Please no more "Inspired by real world culture"

[Talael]

Can we please stop with this BS? Its for this reason that Tural had to be such a safe and boring place. Cause, apparently, if u put indigenous ppl getting invaded or conquered, tribal tribes of cannibals, heavy piracy or anything fun, u could offend the latino ppl.

Worse, it even affects glamour. "Oh this garment looks kinda like some indigenous real life cloth? How dare they!?"

This game is a fantasy, let the creativity flows and not be impacted by what u think Hydaelyn should have just because the continent of said expansion looks to be placed in the same area in the globe as the real world. Hydaelyn is not earth.

Also, im a latino with indigenous rots with Tamoios heritage and i dont give a F about how indigenous ppl are presented in a fantasy RPG world. Why should i? Stop it.

[Noox-115]

I kinda agree I would rather see more diverse an made up place, let the art concept run wild and I think thats one of the reason Shadowbringer is in art style the most beautiful with Heavensward both dosen't realy show anything that look like our world its what make the beauty of a fantasy world to just travel and see stuff your mind couldn't imagine

[Daralii]

Every XIV civilization is based to a degree on RL cultures, but Tural(more so Yok Tural) was the first to try and represent RL cultures, and it's striking how shallow and homogenous everything under Tuliyollal is compared to the rest of the setting.

[NegativeS]

You best start believing in settings inspired by RL cultures...



...you're living in one.

(not saying that tural is good, but RL inspiration is not the problem here)

[Loggos]

It sure is a...choice...that one of the first things you list is cannibalism when talking about (indigenous) tribes.

Also, I'm rather confident the reason why there are no major story-relevant factions in this game that engage in cannibalism has nothing to do with "real world sensibilities" and much more with age ratings and general marketability.
(I don't know if in some corner of the world some NPC may reference or engage in cannibalism but I don't think any of the major tribes, incl. in ARR, practice it? I don't remember the Ixal, Goblins, Sahagins etc. eating each other.)

FF14 does have some dark themes. But overall the game still wants to appeal to a wider audience with a somewhat positive, colourful, optimistic vibe. Always has. They've always walked the tightrope of idealism and overly positive tropes like the power of friendship mixed with serious plot points.

We have piracy with human trafficking themes in ARR and that's still in the game. We have human sacrifices to revive a dead lover in Tam-Tara hard. Yotsuyu's entire storyline. In Shadowbringers one of our NPC friends turns into a monster and we have to kill her in a dungeon. The people of Eulmore eat the flesh of sin eaters (and some sin eaters used to be human, so I guess there is your cannibalism in a round-about way).
Amaurot.
The Werlyt side quests.
In Endwalker we have cutscenes with people turning into and being killed by dynamis monsters (forgot their names). In the lvl 95 dungeons a mother and her children turn into monsters right before our eyes and we have to kill them.
In the Garlean zone we find the dead bodies of the two NPC girls we tried to help as an explicit quest point.
In the FF4 arc we have a cutscene where marauders are on their way to explicitly rape women in a village (Zero having a flashback showing how she couldn't stop them).

In Dawntrail one of the tribes (as it seems to be so important that it's a tribe) has had cruel breeding practices to produce two-headed super lizards which meant forced marriages, forced pregnancies (iirc, though please let me know if I misremember, too tired to go through the cutscenes rn) and eugenic-style selection of infants. We literally visit a mass grave related to that.
In Solution 9 people eat each others' souls while their dead are stored in a cloud that relies on genociding other civilisations and harvesting their energy to exist.

Up until and including this expansion the story hasn't shied away from dark and even marcabre themes. Dawntrail dropped the ball in many ways but with the writing being so terrible across the board there is no real way of saying what the rationale for certain world building and story decisions was. Like I said, think of that whole eugenics tradition re: Bakool Jaja. That's certainly not a plotpoint that "plays it safe". It just didn't make Tural any more interesting because it was written so terribly.
We can't rule out that in the hands of another writer Tural would have been better-written, more interesting and more layered while also not reproducing the oldest and tritest stereotypes about "tribes".

[Hallarem]

Real life inspiration for areas is not a problem here. And I don't think the real world leaked into Dawntrail either.
The story was just very immature in it's way of dealing with politics, problems and more. Pacing is the main culprit, the lack of it. Decades of racism / warfare solved in an instant, and more.
It's just sloppy, bad writing. If they were somehow held back by not trying to offend real world cultures, grow a pair because its a fantasy world, not the real world. Grow up while you're at it, if everyone was worried about their fictional characters offending real world people unless its really blatantly AIMED TO HURT REAL WORLD PEOPLE, we wouldn't have art in any form. It's like that one history channel on youtube "Extra history" or something making the video basically saying orcs are offensive, because orcs are an allegory for black people. And to me, that's the biggest self-report ever instead of being somekind of study on fantasy characters.

Sorry if this offends anyone, but a prime example of the real world entering into a game is the scene from the new Dragonage Veilguard. The whole "Don't say that, thats offensive to trans people" "I am non-binary now, you must call me they/them" said in a fantasy game, in a fantasy universe that has no idea of those modern real world terms and concepts. If they had actual brains as writers and wanted trans content, they could've done it simply by saying "I feel like I'm trapped in a womans body, but I feel like a man" and have them act accordingly. But then again, I feel like that whole scene is ragebait towards haters or something, by the expense of the whole game and its worldbuilding.

WHat FFXIV's problem is that the main writers currently have shonen anime in their brain, very very basic shonen anime, the bad type that reads like a fan fiction Isekai where the main protagonist has cheat skills and can solve everything in an instant while smiling the whole way. I am a 100% sure the writers didn't read through the story or the world that happened before, but only exist within the cliffnotes they have stored for major storybeats.
It was an overcorrection of the most awful kind with bad pacing. "We had a lot of sad, lets do happy now." and thats how we got "Weird happy song about being happy, while building a train bomb." scene. The whole story lacks the bite of earlier worldbuilding, any meaningful character interaction, disagreements and fights where the voice actors could really show their skills rather than. "You are bad, why are you doing the bad thing, grrrrrrr!"

Another pet peeve of mine is inserting real world morals and problems into fantasy worlds that have nothing to do with the real world and where their morals are very different. RANT OVER, I AM SORRY.

[Jeeqbit]

I feel that all fantasy games I've ever played are inspired by real life. They all do the same thing. They look up Greek, Roman, Norse, English, Scottish and Irish mythology and history and take the names and the gods and use it to inspire the enemies and settings. And so of course if they go to an island for a holiday they'll look at the carribean or the Bermuda Triangle (and yes that's what the Field Operation is going to be based on).

Ishgard was based on England and went as far as copying and pasting its system of government (House of Lords and House of Commons). The idea seemed to be this magically solves all of their problems like poverty in The Brume (it doesn't).

The problem is not that they are inspired by real life. This is fine. They just need to be willing to change cultures to make them fun. If they are going to stereotype a culture, they should stereotype them all including their own. And for most of the game's history, they have - they stereotyped England as I said by going hard on all the knights and houses of parliament, they stereotyped their own Japanese culture with Ninjas and Samurai and the themesong in Kugane, and you know what, they stereotyped the wild west in Shaaloani and will stereotype the Bermuda Triangle in the Field Operation.

As far as being sensitive, SE has never seem to care about this themselves, but moreso they've cared about it from a legal standpoint. They have had extremely vague references to dark topics and that's how they get around it, by being vague but allowing smart players to get it.

[PorxiesRCute]

Sorry if this offends anyone, but a prime example of the real world entering into a game is the scene from the new Dragonage Veilguard. The whole "Don't say that, thats offensive to trans people" "I am non-binary now, you must call me they/them" said in a fantasy game, in a fantasy universe that has no idea of those modern real world terms and concepts. If they had actual brains as writers and wanted trans content, they could've done it simply by saying "I feel like I'm trapped in a womans body, but I feel like a man" and have them act accordingly. But then again, I feel like that whole scene is ragebait towards haters or something, by the expense of the whole game and its worldbuilding.

How can you say that a fictional universe that, by definition, you don't live in "has no idea" of concepts that are literally represented in that universe? Just say you don't like them, bro, it's not hard.

Anyway this post is dumb, Dawntrail's writing problems had nothing to do with it being based on real civilizations and everything to do with the fact that the Werlyt guy didn't get fired after the garbo story that was Werlyt.

[ArchlordPie]

i just want the next expansion zones to have names i can pronounce

[Hallarem]

How can you say that a fictional universe that, by definition, you don't live in "has no idea" of concepts that are literally represented in that universe? Just say you don't like them, bro, it's not hard.

Anyway this post is dumb, Dawntrail's writing problems had nothing to do with it being based on real civilizations and everything to do with the fact that the Werlyt guy didn't get fired after the garbo story that was Werlyt.

By your logic it would be normal for Gandalf toi say "GG WP" to the Balrog after he killed it, because "it's a fictional universe, I don't live in it and because "GG WP" is represented in the newest iteration, its suddenly okay?" Get out of here with that lol.