Devs Please Be Careful Not To Disrespect Real Native Cultures In The New World

90% of the time, the people complaining about 'disrespecting' native cultures are those not from that culture. They get insulted on behalf of somebody else.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

Even if they are made up, they can still offend

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... o.o


Edit: Oh, so this is another troll alt? Ugh...

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Originally Posted by PirateRyanG

90% of the time, the people complaining about 'disrespecting' native cultures are those not from that culture. They get insulted on behalf of somebody else.

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Remind me of videos by PragerU

The only people who are actually offened by Cultural appropriation don't really have anything else of meaning going on in their lives

Students Vs. Mexicans: Cultural Appropriation
Students vs. Chinese: Cultural Appropriation

https://external-content.duckduckgo....ef5&ipo=images

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Originally Posted by Aword3213

Remind me of videos by PragerU

The only people who are actually offened by Cultural appropriation don't really have anything else of meaning going on in their lives

Students Vs. Mexicans: Cultural Appropriation
Students vs. Chinese: Cultural Appropriation

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Yes. That's one video I thought of.

A while back, I had editorial oversight on an article related to some culture. I published the article, and I didn't see that it may have been 'insulting' to certain groups. To be fair, it wasn't really. I mean, you would have needed to look real deep.

Within days, it had gone viral on Reddit.

Our comment section used the Facebook thingy. Like, where you can add Facebook comments to your page. 90% of the comments came from people that had absolutely nothing to do with that culture, calling us scum or whatever. The other 10% came from people that were part of that culture, praising us for putting them in a positive light.

Oh no, I'm an alt right Boogeyman because I think you're creating a non-issue to take the moral high ground of an expansion that's not even out yet? I asked my friends from Brazil their thoughts on the expansion and they're excited. They want stereotypes and exaggerated depictions that paint their culture as exciting. People like you want everything watered down and boring. Stop speaking as an authority for people you shouldn't speak for.
Edit: even then, as we've said, it's a fantasy game. It's not real!!!

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

These forums have lost all hope. :/

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You're here at FFXIV forum, a place where gamers gather.

Gamers just want good games, and we know this sort of topic is wrecking havoc and ruining everything in entertainment and gaming industry.

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Originally Posted by Aword3213

You're here at FFXIV forum, a place where gamers gather.

Gamers just want good games, and we know this sort of topic is wrecking havoc and ruining everything in entertainment and gaming industry.

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Nothing is being ruined in gaming or entertainment industry, though.

I hope they don't do something stupid, if only so I don't have to see a hundred threads complaining about it.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

/facepalm

Okay, I get people are well meaning with this sort of thing...but for the love of all that's holy AND unholy, people can't walk on eggshells and still have a functional world. And I mean real world. Mistakes happen, and that's Human. If people aren't trying to insult people, folks need to stop attacking them for it.

FICTIONAL worlds are FICTIONAL. They may resemble or take ques from our world, but they aren't our world.

The worst part is when it's selective outrage. Heavensward was not an attack on Catholics and Christians, despite taking inspiration from middle-ages Europe (specifically France/Franks). I don't recall any "controversy" about "killing the pope" (in fact, it's a meme). No one came to the defense of Europeans being portrayed badly by Ishgardians.

At the end of the day, homages and the like are just that, and this team are not insulting in their intent. If people have issues with specific things, and are PART OF THE COMMUNITIES that are supposedly slighted, that's fine, they can voice their concerns. But people need to stop selective outrage (on behalf of some groups but not others) and taking on offense for the sake of other people instead of letting those people speak for themselves (things like "white savior complex"; people are able to speak for themselves, let them - you can support them, but don't deign to speak in their place, let them have their own voice).

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If people aren't intentionally insulting, then that's what matters. A perceived MAYBE insult isn't it. No more eggshells, please.

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Because Catholics and Christian people in general are used to be portrayed in many different ways in games and movies. I'm a Catholic and had absolutely no problem with Heavensward because it's a work of fiction and SE didn't even try to represent my religion, they just used some elements to portray their vision of "holy war" in a fantasy game. I just suppose we have a bit thicker skin since religious people are offended all the time in the modern world.

Meanwhile many minorities are like "you have to portray us only in a 100% positive way or we will punish you and cancel you, you will regret it for the rest of your life!!!". It's so tiresome.

It's perfectly appropriate to be cautious in advance of any issues when one can still point to a time that Square screwed up and didn't fix it, as they didn't when the Sami tribal council demanded they stop copying and selling Sami cultural property in the cash shop without consulting them.

The same Sami council that the actual Sami people said doesn't represent them and they just grift money from people?

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Originally Posted by Karious

The same Sami council that the actual Sami people said doesn't represent them and they just grift money from people?

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Precisely, i love how people leave that part out.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

There is no issue giving an under represented culture a moment via high fantasy, but if you all remember the in game Native American headdress controversy, which actually did upset people of specific communities, this expansion has to tread carefully.

Again, I think it’s really cool that they are doing this, but one misstep, and the media will never let it down. Especially after the comments about FFXVI being supposedly racist. Division III needs to be careful with racial comments, and how they represent cultures from now on.

I hope that the players, especially here in North America are not shy to mention if the dev team messes up on any of the representation. They need to hear it from us first. I do not believe the devs are intentionally racist, or harmful to any group of people. Yoshi P and his team are much more progressive than the majority of Japan. I do think they will listen to us if such a misstep happens. There have been numerous missteps that got fixed.

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The devs don't need your help with direction.

All cultures are 'native' to somewhere and works of art draw upon those cultures for inspiration. The best way to deal with people who hungrily seek after reasons to be offended is to ignore them and get on with making said art.

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Originally Posted by Yuella

Dawntrail is more Central / South America

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You know there are also Natives in those places, right? xD

If the effort of diversity!

https://media.tenor.com/CGSvmSaLwNEA...ll-my-eyes.gifhttps://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...Pk7U4/200w.gifhttps://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...AJ33e/200w.gif
https://i.gifer.com/arx.gif

People just need to let the writers and designers design a world how they want to design it instead of forcing them to change it because "It might offend a group of people im not even a part of".

just go away already and stop with this cancel culture crap, its annoying at this point, let the devs create stuff for us instead of trying to stop them in their paths all the time, this is so cringe and yall are the reason why we cant get anything original in this game

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Originally Posted by AlexiaD

just go away already and stop with this cancel culture crap, its annoying at this point, let the devs create stuff for us instead of trying to stop them in their paths all the time, this is so cringe and yall are the reason why we cant get anything original in this game

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The cancel culture is whats ruining modern media because they cancel anything that doesnt fit them when they dont even watch or play the things they try to cancel. Then the movies/games flop because companies cater to them.

Can we please remember, that the game is made by a Japanese company. While it is a global game, Japan does not have the same history and social issues with colonization and racism that the western world has. And we shouldn't solely look at it through our own biases.
Also, one of the major themes of the game has always been anti-colonialism. The entire Empire is an alagory to colonization, and that the alliance is made up of different cultures and people coming together and working toward a common goal.
We've seen like 2 minutes of the area and cultures. So before we start screaming about this or that. Maybe give them a chance to tell a story, which is something theyve always done well. Yes there are going to be things that we dislike or view as misrepresented, but that's part of representation. The good the bad and the ugly. We have to remember that this is a fantasy game that is taking inspiration from places and people of our own world, not meant as a complete and total real world truth. Some people in marginalized communities are going to hate and be offended and some are not. Minorities are not monoliths and to try and make them one is just as dangerous.

We even stopped calling them "Beast" Tribes.
As a South American im glad about the feel of the Andine areas, Machu Pichu looks good.

What i actually would demand of the devs is another thing.
S O U T H A M E R I C A N D A T A C E N T E R S

I don't like that the new continent is basically south america and we don't have datacenters, really hard to always be depending on VPNs and always playing above +150ms.

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

We even stopped calling them "Beast" Tribes.
As a South American im glad about the feel of the Andine areas, Machu Pichu looks good.

What i actually would demand of the devs is another thing.
S O U T H A M E R I C A N D A T A C E N T E R S

I don't like that the new continent is basically south america and we don't have datacenters, really hard to always be depending on VPNs and always playing above +150ms.

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With how the data center in Meracydia is going, it will likely be a while.

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Originally Posted by ItWillBeOkay

Because Catholics and Christian people in general are used to be portrayed in many different ways in games and movies. I'm a Catholic and had absolutely no problem with Heavensward because it's a work of fiction and SE didn't even try to represent my religion, they just used some elements to portray their vision of "holy war" in a fantasy game. I just suppose we have a bit thicker skin since religious people are offended all the time in the modern world.

Meanwhile many minorities are like "you have to portray us only in a 100% positive way or we will punish you and cancel you, you will regret it for the rest of your life!!!". It's so tiresome.

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Yep. Square tends to put the Catholic Church in a bad light. I never took it seriously, and HW is even my favorite expansion.

I wonder how certain Twitter personalities survive real life without exploding the second they step outside. lol

I say this thread is cursed. I was going through it, and when I got to page 6 Chrome gave me the popup for translating from French to English. I've never had it set for anything BUT English. Guess it's a sign not to go into Damian's threads?

You didn't came to Brazil, Brazil will go into your game. There is no escape, gringo. /s

Seriously, they won't "disrespect" our cultures more than people that pretend to care.
The world that people from twitter live is insane: if you don't represent, you don't care. If you represent, you disrespect. I call it excessive free time or super man syndrome...just a bunch of people trying to make themselves guardians of human history and will.

Every culture has their strengths and weakness. I hope they show and explore it like any other.


Ascians: scientific arrogance
Yanxia: excessive servitude
Kugane: allow mafia to run free and parallel military force to command the city
Ishgard: religious fanaticism
Au Ras from the steppe: rejection of technology or like Cirina say "man of steel", making them weak versus the empire.
Gridania: close borders
Ul'dah: traders can rule more than the Sultana herself, a critic to greedy.

i can mention it all day.

sometimes i wish people stop trying to social justice points in a video game. This is like the second time you trying to make something big for no reason.

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Originally Posted by Alexandre_Noireau

What i actually would demand of the devs is another thing.
S O U T H A M E R I C A N D A T A C E N T E R S

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This please, not playing on "Connection = poor" would be awesome. I know its a long shot, given all hardware troubles, but not harm in asking.

As for this thread topic... Terminally online delusional people... don't care much for them, that's all what I'll say.

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Originally Posted by Cach

This please, not playing on "Connection = poor" would be awesome. I know its a long shot, given all hardware troubles, but not harm in asking.

As for this thread topic... Terminally online delusional people... don't care much for them, that's all what I'll say.

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South american servers would basically be a double of materia, empty worlds with barely anyone on them, no cross DC travel because of "limitations" too, it'd basically be a wasteland from day 1, so no, no point.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

There is no issue giving an under represented culture a moment via high fantasy, but if you all remember the in game Native American headdress controversy, which actually did upset people of specific communities, this expansion has to tread carefully.

Again, I think it’s really cool that they are doing this, but one misstep, and the media will never let it down. Especially after the comments about FFXVI being supposedly racist. Division III needs to be careful with racial comments, and how they represent cultures from now on.

I hope that the players, especially here in North America are not shy to mention if the dev team messes up on any of the representation. They need to hear it from us first. I do not believe the devs are intentionally racist, or harmful to any group of people. Yoshi P and his team are much more progressive than the majority of Japan. I do think they will listen to us if such a misstep happens. There have been numerous missteps that got fixed.

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oh no a fantasy world and we don't want to worry about misrepresentation a fake culture. This is what is wrong with society everyone has seems to have their feelings hurt. Good lord I hope in 50 years people have thick skin again and not sensitive or better yet know the difference between real world and video games

Dear Diary: today our forum was a good place and restored my faith in humanity.

Not depicting other cultural influences: Racism, lack of diversity
Depicting other cultural influences: Racism, Colonization, cultural appropriation
Depicting other cultural influences correctly with the input and approval from the natives: Racism, commercialization of culture, and mild cultural appropriation due to SQE being Japanese Company.

It doesn't matter how they do it, if people want to get offended, they will find the way to get offended and deem the thing offensive. We can go on and on about how FFXIV is the nest of racisms, cultural appropriations, and insensitivities, but, in the end, what's the point? If we keep seeing wrong in every single thing, labeling everything with the highest of accusations, as well as fearing that the creation will cause even a mild offensive, then where is the joy? Where is the creative freedom? I find the idea of having to do everything "correctly" to be very rigid and quite restrictive; let everything run wild without the fear of offending anyone, after all, it's a game, a fictional world.

I admit, call me a woke-SJW-white-hat-knight-guy but there is a little part of me which is a little worried with how well they will treat the real-life inspirations. Only a little mind, this is not like a badly throughout glam and is a proper take at this culture. One hopes they take more care and respect with such a thing, because you know its right and will result in better more immersive lore. Plus I thought they did a fantastic job with Thavnair, so I have hope things will go OK.

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Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44

People who never liked MMOs came in and acted like the person on the left, and now a bunch of us who have loved XIV for years have seen it altered in a such a massive way that it no longer resembles the game we loved. Everything has been watered down and made simpler and less fun for the sake of people who never liked the genre that XIV was and was supposed to be. Just look at the relics as an example. Relics are a standard MMO grind, but now they're a braindead tome vendor because grinding is too hard/boring for people who don't like MMOs. Those people insisted that an MMO should abandon the genre it was supposed to be in because people who don't like MMOs want this game to be something it's not. Bozja and Eureka were designed for people who love MMOs, the Manderville relics were designed for people who hate MMOs. There's also far less content per patch because people who don't like MMOs only want to log in once every four months.

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This definitely sounds like a case of trying to act as if you're speaking for a wider community, but you're really just speaking for yourself. For example, I'm part of the "veteran fanbase" that's been playing FF games since FF1 and this game in particular since 2015, and I'm personally very satisfied w/ how the game has evolved.

My take on what happened is simply that time has passed and the primary demographic for MMO's has changed. Back in the earlier expansions, or going back even further to things like FFXI or the early days of WoW, GW, etc., the primary demographic for MMO's was teenagers, college kids, and recent graduates with plenty of time on their hands. Now, those same people are still the primary MMO players, but as a demographic they're now primarily adults with families and full-time careers. Games need to adjust to that. Ultra-long grinds, complex rotations with button bloat requiring 3+ hotbars, etc., your typical MMO player today just doesn't have the time for that.

Remember Wildstar? After WoW first started improving QoL for people with limited time by introducing things like LFG, removing or altering the questlines with "Elites" that usually required groups to complete, etc., Wildstar promoted itself as the "old-school" game that was built around "dedicated" players and the old "higher" level of difficulty. What happened? Yeah, it ran for a few years and then shut down because the playerbase just isn't there. It sucks for the younger generation and adults who might still have that much time on their hands, but life has changed, and the genre has changed to go with it. FFXIV is still designed for people who "love" MMO's, but with acknowledgment of their real-life circumstances and what remains feasible versus not. It's rather presumptuous (and a bit sad) that commentary like yours basically tries to say "if you don't like exactly what I like, then you hate MMO's." No, they don't. They love MMO's, too.

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Originally Posted by AlexiaD

South american servers would basically be a double of materia, empty worlds with barely anyone on them, no cross DC travel because of "limitations" too, it'd basically be a wasteland from day 1, so no, no point.

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There are more latin american players in FFXIV than there are australian players across every relevant MMORPG.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

There are more latin american players in FFXIV than there are australian players across every relevant MMORPG.

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The amount of people isn't the issue. The issue is that a large portion of the target audience for those servers have already been playing the game for years on another region's data center and will have established roots already that make them unlikely to transfer to the new data center. ie, they already have a house on NA, why would they travel to materia/hypothetical LA DC and have to win another one?

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Originally Posted by AlexiaD

South american servers would basically be a double of materia, empty worlds with barely anyone on them, no cross DC travel because of "limitations" too, it'd basically be a wasteland from day 1, so no, no point.

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That may not be true, actually. It could be, but not necessarily. The new US DC has the issue of DC travel existing, funneling everyone to Aether (and to a lesser extent, Primal) to do things. But a SA DC wouldn't have that, so people would be contained within that community. The population of SA+lower Central America is also larger than Auz/NZed. And if you couple that with a South/Central America themed expansion (and if they ever add Spanish translation or at least Spanish subtitles), it could be rather popular.

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Originally Posted by NiceNox

Not depicting other cultural influences: Racism, lack of diversity
Depicting other cultural influences: Racism, Colonization, cultural appropriation
Depicting other cultural influences correctly with the input and approval from the natives: Racism, commercialization of culture, and mild cultural appropriation due to SQE being Japanese Company.

It doesn't matter how they do it, if people want to get offended, they will find the way to get offended and deem the thing offensive.

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This.

Some people want to be offended. They define themselves as defenders of the weak - saviors, if you will - and constantly look for things to be offended by. Worse even than their abject vile attitude and lack of sensitivity, compassion, or consideration for the Humans that they DON'T put in their category of "need protected", or their blatant hypocrisy for not raising similar concerns about peoples and cultures they've decided not to protect, is that they ensure they ALWAYS have something to complain and attack people from their pearl clutching high horse from by setting up no-win situations where, whether people depict or don't depict cultures, they use it as an excuse to attack them.

I swear, modern far left/social justice movement has become the 90s "Sunday morning Church woman" religion. It's full of pearly clutching, "tut tut"ers who constantly talk like they're better than everyone else while looking down their noses at people and kind of being jerks to everyone, all the while thumping their Bible at people. It's either a religion or a cult, I don't know which, but it's got all of the bad parts of religion and none of the good parts.

EDIT:

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Originally Posted by TheOperator3712

The amount of people isn't the issue. The issue is that a large portion of the target audience for those servers have already been playing the game for years on another region's data center and will have established roots already that make them unlikely to transfer to the new data center. ie, they already have a house on NA, why would they travel to materia/hypothetical LA DC and have to win another one?

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Okay, you had me until house.

All the new DCs released have abundant housing. It's one of the few super positive things about them. You can go to the new NA or to the Aus DC and find housing. That's one of the few things you DON'T have to worry about, at least not at the start.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

This definitely sounds like a case of trying to act as if you're speaking for a wider community, but you're really just speaking for yourself.
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No, they don't. They love MMO's, too.

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It's a common enough complaint I think that it's held by a decent amount of people, but not a strong majority or anything. I'm also a MMO vet, been playing since EQ1 in like 2001 or so, FFXIV since 2014. I'm kind of with you. I DO like having grindy stuff to do on the side (it's why I'm a huge fan of Eureka/Bozja) so I and others have that outlet when we want it. But I also think people saying people that don't want that all the time "hate" MMOs are just speaking out of their hineys.

I think the ideal is to mix both. Have Jobs like SMN and Jobs like BLM. They can, in fact, coexist. Have Eureka/Bozja but also have Eden Raids and Island Sanctuary. All of these things can exist at the same time in the same game space, and everyone wins.

But trying to gatekeep and say "If you don't like exactly what I do, you hate MMOs!" is just stupid. 100% agreed.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

This definitely sounds like a case of trying to act as if you're speaking for a wider community, but you're really just speaking for yourself.

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You need to print your character avatar with this sentence right underneath and stick it in your wall, because this applies to almost every post you make yourself.

Twitter, err I mean X, is down the hall to the left

I'd like for people to stop telling me what I should and shouldn't be offended about, please and thanks - a native american =.=