New gearsets preview is a disappointment

[Astronis]

Mexican person here. They're tasteless at best.

I often think about a bit of design philosophy from the first stormblood art book:

"We can't use anything that has real-world religious or cultural connotations. If we want to make something that draws from religious imagery, ethnic clothing, and so on, it needs to be significantly altered".

Given the set doesn't really look much like Spanish Conquistadores, but apparently there was enough inspiration to get people in this thread hot and bothered, SE succeeded in the "significantly altered" criteria. The Deathservant looks more like a straight-across import from Aztec ritual knives than these do anything from real-life. The fending hats look more like metal pith helmets to me, and maaaybe the one kind of evokes a French Musketeer, but that's about it.

[BigCheez]

Spreading awareness isn't rage baiting. Hope this helps.

Ah, so it was social media rage bait then. Was it one of the RP weirdos or an MSQ Andy VTuber this time?

[Ziri_O]

Don't worry, I had to step away to work and came back on my lunch break and unfortunately was not surprised but still disappointed that the people who like to shout down other's concerns by saying they're too sensitive and need to get over themselves had popped up out of the woodwork. I knew it would happen, especially in the gamer sphere and our current socio-political climate, but even though I'm not from one of the cultures affected, I had to say something.

Lord knows I'd lose my head if I saw gestapo gear or broken crosses on a red field pop up in game. We've got enough of that to worry about offline, I don't want to have to see it in game, and neither should anyone else.

[resonance_of_terror]

Simple because while I gotten plenty of tells that were positive and showed interest and wanted to adopt my look for wearing the full new world outfit, I also have gotten those that tried to shame me for wearing such an outfit.

After all, even if you think its only on the devs for implementing it, players will still see other players wearing whatever outfit as a target for how they feel offended and voice their complaints onto, usually through tells.

As while your merely looking at the starting line of this, of the outfits implemented, I am looking at the end result, of players going about their day wearing these outfits.

Good for you & your sense of style!

I don't think you're getting what I'm saying though sweetie.

Whether an outfit looks cool or not, it is up to the devs to implement the gear. These are the choices they made. They are the ones who have said that they would do research to check if something was culturally sensitive.

They are the ones who put that expectation on themselves. If they weren't going to try to abide by that then they shouldn't have mentioned it at all.

[notharambe]

I like the new set, it's good.

[TantalusTroupe]

i won't add anything else on but sincerely to folks like cheez in this thread-- may we please back off the argument? it is clogging up and draining out the voices of those who are affected by this issue and don't add anything to the conversation at hand. this is the best and most direct way of reaching the dev team. nothing would be done if people just yelled at their completely unrelated social media intern instead of taking it here.

[LegendWait]

Spreading awareness isn't rage baiting. Hope this helps.

What would help is a break down, piece by piece of what's not alright culturally with the set because it seems that half of South America decided to come and post here and the rest are trying to figure what they are mad over.

If you guys have some local culture imagery in mind, you need to share it because when I'm thinking about conquistadors i'm thinking of the Morion helmet which looks like the upper part of the Mythrite Sallet of Fending and big full plates

[Aviatorhead]

Lotta people in this thread are acting upset that this sort of criticm is even happening. Sorry to say but "it happened so long ago/idk avout it' "dont you have better things to do" and "you're not actually effected by this' are all dumbass things to say and portray you as a senstive loser whos offended a conversation they don't like is even being had. Grow up.

[BigCheez]

What would help is a break down, piece by piece of what's not alright culturally with the set because it seems that half of South America decided to come and post here and the rest are trying to figure what they are mad over.

If you guys have some local culture imagery in mind, you need to share it because when I'm thinking about conquistadors i'm thinking of the Morion helmet which looks like the upper part of the Mythrite Sallet of Fending and big full plates

Same. It looks nothing like a conquistador set to me. Conquistadors have breastplate and upturned helmets with a point at the front in my mind. Not metal buckets.

It's just someone trying to farm social media engagement via performative activism though. Mystery solved.

[Mawlzy]

I thought I was beyond shock and disappointment, yet here we are.

Cast your minds back to when we first went to Thavnair. I thought that was well done. The great cultural heritage of the Asian sub-continent was celebrated in multiple ways, from the genius of the alchemists to the wonderful cuisine.

Do you know what didn't happen during that part of the story? We were not offered gearsets based on the British Indian Army responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, or a host of other war crimes.

But apparently when dealing with the indigenous people of the Americas, it is fine to celebrate the culture responsible for genocide.

There is another aspect to all this which I think is worth bringing up.

Those of you who have completed the Blue Mage questline will be aware that some interesting narrative threads were initiated that included the impact of a colonial presence on a "new" continent. It showed promise of developing a story around the issues that shaped the Americas.

When we set off across the ocean, I was excited that these narrative threads might provide a backbone to our adventures. It felt the game had set this up perfectly.

What did we get? Nada. Beyond the tacit acceptance that a hereditary, absolute monarchy ruling over a disparate collection of cultures was a perfectly appropriate system of government.

And now this gear set.

The Dawntrail expansion has become FFXIV's suicide note.