Pronouns???

[Shibi]

There's nothing more important when it comes to character creation in an MMO than identity. I don't see any problem allowing players to select their preferred pronouns, and it should not be prohibitively difficult to create something like this in the code. Even microsoft word is capable of finding pronouns in a document and replacing them with something else if desired.

Assume please you want they/them as your pronouns instead of he/him

"The young Doman looked up to you and said 'Hey Mister, you really showed him when you whooped his arse'" while the crowd cheered from the sidelines. "He was amazing" and "He really showed him what was up" filled your ears. You looked over to Alphinaud who says "You really are the master of battle, that was impressive. He didn't have a chance"

Now, with a word find/replace please convert that... don't use your grammar skills at all, just do it with find/replace.

Now - repeat that in French, German and Japanese as a minimum!

[Katie_Kitty]

Assume please you want they/them as your pronouns instead of he/him

"The young Doman looked up to you and said 'Hey Mister, you really showed him when you whooped his arse'" while the crowd cheered from the sidelines. "He was amazing" and "He really showed him what was up" filled your ears. You looked over to Alphinaud who says "You really are the master of battle, that was impressive. He didn't have a chance"

Now, with a word find/replace please convert that... don't use your grammar skills at all, just do it with find/replace.

Now - repeat that in French, German and Japanese as a minimum!

I can assure you that wouldn't be the most complicated or difficult undertaking FFXIV has ever seen.

[Shibi]

I can assure you that wouldn't be the most complicated or difficult undertaking FFXIV has ever seen.

Then you agree that it's not just a find/replace as my example should have made clear? That's it's not as simple as flipping a switch.

So, in English the localisation crew would be pulled off the next expansion to rework every single line of text in a very heavily story driven game. It would take a long time, a year or more to do the English, and while they do, no new content for anyone.

Then they also need the French localisation team to do it - and French is a gendered language, it's quicte hard for French people to choose their pronouns as people then don't know if to rewrite the entire rest of the sentance in a feminine or masculine way. *French is the largest obstacle for this

Even if you use 'iel' or 'ille' in French you must then choose between 'iel est content' or 'iel est contente'. You might choose iel (they/them) with feminine grammar, or you might choose iel with masculine grammar.

German and Japanese also pose their own problems.

I am all for allowing people to pick their pronouns and I respect those genuine choices, but this is a game with a lot of baggage, and the ability to slot it in passed 10 years ago.

It's not simple. It's not quick. It would cost a lot of money. It would pull all the localisation teams away from the new expansion for maybe a year, maybe even more as they put all effort into rewriting the entire game for the gender nuetral pronouns in languages that can't even do it effectively.

[Lanadra]

Then you agree that it's not just a find/replace as my example should have made clear? That's it's not as simple as flipping a switch.

So, in English the localisation crew would be pulled off the next expansion to rework every single line of text in a very heavily story driven game. It would take a long time, a year or more to do the English, and while they do, no new content for anyone.

Then they also need the French localisation team to do it - and French is a gendered language, it's quicte hard for French people to choose their pronouns as people then don't know if to rewrite the entire rest of the sentance in a feminine or masculine way. *French is the largest obstacle for this

Even if you use 'iel' or 'ille' in French you must then choose between 'iel est content' or 'iel est contente'. You might choose iel (they/them) with feminine grammar, or you might choose iel with masculine grammar.

German and Japanese also pose their own problems.

I am all for allowing people to pick their pronouns and I respect those genuine choices, but this is a game with a lot of baggage, and the ability to slot it in passed 10 years ago.

It's not simple. It's not quick. It would cost a lot of money. It would pull all the localisation teams away from the new expansion for maybe a year, maybe even more as they put all effort into rewriting the entire game for the gender nuetral pronouns in languages that can't even do it effectively.

It's what we might call: Insanity.