Earth cultures in Eorzea. What next?

[Mjollnir]

The EN VA Ala-Mhigan accent is Yorkshire, not Scottish/Gaelic (and done badly in most instances).

Comparison of Boromir to Gimli in the Lord of the Rings movies, if you will.

[Mahri]

Don't they usually go for native speakers?

I can't claim expertise, but there were complaints about Fang and Vanille's accents in FFXIII, where both their actresses were Australian.

[alimdia]

The choice to use gaelic accents for Highlanders wouldn't have been a decision solely by the English voice directors, as the localization is conducted by members of the main writing team, and all decisions like that appear to be shared across the board. So, the accents you hear are fully "canon" and thus fair game for real-world parallels.

We have no reason to believe the Japanese writing team was involved in this, and again this accent is not present in the other languages, how can it be canon for English but not canon for the other 3? I think it's better to stick to cultural representation that remains the same regardless of language.

Don't they usually go for native speakers?

I can't claim expertise, but there were complaints about Fang and Vanille's accents in FFXIII, where both their actresses were Australian.

No idea about FFXIII, but single player games have more freedom here, it's one work and done, much easier to have a diverse set of voice actors. For MMOs the contracts are longer and continued, which I imagine is why they couldn't keep the American voice actors when they switched to UK ones in Heavensward.

[Mahri]

The writing team includes the localization teams. Koji Fox, among others, is on board from the word go. It isn't a Japanese work being translated into English well after it's a finished product. The creative end of development involves people from all over the world.

While it's neat to compare differences in scripts (like how our English version of Midgardsormr is notably more taciturn), none of the voice acting should be considered precedent over that of other languages.

As such, really, they're all fair game for this thread. It would be really interesting to know if any of the in-game cultures are given a specific spin for the other languages this game comes in.

[alimdia]

I'm aware that the writing teams work together for the script, but this subtopic has nothing to do with the script, we're talking about voice acting in one of the four languages of the game, English voice actors and their accents are not canon, again we went from American accents to UK accents and this had nothing to do with lore, just like people from Ishgard not having French accents doesn't mean there's no French influence in character and map design.

[Kazrah]

It would be really interesting to know if any of the in-game cultures are given a specific spin for the other languages this game comes in.

They likely wouldn't unless it was for some sort of censorship reasons or if there's some sort of application of code (i.e. anagrams) that could only be applied in specific languages. Otherwise, it's possible, but not without getting offensive.

I'm aware that the writing teams work together for the script, but this subtopic has nothing to do with the script, we're talking about voice acting in one of the four languages of the game, English voice actors and their accents are not canon, again we went from American accents to UK accents and this had nothing to do with lore, just like people from Ishgard not having French accents doesn't mean there's no French influence in character and map design.

Pretty much this. There might be particular behaviors exhibited in the voice acting intended to mimic behaviors of the characters, but when it comes to cultural inspiration sources, there's barely any information to be acquired from character voice acting compared to what can be gained by looking at the environments established in the world of the game. In short, voice acting represents the character rather than the culture, accents and all.

[Mjollnir]

Don't they usually go for native speakers?

In this case, native to the UK, but not native to Yorkshire, sadly. I'm sure it's absolutely fine for everyone not from this country lol

[duvvvv]

it seems SE is working on adopting the Southeast Asian culture, as previously mentioned with the current zones, and also because of a tidbit about the monster Aswang: "Forced to accept the truth of its existence, we call it by the word the merchant taught us in his native tongue: Aswang." which is most likely Filipino. it'll be fun to see more Asian-themed zones, but I hope they don't do it just to compete in the Asian-Wuxia-themed MMO market (if you've played one you've played them all xP). I'm so down for more Ancient Egypt influence if possible.

[Kazrah]

it seems SE is working on adopting the Southeast Asian culture, as previously mentioned with the current zones, and also because of a tidbit about the monster Aswang: "Forced to accept the truth of its existence, we call it by the word the merchant taught us in his native tongue: Aswang." which is most likely Filipino. it'll be fun to see more Asian-themed zones, but I hope they don't do it just to compete in the Asian-Wuxia-themed MMO market (if you've played one you've played them all xP).

We might see the scenery, but I think we're more likely to see an impression of the Wuxia storytelling style rather than the full-blown stuff. As for that B rank mob, I'm not too sure it's related to Nagxia, but more likely running out of lore-inspired names to work with.

I do agree with the ancient Egypt stuff, and hopefully we can get more fun stuff with ancient places like Qarn.