Lets talk about South East Asia, SE

[Kaethra]

Maybe it's just like their internal localisation teams don't do those languages and markets, and they don't think it's viable to promote it there without a proper localised version, and they don't have a 3rd party partner to oversee the region like they have in Korea and China. Most 'global' game companies only do JP, NA, EU/AUS.

Nope.. as you can see, the OP is writing in pretty good English. As does most of that region. So the localization needed has already been done.

As I said, Blizzard and Daybreak have no issues in those areas. SquareEnix shouldn't either, especially since they are geographically closer. But they've decided not to.

[Iscah]

I feel like language is the biggest issue. I don't know how it would work for spreading players around, but it would be great if there were "English" and "Japanese" recommended data centres within the Japanese servers. Tonberry has the unofficial reputation, and I'm in that data centre at least - but I still end up paired with Japanese players in the duty finder more often than not, and it makes communication difficult.

[Kaethra]

I feel like language is the biggest issue. I don't know how it would work for spreading players around, but it would be great if there were "English" and "Japanese" recommended data centres within the Japanese servers. Tonberry has the unofficial reputation, and I'm in that data centre at least - but I still end up paired with Japanese players in the duty finder more often than not, and it makes communication difficult.

The official language for Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore is English. Translation's been done to say the least. Most gamers from the other countries speak pretty decent English as well.

[Iscah]

The official language for Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore is English. Translation's been done to say the least. Most gamers from the other countries speak pretty decent English as well.

I'm Australian. I'm aware that the people on the Japanese servers who do speak English speak it well BUT there are also many people who do not speak it. I am often in a duty with three people all writing in hiragana and I cannot read any of it. (I have set my own party finder language preferences to English only, but apparently a lot of people just tick all the boxes regardless.)

There are, if I remember correctly, two data centre groups on the Japanese servers. If there could somehow be an official suggestion (or have been a suggestion much earlier in the life of the game) when you're creating your account that English speakers pick a world from Group A and Japanese speakers pick a world from Group B, we would all be less likely to end up grouped with a party member we can't communicate with.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Translation's been done to say the least" - of course the game's been translated? But the language I'm playing the game in doesn't have any bearing on what people I am grouped with in duties. Or if you mean the auto-translate function, that's very limited beyond simple game terms and phrases.

[Dalmacus]

There are, if I remember correctly, two data centre groups on the Japanese servers. If there could somehow be an official suggestion (or have been a suggestion much earlier in the life of the game) when you're creating your account that English speakers pick a world from Group A and Japanese speakers pick a world from Group B, we would all be less likely to end up grouped with a party member we can't communicate with.

Except that the JP datacentre are catered to JAPANESE and not oceanic or SEA players. So technically you have no say when playing in a JP datacentre. It's either you learn Japanese or you live with what you have.

[Ash_]

Except that the JP datacentre are catered to JAPANESE and not oceanic or SEA players. So technically you have no say when playing in a JP datacentre. It's either you learn Japanese or you live with what you have.

Not entirely correct. Every new player is told at the beginning to pick a data centre close to their region. The Japan data centres are only labelled Japan because surprise; they're located in Japan. Not because they're targeted exclusively to Japanese people.

The simplest solution has always been to split a data centre into multiple languages like EU, but in this case ENG/JP. There's no cost to doing that; pick one server, change the affix to ENG. Done.

[Kurando]

snip

Well that's not entirely true. If you only count the JP players, then it doesn't justify having 3 data centre for them exclusively. For SE it's easier to set these up in they home country to serve other parts of Asia, so they did expect SEA/Oceanic players to have a factor in how many worlds/servers they would have.

Should players on the JP server expect to know Japanese? No but they should always consider it may well be the most popular language there. It's like smaller EU countries playing on the EU server, I'm sure they would like a world where they meet people who use their language (Polish, Nordic, Dutch etc) but English would be more common. There are however EU worlds more popular with French or German users, so it's not impossible to have a JP world or two dedicated to Oceanics.

[Kaethra]

-snip

You need to follow the whole discussion. This was in response to someone saying that they 'can't' open new servers because of a langauge barrier that would require new translations. Obviously this is false and I was pointing that out.

[Iscah]

I did follow the whole discussion. But you seemed to be replying directly to my post, and I was not talking about needing the game translated, which is why I was confused.

[Rufalus]

Nope.. as you can see, the OP is writing in pretty good English. As does most of that region. So the localization needed has already been done.

As I said, Blizzard and Daybreak have no issues in those areas. SquareEnix shouldn't either, especially since they are geographically closer. But they've decided not to.

Well I checked Singapore census and it's less than 5% as much as the population of Japan, and localisation is more than just language as they have to respect culturally sensitive things and conform to different software ratings boards in different countries, and set up support centers to assist those users, etc. I think it's not just racism/xenophobia but rather not seeing the potential return on investment being significant enough for the scale and complication of rollout and providing ongoing service.