Brevity is the soul of wit: Request to fix the horrible writing on XIV's quests

[Denmo]

If you're going to make this game a Shakespeare style play, then at least give us some visual/audio cues or something so we can understand what the heck they're trying to convey.

But I completely understand that this is largely a translation problem. The english team can only work with what the Japanese devs have set in stone already. If I was an English major, hired by SE to write the best damn dialogue I could for the game, I would probably be taking the same route as our current Editor.

So what we need to do is complain to the Devs, not to the translators, to make our quest dialogues more fun/interactive, to give our translators something to work with.

[Celtodeno]

Some people like reading lore , some people don't. It's easy to skip if you don't wanna read it.

I like reading lore, that is exactly why I agree with the OP.

[AngryNixon]

When it comes to the quest dialogue in this game, one thought comes to my mind: "A policeman came by today. He was looking for you. He says your wanted in connection with the rape of a thesaurus." Yes, for the record, I do get that you aren't objecting to the particular words used but with the delivery of those words. I just thought that was funny (and maybe I'll be the only one).

Kudos to the OP. Brevity is indeed the soul of wit and kudos again for having started this thread. Were it not for that I would never have had the pleasure of reading all the off topic responses slandering you for perceived points never actually made.

[Alyssa]

I like the diction and style of FFXIV's dialogue. I like how some NPCs have accents. I love it when FFXIV's lore is worked into quests' descriptions or dialogues. I could go on, but what FFXIV does right with its dialogue has already been said above. ^

Anyway, yes OP - I agree that NPC's have no idea how to cut to the chase. Their wordiness tends to be very dry and pointless (a large amount of the time).

Also, I am eagerly looking forward to voice-acting in version 2.0!

[Anonymoose]

I don't really think the writing is the issue, here. FFXI was just as wordy, but while those words were going by there was other stuff going on. The NPCs had a wider variety of movements and the cutscenes weren't so few and far between. Even in most of the cutscenes I've been through, either it's just different camera angles of NPCs doing the same old thing, or it's a gorgeous, elaborate, full-on + audio cutscene independent of the usual engine mechanics.

There's a balance of necessity that SE has failed to implement, but to say that the reason it's a bad thing is because it's wordy is displaced frustration. Wordiness has always been there - hell, in FFXI, most people just tabbed through the wordiness and watched all the other shit that was going on - the very same other shit that's missing in XIV entirely.

[Seif]

Even if they added XI-amount of cutscenes I think the plot still seems shallow and badly told. The ministries of Windy all had their own plot series' and fleshed out characters that were memorable even though they mostly look the same. XI quests didn't have only simple animations and camera pans during the cutscenes it also had a lot of mood specific music that was a big part of creating the mood. That's something that makes the XIV quests seem so cheap and emotionless.

Quest cutscenes were always the biggest motivator to do quest in XIV they're just walls of text that don't have anything to do with the gameplay and almost never create any emotional connection to the world nor to the characters living there.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

I like the title, and what OP says, +like

[Zenaku]

I have to agree that ffxiv have such a long storyline with just one NPC -.- i love reading lore but that way to much and sometime the thing skip 1 line of storyline and you have to skip it all just to reread everything -.-

[Gramul]

Majidah, you do realize that your monologue is from an Elezen, Louisoix, Head of the Circle of Knowing, a group from Sharlayan.

It's to be expected his wording would be exaggerated, self referencing, and overtly intertwined in his own knowledge.

[Wolfie]

Majidah, you do realize that your monologue is from an Elezen, Louisoix, Head of the Circle of Knowing, a group from Sharlayan.

It's to be expected his wording would be exaggerated, self referencing, and overtly intertwined in his own knowledge.

How about when it comes from every NPC? Including commoners?