future Main Scenario Questline development - More like Hildebrand

[Ophie-Mio]

When Minfilia and Urianger speak, I cringe. I cringe when it's just text and when it's voiced lines as well. The English VA's in general are quite bad and whenever Urianger speaks, I lose whatever interest I had in the cutscene. I have a love of the "classic way" of speaking but I remember one time during the main quest I was super into the cutscene and then he spoke...and I just lost interest. I couldn't understand him and everyone else in the scene wasn't speaking anything like him.

It made me wonder if someone should take Urianger off to the side and ask when he's going to get over his old timey English.

[kyuven]

And lastly, at least for the English version, I would also strongly encourage you to reevaluate Eorzean english grammar.

SO MUCH THIS
It's not even exclusive to FFXIV. The rerelease of FFT had it, all the DQ games in English have had it too and it bugs the crap out of me. Reviews for this game even cite the "squeenixisms" as a reason not to play.
As someone who is learning how to teach ESL and thus being forced to look at the language I see every day from the perspective of someone who barely speaks English or at least doesn't have a firm grasp on the grammar and vocabulary, FFXIV is atrocious.
I can understand and actually like some of the colloquialisms like "anyroad" or the like. That's fine. It gives the game a unique feel and can be contextually understood due to its similarity to "anyway."
However, the overuse of antiquated linguistics that may or may not even be USED correctly drives me insane. I, a college educated student of linguistics actually had to look up what words such as "mummery" meant, which apparently my character knows given one of the answers for the ninja unlock quest.
Moreover, as a consequence of everyone sounding like they're trying badly to mimic shakespeare (whose linguistics were antiquated even in his day), those characters who DO have odd speech patterns in the original Japanese (which, as someone who has just as much Japanese training as linguistics training, is mostly normal for a video game aside from these characters) such as Urianger and Yugiri have to be cranked up to 11 to sound nigh incomprehensible.

As one reviewer pointed out: "maybe" and "perhaps" are perfectly serviceable words. You don't need "mayhaps!"

The English VA's in general are quite bad and whenever Urianger speaks, I lose whatever interest I had in the cutscene

Here's a fun thing: Much of the cast in both English and Japanese actually have a decent pedigree of voice roles. But the English ones sound terrible because their lines are so unnatural. It's almost like trying to speak another language. It's impossible to sound natural with this dialogue.

[Teryaani]

Here's a fun thing: Much of the cast in both English and Japanese actually have a decent pedigree of voice roles. But the English ones sound terrible because their lines are so unnatural. It's almost like trying to speak another language. It's impossible to sound natural with this dialogue.

I compare it to what Carrie Fisher said about reading the script for Star Wars. How you could read it on paper, but it never worked when read aloud.

[Ophie-Mio]

Here's a fun thing: Much of the cast in both English and Japanese actually have a decent pedigree of voice roles. But the English ones sound terrible because their lines are so unnatural. It's almost like trying to speak another language. It's impossible to sound natural with this dialogue.

Yeah, this is a frequent thing with SE. The voice actress for Sarah from the XIII series was...alright...in those games. Take her out though to Nier and other titles and she was awesome. I wish the writers/translators/director too would allow a bit more freedom in terms of dialogue. Let the VA's work!

[Anapingofness]

I don't mind the current use of language in Eorzea. I daresay I quite like it. It gives each region its own personality.

I think our VA's could be better but in my opinion, some of it is out of their hands. Most VA's record separately so the lines sound quite stiff when put together. It's very rare to have the VA's in a room recording/talking more organically. I wish that this would change in the future. ^^

That being said, English is my second language and I have no problem understanding the way Eorzean's speak, yes, even the pirates. About the only time I feel SE went a bit overboard with the language is when Urianger speaks with his thees, thous, and -eth endings.
It is my opinion that if you don't like reading the quest text you will not like reading it even if the language was "modernized". Likewise, if you're the type that isn't invested much in the storyline or lore, you're more than likely to skip over that stuff. ^^;

[TouchandFeel]

I agree that some of the voice acting could be better. its not bad, but it is not all that great either. I feel this comes from the monotonous delivery by many of the characters, but this may be due to the expositional nature of what is being said, very much here's the facts not the emotion of the state of things.

However, I don't really have an issue with the styles of English used in the game and I don't find it difficult to understand and have yet to come across a word I did not know and had to look up. I like the weird little slang words that are peppered throughout the speech and the different groups of people have different ways of speaking. The overly flowery form of speech is mainly done by the scions and the twins, which come from one culture, and I pretty much just take it as that is how that one culture speaks. It does come off a bit silly though when they are trying to press a sense of urgency.

Just a side-note, Elizabethan English (I.e. what Shakespeare wrote in; thees,thous, thine's, etc.) is not Old English and is just an earlier form of Modern English. Old English is more akin to Nordic languages and is what Beowulf was written in. It goes Old English (ex: Beowulf), Middle English (ex: The Canterbury Tales), Modern English.

You want difficult, go and read the unabridged version of Paradise Lost. That will make your eyes bleed.

[Ninster]

"selfsame" is the word that makes my head hit the wall. I don't care if it fits the context or not; I'm just about tired of seeing that word.

[WellFooled]

I'm afraid I have to disagree. The writing and localization is excellent in this game and the attention to detail with accents is a great example of the developer's work. I would be upset if they did anything different.

[Roris]

The difference in cutscene quality is pretty noticeable and really uneven especially in the 2.0 cutscenes at launch, but it's still there to this day with only a couple of story scenes being better staged and animated than others. They really should get the team that does the Hildibrand and the latest Beastmen tribe quests to do the main story or at least have them put as much care and attention. Their cutscenes are on par with most of 1.0's cutscenes which were great and had the same amount of cinematography work put into them.

Instead in ARR most story cutscenes have NPCs suddenly popping out of nowhere for a split second or awkwardly jiggling every time they move in front of the camera while climbing steps, and then just repeat the same stock animations while the camera stays static and there's no good lighting or DOF to at least complement the scene. I get that not all quests require dramatic camera angles and custom animations, but they really need to even out their cutscene quality to be on par with their best work, they are SE after all and they are still well known for their CG work.

I don't really mind the writing or the voice acting, it has its charm.

[Mishini_Dracoto]

I'm afraid I have to disagree. The writing and localization is excellent in this game and the attention to detail with accents is a great example of the developer's work. I would be upset if they did anything different.

So, my point is emphasized on terms that are largely inapropriate to be used. Somebody referenced selfsame, and I actually know people who say that frequently in modern english.

regarding localization, depending on whether or no you mean IRL or Eorzean, I agree/disagree.

People in here mention the pirates. To a certain degree, I also support the argument. I support the text being writting with the pirate accent. but why are there scenes where the pirate then completely loses his accent? and why doesn't he always pronounce the same words the same? and more to my point, Pirates aren't associated with old english. In Shakespearian, they would have still been written in prose since they are poor folk. This is what needs to be maintained.

A couple of posters in here are 100% on the same page as I am with their examples, and I made a point of liking their posts. Terms such as "anyroad" belong in the game as much as imls and yalms and chocobos. it's really the grammar that plunges needles into my eyes.