Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

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Originally Posted by AnimaAnimus

I can disprove this statement with only one word. Smile

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To be fair, that's practically the one exception.

It sticks out like a grotesquely sore thumb, but still.

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Originally Posted by sylphlands

This has been a huuuuge issue of mine as well and I can't believe it got past sensitivity consultants. When I got to the reeds part I knew I was in for a rough ride. Why on earth would the Hanu forget their own culture, and why would Wuk Lamat know how to solve it in 10 minutes? I also found the entire Mamook section so hilariously out of touch - the writers earnestly selling the idea that these people would need to be told by outsiders, "Have you tried planting seeds about it instead of doing a eugenics project that kills 99% of your offspring?"

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For an expansion that was supposed to be crafted and vetted for cultural sensitivity it's an almost hilariously continuous roll of white saviour + stupid natives + Shah of Iran / CIA operations. I also notice that the underlying motif of "cultural understanding" is food, which is such an oblivious western approach to cultural appreciation "oh those funny brown people, they make a mean curry/taco". In the past of FF14 it would have been something weighty like religion or government or a system of oppression etc etc but food is "Disney-safe".

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Originally Posted by Healing-the-things

This writing is so bad I don't even care to finish pushing the MSQ further and I'm legit going to just wait for the 'tales of adventure' option to come out so I can buy my way out of this garbage story. I'm starting to think that was their intention all along... to get more people to buy-a-nope and get away from this less than mediore storyline.

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This is my plan. I can kill a couple of years with 2.0-6.0 content and alts. Hell I fiddled around for a year after finishing 6.0 before I forced myself to finish it due to how much I didn't like the post patches. And I didn't have anywhere near as visceral reaction to them as I have this abomination of an MSQ. There is literally nothing at "endgame" that I am so desperate for I will suffer the awful MSQ and Wok LeRug any further.

It is not all in their favor monetarily though. This was my last preorder. They lost my trust by shoving this utter insult of a fanfic story out the door. I'm going to hold off on buying it until 8.0 is safely out for me to see if they actually learned any lessons from this travesty. Going to see if the writing is any better or if they decide to double down (like the vast majority of companies do when they screw up royally).

I never thought I'd see the day that a FF game known for it's story would release anything this amateurishly awful centered around a character seemingly created to be hated.

I hope, if Yoshi ever looks at the reactions, he thinks "Such Detestation, this was not my intention"

And we see Hiroi-kun booted and the responsibility given to some decent A-Grade writers.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

I hope, if Yoshi ever looks at the reactions, he thinks "Such Detestation, this was not my intention"

And we see Hiroi-kun booted and the responsibility given to some decent A-Grade writers.

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Blaming the writers is not going to do anything when the source of the problem is Yoshi P intentionally stretching the team thin and putting FF14 on life support maintained by junior devs. Hiroi got put in a position he is clearly not cut out for, by Yoshi P, because they need their senior devs working on the third project.

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Originally Posted by Shibi

I hope, if Yoshi ever looks at the reactions,

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All he needs to do is go through the MSQ and see it for himself.

Preferably using the English dub.

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

For an expansion that was supposed to be crafted and vetted for cultural sensitivity it's an almost hilariously continuous roll of white saviour + stupid natives + Shah of Iran / CIA operations. I also notice that the underlying motif of "cultural understanding" is food, which is such an oblivious western approach to cultural appreciation "oh those funny brown people, they make a mean curry/taco". In the past of FF14 it would have been something weighty like religion or government or a system of oppression etc etc but food is "Disney-safe".

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Ironically, a tremendously Western way to look at a story written by an entirely Japanese team.

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Originally Posted by BigBoom550

I for one am glad they represented my American heritage well with violent regime change and a bananatrope republic.

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All those researches weren't in vain !!! :3

welp thats it, i cant take it anymore, i dont have a single ounch of motivation to continue the story right now, this is the first time ever in my FF14 and usually the story is the highest reason why i play ff14 lol

until they introduce a new stuff that can bait me to come back, i think i just unsub for now and.... i cant believe i say this but i might finally try wow for first time lol

iam thinking FF11 but while i keep hearing the story is good and is now soloable, i dont think i can handle the cumbersome of the old style everquest era mmo

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Originally Posted by Astronis

Ironically, a tremendously Western way to look at a story written by an entirely Japanese team.

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The outcome is still the outcome, I don't pretend to have insider knowledge on Hiroi's thought processes. They DID hire a cultural sensitivity consulting group (I have no idea who, presumably a Western one).

ok, i know i said iam going to try wow but thankfully my friend told me to try the free trial version of it which you can play up until level 20

and hoo boy, now iam not sure i want to play it or not lol, the core gameplay is fine, but the story telling is.... iam so confused, whats the main story here? all i do so far is just doing generic quest, there is no "important" quest at all, or maybe that only start after level 20? because so far i didnt feel the story at all

and they just pop up everywhere, 1 time iam still clearing this quest in x area, got quest told me to go to different region and full with bunch of quest, then suddenly i got urgent quest told me to go to the capital (stormwind) and practically got warp into... different realm? and i got bunch of another different set of quest that has nothing to do with what i do before

iam so confused lol

World of Warcraft doesn't have a main story quest, at least when I played it. You had to do a bunch of quests in each area to find out about the lore. Expansions had some kind of major quests and plot points though.

WOW has lore but it has been retconned many times and it is almost separate from the gameplay for almost nothing of it is required to do what most people want(end game content). Some of it is descent but WOW is not famous for its lore for a lot of it got hilariously butchered. Shadowlands is a great example of how damn awful it is.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

World of Warcraft doesn't have a main story quest, at least when I played it. You had to do a bunch of quests in each area to find out about the lore. Expansions had some kind of major quests and plot points though.

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Ok yeah i just got quick lesson from my friend (who has played wow since vanilla so he kinda expert on it)

He told me that story in wow is seperated into 3 type, minor quest (this is your generic quest), major quest (has continuation and story in it) and campaign quest (the highlight of story quest featuring major character and worldwide threat and so on)

He said that every region you travelled into has their own major quest and so you go to central shroud (using ff14 name) it has it own major quest, you go to east shroud, another major quest and so on

The campaign quest is much grand and feel more cinematic aka ff14 msq but sometime it just stop abruptly because you havent done major quest in this xxx region since its connected to the campaign story later

My friend also said that one weakness in wow story telling is that you are not the center of it, basically the whole wow story is… dawntrail story structure lmao with one exception is you are not fixed to wuk lamat and thankfully most of them are likeable character

Iam still skeptical about this but i think i give it ago with 1 month game time for now

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Originally Posted by gumas

My friend also said that one weakness in wow story telling is that you are not the center of it, basically the whole wow story is… dawntrail story structure lmao with one exception is you are not fixed to wuk lamat and thankfully most of them are likeable character

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I haven't played WoW since WotLK but I really didn't mind the storytelling of WoW. I don't have to be the main character of the story. I just have to be the main character of my story. Seeing Apothecary Putress attack the combined force going after ICC, or helping Sylvanas try to take down Arthas, or being with Saurfang as he recovered his son's body were all great moments where I wasn't the main character and still remember 16 years later.

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

For an expansion that was supposed to be crafted and vetted for cultural sensitivity it's an almost hilariously continuous roll of white saviour + stupid natives + Shah of Iran / CIA operations. In the past of FF14 it would have been something weighty like religion or government or a system of oppression etc etc but food is "Disney-safe".

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It was supposed to be a vacation expansion and in a sense they actually did deliver that,

it was Wuk Lamat's trip to Disney World and we were also present.

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Originally Posted by WeakestZenosEnjoyer

It was supposed to be a vacation expansion and in a sense they actually did deliver that,

it was Wuk Lamat's trip to Disney World and we were also present.

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it is our holiday trip

the thing is, our most annoying "friend" came along and we being good guys cant said no

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Originally Posted by gumas

it is our holiday trip

the thing is, our most annoying "friend" came along and we being good guys cant said no

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Summer vacation where your friend asks you to come with them and another friend's home country. You've never been but you've heard about the cool landmarks that you could potentially visit. Friend seems okay when meeting them and you agree to go. After you arrive, your friend's "friend" steals your passport and says you're going to hang out with them all summer and visit all the places they want to go and if you try to leave you'll get in trouble with the authorities because they stole your passport.

I jest, but it's what it feels like lmao.

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Originally Posted by gumas

Ok yeah i just got quick lesson from my friend (who has played wow since vanilla so he kinda expert on it)

He told me that story in wow is seperated into 3 type, minor quest (this is your generic quest), major quest (has continuation and story in it) and campaign quest (the highlight of story quest featuring major character and worldwide threat and so on)

He said that every region you travelled into has their own major quest and so you go to central shroud (using ff14 name) it has it own major quest, you go to east shroud, another major quest and so on

The campaign quest is much grand and feel more cinematic aka ff14 msq but sometime it just stop abruptly because you havent done major quest in this xxx region since its connected to the campaign story later

My friend also said that one weakness in wow story telling is that you are not the center of it, basically the whole wow story is… dawntrail story structure lmao with one exception is you are not fixed to wuk lamat and thankfully most of them are likeable character

Iam still skeptical about this but i think i give it ago with 1 month game time for now

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WoW does have a main story, just not in the early version of it, and also your typically not as involved in the story. It's more like all this stuff is happening around you, so the lead characters can actually fix the problem. Some times, you'll be the one to fix the problem, but usually your just the hired help.

Edit: It should be noted, a lot of WoW's story also happens outside the game in books. If your interested in WoW's story I'd recommend just looking up youtube videos on it. There's a Youtuber channel called Platinum WoW that does a good job of recounting the story, and there's also Pyromancer before he moved over to FFXIV he was considered a WoW Historian.

I found the story boring up until the Lv.93 quest range once a few plot twists began to happen. I've gotten hooked on the story ever since the fight with Valigarmanda and I'm hoping the game continues improving as it goes on. The first 27 Quests were really boring though and I barely forced my way through them. I leveled 2 jobs to 100 before doing the MSQ because I didn't feel like progressing up until now. I understand why the beginning was slow this is a whole new story arc and I needed to remind myself this is how ARR started out as well.

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

They DID hire a cultural sensitivity consulting group

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I can only hope none of them were the type screaming "cultural appropriation" when women used baby sling carriers not from "their own cultural" heritage.
And honestly, any time I see "(...) sensitivity consultant", I'm expecting the worst possible ideas regarding the topic.

Cultural sensitivity consultation for a story that takes place in a completely made-up world with catgirls and talking lizards is one of the most stupid things ever invented.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Cultural sensitivity consultation for a story that takes place in a completely made-up world with catgirls and talking lizards is one of the most stupid things ever invented.

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People have to justify their otherwise worthless degrees somehow.

In my experience, the people who are most sensitive about other culture are usually the least knowledgeable about it. I know a person who is a hard-core japanophile. To their credit, they did put in but effort to learn the language to a decent level but they don't still live the culture, so it turned into this weird obsession about authenticity and worshiping thing on a pedestal kinda of things. For example, there were one time we talked about Sushi and they can't stop yappling about one must go to Japan to have true sushi because Japan don't freeze their fish, the fish came from Japan water .etc. And I had to cite them the fact that more than half of Japan sushi is made from frozen fishes (and most Japanese wouldn't be able to tell the difference) and Japan regularly import their off season fishes. I also pointed out it's always the westerners that seem to care about these kind of "authenticity" than even the locals.

And usually because of their obsession, these people always tend to think they know better than the next person, sometime even when talking to the local. And in my experience that's how most "consultant groups" work. They're mostly comprised of people who care "more", but know "less". So you tend to end up with weird, surface level stereotypes instead of the important stuff underneath. It's like doing Twitter survey and claim it a research.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Cultural sensitivity consultation for a story that takes place in a completely made-up world with catgirls and talking lizards is one of the most stupid things ever invented.

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This gets me big time. It's a fictional story and world that takes inspiration from the real world. It is not a one-to-one and never should be. Before this expac we had real-world cultures used as inspiration. We didn't have a "Cultural Sensitivity Consultant" at that time, to my knowledge. Who are we hurting and needed to tip-toe around? Ishgard takes from medieval Europe. The Elezen have French adjacent names. Doma is fantasy China, Nagxia takes from Southeastern Asia. Hingashi is just fantasy Japan. The Steppe Mongolia. Thavnair is India. Gyr Abania takes from Arab cultures. Not once did I see anyone from those cultures complain about FF taking inspiration from them. Sure, there were little nitpicks about how they got some things wrong here or there. "We don't make that meal that way", or "the clothing style isn't representative of our traditional garments".

But FFXIV is not making a historical recreation of your country or culture. It is burrowing it and making it its own. Just like humans have done for centuries. Sharing meals, clothing, and even architecture and making it work for their home country.

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Cultural sensitivity consultation for a story that takes place in a completely made-up world with catgirls and talking lizards is one of the most stupid things ever invented.

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How do you feel about the LATAM people being frustrated over cultural representation in DT?

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

How do you feel about the LATAM people being frustrated over cultural representation in DT?

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I think they have a right to be frustrated here *because* of the sensitivity consultants.

If it was presented as 'we grabbed elements of Latin American culture that we thought were neat for the story', I don't think anyone would be upset. It's not attempting to be or portraying itself as representative in that case. It's like when someone takes the US and has a fat man on a mobility scooter chowing down on a burger, or a European talking about how Americans measure things in Eagles Per Gun.

It's fun, it's amusing, cool.

The issue is that Dawntrail paraded around itself being 'representative' and 'taking care to be authentic' and a dozen other things, and then... reduced Latam culture down to ponchos and tacos. It's like that scene in Metal Gear Rising when Raiden tries to blend in with Mexicans by wearing a poncho and sombrero... and the actual Mexicans are looking at him like '...The hell is he doing?', because they're dressed like actual Mexicans. Polos and jeans I think it was.

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Originally Posted by BigBoom550

It's like when someone takes the US and has a fat man on a mobility scooter chowing down on a burger, or a European talking about how Americans measure things in Eagles Per Gun.

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As someone who lives in Texas, I wish the Texas zone was like this. I would've laughed and felt represented (as long as they got rid of the rubber bullets).

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Originally Posted by ReynTime

Cultural sensitivity consultation for a story that takes place in a completely made-up world with catgirls and talking lizards is one of the most stupid things ever invented.

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You don't get it, Beast Tribes was an offensive name and had to be changed to be respectful towards ... Wait, who are Beast Tribes supposed to represent? It never even occurred to me that they were anything but fantasy races.

Good ol' Cultural Sensitivity Consultation: "If your product isn't racist, we'll make sure it is".

wtf is this brown rat

https://i.imgur.com/0sdL6u0.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/r39sqY8.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/XqsYqlN.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4FYEh9R.jpg

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Originally Posted by HD800

wtf is this brown rat

https://i.imgur.com/0sdL6u0.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/r39sqY8.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/XqsYqlN.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4FYEh9R.jpg

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lol perfect set of pictures.

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Originally Posted by gumas

ok, i know i said iam going to try wow but thankfully my friend told me to try the free trial version of it which you can play up until level 20

and hoo boy, now iam not sure i want to play it or not lol, the core gameplay is fine, but the story telling is.... iam so confused, whats the main story here? all i do so far is just doing generic quest, there is no "important" quest at all, or maybe that only start after level 20? because so far i didnt feel the story at all

and they just pop up everywhere, 1 time iam still clearing this quest in x area, got quest told me to go to different region and full with bunch of quest, then suddenly i got urgent quest told me to go to the capital (stormwind) and practically got warp into... different realm? and i got bunch of another different set of quest that has nothing to do with what i do before

iam so confused lol

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Yeah WoW's storytelling is baaaaad. Some of the expansions have a more continuous overall narrative, but you're still just doing zone quests the whole time. Some of those zone quests have a narrative for that area, but there's little continuity until like...Legion.

And if you think DT's storytelling is disappointing, oh just wait.

It is rather fascinating that by stripping the people of Tural of any meaningful political history and conflict, it actually feels more racist to me than how the people of the rest of the game have been depicted. Flawed histories and leaders with stains on their records and political upheaval and turmoil in the recent past? That nuance is reserved for the people of Othard and Aldenard and Ilsabard, not Tural. One single (two-headed) guy solved all of their major problems 80 years ago, convinced two tribes to stop enslaving other people by just asking nicely, and then everything has been happy and idyllic for everyone except this one single town of Mamool Ja ever since, and we fixed all their problems in the story anyway so now they're fine and happy too. Contrast this with the history of any other nation in the game world.

There's this phenomena where a person or organization can become so averse to accusations of racism and cultural appropriation that they bend over backwards and go out of their way to never do anything that could possibly offend any group, but by doing so, it comes off as weird and infantalizing to everyone else. Like they're trying SO HARD not to be offensive that it actually wraps back around and becomes offensive again. And it's all the more jarring here, because FFXIV has never previously shied away from showing other cultures that are clearly inspired and influenced by real world cultures as places with rich histories and flawed people and leaders. But something happened in going to Fantasy Americas where all of a sudden we can't show any of the cultures here being mean to each other.

Because as we all know, historically before colonization, all of the nations of the Americas got along super well and were best friends and never fought with or conquered each other or made any empires! /s

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

It is rather fascinating that by stripping the people of Tural of any meaningful political history and conflict, it actually feels more racist to me than how the people of the rest of the game have been depicted. Flawed histories and leaders with stains on their records and political upheaval and turmoil in the recent past? That nuance is reserved for the people of Othard and Aldenard and Ilsabard, not Tural. One single (two-headed) guy solved all of their major problems 80 years ago, convinced two tribes to stop enslaving other people by just asking nicely, and then everything has been happy and idyllic for everyone except this one single town of Mamool Ja ever since, and we fixed all their problems in the story anyway so now they're fine and happy too. Contrast this with the history of any other nation in the game world.

There's this phenomena where a person or organization can become so averse to accusations of racism and cultural appropriation that they bend over backwards and go out of their way to never do anything that could possibly offend any group, but by doing so, it comes off as weird and infantalizing to everyone else. Like they're trying SO HARD not to be offensive that it actually wraps back around and becomes offensive again. And it's all the more jarring here, because FFXIV has never previously shied away from showing other cultures that are clearly inspired and influenced by real world cultures as places with rich histories and flawed people and leaders. But something happened in going to Fantasy Americas where all of a sudden we can't show any of the cultures here being mean to each other.

Because as we all know, historically before colonization, all of the nations of the Americas got along super well and were best friends and never fought with or conquered each other or made any empires! /s

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South American here, you're basically completely right. Seeing cultures inspired in part by certain *mesoamerican* empires and a few particular people being portrayed as lovey-dovey peace-loving hippies is uh.

Boy, it's special, I'll tell you that.

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Originally Posted by LisseyCrowe

You don't get it, Beast Tribes was an offensive name and had to be changed to be respectful towards ... Wait, who are Beast Tribes supposed to represent? It never even occurred to me that they were anything but fantasy races.

Good ol' Cultural Sensitivity Consultation: "If your product isn't racist, we'll make sure it is".

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So the snake ladies in Indian clothes with Indian accents and an Indian god never came off as maybe being related to any real life people? Interesting.

The FF14 writers did this to themselves. They were the ones who decided to fashion their fantasy races after real life people.

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Originally Posted by SwadTheFrog

South American here, you're basically completely right. Seeing cultures inspired in part by certain *mesoamerican* empires and a few particular people being portrayed as lovey-dovey peace-loving hippies is uh.

Boy, it's special, I'll tell you that.

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I was like 8 hours in before I realized they weren't just lying. I thought they gave Wuk Lamat a baby version of history thinking she couldn't possibly handle the truth, but nope, national unity based on tacos and vibes.

I was hoping we could target her with the LB at the end of that last trial she forced her way into, since she just stood there in front of the boss... She didnt belong in rhe 2nd half of the story at all. That should have been her brother, forgot his name, time to shine since that was more his thing with the technology. I hope they cut her interaction time down in post content.

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Originally Posted by LisseyCrowe

You don't get it, Beast Tribes was an offensive name and had to be changed to be respectful towards ... Wait, who are Beast Tribes supposed to represent? It never even occurred to me that they were anything but fantasy races.

Good ol' Cultural Sensitivity Consultation: "If your product isn't racist, we'll make sure it is".

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If none of the upcoming "Societies" end up being humanoid, this change to the Beast Tribe name will officially be moronic.

I'm lending them the benefit of the doubt... For now.

Yes, even after the deplorable story. Probably full copium at this point, if I'm being honest.

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Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon

So the snake ladies in Indian clothes with Indian accents and an Indian god never came off as maybe being related to any real life people? Interesting.

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I get what you're trying to say, but not really, no.

It just felt like inspiration. I didn't get the impression it was a commentary of an existing culture. But once you start changing things to respect said culture, then I am more-or-less forced to start drawing comparisons.

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Originally Posted by Vensaval

If none of the upcoming "Societies" end up being humanoid, this change to the Beast Tribe name will officially be moronic.

I'm lending them the benefit of the doubt... For now.

Yes, even after the deplorable story. Probably full copium at this point, if I'm being honest.

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You do realize one of the tribes is just lalafells in masks, right? They dropped the beast awhile ago, they changed it from tribes to societies. And you do get that the reason why some people are considered beasts was so that the city states could oppress them, enslave them and steal their land based on them not being considered people in the same way the playable races are? But they we're all just sundered Ancients and the determination of who was a beast and who was a person was completely arbitrary and based on who had the power to make the definitions.

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Originally Posted by LisseyCrowe

I get what you're trying to say, but not really, no.

It just felt like inspiration. I didn't get the impression it was a commentary of an existing culture. But once you start changing things to respect said culture, then I am more-or-less forced to start drawing comparisons.

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Was what made you notice really the difference between respect and lack thereof, or poor writing? I mean had the Indian snake ladies been talking about curry every five minutes, I'm sure you would have caught on faster to what they did there.

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Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon

Snip

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You ever take a step back and think you're taking a video game just a tad too seriously?

In case you haven't, let me tell you...

You're taking this video game way too seriously.