Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Pigeon Enthusiast]

Class Design has been wildly inconsistent the entire time. PLD having Flash as their AoE, MCH being ass nearly forever, the constant class changes to PLD, BRD, DRK, SCH, and pretty much every class being constantly "fucked with" is just something they've never figured out. Every patch is the patch that's going to "figure it out" and then it's just +10 POT here, +15 POT here and done deal. Class differences within roles are really small and generally come down to one or two signature abilities (like WAR's Bloodwhetting or WHM's Holy) and they basically gave up on Class Lore in Shadowbringers. Nearly every class having a 2m cooldown is very boring but also feels like it's carved in fucking stone over at Square.

People have always had varyingly justifiable complaints about job design, yeah, especially with stuff like some jobs just straight up not working at times, or serious balance problems like MCH on release doing less damage than a BRD in Final Coil two patches before.
But I think Square's response has generally been of a very "throw the baby out with the bathwater" nature, and increasingly so since Shadowbringers. This is also coupled with a complete refusal to ever consider walking back anything, I think the only time that has ever happened was SCH's Energy Drain in 5.0, where they reverted the removal in 5.05. Every time anyone asks them about wanting something back they just get looked at like they're insane and hit with some Jap corpo speak equivalent of "you think you want this but you don't".

Like there were reasonable complaints about various bits of jank back in Stormblood but generally most people were, I think, happy with where things were. I don't think anyone was actually asking for them to gut half the game's systems with no replacement because some things in SB felt a bit jank, the same way no one was asking for every single job in the game to get flattened into being 2m cooldown centric because one singular fight in Eden's Verse made 90s cooldowns feel a bit bad.

Gear design and implementation are also really really bad with the main innovation being "No more Belt Slot". Relics are the worst offenders because they take so much effort and are deliberately gated to not be useful in raids - there's literally 0 reason to not have the final step do something. The gear disparity is massive from early patch to late patch for virtually no reason and all of the gating in gearing feel pointless unless you're actively raiding (and even then, the Tomestone gating feels pointless). All of this for very minor stat upgrades that math out to fractional percentage points.

The gear treadmill in this game is not only insanely stagnant (it has been totally formulaic since late heavensward) but completely pointless. All gear is just stat sticks that provide completely marginal increases (which don't matter for anything), then an even patch hits and the new crafted gear makes all gear before it completely obsolete in a stroke, and you can get it instantly by putting down a bit of gil.

And by design there's nothing to use BIS on, except for one or two ultimates an expansion for the sweats. You spend 8 weeks reclearing savage for an hour or two each Tuesday for the reward of having BIS gear when you're no longer doing reclears, and maybe making your dungeon runs like 2 seconds faster. The tomestone restriction, I will admit, sort of makes sense in that it's clearly there to keep crafted gear relevant in early prog, but it really should not be that harsh for any longer than maybe the first 8 weeks. Anyone who cares about BIS has their stuff by then, anyone who still needs tome gear in prog has it for their main, it is literally just a pointless restriction on alt job gear then (which is kinda bad when one of the game's selling points is being able to swap to alt jobs).

It is also completely asinine that every single relic step until the last is always weaker than a raid weapon that came out 5 months earlier. And then the last one (which is still only a 0.5% damage increase stat stick over a raid weapon from the previous patch) only comes out when there's literally nothing coming at all for the rest of the expansion.

To say nothing of how every other bit of content drops stuff that's totally obsolete even on release, like dungeon gear.

Crafting and Gathering classes have no soul or identity (except FSH) and have had basically 0 innovation in 10 years. Just a fairly boring and mainly automated grind that you still need to repeat (and equip) 8 times over. Having gear tied to a single Crafting class is a colossal waste of time and effort and I have no idea why they still do it on 50%+ of the scrip gear or why they still have such a boring scrip system in the first place.

I think the only thing you can reasonably call an innovation that they have gotten is expert crafts, and while those are somewhat interesting, they are very sectioned off content that you can basically completely ignore unless you do crafting for the heck of it.

Dawntrail obviously didn't fix anything (and actively made some of it worse) but it's main crime is being bad enough to look at the game and think "has it always just been this way?". For me it did, at least.

For me, there was a point in 7.2 where I had the realization that they keep making the bad parts worse, while looking back at everything since Shadowbringers and realizing how much stuff I liked flat out no longer exists. And that was the point I realized that I didn't want to keep paying a monthly sub for a game I have to force myself to even open, where the devs are seemingly unshakably committed to removing all the bits I enjoyed while continually making the bad parts of it even worse, or at the very best keeping it as bad as it always has been.

Which is why I have unsubbed, bid goodbye to my house, and have no plans on coming back unless the media tour stuff indicates there's an actual change of course coming in 8.0. I am intensely pessimistic about the odds of that, though.

 

[Well Intentioned]

To be fair to Kate (yuck) - but Dawntrail has a lot of problems above and beyond the translation/VA work. It also has inherited a lot of problems from Shadowbringers/Endwalker and while the Endwalker team clearly wanted to put a lot of effort into ending an arc, they really didn't put any effort into starting one.

Dawntrail has problems in pretty much every area of the game. Kate should certainly go, but honestly if CBU3 starts spiraling for more than the next one or two expansions - the removals should be much higher up the org chart. I'd even (if I were Square) start finding a Yoshi-P replacement in case you need one in 2-4 years.

I'm just looking at it from a job performance perspective. Dawntrail isn't shit because of Kate, but Kate did do a horrible job as it relates to her specific roles/responsibilities which contributed towards Dawntrail being shit.

I look at it from the perspective of a creative studio environment. If someone made multiple glaring mistakes over and over again to the point where it necessitated additional fixes/incurring further costs, that person did a fucking horrible job, immaterial of whether Dawntrail as a whole was a shite expansion or if it was the second coming of Shadowbringers (or whatever.)

Like if Wuk was a compelling character, the MSQ was great, OC was fantastic, and Dawntrail was a great expansion but all of those things which can be attributed to localization were still happening, I'd still expect heads to roll. I imagine that whoever was working on OC/Forked Tower is in the shit, and I am hoping that Kate is also in the shit.

EDIT: And yeah, I think that Dawntrail was meant to be part of a succession program for Yoshi P where he was taking a step back and being less active and trusting in his team to knock it out of the park, allowing him to sort of set up the broad strokes while letting promoted folks get in there and handle the finer details.

If this was the plan (and I have to assume based on how people were promoted to key positions) I'd say that it worked in some areas (eg, combat/raids/whatever) but was an unmitigated disaster elsewhere (take your pick.)

Now whether this was because the people selected for these roles were inexperienced/incompetent or if there wasn't enough direct oversight and mentoring is up in the air, but they need to fix it and I have to imagine Yoshi P might be panicking a little.

This is speculation, but I have to imagine that Kate's been arguing that 'attitudes have been changing in the West, we don't want dark and gritty, etc, etc.' which is why she's been able to advocate for so much dumb shit under the guise of it being 'lore friendly' or whatever, and arguing that the people not liking it are the omnipresent 'vocal minority.'

Yet things like sub numbers, Steam ratings, etc. paint a different picture she can't handwave away because hard data gets in the way of any bullshit she may be spewing.

 

[Tanner Glass]

The tomestone restriction, I will admit, sort of makes sense in that it's clearly there to keep crafted gear relevant in early prog, but it really should not be that harsh for any longer than maybe the first 8 weeks.

I meant more specifically that raids drop upgrades for Tomestone gear (the Twine, etc) but you still have to spend the tomestones on it - making it just a weirdly expensive and unneeded sidegrade and then sticking the upgrades for non-raiders behind an insane grind (which is do each 24 man current raid wing once per item per week).

Don't even get me started on the fractional drops for normal raids either.

Generally after about 8 weeks (or whenever they do the first Echo step) the drops need to be unlocked.

EDIT: And yeah, I think that Dawntrail was meant to be part of a succession program for Yoshi P where he was taking a step back and being less active and trusting in his team to knock it out of the park, allowing him to sort of set up the broad strokes while letting promoted folks get in there and handle the finer details.

If this was the plan (and I have to assume based on how people were promoted to key positions) I'd say that it worked in some areas (eg, combat/raids/whatever) but was an unmitigated disaster elsewhere (take your pick.)

Now whether this was because the people selected for these roles were inexperienced/incompetent or if there wasn't enough direct oversight and mentoring is up in the air, but they need to fix it and I have to imagine Yoshi P might be panicking a little.

I agree on that point, doubly so because FFXVI was generally regarded as average and behind things like Resident Evil 4 Remake in GOTY lists. It's not just Kate, but the higher ups in CBU3 that got her on the team that should be sweating bullets right now.

 

[SnowBall]

Apparently Koji Fox himself hand picked Kate for the role and he was still part of the localization team until the post EW patches.
Also Banri Oda is the guy whose been doing all the lore since ARR and is supposed to be in charge of making sure it works. He was also the lead msq writer for Sb, ShB and EW with Ishikawa and I’m assuming he was in charge of the lore aspect with those three expansions like he was with ARR and HW. He also shares the same senior story designer role with Ishikawa for DT. I wonder if Oda’s even paying attention to Kate’s lore contributions or if he’s even around anymore to check. Apparently Ishikawa is rumored to be working on another project now so he might be too.

 

[Well Intentioned]

Apparently Koji Fox himself hand picked Kate for the role and he was still part of the localization team until the post EW patches.
Also Banri Oda is the guy whose been doing all the lore since ARR and is supposed to be in charge of making sure it works. He was also the lead msq writer for Sb, ShB and EW with Ishikawa and I’m assuming he was in charge of the lore aspect with those three expansions like he was with ARR and HW. He also shares the same senior story designer role with Ishikawa for DT. I wonder if Oda’s even paying attention to Kate’s lore contributions or if he’s even around anymore to check. Apparently Ishikawa is rumored to be working on another project now so he might be too.

Koji shared that role with Oda.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

I look at it from the perspective of a creative studio environment.

Once you do this, I think we see the issues of 14 laid bare. There's a core group in there that is really good at what they do, and then - like any corporation - everyone just below them is completely incompetent. The assumption of higher-ups is that the second-tier just needs "experience," but the reality is that the motivated people cover up for the slackers.

I'd still expect heads to roll.

When a product succeeds, the rot gets overlooked. When a product fails, these companies first pin the blame on new hires and expendables - and then move on to everyone else.

If the rumors about her being disciplined are true (and the idea that she would be fired is absurd - in her position, she would get something of a write-up), Dawntrail continues to burn and they've already hewn through scapegoats to blame it on. I still feel that the embarrassment of the US studio, which I'm convinced was 100% Kate's idea (as a means of getting Sena a job) is where much of the resentment has come from. I couldn't imagine how frustrating working between three timezones for that shit would be, plus the annoyance of the UK studio at being paired with rank amateurs.

The other day, I found that Emet-Selch is in a realass little movie. And then I was immediately reminded of the male-viera-with-female-voice from the MSQ. You know the one. It's one thing if you spot Wuk, an obvious nepotism hire. It's another when you realize that almost everyone from there is a rank fucking amateur and your craft is being spit on.

Apparently Koji Fox himself hand picked Kate for the role and he was still part of the localization team until the post EW patches.

David Gaider also liked Patrick Weekes, who gave us Veilguard. These people are socialites first and foremost, and probably are pleasant people to have in the office - their entire skillset is the facsimile of doing something.

 

[Brandy [◉'']]

If the rumors about her being disciplined are true (and the idea that she would be fired is absurd - in her position, she would get something of a write-up), Dawntrail continues to burn and they've already hewn through scapegoats to blame it on. I still feel that the embarrassment of the US studio, which I'm convinced was 100% Kate's idea (as a means of getting Sena a job) is where much of the resentment has come from. I couldn't imagine how frustrating working between three timezones for that shit would be, plus the annoyance of the UK studio at being paired with rank amateurs.

I don't think she would get in trouble for the suggestions she contributed to Dawntrail, with the poor casting of Wuk Lamat and some of the questionable translations. I firmly believe Yoshida will stand for his decision to listen to his people, and Kate is one of them, and implement these things into the game. And I kinda get it. Imagine you are a Japanese guy: You are living in your cushy country that has still a semblance of social cohesion and safety. Your game is successful and the foreign girl who does a seemingly good job translating (not that you would be able to check) and brings up easy ways to make your game "more welcoming". You know these things are not phrased in a cluture war frame but in a 'make people feel more inclusive' kind of way. From your point of view it is a low invest way of endearing your game to more people. And so we get more and more things that, for a westener, looks incredibly awkward and immersion breaking.

Now, her doing political commentary about <current events> or antagonising fans on social media is absolutely something they would give her shit for.

 

[Rion]

Looking at the steam page it looks like thats been another avenue for people to vent their frustrations with Kate. Currently sitting at Mostly Negative on Recent reviews.

I think this is like the 5th time this has happened for Dawntrail though

 

[Well Intentioned]

If the rumors about her being disciplined are true (and the idea that she would be fired is absurd - in her position, she would get something of a write-up), Dawntrail continues to burn and they've already hewn through scapegoats to blame it on.

I dunno. The volume and severity of the issues on the localization end of things are pretty severe. You're probably correct with the assessment that a write up or HR meeting or whatever would likely be the first thing on the table. But for it to still be happening in 7.3?

I still feel that the embarrassment of the US studio, which I'm convinced was 100% Kate's idea (as a means of getting Sena a job) is where much of the resentment has come from. I couldn't imagine how frustrating working between three timezones for that shit would be, plus the annoyance of the UK studio at being paired with rank amateurs.

Having worked on projects like these before, yeah, the 3 different continents headache would be an added layer of annoyance.

This may be different for a super high level professional gig, but my experience is that you have the creatives essentially sitting in with the studio team who are running the show. The creatives will chime in and provide their opinions (eg, "I like that last take. Could we do a few more in that vein, but have more of an emphasis on ThisWord?') but generally the studio guys will get an excessive number of takes (this is generally a good thing -- booking and arranging studio time is expensive and being able to pull another take if the chosen one isn't quite clicking can be a godsend) the client/creative will give approval. Generally, a senior team member will check in, listen to some selects and potentially give their opinion as team lead/producer/etc. and then fuck off. Sometimes they'll also be sitting in.

Rinse and repeat for every part of the script.

I don't fully blame the US studio -- my limited research shows that they've done some work with Square before (if they are the same studio), and I think they had to try to make chicken salad out of Sena's chicken shit.

Looking at Sena's CV, talent reel, etc. and ignoring the troon shit, there is no way that Sena should have been landing the lead role in an AAA studio's flagship title and I cannot imagine what was going through Gemma Lawrence (Krile VA) or really any of the actual professional's heads when they caught snippets of this muppet's performance. You know, people with extensive theater, TV, film, and video game experience.

Compare Gemma's CV which I linked above with Sena's. It's insulting. Incidentally, I just discovered the last role Sena had was in a Bethesda game released last year. I know there's been a strike but I imagine that his performance as Wuk has hurt his prospects (huge copium, I know.)

And that's without getting into any of the other morons (Koana's VA, for example.)

And then I was immediately reminded of the male-viera-with-female-voice from the MSQ. You know the one. It's one thing if you spot Wuk, an obvious nepotism hire. It's another when you realize that almost everyone from there is a rank fucking amateur and your craft is being spit on.

I completely missed this unless you're making a joke or something.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

From your point of view it is a low invest way of endearing your game to more people.

I think in the abstract, this is probably true: the studio would trust Kate's opinion, believe that she has more insight, and if it was a slight misstep - oh well. Everyone makes mistakes, and no amount of committees can render a product truly risk-free. I think were it slight missteps that loosely had her mark on them, it'd be a non-issue and the crusade being called by Internet Warriors against her wouldn't have any real bite, because companies are by now used to the way these wildfires crop up and putter out in the course of days.

However...

there is no way that Sena should have been landing the lead role in an AAA studio's flagship title

This is why I think Kate might have gotten flak and fallback. The added complexity of a second studio and a third time-zone (not to mention the burden of trying to make a coherent master from two totally-different recording setups, which they didn't really even bother with) is one thing... but the fact that Wuk was the prime role here is another entirely. People nebulously said "oh, it's DEI, it's SBI" - as if writing consultants running a racket would somehow use cabalistic magicks to make SE hire Sena for the role.

No, I'm pretty sure it was Kate that pushed for bringing on a second studio, Kate that pushed for this particular studio (though if they had prior work with SE, that certainly would have made it an easy sell), and Kate that leaned into giving the lead role to someone consummately unfit. I just cannot see any other reason why Sena would have landed that role, even accounting for the fact that the VA studio is probably staffed by people who want to "promote underserved voices" or whatever. The sheer amount of drama, blowback, and PR fire that the studio has had to deal with - if my hunch is right and Kate was the one that funneled everything in that direction, there's just not a way to untether "this wasn't just a mistake; this was practically sabotage."

The volume and severity of the issues on the localization end of things are pretty severe.

I agree that they are, from flat translations to obvious grammatical errors to outright missing words (and those completely-untranslated blurbs, too, lol). However, I think errors like that are pretty low-priority for the company on a whole. They're embarrassing to us as consumers, especially when the product up until that point had someone competent at the helm; but to the bigwigs, I don't even know if they'd be aware it was happening.

I don't fully blame the US studio -- my limited research shows that they've done some work with Square before (if they are the same studio), and I think they had to try to make chicken salad out of Sena's chicken shit.

I would normally agree, even for the mastering issues with Bryer - because there's just no way to make that performance sound like anything but shit. It's just that so many of the other performances were also just fucking bad and badly-mixed. I've been reviewing my footage from the game (which is why I even remember this character in the clip), and so many of the side characters are like... System Shock 2 "guy around the office" level of quality.

I completely missed this unless you're making a joke or something.

This one. It's not a memorable character, but it's still so insanely amateur.

0:03

 

[Tanner Glass]

Looking at Sena's CV, talent reel, etc. and ignoring the troon shit, there is no way that Sena should have been landing the lead role in an AAA studio's flagship title and I cannot imagine what was going through Gemma Lawrence (Krile VA) or really any of the actual professional's heads when they caught snippets of this muppet's performance. You know, people with extensive theater, TV, film, and video game experience.

The only counterbalance to this is that you run the risk of your actually talented Voice Actors catching a break and not being available to come back to the role in a timely fashion.

Jonathan Bailey (G'raha Tia) is blowing up right now and while he's pretty clearly a fan - if his schedule comes down to FFXIV : Next Expansion and something akin to being in the Movie "Wicked Part 2", it's not even close in terms of money or exposure. Good Voice Actors are generally good actors who can and do catch a break and leave VA work behind.

Sena probably did not cost Gemma Lawrence/Jonathan Bailey levels money and they likely aren't worried about Sena catching a "big break" and not being available to voice Wuk Lamat anytime soon - even if it turns out they aren't likely going to do much with Wuk moving forward for lazy/bad writing reasons.

 

[Brandy [◉'']]

Are voice actors actually such a huge budget point for projects of this scope? I never really bough that hiring a famous voice actor is bad because they cost money, or that Y'shtola gets less lines because Ai Kayano is very well paid in Japan. I feel compared to the dev costs and the money the game subs+mogstation bring in, that would be such a small amount that it doesn't even matter. Or are voice actors paid in the hundred of thousands?

 

[Well Intentioned]

The added complexity of a second studio and a third time-zone (not to mention the burden of trying to make a coherent master from two totally-different recording setups, which they didn't really even bother with) is one thing... but the fact that Wuk was the prime role here is another entirely. People nebulously said "oh, it's DEI, it's SBI" - as if writing consultants running a racket would somehow use cabalistic magicks to make SE hire Sena for the role.

Yeah, this is why I really hate that idiots on both sides have really fogged what should be a basic fucking issue: Sena is not a great VA and they were incredibly unqualified for the role. It does not matter why he is unqualified, but simply evaluating the performance it sticks out like a sore thumb and is terrible.

The sheer amount of drama, blowback, and PR fire that the studio has had to deal with - if my hunch is right and Kate was the one that funneled everything in that direction, there's just not a way to untether "this wasn't just a mistake; this was practically sabotage."

This might be my own personal biases creeping in, but I'm loathe to blame the studio for what they did. There were a lot of things going on that affected the audio quality for Dawntrail that I think were out of the studio's hands.

EDIT: Forgot to add: I also think that a third studio wasn't really something Kate would've been pushing for -- if you're doing a 'South America' expansion the talent pool is going to be bigger in North America than it would be in Europe or Japan. The problem was that Kate (if she was in charge of this on the EN side) fucked the dog with auditions and presumably decided to nepotism it up by giving preferential treatment to folks she was friendly with on Twitter (there are interactions with her and Sena, as well as the dude who voiced Koana and 50 random NPCs.)

This is a classic case of a client (SE) coming in with a 'brilliant idea' or someone they absolutely love to work with (Sena) and basically forcing the more qualified people around them to make due. Happens all the fucking time.

Another thing to note. I'm not a huge techy guy, but Sena's CV page that I posted up above lists the specs on their recording gear. I would not put it past this histrionic retard to think that they insisted on using their home setup (ostensibly because they have the 'perfect' settings that conveys their heckin' true and valid 'real' voice) which might've led to some of the compression(? I think that was the term you used) issues with Wuk's performances.

I can absolutely see an egotistical retard like Sena trying to tell actual audio professionals what to do and I can absolutely see the studio having to grin and bear it because $$$.

The only counterbalance to this is that you run the risk of your actually talented Voice Actors catching a break and not being available to come back to the role in a timely fashion.

I'd argue there is a happy balance you can find, where you aren't plucking some Literal Who from the backwoods of Kentucky doing their best(worst) Wish.com Sofia Vergara impersonation and professionals who have earned a ton of accolades.

Yes, you run the risk of that with 'up and comers', but I think Square's general approach of targeting theater actors was the right course. They likely would've found some great talent if they focused on up and coming actors from South/Central America.

Are voice actors actually such a huge budget point for projects of this scope?

Studio time + talent can be expensive if you're paying for like a Grey Delisle or a Nolan North or whatever. But keep in mind that's from the perspective of the gaming studio -- VAs are generally paid peanuts and if someone like Jonathan Bailey blows up in Hollywood or wherever, the money, exposure, fame, etc. they can get doing 'real' work is far greater than what a game studio will be paying out.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Are voice actors actually such a huge budget point for projects of this scope? I never really bough that hiring a famous voice actor is bad because they cost money, or that Y'shtola gets less lines because Ai Kayano is very well paid in Japan. I feel compared to the dev costs and the money the game subs+mogstation bring in, that would be such a small amount that it doesn't even matter. Or are voice actors paid in the hundred of thousands?

It depends

Generally speaking with VA Work (and most other acting work) - you're competing against whatever project the VA currently has and what their resume looks like. There's a reason that most very memorable voice lines in video games are delivered by generally serious actors - it's something that can really elevate your product.

It's not like hundreds of thousands - but the large issue is compounded by how many actors you need to have voiced and the level of access you have to them over years. Y'shtola can get less lines because Ai is expensive, Ai can be expensive because she can go 'I'm fucking Y'shtola in like 4 games go get someone else if you don't like it', or because Ai has other projects to work on and simply has less time.

Generally in entertainment (not just VA) - you're always competing with "what else could this person be doing to make money" and "when are they doing it". You can try and be flexible in a lot of ways based on the actor's main job (Theatre people often have Mondays off, Comedians often work Thursday to Friday, etc) or if they're semi-established just let them work remotely instead of coming to a studio. You can bundle in work or tie them into other projects too (Ben Starr from FFXVI does a bit of promo work for Square as well). You can also record a bunch of the lines (provided you've written them) out of sequence. So you can take a character like Estinien and record all of this lines from 7.0 to 7.5 in one or two sessions if he doesn't have much to say.

All that said, if you're a SAG Member - you're looking at $250/hour per 4 hour block at a minimum. Obviously bigger names are going to charge much more then the minimum and Square likely has something in their contract that stipulates they'd like the ability to retain you for future expansions and so on - but given Sena's resume I can't imagine she's breaking the bank but Square Enix sure is getting what they paid for by cheaping out.

If I had to guess, they probably paid Sena something like $2000/per 4 hour blocks and likely had to do several blocks, let's say 32 hours of recording for the roughly ~5 hours of finished product - coming out to $16,000 (8 blocks at $2,000 each). Outside of Wuk Lamat - apparently Sphene, Erenville, BakoolJa, and Koana round out the "characters with the most lines in all of 7.0" and they cheeped out on all of them. If Wuk got $16,000 and everyone was paid similar, then Sphene got $8,000 and everyone else got a proportional amount lower.

 

[Well Intentioned]

If I had to guess, they probably paid Sena something like $2000/per 4 hour blocks and likely had to do several blocks, let's say 32 hours of recording for the roughly ~5 hours of finished product - coming out to $16,000 (8 blocks at $2,000 each). Outside of Wuk Lamat - apparently Sphene, Erenville, BakoolJa, and Koana round out the "characters with the most lines in all of 7.0" and they cheeped out on all of them. If Wuk got $16,000 and everyone was paid similar, then Sphene got $8,000 and everyone else got a proportional amount lower.

That honestly seems like lowball in terms of time spent, but I've never worked on a project of this scope.

 

[Tanner Glass]

That honestly seems like lowball in terms of time spent, but I've never worked on a project of this scope.

Me either, but mainly compared it to an audio book. 32 hours of recording for ~5 hours of usable voice work. I certainly don't think they were QA checking very much of what Sena was doing (based on what made it into the final product) so by some estimations 32 hours is too long also. A lot of the dialogue is also just filler chatter and not important speeches like "SPHENE LISTEN TO MEEEE".

32 hours translates to roughly $16,000, but if it was longer then it would be higher. Even if you wanted to go absolutely HAM and suggest that she pulled down 64 hours, that's still $32,000. Then minus guild fees, agent fees, and taxes, etc...

It's not bad work if you can get it - but you need to constantly be working (which is why you see "good" voice actors in dogshit games) constantly to really make it work full time. I don't think people are looking at Sena's demo reel and going "I want me some of that".

A good anchor point / frame of reference is that Beyonetta's (old, lol) Voice Actor let slip that Beyo 1 took her 16 hours to record and that by the time Beyo 3 rolled around, that would have been worth only $10,000 (or $2,500 a session for 4 sessions). They bumped it up to $15,000 and she said no and caused a bunch of drama - but that was roughly the same time that Wuk would have started showing up in Endwalker.

Obviously they're different games and actors - but I'd imagine that Beyonetta is much more of a "Main Character" to Platinum than the EN voice of Wuk Lamat was to Square.

 

[Well Intentioned]

Me either, but mainly compared it to an audio book. 32 hours of recording for ~5 hours of usable voice work. I certainly don't think they were QA checking very much of what Sena was doing (based on what made it into the final product) so by some estimations 32 hours is too long also.

This is may be bias creeping in, but I imagine the studio would be doing a lot of 'let's do one more take' to cover their asses. Recording studios tend to be borderline neurotic when it comes to ensuring clients get full value. I agree that either Kate (or whoever was supervising in the booth) wasn't taking a practised ear to things or was just being lazy which is how we got crap like 'speen lissen to mi.'

A lot of the dialogue is also just filler chatter and not important speeches like "SPHENE LISTEN TO MEEEE".

Ehhh. Even stuff like that will still have the writer(s), talent and audio guys fucking around with things. I could imagine that like something like the Shadow Lord's lines in the first FFXI raid where he's basically doing his best Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain impersonation would take like a half a day of recording, but the volume of all of Wuk's fucking lines + Sena being a rank amateur (remember he was moaning on Twitter about how hard it is to juggle a higher register (his true and real 'woman' voice) with an accent (because he's from Kentucky) with emoting (because he's likely autistic/retarded)) make me think it'd be closer to 20-24 hours of recording time.

I am sorely tempted to try and confirm where Dawntrail's NA lines were recorded and try contacting them on the slim chance they'd give any information on the process. Not looking for dirt, just general man hours, etc.

A good anchor point / frame of reference is that Beyonetta's (old, lol) Voice Actor let slip that Beyo 1 took her 16 hours to record and that by the time Beyo 3 rolled around, that would have been worth only $10,000 (or $2,500 a session for 4 sessions). They bumped it up to $15,000 and she said no and caused a bunch of drama - but that was roughly the same time that Wuk would have started showing up in Endwalker.

This tracks for me, to be honest, especially since Bayonetta isn't a particularly exposition heavy game (I think?) it'd be mostly quips and one-liners? 16 hours for a bunch of pain state noises, one liners and then some plot makes sense to me, especially if we're dealing with an industry professional.

 

[Well Intentioned]

This old interview with Kate is more of the same nonsense with her:

https://www.pcgamesn.com/final-fantasy-xiv/ff14-dawntrail-interview-kate-cwynar

As for Tural itself, our next destination has come up previously in bits and pieces of lore, but it's largely new to us - although, perhaps crucially, not to those who've been living there. "We did have some text about it in-game before," Cwynar notes. The Blue Mage quests come to mind, as the roots of the job are said to originate in what was at the time called the 'New World,' a term the FF14 writing team has since spent a lot of time considering.

"I can't speak authoritatively on what they were thinking," Cwynar says of the original Realm Reborn era, "I definitely get the vibe that this was sort of a set piece that just sort of existed and nobody really planned to actually go there, which, you know, is something that always happens over the course of a ten-year game. So it's been a little bit challenging for things - even the term 'the New World' itself, that definitely has real-world connotations."

The approach the team has taken with Dawntrail, then, is to recognize this former usage and address it head-on. "We've taken an approach that I think some people picked up on in the trailer of having the people who are from there be a bit sarcastic about it." Wuk Lamat, our first in-game FF14 female Hrothgar, very pointedly refers to Tural as "the land you call the New World," even giving a wry smile that breaks into a grin. "My home, Tural."

"We didn't want to completely depart from this setting and the influences of the real world, North America, South America, and the indigenous people there," Cwynar explains. "But at the same time it's definitely a huge issue to be using elements from indigenous cultures without direct input from people from those cultures. So I think comparatively, when you see Dawntrail versus some of our previous works, stuff like Doma, you will see that we really tried to lean further towards inspiration, as opposed to something more appropriative."

It's really good Kate took the time to consult with indigenous cultures about stuff like this:

Playful Hhetsarro: You're learning about the Hhetsarro way of life, are you?
Playful Hhetsarro: I may have a thing or two to share... But rather than talking your ear off, let me test your powers of deduction. I find answers much easier to recall later if I arrived at them myself.
Playful Hhetsarro: Ahem! Our hhetso provide us with something that we use in medicines, poultices, and soap, to drive away pests, and to sustain our fires. What is it?

(incorrect answers only) Playful Hhetsarro: To remind you: this material is fit for medicines, poultices, and soap, to drive away pests and other evils, to sustain fires, and to flavor food. Have another guess!

< Is it dung? Again? >
Playful Hhetsarro: It sounds like there's a story there...but that is indeed the correct answer! We've discovered myriad uses for rroneek chips over time, each a boon to our way of life. Where there is a need, our hhetso always provide.

 

[Racial Slurs the Movie]

The other day, I found that Emet-Selch is in a realass little movie. And then I was immediately reminded of the male-viera-with-female-voice from the MSQ. You know the one. It's one thing if you spot Wuk, an obvious nepotism hire. It's another when you realize that almost everyone from there is a rank fucking amateur and your craft is being spit on.

95% of the British VA's are theater actors who have tons of experience.

95% of the American VA's would sell their kidney to be on Steven Universe.

 

[Not your Buddy Holly]

The approach the team has taken with Dawntrail, then, is to recognize this former usage and address it head-on. "We've taken an approach that I think some people picked up on in the trailer of having the people who are from there be a bit sarcastic about it." Wuk Lamat, our first in-game FF14 female Hrothgar, very pointedly refers to Tural as "the land you call the New World," even giving a wry smile that breaks into a grin. "My home, Tural."

"teehee the people there are sarcastic about it" and the only evidence is a line she herself fucking wrote for this expansion.

The other day, I found that Emet-Selch is in a realass little movie. And then I was immediately reminded of the male-viera-with-female-voice from the MSQ. You know the one. It's one thing if you spot Wuk, an obvious nepotism hire. It's another when you realize that almost everyone from there is a rank fucking amateur and your craft is being spit on.

95% of the British VA's are theater actors who have tons of experience.

95% of the American VA's would sell their kidney to be on Steven Universe.

I still always get surprised and disgusted by how voice acting in America is ran like cutthroat cartel and yet the people who run it are some of the most banal people in the world that either make a mockery of their craft or are on the of the old guard who refuses to retire until they drop dead in a recording booth.