The Voice Acting. . .

[Razard]

You clearly haven’t gotten very far in FFXII. So you’re really saying that Vaan, Ondore, Al-Cid, and Larsa all had the same accent?

I notice you don't address the part where I have said the Domans in FFXIV have accents.

I still don't know why you are so hung up on FFXII. But, for the benefit of putting it to bed, a bunch of fake, vaguely european, British and American accents =/= an actual Japanese accent that you apparently want. Which, because you didn't address it, I'm still assuming to be a 1960's stereotype.

[Nandina]

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Lmao! I already told you what I was expecting in a response before that, you chose not to respond to it. I gave you a modern day japanese youtuber as an example. Read. Read. Ironic considering you quoted me. If you don’t have the common sense to realize I’m using FFXII as an example, because the English localization team diversified the accents which proves it can be done, then you should bow out of the conversation. And we already addressed that the Domans only really have a slight accent when saying each other’s names, so why must the point be repeated because you evidently can’t be bothered to read?

[Nestama]

The issue is, for the sake of immersion, SE would need to find multiple Japanese voice actors who can actually voice act fluently in English.

[Kurando]

Stormblood may have taken us to the Far East, but that is more than just any similarities to Japan. Remember that really only Hingashi gives us that Japan feel, the other areas like Yanxia (Doma) and the Azim Steppe actually are more roughly based on China and Mongolia (or other Asian countries), so technically there should be just as many NPCs for example with Chinese accents. Do we really need several dozen voice actors from a multitude of Asian countries with accents just to make it more immersive, not really. Play the game in French, German or Japanese and like some have said, they do not have or need such accents.

[Nestama]

Which means they'd have to look for many voice actors of different cultures who can act fluently in English. I think this is just something you'll have to learn to 'deal with,' OP. Immersion can only go so far.

[Mihana]

If you want to sum it up to anything, blame it on the Echo. It's been awhile but unless they totally rectonned it out of existence with the end of 1.0 the Echo is supposed to allow the Warrior of Light not only the ability to see into somebody's past, but also hear and speak their tongue. So just attribute the lack of unique accents to probably being the Echo's translation into a tongue the Warrior of Light can understand. It's a long shot but there you go.

[Nandina]

Source 1
Source 2

Okay, so we have evidence that in a past game SE has used British accents (Larsa and Balthier), a Sri Lankan accent (Ondore), an Icelandic accent (Fran), a modern American accent (Vaan), and a 1930s American Acccent (Ashe and Basch [or basically a midatlantic accent]).

Source 3

According to the wiki here, it also confirms the Spanish accent of Al-Cid.

For the record, I'm using FFXII as an example simply because as far as I'm concerned, it is the best English localization of a Final Fantasy game. The voice acting was superb. It proves that something as small as regional dialects can do a lot for a game in terms of immersion.

It's fair to say that beginning with FFXIII, the Final Fantasy brand has been cheapened to a degree, and I honestly feel that in terms of budget, they're doing the bare minimum with FFXIV. Some can make the argument that they prefer their subscription fee go into gameplay, but let's not act as if the gameplay isn't just a rehash of dodging an AOE, or recycling of the same mechanics. If you're fine with the voice acting, that's fine, you're entitled to that; you've paid your subscription fee, but so have I. I honestly just feel that the quality of the game can be stepped up, and there's no valid excuse in 2018, why a company like SE can't put the same level of polish into English localization like they had with a game that released in 2006. But reading many of the different threads here, including the responses on this one, clearly the capes start flying whenever SE is criticized.

[Nestama]

With the exception of some (as I believe they are British), some of those accents (like Ondores' for example) are being done by American voice actors. So you're kinda suggesting that SE should have English people do Japanese, Chinese, Mongol (etc) accents.

[polyphonica]

For the record, I'm using FFXII as an example simply because as far as I'm concerned, it is the best English localization of a Final Fantasy game. The voice acting was superb. It proves that something as small as regional dialects can do a lot for a game in terms of immersion.

It's really different to dub a single-player game, particularly one where the scope is defined fully in advance and the release is many months after the Japanese game is already out. For an MMO with simultaneous global launch like this, you need to be able to secure access to a recurring cast for a long period of time, and your recording window for each patch is very small (you can't hold up the global release), so your actor pool is going to be more limited to a cast easily accessible to the recording studio. Doing a giant international casting call won't be possible. Plus, maintaining really subtle regional dialects will be complex to maintain when you're recording in little spurts from time-to-time.

The other thing, since you also mentioned the single-player games, is that Square-Enix has been reducing the lag time between the Japanese and English release. By FFXIII it was down to three months, and with FFV it was released simultaneously worldwide. So the localization team likely won't have as much time to do complex casting calls in those cases either.

The issue really isn't money; keeping everything in sync to do a global simultaneous release is much more complex and requires a lot more manpower and coordination to pull off. But it means you'll be doing a lot more "just-in-time work" as things are fresh off the presses, and so won't have the time to really do tons of really complex casts with careful regional dialects. They've already done a fair bit in this game, including formulating a dragon language for Heavensward, elaborate race naming conventions, and all sorts of little things in the quests, lore, and dialogue to reflect these sorts of issues. But I think your expectations are a bit too high on a dub for a long-running project like this.

[Nandina]

With the exception of some (as I believe they are British), some of those accents (like Ondores' for example) are being done by American voice actors. So you're kinda suggesting that SE should have English people do Japanese, Chinese, Mongol (etc) accents.

So, are you implying that there are no Japanese (or Chinese since Kurando mentioned the inspirations of Yanxia and Doma) people who live in the UK, Japan, or America who can do the voice work? It's fairly typical when casting a role, say for example on TV, you pretty much cast for actors that represent the character you want portrayed. There are lot of castings where directors explicitly state the size, height, ethnicity, eye or hair color; that they're looking for. The actors who fit the bill, will come in and audition for the role.

Mike Henry voices Cleveland Brown, but no one talks about a white guy voicing a black guy; Alex Borstein voiced Loretta Brown, but no one talks about a white woman voicing a black woman. We have to be careful with selective outrage. In the West, we may argue things like cultural appropriation and what not, but the people actually born and raised in foreign countries, seldom care.