The Case for Spanish -- A Letter of Hope

[Gentaro]

I know I might upset some people with my opinion, but I'm against a spanish version as much as i'm against a french or german version.

FFXIV is an international MMO and I understand that there are people that can't speak english - but running around in Eorzea being able to play and communicate with a minority kinda destroys the purpose of the game.

I'm german myself and I've seen these problems in XI and XIV, people are playing the game solo/in their small community and can't join groups shouting for something because they simply can't talk to them.
Of course there is the auto-translator, but it has limits and people are afraid of using it.


We could as well have regional servers for every language then, as the multilanguage version splits the community in some way.



I also don't think your arguments are valid, don't count the spanish speaking people in the world, count the spanish speaking gamers instead - and 99% of the spanish speaking people i met were from spain.

[daemian]

I think, dear Gentaro, that you didn’t understand the main purpose of this request… Hispanics are not looking for an easier way to communicate to other players in game; they are actually asking this to understand the game itself better.

Final Fantasies games are well known to be rich in content and to have tons of NPCs with lot of (relevant or not) text to be read. My English is far from perfect but still isn't that bad… and even though, is really hard sometimes because of the way that is spoken and the huge amount of text that it has, just make it easy to lose lot of details.

Hispanic people want to understand and enjoy the game the same way that English (Japanese, French or German) native speakers do.

Our community knew/knows this is really a difficult request to handle by SE at this point or in the future -- because of the workload that represent 2.0 and all the numbers that a lot of people pointed before-- but hope should be the last thing to be lost... is better to lose trying, than losing because you didn't do it~

Anyway, maybe someday I can see this game that I love so much, en español también.

[Xquiel]

FFXIV is an international MMO and I understand that there are people that can't speak english - but running around in Eorzea being able to play and communicate with a minority kinda destroys the purpose of the game.

What purpose are u talking about? I talk Spanish and I can play perfectly with English speaking people and that increases the "purpose of the game". Meeting people from different parts of the world is really interesting for the community. So, if u don't wanna play with people that can't understand your language is your problem, the solution is simple, dont play with them. But if some people want the game in Spanish they are on their right to ask for it to a better understanding of the game.
Oh, and sorry for destroy your purpose of the game cuz I don't speak English >.>

[Hycinthus]

With FFXIV 2.0 coming out in China, they will probably make a Mandarin version. After all, it's the #1 most spoken language in the world.

[Yarad]

As much as I think about this controversy, I can not help the fact hallucinate see how a company like Square-Enix is ignoring the Spanish community, while NCFOST are betting from the beginning for us, translating into Spanish Guild Wars 2 and even opening a dedicated server to Spain. I love Final Fantasy, but I think the Spanish have to be objective and clap and go for those who are betting on us.

Final Fantasy XIV: A real reborn will be a great game, but if I agreed to play in English, when another company if they are translating their games into my language, I'll only be complicit in this discrimination.

I will continue pending the news, hoping to soon see a notice on the Spanish translation. But I not pay fees if version 2 is not in my language.

[Dannythm]

I think, dear Gentaro, that you didn’t understand the main purpose of this request… Hispanics are not looking for an easier way to communicate to other players in game; they are actually asking this to understand the game itself better.

Final Fantasies games are well known to be rich in content and to have tons of NPCs with lot of (relevant or not) text to be read. My English is far from perfect but still isn't that bad… and even though, is really hard sometimes because of the way that is spoken and the huge amount of text that it has, just make it easy to lose lot of details.

Hispanic people want to understand and enjoy the game the same way that English (Japanese, French or German) native speakers do.

Our community knew/knows this is really a difficult request to handle by SE at this point or in the future -- because of the workload that represent 2.0 and all the numbers that a lot of people pointed before-- but hope should be the last thing to be lost... is better to lose trying, than losing because you didn't do it~

Anyway, maybe someday I can see this game that I love so much, en español también.

^^^^^^^^^^
This so much.

I am Spanish and I have no problem playing in English, in fact I prefer it, but I've been trying to get my girlfriend and some friends to play the game and, as they don't know very well English, German, French or Japanese, they cannot enjoy the game, so they are no longer playing it, because this game has a LOT of text, and interesting at that.

Square would be winning a lot of Spanish subscribers if they offered a Spanish version of the game, I know a lot of people love Final Fantasy in Spain but they are not playing the game because of the language barrier, the same happened with FFXI.

The strange thing is that every other FF released in Spain has gotten a translation, so we really don't understand why XI and XIV don't get their localization.

[Deathmask]

Yea it is very strange nowadays for a game to not have a spanish version.

[khaled]

Mandarin is coming for sure.

Would be great if they add Spanish to the game after this ..I'd like to see Arabic next , world's fifth speaking language (my language =D).

[Valandor]

Being Mexican myself I'd love to have a Spanish version of the game, that being said I'd like the development team to know it wouldn't be that easy, first of all there's several "versions" or "kinds" of Spanish, even if latin-american people and european spanish speaking people can communicate with each other some words or slang specific to that region makes it difficult to standardize just ONE kind of Spanish or to come up with a neutral Spanish; even if you somehow manage to make a neutral translation there's gonna be some phrases or word games that will not translate accurately enough and I believe the same applies when they make the translation from Japanese to English.

If the development team manages to get the authorization to translate the game I'd like it to be from Japanese to Spanish directly to preserve the original feeling and intention.

I'd even go as far as to raise my hand to participate in the translation FOR FREE if that means I'd get the whole game in Spanish, I speak/read/write a decent amount of Japanese too if that helps ( ^-^)v

[Yarad]

Honestly, Square-Enix should clarify its position. They are being ambiguous with statements like "we will study." They already know what they do and what they estimated the Spanish community. Let them say whether they will translate the game or not, so that affected users take the appropriate decision.