going to and fro with his bright ideas. He accompanies your party throughout the entire journey despite the fact that he didn't have to. He could have just stayed back in Ishgard the entire time and worked toward finding the Scions, but he wasn't interested in wasting any time he felt could be better spent being more proactive. He, a privileged noble boy, was actually eager to collect firewood on at least two occasions.


With that and perhaps a lot of other points I didn't think to mention, I respectfully disagree that there were no real consequences for him in the end which diminished his lessons learned, even considering how things turned out. Alphinaud has still come a long way from the boy he was back in the 2.0 line. Feel however you may about deaths being written off because, believe me, despite how utterly crushed the 2.55 scenes had left me feeling in their wake, I felt a little strange to see at least Nanamo return in the end, but I cannot agree that Alphinaud's journey was "pointless".

I am not opposed to character death, not even characters I like. Infact the opposite is the case. The issue with Minfilia isn't that I like her. Its that killing her off would have been an off screen rather pointless death that did nothing for the narrative and more importantly, that she wasn't popular. Her death wouldn't invoke any positive response. Many people wouldn't care or would actually be happy to hear it. That's not the response you want to invoke by killing a main ally of the protagonist.

From a narrative perpective 2.55 served two purposes. Firstly it got us into Ishgard. Secondly it scattered the Scions and left them outside their traditional places allowing for character development for them. This was I think done at least partially because ARR was sadly lacking in developing our core cast of NPCs. We are one patch into 3.X and we have Y'shtola having revisited her past past and given a burden that over time might kill her. Thancred has be forced out of his norm and robbed of his Aether channelling which creates the challenge of forcing him to adapt to the change, possibly seeing him start to look into Magitek to make up for his weakness. Its made Tataru have to be proactive, Alphinaud to grow up and become both more humble but less naïve. It's taken Yda and Papalymo out from their traditional odd couple background role and stuck them into a place which shows signs of touching on their pasts (Yda seems a lot more aggressive and frankly serious than we have seen her in the past in the small cutscene we saw) and its gotten Minfilia out from behind her desk and actually doing something which is by far the biggest issue she has had.

The true problem with 2.55 was them bringing back Nanamo cause by far narratively that was the biggest and most important death. The implications of that way outreached any of the Scions being killed of to the narrative. The fact it went from this huge thing to being pretty much nothing was a huge anticlimax to a very dramatic patch.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Theodric

snip

---

After a point you just have to accept how narrative causality works and move on. They don't win because they're the main characters, they're the main characters because they win. Most works with fairly stable ensembles get around the "if nobody dies how do we know they're a threat" by focusing on the negative emotions brought about by the villain's actions, i.e. he's making people we like hurt, and we want them to stop hurting.

It's actually something that can only be done with a stable ensemble, as revolving-door casts with an "anyone can die" option deliberately hamstring their ability to pull that off. The absolute worst-case is where FFXIV currently is, where the "anyone can die" rule is in play but only for characters introduced after 1.X. This is why nobody likes Mide. We've been trained by past experience not to expect anything from her afterwards either way.

If they aren't going to kill off members of the main cast (and they aren't, not that I want them to start), I'd rather they find more clever ways to establish threat levels than simply killing sidekicks and other characters who will only be around for this one arc either way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Enkidoh

(and that the game is seriously lacking in FFIX references)

---

Considering that slide had a Warrior and Black mage mammet for the Antitower image. I'm hoping that if there has to be any real nod to FFIX. Vivi Ornitier would be the most likely since he is artificial and can pass as a Lalafel size mammet in Black Mage attire.

Otherwise I had to go wiki Ipsen's castle because I don't want to search for my ps or ps2. Likely if there are three bosses, Tharaka and Calcabrina (by the doll line up at the end) are two likely possibilities.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/...20120611224248

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/...20120611224248

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/...20120611224247

While not an exact replica, Ipsen's castle was part of a failed attempt to merge two planets together. Hence the strange physics and the fact Top and bottom halves mirror each other thus the upside down inverted sections.
Given how pretty the game was back then I'm wondering if the so called HD release for PC will look off with HD textures with old-rez characters running around.

I'm surprised. I was convinced it was going to be something in Azyz Lla. Yet if it's a Sharlayan construct and designed to study the Mothercrystal...that's very, very intriguing. Especially since the place has such a foreboding and sinister vibe to it.

I keep getting this feeling that Minfillia feels like another Kachua/Alma (tactics ogre and FF tactics respectively), anybody else? Or is this just me?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Izheno

I keep getting this feeling that Minfillia feels like another Kachua/Alma (tactics ogre and FF tactics respectively), anybody else? Or is this just me?

---

Yep. I'm whining about this in every thread I mention Minfillia in.

The second it happens, I'm dropping the game and only keeping tabs on Ascian lore. I can't stand Catiua. Alma was okay, I just didn't feel like she deserved all the attention she got by the story. The same as Minfillia, really.

Wow I butchered that spelling...

No, you're fine. It was localized as Kachua in the PS1 version and Catiua in the PSP version. I just played the PSP version more recently, so that stuck with me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Izheno

I keep getting this feeling that Minfillia feels like another Kachua/Alma (tactics ogre and FF tactics respectively), anybody else? Or is this just me?

---

I think a lot of people feel that way. As a role-player who regularly interacts with players very invested in the lore I have honestly met very few individuals on Balmung who like Minfilia. The other Scions are viewed in a much better light though I'd be lying if I said I, personally, wasn't weary of them as well.

"It will be possible to being gathering when the duty party participation window appears."

What does this mean ? Am I reading it as gathering can queue for Duty Finder as a gathering job for things like Diadem ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Masekase_Hurricane

What does this mean?

---

I think it's referring to the fact that if you're at a node when DF pops, it blocks you from gathering from it even if there's still 40 seconds to go. It's annoying, especially when you've got a few seconds left to snag that limited-time node. You know, the one that's up for less than three minutes and has items required for getting any EXP on crafts? Blech.

Hello All!

First, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who stayed up late on Friday Night/Saturday Morning to catch the Kagoshima FATE Producer Letter Live. We were monitoring the Twitch feed and were blown away by how many commenters there were despite the ridiculous hour. I’d also like to extend my gratitude to all the fans who were helping out in real time with translations, as well as those guys who spent time after the fact to post translations. We here at SQEX appreciate it, and I know the rest of our fan base does, as well.

Now that the PLL is through, Matt and his crew will be working on a full recap for release sometime soon, but while I have some time on the flight back to Tokyo and everything is still fresh in my mind, I wanted to get you guys a play-by-play of what I talked about during my 50-minute portion of the session. This isn’t going to be a word-for-word transcript, but more of an overview of what I said, possibly with some clarification that wasn’t offered during the actual filming.

I apologize in advance for any typos or weirdness in the formatting. Rather than have something super polished, I just wanted to get something up ASAP so you guys wouldn’t have to wait too long.

I also apologize for the length. This one’s a monster...

So without further ado, here’s the outline:

After a quick intro that involved an afro wig, a poorly hummed intro to Kenny Loggin’s “Danger Zone,” and a sad tale of how 20 years ago I was once mistaken by a couple of high school students for a 90s J-Pop DJ named Marc Panther, we segued into talking about the 3.2 patch title—The Gears of Change—and the logo artwork.

As you now know, the artwork features Minfilia and the Mothercrystal, and I discussed a bit how those two things play a major role in the 3.2 story.
- After being missing for so long, in what manner will Minfilia return?
- While she was missing, what was happening to her?
- How did she “change”?
- What role did the Mothercrystal play in that change?
- Based on how Minfilia has changed, how will the Scions of the Seventh Dawn change?
- Will the path the Scions walk in some way change?

So yes, as the patch title states, “change” is one of the main themes of 3.2’s story, the other being “gears.” In a machine, there are many gears. When one begins moving, all of the ones nearby also begin moving, and all that motion ultimately sets the entire machine into motion. And once things begin moving, they are difficult to stop. In other words, change begets even more change, and this, in a sense, can be compared to the wheels of destiny—which ties us into the Japanese rendition of the patch title—運命の歯車 (unmei no haguruma), or the “gears of destiny.”

However, FFXIV’s patch titles are usually multi-layered, so the “change” mentioned here is not exclusive to the Minfilia branch of the story. It also ties into the Dragonsong War branch as well. As we saw in 3.1, following the dramatic rescue of an Ishgardian by a dragon, the people of Ishgard have begun questioning their heretofore violent relationship with the Dravanians. They have begun to think that a change towards peace may be possible. In addition, the other regions of Eorzea have also detected a change in the winds, and are now beginning to re-evaluate their stance on the conflict...possibly considering action themselves.

However, when there is a hard push for change, there are always those who oppose that change, and will do whatever they can to stop it.

Finally, you can’t talk about “gears” without mentioning machines...and you can’t mention machines without mentioning the biggest machine in Eorzea—Alexander. So, the third layer of the “Gears of Change” patch title deal with the continuation of the Alexander story and the second “leg”—the Midas sector.

From there, Foxclon shifts the conversation to how in addition to working on FFXIV’s localization, I also work directly with the Main Lore Creator, Banri Oda to devise the backstories to the game’s various content—one example being the new instanced dungeons (the Antitower and the Lost City of Amdapor (Hard)). I start off this leg of the PLL by talking a little about how the Antitower got its name.

Dungeon naming usually starts with design documents from the dungeon team based off of ideas originally submitted by Oda-san, Yoshi-P, and others. At this time, the dev team already had a working name (逆さの塔 Sakasa no To – lit. “the upside-down tower”) and Oda-san came to me for ideas for an official name—they were thinking of going with a English word for the Japanese version as well. The backstory for the area involved a Sharlayan scholar’s work on researching the Lifestream and the Mothercrystal, so I suggested something that had a slight academic feel to it—the Antitower, rather than going with something straightforward like “The Inverted Tower.” When I suggested this to Oda-san, he was worried that the Japanese users would get the wrong impression from the name. In Japanese, the term anti- (アンチ anchi) is used somewhat often, but does not carry all the meanings that it does in English. In Japanese, it basically only has a negative connotation—when you opposed to something: anti-freedom, or anti-union, etc. I tried to explain to Oda-san that while it can be negative in EN, it can also simply mean the reverse of something. Like in anti-toxin—something that reverses the effect of poison, or anti-aging—flipping the aging process upside-down. After hearing this, Oda-san—while convinced that anti- could mean more than ‘oppose’—was still unsure that Japanese players wouldn’t misunderstand. It was at that time I asked him if there was anything wrong with the working title they already had...and he was like ...”no, it’s actually pretty good isn’t it?” And so he took it to Yoshi-P for final approval, and the rest is history.

From here, I also talk about how naming posed a challenge not just for the name of the tower itself, but also for the area’s boss. The boss for this dungeon happens to be a legacy character from an early Final Fantasy. Since the boss name’s original translation, the spelling has since changed, which posed me with the dilemma—which spelling to use. The reason this problem sometimes comes up is because before there was a localization department at SQEX, there was only chaos. Teams would use different people for different projects and data bases weren’t managed...or even saved. This resulted in a lot of discrepancies. Once the Loc. Department was formed some 15 or so years ago, we began work documenting translations, as well as unifying spellings and cleaning up mistranslations/misinterpretations.

As we get a lot of characters, names, etc. from legacy Final Fantasies, choosing one translation over another is always a tricky job. One of the reasons the legacy characters are used (especially in FFXIV) is to incite feelings of nostalgia. However, what happens when that name which was nostalgic, was actually a mistranslation? Do you maintain the error for nostalgia’s sake, or do you fix the error to get the text back to a state closer to the writer’s original intent. One example that comes to mind is Chupon. Chupon, while a faithful phonetic rendition of the Japanese katakana, was unfortunately not the correct translation—it should have been (the Greek) Typhon (Tuphon), as this was the original writer’s intent (and in fact was updated in later translations). So, when the character’s revival was announced for XIV, I find myself with a choice. I understand that for a lot of players my age who played the original when it was released, Chupon was who we remembered. On the other hand, newer players remember him as Typhon—the name that the original writer intended anyway. Do I go with nostalgia or do I go with intent? GAHHH! Ultimately, we decided to go with Typhon, as we deemed intent more important in this case.

Here, Foxclon asks about the second instanced dungeon, The Lost City of Amdapor (Hard)...and I tell him I forgot to bring any information on this one. Oops...

But I did have some background on the striking dummy content that Yoshi-P introduced earlier—mainly regarding why we decided to name it something decidedly abstract: “Stone, Sky, Sea”.

When Oda-san came to me with the content and asked me for an idea, the first thing I envisioned was one of those old Kung Fu movies with the wispy white-haired hermit training on some mountain top. What if we made the guy in charge of these battles a master fighter from Doma who left his homeland and sought the seclusion of an (at that time) abandoned Dravania to train in peace. The location being the side of a massive “stone” cliff, situated so high up that one only need to reach out their hand to be able to touch the “sky,” while overlooking a never-ending “sea” of clouds. And from there—Stone, Sky, Sea. Think of it like three kanji characters written in calligraphy, hanging in the dojo: 石空海.

Oda-san liked the idea, and thus the place was named (the JP version name is also Stone, Sky, Sea in katakana) and the background story of the hermit was also added.

And that ended the first half of my section of the PLL. From there, we moved into answering some questions that had been collected from the forums.

The first question was a basic one from the Japanese players asking what exactly it is the Localization team does. Simply put, we handle the translation of the JP text into English, French, German, Chinese, and Korean. However, our jobs are not that simple, and there is a reason why we are called the Localization department as opposed to the Translation department. It is our task to translate in a manner that fits the cultural “location” of our target audience (the “local” in localization), and to do that we must, at times, make minor adjustments and wield a slight amount of creativity. If a Japanese client user finds something in the game to be cool or interesting, then only when an English, or Chinese, or Korean, or French, or German client user finds the same thing just as interesting in their version can we say we’ve done a good job.

But localization is not always about making things interesting. Making sure things are easy to understand is also important, especially when a lot of words overlap between language clients. One good example of this is the PvP “Danger Time” brought up in the first half of the PLL. Yoshi-P wanted to go with the English “Danger Time” for the Japanese version because both danger and time were words that most Japanese users would know. I mentioned that Danger Time might be considered over-simple or even silly-sounding by some users, especially in a PvP system where we already have many abstract terms (The Feast, The Claws, The Fangs, etc.). There was a lot of reciting of the Top Gun theme “Danger Zone” during this discussion. Yoshi-P was not against the imagery of the Culling Hour suggestion I had first proposed, but was worried that Japanese players would not get the meaning of culling (a word not known to most Japanese players). In the end, we decided that we would maintain the word Time across the two languages for symmetry, and allow for the difference between Danger and Culling.

Basically localization is having to make decisions just like these...but in the hundreds, or maybe even thousands each day. When faced with so many decisions, there will always be times when some will not produce the best results, leaving us and the players thinking in retrospect that we could have done better. We are human, and will miss the mark every now and again. But we learn from each and every one of those mistakes, and combined with the feedback we get from the users, are able to take that experience and use it to grow as localizers.

There was also a question from our DE and FR forums about which language the French and German translators translate from. All of our in-house DE and FR translators are fluent in Japanese, and therefore fully capable of translating directly from the JP, which, for the most part, they do. However, our translators are also fully functional in EN, as well, and as such will sometimes translate from the EN—most of the time when it is the EN text that is the source (like item names or player actions).

Finally, some users asked how long it took us to translate Heavensward (3.0) compared to a normal patch. Well, Final Fantasy games have always been known for their copious amounts of text, and FFXIV has been no exception. As localization is done alongside development (to ensure simultaneous release dates for JP, EN, FR, and DE) the amount of text can sometimes make our jobs a bit crazy. Each section of the dev. team wants to create something that is exceptional—meaning that if they have time to polish, they’ll want to polish right up until our data fix. The thing is, Localization gets text not just from, say, the Scenario team, but also the crafting team, the gathering team, the battle team, the dungeon team, the item team, the minion collective, the programming team, the UI team, the Lodestone team...which means if people are brushing up right to the deadline, there really is no time left for us to localize (let alone QA to check for bugs)! This can make things very chaotic, especially when working on an expansion that had more than 1,500,000 Japanese characters needing to be translated, localized, and then checked for style consistency. To put it in perspective, this was about the same amount of text that the Witcher III had...and we localized it in about 2 and a half months with a language teams of 7-8 people. We got so worried towards the end that we wouldn’t make it, that Yoshi-P had to call the directors of Bravely Second and Dragon Quest Heroes to ask if we could borrow their EN translators for 2 weeks. (Thanks Yoshi-P!!!!!!!)

However, since that time in hell, Yoshi-P has reworked how we approach patch development, and in 3.1 and 3.2 we have had ample time to get our work done, without forcing the JP team to compromise their quality. And for that, the Loc team is extremely grateful!

Next, we moved on to a question that we received from both the JP and EN forums and that was how monster and player actions were translated.

Normally, one would assume that, as a game developed in Japan, all of FFXIV’s names would start out in Japanese. However, FFXIV is different than most Japan-developed games in that I work directly with Oda-san in naming these, and when it comes to most of the in-game naming—from actions to items, to NPC names, to monster names—is a product of a joint EN-JP effort.

The flow is as follows—the battle and monster teams provide us and the effect team with the type of actions they are considering for their monsters. Oda-san takes that data and does a first pass. At the end of this first pass, he’ll send me the file. The file at this time consists of:

1. Direct name suggestions
2. A general idea, but no concrete name, that needs expanding on
3. A blank cell and a request for an idea from me

I take this list (usually a few hundred per patch) and then spend the rest of the day researching on the Internet. You’d think with all the time I spend on Wikipedia and other sites, it’s about time I donate my 700 yen. (Yoshi-P suggests docking that 700 yen a month from my salary...)

Once my research is done and my suggestions solidified, I knock on my booth wall (I sit right next to Oda-san) and we begin the “localization” process—trying to come up with something good in both EN and JP. There is a lot of back and forth here discussing how we should each localize the names. A couple of examples include:

The tonberry action: Scourge of Nym. This is a case where the Japanese came first—呪いの言葉 (Noroi no Kotoba lit. “words of cursing”). I mentioned to Oda-san that we had already used the word “curse” in a lot of other actions and statuses and that I wanted to go with something a little bit more abstract...that implied the curse without straight up saying it. He agreed that ‘scourge’ would get across the meaning he wanted to imply with “curse=noroi,” and therefore allowed me the deviation.

On the other hand, an example of the EN coming first and the JP deviating arose when we had to decide on a name for a Cerberus action. In EN, there is an action called “Hound Out of Hell” which consists of a quick, damage-dealing charge. As the monster was Cerberus (imagery tied to hell), and he was moving fast, I wanted to do a play in the idiom “like a bat out of hell.” Oda-san liked the imagery, but unfortunately that idiom does not exist (in the same form) in Japanese. Add to that, when rendered into katakana, hound out of hell becomes long and confusing (ハウンドアウトオブヘル) and Oda-san did not want that cluttering up players’ log windows. So, we decided that the main focuses here were ‘hell’ and ‘moving quickly,’ and as long as those were kept in the JP, we’d be okay—hence the decision to go with ヘルチャージ (hell charge).

The main take-away from this is that both Oda-san and I decide on a main “focal point” for each name, and work to make sure that most of the names include <at least> this point. Another example of this is in the title for Aymeric—Aymeric the Blue. The Japanese title is 蒼剣のアイメリク(Soken no Aymeric lit. Blue Sword Aymeric). This even came up as one of the questions for this PLL. What happened to the ‘sword’ in the EN? This also had to do with Oda-san and I deciding that “blue” was going to be the focus of the title. The reason that Japanese didn’t just remove the 剣(sword) and go with something like 蒼のアイメリク falls under what looks better in Japanese. In titles like these, it is often considered better-looking when it’s a 2-kanji word as opposed to a 1-kanji word (most all the titles in the JP version of FFXIV have 2 kanji). Oda-san added the sword portion to complete the compound word, while maintaining that focal point we had decided on.

So, what about katakana word localization—words that are completely made up and do not exist in any Earth language? Is there anything special we do when Romanizing those? One example that came up in the questions posted on the forums was EN’s “Haukke Manor” versus the JP’s ハウケタ御用邸 (Hauketa Goyotei lit. Hauketa Manor). Where did the “ta” sound go? Well...in fact...this was just a mistake on our part. The person who translated this (a guy, we’ll call him Mr. S, who is no longer with the company) probably just misread the katakana. That was back during 2.0 when we were extremely busy, and it just slipped under the radar. We only noticed it a few months after release, and by then it was too late...so...

(This was followed by a light-hearted exchange between me and Yoshi-P about how he had heard nothing about this and had always thought there was some deep reasoning behind the missing ‘ta’. I tried to reassure him that there weren’t many of these in the game, which he took as meaning “not many = there are still some more” to which I decided to ask Foxclon to change the subject!)

From here we move to the next question about FATE and achievement names and how the JP and EN are completely different, with the EN being filled with cultural references and bad puns. I start off by explaining that we have two rules regarding style for FFXIV. If the character IN EORZEA can see the text, it needs to follow our Eorzean style (which we loosely base on GRRM’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”). However, if the text is exclusively for the PLAYER on EARTH, then we can play a bit with the titles like a lot of western games do. Here’s where we get stuff like “Smells Like Tree Spirit” for the FATE in which you fight a tree spirit 怒れる守護者「グレートオーク」(Okoreru Shugosha Great Oak lit. The Angry Guardian Great Oak). Or “The Orange Boxes” for the FATE where you collect boxes filled with oranges 上には上がある (Ue ni wa ue ga aru lit. there’s something higher than the top fig. There’s always someone better than you). The same can be seen in achievements. Here Yoshi-P mentions the Shiva achievement “Let it Go” and I mention the Lv. 50 Dragoon achievement “Dragoon Age” and am about to mention the Lv. 50 bard achievement when Yoshi-P tells me to stop, as we’ll probably get sued.

Here Foxclon says we are running out of time, so we have to skip a few questions (I was going to talk about how that because EN began adding cultural references and puns, the Japanese version has recently decided to follow, and while in 1.0 there were almost none, in 3.x, a good portion of quest and achievement names are now puns based off of Japanese cultural references. Also, I was going to talk about balloon text and the Miqo’te strumpet who asks a Roegadyn merchant about his golden “scepter”).

The next question is about getting more information on the Au Ra. Luckily I have an answer that I received from Oda-san before the PLL. I first talk about the Xaela and how they mainly reside as nomads in an area known as the Azim Steppe (which, in relation to Doma is to the immediate northwest). Azim is the sun deity and it is believed that it is her light and blessing that allows the grass to grow that feeds their herds. Now, astute players may recognize a similarity between Azim the sun deity and Azeyma the Warden...also connected to the sun... However, the Au Ra do not worship the Twelve...nor do most other people living outside Eorzea, as belief in the Twelve is pretty much restricted to Eorzea. That is not to say however that somewhere in the past the two gods were... (and Yoshi-P cuts me off).

Now, whereas the Xaela are made up of dozens of small tribes lead by khans, the Raen are mostly stationary and live near Doma or in the Far Eastern islands across the sea from Doma. However, due to the invasion of Othard by the Garlean Empire, a lot of Raen have been displaced and now flock to areas where they can find safety—like Eorzea (as was the case with Yugiri).

Now, as for how the Au Ra are regarded by others living in Eorzea, while there was racial tension in past ages, recently with the onset of the Age of Adventure and an influx in the amount of people of all races flocking to Eorzea, there truly isn’t any form of heavy discrimination towards the Au Ra (it also helps that because very few Au Ra ever visited Eorzea before, there is little deep-seated hate stemming from historical conflict). However, because they are new to Eorzea and there is much mystery surrounding them, a lot of native Eorzeans are still a bit wary (even if they don’t really know why).

Finally, I mention that in addition to the Xaela and Raen clans...there are rumors of a different, much older clan. (and...this is where Yoshi-P cuts me off).

The next question had to deal with the functionality of the Garleans’ third eye (a question that a lot of people ask me personally at Fan Fests and game shows). Oda-san had an answer prepared for this one as well, so I read what he gave me. This pretty much stated that the third eye is believed to considerably improve the race’s capacity for spatial recognition. Because of this, the Garleans have a decided advantage over other races when it comes to navigating aircraft or firing weapons. I then bring up Cid’s bandana and the legatii’s helms...but Yoshi-P says that armor has been designed not to interfere with the workings of the 3rd eye.

Next we move to a question from the JP forums about how in the JP version all servants of all primals are called ‘tempered’ but in the EN version there is a different word for each one. Here I explain that back before 2.0, when the scenario team was led by Kazuya Niino, they were using the term 信者 (shinja lit. Believer) internally. Niino-san felt that this term was a bit too weak, and wanted something that sounded more exotic. They saw that in 1.x, the EN team had used ‘tempered’ for the servants of Ifrit, and liked the exotic sound of it, so they decided to use the term in Japanese as well. When we told them that in EN we were planning on using different terms for different primals (tempered, meaning ‘hardened in flame,’ didn’t really work for the water-themed Leviathan) Niino-san was fine with Loc’s decision, be decided against using different words in the Japanese, as having the player try to remember more than one ‘made-up word’ was deemed too much of a burden. And that’s why when the EN uses tempered, drowned, touched, etc. The JP sticks only with ‘tempered.’

And finally, we get to our last question, which asks—Japan has Famitsu and Dengeki to relay to them all that cool lore information about Thordan and his Knights Twelve and whatnot. Why isn’t that translated for the west?

Good question! If I was in the same shoes as the English-speaking fans, I’d be just as upset. The problem is, lore books are lore books. Unlike art books, they are extremely text heavy and game-specific. To translate that text would take time, and that would mean pushing back in-game text localization...and that’s something no one wants. It would be great if Famitsu could do that translation, but they lack the resources as well...which means if it were to be done, we’d have to do it. Or in other words...I’d have to do it.

But, it’s about time that we got our own lore book. You guys have had to wait far too long. So, I told Yoshi-P that I would translate a book, should there be one. And he said we’d make it happen...and that we’d try to get it finished (JP and EN) before the Fan Fes in America...so that means October! I’m still trying to figure out if that’s possible...but I promised, so I guess that means I’ll just have to find a way to make it possible.

Yoshi-P then threw me a curveball and told me to tell everyone watching on the stream...in English. Now, I’d just spent the last 9 hours in pure Japanese mode—I’d switched off all the EN sectors of my brain to conserve RAM and allow for 100% of my processor power be allotted to Japanese...and Yoshi-P says “ENGLISH GO!” Man... talk about a mind going blank. I literally had to restart my brain, and still only ended up being little more than a string of words... “Uh... Lore...Book...Make...GOOD...”

But yeah. Long story short. OMG! WE’RE GETTING A LORE BOOK!!!!!!!!!!111!!!1!

Here, I thought we were done, but Foxclon decides to pull out the big guns—poorly crafted Hildy and Nashu plushies. The crowd gathered at the hall went wild while Yoshi-P kept talking about how terrible the plushies looked...until he mentioned that the Hildy doll had started to grow on him and I mentioned that I’d pay at least $15 for one. Foxclon asked if this meant that Hildy was coming back...and I said that Hildy was DEAD...or not. HILDY NEVER DIES! And, he’s BACK IN 3.2! Though I wasn’t able to go into details, I did mention that the two main points will be “in what form” Hildy returns, and who he will bring back with him...

Alrighty! That was it...and whoa. I’m up to 5000 words. It’s time to wrap this up.

Thanks again everyone for tuning in or catching up in the recap. The questions I didn’t answer, I’ll try to field here on the forums over the next few weeks (once 3.2 work is in the can). See you again soon!

Fernehalwes