What about translation mods?

FFXIV officially supports only 4 languages + 2 in non-global versions of the game. However the playerbase is larger than just that. There are a lot of at least Spanish, Russian, and other European languages to cover. In previous years there was made a point about considering to make localizations for such languages, Spanish in particular. However it's clear that this idea was abandoned since that statement is from several years ago.

Because of that there were born tools for automatic translation of in-game text, e.g. Tataru Helper and Echoglossian. Also fans have recently started a Russian localization project and have made a good progress by hand-translating most parts of the UI. My question is: is the current SE's stance about mods really correct? I get that right now by ToS those tools are technically prohibited, but that's strictly due to the fact that they're 3rd party software and modifications. While I don't agree with this, I'm not arguing against that. Instead I'd really like to open this question about a morally correct definition of prohibited 3rd part software/mods. Modders and translators in question are working hard for free to make the game accessible for more people. Which in turn converts to more customers and more money for you. For free. All of this is driven by enthusiasm and love for the game, and I think it's a real shame that such work is still in the no-no area which would drive people away.

I'm sorry if my English is scuffed, it's not my native language.

Pretty sure they won't go after you for using translation mod. Come on. Sure, the streamer was banned for using add-on, but you need to look at what kinds of addons he was using that caused GM to take action against said player. And on top of that, he was streaming! Someone reported him, and GM had to take action.

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Originally Posted by Digit4lC4m

Pretty sure they won't go after you for using translation mod. Come on. Sure, the streamer was banned for using add-on, but you need to look at what kinds of addons he was using that caused GM to take action against said player. And on top of that, he was streaming! Someone reported him, and GM had to take action.

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Either there are rules or their aren't.

They COULD have taken a more nuanced approach and gone into greater detail about what mods they are headhunting for.

But they did not. So now we have the witch hunts. The community is imploding to the point WoW looks civil.

"Please don't use mods"

"We can't scan your computer"

"There are people who don't care that it doesn't affect them, they will report if they see it so don't broadcast the use to the public".

Now, you born with a brain and you were given critical thinking. After reading those three quotes, surely you can work something out for yourself, can't you? It's really not hard and I don't understand this need to try and get SE to give the green light to something they've never officially given one. Even graphical enhancement mods like Reshade got a 'use at your own risk" statement.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

Now, you born with a brain and you were given critical thinking.

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Not everyone's that lucky. XD

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

Either there are rules or their aren't.
The community is imploding to the point WoW looks civil.

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I agreed with you until you said this. The community is absolutely not imploding by any means. I see people running around and playing just fine.

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Originally Posted by DamianFatale

I agreed with you until you said this. The community is absolutely not imploding by any means. I see people running around and playing just fine.

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It isn't literally imploding, more like twitter's kind of imploding where people go on day long rants about this or that but continue to use the platform anyway.
Latest example being when Elon Musk acquired the company and people acted like the world was ending, but the next day they went right back to doing...whatever it is you do on twitter.

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Originally Posted by SenorPatty

"Please don't use mods"

"We can't scan your computer"

"There are people who don't care that it doesn't affect them, they will report if they see it so don't broadcast the use to the public".

Now, you born with a brain and you were given critical thinking. After reading those three quotes, surely you can work something out for yourself, can't you? It's really not hard and I don't understand this need to try and get SE to give the green light to something they've never officially given one. Even graphical enhancement mods like Reshade got a 'use at your own risk" statement.

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What if a Russian streamer, wants to broadcast to their Russian audience, using the aforementioned mod to translate the game into Russian? Are they just not allowed to stream now?

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

What if a Russian streamer, wants to broadcast to their Russian audience, using the aforementioned mod to translate the game into Russian? Are they just not allowed to stream now?

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According to SE's rules they would be in violation of the TOS if they used a 3rd party tool to change the text to a russian translation, so yes.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

According to SE's rules they would be in violation of the TOS if they used a 3rd party tool to change the text to a russian translation, so yes.

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And that is why their TOS and their interpretation of it is garbage.

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

Either there are rules or their aren't.

They COULD have taken a more nuanced approach and gone into greater detail about what mods they are headhunting for.

But they did not. So now we have the witch hunts. The community is imploding to the point WoW looks civil.

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Thats not really the case when you look at whats being posted.
Most people are just spurging out because someone got banned, and forget that it took mass reporting for it to happen.
Otherwise its the same poop flinging that always occurs on these forums.
Literally nothing has changed.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

According to SE's rules they would be in violation of the TOS if they used a 3rd party tool to change the text to a russian translation, so yes.

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May fall into how it's done. I know some titles where modders figured out how to modify the actual in game text. These ran risks of tripping flags since it was file alteration. Most cases the translations were done by a community and in some cases they'd have to fix it after just about every patch update to the game title.

I've seen others however that look like it just places an additional overlay on the display that reads text on screen then autoruns it through something like google translate then places it on screen similar to subtitles or closed captions.

Throw the ban hammer on them. Its against ToS. Official languages only.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

What if a Russian streamer, wants to broadcast to their Russian audience, using the aforementioned mod to translate the game into Russian? Are they just not allowed to stream now?

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They're allowed to stream. That's not against ToS. Just don't run the mod. Those are against ToS. Or run it but hide anything that could ID you on stream.

The whataboutisms are making me facepalm harder every days this goes on.

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Originally Posted by EnderVAD

FFXIV officially supports only 4 languages + 2 in non-global versions of the game. However the playerbase is larger than just that. There are a lot of at least Spanish, Russian, and other European languages to cover. In previous years there was made a point about considering to make localizations for such languages, Spanish in particular. However it's clear that this idea was abandoned since that statement is from several years ago.

Because of that there were born tools for automatic translation of in-game text, e.g. Tataru Helper and Echoglossian. Also fans have recently started a Russian localization project and have made a good progress by hand-translating most parts of the UI. My question is: is the current SE's stance about mods really correct? I get that right now by ToS those tools are technically prohibited, but that's strictly due to the fact that they're 3rd party software and modifications. While I don't agree with this, I'm not arguing against that. Instead I'd really like to open this question about a morally correct definition of prohibited 3rd part software/mods. Modders and translators in question are working hard for free to make the game accessible for more people. Which in turn converts to more customers and more money for you. For free. All of this is driven by enthusiasm and love for the game, and I think it's a real shame that such work is still in the no-no area which would drive people away.

I'm sorry if my English is scuffed, it's not my native language.

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I would love to see this game with official Spanish and/or Portuguese translations. Note that I don't really care about localizations for South America or anything like that. Only translations would do well.

They could easily solve this problem. I really don't see why in 2022 a game developer doesn't care if their product (marketed worldwide) is only distributed in 2 or 3 languages! This is really horrible!

I'm Brazilian and despite my understanding of the English language (very poor in skills, but still), I really want to see this game in Portuguese or at least in Spanish officially.

About the translator addons, I use Tataru Helper sometimes to translate directly from the game client in French (better correlation between French and Portuguese and a more immersive text than the memeland they did with English). But I really feel ashamed to do so. And I hope they wont stop us from doing this since it's the only way to understand the story perfectly (and because they are responsible in not giving us translations). Note that i don't stream or share anything from my PC while playing.

I wish I didn't have to rely on addons to play this game. This just proves how much they need to improve their product...

OP: fight club.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

May fall into how it's done. I know some titles where modders figured out how to modify the actual in game text. These ran risks of tripping flags since it was file alteration. Most cases the translations were done by a community and in some cases they'd have to fix it after just about every patch update to the game title.

I've seen others however that look like it just places an additional overlay on the display that reads text on screen then autoruns it through something like google translate then places it on screen similar to subtitles or closed captions.

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Either of them would still be in violation of the ToS, doesn't matter if one method is more invasive than the other.

I'm not making a value judgement here, if you need to use a 3rd party translation tool to play the game in the first place then who am I to stop you? Nobody is probably ever going to find out. But going strictly by what the ToS allows you to do then no, unofficial translations of the game are not allowed.

Fight club rules. Just keep it to yourself and you're fine.

All that needs to be said.