[Suggestion - more like begging] Time for Translations!

Hi :)

I'm sure there are older threads about more localizations and localization issues and in the early stages of this forum we could probably find threads about more languages ​​to translate this game.

Well, as I couldn't find anything recent for this last subject, I decided to make this one.

The thing is:

It's 2022 and this is an MMO. Many games since early 2010 are released in a myriad of languages. The first question is: why not FFXIV?

I really think it's passing time for more languages ​​this game is translated into. I don't mean full localization with voice overs, but only limited localization like texts.

I can imagine that new full localizations after so much content released over the years would be painful and expensive to make. But, the same cannot be said for just texts. UI translations, text from all sources in game like books, dialogues, quests... This can be done very easily, in my opinion.

And for which languages?
Probably for spanish at least. But ideally also for portuguese, italian, russian, korean, etc...

I would really appreciate it if the Yoshi-P team work on this sometime in the near future.

In Brazil, I know a lot of people interested in playing this game, but they lack the basics of english language, making them afraid to try it and opt for other MMO games (released with portuguese option from the beginning).

It's very annoying to see one of the most famous and successful MMO like FFXIV with only a few languages ​​to play in forcing some to rely on translation prohibited addons...

So what do you guys think? Is it worth trying to have this topic in 2022? Am I being naive?
Can we assume that SE doesn't give a *crap* about other languages??
How would you feel if your language wasn't inside a top-notch MMO on the market, while many others do??

Like every time with SE it's a question of saving money, since the fans don't say anything and even protect Yoshi and SE against any negative opinion like good pets why would they change?

I'm German and personally it really pissed me off back then when SE had the brilliant idea to remove all languages from FF11 except English when the game was 99% translated into German and the other languages they just don't care about us and they are right since we keep paying full price without saying anything

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Originally Posted by HanWenqing

Like every time with SE it's a question of saving money, since the fans don't say anything and even protect Yoshi and SE against any negative opinion like good pets why would they change?

I'm German and personally it really pissed me off back then when SE had the brilliant idea to remove all languages from FF11 except English when the game was 99% translated into German and the other languages they just don't care about us and they are right since we keep paying full price without saying anything

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Well, if they will treat this like what you are exposing, then better to keep using addons for this game...

This is just a shame. So few companies these days have such a small mentality like this...
If you want to spread and keep all parts of the world consuming your services the minimum to do is talking the same language as the people in each place.
Maybe, they think we aren't paying enough? '-'

Anyway. I'll keep dreaming about it, but I will keep rellying on things they do not want me to use instead of solving their end of the problem. Maybe, I'll decide to give my money to another company that respect South Americans more... it's a thing to consider :)

Thanks for the answer. It is very revealing.

They actually do a Korean translation and even modify the story content to suit their needs. It's gotta be worthwhile to invest in it.


There are plenty of Portuguese speakers out there. I've seen them on Primal. Just do a search on communities in FFXIV speaking whatever language and they'll surely help out and welcome more people.

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Originally Posted by Wanzzo

It's 2022 and this is an MMO. Many games since early 2010 are released in a myriad of languages. The first question is: why not FFXIV?

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I guess that these MMOs are mostly free to play? Maybe the players in that regions are more willing to pay for micro transactions than to pay a monthly subscription, even if they pay way more with micro transactions per month than in a subscription game. So to localize or just translate the game for that regions wouldn't pay out for SE. While I think doing just a simple translation wouldn't meet the quality standards of neither SE nor the developers. At the end it's all a matter of money.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

They actually do a Korean translation and even modify the story content to suit their needs. It's gotta be worthwhile to invest in it.


There are plenty of Portuguese speakers out there. I've seen them on Primal. Just do a search on communities in FFXIV speaking whatever language and they'll surely help out and welcome more people.

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I played on Behemoth, where the majority of brazilians are (it's our unnofficial brazilian server). But, since my ping is worse on NA worlds than EU after the change of cities for the NA Data Centers (from Montreal to somewhere close to the moon right now), so i decided to go for EU servers. But this is not the question.

Just find more like me inside the game isn't what we need. We need the game to be accessible to more people no matter the countries of actual players are, see?
More languages means more people willing to try the game, to create more communities inside game and to play this amazing FF enjoying it in it's entirety with or without more people from the same spot.

I don't understand.
I mean the only way to really play the game is by playing it in the developers native language.

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Originally Posted by Deveryn

They actually do a Korean translation and even modify the story content to suit their needs. It's gotta be worthwhile to invest in it.


There are plenty of Portuguese speakers out there. I've seen them on Primal. Just do a search on communities in FFXIV speaking whatever language and they'll surely help out and welcome more people.

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The Chinese & Korean versions & their localization are actually handled by companies located in said countries that are licensing FF14 from Square Enix; the FF14 dev team has little, if any interaction with them, so its easy to make language versions for them when you're not the one doing it.

As for the topic, its simply a matter of perceived demand vs costs incurred. FF14 has effectively 5 entire RPG's worth of text at the absolute minimum when you count up everything across every expansion. In order to translate it all, they'd need to hire entire teams of expert translators and have them working for months for each individual language they'd want it translated to. Coupled with the fact that even with everything translated, they'd then have to hire a team of translators for each and every subsequent content drop or line of dialogue added to the game, means they're incurring a large upfront cost and a continued maintenance cost afterward. For them to deem it an investment, the demand for that language would have to be immense.

Then there's also alternate language literacy in countries where the game is being sold - many EU countries already have one of the game's languages taught in schools, so why bother with a translation when one of the language options in-game covers a good demographic of people from a country they might want to target? Like, Spanish people in the USA would not even remotely factor into their equations and target demographics, since English is the expected standard language of the nation and is known by about 80% of residents. So if they'd look into translating to Spanish, they'd be looking into demographics like South America & Spain, and the Spanish speakers in the USA would effectively be an irrelevant statistic.

Then there's also points like ACE mentioned, where the culture of a country might be more desired towards free-to-play models and microtransactions rather than subscription service games, making FF14 a bad fit and nullifying that country from their equations of profits vs costs.

If Square hasn't bothered with a Portuguese or Spanish translation by now, then it's likely they don't view it as profitable. Whether they're correct or not, its the decision they arrived at likely through tons of analytics and statistics.

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Originally Posted by Daeriion_Aeradiir

-good and nice answer edited to fit my reply-.

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Thanks for this answer. I think it covers pretty much everything about my concerns (and inner desires) on this subject.
Now I understand better why there are so few threads about this kind of request lately.

So addon it is!

It's the only way to deal with the issue on our side, unfortunately. At least we have nice people within our community focusing on meeting our wants and needs in subjects that aren't profitable for the SE team to implement inside game and making these addons/mods. It's a shame to depend on them, but...

They should definitely consider easing punishments and violations for players who are just trying to cover up language difficulties and making the game more enjoyable without having any advantage in pvp or any other in-game mechanics. They should allow certain types of addons/mods like those related to unofficial translations.

But, I understand if they don't. Anyway, for people who don't speak English/French/German/Japanese, they leave no other choice. It's like living in a grey area without no sign of colors on the horizon...

I must admit that this is kind of weird for me that we have a localization for France and not for Spain since i would assume that there is a much larger part of the playerbase that would speak Spanish or a language close to it.

Is it? French is a bigger language in Europe than Spanish. Given that both French and German version are handled the European branch, and SE afair does not have offices in regions beyond Europe, Japan and North America. Spanish not being available is not that surprising. Even the Australian affairs are a long distance part of the European office.

Isn't there a french and german version already localized? It just no spanish, which I assume OP is asking for?
I'd imagine it comes down to resources and target audience, i.e there is probably not as many people playing this game that speaks only spanish that can't play an english version for it to be worth the time and money involved in localize it.

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Originally Posted by Rhea_

Isn't there a french and german version already localized? It just no spanish, which I assume OP is asking for?
I'd imagine it comes down to resources and target audience, i.e there is probably not as many people playing this game that speaks only spanish that can't play an english version for it to be worth the time and money involved in localize it.

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yes, I think it's like Daeriion_Aeradiir said.

I've asked for Spanish thinking on the number of people talking this language (pretty much all Central and South Americas, except for one of the Guiana - which talks French - and Brazil, that talks Portuguese).All the other countries around CA and SA talks Spanish.

I started by thinking that maybe the number of spanish talkers that play the game is lesser than french not because they don't want to play, but instead, because SE didn't make a spanish version on the first moment in order to attract them into it.

But, it's quite an incomplete premisse I took because SE have people there to make datas and do calculations to see gains and loses.
Also, the effort of resources, time and money to do more languages at this point of the game is trully unworthy for them. And I see this with a pain in the heart, but I understand.

Also, like I said, we have alternatives to deal with this issue nowadays, though I recognize that this solution is not ideal... :/

It's rather amazing how many people all over the world speak french.
I was told once, in the 80's that if you wanted to do international business you had to at least know some french, and if you sold anything internationally, at least one set of directions needs to be in it too.

The game is in Japan to start, so yes, that's why that one is in there.

English, yes, well, that's a major market opened up that speaks no other language as a rule, and a secondary language that's in the top 10.

Past that, I think the % of german is slowly going down, I could see an argument that the next game swap spanish in for german.

I don't see them ending suport in any given language in this game, and adding any more languages means increasing the translation team by 40%.... aint sure you can talk that much money out of them.

I could be wrong, but I believe in EU you need to have a german and french version. I could be wrong though but most if not all games sold in our region is multi-lang.

Just to add info from some other MMO's out there. SWTOR is available in English, French, and German. Guild Wars 2 is English, French, and German for both text and audio, and adds Spanish for text only. Just a couple other examples of MMO's that promote French and German specifically over Spanish.

ESO (Elder Scrolls Online) recently added Spanish localisation.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

ESO (Elder Scrolls Online) recently added Spanish localisation.

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if they do the "next step" and go for portuguese as well, then I'll know where to put my time, effort and money in future.

I love FFXIV, but I like to help companies that values my country.

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Originally Posted by Rhea_

I could be wrong, but I believe in EU you need to have a german and french version. I could be wrong though but most if not all games sold in our region is multi-lang.

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I confirm that you are wrong, there is a version for the French and for the Germans it is separate

Personally I wonder if they will do the same thing as with FF11 when the game is 'dead', i.e. remove all languages except English

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Originally Posted by HanWenqing

I confirm that you are wrong, there is a version for the French and for the Germans it is separate
Personally I wonder if they will do the same thing as with FF11 when the game is 'dead', i.e. remove all languages except English

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What do you mean seperate? You can select the language at any time. At least I can. Only differece is I still will have underline E, identifying I'm on the english client.

FF11 still is in JP and English. They removed German and French cause dev team is so smol so they can't keep it updated.

Honestly, do you really want to get localization?

Voice actors in German and French sound so freaking lifeless sometimes. Like the VAs for animes back in the day. Literal giving zero emotion into the character... so sad.

I wanted to replay the game on German cause I am learning the language and I thought it would be a good challange...but oh boi... I ain't doin dat shit.

I am Hungarian by birth and I know many games in my country had great VAs recently but I think they would just buthcer this so I would rather not.

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Originally Posted by Rhea_

What do you mean seperate? You can select the language at any time. At least I can. Only differece is I still will have underline E, identifying I'm on the english client.

FF11 still is in JP and English. They removed German and French cause dev team is so smol so they can't keep it updated.

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you can also change the client / game language at any time with the launcher too (you just have to be logged out). that changes the underline to whichever language you picked.

but on topic, i agree they should at least add limited translation. spanish has been requested since the launch of the game, so unfortunately i don't think they ever have plans to add it.

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Originally Posted by Rhea_

What do you mean seperate? You can select the language at any time. At least I can. Only differece is I still will have underline E, identifying I'm on the english client.

FF11 still is in JP and English. They removed German and French cause dev team is so smol so they can't keep it updated.

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I really wonder if you have a brain sometimes you dwarf...

You can change the language in almost every game I can play in English or Japanese but I'm talking about the product, my game is in German, the box, the instructions if you are American you can't understand since you always have everything on a silver platter the only reason why I understand a little English is because some games were only in American and Japanese version...

And you're completely wrong about FF11 they also removed Japanese as well as the other languages except English the reason is that they didn't want to make any more translations if the game had minor and insignificant updates
It's the fan community in Japan that put back the Japanese translation and not SE who only cares about the American fans who bring them the most money it's important to underline it

I know it well because at the time there were German and French fans who tried to do the same thing but we failed for the moment

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Originally Posted by Shuuli

Honestly, do you really want to get localization?

Voice actors in German and French sound so freaking lifeless sometimes. Like the VAs for animes back in the day. Literal giving zero emotion into the character... so sad.

I wanted to replay the game on German cause I am learning the language and I thought it would be a good challange...but oh boi... I ain't doin dat shit.

I am Hungarian by birth and I know many games in my country had great VAs recently but I think they would just buthcer this so I would rather not.

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I play with German voices and I like them a lot, I hate English voices especially for female characters, the Japanese version is ok and the French one is not so good

It's a matter of taste I think, anyway all my friends play with German voices and everybody likes it
And then I heard that the English version was badly translated

I wouldn't say the English version is badly translated. It takes a bit more freedom in it's translations. And I think there's a certain cultural difference at play which you also see with the voice acting. The German voice version is a lot more muted than the English version. Which I personally appreciate. The English version is overly flashy and bang bang to me. And that's also what you see in the text. It's flashy and hypey and raw raw and easily memeable. Versus the more down to Earth and in parts fairy tale like German version.

That isn't to say that there aren't clunkers in both or even all languages. Like the Japanese G'raha is top notch G'raha. The German voice fits the Exarch but not G'raha. In contrast the German Aymeric sounds like an emissary send by Halone herself and none of the other languages can hold even half a candle to his alluring charms. I originally thought he'd be the big bad because he just so perfect in German and the transition from his colder emissary from Ishgard who doesn't know you in post-ARR to your friend he becomes during Heavensward was very well done. I also think that the German Haurchefant is fitting the German version very well. Neither the over the top that the Japanese version, nor the kind of older cold fishy English version, the German version is an excited young man who looks forward to going on adventures with you.

It's a great thing that we have the different language options and get to see their takes. Like I'm not sure whether the English version finally switched to the WoL using the intimate Raha when in the other three languages we and Alisaie have been Raha'ing him for ages, which of course adds another dimension to our relationship with him. (A great thing if you like being his friend, and not great thing if you would prefer him to fuck off)

There are things that work in certain languages and not in others. For example during post-ShB when we meet Estinien in Ishgard (we'll leave side the fact that English completely omits how Estinien addresses the WoL and that Alisaie directly reacts to that in the other three languages), Alisaie's protest that she is not Alphinaud flows much better in English, French and German than Japanese, since she works up to it: I am not Alphinaud! with the outrage on Alphinaud versus Alphinaud I am not, as the Japanese grammar dictated that simply can't work up to that outrage.


Or take the infamous Froth and Foam scene. I think English and Japanese present two very very different takes but both are very great at presenting those. The German is another interesting take, although I'm not sure they quite nailed the point on that in the voice acting but I very much appreciated the alliterations they kept going for the spell. The whole format of that spell was very fun to read to read in German.

There are some off points here and there but overall the German version is very well done and in general shows a vast understanding of what the language has to offer, it's cultural history and what one can do to play with it. And if someone wants to push for an additional language one shouldn't ask for machine translations or minimal translations, those vastly do the game and the players a diservice. Even the parts you might consider basic and only parts of gameplay are often actually embedded into the whole presentation.

I was also very sad to see the German version of FFXI removed, as that was also very enjoyable and to me sounded a lot more fantasy and fairy tale like than the English version.

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Originally Posted by Ilisidi

...snoop...

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From 2013 til 2021 I only used english version for FFXIV. But, then I decided to venture using an addon for translations (a very famous one). First, I tried to go directly from japonese to portuguese and the result was awful xD

Then, I decided to go from french to portuguese and I'm having EXACTLY what you described here! In one of the new servers, I created a new alt just to play talking to every NPC to see the differences. And... OMG! So much better than the memeland they did with english version! Far more immersive like if all characters there are part of an atmosphere in each place you go.

It's like playing another version of the game without the easy phrases like "sloppey" and "such devastation" and all the other memes. Instead, we FEEL the characters in their shoes and this is AWESOME!

Raubahn sounds more like a strategist, but with a "fire in his heart" instead of a mad dude that yells wherever he goes like a Karen as we see in his english version. xD

I am really glad for the people that did this addon to let me enjoy the other versions of the game. It's like revisiting all places but with different ears.

I'm not encouraging people to use addons, but this is the only way for people that don't play the game because lack of language knowledge to make it more accessible.

I just created this thread moved by the desire to see the game more accessible in an official way. But all people here made good points and I understand why I must stick with a not desirable addon... =/

At least, Urianger is more understandable as well as Alphinaud is less annoying now u.u

Maybe I'll try it with the game in german. I just don't know if the direct translation for portuguese will be good... that's a thing to discover :)

The Romance languages are a lot closer to each other, so it makes sense that they would translate better. Glad you found something that works.

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Originally Posted by Ilisidi

I wouldn't say the English version is badly translated. It takes a bit more freedom in it's translations.

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Yeah, I wish they would stop doing that imo. :/