The Final Fantasy XIV community is known for hosting large social events across all Data Centers. Clubs, cafés, and roleplay venues are among some that players frequent globally. Oftentimes, depending on what Data Center one plays on, these events can feel starkly different based on nuanced cultural interpretation and interaction. However, one large and unexpected group of fishers plan to celebrate these differences in their next multi-Data Center event, FishFest.
The Eorzean Aquarium is a community run aquarium across three Data Centers based in Malboro, Spriggan, and Sophia. All locations include numerous fish from across FFXIV housed in aquariums, an interactive interior furnishing housing item found in-game. They are all arranged in immersive environments akin to their location in FFXIV.
Each year, The Eorzean Aquarium hosts FishFest, a convention-like event dedicated to fishing in game. This year’s festival is packed full of activities, which will be available all day. Due to their global audience, FishFest decided to take on the daunting challenge of localizing the event in five languages. The leadership team at The Eorzean Aquarium have shown an enormous commitment to community outreach that transcends familiar social events in FFXIV and even localization options offered to players by the game.
FishFest is 24 hours, but fishing is year round in FFXIV
FishFest will take place on Feb. 24. Festivities will be active all day. Below shows a table of events kicking off each regional Data Center’s festivities. OCE DC has no scheduled events, but you can visit their aquarium including a special exhibit.
| Event | World | Start Time | Housing | Ward & Plot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fish Trains | Crystal, Malboro | 12pm EST | Lavender Beds | Ward 16, Plot 59 |
| Fishcraft | Chaos, Spriggan | 10am GMT | The Goblet | Ward 20, Plot 34 |
| Aquarium Visits | Materia, Sophia | All Day | Lavender Beds | Ward 1, Plot 58 & 57 |
Participants can experience plenty of other scheduled activities like an art party, Ocean Fishing, and a dance performance by the macro dance group, Esprit. For those who don't have an active FFXIV subscription, they can still participate in FishFest includes activities available all day, like coloring pages, scavenger hunts, and panels.
Each Data Center hosts aquariums that will be open throughout the event. This incorporates the aquarium’s Ocean Conservation House where you can learn about fish in FFXIV, but also their kin in real life that are facing extinction. All aquarium facilities are open year round. The list of aquarium locations are found below
| Aquarium | World | Housing | Ward & Plot |
|---|---|---|---|
| NA Aquarium | Crystal, Malboro | Lavender Beds | Ward 16, Plot 59 |
| NA Annex | Crystal, Malboro | Lavender Beds | Ward 15, Plot 47 |
| Ocean Conservation House | Crystal, Coeurl | The Goblet | Ward 20, Plot 22 |
| EU Aquarium | Chaos, Spriggan | The Goblet | Ward 20, Plot 34 |
| EU Annex | Light, Alpha | Lavender Beds | Ward 4, Plot 49 |
| OCE Aquarium | Materia, Sophia | Lavender Beds | Ward 1, Plot 58 |
| Special Exhibit | Materia, Sophia | Lavender Beds | Ward 1, Plot 57 |
Ocean fishing, Namazus, and fish trains all coming to FFXIV FishFest 2024
FishFest is packed with interactive and immersive activities for players of all types, including the popular activity The Trials of the Big One. This activity is a multi-step quest including puzzles, riddles, and exploration all themed around Namazus. Last year, players started in a small house themed around Namazus and ended on The Isle of Umbra in La Noscea, so expect to go to unexpected places.
Trials of the Big One is only located at Malboro Lavender Beds ward 16 plot 42, so if you’re not located on NA and are looking to do some mystery solving yourself, there are some scavenger hunts that anyone can participate in whether you're subscribed or not to the game.
The scavenger hunts have several difficulty levels from normal to hard to ultimate. They are considered a global activity for FishFest. Other global activities include the coloring pages and fishing related panels. Both activities can be accessed without needing to join in game and are designed so everyone can get involved in some way. The day-long event also includes the expected Fishing activities of Ocean Fishing and fish trains.
Fish trains are similar to gathering collectibles on a timer, but instead following the fish tracker app. Each train will be led by aquarium staff who will shout instructions and location pings as folks travel on their Fishing adventure. There will be one main train that will travel across all expansion areas, and there will be a train geared towards sprouts or folks with lower fishing levels that will only traverse areas found in A Realm Reborn. All bait is provided for FishFest attendees; however, free trial accounts must provide their own bait due to trade restrictions.
One of the exciting additions to fish trains at this fest is fingo. Fingo is like Bingo but designed for FFXIV fishing. All you have to do is catch fish on the fish train and mark off what you caught listed in squares located on the fingo card until you spell fingo.
Ocean Fishing will also be led by aquarium staff. Both events are great communal activities to relax with fellow fishers and possibly get lucky with a rare catch. Ocean Fishing with FishFest can be enjoyed on both NA and EU Data Centers; however, fish trains are exclusive to NA activities for this year’s festivities.
Cultural differences among FFXIV Data Centers influences decisions at FishFest
One of the events only found among the European schedule is Fishcraft. Fishcraft is a special activity used to demonstrate how fish can be used through desynthesis to acquire bait. This bait is then used to catch other fish to desynthesize again. As a player in NA, this did not jump out to me; however, it has found success among EU players.
Fruity Snacks, the founder of the Eorzean Aquarium, described how his team observed how different cultures respond to certain activities differently. Fishcraft is only occurring during Europe’s scheduled festivities because of the large enthusiasm for crafting among the EU fishing community. “We did fish trains in Europe, and they did okay. And then [leaders of The Eorzea Aquarium’s EU branch] Innis and Cory were like ‘what happens if we involve crafting?’ Instead of a fish train to go get big fish, you’re fishing up fish that you then go and cook and craft. And that was a big change,” he told Fanbyte.
Differences in culture have had many influences in the decision making at FishFest and the aquarium. One of the clearest attentions to this detail is the leadership team. Every leader in charge of organizing each Data Center’s activities is from and involved with that Data Center. They are familiar with the culture, the player base, and their interests.
This was a large factor in the emission of Japanese Data Centers. Not only is localizing the Japanese language challenging, but The Eorzea Aquarium has no one in leadership living in Japan, who are also involved in Japan’s FFXIV culture. When breaking down the Data Center, there are even larger subcultures from South East Asia and Korea.
“I don’t want to do anything with the Japanese servers until we can do it 100% correctly,” Fruity Snacks said. They hope that in the far future, JP can be more heavily involved in festivities, but it’s a big challenge. There are no aquariums or activities occurring on JP DC, but they can still participate in the online events outside of the game.
Eorzean Aquarium’s FishFest brings languages like Portuguese to FFXIV
The Eorzean Aquarium is localizing FishFest into five different languages: English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. The inclusion of Portuguese is a welcome sight to the community because there is no representation for Portuguese speakers in FFXIV. Portuguese’s inclusion to FishFest is particularly exciting for Brazilian players who play FFXIV on NA servers. Absent their own dedicated server, the passionate community of Brazilian gamers have settled on Behemoth, but have asked for a regional Data Center for many years.
It’s not often that communities in FFXIV go to such lengths to include the global community. Localization is something usually tackled by paid developers, not volunteers.
The aquarium team recognized that the task ahead was daunting, but they had their community’s support. The localization teams include one to two people per language. One person is in charge of translating shout macros, graphics, and the website while the other is in-game live-translating or both. Part of the challenge comes from translating common terms known amongst the FFXIV community like “art party”. They even found trouble translating non-FFXIV related terms like “coloring pages”.
Fruity described a specific instance of this to Fanbyte. “Some of the other [terms] that came up were stuff that you would maybe understand like fish panel. We had a couple of people go like ‘what do you mean by fish panel? Is it a panel of fish? … Is it a panel about fishing?” Even the concepts that seem simple in one language can have trouble conveying the context to another.
EU Data Centers were a priority for localization as they already had established a presence there. Several Worlds in EU have very active French speakers like Moogle and Ragnarok as well as German on Zodiark and Shiva. Innis felt like the time was right to incorporate more people, “I would say it also really made sense for Europe to try and go for multi-language this year because Europe is so diverse.”
For those interested in The Eorzea Aquarium and FishFest, The Eorzean Museum Network’s Twitter and Discord is where fans can find the newest info on events and happenings within the community. All aquariums and annexes are open to visitors at all times even after the festival ends. Not only is FishFest a global festival of fun activities, but an opportunity to learn something new. So start logging in and equip that reel. It’s fishing time!
