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adeat · 3 years ago

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16 - Crane

Word Count: 1,948

((I didn’t intend to do FFXIV Write this year. Then this prompt came along. Crane is the patron animal of one of my more recent characters, Kaito Yugureno, and I had to do something for him! I did this in a hurry, but it’s something.))

A long line-up and an equally large crowd gathered at the end of Pier #2 caught Kaito’s attention. Not every day people gathered there. A housing special perhaps? Or announcement by the hunting guild? The miqo’te hopped onto the roof of a worn, wooden building and peered down at the shoreline. At the front of the line stood a small, portable shrine - or at least Kaito gathered from the shape of the roof. The other hint came from the hyur dressed in long, ornate robes fitting of a shrine guardian. Kaito perked his ears down to hear the priest’s words.

“Welcome! Today is an auspicious day, for it is the anniversary of the kojin who once dwelt in this area,” said the shrine guardian. “He has done much to protect the shores here, and now it’s time for us to give back to him. It is said that he was once a dancer who sensed the patron animal spirit of one’s being. Would you like to see this for yourself? Pray to him and offer your tributes, then dance on the water’s surface. If you dance with conviction and purity, then perhaps your essence will be brought to light.”

After the shrine guardian’s speech, the crowd murmured to each other. Dance on water? As in walk on water? Was such a feat even possible? Kaito wondered the same thing.

“Only those with absolute conviction in themselves are able to do so. If you are willing to give this a try, you may walk over on the pier here. We have help on hand in case you fall in… and are unable to swim! Perhaps pray to the kojin for their blessings on this as well!” the shrine guardian laughed at his own joke.

Kaito’s tail twirled in interest, betraying his otherwise stoic expression. He glanced down at the shrine to see people praying indeed. How earnestly though? Even from his farther vantage point he saw raised eyebrows and a brief tenure that couldn’t have carried the thoughts of more than three words at most. The shrine guardian’s speech repeated itself to waves of people. Nothing more to see there. How about those continued splashes of water?

By the pier, people lined up individually - a line made short thanks to perhaps nervousness. Absolute conviction in oneself indeed. One by one, people stepped on the water, only to squeak or cry out as they fell down, accompanied by splashes of varying degrees and heights. Those who did succeed in walking on water, Kaito counted on one hand. And then took that golden opportunity to dance tried, tested and true staples such as the Manderville, its sibling the Manderville Mambo, and even the Yol Dance. Kaito squinted in hopes of seeing a guardian animal spirit or whatever show up - how did such a thing appear, anyway? But found nothing. Perhaps due to a lack of spiritual eyes. Or perhaps such conviction came from themselves that their sense of self was all that needed to be displayed. Their adoring fans certainly thought so, coming from the applause and loud cheers of their fans.

‘I admire their conviction,’ Kaito thought. ‘I certainly don’t have that kind of gall.’

Yet, despite everything Kaito witnessed, he felt an urge to pay tribute himself. He wasn’t sure why - perhaps his curiosity was once again getting the better of him. Most likely, if he tried, knowing him, he’d no sooner fall in the water the second his toe touched the sea’s surface.

Still, curiosity. He still wanted to give it a try. If nothing else, Kaito felt sorry for the kojin spirit. As dumb awestruck Kaito was at the worthy’s strong sense of self, he had to admit a point as well.

Were these people dancing for the kojin spirit, themselves, or their captive audience?

Still, pity.

‘At the very least, I could… try to do something for the kojin spirit. Anything is better than nothing.’

Kaito cut himself off in mid thought.

‘Wait—wait a minute! That’s like saying I can dance!’ Kaito’s eyes widened. ‘Kaiken’s the dancer, not me! Sure he dragged me off to practice all those years, and I keep up with it every day, but it’s for training benefits! I don’t really have that extra spark that he does. That’s fine by me though. Ballet is his thing.’ He sighed. ‘But still, doesn’t change the fact that I can dance… somewhat…’

Still, people.

People won out over his curiosity.

Kaito hopped off the roof to the back of the building. ‘Later! After everyone vacates. Hopefully the shrine will still be there.’

As a matter of fact, the shrine still perched on the pier by the time the moon rose into the sky. A large, full moon. An uncommon sight and perhaps coincidental. Or perhaps fate in celebration of the kojin’s big day. A beautiful gift that only nature could bring.

Now free to take his time without the added pressure of other people, Kaito stood in front of the shrine. The miqo’te sensed powerful, yet gentle waves of spiritual energy, and easily imagined the kojin spirit enjoying the view. Closing his eyes, Kaito clasped his hands in prayer.

“Kojin spirit, I’m certain you’ve had a long day today. I promise I won’t obstruct the view of the moon for too long,” Kaito said softly. “Although I’ve only heard of you today, as one guardian of Kugane to another, I wish to say thank you for all your hard work. You’ve dedicated your life to others, and now, I wish to give you a little tribute. This dance is one Kaiken—ah, sorry—my twin brother choreographed, and it’s intended to be a solo. Still, I hope you’ll dance with me in the moonlight. I hope to meet your expectations.”

After he opened his eyes, Kaito sighed. ‘As if my dancing is even worthy of a tribute.’ He sighed again. ‘What a speech. I ended up speaking more about myself than the guardian, didn’t I. I’m no better than all those other self-centered people. Well, if I fall in, at least the kojin spirit will have a good laugh.’

Kaito looked around. Once he felt secure that he was truly alone, he disrobed except for his undergarments - form-fitting, yet comfortable shorts he often wore during ballet practice. He quickly and neatly folded his clothes and placed them in a safe place. His calloused feet walked across the well-worn planks until he reached the edge of the pier. He heaved a deep breath and took the first step into the water.

And continued walking.

The water felt cold, like walking on a smooth surface, yet provided no slip. As he walked, he felt trails of energy brush against him and the presence of someone walking beside him, although he saw no one. Only the light of the moon and its reflection upon the sea’s still surface.

Once sufficiently far enough, Kaito turned around and faced the shrine—his sole captive audience. Imagining Kaiken walking through the stage curtains, arms spread to greet everyone, Kaito did the same, his hands slowly and gracefully moving in front of him to perform a bow.

He heaved one last breath. Even with an audience of one, Kaito still felt his heart race and waves of fear threatening to seize him. But he was here now and he felt absolute in exactly what he wanted to do. Instead, he smiled, imagining the kojin beside him and crouched down with his arms spread out and one leg crossed in front of the other—crouching stance as taught to him by his martial arts training. The starting point of the routine. Kaito imagined the music playing in his head as he leaned back, one arm raised, and tumbled out of position.

The dance had begun.

The solo choreography came from the ending of a larger performance as a whole. Various dancers of Kaiken’s troupe sorted into groups performed a recital meant to show the changing of the seasons, starting with spring. Summer. Fall. Winter. Then Kaiken’s solo last to show the coming of spring. The solo Kaiken choreographed on his own. The solo danced to much applause. And also the solo that Kaiken had taught Kaito for the sole purpose of practicing together.

To dance a solo was an honor and a privilege given to only the troupe’s best dancers. Although Kaito practiced this routine often, this was on his own. Not in front of an audience. Kaito just hoped he wouldn’t make a mockery of his brother or his routine. But this wasn’t about Kaito. This was about paying tribute to the Kojin spirit.

To represent flowers arising from winter’s end, Kaito remained on the ground, tumbling. Reaching. Like the stem growing from its roots. He felt the tips of his fingers cold as though someone held his hand.

To represent said flowers blossoming, Kaito gracefully rose to an upright position on one leg, his torso held sturdy to the side, one leg bent and his arms in fourth position.

Now standing upright, spring had begun. And so did the routine.

Effortless turns that seemingly never ended.

Leaps that defied gravity.

Flexibility that his muscular build didn’t look capable of performing.

All with controlled strength and grace, yet delicate sensibility of an old, gentle soul.

The more more he turned, the more he jumped, the more he moved, Kaito slowly allowed the rest of him to become taken away by the joy of dance alone. As he moved, he felt himself bathe in that same spiritual energy, now warm, as though someone danced beside him. Now completely in his own world, he danced, completely unaware of the wisps of spiritual energy trailing upwards from him.

Meanwhile, back on land, the shrine guardian yawned as he neared his charge. He intended to just take the portable shrine and go, another year wasted. When he saw shadows in the sea’s horizon, he looked up.

He froze.

His eyes locked onto Kaito in awe—half at the miqo’te’s beautiful, graceful movements.

The other half at the spirit that hovered over the miqo’te’s head.

A large, red-crowned crane.

The bird overhead emulated the miqo’te’s movements. Beside the fowl danced the spirit of the kojin, smiling.

“A crane spirit,” said the shrine guardian softly. “A sign of good fortune and long life. This is a truly auspicious year after all.”

Some night denizens or otherwise insomniacs came to the pier. Upon seeing the miqo’te dance, they stopped to watch. Gradually, more and more people came and soon, a large crown formed… both in awe of the dancing and the crane spirit that hovered overhead.

Finally, the solo routine came to a close, as Kaito came out of a spin and slowly crouched back down into sitting stance. Unlike his two arms spread out from before, he reached out with his left hand, as though reaching to someone. When he turned to the side, he saw the kojin spirit in a mirrored pose, smiling at him. The spirit’s cold hand clasped Kaito’s hand. Kaito couldn’t help but return the smile. His stamina fairly spent from the routine, Kaito breathed heavily as his heart slowly begin its descent into a more natural rhythm.

Loud applause and cheers filled the miqo’te’s ears.

Kaito’s eyes widened and his ears and tail shot straight up as his head darted to the pier. Not only did he see the kojin spirit float back to the shore, turn around and applaud, he saw a sizeable group of people cheering him on.

People. People watching him.

His concentration broke. Kaito dropped into the water.

#FFxivWrite2021 #FFxivWrite #ffxiv

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caffeinatedingenuity · 3 years ago

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Current re-re-redesign concept for the Ghestal’s main hanger.

This version of the hanger was designed primarily around three support craft the Ghestal makes use of; ( But not the only. )

An as of yet named light transport with a similar size/function to the Garlean ‘Assault ship’ (a low detail placeholder mockup can be seen. ). This would function as a light cargo and personnel transport, and would be the most used logistics craft. As such, space for more then a handful was factored into the design of the hanger. While they could fit easily anywhere in the hanger, they typically rested in their side hangers, either undergoing daily maintenance, or simply on standby.

Another as of yet named heavy cargo transport airship, (loosely inspired by the CH-54 Tarhe ) which makes use of a tailored built super sized ‘heavy cargo pod’( two can be seen in the hanger ). much of the time, but can be used to carry other items. Due to their size, only two of such craft would be in use by the Ghestal, and due to such, be considered quite valuable, and not utilized for common logical duties. They would generally rest near the cargo lift.

And the Jibril, an aerial combat armor/aircraft developed as an offshoot of/successor to the project that developed the Gabriel,the Jibirl itself focusing primary on eliminating aerial threats. The Jibirl would act as the vessels personal escort and defense craft. Unlike the Gabriel, the Jibril is moderately larger in size when compared to it’s predecessor, features a crew capacity of up to two individuals, integrated weaponry hard-points and primarily focuses on it’s air form more then it’s alternative bipedal mecha form. Jibril would primarily be stored below the main hanger in a storage area, with up to roughly sixty on standby in their launch bays, loaded five per bay, with the foremost stationed just shy of to the launch area itself.

This hanger design has two lifts near the rear on raised platforms, which lead to small craft storage ( Such as the Jibril.), and a large sloped shaft cargo lift, (large enough for one ‘heavy cargo pod’) which leads to a few other decks, most notable the main cargo deck. Also included are two six bay maintenance/storage hangers for the light transports, as well as twelve ( six per side ) standby/launch bays for Jibril, which exit the side of the vessel similar to how Vipers launched in battle star galatica. Other areas of note are assorted localized storage compartments used for storing hanger related equipment and or/armaments for it’s aircraft. Four heavy duty large boom overhead cranes, A Semi-circular operations center near the top rear of the deck, several observation windows from other decks, several catwalks, and assorted miscellaneous industrial bits/air-vents. (( All items shown in the screencaps are early works in progress/designs. As such, are untextured pending a slowing in model redesigns and do no reflect finished work in any way shape or form, instead, should be considered rough concept art in their current state. All objects/designs, save for the scale reference model of the magitek predator, are done by myself and are inspired by assorted music and FFXIV’s more sci-fi themes.. )) (( Note; the Magitek predator armor scale may be a bit off and smaller then actual size. ))

Headcannon rambling below

Being a vessel that was never intended to land once launched, the Ghestal would of been designed and built with an appropriate hanger to operate with such in mind.

Making heavy use of reverse engineered allagan technology, (along with a bit of innovation by it’s designer. ) more so then traditional garlean magitek, allowed for a much larger vessel then typically produced outside of imperial flagships, and, given the scattering of the empire following the demise it’s emperor by a crazed usurper,is likely to be the only vessel of it’s kind to ever be made.

While not necessarily a combat vessel, the Ghestal would retain a full complement of aerial based combat and support craft, along with a healthy complement of ground based magitek machina in order to defend both itself and it’s logistical support teams. Such said, the Ghestal does it’s best to avoid being even remotely near commonly used airspace, let alone intentionally engaging in combat.

Instead, It’s designer and subsequent captain/owner prefers to kept the vessel as high in the atmosphere as possible, far away from everyone and everything regardless their of allegiances, while relaying upon it’s multiple transport craft to handle logistical support. In effect, It is preferable if no one outside of it’s crew/inhabitants knew the vessel existed. (If things had played out differently for the empire, The Ghestal would of likely been part of an Imperial fleet, which would of helped to secure the airspace around Allagan sites of interest to the empire for study, which the Ghestal would of acted as the central hub for such studies.. But things as they are, The Ghestal would depart from it’s shipyard solo, far and away from the chaos engulfing the empire and it’s homeland, either to one day await a time for the empire to heal and rebuild to return home, or to begin anew as a home in the sky for it’s inhabitants. )

#3Ddesign #3drender #ffxiv art #FFXIV #Unreal Engine #autodesk maya #work in progress draft not to be considered a refined design

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greyias · 5 years ago

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Video Game Questionnaire

Tagged by: @a-muirehen, thank you for the tag!

Rules: Fill in your answers below and tag some buddies!

Games

First game you ever played: Oh goodness... maybe it was Duck Hunt? Or something on the Atari like Donkey Kong? I know the first game I ever beat on my own was Secret of Monkey Island. So we’ll go with that, although it’s probably not right. Favorite game: Star Wars: The Old Republic (I mean... really) Game you’ve played through multiple times: SWTOR, Skyrim, all of the Monkey Island games, Final Fantasy 6, Xenogears, The Sims (1, 2, & 4), Sam & Max, Day of the Tentacle, and a bunch of other old school LucasArts adventure games Game you hated at first but now love: I’m trying to think of one. When I tend to ragequit games, I rarely pick them back up. Game you used to love but now hate: Any game that I bought for myself, my brother began to hog, and then blasted through my progress point in it and ruined the story for me. Legend of Legaia comes to mind as a fairly egregious example. Thanks bro! Your favorite game atmosphere/setting(s): SciFi or Piratical Shenanigans. Although I do love me some classic RPG fare as well Game with the best group/companion(s): SWTOR. I don’t make the rules (except when I do and I’m horribly biased) A game with your favorite ending: I really love Final Fantasy 6′s ending. It’s really stuck with me even to this day A game with the WORST ending: Battletoads. No ending can make up for the brutality of that game. Best character customization?: All entries in the Sims series

Hero and Companions

Your favorite playable character: The Jedi Knight, if it’s a customizable protagonist. I clearly play favorites and I love them so much. Non customizable... hmm... probably Terra from Final Fantasy 6 The funniest playable character: Guybrush Threepwood, hands down. Your favorite companion(s): Theron Shan (she said to the surprise of no one) Companions you could live without: I still need to finish the Sith Warrior storyline, so my opinion on this might change as I push through it, and I’m totally going to get a lot of flak for saying this but... I’m not that fond of Quinn so far? He’s just so smarmy and his whole demeanor is just... a bit like nails on the chalkboard for me. But I know he’s a lot of folks’ fave, so maybe I just need to give him more time? (for context, I just got off Balmorra there so... take that as you will.)

Relationships

Favorite game friendship(s): Kira Carsen and the Knight, Bart and Fei from Xenogears Favorite game relationship(s): Knight/Theron from SWTOR (by a lot), Cousland/Alistair from Dragon Age (I still need to finish that game). Terra/Locke from FF6 is not technically canon but I still lurve it Favorite companion banter: Look. I love me my SWTOR cast. All of them. But HK-55 and ZO-0M’s banter is pretty epic. A relationship you weren’t sure of but loved: Akaavi/Smuggler. It just works so well A character you wish you COULD romance: Jonas Balkar from SWTOR. I still need to play the Trooper storyline but... the more spies the merrier. Also my heart for a Sumalee romance. Plz. I love her. A minor character you wish could be a companion: Probably also Jonas. But I just want to stick him and Theron in a room together and see the chaos that results.

Fun

Shoutout to a random NPC: That one Sith outside the cantina on Odessen, who is having the grandest time provoking the NPCs around him into fist fights. A game you love watching playthroughs for and want to play: The original King’s Quest series. And probably Quest for Glory too. Love watching playthroughs but won��t ever play: Batman Arkham series. I am not very stealthy. Online gaming or solo?: Solo. I love SWTOR is because it’s a MMO that can easily be solo’d. You never really have to interact with anyone to just play through the main storyline. I think part of my issue with pushing through FFXIV is the constant forced group content. I love the ability to play with friends, but I don’t like being forced to group up with strangers. Some are awesome -- but some can be pretty vile and I just don’t have time for that Why do you play video games?: I love the characters, and the ability to explore the world they live in.

Tagging uhhhh whoever hasn’t done this yet and wants to tag in?

#thank you for the tag!#tag game #tag meme #tag thing #meme thing #this became mostly swtor answers #heh #whoops

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illegiblewords · 5 years ago

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FOR CONFUSED BYSTANDERS

I know that I have a lot of followers who have been (very patiently) witnessing a stream of pictures, commentary, and general posts related to Final Fantasy XIV. This is going to be my attempt to present the game and its story with context for you guys who have no idea what’s going on.

I’m doing this for two reasons, the first being I LOVE THIS GAME. If I can share the positive experience I’ve had with other people, I’d like to do that. The second reason is, for people who still follow but aren’t necessarily going to play themselves--it might offer enough background info to make posts that go up more entertaining at least. I know I don’t personally mind seeing bloggers, writers, artists, etc. share something I’m unfamiliar with, but it gets more fun when I have some clue what it’s about.

Parts of this post will be just about my own subjective experience, some will be recapping the story, some will be going over different ways I’ve seen people play in case that appeals. So on and so forth. I’m aiming to offer an honest reflection on whatever seems important.

Putting this under a cut because really, this is fucking long. Not as long as it looks because pictures are included but even still. For anyone who reads, I hope you enjoy and if you have questions don’t hesitate to hit me up! :)

BACKGROUND - NON-MMO PLAYER LOVES THIS MMO

I have never played an MMO before this. I’m pretty apathetic about them for the most part. When I play games I like to design things, get good pictures, and kill baddies for stress relief. I'm here to immerse in an exciting world and story, meet characters I can invest in. Stuff in that vein. So far as gaming goes I’m pretty simple.

There are people who put heavy emphasis on the social elements of FFXIV. They’ll play with their friends specifically, either because they’re focused on fighting together or because they want to roleplay or just to hang out. I’m not really in that category.

I entered knowing no one, and while I’ve made some friends through FFXIV I mostly interact with them outside the game itself. This can happen on tumblr, on forums, on the official blog platform, etc. In-game, I encounter other players all the time but it is generally something like “I was running around the city doing stuff and other people were also running around the city doing stuff”. You can approach people. You can message them and do little emotes like waving or hugging or slapping or whatever. You can do these emotes directed at nobody and just see your character go through the animations, which can be fun for taking pictures.

More detailed encounters with other players happen in dungeons, trials, and raids. These are called registered duties. Guildhests and PVP (player versus player) exist too, but I haven’t done them. I’ll elaborate later, but the gist you need to know here is that you are grouped in with a fixed number of additional players and then placed in a setting with a pre-set encounter or encounters to overcome. Some of these are straightforward, some require strategy.

In FFXIV, people usually chat to varying degrees during duties. Most are polite, pleasant, and focused on gameplay. At least where I am, which I’ll also go into later. Occasionally there are people who are jerks in the sense that they are inconsiderate or rude to other players. Also occasionally, people are incompetent. More often though I’ll encounter someone with a great sense of humor or people who have helpful tips to improve.

This is a game where, if you see a player marked as new struggling with low level monsters, a more experienced player might pause to oneshot that monster so the newbie can escape. People are casually nice most of the time.

Since I’d normally be doing single-player anyway, for me this is very refreshing. I get to do all the things I’d be doing in a single-player video game, but I also get light exchanges with other fans in ways that aren’t disruptive. There’s enough meat to the Main Quest Scenario (MSQ) and side quests that I don’t feel bored or lonely at all.

FFXIV does cost money to play and has a subscription. This can be paid in varying increments. I personally think it’s worth it because 1) the developers are adding new content on a pretty regular basis 2) the developers actually care about quality and having happy fans 3) the game keeps getting better over time 4) there is SO MUCH you can do in the game. It is truly expansive beyond anything else I’ve seen. I might not be ready to do a subscription with every game, but for this one absolutely.

This essentially plays like a normal final fantasy game in most respects. You might run around solo by-and-large, but there is an NPC supporting cast. They and the villains get fleshed out very well. Same goes for civilians and other background characters. The biggest difference off the top of my head is the story’s beginning...

OBSTACLES

I’m going to get this out of the way early, but in essence I think there are two main obstacles as a beginner. The first and most notable of these is that the game’s entry point, called “A Realm Reborn”, is less well-written and EXTREMELY LONG.

Seriously. I’ve only gotten one character past this point and it took me a stupid amount of time. Some of the quests at this stage are things like “my dad doesn’t like the stinky chocobo please spray it with perfume so it is less stinky”. Or “jump through all these stupid hoops so you can fight the exciting boss you’ve been waiting for”.

However, the length at least is slotted to be fixed in the future. I’ll probably announce that when it happens in case that’s the deal changer for anyone.

On writing quality, it starts off mediocre. However, later writing is so strong that it actually manages to make past scenes WAY more interesting. The initial setup also kind of lures you into a false sense of security, at which point shit gets real very fast.

The second obstacle for beginners involves a degree of not knowing what you don’t know. For example, there is an extremely powerful attack that can be used in registered duties called “Limit Break”. Initially I didn’t even know where to find it to put in my move hotbar. Then I didn’t know that using it would take limit break away from other players in the group. Then I didn’t know that the limit breaks of different jobs needed to be used under different circumstances. An example of this would be that spellcaster SHOULD use a limit break attack on freakishly large groups of enemies, but SHOULD NOT use limit break on a lone boss unless there is literally no other damage class (DPS) available to do it. This is because the overall impact of caster limit break is comparatively low, but effects more enemies at the same time. Using limit break inappropriately can frustrate people.

There are other things similar to this, such as when you use Duty Finder (a roulette that sets you up with completely random people interested in the same registered duty) and when you use Party Finder (where you announce what registered duty you want to do with what circumstances, then people volunteer to join), or being aware of which moves are supposed to be used in which order for top efficiency. That said, if you tell people you’re completely new they’ll usually be willing to explain.

If it’s something like “how do I use the glamour plates to switch into designs I made easily” or “how does crafting even work”, youtube is very helpful too! Overall just take initiative and communicate to people your experience level while in groups and things tend to work out.

THE STORY

Disclaimer: Recaps get less detailed over time to avoid spoiling too hard.

SHORT VERSION

You are a god-slayer, or more precisely the slayer of false-gods. False-gods drain the land to make it lifeless and are prone to brainwashing people. You also regularly fight the rough equivalent of angels who believe the world as you know it has gone horribly wrong and are trying to force things back into their natural forms. Excessive death ensues anytime they are successful, so high stakes. Meanwhile, an authoritarian and technologically advanced nation is causing issues on the regular and has to be stopped.

PRELUDE/LEGACY

Final Fantasy XIV had a rocky start with patch section 1.0/the true beginning, which I did not play. While there are videos online of what it was like for those curious, the gist is that five years before the current opening the world was stricken by a terrible calamity. The nation of Eorzea (an allied collection of city states) was at war with the Garlean Empire--otherwise known as Garlemald. During this war, one of Garlemald’s scientists implemented a genocidal strategy against the Eorzeans by dragging the lesser of two moons down upon their heads. This moon was called Dalamud. However, what took this situation from bad to worse was that Dalamud wasn’t actually a moon but a prison.

Thousands of years prior, the technologically advanced nation of Allag had been performing experiments using dragons and entities known as primals. Primals are summoned into being using a combination of aether (life energy, the source of magic), ritual, and the belief of their summoners. One of Allag’s experiments involved murdering a powerful dragon then using the tortured prayers of his lover and his kin to summon a warped, primal imitation of him. This primal was then trapped as a power source and left to fester in rage and insanity.

The dragon’s primal is Bahamut. Dalamud was his cage.

When Dalamud burst open above Eorzea, Bahamut was released in all his apocalyptic glory. A collection of heroes, allied to an organization called the Scions of the Seventh Dawn (dedicated to eliminating primals for the toll they take on the land and its people) stood against Bahamut. A man named Louisoix Levellieur, leader of the Scions, cast a powerful spell by summoning the Twelve Eorzean gods to stop Bahamut. This spell cast the primal, Louisoix, and the heroes five years into the future. It also wiped the heroes, known thereafter as the Warriors of Light, from memory.

Part of what makes 1.0 really cool looking back--when the developers saw how many problems existed in the MMO, they knew they would need to reboot it. There was a date set for that to happen, which would involve taking Final Fantasy XIV offline until an improved version could be released. Players knew the real world reasons behind all this. What they didn’t know was how the hiatus and reboot would be presented within the narrative.

People who were up-to-date in the storyline knew that war had erupted and that the moon was falling. They also knew that a particular time, the game would be taken offline.

This is what they saw.

A REALM REBORN

The average player, and likely anyone reading this, will not have played patch 1.0. For us, Final Fantasy XIV begins five years after Bahamut’s calamity. The world is still recovering and has been irrevocably scarred in the dragon’s wake. Refugees from both that event and Garlemald’s conquered territories pour in even as the empire bides its time for another invasion.

The player is a fledgling adventurer endowed with a gift called The Echo. The Echo is an ability that first, prevents them from being brainwashed (or “Tempered”) by primals. This is important because like I said before, one of the things that gives primals their power is belief. This extends to prayer. If a person is tempered, they will worship and empower the primal responsible until they die. This means most people can’t even approach primals safely, much less fight them. More than one character (including NPCs) possess The Echo, but it remains a rare ability.

Another aspect of this gift is that it allows someone (without any deliberate control) to see into the memories of others, superimposing emotions and perspectives of the event over the witnessing Echo-user. It also translates all direct speech into an understandable form to the Echo-user. There are additional abilities that become unveiled over the course of the story, but these are most important and consistent going in.

The player initially is just one of many such adventurers, a guild of independent mercenaries willing to undertake odd jobs using their skill in combat. After coming into conflict with a mysterious, masked organization, however, it becomes clear that the player has been chosen as champion to Hydaelyn herself.

Because you see, Hydaelyn isn’t just the name of the planet. This is also a sentient mothercrystal claiming the role of protector to all life on Her surface.

The masked organization consists of spirits with varying degrees of immortality. They also have the ability to body snatch. These are called Ascians. Ascians argue that the world was split into fourteen pieces thousands of years ago by Hydaelyn, and that their dark crystal god--Zodiark--is the true will of the star and represents a natural state of being that must be reclaimed. Their way of pursuing this objective requires causing a series of apocalypses or near-apocalypses, always coming with innumerable casualties.

As Hydaelyn’s champion the player joins the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in combating primals, fights against lingering threats from Garlemald, and thwarts Ascian plans to continue rejoining the world through calamities.

A trailer for this arc can be viewed here.

HEAVENSWARD

Shit goes pear shaped in a big way and you have to flee territories held by the Eorzean Alliance--city states including Ul’dah, Limsa Lominsa, and Gridania. Ishgard, now a frozen, mountainous landscape ruled by a religion dedicated to the goddess Halone, takes your character in.

Ishgard has been at war with the draconic nation of Dravania for thousands of years. Dragons are immortal by natural means, but can be slain. Ishgard no longer remembers, by and large, why the war even started except that they have been losing loved ones in horrifying ways for as long as they can remember. They refused to send aid during the struggle against Garlemald specifically because they couldn’t spare forces from their war with Dravania. They have a reputation for being hostile to outsiders, having extreme class divides, and inquisition-style zealotry. Nonetheless, there are good people here and over the course of A Realm Reborn the player manages to befriend some of them.

This arc delves into Ishgard’s war, and involves the player taking part while clearing their name in the Alliance. Toward the end, it is also extremely important to note that the player encounters a group calling themselves “Warriors of Darkness”, who are in-league with the Ascians. It comes to light that they hail from one of the divided worlds, that their world is in terrible danger, and they believe the path to survival comes from confronting you.

A trailer for this arc can be viewed here.

STORMBLOOD

One of the antagonists we encounter forces the Alliance to involve itself in freeing Garlemald’s conquered territories, namely the nations of Ala Mhigo (largely Middle Eastern) and Doma (East Asian). In undertaking this task, the hero comes into repeated conflict with Garlemald’s crown prince, Zenos yae Galvus. Zenos is basically a serial killer with the resources of a prince but no actual investment in being a prince. It’s pretty wild.

A lot of this plot focuses on the consequences of Garlean rule. Over time though, it comes to light that the founder of Garlemald was a high-ranked Ascian and is still very much alive.

A trailer for this arc can be viewed here.

SHADOWBRINGERS

The plot set into motion with the Warriors of Darkness resumes as the player is forced to travel to their home world. Dealing with a setting on the brink of Armageddon, this current arc has a ton to do with examining different perspectives while getting much clearer insight on lore metaphysics. Most notably, we finally learn why the Ascians act the way they do and discover more about the nature of the player character and Hydaelyn.

I’m aware this is vague, but honestly this is my favorite of all the expansions/arcs so far. Seriously it is fucking killer.

A trailer for this arc can be viewed here.

YOUR PROTAGONIST/THE CHARACTER CREATOR

The main character of Final Fantasy XIV is known as the Warrior of Light, regardless of whether you play from the Legacy version of the game or A Realm Reborn. Similar to the Dragon Age games, in Final Fantasy XIV you get to design your own main character and shape their identity to varying degrees through the story. Some people like to imagine their protagonist as existing within a completely different role in the world of Hydaelyn for roleplay purposes (so not a Warrior of Light), but that involves essentially disregarding the main quest scenario narrative provided. It’s fine to do that of course, but I’m going to be explaining things that essentially fit within the canon approach.

There are currently eight playable races for the Warrior of Light. These include hyur (human stand-ins), elezen (elf stand-ins), roegadyns (orc or giant stand-ins), miqo’te (cat people), lalafells (dwarf or gnome stand-ins), au ra (tiefling or draeni stand-ins), viera (female-only bunny people at the moment), and hrothgar (male-only lion people, the beast race).

Each race option has two subraces attached. The most dramatic differences between subraces come up for hyur, where there are Midlanders (shorter and slighter frames) and Highlanders (taller and beefier/curvier). Otherwise it’s more minor differences.

It is common for players to develop their own personal interpretations of who their Warrior of Light character was before the story begins and how that impacts progression. This can be shaped by what race they belong to and what lore is attached to that race according to region. It is also possible to shape things according to which of the Twelve (Eorzea’s pantheon) the Warrior of Light worships. These deities are loosely described and made available for selection at the beginning of the game.

It isn’t unusual for people to pick names in-keeping with lore. A good site to turn to for this is over here, although there are also spots that go into what different names actually translate to. Other people just go with whatever they feel like. I think I saw someone named Cheese Whiz once.

Stat variation is pretty negligible between races, and it’s mainly an aesthetic/tonal choice. Currently there is some pressure on game developers to make Viera and Hrothgar playable for male and female gender options both, and it seems likely that at some point this will happen. Currently there are indications that the release for Viera and Hrothgar was somewhat rushed due to some behind-the-scenes circumstances, so while they are less versatile than other options this is likely to change at some point.

As someone who is a sucker for character customization, I want to mention that while it might be easier to get some of the fantasy races to fit a particular ethnicity--Final Fantasy actually does a great job in terms of visual versatility and has made it possible to hit a wide range of options well. For example, it might be easier to make an East Asian au ra or a French elezen, but you can easily break with that in totally believable ways. You might not have the precision adjustments of Dragon Age: Inquisition or Bloodborne, but the options presented are pretty flexible.

In terms of how the Warrior of Light works through the game, again while there is some wiggle room there are certain aspects to their identity that stay pretty consistent. They get jaded and worn out by the narrative as time goes on, they experience loss, they become increasingly chatty and sarcastic. They have powerful neck muscles from years of communication by nodding. Commonly, the personality of the Warrior of Light is also influenced by the job they choose.

THE JOBS

Something I wish got explained to me early--you only get certain jobs as options starting out, and any others you hear about getting added are only accessible at higher levels. In Final Fantasy XIV, basically when it comes to combat you start with a very basic class, which graduates to a job (better versions of the class) when you fulfill certain requirements.

There are notably three main roles a combat class or job can fall into. These include tanks, healers, and DPS. Tanks are responsible for leading the charge, provoking aggression, directing mobs, and enduring attacks in groups. They don’t deal the most damage but have the highest defense and are generally right in the thick of the action. Healers can deal damage but their main purpose is to keep themselves and everyone around them from dying, especially in groups. At the moment all of the healer jobs use magic. DPS (Damage Per Second) are the jobs that are mainly responsible for taking chunks out of the enemy’s health. Within DPS there are additionally three subcategories, these being Melee DPS (non-magical and close-range), Physical Ranged DPS (non-magical and fighting from a distance), and Magic Ranged DPS (magical and fighting from a distance). There is also a limited job and Crafter/Gatherer classes, but I’ll get to those later.

Some DPS jobs, additionally, focus more on playing support to other party members while others are geared toward boosting their own damage output.

The classes you can choose from in the character creator include:

Gladiator (Tank, Sword and Shield)

Marauder (Tank, Axe)

Lancer (Melee DPS, Lance)

Pugilist (Melee DPS, Fists)

Archer (Physical Ranged DPS, Bow)

Conjurer (Healer, Wand)

Thaumaturge (Magical Ranged DPS, Staff)

Arcanist (Magical Ranged DPS, Tome)

At level 10, if your armory system is unlocked (you need to complete a quest for your starting class NPC mentor to do this) you can approach an NPC in Limsa Lominsa to unlock the Rogue class as well. This is a Melee DPS class and uses twin daggers. If your character starts with Marauder or Arcanist this takes less time.

To graduate each of these early classes into a job, the following requirements need to be met:

Paladin (Sword and Shield): Requires Gladiator level 30, Conjurer level 15.

Warrior (Axe): Requires Marauder level 30, Gladiator level 15.

Dragoon (Lance): Requires Lancer level 30, Marauder level 15.

Monk (Fists): Requires Pugilist level 30, Lancer level 15.

Bard (Bow): Requires Archer level 30, Pugilist level 15.

White Mage (Wand): Requires Conjurer level 30, Arcanist level 15.

Scholar (Tome): Requires Arcanist level 30, Conjurer level 15.

Black Mage (Staff): Requires Thaumaturge level 30, Archer level 15.

Summoner (Tome): Requires Arcanist level 30, Thaumaturge level 15.

Ninja (Daggers): Requires Rogue level 30 and completion of quests Sylph-Management and Cloying Victory.

I’ll describe these in more detail in a bit, but there are waaaay more combat jobs than this. Currently the others are:

Dark Knight (Tank, Greatsword): Requires having purchased the Heavensward expansion and having completed all of the Seventh Astral Era Quests up to Before the Dawn, which is needed to unlock the city of Ishgard. This job starts at level 30.

Gunbreaker (Tank, Gunblade): Requires having purchased the Shadowbringers expansion and having a Disciple of War or Magic job at level 60. This job starts at level 60.

Astrologian (Healer, Star Globe): Requires having purchased the Heavensward expansion and having completed all of the Seventh Astral Era Quests up to Before the Dawn, which is needed to unlock the city of Ishgard. This job starts at level 30.

Samurai (Melee DPS, Katana): Requires having purchased the Stormblood expansion and having a Disciple of War or Magic job at level 50. This job starts at level 50.

Machinist (Physical Ranged DPS, Firearm) Requires having purchased the Heavensward expansion and having completed all of the Seventh Astral Era Quests up to Before the Dawn, which is needed to unlock the city of Ishgard. This job starts at level 30.

Dancer (Physical Ranged DPS, Chakrams): Requires having purchased the Shadowbringers expansion and having a Disciple of War or Magic job at level 60. This job starts at level 60.

Red Mage (Magical Ranged DPS, Rapier): Requires having purchased the Stormblood expansion and having a Disciple of War or Magic job at level 50. This job starts at level 50.

So total, right now the jobs include 4 Tanks (Paladin, Warrior, Dark Knight, Gunbreaker), 3 Healers (White Mage, Scholar, Astrologian), 4 Melee DPS (Dragoon, Monk, Ninja, Samurai), 3 Physical Ranged DPS (Bard, Machinist, Dancer), and 3 Magical Ranged DPS (Black Mage, Summoner, Red Mage). Total is 17 jobs. When I describe these combat based jobs, I’m not going to focus on the actual gameplay aspect because frankly I don’t know how to play all of the jobs. This is gonna be a quick and dirty explanation based on the scientific approach of “idk that’s just my impression”.

Paladin: You are a holy knight and you can heal a little sometimes maybe (???) and you are very good and noble with great defense.

Warrior: You are a beserker who loves to release your inner beast and kill shit in really violent ways and are kind of a badass and do the most damage of the tanks.

Dark Knight: Super super edgy and kind of magical but also straight up crazy, you hate corrupt authority figures and are willing to get your hands dirty and darken your name in order to protect others. One of the most beloved job questlines.

Gunbreaker: You have a sword that is also a gun and you can shoot people with it, soldier style. Basically if you have ever fantasized about having a knifegun this is like that but better.

White Mage: Very pure, focused on nature and communing with elemental beings, all about that land/sea/sky thing with ties to the elements earth, water, and air. One of three magic traditions that got involved in a next level magic fight, this one stemming from the city of Amdapor. Amdapor is full of fungus and poison spores now.

Scholar: Takes a highly intellectual spin on magic with ties to weird geometries and so forth, figured out how to summon fairy familiars from aether. Does a lot with shields and preventing people from taking as much damage in the first place. One of three magic traditions that got involved in a next level magic fight, this one stemming from the city of Nym. Nym is a floating city and is basically hovering in ruins now, with any surviving residents having been transformed into tonberries. Tonberries are little green creatures that like to stab people.

Astrologian: A fortuneteller take on magic that combines tarot cards, astrology, and crystal balls. The idea here is that Astrologians are messing with fate and time in order to heal you, sort of undoing damage. Snazzy dressers, intimidating moveset.

Dragoon: Jumpy people with spears who struggle to live down their legacy of animation lag-related deaths, my understanding is that today’s Dragoons do solid damage and are decent at survival. Their reputation, however, is that if someone is going to die in a fight it’s probably them. They are very broody and like to hang out in high places with capes billowing in the wind. They also wear spiky armor and fight dragons and have the soul of a dragon. People make jokes at their expense a lot but with affection.

Monk: You punch people to death and get gauntlets of varying levels of sharp. You also get to master chakras and go through forms associated with different animals. In a series like Final Fantasy where people carry swords bigger than they are, you’re the job that said lol who needs that and made your body the weapon.

Ninja: Very very sneaky, used to be sort of a state-sanctioned criminal. If anybody is a spy it’s you. You are very fast and can basically turn invisible and sometimes smoke bombs go off. Mudras are used and I don’t understand.

Samurai: Deal a solid amount of damage and are very flashy and cool, probably one of the highest damage outputs for Melee DPS. Very neat and fancy katanas.

Bard: Draws a connection between the strings of a harp and the strings of a bow, is able to both shoot the crap out of enemies, make enemies more vulnerable with some songs, and make allies more powerful with other songs. I think Bards are very pretty and fancy.

Machinist: These are tech nerds who realized that guns are an option. So are flamethrowers. So are robots. This job has a reputation for being ungodly complicated to play but this has apparently been rectified recently.

Dancer: Similar to Bard in that they do a lot to boost allies in a fight, do lower damage as a result but damn do they boost their allies. Also have ridiculously swanky outfits and are super flashy in fights.

Black Mage: The edgy magic users, they are disciples of Eorzea’s death god and all of their magic ties into destruction. If you wanna make the biggest explosions Black Mage is where you go. Magic ties to fire, ice, and electricity but primarily puts focus on the shift between fire and ice. Black Mages also have a reputation for being involved in demon summoning because they were kind of the assholes in that magic war against White Mages and Scholars. Black Magic as a discipline has ancestry in Mhach, which is of course now crawling with demons. Black Mage is the DPS king in the sense that if you want the biggest numbers of damage dealt, this is where you go. They are however tragically slow and squishy so expect the Black Mage to be somewhere between standing right where an attack will land or dodging frantically between spells.

Summoner: Has the ability to summon small familiars in the form of defeated primals, these being namely Ifrit (fire-based), Titan (earth-based), Garuda (air-based), Bahamut, and Phoenix. Apparently their questline is covered in Ascians too. One of two DPS capable of raising fallen allies.

Red Mage: Very fancy, fast-moving swordsmen covered in ruffles. The founders of Red Magic were Black and White Mages who came together in the wake of that magic war mentioned above. They essentially work to balance Black Magic and White Magic alongside physical attacks. They don’t get the numbers of some DPS but are again extremely fast and are also capable of raising allies. Versatile.

The limited job is called Blue Mage, currently being lamented because it’s unable to fight in dungeons or main quest situations to the extent of other jobs. Blue Mage gets abilities by fighting monsters and learning magical abilities from them. They use a cane and are massive dandies who will hopefully get the opportunity to do more in the future.

If you want to actually make in-game money without blood sacrifice, you want to get involved in a Crafter or Gatherer job. These don’t deal with combat but instead let you acquire, develop, and sell in-demand resources to other players.

Gatherer jobs include Fishers, Botanists, and Miners. Crafter jobs include Carpenters, Blacksmiths, Armorers, Goldsmiths, Leatherworkers, Weavers, Alchemists, and Culinarians. I am not good at these and so can’t explain them properly, but some people do play the game exclusively so they can level these jobs. I think that besides getting mad cash, this is probably because Crafters and Gatherers also get to make really fancy houses and get very pretty clothes with their vast amounts of wealth, skill, and resources.

THE SETTING

There are three city states that, at the start of A Realm Reborn, comprise the Eorzean Alliance. Your character becomes a hero to the Eorzean Alliance before any other nation. The three nations are Ul’dah, Gridania, and Limsa Lominsa. Ul’dah is a desert city (someone mentioned it being Byzantine), ruled by a Sultana, and watched over by the dual-aspected god of death and commerce. Gridania is a forest city (to me it looks Western European but unsure?), ruled by a spiritual Elder Seedseer, and is watched over by the nature goddess Nophica--her will embodied in the form of spirits called Elementals. Limsa Lominsa is an ocean city (Greek influenced, although some territories read Caribbean), ruled over by an Admiral, and is watched over by a sea-goddess.

Ul’dah is a major trade center and known for having a solid amount of crime and corruption, harsh wealth divides, huge reverence for the dead, and general canniness. Gridania is super spiritual and has massive reverence for the forest and maintaining both it and the boundaries necessary to co-exist peacefully with Elementals. Limsa Lominsa is literally pirate town and have the most kickass military/naval fleet ever.

Depending on what job you choose in the character creator will effect which of these three cities you start out in. It’s ambiguous where the Warrior of Light comes from so conceivably you could be a native to that city state or a foreigner from somewhere else. It mainly matters in terms of if you’re making a story up for your character or not.

Another city state is Ishgard (technically Eorzean but isolationist), which has parallels to Norse mythology, France, and the Catholic church. It is covered in snow and full of mountains. Ala Mhigo is also a city state, and while like Ul’dah it is also a desert environment this one seems to place higher emphasis on different regions within the Middle East and India. One part looks strongly reminiscent of the Dead Sea, for example. Idyllshire was formerly a territory of the nation Sharlayan, which dedicates itself to the scholar-god. However, Sharlayan up and bailed when Garlemald showed up so that whole city got evacuated.

Those city states are all based on the continent Aldenard. Garlemald comes from a continent called Ilsabard that we haven’t gotten to see yet. It’s supposed to be cold and shitty there. Also worth mentioning, Garleans are on the one hand atheists and on the other hand borderline worship their emperor.

Othard is the Far Eastern continent and represents Asia. The two main city states we’ve seen there are Kugane (Japan) and Doma (China). There are other nations in the surrounding areas that we know about as well but haven’t explored. Both Kugane and Doma worship entities known as kami, omnipresent spirits who appreciate treasure and sometimes play a role in manipulating the fates of mortals. There are also animal spirits who through wisdom and longevity gain power and the ability to change form. These are called auspices. Special shout out to the Azim Steppe of Othard as well for representing Mongolian tribes and a plains environment.

There at least two other continents around but we don’t know a lot about them yet. One is The New World and draws from pre-Columbian North America. The other once housed a nation called Meracydia that opposed the ancient Allagan empire.

Shadowbringers takes place on a world called The First, which is one of the fragmented realities split by Hydaelyn. This world is called Norvrandt. It parallels Hydaelyn in some ways but not others. The desert environment of Ahm Areng geographically resembles the red deserts of the Southwestern US, but the architecture doesn’t match. The Rak’tika Greatwood is an A+ perfect jungle setting and heavily modeled after Mayan civilization. Eulmore kind of reminds me of the idea of pre-French Revolution excesses surrounded by poverty but with almost neon circus aesthetics married in. Il Mheg is rainbow fields and glassy lakes and fae creatures fucking with you 24/7. Very pretty and art nouveau.

The Tempest is full of secrets.

THE COMMUNITY

People focus on different things in this game. It’s huge enough to make that extremely doable.

One group involves the combat-focused players. These are people who just want to take on content labeled Extreme or Savage and beat it as smoothly as possible. Very talented bunch but tend to be short tempered sometimes, also often can’t wrap their heads around people playing any other way.

Glamour hounds are people who are in this for the A E S T H E T I C S. They want their characters to look a very specific way with certain gear in certain colors and god damn it if they have to run savage to achieve their goals they are going to do it. Often also are very into exciting mounts and housing, will frequently do artsy screencaps and share them online.

Lore hounds are people who focus mainly on the main quest scenario, overall storytelling, NPCs, setting, metaphysics, etc. Some of these people just want to analyze and make predictions. Some are independent fan creators. Some are roleplayers.

Worth noting--the most active roleplay communities are on the Crystal server, on the worlds Balmung and Mateus. My understanding is that these worlds are pretty packed and come with their own collection of pluses and minuses. More drama and a high likelihood of being ambushed for erotic RP, but fun community storytelling too. You can absolutely join servers outside your geographic location, by the way.

I’m on Primal server. It’s pretty chill.

Crafters, gatherers, and gamblers as far as I can tell are out to get top tier gil and fabulous prizes. I think some just honestly like the process too tbh and it happens to pay swimmingly. By the by, yes there is an in-game casino.

Last major group off the top of my head is the people who are mainly, specifically there to hang with friends and otherwise socialize with the game as a medium for that.

OKAY BUT I FOLLOW YOU SPECIFICALLY, WHO THE HELL ARE THOSE CHARACTERS YOU KEEP REBLOGGING?

EMET-SELCH

He is an Ascian who showed up fashionably late, would rather be napping than villaining around. Massive troll and also responsible for single-handedly making the fandom care about Ascians after four arcs of apathy. Secret sad boi. I am omitting a bunch because he’s basically a walking spoiler, but someone once described him as having absolutely relentless theater kid energy and I have yet to see it put better than that.

ELIDIBUS

Another Ascian known as the Emissary. Talks more about balance than ZODIARK!!!??!!!?11111!! and sometimes tries to have conversations instead of fistfights. Is not as good at having conversations instead of fistfights as Emet-Selch but is significantly better at it than Lahabrea, who will be described next. Elidibus is notable for spontaneously adopting a child and then passing that child off to the heroes as discreetly as he could.

LAHABREA

The third major Ascian and the first recurring one players meet in A Realm Reborn. Lahabrea seems like he is probably a few screws loose, fucking loves to blow shit up, embarrasses all of the interns who get stuck with him, and spent years in charge of PR before his colleagues realized that was a mistake. Makes very poor life choices. Apparently he used to be a fantastic orator and was praised for his imagination but these talents have since been replaced by ZODIARK!!!??!!!?11111!! and explosions. Has been described as an idiot by Emet-Selch and “unique” by Elidibus, who needed to take a very long pause before saying so.

G’RAHA TIA/THE CRYSTAL EXARCH

Honestly this is only pseudo spoilers, basically everyone figured out who he was well before Shadowbringers got released. Catman is currently doing battle with another character called Haurchefant for the position of #1 fan to the Warrior of Light. Has some wild misadventures with you that involve exploring ancient ruins, excessively long fetch quests, clones, and getting sucked into a demon world. Later runs across time and space to save your life but kind of almost gets you killed in the attempt. Says he is very sorry for this later. Just doing his best.

NERO TOL SCAEVA

A scientist who fights with a massive hammer, formerly worked for Garlemald but finds himself unemployed later. Is better than the engineer Cid, who gives you all your tech. He is also a troll, an egomaniac, and fucking hilarious. It takes a while for the extent of this to be revealed because A Realm Reborn still had some issues.

AYMERIC DE BOREL

Basically in charge of Ishgard, for a while literally but now only mostly. A very reasonable authority figure, runs the the Warrior of Light across several countries when you get injured in battle then chills at your bedside. Thinks you should relax sometimes. Encourages this by taking you to dinner once.

ESTINIEN WYRMBLOOD

Broody Dragoon McAngst of Ishgard, fucking hated dragons for the longest time because they murdered his whole family. Goes on an extended journey with you and in the process reveals he also hates moogles with a burning passion. Chills out a lot later, has demonstrated he is in fact a real bro.

YSAYLE DANGOULAIN/ICEHEART/LADY SHIVA

Delusions of grandeur and good intentions, also chosen by Hydaelyn and possessing The Echo. Figured out she could use her possession of The Echo to literally become a primal without losing her mind or body. Wants peace at any cost and will kill shitloads of people in the name of peace. Morally questionable but an interesting lady. Disagrees strongly with Estinien about moogles.

HAURCHEFANT GREYSTONE

Name sounds like a sneeze, is currently fighting G’raha Tia for the title of #1 fan to the Warrior of Light. Apparently there was an event where he said he wants the Warrior of Light to be his pony, as in he wants to ride you. Has shirtless men doing squats in his office. Saves your ass when shit gets real for Heavensward and then saves your ass again when the Pope’s bodyguard tries to murder you. It does not go well.

ZENOS YAE GALVUS

Absolute serial killer who feels like you complete him and give his life meaning and are his BFF. Probably wants you to fuck him. Also the crown prince of Garlemald and has spent years trying to engineer situations that will produce someone who can actually fight him as an equal. Doesn’t give a fuck about most things but jesus does he go yandere.

FRAY

If you become a Dark Knight, Fray becomes your NPC mentor and basically takes the Warrior of Light on a journey in becoming batshit insane. 10/10 Best teacher hands down.

SOPHIA THE GODDESS

A primal who I love to pieces, basically shows that the only way you can have perfect balance forever is if you are literally dead. We know this because the song that plays during her fight is about her murdering an entire family because they were unstable.

SRI LAKSHMI

Another primal who I love to pieces, just full throttle lotus eater in action where she encourages you to go fuck everything and be happy. Super pretty.

SEPHIROT THE FIEND

One of my top fav primals, pure id and distorted Kabbalah. I have a lot of feelings about him and have analyzed his fight to pieces.

CENRIC ASHER

Lol he just my Warrior of Light. I have a story for him but it is not official or anything.

THE FIVE BILLION OTHERS

Probably other people’s characters! I just really love seeing what people come up with, whether it’s their version of the Warrior of Light or going full-throttle into OC territory. It’s really refreshing to me, seeing how passionate and inventive people get. ^^ There are plenty of other important NPC characters, some I would even consider favorites of mine, but I just don’t post them as much.

IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR JESUS CHRIST GET YOURSELF A COOKIE OR SOMETHING. GOD DAMN.

#final fantasy xiv #final fantasy xiv screenshots #final fantasy 14 #ffxiv #shadowbringers

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angry-healers · 6 years ago

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First impressions on Pyros

They fixed their mistake on not having rewards on bunny dates, so bunny fates are a viable source of mini exp farming. Good. (Though the little shits are still hellbent on getting us killed.) 9/10

The teleport levels are 37, 39 and 41. Good. 100/10

Fate EXP starts at 2.4M at the 35 fate and goes up from there for every fate. It is an insane improvement compared to the start of Pagos. 10/10

The preliminary datamined map was scary but those choke points are actually ice bridges or relatively empty as fuck tunnels with enemies that either only blood agro or will be turned away when you pass by. Though you might get unlucky here and there. 8/10

Logograms make solo cake. It still takes some strategy based on class, but you wont get yanked so easily. Wisdom of the Platebearer ftw. However, active logograms disappear forever even if not used up once you exit the instance. Meaning you can lose good logograms like Death and Wisdom of the Remembered if you leave or time out. 6/10 Can be worked on.

Logograms are easy to farm in large quantities as a 100% drop from elementals of your level or above. More info needed though. Different elementals seem to drop different types. Rarer logograms come from fates at a lower % chance and from bunny boxes. 6/10

Relic progression is tied into the logogram skills you discover and you need 150 pyros crystals for the first step. It's not that bad just kill NMs instead of chaining and you will get that 150 fairly quick. Though my concern is the logograms and if drop types are linked to level which they probably are. Eh/10

I got to level 41 yesterday which is better than the day 1 stagnate progression I saw in both anemos and pagos. There are still things to improve on, but some of the bitching really is unwarranted and probably owed to the fact that the people bitching couldn't stick it out through pagos and now can't progress lol. Though the fact that that's a thing makes me give eureka a solid 6/10 for effort but inaccessibility. This score is more over the bigger picture and less my opinion.

I personally love the content. I'm glad it's so bad it makes people give up because a relic should only be done and completed by people who are dedicated. Not handed out like candy at a children's party. On top of that, ffxiv's relic should've been tied into its raid system and not casual content as it would've increased incentive to complete relics in the past for power and incentive to complete raids. The fact that its reduced to a glamour piece to make the elite feel special for a patch and a half is kinda....meh. but that's just my opinion on the whole thing.

Point is I think Pyros does it better and I cant wait to get deeper into it.

-- Mod Mhi

#notes from mod mhi #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #eureka pyros #patch 4.45

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entropic-introspection · 6 years ago

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Played that lil game fairness simulator i just reblogged, and it rly makes me think about stuff I’ve noticed playing online games

Warframe is a game that has a high concentration of kinder players. The community prides itself on helping new players, and it isn’t uncommon for older more experienced players to go out of their way to help newer ones. I’ve seen older ones offering up mods, showing newbies secrets, the best ways to run spy missions, or just helping them figure out how to get the biggest bang for their buck. Miscommunications tend to be quickly addressed- “Hey you’re killing stuff too quick for event to happen” “Why are you playing a mini-game right now? ‘oh shit I was in the map by myself didn’t realize you all joined sorry’‘

This isn’t random- the game itself incentivizes playing kindly. Playing in a group get more rewards due to higher enemy spawns, but if you all run as a lone ranger, the spawns get screwed up due to distance. Reviving a player is beneficial in the long run, since you have another person around in case you go down. And receiving a revive instead of self-reviving (of which you have 4 normally) preserves your exp. There’s not really kill-stealing, since you share experience and rewards (in some cases, playing beside a nuker frame is more helpful for you! Experience in WF levels your frame and your weapons, divided up based on what you’re using. However, shared player exp is evenly divided on whatever you have equipped- meaning if you run a crappy pistol in a high level area with a nuker frame friend, even if you never use the pistol, it will still get some respectable exp.) The dev team is active with the player base and works to screw up any ‘meta’ that becomes too hegemonic and overbearing- they want all players to have fun, not just the ones playing ‘correctly’.

Cheating the system and other players certainly happens, but there aren’t as many systems in place to let it happen, and most of them do not unduly reward cheaters over fair players. The biggest complaints are about leechers in open world areas, who let others run the missions while they goof off, and often that’s just annoying, not mission threatening. They might even miss out on some good rewards due to being too far from random drops.

MMORPG’s are trickier. Recently(ish) I’ve done Guild Wars 2 and FF XIV. Since I never got into endgame raid content in either (not rly), I don’t have tons of experience with the areas that are easily the most toxic, but. The biggest problems tend to come from older players getting exasperated that new ones don’t know what they’re doing (miscommunication). Most MMO’s have worked to make kill stealing or loot stealing much harder, since that’s one of the most common causes of toxicity.

That leaves player interaction, most notably in markets. But that’s capitalism babey and I ain’t about to touch that shit. Otherwise, things can be pretty neutral- you might run into some rude folks, some nice ones, but you can just keep on keeping on. Speaking as someone who picked up healing in FFXIV, I am occasionally ready to murder folks in dungeons (tanks who draw too much aggro, dps playing like a tank, both of them ignoring that I’ve got aggro from adds...) but I also have met some wonderfully nice people that keeps me less cynical.

Monster Hunter World is unique in that while you can solo like, the entire game, online play isn’t too bad. Part of this is because there’s limited mechanisms for players to help OR harm each other. Communication is pretty limited, unless you want to take the time to write out a message. You can have preset messages, but most of those are pretty positive and are used for ‘good job!’ or ‘oh that was hella rad’. Someone might kill a monster where you won’t have time to carve it for parts, or be rude/playful and keep smacking you so that you can’t, but at least there’s the rewards at the end. Any weapon can be effective, tho some are better on different monsters.

MHW is just. Incredibly neutral, because unless you run voice chat w/ friends, a multi-player hunt is basically just. Oh hey extra pple for the dps, cool. Minus the times when they chew through your 3 team deaths before failure. Upgrade your armor you fool!

And then there’s Overwatch. I don’t really have an incentive to be nice to my teammates or my enemies. Sure, the commendations can be nice, but they don’t do anything meaningful. If someone hurls slurs at me in the chat, I guess I can report and block them, but lord knows if that will do anything. Working with my team does give me a slightly higher chance at victory, but not if my team in general isn’t willing to work with me. If a teammate or enemy is actively griefing me? Jesus. Christ.

The community itself is very telling, considering that they call toxicity ‘normal’. It happens, they say with a shrug, block report and move on. And when I witness a few teammates who are willing to get involved, and firmly shut down the offending party? That’s an outlier. That’s likely to make the offending party straight up leave the game, and in competitive, that punishes your team. Even in non-competitive play, if you choose to leave a game due to toxicity, doing so too many times prevents you from playing for a while.

Pro advice for climbing the competitive ladder at low ranks? Pick a hero you like, carry, and ignore your team. Since low ranks gain more experience if they gain more medals (of which you can gain gold, silver, or bronze for: kills, kills on the objective, objective time, healing, and enemy damage), that means certain heroes will be given less punishment and higher rewards even if their play-style didn’t benefit the team, only themselves. I like playing Mercy! She’s a fun, highly mobile healer with a resurrection ability. She’s meant to be dangerous only because of her strong healing ability and rez, which can win a team fight. The only medal she is likely to get is for healing, because to do damage you must actively stop healing and switch to a weapon. I am a very good Mercy, but I will unlikely be able to rank up with her because the system is actively stacked against her. (The devs, in fact, have given her less points for winning a match because of ‘too many Mercy mains at unfair ranks’. And then they nerfed her into the ground. Mhm.)

Overwatch is somehow a team-based shooter that gives very little incentive in-game to play as a team, and gives no in-game tutorials or lessons on how a team should play as opposed to a single person. There is barely any HUD to let you know how your team is doing health-wise or with cool-downs (annoying for dps, bad for tanks, catastrophic for healers). They don’t let us see how our fellow teammates are doing for fear of toxicity. I have no way of trying to encourage people to stand in a specific area other than chat or spamming ‘group up’ while standing there.

I still love what Overwatch is trying to be, with its diversity and cool heroes, but I would really like them to reexamine how they have the game set up to reward cooperation and kindness.

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felidae-charr · 7 years ago

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Why GW2 Just Can’t Keep Me

A mechanics post - holy cow, we haven’t done one of these in a while!

I haven’t fallen out of love with Guild Wars 2, but once again I find myself in a pit of complete disinterest with the game. Ironic considering that there’s an expansion coming out and there’s all this jazz with the Living World stuff, right? And yet here I am, logging into Final Fantasy XIV every single day, being far more excited about Stormblood than I am about the prospective GW2 expansion.

Why is it that GW2 just isn’t able to ever keep my interest? What does this game do that makes me look at it, and say “Eh. Whatever.” and leaves me playing it like a tide - coming and going and never able to just stay playing it? And I know I’m not the only one that has this problem, too.

Today, we’ll be looking at the endgame content of GW2 and why it, for me personally at least, dramatically fails to actually make me care to keep playing.

MMORPGs, in general, follow a very similar formula for their end-game. They all tend to apply a very standard “content drip” that is designed to keep loyal veteran players logging in, while also potentially capturing new players all at once. Many also make use of the infamous Gear Treadmill™ - easily one of the most controversial aspects to MMO games in general that employ the use of them.

Guild Wars 2 follows a similar set up, and yet for some reason of every game I’ve ever played, it is the least capable at holding my genuine interest. Why is this? Why is a game I love so much just so bad at keeping me playing? When I have 58 characters, when I’ve invested so much time and so much money, why then do I still reach these points where I just don’t care?

Well, part of that is because Guild Wars 2 might have a similar set up in the form of a content drip, ArenaNet have never been consistent until very recently (if we’re honest.) Veteran players will remember that, at one point, the game was suffering from a massive content drought with practically no real updates at all aside from the usual gem store nonsense. And if I’m being honest, I still think Guild Wars 2 suffers from content drought really badly, even after every update. Because, if we’re honest... they just don’t add a lot of content in the first place.

The ultimate reality of Guild Wars 2 is that their content drip, though now semi-regular and designed to consistently update the story of their game, still isn’t enough to prevent players from winding up starved of things to do. Dungeon rewards have been gutted to the point of them not worth the time to run any more, and ArenaNet have failed almost majestically at fixing the core problems as to why nobody ran the likes of Arah often or why Twilight Arbor’s Aetherpath went so criminally under-run. They have always been trash at making their dungeons - which are fundamentally fun and well crafted - worth running. And that’s sort of the problem, isn’t it? The Western gaming culture, and especially in MMORPGs, likes to be efficient.

They like to DPS as fast as possible to skip mechanics just because they can and because it makes it go faster. In the same way, we also like to know that if we’re going to spend half an hour in a dungeon, it’s going to be worth our time. If we could spend that half an hour doing something else and making double or triple the reward (with potentially less effort, too) then we would never run the dungeon. It’s a waste. And thusly, the GW2 dungeon team was scrapped, and we haven’t seen a real dungeon in actual, literal years. Content updates don’t give us new ways to play with other players in party-specific dungeon content.

Of course we have the infamous raids, but to be honest, I don’t like the raids in this game. I find that the classes and builds I enjoy playing don’t fit into the raids, which are slowly but surely trying to shoehorn the Holy Trinity of classes back into a game that’s original design was built around scrapping the Holy Trinity completely. I also find that while raids can be fun with friends, raids in GW2 can also bring out the literal worst in players - with people being kicked for not putting up enough numbers on the parser or being kicked because their class just isn’t optimal. Raids, for me, are not endgame content because frankly I don’t care for them.

The new story sections that our content drip in the form of Living World gives us are completed in, at most, four hours. And that’s if you’re playing kind of slowly and exploring. If you’re burning through the story alone, you’re often done in two hours or less. These solo instances are often fun to run once or twice, too, but they quickly become not-worth-running or outright boring because there’s never any change to them and it isn’t like a dungeon where you’re running with new people every time. Eventually these little story pieces just sort of sit there and the only time you play through them again is if you happen to be, I don’t know, farming experience points for masteries on a level 80 character.

And the new maps that we’ve been getting, while also fun for the first few hours, can just as quickly become boring content. The latest map released, Draconis Mons, I actually hated on pretty much every conceivable level. There was too much going on in that map, the mini-map was atrocious and I couldn’t make my way around it without getting lost somewhere, there was so much bloom and bright burning fire and particle effects that my eyes got about as sick shit of the map as my brain did, and none of the events were actually engaging. Kill this, kill that, oh a group event to kill something else. I out and out thought Draconis Mons was the biggest flop of a map ArenaNet have ever released, and I still do.

So what is there for me to actually do? The reality is: nothing.

The content drip that ArenaNet offers is simply not enough, because the reality is that it doesn’t give us anything new that keeps us playing. Raiders will continue to raid, certainly, but I find raiding to have been implemented very oddly and in a direction that seems to be very opposite from the core of the game itself. Similarly, World versus World is still criminally ignored by most of ArenaNet and I haven’t had fun in that basic zergfest for a long time, and PvP is just as neglected to the point that those funny little “tournaments” ArenaNet tried to hold when they wanted to break into the e-sports scene have been cancelled and most of the veteran PvPers basically abandoned the game to find pastures new, with developers that actually cared.

I could log in to do my dailies, but why would I? Dailies do nothing but give me gold, which I in turn don’t spend on anything, because there is nothing I want or need to spend it on. Most of the achievements are either easy to get or a boring grind and there’s rarely a nice middle. Aside from the couple of new ones in the last few Living Story updates, I’ve done every fun jumping puzzle. I have 20 characters at level 80 and I’ve done the Personal Story too many times to be willing to count.

Guild Wars 2 just doesn’t cater to me. And that’s fine, it is under no obligation to - but it also means that I am constantly going through phases where literally any other game is more fun than GW2 is. Final Fantasy XIV Online, for example, has taken me by absolute storm once again. The expansion looks promising, and while there are often several months between content being released in that game’s content drip, they always come with new dungeons, new boss fights, new story elaboration and quests. I still have plenty of side quests to do if I want to, other classes to level, I’m eagerly awaiting the next set of joking silly Hildibrand quests, I get new little emotes to play with, new furniture for housing, and so on and so on. FFXIV also does a fantastic job - in my eyes at least - at making the gear treadmill fairly fun. I always know the minimum rewards I’m going to get from doing all of my dungeon runs in a day, I can plan what to buy when to buy it, I never feel like the game pressures me into needing that gear as soon as possible, and I always have the option to do raids to see if I can get lucky and have gear drop for me instead. Honestly, while I initially fell in love with GW2 because of it’s no-gear-treadmill policy and the abandonment of the Holy Trinity that had always bothered me as a lover of DPS classes, I’m ironically finding that FFXIV is just flat out a better crafted MMORPG that takes a lot more care and puts a lot more effort into making sure end game players don’t just sit around waiting for poor excuses for content.

And that’s why I’m sitting here, staring at the GW2 icon on my desktop relabelled “Fashion Wars” trying to find the will to even log into the game at all for the sake of something silly like screenshots. Which I can also do better in FFXIV, for the record.

I love Guild Wars 2. I love Guild Wars 2 very, very much and it has an extremely special place in my heart, and it will always be one of my favourite games. But once again I’m stuck in that rut where I love the game, but the game really doesn’t love me that much, and I can’t find a reason to log in to even do something as simple as stare at my own characters.

#long post #Felidae rambles #GW2 #Guild Wars 2 #mechanics post #why is the endgame in GW2 so bad #especially the lack of dungeons #i'm really starting to feel that lack of fun party content #world events don't cut it anet

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