It’s still a while before FF14 patch 7.2, and this period is a bit sluggish for FF14, and the number of players online is not as high as before. There are many reasons for this, partly because the recent game content has not aroused the interest of players, and partly because the servers of Final Fantasy 14 have not been stable.
Throughout 2024, the servers of Final Fantasy 14 have been under DDS attacks. Worse, on January 5, there was a major server failure that prevented many players from logging in.
Recently, some players have pointed the finger at Wuk Lamat, an NPC in Final Fantasy 14, who has too many lines, so many that they are annoying.
Wuk Lamat
Wuk Lamat first appeared in Endwalker and also played an important role in Dawntrail. Uh, very important.
Wuk Lamat is the daughter of Hunmu Rruk, the chief of the small village of Xbr’aal, and was raised by Dawnservant since childhood. Then Wuk Lamat asks for Warrior of Light’s assistance, and she needs to hold the succession ceremony in Tural.
In the game, she can appear in the dungeon as a teammate to help players earn FFXIV Gil together. She can act as a tank and also cause decent damage, making her a good helper. Players can also talk to her in the dungeon.
Wuk Lamat’s personality is carefree, brave and fearless, always happy, and loves to wander. At the same time, she is ashamed to show her weakness in front of others, and is uneasy about the upcoming battle for the throne.
Wuk Lamat’s Lines
Wuk Lamat gradually began to be annoyed by players because she had too many lines, and throughout Patch 7.1, Warriors of Light could feel that Wuk Lamat was almost everywhere.
Wuk Lamat had too much appearance time, which made other characters look a little pale. Throughout Patch 7.1, players seemed to be revolving around this girl, even if she was not there sometimes.
Some players counted the number of Wuk Lamat’s lines and found that she had 2,600 lines. Erenville, the second character with the most lines, only has 1,000 lines. What’s worse is that Erenville is almost inseparable from Wuk Lamat, because he mentions Wuk Lamat 41 times in total.
Krile, a NPC with the third most lines, mentions Wuk Lamat 48 times. So even if Wuk Lamat is not around the player sometimes, the player still can’t get rid of her shadow.
The synonyms of Wuk Lamat, “Lamaty’i” and “Third Promise”, are mentioned more than 460 times in the entire script, which means that in the entire cutscene, the player will hear Wuk Lamat once every 2.7 minutes on average.
In terms of pure words, Wuk Lamat alone contributed more than 35,000 words to the entire script, accounting for about 1/4 of all the lines in the entire Dawntrail. A short novel is about 50,000 words. Wuk Lamat alone can support a novel, which is also a lot of work for the voice actor.
Don’t Like Wuk Lamat
Wuk Lamat is actually a good character. At least when she appeared at the beginning, she was still loved by many players. However, when players found that almost the entire Dawntrail was full of Wuk Lamat, they began to get tired of her.
The existence of Wuk Lamat caused Dawntrail to not shape other characters enough. Erenville and Krile, the natives of New World, also appeared in some side quests, but compared to Wuk Lamat, their role was more like a tool.
Of course, when players earn materials and Gil in the dungeon, Dawntrail’s MSQ always requires you to talk to Wuk Lamat, and some of what you do in the dungeon seems to revolve around Wuk Lamat.
Outside the game, players are also dissatisfied with the choice of voice actors. Because Wuk Lamat’s accent is a South American accent, but Wuk Lamat’s voice actor is not a South American, so the voice actor tried to imitate such an accent, but it seemed a bit lame. Players complained why not choose a real South American to do the dubbing.
Some extreme players even hope to delete the character Wuk Lamat, or give them a button to skip Dawntrail. All of this reflects the dilemma that Final Fantasy 14 is facing in its current plot.
Now that patch 7.1 has been released for several months, Dawntrail is far from being truly exciting, and players have already felt tired of the story. This is a bad sign for Final Fantasy 14. Because the story is exactly why FF14 can attract players. Perhaps the developers need to make some adjustments to the current content, cut some of Wuk Lamat’s lines, and create some quests about other NPCs to enrich the character image. Or hold some activities and give away some Final Fantasy 14 items to attract players back.
