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Xenoveritas posted:The fights that at least half the player base can't do and will lead you to hopelessly retrying them over and over again? Yeah, those are great. The new 24-player raid is a disaster and the trial at the end of the story quest might as well be impossible. Maybe you should try being social in a multi-player game and find people who are good.
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Jul 5, 2016 22:53
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Social? Pfff. I leveled to 30 before joining a Free Company and discovering they give you an XP buff.
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Jul 5, 2016 23:48
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Chapter XIII-2: Sometimes it's Goobue to study history. It seems like something really big is going on in Thanalan, just barely out of sight. There are masked men summoning demons, and dangerous plots that involve the Sultanate in some way. Thancred appears to be involved in these events, too. Crash somehow manages to get himself involved, but not a lot of this stuff is known. Crash also doesn't really currently have any real motivations to get actively involved either, but those will come. I mentioned last week that I would make an update about 1.0, so here I am. It's already fairly well documented, and if you want a really in-depth look at what happened then you might as well skip this update and read this or watch this instead. I'm not going to cover everything. Instead, I'm going to be focusing on the main story of 1.0 before it got dumped in favour for a clean slate and a soft reboot.  Like A Realm Reborn before it, the player assumes the role of a custom adventurer who begins their journey in one of the three city states. Similarly to Crash Screen, they'll be exposed to a meteor shower of sorts that only they can see.  The 1.0 adventurer also experiences visions like Crash's dream of Thancred's past. While we're aware that it's not actually happening at the current moment, this wasn't actually clear in 1.0. Players would be able to explore the memories of other characters in the story without being made aware that they were in a memory. This lead to a weird dissonance in which characters they met five seconds ago would have been confirmed to have died ten years ago.   In particular, the Ul'dah storyline involved Ascilia. Ascilia was the daughter of a man who escaped Ala Mhigo after the Garlean invasion. He died during an accident at an Ul'dah parade. The incident was orchestrated by a group of individuals that wanted fame, but they didn't mean for anyone to die.  In the end, most of them ended up with some sort of bad fate - though the extent as to how bad it was varied with each person. They'll each show up at some point again, and I'll cover them in more depth when they do. Ul'dah is the only 1.0 city state story to get some real exposure in A Realm Reborn as far as I can remember. In any case, the events in the city state stories in 1.0 occurred ten years in 1.0's past (which makes it 15 years before A Realm Reborn) and what's important is that Ascilia was also exposed to meteor shower.  After experiencing multiple events from ten years prior, the adventurer eventually collapses. They're fortunately discovered by a woman named Minfilia and taken care of by Momodi. This is when the adventurer gets introduced to an organisation known as the Path of the Twelve. It was a group of outcasts with a small variety of unique abilities. Some members were able to communicate with anyone, beast tribes included, regardless of their language. Others could explore people's memories.  Now grown up and calling herself Minfilia, Ascilia is the leader of the Path of the Twelve. She named these gifts collectively as the "Echo". Little else was known about it. At this point, our knowledge of the Echo in A Realm Reborn is almost at the same point as 1.0. Characters with the Echo can experience the memories of others they come in contact with. The "understand any language" aspect of it is now mostly on the wayside in A Realm Reborn though.  Anyone familiar with the X-Men will be familiar with how individuals gifted with the Echo are also treated. The Garleans even announced that anyone with the Echo will be treated the same way as the beast tribes. Regardless, the Path of the Twelve sought to keep peace in Eorzea. For the player, this meant helping a merchant group attempt to bridge the gap between beast tribes and the spoken races (read: playable races) through trade. This is important, as it brings us to one of the most significant plot points in Final Fantasy XIV.  Relationships between the spoken races and beast tribes were wavering. Beast tribes acquired the ability to summon after the massive battle of Silvertear Falls when the Keeper of the Lake and King of the Wyrms, Midgardsormr, died in battle with the Garlean invaders. After this event, the various beast tribes started to withdraw and attempt to summon their own Primal deities. Something had spooked the beast tribes, and the Amalj'aa had already successfully summoned the Lord of Inferno, Ifrit. Primals are the names of the Final Fantasy summons in XIV. They include series staple characters such as Ifrit and Shiva, as well as some less frequent summons like Garuda. They're also really dangerous, but let's put that aside just now. How did the beast tribes learn to summon?  The beast tribes acquired knowledge on summoning from a group known as the "paragons". You'll remember that's what the masked man in the last update referred to as basically the source of his power. Thancred also referred to that masked man by another name. In 1.0, one attempt to illicit trade between beast tribe groups and the spoken races resulted in failure as a ghastly figure interrupted the meeting.  This was an Ascian. It terrified the living hell out of the beastmen, and even the player was warned to absolutely not get detected by it. It was clear that it was something horrifying. Because 1.0 ended prematurely, this was the only sighting of an Ascian for the player. There was no real link between them and the paragons established in 1.0, but Thancred just recently revealed that they are one and the same in the most recent update. At this point in the story, we still don't know what their aim is. All we know is that they're teaching the different beast tribes how to summon their Primals. I'm not sure if the term "Paragons" comes up anymore in A Realm Reborn or not after this revelation either. Regardless, they've now been re-introduced in A Realm Reborn so we'll be seeing more of them soon.  So we now know that the "gift" Thancred referred to is called the Echo. The source of that gift is unknown, as well as anything else for that matter. There was one last clue about it before 1.0 ended, but to discuss that we'll have to discuss the Primals. Meet Ifrit.  What makes the Primals so dangerous is their ability to temper ordinary people. This process ultimately makes people a willing slave to the Primal. However, the adventurer in 1.0 was immune to the effects of Ifrit's tempering.  Ifrit suggests that the 1.0 adventurer had already been tempered by another deity. It was fortunate for the player that the Ascians, still known as the Paragons, had informed Ifrit not to harm any individual that had already been touched by another deity. They got out alive. Unfortunately, this was roughly as far as the story had gotten in the original Final Fantasy XIV. It shipped pretty much unfinished, and featured loads of areas that hadn't even been touched.  Rather than continuing the story, a shift in management resulted in a shift in direction. XIV was to end and be replaced by A Realm Reborn. The result was the lesser moon Dalamud falling shortly before cracking open to reveal Bahamut inside it. Bahamut torched the lands and changed the environment, while killing off a lot of characters. 1.0 then went offline. And that, as they say, was that.  Other events happened, but that ultimately covers the main focus of the FFXIV story. Right now we know that Crash is gifted (with the Echo), and that something big is happening with the Ascians and Thancred. Crash hasn't yet had much of a run in with the local beast tribe, the Amalj'aa yet, but they're not too far away either. The story is starting to creep in, so I figured now was a good time to introduce the 1.0 story to the LP. If it's confusing, don't worry too much about it. A Realm Reborn will set it all up at its own pace. For now, Crash has to return to Ul'dah and find out how the Sultansworn got on with retrieving the crown. I was originally going to do that here too, but this is a lot of information so it's probably better to split them up. A lot of A Realm Reborn kind of suffers from trying to pad out its story, most likely to make up for the fact that the dev team was working on it while also updating 1.0 at the same time. Despite that, the story will still be progressing for a little while and I do like what it offers. Things will be advancing for a little while yet, and it won't be long until we'll be leaving the arid desert of Thanalan behind us for a little while too.
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Jul 8, 2016 09:37
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Jeez, I knew 1.0 was unfinished, but..it stopped at Ifrit? Really?
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Jul 8, 2016 19:17
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Silegna posted:Jeez, I knew 1.0 was unfinished, but..it stopped at Ifrit? Really? Garuda and one other Primal I won't name was added too, but as part of the story they added after the 1.0 release to setup The Calamity.
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Jul 8, 2016 19:35
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Silegna posted:Jeez, I knew 1.0 was unfinished, but..it stopped at Ifrit? Really? Oh, no no, not quite! See, there was actually a different plotline at the start of 1.0, something Echo something Garleans and it was kind of a mess that ultimately didn't go anywhere. Like, back when they wanted crafting classes to go through the story and not have to worry about fighting with odd workarounds. This was the only questline in 1.0 at launch. There were no sidequests. Just this. And leves. Good god, there were so many leves. That was all there was... When Yoshi-p and his team got moved on they introduced another main story questline (as well as sidequests, dungeons and actual things to do) that split off from this. It involved the Primals, like Ifrit there, but also others. And ultimately it lead into the end of 1.0/the moon crashing down. It was refreshing and pretty cool, if a bit clunky to look at the fights in hindsight - but they did what they could with what they had, so it's hard to get too upset. They did tear down the old game and essentially put together what we have now from scratch. I have a lot of mixed feelings about 1.0, but the new devs really did their best to make it worthwhile for anyone who stuck around. 
Dreamy Souffle fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jul 8, 2016 |
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Jul 8, 2016 19:42
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The one and only thing that 1.0 apparently did better than ARR was cutscenes. I've seen the 1.0 introduction cutscene of the Big Bad of the 2.0 main story questline, and it was far less stiff and more engaging than any cutscene in ARR. (You can easily find it on YT by searching for "Final Fantasy XIV 1.0" + his name, it's worth seeing) The entire rest of 1.0 was apparently kinda garbage, though. I wouldn't know, i started playing at 2.45  Inspired by the LP, i looked back on my old character, and was surprised to find that i only played this game for 5 months. I started in early January 2015, and my last activity (getting my gladiator to 40) was on May, 30th of 2015, just before Heavensward. I binged pretty hard on the game, since i got my first class to 50 at the end of January (Marauder), and completed my Ragnarök relic weapon on the 30th of March. Then Zeta-Ragnarök on the 31st of March.  I didn't even set foot in any 24-man raids before i had finished the relic. Similarly, i had best in slot tank equipment (whole lotta augmented ironworks and two WoD pieces) before entering the coils. With the exception of T4, i think, to farm light.In the two months post-relic that i was still playing, i also ended up uniting the four beast tribes, kitting out an end-game WHM, getting all gathering/crafting classes to 50, getting the "of the Luminary" tools for all 8 crafting classes, pushing my culinary Desynth to >100 (swimsuits!), getting a Lucis fishing rod (that was torture), catching 85+ different Big Fish, getting up to ca. 1-2 star crafting equipment, and playing through T1-T8 for the story, getting stuck at T9 due to not having a proper static to raid with. I burned myself out real good. Funnily enough, i never got a damage class to 50. My highest was a level 34 Arcanist.
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Jul 8, 2016 20:32
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Dreamy Souffle posted:Oh, no no, not quite! The more I hear about this stuff, the more I think Fantasy Life was meant to actually be single player FFXIV. They have all the class swapping, the main story is completely playable as a crafting class, and the music's by Nobuo Uematsu. Of course, Fantasy Life also has pretty weak combat but good gathering and crafting, which is kinda the reverse from FFXIV.
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Jul 8, 2016 21:45
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Gloomy Rube posted:The more I hear about this stuff, the more I think Fantasy Life was meant to actually be single player FFXIV. They have all the class swapping, the main story is completely playable as a crafting class, and the music's by Nobuo Uematsu. Huh...that actually makes a lot of sense. I should really give that game another shot, I stopped playing it way too early.
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Jul 8, 2016 22:07
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I wish I had been around for 1.0. Not for very long since it was clearly not good, but just for the end. Cutscenes and YT videos don't do it for me. I can't imagine how surreal it must've been to be playing when a meteor crashes into the planet and wipes the server out.
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Jul 8, 2016 22:49
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I know you said videos don't really do it for you, but this is the closest either of us will get to experiencing it. This video is really good. 1.0 definitely went out in style and it kinda makes me wish I stuck to it more. I have to remind myself that there was a reason I gave up on the game when it was free. If I recall correctly, though I might have the number wrong, didn't the original story only continue until level 34 out of the 50 cap too? Then it was nothing but those leves. Ifrit was definitely in the original story though, but not as playable content due to the whole "play the entire game as a crafter" thing you mentioned. The second storyline is the one that let you fight him, along with the other two. They had planned Titan and Leviathan too, so those would have been in 1.0 as well if it wasn't for the 2011 Tohoku earthquake/tsunami. Honestly, I think the new storyline eclipsed the size of the original, didn't it?
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Jul 8, 2016 23:02
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HenryEx posted:The one and only thing that 1.0 apparently did better than ARR was cutscenes. I've seen the 1.0 introduction cutscene of the Big Bad of the 2.0 main story questline, and it was far less stiff and more engaging than any cutscene in ARR. (You can easily find it on YT by searching for "Final Fantasy XIV 1.0" + his name, it's worth seeing) Yeah, the cutscenes were really nice in the animation sense. But at the same time there was a weird, notable bloom effect with the majority of the lighting (especially in buildings) and things tended to get weird in that. I also appreciate 2.0's more vibrant palette, as a lot of the colors in 1.0 felt washed out the majority of the time.   Goodness she is glowing in that one screenshot. But yeah, like so. Unfortunately I don't have any direct screenshots of any cutscene stuff, as back in the day there wasn't an in-client function that let you take them and I was too lazy to work around that. CrashScreen posted:If I recall correctly, though I might have the number wrong, didn't the original story only continue until level 34 out of the 50 cap too? Then it was nothing but those leves. It definitely eclipsed the original plot they put in, yeah. The original story went only up to level 34 initially, but if I remember right the rest was added later for completions sake and to let folks see it before things went down. It still wasn't very satisfying, and ended on a to be continued kind of deal. Presumably because that was all the original team had made up to that point. There was a pretty cool cutscene fight in it though. I have very distinct memories of trying to figure my way out through the mess of 1.0 Mor Dhona for the final bits of that original questline, and by this point the new devs had added a lot of features. Quality of life things, like replacing the garbage color system* used to gauge your enemy's level with just the actual number. There were level 99 enemies in this area. *This color system was a diamond next to the enemy's name. It went from Super Easy (Blue) to Probably Do Not Try (Red). It was a horrible system though, made worse by the fact that if you were partied up with someone the colors would shift down and be even less of an accurate representation of how tough an enemy was. Three people in your group? That enemy with the now Green (Easy) diamond is still gonna wipe the floor with your chumpy asses. Dreamy Souffle fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Jul 9, 2016 |
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Jul 9, 2016 00:33
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So, I upgraded my computer and made a few changes at my desk, and now I realise I don't have enough plugs for everything I need. There may be a small delay to the next update, but it shouldn't be much later than Sunday at the worst. I just can't power the drive I need right now because I'm a giant idiot. Figured I'd give a heads up.
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Jul 14, 2016 00:18
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Chapter XIV: Towering over the Sultana After helping the Sultansworn deal with an exchange gone bad, Crash was left alone to face an dark, voidsent summoning mage. Once more when dark arts are at play, Thancred also shows up. He dropped a few hints about what was going on before disappearing, leaving Crash with nothing more than the promise to return to the Sultansworn.  The Sultansworn are back in the Heart of the Sworn over in Hustings' Strip. As before, Crash can only enter by talking to the Sultansworn Elite.  Click to play: Machinations  It isn't Owyne that Crash has to talk to, but Papashan. After running off, we don't actually know if they successfully recovered the crown or not. Hmm... Crash is looking taller than usual. b.jpg) "Whenever Her Grace ventures outside the gates, I have the honor of protecting her person. Never before had I seen her so despondent as when news of the crown's theft reached her ears."So, if you were wondering why the Sultana had ran away in Crash's very first foray outside the walls of Ul'dah, now you know. She was hoping to find the crown, and was praying at the Sultana Tree.  As for Crash's new look, well, meet Aggro Crag (spelled Agro Crag for a little while). When I brought the thread back, I put Crash's new name to a vote and suggested the possibility of also changing race. My original intention was to change race after catching up to the old footage, but the race change and the new name came as a set.  Click to play. Papashan then bows to  Soundtrack ends.  A voice of unknown origin shouts up to announce the Sultana making an entrance, and everyone kneels. This will be the first time we'll have seen Nanamo as herself. In the background, some NPCs are shouting over each other in a muddled mess to welcome her. Click to play: Thanalan Theme (1.0) Twilight Over Thanalan is the old Thanalan overworld theme from 1.0. It now strictly gets used in cutscenes.  Refreshingly, there's nobody here telling the fish out of water to kneel. a.jpg) "Never did it occur to me that it might be you. Bring it forth!"  "Betokening our gratitude and esteem, I, Nanamo Ul Namo, Sultana of Ul'dah, confer upon you this gift."The gift in question is the Ul'dahn Ring, which provides a +1 bonus to blunt resistance and accuracy. The accuracy is actually kind of nice right now with Aggro's current gear, but the blunt resistance is a stat bonus we'll probably not ever see again for a reason. It only affects melee damage from the mages and from pugilists.  Nanamo then turns to the big, bulky Highlander Hyur that entered the room with her. "See to it that our champion is my personal guest at the banquet."Soundtrack ends.  Ul'dah has the Brass Blades, owned by Lolorito, which is a private military that basically serves as the corrupt police in Thanalan. The Sultansworn are another armed force, likely paid for with the tax-payers money and work specifically for the Sultana. There's a third force that was introduced in additional story updates back in 1.0. Click to play: The Sand's Secrets  Raubahn here is in charge of the third force: the Immortal Flames. The Immortal Flames are a Grand Company, and basically the army for Ul'dah. In a previous chapter,  "Brave souls are few and far between in these times. I count my blessings when I find one. Her Grace invites you to join her at the coming banquet. I trust I will see you there." Aggro nods and an audience of two Sultansworn cheer wildly. The voice direction is kind of weird here, and they both have two identical lines that are spoken very slightly apart. It basically just amounts to noise instead of dialogue, and they don't even get a speech bubble. Honestly, the voice directing in the vanilla version of this game isn't great, but this whole scene might be one of the worst examples. I might say this a lot.  I also find it quite funny just how much our new Roegadame hero towers over everyone else, including the incredibly tall Raubahn. Her head doesn't even fit into the frame.  Click to play: Machinations Aggro seems to have impressed the Sultana a second time, and is finally going to be rewarded. Considering she feeds off of whatever random NPCs will hand her as a reward, a banquet would probably go a long way. I can imagine changing your race into something almost twice your size might work up an appetite.   "There are, of course, certain protocols that must be observed... But I am no authority on them. Fear not, however - Mistress Momodi has long been responsible for familiarizing foreign guests with our customs."Click to play: Ul'dah Theme (Day)  There's been a few changes since our last footage, and not just Crash's identity. There's been two years of frequent updates to the game, so there will be some new NPCs and UI elements that haven't been shown previously. I'll be skipping a lot of this for now, but certain things will still get touched on. That Smith over there? I'll be returning to them soon. For now, let's go speak to Momodi.  .jpg) "All guests to this banquet are required to wear a pair of ceremonial earrin's. Bein' of a design unique to the occasion, the earrin's serve as a security measure. The Sultansworn won't let you near the hall without 'em."I suppose, in a world where a male Hyur can drink a bottle of Fantasia and turn into a giant, female Roegadyn, it makes more sense to require a unique item than have a recognizable face. "Your set should be ready and waitin' for you at the Goldsmiths' Guild. Mistress Serendipity is expectin' you, so you'll want to head down there now."  We've never really been to the Goldsmiths' Guild before, so this will make for a nice trip to somewhere new. It's located inside the Steps of Thal, which can be a pain to navigate at times. The easiest way to find it is to first access it through the Ruby Road Exchange entrance, which is right next to the elevator for Hustings' Strip.  The Gold Court is presented as the sort of center area for the Steps of Thal, even though there's a couple of streets in the outside that's also a part of the map. There are different paths, but each is sign posted.  Each sign post for a guild displays the class logo. For a Goldsmith, it's a bracelet that keeps reminding me of a coronet, for whatever reason. I'm sure you can probably guess what the other sign post is for.  As Aggro goes down the corridor, she sees two Mammets welcoming in anyone passing by into the Goldsmiths' Guild.  Inside is the guildmaster, Serendipity. We'll get to see a lot more of her later if we choose to join the Goldsmiths' Guild, but for now Aggro just needs to collect her earrings.  For some reason, I couldn't really find any concept art for Serendipity like I can most of the notable NPCs. In any case, she hands Aggro the earrings and informs her that the box containing them is locked. Since only specific individuals are allowed to hand them out. Aggro will have to return to Momodi to get them unlocked.  Momodi will give Aggro the new earrings, named the Voice of the Just, and tell her where the banquet will be held. The Royal Promenade is up in Hustings' Strip, so Aggro will need to return there again. It's a good thing the elevator is right next door.  The separate carpet makes the Royal Promenade very easy to identify.  Like Momodi suggested, there's no more progressing this quest unless you equip the earrings. If you somehow lose them (why would you discard it already?) then they're easily replaced.  The earrings themselves are actually one of the few pieces of equipment in the game with a description. This is usually reserved for your class-specific weapon.  Aggro isn't really impressed with how small they are. It's kind of hard to see, even when I haven't resized. In any case, it's time to enter.  And... we'll continue this next time. There'll be lots more video, and a lot more goofy and questionable voice acting. Tune in then!   After drinking the Fantasia and getting a name change, Crash Screen is no longer the protagonist of this LP. From here on, we'll be with Aggro Crag. Though it is the same character anyway. CrashScreen fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Sep 9, 2016 |
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Jul 18, 2016 03:49
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Ah, so you can just drink a potion to change your race and gender, and didn't have to replay from the start? Handy. And what is this race, exactly? Some kind of giant... bear people?
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Jul 18, 2016 05:49
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When my now deceased grandfather used to take family pictures, he would always, without fail, manage to only get people's faces from the nose down. This is what it is like to play a roegedame in 2.0 cutscenes. Fortunately, they got better about camera angles from 2.1 onwards.
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Jul 18, 2016 05:52
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Schwartzcough posted:Ah, so you can just drink a potion to change your race and gender, and didn't have to replay from the start? Handy. And what is this race, exactly? Some kind of giant... bear people? Yep - you get a free Fantasia potion after being subscribed for the game for 30 days. 1.0 players also got a free one (I think) and if you bought the Heavensward Collector's Edition you also got a free one. Otherwise it costs $10. (I think - the price is only listed on the Mog Station and navigating that is enough of a pain in the rear end that I don't care to check.) Apparently the Roegadyn are based on Norse frost and fire giants. But basically they're just a large, muscular race. The fairly pale skin tones of the Sea Wolfs date back to the Galka when XIV was originally envisioned as an HD remake (basically) of XI. (So all the original races correspond directly to XI races.) As of 2.0, there are basically no game play differences between the races. There are some slight stat differences but they're intentionally small enough that they make effectively no difference except in some very obscure edge cases. (With gathering, of all things.)
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Jul 18, 2016 07:14
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Yeah, I actually added a little bit about them in the rewrite for an old chapter, so I'll just quote it here while it's relevant. Chapter IV posted:
The bonus attributes for each race is more of a flavour thing. It tells you what they're naturally good at in lore, but as Xenoveritas said, it's fairly niche. I should also add that each race is split into two clans as well, and those are what determine the attributes. There's actually one race the rewritten updates don't cover, so I'll probably throw them in a bonus section soon too.
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Jul 18, 2016 15:41
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It's interesting comparing the start in Uldah to what I experienced in Limsa Lominsa. They're a lot more similar than I would've expected.
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Jul 18, 2016 20:25
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Chapter XV: Feast and Famine All of Aggro's hard work has finally paid off, and now she's been invited to a banquet as the Sultana's guest. Be warned, almost this entire update is also on video this time, but keep an eye out for that Video End banner anyway. There's two videos, and a final scene just after it. Click to play.  When we begin the cutscene, Aggro is already mingling with Papashan. She's easy to spot, being the tallest person in the room by a mile. Elezens and Roegadyns aren't very common in Ul'dah. Click to play: Return of the Hero  It must be a fun conversation they're having, because Papashan seems very bashful here. I was going to make a dating sim joke, complete with a UI. When I finished, I realised that I should never, ever try that again. That one went straight in the bin.  Raubahn interrupts all the playful banter with an introduction to Nanamo.  They then exchange pleasantries, before Nanamo...  ... climbs up on his arm. Lalafells are adorable.  The Sultana introduces Aggro to her audience as the hero of Ul'dah, all the while casually just sitting on her general's arm. This is so normal that nobody in the audience even takes a second glance. It's kind of great.  Aggro also gets the praise she desires. Finally, after all that hard work delivering mail, slaying midges, and fighting demons; Aggro has attained her glory. Well, people told me that attempting to LP an MMO was stupid, but I've successfully cleared it!  Nanamo calls for the feast to begin, but Aggro decides to walk away.  There's a weird, seamless transition into the next scene with Raubahn talking to her. It's actually kind of jarring, because he looks like he straight up teleports in front of her. She's not impressed with the editing here.  The conversation is also a little jarring. Nanamo literally just introduced the hero of Ul'dah and started the feasting, and Raubahn is immediately off to go tell the hero about how much the rest of the city suffers while she gorges herself. What's your deal, dude?  "Nor can Her Grace do aught to help them. She is thwarted at every turn by those on the Syndicate who derive their wealth from the workers' poverty." The writer for this quest chose a really strange time to provide some exposition. It might have been alright with a decent segue, but instead it kind of provides a bit of tonal whiplash. He turns this around into something about appreciating Aggro's work, but wanting her to realise that this celebration doesn't mean there isn't more work to be done. It's a sensible thing to say, I suppose, but it might feel more natural if he lead with that first.  In any case, hearing about how much the Sultana and General care about their people really warms Aggro's heart. "That light - what is it?"Soundtrack ends.  Aggro reveals that the light is emanating from the crystal that  Taken aback, Raubahn begins to ask a series of oddly specific questions. Click to play: Canticle "Tell me true - have you been troubled by strange dreams of late? Visions - of the Crystal? Mayhap you put them down to an excess of aether?"The delivery of these lines is really weird, and sometimes the voiced cutscenes makes me wonder if Square even had a voice director for vanilla A Realm Reborn. Though credit where it's due, because he at least sounds like he's struggling to remember "Yes. You are like they were..."It's appropriate because of the mass amnesia all the NPCs in the world suffered. If you recall, Momodi explained that nobody can remember the adventurers from 1.0, allowing this new adventure to happen even for returning players.  Rest assured, the game believes that you've probably already forgotten this detail and provides another expositional dump. We get a little bit more this time, though.  The Adventurers of 1.0 are credited with bringing together the Grand Companies, including Raubahn's Immortal Flames, to fight the Garlean Empire. Raubahn was present on the day of their sacrifice, at the Battle of Carteneau.  Raubahn then offers a warning to Aggro as he reminisces. "You must protect that crystal at all costs. It is a gift from Hydaelyn, Mother of all - and the one She gave to you for a reason."I'm going to add a little note here, because it's relevant and sometimes a subject of confusion. Hydaelyn is the name of the Mothercrystal, which we've seen in previous cutscenes. It's the giant crystal that spoke to Aggro, back when she was a male Hyur. Hydaelyn is also the name of the planet in FFXIV, with Eorzea only one of its realms.  At this point, Raubahn might be spewing up a little too much exposition and gives Aggro a convenient, vision-inducing headache.  Raubahn, this is your story. Soundtrack ends. Click to play.  We return to the past, during the final moments of the Battle of Carteneau. Click to play: The Echo  Regardless of which city-state you begin in, you'll see this same cutscene. To make it relevant to all players, there's a bit of a roll call with the Grand Company leaders from each city-state.  This awesome, and generally well voice acted Roegadame is Merlwyb, leader of The Maelstrom from the city state of Limsa Lominsa. She managed to bring the local pirates to their knees and took over as Admiral.  The third Grand Company leader to be barking orders is Kan-E-Senna, leader of the Twin Adders. She belongs to a non-player race known as the Padjal, but she used to be a Hyur. No, she didn't use a Fantasia potion. That's culturally insensitive to the city-state of Gridania, and they hate foreigners enough already. It's really hard to see, but there's actually a man standing on the cliff in the background watching them.  Let's just zoom in a little and yeah, it's still sort of hard to see.  The blurry silhouette belongs to this guy, who is most definitely not associated with the previous masked and cloaked man Aggro beat up.  Kan-E-Senna does manage to notice the mysterious man, but they're in the middle of a war here. There's no time to ponder.    You see, the Gridanian White Mage has a shield to sustain for the rest of her party.  Soundtrack ends. The scene then changes to an undetermined time in the future. The battle has been lost, but not to the Garleans. There's no longer any soundtrack playing, but the ambient noise includes some snarling and devastation. Bahamut has been released from his prison.  Raubahn is losing his poo poo trying to contact any survivors when codename Mad Snake finally gets through to him. It seems like Bahamut wrecking the land is also interfering with communications, which is actually consistent with what the Delivery Moogle told Aggro. Click to play: Forever Lost  The General then takes a Codec pose to communicate over linkshell.  The other leaders watch over, and Mad Snake screams before going silent for good. It's a sombre scene, and there's a strong sense of all hope being lost even despite Raubahn's goofy voice acting.  That is until we get a really silly Metal Gear Solid reference. Ordinarily, the localization is great, and there's some decent humour. The lead localiser loves his puns, but there's also a lot of pop culture references in this game, for better or for worse.  The other leaders give their linkshells a shot too, and all while Raubahn is screaming at the air. They're significantly less melodramatic here.   Yes, that would be the sensible thing to do with that giant doom dragon flying around.  Meanwhile, over on the other cliffside our new mysterious mage reveals that he's older than one of the moons.  On that note, remember when I pointed out the deliberately different text box? The Ascians haven't been speaking in whatever tongue the Eorzeans speak. Instead, they speak in their own language, and the voice acting here is the same deal. The reason we can read it is because of Aggro's Echo, which in the recap chapter we learned also translates languages in real-time. It still rarely comes up, but these are nice touches.  We also can't have a villainous monologue without a maniacal laugh.  The laugh serves as the trigger for Aggro to wake up from this nightmare. Click to play: Behind Closed Doors  Aggro wakes up to find herself back in The Hourglass - the Inn at the Adventurers' Guild. At Aggro's bedside is Momodi.  "You sure you're gettin' enough rest, Aggro? The life of an adventurer can be pretty taxin'."Momodi is a saint and has been looking after Aggro since she collapsed, for Twelve knows how long. Funnily enough, she went through the same thing with the 1.0 adventurer too.  "Oh, 'fore I forget, the General left a message for you. Said that when you're feelin' up to it, you should come and see him at the Hall of Flames. Probably wants to finish the story he was tellin' you when you fell asleep."  The cutscene then ends, leaving Aggro free to do what she wants to do next. I'm going to leave this decision up to the thread to vote on. Talking to Raubahn will start a new chain of quests that will take Aggro away from Ul'dah. However, Aggro hit level 15 a little while ago. This means that there's some new work at the Gladiators' Guild, and the current milestone also gets her a new ability. We'll have to do that at some point, but there will be another opportunity before it matters. It's up to all of you. CrashScreen fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Sep 9, 2016 |
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Jul 23, 2016 03:01
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I'm going to go against my optimizing instincts and vote to talk to Raubahn.
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Jul 23, 2016 04:00
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Man, you're making me want to make an alt on this game. Also, Go to the guild. if I make an alt, it would probably be a female midlander pugilist
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Jul 23, 2016 04:09
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Let's go get that new action first, you might need it.
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Jul 23, 2016 04:47
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Might as well do guild stuff now. The general can wait for a little bit. Also, what's the status on that fc? I wouldn't mind signing up for it, if only so that I can stop being bombarded by invites every time I stop moving in a city.
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Jul 23, 2016 05:33
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Always do your class quest first.
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Jul 23, 2016 05:34
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apostateCourier posted:Always do your class quest first. Especially this one.
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Jul 23, 2016 06:14
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apostateCourier posted:Always do your class quest first. The most important thing in this game.
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Jul 23, 2016 10:31
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Oh my goodness, it's back? I was thinking of going to start leveling my other character that I made to hang out with you, but I'm kind of an ocean away and it'd probably be annoying just to get on at a proper time for the both of us. Also she was another Rogadyne girl, which would be awkward, I bet. I'm still definitely going to be keeping an eye on this; FF14's story is really fun in a Saturday Morning Cartoon way (I think I mentioned that in the last thread too) so I want people to be able to see it!
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Jul 23, 2016 13:18
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apostateCourier posted:Always do your class quest first. Seriously, you will want the new skills.
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Jul 23, 2016 14:27
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SonicRulez posted:Seriously, you will want the new skills. Agreed. The MSQ does a pretty good job of making it's doable as long as you meet at least the minimum level and gear quality at all points, but class quest earned job skills tend to be the kind that *seriously* improve your ability to perform that job's role.
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Jul 23, 2016 14:33
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Regarding the class quests,I'd be doing it before the need for the skill everyone is thinking of comes up. It's really a matter of what you want to see first. If I recall correctly, there won't even be combat until the point I'm thinking of doing it. Really, it's an option because I'm not sure just how engaged everyone is with the gladiator stuff anyway. Eldataluta posted:Also, what's the status on that fc? I wouldn't mind signing up for it, if only so that I can stop being bombarded by invites every time I stop moving in a city. I'll be able to create an FC at around level 20, which isn't too far off. Until then, there's a goon LS on the server that can be used, though you'll need someone to invite you. The details are in the megathread but I'll share them here when I get back home if someone doesn't beat me to it. That should be an okay alternative for now. It won't help with the bombardment though.
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Jul 23, 2016 14:43
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CrashScreen posted:Regarding the class quests,I'd be doing it before the need for the skill everyone is thinking of comes up. It's really a matter of what you want to see first. If I recall correctly, there won't even be combat until the point I'm thinking of doing it. Always do your class quest first.
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Jul 23, 2016 14:45
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I feel like I'm being bullied. On the details about the Linkshell, the Lodestone page is here. You should be able to get in if you just message one of the members. As a temporary thing, the FC that most of them belong to is a semi-goon FC too so you can apply to that as well. The FC is in the first ward subdivison, plot 25.
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Jul 24, 2016 02:15
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CrashScreen posted:I feel like I'm being bullied. You knew what you were getting into when it came to this specific quest reward.
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Jul 24, 2016 04:57
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Class Quest! We should probably talk to people about our new look.
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Jul 24, 2016 05:49
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So yeah, Class quests are of paramount importance, in case that is not obvious. Also, since this LP is quite excellent, I'd like to be able to contribute as well by joining the server with an alt. Look forward to meeting goons through this game!
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Jul 24, 2016 18:38
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 I didn't expect to be back doing this so soon for the LP already. ModeWondershot posted:Look forward to meeting goons through this game! Yeah. This should be a pretty fun part to get involved in with the LP. I'll probably actually set up a bit in the OP to keep track of players taking part. e: I remember someone mentioning earlier in the thread that they could dump seasonal stuff. I don't really consider seasonal events spoilers (save for a couple of character appearances), so post whatever you want about them. I'll be covering this one eventually, but it'll take a while so I don't really care if people dump videos here or whatever. CrashScreen fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 00:34
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CrashScreen posted:
This track was from a few updates ago, but if people haven't listened to it, I insist that you do. It's one of my favourite tracks in the main sequence of events and is easily in my top three of the entire game (there is another top-tier track in sidequests and another in the main storyline, but that is WAY into the future and severe spoiler territory). Also worth pointing out for those who aren't currently playing but have done so in the past that there's currently a free campaign period ongoing that allows you to play for free for "up to 120 hours" - providing that you want to take 5 days out of your life to do nothing else but play this game because holy gently caress, their advertising hook really ignores the fact that people need to eat, sleep, work and live in the real world for part of those 120 hours across 5 days, but whatever I guess. I also did some streaming videos while the LP was on hiatus, rolling a new character and just running through the game as part of the Lancer/Dragoon/Gridania storyline if people are interested. The playlist is here (and I will be filtering this playlist to be spoiler-free specifically for this LP thread and updating it as the thread progresses), but I specifically want to point out one of the key videos from the extended playlist: It was when the Rising event was ongoing from last August, and is possibly going to come back in another form during this summer (since it seems to be a yearly celebration of Final Fantasy XIV). I show it off here.  I do have more videos, but do not go after the playlist unless spoilers are not a concern. ALSO DO NOT SPOIL THINGS IN THIS THREAD AS PER THE RULES. Also, always do the class quests. Unless your gear is forcing you to beat your head against the wall over it, then gear up AND THEN DO IT. E: CrashScreen posted:This is pretty cool, and I appreciate the effort of separating it into a spoiler-friendly playlist. I've added it to the contents. Feel free to update the thread after an update to the playlist as well. E2: Realising the free period is 5 days, not literal 120 hours. So correcting their advertising BS. TiamosLoren fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Jul 27, 2016 |
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Jul 27, 2016 15:11
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TiamosLoren posted:I also did some streaming videos while the LP was on hiatus, rolling a new character and just running through the game as part of the Lancer/Dragoon/Gridania storyline if people are interested. The playlist is here (and I will be filtering this playlist to be spoiler-free specifically for this LP thread and updating it as the thread progresses) This is pretty cool, and I appreciate the effort of separating it into a spoiler-friendly playlist. I've added it to the contents. Feel free to update the thread after an update to the playlist as well.
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Jul 27, 2016 18:58
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TiamosLoren posted:It was when the Rising event was ongoing from last August, and is possibly going to come back in another form during this summer (since it seems to be a yearly celebration of Final Fantasy XIV) I really enjoy those events they're a nice edition and I'm looking forward to this years one not long till that happens now actually.
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Jul 28, 2016 23:55
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