We Need traditional Chinese translation for this game..

First of all I apologize for bringing up this topic under English localization, but apparently this is the only place I can reach out to the developers about this issue.

I 'm aware that there is already a Chinese version of the game(which is the China server) but that's not what I'm talking about.

For those who're not aware of this, there's simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese are used in China and the traditional Chinese are used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Their differences are just like the US English and UK English.

we all know that the China server is separated from the global server due to the county's strict game policy:
all games in China must have a registration key issued by their government, you must have a China ID and phone number to play the game, play time limit system must be installed to restrict playtime for underage players etc.
So other than their patch isn't up to date as the global server's, the China server are basically only for people from China only. And as I mentioned before, it's in simplified Chinese.

There are players that use traditional Chinese from all over the world struggling to understand the game, yet still loves it and willing to play the story in foreign language, then watch a translated version of the story again to understand it. So I really hope the development team will take this into consideration, and hopefully in the near future we get to play the game in a language we know and understand, just like all the players that understand ENG/JP/French and German language.

at this point in the games lifecycle there is simply too much material both text and voice that you will never see another language added to support the game. anything new that could possibly be added would mean that everything from the beginning would have to be added/voiced and that's just something that's not going to happen. time vs. cost that sort of thing.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

at this point in the games lifecycle there is simply too much material both text and voice that you will never see another language added to support the game. anything new that could possibly be added would mean that everything from the beginning would have to be added/voiced and that's just something that's not going to happen. time vs. cost that sort of thing.

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What's being requested more closely require the label of swapping font, or moving from British to American spellings, than adding a new language. He's not asking for a Cantonese dub, just traditional characters.

Also, weren't there hints at a Spanish localization being in the works?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

What's being requested more closely require the label of swapping font, or moving from British to American spellings, than adding a new language. He's not asking for a Cantonese dub, just traditional characters.

Also, weren't there hints at a Spanish localization being in the works?

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There never was any hint of any spanish localization. And they're not going to not include voice if they're adding new language text either.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

And they're not going to not include voice if they're adding new language text either.

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Same language, at least in writing; different script / typography.

It's like if North America decided 65 years ago, for the purposes of easing literacy, to switch over to entirely phonetic (around a given common dialect) spelling. Britain and Australia still have the older forms of spelling, which takes longer to learn but keeps the meanings of words (like "fónetik" -- phonetic) more obvious due to their still being spelled consistently from a given semantic root (be that German, Norse, Latin, Greek, or whatever else). Now, SE's localization only uses those new North American spellings, since they cover the majority of native English speakers, even though those spellings can be baffling to British and Australian players.

This is asking for those alternate, more understandable spellings.

It is not a hard ask.

isn't the difference here we're talking about like between Cantonese and Mandarin? the two ways they're voiced are completely different.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

isn't the difference here we're talking about like between Cantonese and Mandarin? the two ways they're voiced are completely different.

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How they're voiced has no impact on the written language in this case. The scripts have nothing to do with the pronunciation. I merely used varying spellings as an example because it's the closest analog we could manage with English.

You can read 你好 as nĭ hăo or néih-hóu, but the characters will still have the same meaning; the pronunciation is dialect-dependent, but also irrelevant when writing to one another. The two languages were mutually intelligible in (and only in) their writing until the majority of mainland China swapped to simplified characters (a way to save time in writing and ease literacy). Traditional Chinese =/= Cantonese. It simply happens that Hong Kong, for instance, has not swapped to simplified characters, and therefore reading the much-trimmed Simplified Chinese writing will often be to them like trying to understand your friend's shorthand notes. That they speak Cantonese would only matter in voice-over, which is beyond the OP's request here.

If I set my IME to Mandarin and then type 'nihao' and hit space, it appears as 你好, meaning hello. If I swap to Cantonese and type 'neihou' and hit space, it appears as 你好, meaning hello. That phrase is identical in both Traditional and Simplified. I just type it in either dialect, turn it into the any-dialect characters, and voila.

But now let's say I want to type "cat". In a Mandarin IME, I could type 'mao' in Traditional, hit space (or maybe button 1-6 or so, if that's not the first character with the same pronunciation in Mandarin that the IME guesses I want), and it's 貓. Or I could type 'mao' in Simplified and its 猫. That one's alike enough not to be confusing. But that's not the majority...

Now take, for instance, dragon -- 龍 or 龙. They look nothing alike, and all the meaning-attributing parts of the original character have been simplified into shape-setting strokes, as if I'd just typed "dn" instead, forgoing all implication of actual meaning. Or, heck, let's take the name for Canton itself, 廣(州) in Traditional but 广(州) in Simplified. The whole meaning element under the enclosing radical was trimmed away.

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Let's put it another way:

I can take a string of text in a word document written in Simplified Chinese and basically font-swap it to Traditional. That's the extent of the request here.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Let's put it another way:

I can take a string of text in a word document written in Simplified Chinese and basically font-swap it to Traditional. That's the extent of the request here.

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That may be the extent of the request, but I'm saying you're not going to get text only changes without voice overs also being added.

I agree it seems like it should be relatively less work to do a font swap, but nothing is ever easy in software development. In the case of fonts it isn't just the UI but also texture representations on screen, in chat boxes,on maps, etc.. It still has to be tested to make sure it is legible and that no other errors have occurred.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

I'm saying you're not going to get text only changes without voice overs also being added.

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Why? They're literally detached in every localization. I can play with Japanese text and English voices just as easily as both English, both Japanese, or the inverse. There's no reason by which we'd be prevented from adding one without the other.

It's effectively a difference in font. Give the option to swap it at almost zero effort and suddenly you have many millions more who can read your game.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Why? They're literally detached in every localization. I can play with Japanese text and English voices just as easily as both English, both Japanese, or the inverse. There's no reason by which we'd be prevented from adding one without the other.

It's effectively a difference in font. Give the option to swap it at almost zero effort and suddenly you have many millions more who can read your game.

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your first point is moot because those are already in the game. if you ADD a new text of any kind of language or swap there of you HAVE TO include the voiced part of it. You don't add one without the other. therefore it will never happen.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

you HAVE TO include the voiced part of it.

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Link your evidence?

the fact that no other additions have been made in the history of the game in regards to additional language support? (for the main version at least). If China and Korea didn't have laws regarding gaming they could have been made to been part of the game.

I don't have to present a bibliography of quotes to you. I'm honestly quite tired of this.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

the fact that no other additions have been made in the history of the game in regards to additional language support?

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"It hasn't been made yet, so it cannot be made." Hmm.

Regardless, you're still begging a false ultimatum. That no main-version voiceovers language outside those provided at launch have been added has absolutely nothing to do with whether the same exact words be written in traditional or simplified script. That holds no more water than our not having gotten a Portuguese dub prevents the use, ever, of bold or italicized text in-game.

ok then you transcribe every text then into script translate it and then patch it back into the game because the devs sure aren't going to do it.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

your first point is moot because those are already in the game. if you ADD a new text of any kind of language or swap there of you HAVE TO include the voiced part of it. You don't add one without the other. therefore it will never happen.

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If they have voices in Mandarin chinese from the chinese version of the game, they dont need to change those voices at all. Differences between mainland mandarin and taiwanese mandarin are mostly dialectical but all voice acting in media is done in standard chinese.
Also swapping simplified to traditional characters and vice versa isnt hard. iOS literally has a button to automatically change a string of text between the two.


Its entirely plausible for them to make a traditional Chinese client since all they'd really have to change are the strings of text from their already existing simplified chinese one, and most of that can be automated.

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Originally Posted by Yevra

First of all I apologize for bringing up this topic under English localization, but apparently this is the only place I can reach out to the developers about this issue.

I 'm aware that there is already a Chinese version of the game(which is the China server) but that's not what I'm talking about.

For those who're not aware of this, there's simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese are used in China and the traditional Chinese are used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Their differences are just like the US English and UK English.

we all know that the China server is separated from the global server due to the county's strict game policy:
all games in China must have a registration key issued by their government, you must have a China ID and phone number to play the game, play time limit system must be installed to restrict playtime for underage players etc.
So other than their patch isn't up to date as the global server's, the China server are basically only for people from China only. And as I mentioned before, it's in simplified Chinese.

There are players that use traditional Chinese from all over the world struggling to understand the game, yet still loves it and willing to play the story in foreign language, then watch a translated version of the story again to understand it. So I really hope the development team will take this into consideration, and hopefully in the near future we get to play the game in a language we know and understand, just like all the players that understand ENG/JP/French and German language.

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Why they can't learn English so they can play all games which are mostly in English. Did they think about other players from another country (where language is not international)? and I don't cry but I will be proud to learn a language if I want to play a game. Think like this. Instead, they're playing a game, first, they could actually learn the language and play the game. There is always the time just is up to people how time is used.

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Originally Posted by Robotukas

Why they can't learn English so they can play all games which are mostly in English. Did they think about other players from another country (where language is not international)? and I don't cry but I will be proud to learn a language if I want to play a game. Think like this. Instead, they're playing a game, first, they could actually learn the language and play the game. There is always the time just is up to people how time is used.

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Your insistence that players who want to play the game have time to learn English and should spend that time learning English so that they can play the game is absurd for oh so many reasons.

• English is not a universal language, no matter how vocal many monolingual speakers of English demand it to be so.
• One does not simply "just learn English" without a significant time commitment. Many people around the world take daily or weekly English classes for years.
• Learning English does not guarantee one will be able to play a game, especially one with a period or fantasy setting that uses vocabulary considered unusual or archaic.
• Even if a second language English speaker does have the vocabulary to play a game, they don't necessarily understand colloquialisms that a native English speaker would understand because such expressions are meaningless or nonsensical when translated word for word back into their native languages.
• Even if a second language English speaker understands the basic meaning of every word used in a game, they will miss nuance and implication that a first lanugage English speaker would glean from specific word choice without having to think about it.
• "There is always the time [for people to learn English] just is up to people how time is used." There is always dev time to localize the game into Chinese, Spanish, or any other language. It's just up to them how time and money are used.

Automated conversion from Simplified to Traditional is non-trivial and need manual proofing. But compared to, say, Japanese to English, it's much simpler to make something understandable.

However, if your goal is a complete localization of the game, with the high quality you expect from the English version of FFXIV, then you will need to redo most of it.

Shout-outs and colloquial usage will need to be replaced with local equivalents. There are many terminology differences between China and HK/Taiwan, for example computer memory is 内存 in China and 記憶體 in Taiwan.

And you will need to replace all voice acting as well. Even a common word like "and" (和) is pronounced hé in China and hàn in Taiwan.

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As an aside, I would love to play in Chinese on the NA server, though matchmaking might be an issue...

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Originally Posted by Robotukas

Why they can't learn English so they can play all games which are mostly in English. Did they think about other players from another country (where language is not international)? and I don't cry but I will be proud to learn a language if I want to play a game. Think like this. Instead, they're playing a game, first, they could actually learn the language and play the game. There is always the time just is up to people how time is used.

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I'm not sure if you're just being wilfully ignorant or worse. As a non-native English speaker let me tell you it takes a lot of time to become fluent in a language to be able to follow a complex story without having to pause every 5 seconds to look up a word. That's pretty much how it went for me like 15 years ago. lol And I am only as fluent as I am now because I lived in England long enough. And you're expecting people to learn a language "just" to be able to play a video game? Are you serious? lol

The deciding factor in whether or not an additional language is added to the game is economics. Will enough additional people purchase the game because of the new language feature in order to make it worth the time and money required to implement it?

For the OP, the unfortunate thing is that there is also a high probability that there are contracts in place that do not allow a Chinese translation for the game outside the Chinese servers.

Please stop begging for Traditional Chinese anymore.
I am also a Chinese Speaker but I won't do so.It wasn't an international languages and i think many people can imagine that the result of having a TC language as nowadays because of some streamers and China Server policy already let many kinds of Chinese Speakers come to JP DC.Some of them can't even make a simple communication,bad manners and start creating party by using CHINESE wordings.These acts already made most of the existing players feeling not so happy(me too,I am not anti-racist,just talking about what i met in Elemental DC)

Just like what #17 said,why don't you try start learning Japanese or English from now on?For me, I also spend years on learning Japanese as I love their culture and FF series.And some people said oh, it just a game?spending my times!Yes,learning a language is so hard and spending times,but if you really love a game or somethings we must need to make some effort by ownself first and then you will find that it is worth enough to do so.Futhermore,this will let u meet more players and friends in FF14 too.

We really Need traditional Chinese translation for this game.

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Originally Posted by Avenger

I agree it seems like it should be relatively less work to do a font swap, but nothing is ever easy in software development. In the case of fonts it isn't just the UI but also texfure representations on screen, in chat boxes,on maps, etc.. It still has to be tested to make sure it is legible and that no other errors have occurred.

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It is more than just Font swap, if it is done in a proper way

PRC China, Malaysia and I believe Singapore use simplified chinese while Hong Kong and Taiwan use traditional chinese

because of the cultural difference, which result in many different "localized wording"

I really hope that I can play FF14 in the traditional Chinese version.

I tried, as a test, to type in Chinese in the game's chatbox. It does not recognize all characters. Some character will work, while others will display gibberish. I don't think the game's UI or codes likes Chinese at all.

I think Taiwanese players can probably register in the Chinese servers (they can get the Taiwan compatriot passport which is basically their ID in China), to fulfill their ID requirement and all that...

Simplified Chinese isn't hard to read, but it does take some doing. Problem is communicating, especially newbie players who don't know the mechanic and is dragging everyone down. I can't type "stay away from the orange area" or "go to the corner of the map when zeromus does his thing" fast enough when seconds count.

I support the inclusion of a Chinese language option in the international release of the game.

I don't know who would be opposed to it.
You should want more language-based accessibility. It would actually be a smart decision for SE to translate the game from Japanese to Chinese, since there's a large population of players who may not live in mainland China who might want to play the game in their language.

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Originally Posted by Robotukas

Why they can't learn English so they can play all games which are mostly in English. Did they think about other players from another country (where language is not international)? and I don't cry but I will be proud to learn a language if I want to play a game. Think like this. Instead, they're playing a game, first, they could actually learn the language and play the game. There is always the time just is up to people how time is used.

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You're telling a Chinese player to learn English so they could play a Japanese game...whose main language is Japanese, not English.

Do you not see the irony with that? Like what even are you? Who do you think you are?

English is not FFXIV's primary language nor are non-Japanese-speaking players the game's primary target audience.
Like you're not even the game's target audience, and you're sitting here acting like it's okay for you to insist that towards someone who wants a proper CN translation of the game's international release.

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Originally Posted by Misutoraru

It is more than just Font swap, if it is done in a proper way

PRC China, Malaysia and I believe Singapore use simplified chinese while Hong Kong and Taiwan use traditional chinese

because of the cultural difference, which result in many different "localized wording"

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Hong Kong does not primarily speak the same language as Singapore, Taiwan, or most of mainland China. You're conflating two very different things -- language (Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and others) and a script (e.g., the difference between writing the same Serbian word in Latin or Cyrillic characters).

Yes, different languages have different words; that is not the gap the OP asked to have bridged. They asked those who speak the same dominant language for which the game has already been localized in the international releases (Mandarin, alongside Korean, iirc) be allowed both scripts, as to be more readily readable to those who learned to write that same language via the traditional ways of writing out those same words, rather than solely the manner popularized by the PRC's mid-century spelling reforms.

And yes, there will remain some regional differences in vocabulary, but that is a matter of dialect, and it's not as if English has gotten separate localizations for English Cockney or American Deep South or Aucklander (nor for Kinkiben, Hakkaidoben, Fukuiben, or Okinawaben in Japanese), so why would we suddenly require that every language include every dialect now?

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

so why would we suddenly require that every language include every dialect now?

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While Standard Chinese is still recognizably the same dialect, the scientific, technical, and popular culture vocabulary have diverged enough that at the minimum, all help text have to be looked over, if not all text in the entire game.

Situation about the Taiwan strait aside, it's quite common for a work to receive different localization for European Spanish and Latin American Spanish, or Parisian French and Quebecois French.

Of course, it's a business decision whether to undertake such effort, and so far Square Enix has refrained from doing so.

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Originally Posted by taiwanluthiers

Some character will work, while others will display gibberish.

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The font used in the International client covers Latin script and Japanese; some Chinese characters happen to be displayable, because Japanese happens to use the same glyphs.

The China client supports displaying the Chinese language, in both Simplified and Traditional scripts.

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Originally Posted by Kakurady

The China client supports displaying the Chinese language, in both Simplified and Traditional scripts.

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I think what the OP is asking for is for these translated options to be adapted to be usable in the Global client as well. There are probably some content differences between the CN client and the global one, but I still think it's worth pursuing.
Not everyone who primarily consumes content in Chinese lives in mainland China, so giving that market this opportunity might be more helpful than many may realize.