Data sleuth turn_a_blind_eye/Rise Narukami has simply compiled some extra info on Final Fantasy 14’s mammoth script—with the assistance of chronicler Eriyu, who began trying to digitally bind the sport’s 1000’s upon 1000’s of phrases again in May 2023, and has clearly made sterling progress since then. The outcomes are attention-grabbing, to say the least.
I Analyzed All The Dialogue from ARR 2.0 to Dawntrail 7.1 from r/ffxiv
In a remark explaining their methodology, Narukami states that they used a custom-compiled python script to drag the small print out of Eriyu’s mammoth doc: “A good portion of this effort was within the data-cleansing portion and deciding what edge instances represent a phrase.
“For instance, if I did not decide up ‘Bakool Ja Ja’ as a single phrase, then ‘Ja’ can be thought of a phrase, and would muddy the evaluation by turning into probably the most widespread phrases. This is equally true for titles like ‘Lord’ … There are some situations within the knowledge I did not catch as this requires handbook overview; however, I consider I caught most of them.” Narukami then proceeded to snip most typical phrases “comparable to ‘It’, ‘You’re’, ‘They’ve’, ‘Which’ … since they might in any other case simply dominate the phrase depend and are uninteresting.”
As for what the numbers turned up, shocking no-one, Alphinaud is the reigning king of yappers. From patches 2.0 to 7.1 (FF14 primarily “begins” at 2.0, as a result of 1.0 was ill-fated and needed to be rebooted), Alphinaud accounts for 7.4% of all phrases over the primary state of affairs quest’s 1,259,754 phrases of dialogue. That’s 93,649 phrases whole, 45,245 greater than Alisaie, who follows behind at second place.
What drives the purpose dwelling about a few of Dawntrail’s issue in prioritising its characters is how Wuk Lamat is in third place after only one enlargement and two patches. Despite journeying with us for the reason that patch quests of Heavensward, Alisaie has solely 0.1% extra traces within the sport’s script, and he or she’s already extra verbose than the remainder of the sport’s ensemble solid.
As all the time once I convey up FF14’s most controversial lion queen, I contemplate Wuk Lamat to be a symptom of Dawntrail’s main scripting points, not the trigger. Wuk Lamat hogs the highlight not as a result of she’s a horrible character, however as a result of the story leads struggled with characterisation on the entire, with a number of missed alternatives, comparable to Zoraal Ja confronting his father’s shade and Krile uncovering the thriller behind her beginning, occurring offscreen for causes I’ll by no means be capable to fathom. Channelling all critiques in direction of a single character, although, reasonably than the writing room, strikes me as counterproductive and a bit foolish—and clearly, directing any type of hate in direction of anyone is inexcusable.
On a lighter observe, there are another enjoyable stat factors this exhaustive evaluation turns up. Urianger’s most-spoken phrases are “tis”, “thou”, and “loporrits”, which is lovely. Estinien is reliably Nidhogg-brained, and Thancred can not shut up about his totally-not-husband Urianger.
The total stats are attention-grabbing, too. FF14’s foremost quest is the same as 1.4 mixed whole works of Shakespeare and has over 2,491 distinctive characters. Also, Stormblood is longer than The Odyssey—so in the event you’ve performed all the MSQ, you’ve got bought no excuses to scrimp in your classics like I’ve. It actually does hammer dwelling the epic scale of the MMO’s story when taken as an entire—and, whereas I’ve loads of criticisms of Dawntrail’s total narrative, these stats do give me an entire new appreciation for the way gargantuan of a activity it’s to place a narrative this large collectively.
