Ellie

The bot's been banned, but I'll leave the thread just because I find it kind of funny/interesting.

So excited, but also a little bit worried. Every floor seems to be one giant room with pillars. I was really hoping to be able to section things off into rooms, but... I guess it's not a big deal, especially if you can put markers around.

As fascinating as the possible biological evolution of Miqo'te, and the fact that they're genetically similar enough to mate and produce healthy offspring with the other five races with little complication is, I'm afraid this discussion has gone off the rails and delved into some pretty unsavory territory. The rules require us to be respectful to one another, whether you started it or responded in kind. Please get back to the respectful discussion of Miqo'te sexy time, or else the thread will be locked and sexy time will be over. Thank you.

I don't know how long it'll last though, so if you know someone who's been trying to get onto Balmung or if you know someone who wanted to get on Gilgamesh who wouldn't mind switching to Balmung, you'll want to spread the word and get those characters in!

Early access is starting soon, and launch is just around the corner. Chances are, we could very well get an influx of new roleplayers, which means more people looking for mentors. If you've signed up to be a mentor, but have since either become unavailable or cannot take on new mentees, please let me know so I can hide your mentor form in a spoiler tag. PMing someone only to find out that they're not taking on new mentees is discouraging, and I'd like to minimize that as much as possible. I'll also be contacting all our current mentees to see how they're doing, and ensuring that they're getting the help they need. If you're a mentee and would like to save me the trouble of tracking you down, feel free to send me a PM to let me know how you're getting on with your mentor, and if you need any additional help. Thanks everyone! ~Ellie

I completely agree with Yoshi-P's sentiment that Free-to-Play models are for publishers who want a return investment on the product they're funding quickly. I feel like that's the reason it's become more prevalent, too. Publishers who want their money back now and don't care about the long term health of the game. I don't like free-to-play because I feel like it detracts from the game. Either I'll have to worry about not having access to the good parts of the game, or I'll have to deal with the game pestering me to buy items from the cash shop, or I'll have to wait longer for updated content to come out. I'd rather just pay a monthly fee and get everything. Free to play also lays down the welcome mat for more RMT. What better way to encourage gil sellers than to take away the cost of subscribing to the game in order to farm and powerlevel? To be honest, I like FFXIV's current spin the cash shop system. The game rewards for subscribing x number of days not only encourages you to pay ahead for subscriptions, but it advertises itself without being annoying. It also paces itself really well. Two new items every month would be a pathetic trickle for a cash shop, but you don't even notice it when it's touted as a subscriber reward. You're waiting for more, but you're not thinking "geez, why don't they release more stuff", you're thinking "wow, I can't wait to see what we'll get in another three months!" It's genius! I'd be very surprised to see this turn into a free-to-play game. Maybe if the subscription rate drops so low that they can't afford to keep the game up otherwise, but at that point I'd think that turning it free-to-play would just delay the inevitable shutting down.

T is for Terra Branford (or Tina)

M is for Maester Seymour, whose hair looks funny.

[align=center][/align] More comic! Yay...!

Doctor Galactic, what have you done?! You've broken Squeenix! How are we going to play our games now?

More than likely, they'll announce when you can upgrade your account to CE some time in the future.

I'm guessing most of you have already gotten your Pre-Orders out of the way, but if you haven't, Amazon has a promotion going for their Final Fantasy XIV PC Download where you can get $5 Amazon Store credit and $5 Amazon Digital Games credit. (Note, the promotion is only for PC Digital Standard and Collector's Editions, although there is also a $10 Amazon credit promotion going for the PS3 Standard Edition.) Amazon has great deals going on all the time, even in their digital games section, so it's hard to think of Amazon credit as anything other than a good deal, even if you don't plan on using them right away, they're good for a year so you're bound to find some use for them. There was some concern about the Pre-Order codes not going out, but I have it on authority that that issue has been fixed. The Marketing Manager for the Digital Team has made a thread on the FFXIV subreddit if you have any concerns. Also, if you've already preordered the digital SE or CE through Amazon, you'll automatically get the extra store credit from the promotion, you don't need to do anything further. ~Ellie

Awesome news by the way

I didn't either, actually, I keep thinking I'm the only one. Actually I might be the only MtF here, from the looks of it. <__<

That'll do for now, I think. We realize that everyone is frustrated, but this is turning into a repeat of the previously locked marriage thread. Let's all try to remember that the forum rules require us to respect one another, okay?

So many things to donate to this month, I'll have to wait until next month to contribute anything. I'm trans too (MtF) so I know exactly how you feel. I really hope you can make your goal.

As an activist for LGBT rights in real life, I'm sorely disappointed that they're not allowing gay marriages from the get-go, but I can understand why they think they have to do it. Even though the US has made a lot of progress in even the last five years, there is still a sizable minority here that are against gay marriage. There's still a lot of controversy in the US, and combined with how stunted the equality movement is in Japan, I can understand why Yoshi-P doesn't want this kind of publicity before the game has hit the shelves. He doesn't want this to become the only thing about his game that people are talking about. That said, though, I think a lot of people are wrong to conflate Japan's dim view of marriage equality in real life with their view of homosexuality contained in the popular media like anime and manga and video games. There was no real backlash or outcry when a bug in Tomodachi Collection: New Life allowed male mii's to not only marry but also raise children. People even loved it and got the game solely because of it. Nintendo then quietly patched it out of the game. Even when it was being discussed on the Japanese side of the beta forums, it didn't seem (from what I could gather) that they were much concerned with the moral implications as much as they were concerned with how it would affect the game's publicity. I don't approve, but I can understand holding it off at least for now. If they decide against allowing it, though, you can bet I'll be first in the picket line.

With the last live letter, we've discovered that the devs are awarding players with something called a Phial of Fantasia, which the Lodestone describes as thus: It seems that they've gone a step past making this an option that you can choose and made it a part of the lore as well. Now I know a while back there was some discussion about changing your roleplay character's established race or gender. Maybe this could be a good continuity cover for the few who would actually want such a thing.

The debate over whether or not it's reasonable to prefer a non-legacy server over a legacy server is never going to get anywhere. No matter how prejudiced and ill-informed you believe the reasons for wanting to roll on a non-legacy server, the fact of the matter is that server choice is a matter of personal preference that everyone has a right to determine on their own. That said, I'm imposing a moratorium on any discussion related to the legacy vs non-legacy debate here, and that goes for replying to such discussions as well. If you don't want an off-topic discussion to derail the thread, then please stop responding to it. Thank you.

[align=center][/align] This was my first thought, seeing the title of the thread. (I like their song Crossroads better)

There, I fixed your thread ^__~ I love stra rolanberries to death! <3 They're great in desserts, but my favorite way to eat them is raw. Give me a bowl of rolanberries and I'm set. No cream, no sugar, nothing. I can change it back to strawberries if you prefer, but I like the name rolanberries better. :3

The fuzzy memory syndrome isn't a complete wipe of all memories. From the perspective of those who stayed behind, you remember everything you did with them and everything they've done for you. The only thing that's been erased is their identity. You remember that you spent your life with...someone. You just can't remember their name and you can't remember their face or what they looked like. In your situation, the FC members would remember that their former leader had a son, and would also know that he was a Warrior of Light because his identity has been wiped from their memories. I hope that clears things up a little.

I'm nowhere near Alberta, but fortunately I'm already sold on the Oculus Rift. I'm nuts about 3D stuff, and this thing sounds absolutely incredible. Right now, though, I'm waiting for the finished product before shelling out the cash for it. I've no use for a developer kit, personally.

This thread has been just wonderful, most of the stuff I had to say on the subject was already expressed on page 1 alone. You guys are amazing, and I'm really going to have to struggle to come up with something new, but I'll give it a valiant effort. I think we can definitely agree that healing with magic, at least on the battlefield, is more of a superficial healing meant to get fighters back on their feet and into fighting shape. I also definitely like the idea that the effect is basically a sped up process of natural healing. I also like to think that healing with magic could be useful outside of battle, but it's difficult to really pin down what they can do without it seeming too overpowered. Still, I think there's something to be said for making sure that if you're going to have a storyline injury or illness (something that you don't want healed right away), you would be wise to make sure that it's something that's difficult to cure if you don't want it to be cured right away. I made this mistake with my main storyline for Keisuna, and I realized shortly after that it seemed a little silly that she'd still be injured when it sounds like something that the healers at the Fane could easily heal. As for non-magical medicine, I'm going with a sort of mid-to-late 1800's level of sophistication. The reason I say that is because while there's a definite medieval sense to the setting and level of technology, but also have more modern discoveries such as latex and rubber. It seems that medical tools and technology would be pretty advanced, but not so much that we're getting into the territory of hypodermic needles and x-ray machines.