Did FFXIV make me racist?

[Redmerv]

Post in two parts.

Anybody probably has had this problem where one of more people in a group were not communicating or just talking in a foreign language, or where someone with another mother language just sits there and fails a lot. I am not from English heritage but believe I can make myself understandable in English, and it irritates me to wipe to something for hours when someone is making a mistake they can solve by simply reading what the party is saying, even when I only queue to join with English.

Lately I found myself being dissapointed , irritated and about to leave my dungeon whenever I saw someone speak in another language. It is getting to the part where I am like meh, we got two french people? We better leave, this won't be going well anyways.

[Redmerv]

I wonder if anyone is getting the same issues in this game, where they just don't even bother with people who can't speak their language as this game does require communication and all the French(or other people) always fail in the most simple mechanics.

This is not intended as hate speech, this is me seeing parts of myself I don't really like seeing. It's a pain how a MMO is making me frustrated by groups of people. Normally I am a pretty relaxing guy, and I don't rage at all or have hard times in groups, just in this instance it gets impossible to play dungeons or do content like sephirot extreme as there is no active form of communication.

I wonder if anyone is having the same problems as me, and again I'm not trying to cause hate or generalize against groups of people, I just needed a rant and give my 2 cents about how I feel this game is making me act towards people.

Signing out,

Rod.

[Eul]

Not really problem for me as foreigner in pure JP server. We talk with emotes and auto translate (I can understand basic Japanese too so it help a bit). Hard thing is when I go trial like Sephirot EX and farming party to know the kanji of the weapon. But I glad I have friend who literally know Japanese well and translate what they say like the mechanic macro at Thordan EX.

[Redmerv]

For me it gets to the point where when we were with 7 english and one French guy the french guy just talks french or ignores everything we say, not using auto translate or trying to communicate. I am not a spelling nazi, I just want to be able to communicate with my fellow players which is sadly made impossible by people not wanting to try.

[Mholito]

The issue is people queuing for languages they can't communicate in just to get shorter queue times. Completely ignoring the reason you can select the language in the first place. I even came across one person that had the gall to tell the rest of us to learn his language, even though he was the one that selected english on the duty finder in spite of not being able to communicate in it.

[Noxifer]

The issue is people queuing for languages they can't communicate in just to get shorter queue times. Completely ignoring the reason you can select the language in the first place. I even came across one person that had the gall to tell the rest of us to learn his language, even though he was the one that selected english on the duty finder in spite of not being able to communicate in it.

Agreed. It's not the whole being French/German (or Japanese, though that still hasn't happened once to me). I don't mind at all, as long as they're at least making efforts to communicate. But when you sign up for more complicated stuff (say, BisEx), and you want to make sure people know the mechanics, and one person just sits there quietly and then fails all the mechanics... Open up party list and oh yay, it's a French or German only person. Okay, how do we explain this through auto-translate? D: Can it even be done?

So again, it's not the whole 'only English-speaking people can do things' issue. It's the 'why do you check a language you don't speak? are you crazy?' issue. It's even worse when you see it in PF. I mean, I wouldn't check Fr/De/Jp in DF, because I can barely get out greetings in those languages, and anything more complicated than basic courtesies are likely to be lost on me. I certainly wouldn't join a PF with a French or German description. So why would people who don't speak English check that language, or join a PF that clearly states 'know English' (even if you don't speak it, surely the mention of the language would be a clue? it's not TOO far off from Anglais/Englisch, is it?)?
And yes, I know the common response to that. "Shorter queues." But by the Twelve and everything Holy-stunned, why would it matter to get a shorter queue if lack of communications means the duty itself takes forever or is impossible?
(Also, don't expect people to be happy about you, if you tick languages you don't speak and end up in a party of people who haven't ticked your language.)

[Uhm]

My native language isn't english either but I prefer if people talk to me in english, at least if there is/are a person/people who can't understand anything otherwise. If I am in dungeons and someone writes something in another language I understand I will still respond in english since it is more likely that everyone speaks english but probably not german or french.
I do think it is really unfriendly to communicate in a way that isn't understandible for everyone and I say that because I was in a group before consisting of 6 french people tanlking mostly french even though pretty much everyone selected english as an option... I did not understand a word.
Everything that I can say after three years of french classes is "Je ne parle pas français".

[Kuwagami]

auto translate, please use it.



On a general scale though, I've noticed that the people who don't give a crap at all (not even the auto-translate for "I don't speak ...") tend to fail a lot because they are unable to communicate anyway.

The way I proceed is talking English as base, switching to French if the whole group is French or if I have something to explain to a French player (on a case per case basis, if they are fine with English, no use speaking French). Full German groups, I just remain silent and use auto translate if needed. I only ever met one JP group so I can't really say, but they were using auto translate when they had something important to say to me and complimented me at the end of the dungeon for trying google translate for some basic politeness

Everything that I can say after three years of french classes is "Je ne parle pas français".

heh, all I have after 7 years of german (besides basic comprehension) is where I live, and I'm not even sure on the spelling

[Theodric]

Despite being British and living in Scotland...I play on Balmung because pretty much everybody here speaks English. Luckily I don't get any lag at all. When I played on the designated European servers, however, many people didn't speak English and it just frustrated me.

[Noxifer]

My native language isn't english either [...]
I do think it is really unfriendly to communicate in a way that isn't understandible for everyone

Oh, English isn't my native language, but of the languages offered in FFXIV it's the one language I'm fluent in. But with regards to being unfriendly by talking a language not everyone understands... I hope you're not talking about those who speak English with a French-only or German-only person in the party. Because as I see it... If I've only ticked English, because that's the only language I can communicate with, I'm going to assume that people I end up with can speak it. If they can't, it's no fault of mine, really.
It's like going to any health centre or government-controlled institution for a meeting and claim you speak the language of the country you live in or visit, and then get upset because there's no interpreter present at the meeting.

I wish square would make a server for just french and one for just german players. that really help party finders, duty finder would still be a problem.

I was actually thinking the same thing ^^; but wasn't sure if saying it would bring on a slew of "omg segregation isn't the solution D:" responses. But I was thinking about other MMORPGs that tend to keep langauge-separated servers. It doesn't help when it comes to languages other than the "official" ones, though =/ And like you said, DF still draws from the entire server cluster, so unless they made a FR cluster and a DE cluster (and where would they place especially the FR one? French/Swiss would be annoyed if it was in the NA server building and Canadiens would be annoyed if it was in the EU server building... ^^; ) you'd still end up with people going 'check all languages = faster queue'.