Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[Striker44]

17,000 votes is outstanding sampling. 1,000 is considered pretty representative in most cases.

It all depends on the methodology. 1,000 cases is considered representative, but only if the sample is statistically random (the way most professional organizations conduct political polls, for example). With a playerbase of over 1 million people (and Japanese playerbase probably ~400k), a poll of 17k all depends on how the data was gathered. I don't know this specific poll, but many "unofficial" online ones just become what are called "voluntary samples" (some even prone to allowing people to vote multiple times), which in the statistics world are known for being very unreliable.

[Voidmage]

It all depends on the methodology. 1,000 cases is considered representative, but only if the sample is statistically random (the way most professional organizations conduct political polls, for example). With a playerbase of over 1 million people (and Japanese playerbase probably ~400k), a poll of 17k all depends on how the data was gathered. I don't know this specific poll, but many "unofficial" online ones just become what are called "voluntary samples" (some even prone to allowing people to vote multiple times), which in the statistics world are known for being very unreliable.

On your question on how the data was gathered:
It was just a link to a poll on a japanese side that seems to just gather FF14 news or something like that (yes I have some freetime at work when my data gets compiled...).
I can link it if you are interested.

I think even a voluntary sample should give a good outlook on the japanese player opinion at least.

You are correct that a voluntary sample is kinda biased because the voters are self chosen but that is normaly not the case with a "who are your favourite characters in video game" because there is no direction in the question or the wording of that question to press the voter in one direction.
Also a voluntary sample can have its bias mitigated by clear wording, short questions or avoiding leading questions.

I think middle is a good spot for her.

I don't disagree with your opinion on voluntary samples though.

[Oizen]

Yeah, she made the 11th spot. Which is honestly way too high. And I am not sure if they fixed some of the poll options or if Yaana got robbed of being in the top 10. The last time I checked Yaana and Black Cat were listed separate for some reason.

There honestly aren't many notable characters underneath her. It also should be noted if you can only vote once people are likely to vote for their favorite. I imagine most Yaana fans voted for Honey B Lovely.

[Basteala]

My point is more so that the way they write the WoL now is that we will be emotional over an apple falling off a tree. Doesn't matter who or what.

Bear in mind this magitek armor was animated by a mammet heart, with some measure of emotion, and on its own risks its neck twice to save your ass--once at the very end of Praetorium. We didn't walk out of that firestorm, let me tell you.

Maggie kind of became your partner in crime in the later part of ARR main. You're allowed to have emotion over the presumed death of your faithful steed.

There honestly aren't many notable characters underneath her. It also should be noted if you can only vote once people are likely to vote for their favorite. I imagine most Yaana fans voted for Honey B Lovely.

That explanation I can buy, and same for Wicked Thunder. Her story actually seems genuinely interesting and I hope we see more of her in the rest of Arcadion's story.

[Daralii]

That explanation I can buy, and same for Wicked Thunder. Her story actually seems genuinely interesting and I hope we see more of her in the rest of Arcadion's story.

A lot of her song made me think of Oblivion(the song, not the game), especially lyrically. Ysayle's still one of my favorites, so that's a good thing.

[aTanpopo]

A few pages back people were talking about rubber bullets, and yes they specifically say it in the JP text too

「た、隊長……止めなくていいんですか？ 非致死性のゴム弾とはいえ……町中ですよ……！」
"Captain... shouldn't we stop them? Those may be non-lethal rubber bullets... but it's in the middle of town...!"


Personally, after playing Yakuza 4 I don't think any mention of rubber bullets can phase me anymore lmao
I do encourage people to read through any quest dialogue in Japanese (there are sites that have all the quest dialogues archived for all game language versions), as it's definitely given me a new perspective on some characters/quests and just the localisation in general. I feel the English version of FF14 has been great up until now, but now because the writing has fallen very flat with DT there's not enough character in the writing to make the characters themselves feel exciting. In Japanese you can show personality through speech patterns/pronoun usage but you're limited in English as there's only one word for "I" and "you". The kid in Shaaloni (Dekowa?) who has the duel for example, refers to himself as 俺様 (oresama) which immediately gives you the impression he has an ego the size of Jupiter without him having to do much else.

English makes most of the characters feel very ""polite"" I guess? But the Japanese version makes it feel like there's a bit more of a spectrum- Wuk Lamat is very tomboyish and rough around the edges, Erenville feels kind of distant with everyone and Cahcuia has this air about her that I can't really describe that well, but I think the way Erenville describes her as イラつく話しぶり (having an irritating way of speaking) is pretty good. I think the English does an ok job of showing this honestly, but its not quite the same energy lol. In English when you first meet her, for example, she says "why the long face?" to Erenville, but in Japanese its straight up like "what's with that dumb look on your face?" (in a jolly, teasing way). Honestly it's been like a little treasure hunt for me reading through these quest logs- made me feel a bit better about DT overall too tbh. I play with JP audio, but obviously not all scenes are voiced so it's nice to go back and get this new perspective.

[Daralii]

A few pages back people were talking about rubber bullets, and yes they specifically say it in the JP text too

「た、隊長……止めなくていいんですか？ 非致死性のゴム弾とはいえ……町中ですよ……！」
"Captain... shouldn't we stop them? Those may be non-lethal rubber bullets... but it's in the middle of town...!"


Personally, after playing Yakuza 4 I don't think any mention of rubber bullets can phase me anymore lmao
I do encourage people to read through any quest dialogue in Japanese (there are sites that have all the quest dialogues archived for all game language versions), as it's definitely given me a new perspective on some characters/quests and just the localisation in general. I feel the English version of FF14 has been great up until now, but now because the writing has fallen very flat with DT there's not enough character in the writing to make the characters themselves feel exciting. In Japanese you can show personality through speech patterns/pronoun usage but you're limited in English as there's only one word for "I" and "you". The kid in Shaaloni (Dekowa?) who has the duel for example, refers to himself as 俺様 (oresama) which immediately gives you the impression he has an ego the size of Jupiter without him having to do much else.

English makes most of the characters feel very ""polite"" I guess? But the Japanese version makes it feel like there's a bit more of a spectrum- Wuk Lamat is very tomboyish and rough around the edges, Erenville feels kind of distant with everyone and Cahcuia has this air about her that I can't really describe that well, but I think the way Erenville describes her as イラつく話しぶり (having an irritating way of speaking) is pretty good. I think the English does an ok job of showing this honestly, but its not quite the same energy lol. In English when you first meet her, for example, she says "why the long face?" to Erenville, but in Japanese its straight up like "what's with that dumb look on your face?" (in a jolly, teasing way). Honestly it's been like a little treasure hunt for me reading through these quest logs- made me feel a bit better about DT overall too tbh. I play with JP audio, but obviously not all scenes are voiced so it's nice to go back and get this new perspective.

It's probably safe to assume that a lot of DT's localization was done while Koji was focused on XVI. He could get overly flowery(I remember people cross referencing dialogue across multiple languages because they didn't understand what Midgardsormr did or why at the end of ARR), but he generally tried to keep things accurate, tone especially. I'm out of the loop on this, so I don't know if he's back on XIV for future stuff or if it's all Kate.

[ApolloGenX]

It's probably safe to assume that a lot of DT's localization was done while Koji was focused on XVI. He could get overly flowery(I remember people cross referencing dialogue across multiple languages because they didn't understand what Midgardsormr did or why at the end of ARR), but he generally tried to keep things accurate, tone especially. I'm out of the loop on this, so I don't know if he's back on XIV for future stuff or if it's all Kate.

Maybe, but I did a double take when I heard Wuk Lamat in that accent... whichever it was at the moment say "preternatural"

I have NEVER heard one of my SA friends say that word. It's not something you hear a lot of native English speakers say....VERY jarring.

[aTanpopo]

It's probably safe to assume that a lot of DT's localization was done while Koji was focused on XVI. He could get overly flowery(I remember people cross referencing dialogue across multiple languages because they didn't understand what Midgardsormr did or why at the end of ARR), but he generally tried to keep things accurate, tone especially. I'm out of the loop on this, so I don't know if he's back on XIV for future stuff or if it's all Kate.

I think I remember hearing Koji, like Ishikawa, was in more of a supervisory role now and Kate took over as the localisation lead? Can't give you the source on that though unfortunately, maybe it was a fanfest panel? Kate was definitely in the credits for it, and I'm pretty sure I remember seeing Koji's name there too

Obviously there's been some oversights- I mean the "??!?" face I pulled when my friend told me Cahcuia is American lmao, but I don't know how much of the issue is just the poor overall writing and how much is how it was localised. I've definitely seen lines that were only in the Japanese text (Ketenramm saying Cahcuia seemed like a difficult/harsh mentor) or many cases of small things being left out that make the meaning of a line seem more ambiguous when it was clear cut in Japanese (Iyate saying Erenville would cry & beg to go with his mother on adventures, which could be read as he was throwing tantrums, when in the Japanese it specifies he was lonely/missed her so much he would cry and he was frantically/desperately begging her to take him with her).

But it's very likely this is something that happens in all previous expansions too- I know I've heard Haurchefant was characterised differently between EN and JP dialogues, so I'm not gonna sit here and act like this is some new issue that only DT is suffering with. It's probably only more of an issue because the base materials they had to work with weren't up to standard. I'd rather it felt empty than find they added in a bunch of plot stuff that wasn't in the original tbh.

[Xellith]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ay_spoiler_70/

♬♬♬

You're walking in Kozama’uka

There's no one around And your linkpearl is dead

Out of the corner of your eye you spot her

Wuk Lamat

♬♬♬

She's following you about thirty fulms back

She gets down on all fours and breaks into a sprint

She's got a quest to give you

Wuk Lamat

♬♬♬

You're looking for your mount, but you're all turned around

She's almost upon you now and you can see there's repetitive dialog on her face

My God, there's repetitive dialog everywhere

♬♬♬

RUNNING FOR YOUR LIFE

From Wuk Lamat

She's brandishing her Axe

It's Wuk Lamat

Lurking in the foregrouuuund

It's Endless Dialog Wuk Lamat

♬♬♬

Living in the MSQ

Stealing Krile's Limelight

Eating all the dialogue

Dialogue cannibal Wuk Lamat

♬♬♬

She finishes her story arc, and you leave for Xak Tural..

You are safe from Wuk Lamat....

WAIT- SHE ISN'T DONE

LAMAT SURPRISE!

There's a plot to your head and quests in her eyes!

But you can do Skip Cutscene (and you) silencing quest yapper Wuk Lamat.

♬♬♬

You have just silenced Wuk Lamat!

---

This might be my last post here since Im no longer subbed. I figured I'd at least try and lighten the mood. (Song by the folks at r/ffxiv as linked in the thread)