Final Fantasy XIV Interview — Stormblood’s Success, Romance, Graphics Upgrades and Mo

[Snow_Princess]

Indeed, this is one of my problems with the response to Yoshida that acts like the examples he gave deliberately slighted LGBT individuals by omission. It was just an illustrative example to show that the motivations of the NPCs are open to interpretation, by design, allowing players of all types to view the motive and intent as they wish. Acting as if there was an intended slight creates harm by complaining about something that is not there.

This should never have been an issue, it's sad that it's become one.

I find it sad that people do not take the time to understand what people are saying.

My post was literally just me saying it felt really weird (I even used that exact word) that Yoshi would take pains to specify non-gay/lesbian relationships in his response when the game has made it clear that they're okay with presenting them (at least as minor bit characters). Everyone is twisting my words and trying to make me out into some raging crazy person just looking for a fight when all I said was that I found his reponse odd (and implied some disappointment).

Same=/

well I used awkward but ya get the idea. It really leaves an awkward feeling when he says females and males playing female chrs feel xxx and says males playing males feel xxx while leaving out females playing males. Why do that? Even if we leave out the same sex relationships, why say it in this manner? leaving out females playing male chrs? You can't claim it is neutral completely when someone says it like this.

[Kosmos992k]

My post was literally just me saying it felt really weird (I even used that exact word) that Yoshi would take pains to specify non-gay/lesbian relationships in his response when the game has made it clear that they're okay with presenting them (at least as minor bit characters). Everyone is twisting my words and trying to make me out into some raging crazy person just looking for a fight when all I said was that I found his reponse odd (and implied some disappointment).

Yoshida gave examples of gender, he actually made no mention of orientation at all. You appear to me to be reading all sorts of additional, and skewed intent on the basis of an omission that you suppose to be deliberate, where no deliberate omission occurred - IMHO.

[SecretCrowds]

With that said I still find it VERY AWKWARD he left out females playing males while commenting Males that play female. It was a long winded explanation where the "short interview excuse" is not valid in a situation where he was going into extra unneeded details. How can you excuse making a comment like "males that play female chrs" and leave out saying females that play male chrs? Take a step back and try to understand what people are saying and comment on that vs why you feel the need to push your opinion as fact.

Oh my god. When someone is giving an example, they don't have to list all the possible variations. What kind of mental gymnastics did you have to do to conclude that ommiting something out of a brief list of examples is slighting a specific group of people? It is unlikely he even realised what he said, given the nature of a verbal interview. Not only are the points being translated over and over, he is also giving responses on the spot. Why do you have to nitpick what he said and blow it up as an issue?

[Snow_Princess]

Yoshida gave examples of gender, he actually made no mention of orientation at all. You appear to me to be reading all sorts of additional, and skewed intent on the basis of an omission that you suppose to be deliberate, where no deliberate omission occurred - IMHO.

It is not skewed when someone says males and females playing female and males playing males, WHY leave out saying females playing males when you are going that far to detail that? Why are you ignoring what people are saying? You can't claim " to be reading all sorts of additional, and skewed intent on the basis of an omission that you suppose to be deliberate, where no deliberate omission occurred" when you are not even commenting to what people are saying.

Oh my god. When someone is giving an example, they don't have to list all the possible variations. What kind of mental gymnastics did you have to do to conclude that ommiting something out of a brief list of examples is slighting a specific group of people? It is unlikely he even realised what he said, given the nature of a verbal interview. Not only are the points being translated over and over, he is also giving responses on the spot. Why do you have to nitpick what he said and blow it up as an issue?

It isn't though, what is the reason to say "female and male that play female chrs" and male that play male chrs??? Why have it in one instance and not the other? you did not address that. Just examples is not an excuse. Based what you tell me, it shows there is a subconscious to not remember full enough female play male chrs to remark on it.

[Naunet]

Yoshida gave examples of gender, he actually made no mention of orientation at all. You appear to me to be reading all sorts of additional, and skewed intent on the basis of an omission that you suppose to be deliberate, where no deliberate omission occurred - IMHO.

Saying that male players with male characters might interpret interactions as romantic with a female NPC, but that female players and males with female characters would only have friendly admiration is definitely referring to orientation. There's no other way to interpret that.

Oh my god. When someone is giving an example, they don't have to list all the possible variations. What kind of mental gymnastics did you have to do to conclude that ommiting something out of a brief list of examples is slighting a specific group of people? It is unlikely he even realised what he said, given the nature of a verbal interview. Not only are the points being translated over and over, he is also giving responses on the spot. Why do you have to nitpick what he said and blow it up as an issue?

He felt the need to present a dichotomy of male players with male characters vs female players/male players with female characters. It's not mental gymnastics, and it's not blowing anything up. It's just noticing the choice to point those specific ones out was weird. Heck, my posts were pretty non-emotional, but then folk came in ranting at me like I'd somehow said something evil.

[Dark-Saviour]

On the subject of an updated texture pack, we need it, or at least an enhancement for a handful of textures. Hien's armour was literally so bad that I assumed I must have had a graphics option set incorrectly that was forcing low-res textures to be used. That should have never made it past QA, honestly. There are other examples (typically more armour), but that was the one that was front and center for the expansion.

He felt the need to present a dichotomy of male players with male characters vs female players/male players with female characters. It's not mental gymnastics, and it's not blowing anything up. It's just noticing the choice to point those specific ones out was weird.

Well, that plus throwing in the 'We can't know the gender or age of the player' bit as though it were relevant to the question kind of made the response read a certain way. I usually tend to be on the "Stop looking for things to be offended over" side of things with respect to this type of discussion (since people do have a tendency to jump onto things that are innocent or trivial) but even with that in mind, the way that was worded made me raise an eyebrow. Nothing major, granted, but I knew where that response was going to lead.

[Hunky]

My post was literally just me saying it felt really weird (I even used that exact word) that Yoshi would take pains to specify non-gay/lesbian relationships in his response when the game has made it clear that they're okay with presenting them (at least as minor bit characters). Everyone is twisting my words and trying to make me out into some raging crazy person just looking for a fight when all I said was that I found his reponse odd (and implied some disappointment).

But the thing is you didn't just call it weird. You also questioned his motive for forming his response the way he did.

So, uh, Yoshi - you know that gay and lesbian people exist, right? I'm pretty sure you should, unless the gay and lesbian characters scattered occasionally in little corners of Eorzea were added in as jokes or not to your knowledge. So... why dancing around words here? Why feel the need to specify "if male, then ___" and vice versa?

This answer felt so weird to me.

When we question people's motives, it's usually because they have something to hide.

You questioning Yoshi implies that there was something wrong with his response, which there wasn't.

This is how your post comes across:

"Hm, Yoshi, why didn't you mention LGBT people? The game has LGBT npcs, so why didn't you mention them? Why did you go out of your way to not mention them? That's weird. Got something against them huh?"

It came across as a defensive reaction to Yoshi's response, as if Yoshi's response was somehow offensive (and it really wasn't).

Like how Kosmos992k said to Snow_Princess, you're trying to deconstruct Yoshi's remarks to find something at fault.

[MeoTwister5]

Mountains out of molehills, people, mountains out of molehills.

[BunnyChain]

His wording does seem to be awkward and weird but that is because Japan is awkward and weird about anything that isn't heterosexual, iirc(?).

Mountains out of molehills, people, mountains out of molehills.

Also this.

Yoshida, HD texturepack please!

[Vahlnir]

I haven't posted on this forum for a very long time (literally years) though I lurk on it quite often, but I felt compelled to log in to say...we get this small interview summary talking casually about a few subjects, and somehow this thread turns into gender this and gender that. Crying over spilled milk, not much to spill and it wasn't even spilled to start. His comments on "romance" are being way too overanalyzed. He basically said "it's whatever you guys/gals wanna think, have fun." That's it. Period....but all of that said I'll go back on topic. I hope that he'll reconsider his stance on updating the engine eventually. I know it'll be time consuming and expensive but it would be worth it to a lot of people. I'm glad Stormblood was a success though, everyone wins when the game succeeds.