Live Letters Really Need To Start Being Translated

[Jade3173]

Source: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes...0e2873ec19fab3

I think it is safe to say you'll get more than just some slides, for this announcement.

Not that I am opposed to other streams getting more English support lol, live translations of those would be neat. I am curious if BlizzCon's free access event will have the live subtitles I've seen for other events. For SELECT events they have live subtitles in multiple languages, which I always thought was neat. To be fair Blizzcon isn't as often as a live letter though, and at least we'll have live English translations.

I'm sure there is some sort of special pain and cost involved, but.. certainly would be a "would be nice" concept lol.

for the event yes, but the OP is talking about the Live Letters. Which the LL following RIGHT AFTER the translated event, won't have translations

[DrForester]

We're getting real translations for the 6.0 showcase.

Then it will immediately cut to no translation outside of some slide notes for the 5.5 live letter.


Proper translations should not be a sometimes thing. They should be a standard thing for communicating to your customers.

[TaleraRistain]

Yes, but in English people were not clear on what 'the Bozja storyline' was; I know a lot of people who thought the Bozjan Southern Front questline was just a side-quest to give people an alternate path to grinding the relic materials, and that the Bozja storyline would just be continued on separate from it, the way the relic questline started.

Bingo. If you didn't experience the story, you had no idea it wasn't a side quest alternative to unlock updates in Bozja. Especially when the first quest came outside that zone. That was the part they needed to strengthen clarity on.

Also, this question has been around various places for months now. It's been asked here on the forums. It's been asked on Reddit. It's been asked on Twitter. SE has had time to give that clarity in a definitive way but they didn't bother. Maybe that's a failing of the English Community teams, but if so, someone higher up needs to address that.

[van_arn]

Yes, but in English people were not clear on what 'the Bozja storyline' was; I know a lot of people who thought the Bozjan Southern Front questline was just a side-quest to give people an alternate path to grinding the relic materials, and that the Bozja storyline would just be continued on separate from it, the way the relic questline started. (And while it's fairly obvious by the time you reach Castrum Lacus Litore that the Southern Front storyline is very closely tied to the storyline that began with Cid and the others and led to the first relic stage, those who never went into the Southern Front and never made it to Castrum never had the very obvious storyline clue there.)

And some of that is that Square-Enix's English summary after the fact was unclear, and that's 100% on Square-Enix.

But some of it is also that translating things from one language to another requires awareness of intent; that the English summary was vague enough to be misunderstood is on Square-Enix, but that the actual running commentary of the live letter was unclear is on the fan translators. (Not that they're at fault; they are always stuck translating without knowing what Square-Enix's intention is, and also trying to do so while keeping up a running live translation in real-time. Even if you get context for one unclear bit within the live letter, trying to do live translations is frazzling and bits like that can be overlooked.)

With Square-Enix translating the actual presentations and preparing the translators ahead of time, the translator would not have had to wonder "what do they mean by this particular bit? I could interpret it as meaning <A> or <B>..." and take a guess on-the-spot; they'd be able to ask someone else "hey, do you know if they mean <A> or <B> for this bit here?" and have a more clearly-phrased translated summary ahead-of-time.

Perfect example of what I said. Square said what they intended, and a facet of the community didn’t believe it and instead convinced themselves to look for something that isn’t there. No amount of clarification is enough in this situation; had Square posted “clarification” then people would be mad they didn’t get clarification of clarification. Or they would’ve argued over the intent of that clarification, and got mad when square’s intent didn’t match with their theory of square’s intention.

Do the bozja story. That includes castrum.

[Shougun]

Aha, thank you! I knew I remembered something.

Np

Yes, but in English people were not clear on what 'the Bozja storyline' was; I know a lot of people who thought the Bozjan Southern Front questline was just a side-quest to give people an alternate path to grinding the relic materials, and that the Bozja storyline would just be continued on separate from it, the way the relic questline started. (And while it's fairly obvious by the time you reach Castrum Lacus Litore that the Southern Front storyline is very closely tied to the storyline that began with Cid and the others and led to the first relic stage, those who never went into the Southern Front and never made it to Castrum never had the very obvious storyline clue there.)

And some of that is that Square-Enix's English summary after the fact was unclear, and that's 100% on Square-Enix.

But some of it is also that translating things from one language to another requires awareness of intent; that the English summary was vague enough to be misunderstood is on Square-Enix, but that the actual running commentary of the live letter was unclear is on the fan translators. (Not that they're at fault; they are always stuck translating without knowing what Square-Enix's intention is, and also trying to do so while keeping up a running live translation in real-time. Even if you get context for one unclear bit within the live letter, trying to do live translations is frazzling and bits like that can be overlooked.)

With Square-Enix translating the actual presentations and preparing the translators ahead of time, the translator would not have had to wonder "what do they mean by this particular bit? I could interpret it as meaning <A> or <B>..." and take a guess on-the-spot; they'd be able to ask someone else "hey, do you know if they mean <A> or <B> for this bit here?" and have a more clearly-phrased translated summary ahead-of-time.

There are absolutely times when people ran 800 yalms with SE's words.. of course lol, but there are also times where SE said something to an official capacity and it was obvious that it should have been worded better and there is nothing else to say about it but "that could have gone down more clearly.." lol.

Which is just really a longer convoluted way of me just saying I agree and also I would love to see more communication from the team not less, if something doesn't go down right just try again, but don't try less, hopefully more. We hardly hear from our community managers, I'm sure they've something to do, but if you compare it to some western, even mmo, devs it's pretty silent over here lol.

[Packetdancer]

Perfect example of what I said. Square said what they intended, and a facet of the community didn’t believe it and instead convinced themselves to look for something that isn’t there. No amount of clarification is enough in this situation; had Square posted “clarification” then people would be mad they didn’t get clarification of clarification. Or they would’ve argued over the intent of that clarification, and got mad when square’s intent didn’t match with their theory of square’s intention.

Do the bozja story. That includes castrum.

I'm frequently on the same page as you in other threads, but on this one I disagree. Yes, people will always misinterpret things or expect different than what's actually delivered, but this case was unusually egregious.

People were of the belief that the relic would require no interaction with the Southern Front, some so loudly vehemently that I started second guessing my own interpretation that Castrum et al were required; people were so absolutely convinced that Square-Enix had promised this one thing that I started to half-suspect I must've overlooked where they did so (even though it didn't make sense to me how the Bozjan storyline could continue without what happened in Castrum being addressed).

They held these opinions loudly, vehemently, and publicly on Twitter, on Reddit, on these very forums, and even in some cases in gaming publications.

Even without a translation in that live letter, Square could've communicated a specific clarification much earlier when the confusion became obvious (and widespread); some people would still have misinterpreted it or chosen not to believe it, no doubt, but I think a lot of people would've been less blindsided. But when they did offer a clarification (in November's live letter) it was done in Japanese, and left to the fan-translators to disseminate. Which did not really help stem the tide of people absolutely convinced the earlier interpretation was correct.

I think in most cases the information has gotten out more-or-less accurately, even if it sometimes took a while. But this was a particularly dramatic and widespread misinterpretation, and it's one that could've been avoided. And because it was avoidable, I do feel the process by which they communicate stuff like this could maybe stand to have some refinement.

[van_arn]

I'm frequently on the same page as you in other threads, but on this one I disagree. Yes, people will always misinterpret things or expect different than what's actually delivered, but this case was unusually egregious.

People were of the belief that the relic would require no interaction with the Southern Front, some so loudly vehemently that I started second guessing my own interpretation that Castrum et al were required; people were so absolutely convinced that Square-Enix had promised this one thing that I started to half-suspect I must've overlooked where they did so (even though it didn't make sense to me how the Bozjan storyline could continue without what happened in Castrum being addressed).

They held these opinions loudly, vehemently, and publicly on Twitter, on Reddit, on these very forums, and even in some cases in gaming publications.

Even without a translation in that live letter, Square could've communicated a specific clarification much earlier when the confusion became obvious (and widespread); some people would still have misinterpreted it or chosen not to believe it, no doubt, but I think a lot of people would've been less blindsided. But when they did offer a clarification (in November's live letter) it was done in Japanese, and left to the fan-translators to disseminate. Which did not really help stem the tide of people absolutely convinced the earlier interpretation was correct.

I think in most cases the information has gotten out more-or-less accurately, even if it sometimes took a while. But this was a particularly dramatic and widespread misinterpretation, and it's one that could've been avoided. And because it was avoidable, I do feel the process by which they communicate stuff like this could maybe stand to have some refinement.

Perhaps things could have unfolded differently, perhaps they wouldn’t have.

I can’t help but suspect we get the information in the format and volume we do because Square has seen how the community reacts to just about everything over the last decade.

I’d suspect there was a consideration to emphasize the storyline requirement more than they already had.

If I were in their shoes, I would have avoided saying anything more than I already had. Saying more would have only led to arguments and demands for things to change, but the decision had already been made and announced. In a very real way, additional “clarification” would not really land us in a place different than we are already.

All of that aside, there’s no more room for interpretation or misinterpretation. If you want the relic, no matter what your plans were, you know what you need to do now.

Do it or don’t. You might manage to get a “sry well do better nekst tiem lol!” from Square, but don’t expect any sort of recognition beyond lip service for this.

[Infindox]

I find some Live Letters sometimes to be very bizzare to watch. You'll have whole minutes of them talking about something, and because there's no slide with it you don't understand, then whoever is looking at fan translations starts to talk about something important that you missed... Even more so when they have another team member talking about what they do and there's no translation whatsoever.

[Packetdancer]

I can’t help but suspect we get the information in the format and volume we do because Square has seen how the community reacts to just about everything over the last decade.

That's fair, and I'll concede the point. We certainly know a lot of other changes to the game are in response to how the community has handled things. (How many people complaining that AST cards are 'all the balance now and nothing else' also always fished for Balance and ignored the other cards previously?) And I do agree it's clear now, regardless of the road that got us here.

Moreover, I'm personally fine with the situation; I enjoy Castrum and Delubrum, and am happy to run them to help other people.

I just also feel like there's an unusually high amount of Large Feelings and Loud Drama going around the community right now over this which could potentially have been avoided.

[TaleraRistain]

If I were in their shoes, I would have avoided saying anything more than I already had. Saying more would have only led to arguments and demands for things to change, but the decision had already been made and announced.

That encourages them to hide from their feedback and the repercussions of their actions. If they know something is going to anger their players, they need to be able to take their knocks for it. Especially if it's because they ignored previous feedback. And if it's early enough, maybe that feedback could result in some good changes.