Internally inconsistent capitalisation
So, this is something that has been bothering me for a while, which is that the game's script for capitalisation is internally inconsistent due to a slight disregard for English language rules (as far as I can tell, at least).
In the written English language, as a rule don't capitalise common use "species" names. That being things like "human", "dog", "cat", "sunflower", "bee", etc. You do capitalise human nationalities, origins, or ethnicities (e.g. Spanish, Traveller, Yamato), as well as breeds of animals and plants (e.g. English Mastiff dog, Burmese cat, Prado Red sunflower, East African mountain honey bee).
This also applies to common use fictional or mythological species names, such as “elf”, “dwarf”, “pixie”, “kobold”, “dragon”, etc. This, the English script for Final Fantasy XIV maintains, any species names that also fall under common use (i.e. you might find a dictionary entry on) follow this standard practice. However, these terms are often used in conjunction with non-common use, or simply originally invented names, that are capitalised. Things like "Sahagin", "Mord", "Omicron", "Hume", etc. Here's some examples:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Just Deserts quest
Y'shtola: But the timing of their appearance coincides all too neatly with the recent surge in Sahagin and kobold activity... Something is afoot. The question is: what?
Quote:
Originally Posted by City of the First quest
Bragi: Let's see if we can straighten this out. See those two in front of us? The shorter one is a Hume.
Bragi: And the taller one is an elf.
Quote:
Originally Posted by A Hero in the Making quest
Alphinaud: The Ixal are unquestionably the more troublesome, being of a naturally warlike disposition, and wont to summon their bloodthirsty primal, Garuda.
Alphinaud: The sylphs, by contrast, are peaceful in nature, being mischievous rather than malevolent, and have long been on friendly terms with the Gridanians─until recently, at least. Alas, they have grown aloof, a change observed at roughly the time they summoned the primal Ramuh.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Purple Flame, Purple Flame quest
Iceheart: Nidhogg─he who now stands poised to unleash his wyrmlings upon Ishgard─was the great dragon who lost an eye to Elezen treachery.
This bothers me greatly, because the English language has rules for this and the script uses inconsistent capitalisation. Now, the ones I'll give a pass to are the "species" names from Tural, as those are explicitly tribe/ethnic names that simply become common names for the species, and tribe and ethnicity names are generally agreed should be capitalised. The same is true for location based names.
So in theory, if the script were following proper English rules, the clans we chose within character creation would be capitalised, but the actual species names would not. Similarly if someone were to be referred by their point of origin (be it region, city, or nationality) those would be capitalised, as the capitalisation is inherited.
This would be rendered in the ways of these examples:
"He might be a Midlander hyur but he studies Duskwight culture."
"She's a dragon sure, but she's Dravanian, not Meracydian."
"The ixal and the sylphs both have a history of conflict with the Gridanian people."
"The omicron and the dragons' war took place thousands of years ago."
"In the First, study of Vrandtic history shows conflicts between elves and humes."
I am aware that this is not a Final Fantasy XIV only issue, and is emblematic of modern genre/speculative fiction, but it still bothers me. Especially since the game already uses proper capitalisation for other, non-Spoken creatures, as you can see whenever people talk about them or in your battle log. I would personally prefer it if all "species" names were lowercase to fit with how the language nominally handles this.