EreRant #8: Why Erecia Hates the Japs
This is a topic I’ve been wanting to talk about for some time. It’s a delicate subject, and so I’m handing it in the way that I feel is best: by being as bluntly honest as I can from the get-go. Go ahead and flame me if you want. Honestly, if I haven’t offended at least one person’s sensibilities with this, I don’t think I did my job.
This title isn’t designed to intentionally mislead you. Shock you perhaps, but not deceive. I really don’t like the JP players. I divide this rant into two parts; my gripes about SE based on my perceptions of the Japanese entertainment industry and then also my complaints about the JPs in FFXI themselves.
First, SE. Oh my freaking GORD did they do such a bad job with designing things in this game. Massive tnl requirements (that eventually got slashed out a few years ago, but are still large today). Terrible drop rates on high end equipment from the NM system (Salvage being the big offender here, but nearly every NM that doesn’t have a 100% drop rate feels somewhat unfair given the nature of competition). The land kings spawning patterns. Endless timesinks that could have easily been smaller distances or a short cutscene instead (ferry and airship rides). An almost complete inability for most characters to get anything done on their own since almost everything requires a party (my 65 WAR can’t handle an easy prey beetle). A huge amount of this game is designed to waste time and effort and turn simplistic goals into an all-day venture. I understand the logic of wanting us making things take a long time so we keep playing longer, but I think most would agree that this concept was stretched more than a little too thin in FFXI.
“But, wait Ere!” you’re saying if you’ve been paying a remote bit of attention. “I may agree with some of these gripes against SE, but what does this have to do with the topic of disliking the Japanese entertainment industry?” A good question! Thank you for bringing it up. Guess what though? You know all those things I said that were annoying and pointless? They were designed on purpose for this game, very likely as a result of a huge amount of time-consuming effort and balancing. SE wanted things to be like they were. Eventually, as a result of much complaining, some things were changed, but after a long time and with great reluctance. We were demanding that they change their grand vision for what the game should have been.
Why did SE make so many pointless timesinks in this game? Because the Japanese culture eats that shit up! Because to them, games are about wasting time, whereas to us they’re about having meaningless fun. Why do you think the JP players were so much better at the game during the early days than the NAs? Because they lived and breathed it, got into the math, and perfected their playstyle to a fine katana’s edge. To be sure this meant that most of them become hopelessly antisocial losers in the process, but hey, at least they knew how to skillchain back when we were in the dunes.
Think of other Japanese games you may have played. They’re exceedingly long, have wildly twisted stories, and long sidequests that take crazy amounts of patience to complete. To become good at those kinds of games, you really have to spend a lot of time at it. Now think of games made by American or European companies. Games based on shorter play intervals, faster action, and considerable forgiveness if you mess up. A lot of these games are just about screwing around and doing nothing. Japan would have never come up with Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar, based in New York City, USA), Guitar Hero (Red Octaine/Activision, California, USA) or Rock Band (Harmonix, Mass, USA). SE is a Japanese company, and apparently the JPs get their kicks through repetition unto perfection with harsh penalties of failure rather than just having a blazing good time, consequences be darned.
And then, of course, no real good rant about SE’s failures at managing FFXI would be complete without parallels to World of Warcraft. Without touching too much on this topic, WoW shows information to the players straight up (like accuracy, hey, there’s a freaking amazing concept) whereas the FFXI developers think that keeping the information invisible “adds excitement to the game” since it “encourages players to experiment with things on their own.” What a load of crap. Yeah, it’s amazingly fun not knowing what half my stats even do for 4 years until some true diehards crunched all the damage formulas out. And then of course there are WoW’s media and advertisement campaigns, which are nothing short of amazing. It’s frustrating how good they are compared with how bad SE is at promoting FFXI, and even more so when SE says they don’t care and they’re happy about how FFXI is doing as is.
If one could combine the complexity and job system of FFXI with the ease of entry, promotional schemes, and lack of meaningless timesinks I hear about WoW, you would have absolutely one hell of a game. Unfortunately it’s probably impossible for a culture based on perfection and a culture based on entertainment to actually compromise. Though, if anyone’s keeping score, entertainment’s WoW is winning by a fantasic amount.
Now, on to the Japanese playerbase. It’s clear that they tolerate us at best and would be a lot happier if we all just left and took our bothersome language barrier with them. They never use the autotranslate function and insist only on speaking in squiggle-tongue. SE, in their infinitely wonderful game design, made it impossible to even type in that wacky language without using third-party cheat tools. It is important to remember that, while the previous part of this rant focused on SE’s ineptness as a Japanese-based company, they’re also JP citizens with the same mindset of their players and the same sense of cultural superiority. So really, from here on out, I’m referring to them all as a group.
Elmer the Pointy, bless his little heart, keeps trying to strengthen NA/JP relations. I have no particular problem with that and would actually approve of it. It’s my very strong opinion, however, that the feeling is NOT mutual from the JP. At one point Elmer translated a series of questions the JP wanted to ask of the NA group and posted in on Alla. Here are some of the questions I found interesting:
· “I heard that on foreign boards there is a list of useful Japanese players that will help people out. Do you really have such a list?”
o Of course, the answer to this is a flat-out “no.” It may sound like an innocent question based on ignorance, but keep in mind that this survey was only ten questions long. This question was good enough to make the cut, which means it must have been supported by a majority of the people. As I find it singularly unlikely they have a similar list of good NA players, it’s a concept bred only out of self-absorbed superiority.
· “I don’t go out of my way to invite NA players to my party, but NA players often invite Japanese players. What are the benefits and drawbacks of inviting a Japanese player to your party?”
o The first part of this question is great for proving my case that they don’t want to associate with us, of course, but I personally like the second part. What exactly was the aim of that? Basically just fishing for compliments about how leetzor they are?
· “I’ve had a foreign player say to me, ‘I hate Japanese people.’ But Final Fantasy is a Japanese game. If you hate us, why play?”
o This one is my absolute favorite. As if the Japanese gamers had any sort of connection to Square-Enix at all. SE is unquestionably based in Japan, but that’s about where the similarities end. For better or worse, SE opened up the game to foreign shores. Our cheeteo-eating players are no better than their pocky-eating ones.
My answers to the survey were largely diplomatic if forciful, but you would be AMAZED at how much ass-kissing there was from the other replies to this survey. It seemed that english speakers almost instantly turned on their fellow NA players upon the first accusation (especially that “hate the JP” one), claiming they were stupid and ignorant and intolerant and that their behavior was utterly unacceptable and that, oh by the way, Japanese culture and gaming is the best in the world and I love what you’ve done with your hair! Okay okay, I can understand some people not wanting all NAs to be judged as rude, but good Lord. The Japanese will stick together through thick and thin and protect one of their own until the end, but us NAs will gladly string out as many of our fellows as necessary to appease anyone else.
So. Let me set the record straight right here. For all of you people that apologized for the rudeness and said most NAs just looooove the JPs to death and this was a wild misinformation, you did not include Erecia with your statement. And please, let me apologize for the lie and misinformation that they spread about us all liking you; there’s more people like me than you may think.
Before you accuse me of racism, I’ll spare you the hassle. I admit to being racist against Japanese players on FFXI. I’m not racist against the Japanese in other parts of life, or against any other race in any other circumstance. Just JPs in FFXI. This is a learned behavior from me. It makes SENSE for me to be racist in this regard, in the exact same way that I’ve learned that the winter is cold and I should put on a coat before going outside. Exactly how many times does a JP have to be rude to you and say they don’t want you around and toss racial slurs as a person before they sense a pattern in the behavior. I do not party with the JPs if I can help it, much like they do not party with me. I do not leave a party that has JP players in it, but nor do I feel particularly obligated to interact with them more than is absolutely necessary for the party. Honestly, that’s more than I’ve gotten from endless parties full of JPs. But apparently I’m the racist one. Simply saying the word “jap” is a terrible racial slur, but it’s okay for them to throw any number of derogatory terms at us. The smugness and lack of justice offends me enough to be writing this rant, on both sides of the ocean. But at least the JPs have their culture to unite behind. The NAs that will inevitably flame me for being hateful are the real hypocrites here.
If I hate JPs, why do I still play? Because it’s my monthy fee too, bitch. How about YOU quit? I don’t want you around, either.
Unquestionably, in my blanket attempt to spurn those guilty of a poor attitude towards the non-JPs, I inevitably hit the innocent. I’m not stupid enough to think that the behavior of a large group manages to contain all individuals. No doubt there are JP players that make basic attempts to communicate with non-JPs (honestly this is all I ask for) and do not deserve the treatment I give them. Unfortunately these good souls are outnumbered many times by their intolerant comrades. I say right now that it’s not fair what I do to them, but frankly, it doesn’t bother me enough to change my stance on the matter. I have to look out for #1 in the end, and #1 is sick of the crap that’s he’s been getting from these people as a whole. This does not mean that I do not recognize when a JP is trying to be civil and treat him properly accordingly, but my initial stance of one of distrust and the burden is on him or her to act nicely first, and I admit that is a definition of racism.
So no, I am not even remotely interested in this new “Rapture” MMO SE is talking about. SE’s wild mismanagement of FFXI by replacing “content” with time sinks and thinking that hidden stats and a lack of information is “exciting for players to discover” has made a million things frustrating in the game, and their worldwide release means that I’d have to deal with a new generation of stuck-up ignorant foreign-hating Japs. No freaking thanks. I’ll play FFXI for as long as I’ll play it, because I have too much knowledge about FFXI rattling around up there to make a switch to another game, but if I’m still around when the servers finally go down or all my friends quit or life takes me in some other direction, then that’s the end of my patience for SE and their favored audience.