I really was just amused that the entire article read like something they made up. "Karen says, 'YAY GLAMS!'" But yes I should have known better given some of the other comments.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso
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08-20-2023, 01:26 AMZephyrMenodora
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08-20-2023, 02:25 AMSenorPattyYou know what's funny about this article? You read it and think "who are those crazy people already blowing this out of proportion? Those are not real people."Quote:
Originally Posted by ZephyrMenodora
Then you come here on this thread and go "oh it's them. They're real." -
08-20-2023, 03:12 AMPost
It's true some of those people quoted in that article read like caricatures of people you'd meet in game. Especially the dye person imo, good lord I am someone that could not give less of a shit about dyes or glamour! In fact, my knee-jerk reaction is to think the two-dyes thing is more about getting people to just buy more rare dyes on the Mogstation given they could have easily made that system into just the dye menu by this point.
But, I'm glad that they're going to make an effort to try and represent the cultures they're referencing well. There's a lot of reasons for this, and one of them is as a typical white guy I recognize how much ignorance people that look like me and I routinely demonstrate (and how we're basically allowed to live charmed lives never confronting that ignorance except when it pops up in a game article or a forum post), and how much harm we've done in the past to... well, pretty much all cultures.
For all my issues with the state of FFXIV, I genuinely have been overall satisfied with the story and its world building. Sure, it's a 'fantasy' setting, but any fiction author worth their salt will tell you how true the advice is to go out, talk to people and see places, because elements of something lived ring truer. The places and people in FFXIV are more real for their reflection of real cultures, not less.
I in particular adore the English localization team. I have learned so much about my own language and a lot of cultural backgrounds behind my American "whiteness" just because of the amount of effort Koji put into it in the past and Kate has continued from things as simple as the naming conventions of the races. I love that FFXIV is a game that shows that a Mi'qote from Limsa is pretty culturally different than one from Gridania, and it's not just like "they're both Orcs, so they're prideful and love to fight" like many, many other examples from (especially video game) media do.
Some 6.0 spoilers:
If anything, the story won't be 'sanitized' because of a fear of upsetting cultural groups, but because they're just trying to make it broadly as appealing as possible. While in some regards that ends up drifting away from heady topics like so much of the earlier ARR rape implications and only the very occasional appearance of graphic violence even in settings as bleak as HW, StB and ShB, that also makes things like the Scions all surviving and G'raha eating a taco, Venat being portrayed as unquestionably 'right' and spending a couple hours with the 'Ways and Puddingway's animated, spinning tweety-bird puddings for increasingly comic moments of comic relief.
That shift has been pretty gradual but dramatic, and it's alienating to people that were drawn to the original stuff, but that's a pretty separate thing.
Why would you get angry or defensive about them including different cultures and wanting to do the best they can?