Include Japanese input in the English version of Final Fantasy XI

Square-Enix have recently released Final Fantasy XI for the PC in the United States. They fully encourage communication and teamwork between Japanese and American players, and the two countries share the same game servers. There is an automatic translation system built-in to the software, but in order to use it, you must select words from a specific list which is both time-consuming and limited compared to normal typing. Japanese players are able to enter both English and Japanese text, however English players are not able to enter Japanese text, only English.

Since English players are not able to input Japanese, it is obvious to Japanese players who is from where, and cultural mixing is not allowed to take place as freely as it should be. Some Japanese players are reticent to play with foreigners due to potential communication problems, and rightly so, when the foreigner can only type in a romanized form of Japanese which is both harder to read and understand than kanji. The system could be misconstrued as being setup with a bias towards Japanese players - giving them the chance to learn English, but not giving English players the chance to learn Japanese.

We believe there is no need for this limitation - Square have already developed their own kanji input system for Final Fantasy XI, as seen on the PlayStation2 version - and even if the game requires a third-party input system on the user's PC, such users who want to use Japanese will likely already have a Japanese IME installed, and as such we ask Square-Enix to reconsider the situation and implement Japanese input in the English version, for those users who need it. Since an established patching system is already in place, we ask that this be used as the means to distribute the change.

Thank you for your interest and support.