Translation Team: Please stop doing this...

[KayoZ]

Agree with OP, its annoying. A few characters here and there like the primals or even some of the beast races? The Slyphs are great, for example.

... but there is no reason why every single character needs to speak like some overzealous renfest nerd. Furthermore, can we give them more character? Elezen, French? La Noscea>English/Scottish with a lite pirate-ish twist? I dont think an Arabic accent would work with Uldans, at least not a heavy one, but anything would be better.

They must needs change it! <== see? Annoying. Bad VO is pretty common in games and can be remedied here with the different languages but that just makes the text that much more aggravating. This isnt a Shakespeare novel! There is a reason why middle-age themed, high fantasy books and movies/shows like LotR and Game of Thrones avoid or minimize it as much as possible. Its distracting to the audience, taking away from the experience. Can you imagine a Game of Thrones where Tyrion keeps putting in a "must needs" (yes its that annoying) every time he suggest someone "must" or "needs" to do something? No amount of blood or boobies would save it from being canceled.

[Niwashi]

If I hear "must needs" in 3.0, I swear I am going to burn down Coerthas.

That seems a strange one to be bothered by. I can understand people who learned English as a foreign language being annoyed by uncommon words they wouldn't have learned in a typical ESL course, but "must needs" are two words that are both very common in modern English and are both used with their standard modern meaning. I can't see how that could create any difficulty in understanding. The redundancy of the phrase has fallen out of common usage, but that just helps to give it a little flavor.

[Conradus]

WTF did I just read?!

The opening of the Canterbury Tales, to be exact.

[Aeyis]

I get that they're attempting to add "color" to the dialogue, but wordy dialogue that reads like bad Game of Thrones fanfic interspersed with memes obfuscates the original meaning more than it enhances it.

Adding color to the dialogue changes much of the original meaning. Regardless of actual translation skill it makes for a terrible translation.
But that is unfortunately often what localization is about.

If I'm honest a fair few of the complaints here simply amount to people with a lacking vocabulary being upset at having to learn a new word...

I feel that the issue is not the words used. It is that the dialogue is greatly altered from the original (japanese) dialogue. For what purpose the localization team feels that every other character needs to speak in archaic or olden tongue, I have no idea.

I'm pretty sure the head of translating team is Japanese, so it's not like the original intent is getting greatly lost or anything... Get mad at the Japanese writers, not the translators. That's likely how the lore team WANTS those characters to sound.

Speaking from someone that has Japanese voice enabled with English text:
It is not a case of translation skill. A lot of the dialogue is altered (localized). Because of that, a good portion of the original intent actually is lost.
Many characters sound very different between japanese and english dialogue. (I cannot speak for french or german, as ive not read/heard those)

[Naria]

Er, because it is localization and not translation?

Forgive me if I'm not sorry that the OP actually had to expand his vocabulary.

Edit: reply to below, since the localization is one of the things I enjoy most in this game (and I downloaded a dictionary specifically for the rogue's cant) it is definitely not keeping me from enjoying the game's dialogue and plot. Right now, the game's plot is doing a better job at keeping me from enjoying the plot.

[Aeyis]

Er, because it is localization and not translation?

Forgive me if I'm not sorry that the OP actually had to expand his vocabulary.

At the cost of enjoying the games dialogue and plot?

[Viridiana]

Speaking from someone that has Japanese voice enabled with English text:
It is not a case of translation skill. A lot of the dialogue is altered (localized). Because of that, a good portion of the original intent actually is lost.
Many characters sound very different between japanese and english dialogue. (I cannot speak for french or german, as ive not read/heard those)

Except that, as we keep having to point out to people, there is no true "original" in FFXIV, because each team has input that then gets worked into the other languages.

[Canadane]

Exactly! This isn't a Japanese script that's translated and localized into other languages. It's a cumulative effort of all the languages' teams.

[Aeyis]

Except that, as we keep having to point out to people, there is no true "original" in FFXIV, because each team has input that then gets worked into the other languages.

The only team to develope content is the japanese team. This would be the first time that I hear of a localization team having input in the development of the story or plot.
Correct me if I'm wrong.


Especially considering the rather large differences in the dialogue of different languages, you seem to be mistaken with your assumption.
If the teams worked together, should they not have similar dialogue?

Done and done.

I appreciate the link, and how it quotes or specifies the relevant part of the interview. I will go through that later.

[Xenosan]

Speaking from someone that has Japanese voice enabled with English text:

How do we do this? I found the option back in 1.0 but since I can't find it

edit: found System Configuration > Other Settings. Language Settings