Allied Society Races is too clunky, please change it

[fulminating]

I don't think "allied" should be in the name given that it's the highest reputation tier. It'd be like changing "blue mage spellbook" to "J-Kick repertoire".

[LilimoLimomo]

I think Allied Societies works great. They're not all tribes, some of them contain a mix of races, and some of them are literally Lalafell by a different name. The word "societies" does a nice job of describing every one of these groups where words such as "tribes" or "races" fail.

Because of that, I see the name Allied Societies as a clear improvement compared to what we had before.

[Doragan]

Its clunky, rolls off the tongue worse and is a sudden change that begs the question "Who asked for this"

Simply put, it does carry negative connotations, and it isn't right for quite a few of them.

In lore, all of the ASR are people. They aren't necessarily humans, like the dwarves being lalafellin and the pelupelu just hyurs, with masks.
Just to focus on the Eorzean ones for a bit, the Amalj'aas, the Sahagin, the Kobold have been treated pretty poorly historically. They summon primals as retaliation. You know the plot of the game.

Now, let's talk about Dawntrail for a bit. We've got the New World, Tural, which is integrally inspired by the American continent. Its people and cultures are quite heavily inspired by native american real lives and real history. It's an understatement, but they have been treated really, REALLY poorly as well, and still are to this day. And to me, it's quite obvious they put a lot of care in Tural and at the very least, tried to be respectful in their portrayal of this place. Who knows, maybe it is why they worked on reworking the lighting for dark skinned characters just now too. Though, I suspect that it is also why there isn't a single NPC in the whole expansion that uses the New World crafted attire from 3.4, and frankly? I think it is really good. And there is still plenty of cowboys and cowgirls in Xak Tural, so nothing to worry about there..
From that premise, I think it would be quite a problem to call that (or any Turali cultures) a tribe, if you're going to stay respectful. Because Tural and the people there are a pretty long lasting civilization. A society, even. I do believe that's the reason why they got renamed now, and not earlier. They dodged a hell of a poor parallel, and it probably wouldve given them a lot more PR problem than anything else imo.

SE is definitely not the only one leaving that wording behind, too. I believe WoTC/Hasbro did the same thing a few years ago. Nintendo as well, like 10 years ago (Well, it was less the wording, and more the kind of items).

Hopefully that made sense, but I think that's whats the most likely.

Allied Societies would definitely roll a lot better, but I don't think we're going to hear about "tribes" ever again in this game, if they didnt scrub out every single line mentioning that already.

[Hallarem]

The word tribe is not a slur. It's still used in our real world today. It's a group of people. Tribes exist and people who still adhere to tribal culture or celebrate which tribe they are from. I'm pretty sure the Whalaqee are a tribe, I'm pretty sure the role quests happened between different tribes. Now the word BEAST I can understand, if you called a Pelupelu a beast in his/her face it would raise eyebrows among them, no doubt but that could be an in game change with wording in the world itself. "Tribal" is not a slur either, it's just being traditional within the customs and cultures of said group of people, the tribe.

But again, we're talking about a fantasy game and a fantasy world, the further away people who think everyday words are "problematic" stay away from the dev team, the better. It reeks of people who think orcs are problematic, because they think they are an allegory for black people. Like that one history channel on youtube. And boy oh boy is that the self-report of the century right there.

Beast tribes, simple as

[Doragan]

The word tribe is not a slur. It's still used in our real world today. It's a group of people. Tribes exist and people who still adhere to tribal culture or celebrate which tribe they are from. I'm pretty sure the Whalaqee are a tribe, I'm pretty sure the role quests happened between different tribes. Now the word BEAST I can understand, if you called a Pelupelu a beast in his/her face it would raise eyebrows among them, no doubt but that could be an in game change with wording in the world itself. "Tribal" is not a slur either, it's just being traditional within the customs and cultures of said group of people, the tribe.

Not that I think that it is a slur. But if "Beast" quite literally doesn't apply anymore, and "tribes" got yanked in the process, I can definitely see them moving away from that wording for that reason, though.

But again, we're talking about a fantasy game and a fantasy world, the further away people who think everyday words are "problematic" stay away from the dev team, the better.

I mean, not really. Tribe isn't exactly a word anyone would use everyday, but regardless, they're still a real business trying to sell a product here, based on real cultures. It goes way beyond being respectful, and more that it would affect their bottom line directly.
At best, it produces bad publicity with 10k likes on Twitter, and nobody cares because the game is good or whatever. At worst, your game doesn't come out because the ESRB or PEGI denied rating due to the wording. Simple as.

[Hallarem]

Not that I think that it is a slur. But if "Beast" quite literally doesn't apply anymore, and "tribes" got yanked in the process, I can definitely see them moving away from that wording for that reason, though.



I mean, not really. Tribe isn't exactly a word anyone would use everyday, but regardless, they're still a real business trying to sell a product here, based on real cultures. It goes way beyond being respectful, and more that it would affect their bottom line directly.
At best, it produces bad publicity with 10k likes on Twitter, and nobody cares because the game is good or whatever. At worst, your game doesn't come out because the ESRB or PEGI denied rating due to the wording. Simple as.

Mah dude. These aren't real cultures though. These are made up cultures in a made up world. They have their own dynamics within their own world and are not some hidden commentary on the real world. People who think like this will end up censoring all art, stories, fables and mythology because fiction hurts them, I swear.

[Aniise]

Ah, I dunno. I don't really care how they call them ingame nowadays, I'm used to calling them Beast Tribes since ARR and I'll just stick to it.
It still rolls off the tongue easily and people know what I'm talking about when I say it. So yeah, my 2 cents.

[ReynTime]

Calling them "Societies" sounds silly to me. Yes they're societies, but so is any large group within any city-state and hamlet in the game...

[Asari5]

in german we had something like 'tribes folk' or 'tribes people'. i liked that quite a bit. i makes sense to go from 'feral tribes'. but now they changed it again to 'friend folks'... and that one has a weird ring to it in german.

[fulminating]

“That/this lot” or “themuns” would be fine I think too - short, rolls off the tongue, uses neither beast nor tribe and especially doesn’t use ‘allied’. I think the issue encountered here is that the current descriptor seems to have focused on the description containing certain bits of information rather than being something that sounds natural.