JP Official Forums are also criticizing the Dawntrail MSQ.

[Gortys]

Though one of the first quests kind of made me give it a side-eye. Said something along the lines of "I always dreamed of hiring a Yok Huy, but they look scary so I didn't." Which uh. Certainly not something I would say irl - "I always dreamed of hiring a person of X skin color, but they kinda look scary so I didn't." Maybe the race of an employee shouldn't be something to dwell on THAT much, but what do I know.

One thing I noticed in the story is her people may be "at peace", but they don't seem to know or like one another. You would think a good leader would remedy this since peace is difficult to achieve if one cultural group is suspicious, fearful, etc of their neighbor. For all of my dislike of StB, at least they showed this which I now have to respect. All of the previous expansions try to show that peace between nations is more than just talk and saying "you should like one another."
I understand some may find those topics too heavy, but this is way too light.

[Voidmage]

Though one of the first quests kind of made me give it a side-eye. Said something along the lines of "I always dreamed of hiring a Yok Huy, but they look scary so I didn't." Which uh. Certainly not something I would say irl - "I always dreamed of hiring a person of X skin color, but they kinda look scary so I didn't." Maybe the race of an employee shouldn't be something to dwell on THAT much, but what do I know.

I don't think that's a good comparision. The ff14 world has different races unlike the real world.
Being intimitated by a being two to three times your size with a different anatomy is not really wrong. Prejudice yeah but understandable.

A better comparision would be hiring an intelligent elephant that had conquered the continent in the past.

[BakoolJaJa]

I don't think that's a good comparision. The ff14 world has different races unlike the real world.
Being intimitated by a being two to three times your size with a different anatomy is not really wrong. Prejudice yeah but understandable.

A better comparision would be hiring an intelligent elephant that had conquered the continent in the past.

I'm not bothered by any of it, but my focus wasn't even on the scared part. I found the idea of dreaming of hiring a person of a certain race more weird than the being intimidated part. Your elephant example probably is good, but that's sort of the thing, it almost sounds like they were talking about an animal and not a person. And that might be completely appropriate to the world of ffxiv... Eorzeans did use to call everything foreign "beastmen" and kill them in droves just for existing, so... But we're supposed to believe that Tural is so different and the cultures are so deep. Which I'm not seeing. They COULD explore these issues. I'd be perfectly happy with that. They just don't.

[DreadCrow]

... nonsense like renaming beast tribes to "allied society quests." Essentially virtue signaling while doing the exact opposite...

You realize that Beast Tribe, in universe, was a term created by the Syndicate of Ul'dah explicitly to dehumanize the Amalj'aa, right? Like, the first Encyclopedia Eorzea had a blurb where some Sharlayan scholar questions if it should even be using the term. We've also not really had a "tribal" beast tribe since Stormblood really. With Dawntrail, all the potential "beast tribes" are integrated fairly well into society.

[BakoolJaJa]

You realize that Beast Tribe, in universe, was a term created by the Syndicate of Ul'dah explicitly to dehumanize the Amalj'aa, right? Like, the first Encyclopedia Eorzea had a blurb where some Sharlayan scholar questions if it should even be using the term. We've also not really had a "tribal" beast tribe since Stormblood really. With Dawntrail, all the potential "beast tribes" are integrated fairly well into society.

Why would you crop out the rest of my comment where the entire substance was? My complaint wasn't about the name change in a vacuum, in fact I couldn't care less what they call or do not call the beast tribes. My complaint was about the shallow treatment of said societies in combination with the name change.

Besides, we've stopped considering people of the beast tribes to be beasts all the way back in what... Shadowbringers at most, maybe even earlier? The naming has been nonsensical for many years now. What is funny to me is that the expansion when they finally get renamed, is also the expansion where we get societies more shallow than anything from ARR. That's it. But I think my initial comment made that quite clear, seeing as it was about the shallow writing of Tural's culture and the beast tribe thing was a short footnote.

[ThorneDynasty]

This talk reminds me of one of the biggest character developments in the game: The entirety of Ishgard. We went from collectively going "fuck these elf bastards", to seeing "FOR ISHGAAARD!" being earnestly shouted in game chat.

They threw in almost every trope of a backwards ass nation and then somehow turned everyone's opinion around in one expansion. And not by magically making them all "peace and love" and one dimensional (we still dealt with their nonsense all the way up to the restoration content), but just by giving us a broader picture of their society, and having characters whose development and faults mirrored their society.

[Daralii]

This talk reminds me of one of the biggest character developments in the game: The entirety of Ishgard. We went from collectively going from "fuck these elf bastards", to seeing "FOR ISHGAAARD!" being earnestly shouted in game chat.

They threw in almost every trope of a backwards ass nation and the somehow turned everyone's opinion around in one expansion. And not by magically making them all "peace and love" and one dimensional (we still dealt with their nonsense all the way up to the restoration content), but just by giving us a broader picture of their society, and having characters whose development and faults mirrored their society.

We were still dealing with the fallout in the EW caster role quests. The root problem was that the Church never agreed to undergo any reforms, and they finally agreed to work with Aymeric by the end.

[SwadTheFrog]

Bro we spent 2 hours learning that Pelupelu likes to barter and the only thing they do in the MSQ is barter barter barter.

Imagine if Assassin's Creed had a game set in France and everyone is just like "baguette baguette baguette". That's how shallow (and frankly insulting) the writing is.

If anything it's a NET NEGATIVE that we're learning about their culture because the writers didn't bother to think of any sophisticated culture at all. It's all tropes. My time was wasted learning about tropes more apt for a picture book you read to your little 4 year old toddler tucked in bed at night.

As a South American, I sure did love having my culture reduced to "MEZCAL AND TACOS". Oh, and funny very colorful clothes - literally goddamn everyone in this supposedly "diverse" city dresses in one way - that being traditional Andean wear. Really good, really inclusive. Absolutely not COMICALLY insulting at all.

[ViaDesperare]

As a South American, I sure did love having my culture reduced to "MEZCAL AND TACOS". Oh, and funny very colorful clothes - literally goddamn everyone in this supposedly "diverse" city dresses in one way - that being traditional Andean wear. Really good, really inclusive. Absolutely not COMICALLY insulting at all.

I mean the writers are Japanese and a White Lady, what did you expect? Taco taco tacos, Tacos and buritos. https://youtu.be/bQKDlNTEl6w?si=smPfMGrraQE1gz-S

It's like a stereotype that white women are really racist for a reason. If they end using Latinx, then you know they don't give a damn about your culture.

[SwadTheFrog]

I mean the writers are Japanese and a White Lady, what did you expect? Taco taco tacos, Tacos and buritos. https://youtu.be/bQKDlNTEl6w?si=smPfMGrraQE1gz-S

It's like a stereotype that white women are really racist for a reason. If they end using Latinx, then you know they don't give a damn about your culture.

Oh, no. I expected exactly that. From the white lady, mind - not the Japanese. Though Japan isn't all there with South America, It's a known fact that Japan and Brazil actually have oddly solid relationship due to historical reasons, yet for all that, there was not a proper lick of Brazillan related stuff there either, other than a brief reference to Mate, I guess? Which isn't t necessarely purely brazilliian, but certainly popular in the southern part of Brazil.