Oh, those weren't Blue Hoobigos though. Those were Blue Ogiboohs. TOTALLY different from the hoobigos we know and it's a common mistake to make. Yoshi-P told me this info himself through AOL's AIM service so it's true.
tbh this is exactly what i did. I started a new gladiator in ul'dah and just did the quest where you meet Thancred for the first time where you protect Nanamo from a voidsent and make contact with Hydaelyn an I am infinitely more thrilled and invested than I have been in years.
I'm pretty sure that the Japanese writers are super confused about all this because there are weird nuances about the US that are difficult to understand if you aren't us. When someone in America claims to be "receiving death threats", we all understand that to be a performative thing designed to gain status. It can be good for ones career etc, to make such claims, and it's a competitive market. We kind of take it as read that this isn't a thing that's actually happening. However, worry not, if it *were* actually happening, doing this is illegal. So, the police would actually arrest the person who did it. There are no arrests, because, um, it doesn't actually happen. We in America understand that virtually everything is fake. So, when someone says basically anything, the default internal response if that the person is fabricating whatever they are saying.
Regards, Dawntrail's story, I honestly don't have strong feelings about it either way. There were some cute moments. It was ok.
If I had any complaint about voice acting, it's this...
Some games which have way lower budgets and players and prestige than FF14 do full voice acting. The newer Persona games are fully voice acted, and those things are hundreds of hours long. And, they aren't MMOs! So, I think that SE should fully voice act the story. As it stands, I have to read out all the text parts to my wife because she refuses to read it all. We're paying a sub. I think we deserve full voice acting. I doubt voice actors are that expensive. There are tons of people that I know personally that would and could do voice acting for FF14 and would do it for a song. I bet there are literally millions of such people. So, the fact that it isn't happening just feels very, very low effort. Getting someone to read the dialogue isn't that tough. So, it just feels insulting that it isn't done...as though SE doesn't care enough about their own story to do this very, very quick and easy thing. And, instead, I have to read these lines out to my wife personally! :D
Such a shame to see Yoshi still not address the criticisms and still go farther and say he can't tell what's hateful speech and what is feedback.
Pretty sure the 100s and 100s of posts that don't mention the VA in a derogative way, but instead regard the incredibly massive plot holes and absolutely horrible character that is Wuk Lamat (despite who voice acts the character in multiple languages) are very obviously feedback. Also, considering it isn't just the English forums that have given very valid criticisms regarding how badly Wuk's character is written pretty much proves this has nothing to do with the VA and has everything to do with the writing.
What a shame, Yoshi.
To the devs, you all really need to go back to the 1.x days and rewatch those arrogant interviews of "Why do you need a jump button?" or how the forums were shutdown b/c of how loud our criticisms were - and we were RIGHT. You all really need a reality check. You're not to big to fail, and this expansion so far has been that. You need to read and receive criticisms instead of trying to hide behind "I can't tell which is actual feedback or not." We supported your game. We believed in your vision.
Well, I'm getting off that train. Fix it, please, and stop coming out in these interviews with these ridiculous comments about not being able to tell which is feedback. Not only is it dismissing such a portion of your fanbase that actually cares enough to come on here and take their time to post concerns in a very concise and intelligible way, but it is insulting those of us that are invested in your success so much that we've come here to sound the alarm. Don't turn on your fans please, it hasn't gone well for any franchise so far that has done this, nor did it go well with FFXIV 1.0. We've supported you, you need to support us - not dismiss us.
There are literally X/Twitter hashtags for people arguing she deserves to die. We also know that police often don't act on death threats unless there is substantial reason to believe that they are coming from someone who is going to follow through, because so many online death threats are made every day on the internet, trying to even track all the people doing it is too much work.
There is indeed something culturally peculiar about the US, but it is not that we should assume the recipients of death threats are making them up, it is that many Americans do not think threatening to kill someone is all that serious a thing to say, so especially in online spaces death threats are made quite lightly by people who have no actual intention to follow through, as though they are just throwing an insult.
Just going to throw my 2 gil in the pile and say that the best thing the team can do regarding Wuk Lamat is give us a small break from her during the post expansion content, and let us wander around for ourselves with just some local guides to point us in various directions for interesting things, you know.. like an exploratory adventure as they claimed DT will be!
Like it could be a fun small thing for us whilst the gang is investigating the McGuffin and Wuk Lamat is busy being the actual ruler of Tuliyollal.
well live letter is coming at the end of this month
let see if the team has anything to say, i doubt anything will happen but i still want to believe
I think, if they had portrayed Wuk not as the hokage with nearly no character growth, and instead as a spoiled, sheltered princess with no clue how the world works, the story would have been more interesting for me.
What if the WoL and friends all questioned the decision the disable the Eternal, but Wuk insisted on doing it because "they're not real"? What if Wuk made decisions she could not undo, and would regret? What if Wuk is forced to confront a reality she created, but can not bear to live in?
The story comes so close to setting this up, but instead becomes a family friendly happy-go lucky copypaste story where Wuk is perfect and always makes the right choices.
I would love Wuk if she were more realistic, probably. Unfortunate.
In some ways, perhaps, but I feel Wuk is sheltered and ignorant of the world enough that the character is quite different in as many ways, and there are a lot of ways to write a realistic spoiled, sheltered princess. Just not the way the current MSQ did it. Either way, they'd have to rewrite the story a lot...
Going to be honest, all the Yoshida damage control articles we've been getting lately is more than I expected as a response, even if his respones are laughably out of touch
They probably do have a general "rough draft" of what they want. When Endwalker released if I recall they said they were already working on the general idea of 7.0 and even 8.0, so they most likely have another rough draft of what they want the story to be heading for 8.0 with the post-past MSQ.
However, I wouldn't be surprised if that rough draft is now being given a real hard look at given how some people hated the story they gave with 7.0. I am assuming at this point that 7.1 is pretty much completely done and getting the polish treatment, and 7.2 is probably also well on it's own way to being finished and they are no doubt beginning to do stuff for 7.3, so I don't think we'll see any significant changes to the story until at least patch 7.3 since if I recall correctly the voice lines are done about 6-9+ months or so ahead of time.
Continuing with the Voice actor talk: there is also the whole SAG-AFTRA video game strike that Sena said she was taking part in on Twitter, so that might also throw a potential wrench into development too depending on how serious she is about it. If Sena has a contract through the 7.X series, and since Sony/Square are apparently not on the list of strike targets so she CAN keeping working, then we'll probably see Wuk during said post-patch. But if she decides to take it very seriously and just not voice act at all period: what then? If Sena recorded Wuk until patch 7.2 or 7.3 for example, do they just write the character out after the patch is done? Do they change the voice actress midway? If Sena hasn't done ANY voice acting for post-patch, is Wuk just going to be shelved immediately, potentially screwing over the German/French/Japanese VA's who are essentially being told "Because the English VA won't voice Wuk and we don't want a replacement voice actress, you're all not needed anymore" and given the boot? There are a lot of factors to consider heading into 7.1 and the rest of the patches.
All of it comes down to if they actually were serious about listening to all the players' feedback and criticisms and changing things around based on it.
If he says anything at all it will be in his corperate approved PR speak which just comes off as condescending at this point. It would be much better if they looked at the main points of criticism, took a moment to think about it and then addressed us in a less formal way. It's easy to see the main points of criticism if you take a few minutes to read what ppl are saying. Daichi Hiroi needs to take the L too.
Speaking of, has Hiroi or Kate responded to the criticism at all? We hear a lot about Sena and her online bahavior, but what about Horoi and Kate? They are way more to blame than anyone for DT.
I don't see a lot of people hating the parts of the Dawntrail story that would legitimately lead to years worth of story content. Some of the plot hooks Dawntrail left out for a potentially very long-ranging story seem to have been received well enough--that is, the inter-shard travel and the question of Azem's involvement (the name "Dawntrail" itself and all the solar imagery in the WoL's skills and peppered around the place are hinting at an entirely different 'sun' we're walking towards than the Dawnservant!). There is scaffolding being laid down for some seriously interesting adventures that don't have anything built on them yet, and I haven't seen a lot of hate pointed that way.
More like, Wuk Lamat and how she has been received have just absolutely obscured the other, better things they can build out of Dawntrail, which is understandable and unfortunate. We'll see!
I've seen some crackpot-y ideas about her having a pivotal role in the story going forward because her real name is a very clumsy translation of "seventh dawn" into Mayan, but I haven't been able to verify that. If that was the case, they'd probably need to significantly alter or scrap huge parts of whatever framework they have.
The thing is even if they had planned for multiple episodic contents, they are still responsible for making each individual episode interesting. We didn't have to wait 10 years to get EndWalker, SB was a bit of a drag but HW and ShB were phenomenon in its own right. This is especially true if you look at HW which is very self-contained. The core of HW didn't need much leading into it, and once it's done there isn't much else scaffold from it.
Far more than what it is or what it tries to be, the problem with DT is simply the quality just isn't there.
- It doesn't matter if it's supposed to be a relaxing story.
- It doesn't matter if it's supposed to be a an epic story.
- It doesn't matter if it's supposed to be a foundation for the future.
- It doesn't matter if it's supposed to be a self-contained story.
The writing of DT fails at basic 101 level. I dare say if this same team were given the task of writing EndWalker, I seriously doubt it would turn out anywhere as good.
Yoshi and the rest won't say anything, and if they do it'll probably be just addressing the interviews and reinforcing / going into more detail on what he said for them. It'll be a miracle and a half if he actually going "We heard the feedback and we are working on the changes to the patch story", and even more of a miracle if he attempts to talk about any of the core issues issues, be it the story overall or Sena and whatnot, and not just make it as "Corporate PR Talk" as possible.
As for Kate and Hiroi, to the best of my knowledge neither have said anything. Obviously on Twitter, there are some people who are complaining and dragging Kate and the rest of the localization team as well as Hiroi for what we got with Dawntrail, but as for Kate/Hiroi themselves actually saying something: they've both been completely silent, which is probably for the best at the moment, and I am pretty sure both are keeping a low profile as well. Maybe they both HAVE said stuff since Dawntrail's launch, but at the very least I myself haven't seen anything or heard much discussion about it if they have spoken up about it.
Lamat correlates with Stars and Venus in Mayan culture, and Venus specifically is usually associated with new beginnings along with the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Meanwhile, Wuk in Mayan does mean "Seven", and in Mayan culture, Wuk is normally tied to the jaguar god, and jaguars in Mayan are a symbol of ferocity, strength, and valor and normally represent control, confidence, and leadership. Hell if you really want to "dig into it" and kind of out there, Lamat is also associated with the Rabbit Zodiac wise, and with astrology, some of those positive traits associated with Lamat-Rabbit are...
- Playful and Carefree
- Physically energetic and mentally powerful
- Crave the center of attention as well as crave competition
- Have a gift of communication helps them to be good in positions of authority and to communicate what those in need may want
- Hard Working
And some of the negative traits...
- Can become arrogant
- Get too competitive
- Have nervous energy and become self-centered because they can be insecure about themselves
While Crackpot-y, there might be SOME truths behind Wuk Lamat's naming given the role she plays in Dawntrail's story as well as what her characterization means as a whole personality wise, if you want to REALLY want to reach anyway and just throw stuff at the wall and see what truly sticks like anyway, like with the astrology stuff.
This game has carried on even when the English VA for an active character was murdered (Sian Blake, the English VA for Yugiri, was found dead in 2015, just when production for Stormblood, the expansion about the character's homeland, was getting into swing). I am not too worried that it wouldn't be able to do so over someone reneging on contracted services.
I can not explain why that word makes me grin. But anyway, the Mayans had astronomical observations as such a major element of their culture, any theory that requires kind ignoring that the Mayans had their own system of star reading and fortune telling and instead seeks a cross reference a Mayan jaguar to the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Rabbit and then interpret based on traits defined in China based on no cultural exchange with the Mayans at all, feels perhaps a little too farfetched and crackpot-y?
Trust me it is INSANELY cracktpo-y to the point of sounding like a conspiracy theory with how it barely holds any water. There isn't a whole lot of info totally available, or at least coherent info. Not like we can actually ask the Mayans after all. But based on the mythology and culture and research of the Mayans: Lamat is known as the rabbit and is associated with most of the things listed in the previous post I made. But like I said, it could just be a fun thing they did to make the character stand out by having her name actually mean something to those who dig a bit into it. It should also be remembered that, if I recall correctly, they used external firms when doing the research for Dawntrail.
-From a Gamespot interview before Dawntrail's launch-
He further explained how it was a multi-team effort with their localization teams abroad and other branches of Square Enix to make sure that the ideas the Japan team had wouldn't misrepresent the cultures it pulled from.
Yoshida continued, saying, "We went to an external company, making sure that we're getting advice from them and input on what is appropriate and what could potentially be a risk. We made sure we were discussing and hashing things out to have an appropriate depiction of what we wanted to show in certain areas. So while it is all fantasy and fiction, we wanted to also make it seem very real at the same time, a very grounded world."
He went on to explain how outside consultants advised on preliminary material which led to discussions of how certain things can be misinterpreted or potentially offensive. Yoshida said the team pushed to understand why it'd be the case in those particular instances, and instead of abandoning the initial idea entirely, they worked to develop a deeper understanding and deliver those ideas with better intent. "We do want to emphasize that we did our due diligence, not just internally, but then we also made sure to get proper feedback and advice," Yoshida concluded.
So they, at the very least, did do SOME research on Dawntrail's stuff when it comes to Mesoamerica, Latin America, and at least Aztec/Mayan cultures and ways, with what seems to be quite a bit of assistance from outside firms the entire time. So they probably just plucked certain things they found interesting and inserted them into the world in specific ways, like how they named Wuk Lamat for example.
I don't believe you, and you don't believe you. So, I guess we're in the same boat. But, hey, let me google it just to prove my own assumptions correct...brb...
...
OK, so, there are hashtags about people that want the fictional character Wuk Lamat to die in the game, NOT the voice actor. Of course, you knew this already. As I said, everyone in the US is totally and openly just lying all the time. But, hey, if you find it entertaining, then good for you, I guess :D And, trust me...police officers would trip over themselves over hate stuff. Good way to get promoted...only way for a lot of them to get promoted. Also, DoJ money and rewards, and, etc, etc, etc... You seem pretty smart to come up with all of this. So, you probably get this too already.
Anyways, they'd better not kill of the fictional character Wuk Lamat...not after we went through all of that. This whole expac was set up. I'll hold my opinion until we see where it goes. But, like, it is hard to continue to write compelling stories over and over and over again. The 10 year Hydaelyn arc was the bees knees. So, you know, I'm more inclined to think that, long term, it will be pretty good.
Indeed. Sometime last year or so Yoshi-P went to a gamescon in Brazil and this is what he said about localization-
- IGN Brazil asked about localization to Portuguese-:
Yoshida: “This is another thing that people ask us a lot”, confesses Yoshida. "The thing is, with FF14, the biggest difference from the others is that FF14 gets constant updates. Every four months we have big patches, every two years we have a big expansion. All of our current language team, for which we have support, stay in Japan working with the local team to deliver quick translations and localizations, so that the content reaches the public as quickly as possible. Our biggest problem is that we don't have a team that can translate from Japanese to Portuguese there in Japan ".
Yoshida: "If there are people out there who think they're good at Japanese as well as Portuguese, who want to live in Japan, who love FF14, CBU3 [Square's internal team developing FF14] would love to have you on the team," Yoshida tells laughter. "We have a global localization team within CBU3 so we can allocate people from different cultures and languages to help us. If you think this job is for you, please send us your CV!"
At least based on how it was said way back then, they would pretty much have to make a whole team from scratch with people that both know Japanese and Portuguese to translate, as well as find suitable voice actors and then record hundreds of hours of voice-lines for every character from ARR until now.
Of course though, that was some lengthy time ago, so maybe there is SOME chance for a Spanish and/or Portuguese translation sometime in the distant future, but I don't think it's super high on the priority list for them at the moment. If they are working on it to actually become a thing though, they'll probably announce it at one of the fanfests as one of the major things coming to that expansion.
It annoys me to no end, that SE/Yoshida or even the dev team do not acknowledges that there are problems but behave with the attitude : "Sorry that you are feeling that way".
But hey Yoshida said, he can't differentiate hate from feedback - here you go:
- The writing has lost quality ( i dont talk story itself, i mean the structure of the sentences, how story and information is presented and the choice of words)
- The quest diversity is terrible (repeat the same old without any shake ups)
- Voicecating is all over the place (some good, some bad - no QA? )
- Dungeons are not really harder but have nice design but without depth (learn it and youre done)
- Raids are fun in design but have also no depth (the same here as in Dungeons: once learned you are done and that takes no time and minmal effort. Where is the replay value?)
- Music is extremly good and of high quality BUT misplaced/missused (not sure which is the correct term here)
- Worldbuild is... there is none - Everything is a tool for the MSQ to expose you some infos for the next step as a result there is no reason to care/like/dislike for anything or anybody
- Missing QOL (colour system is halfbaked - not bad but (damn) also not good, why those extreme limits?
- Portrait system still the same mess - Feedback was given many times even with examples
- Fates still the same (despite the fact that they "learned" so much - their words, not mine - and still did nothing with it)
- Island Sanctuary is done and/or dead despite beeing a Xpac feature?
- Overall replay value of content is the lowest ever
- Savage gear still beeing on a pedestal (Why? Open more venues for Savage gear)
- Gearing AND jobs are boring - Also jobs are so similar i expected/had hopes for some shake up but nothing.
- Open World - dead since ..... i dont know ... the beginning? Why bother whit creating one?
And that is just my rambeling. They know this but do nothing or so little. QoL is not happening or extremly slow/limited nobody cares anymore. Content is or has little to no replay value AND is exremly slow implemented ( i think its the sylowest of the industry in the pay to play +pay per xpac section). Feedback is given in many aspects but nothing.
Also we have communication?
NO there is none.
They say in the most obscure way possible whith giving as little as possible information for a couple of feature WHICH in many other games is nothing special but here at FF14 is pushed as "Wow, look i DID SOOOO MUCH AND SOOO GOOOD" despite beeing mediocre at BEST with enough limitation that even me, a german, think that is way too much rules/limits.
Also almost none of the player concerns are adressed except we rage like Kratos on all platforms.
The LLs are simply "we will do this" and any criticism, concern or feedback WILL be and HAS BEEN so far beeing ignored or waited until way to late.
That is not communication.
And after ALL that silence, ignorance and doging questions we get a PR speech at the highest level with gaslighting so damn hard i could supply all of Europe with it and deflecting i could take the deathstar superlaser head on with it.
Sorry is Yoshida now a politician from a european party ?
Tural isn't "representing" a real world culture, it's making up a fantasy culture inspired by a real world culture.
Every nation's based on one or more RL countries, present and/or historical, but apart from a handful of things like the dead baby pit Tural feels like it's been sanitized to the point of contradicting preeexisting lore. Ishgard is primarily medieval France, but it had so many problems that they were still struggling with the fallout of the Dragonsong War in Endwalker's role quests, while Tural's issues are by and large wrapped up by Wuk's coronation, and then everything else is seemingly resolved after Zoraal Ja and Sphene are dead.
Wuk Lamat ruined the MSQ while the VA is bringing ruin on Twitter and simultaneously destroying the PR being heaped on trying to protect Bryer from criticism, systemically destroying the good will that was built between the team and playerbase by once again proving that hiring these individuals that are so full of themselves has done nothing to help the industry on any level. Our WOL was a pretty strong and sturdy individual with a myriad of ways to answer (even though the ellipses answer hardly went anywhere), but DT was the first time we had our tongues cut out and replaced with a strawman's. The entire fiasco surrounding the VA may be small, but it's a blatant red flag on the rest of the change that's going on in the team and in the product.
That is because there was intrigue and tension in Ishgard and Othard. Tural is just peace and tacos and has absolutely nothing of substance and when they tried to shoe horn some in, it was too late and done sloppily. Sure it is a new chapter like ARR but ARR at least had stakes. The fault clearly lies on Hiroi and Kate, since she seems to have her fingers all over the writing and story too, and both of them need to be held accountable for what is clearly XIV's lowest point writing wise.
I am so scared on how FFXI is going to be butchered in the upcoming raid. So so scared. Vana'diel has some of the best story and lore in the FF franchise that was handled with care throughout its life cycle. I really hope they don't poo all over it like they did with Tural.