Soren Miren

Apologies for the confusion I've gone ahead and re-worded the initial announcement to better reflect the intentions.

We'll still be advertising our public events here on the RPC. If there are any that we decide not to advertise, it'll be due to the fact that we want them to trickle down the line naturally by word of mouth, but those will likely be few and far between. If someone wants to post something on our boards, yes, it'd likely be specifically tailored towards A.E.T.H.E.R.'s interests. Maybe they want to have a researcher document something, or are looking at establishing a relationship specifically with the academy, this is the most direct channel by which to do that. These are just a few examples, I really hate trying to categorize these things too much, but yeah, it really isn't meant to be a "Hey everyone, shove your way through our door every time you want to look at what's going on!" sort of thing. Just, if you want to be 100% confident the Academy sees it (and possibly responds to it), this is the place to do it.

The board was initially conceptualized for in-guild usage only. It was decided that as long as we were creating it, we may as well create an open version. There are of course still a few differences: 1) The A.E.T.H.E.R. bulletin board runs on the concept of free editing, at least for our own members. i.e. people can take down posts, write over them, etc. -- although this is only available to A.E.T.H.E.R. members right now, it is something I am looking into offering the community as a whole. 2) The board is strictly in-character. Aside from OOC clarifications for events, all OOC posts will be removed. 3) DAISHI covered this one before I could get to it hehe, but yes, this isn't meant to replace the RPC's boards in any way, rather to supplement A.E.T.H.E.R.'s heavy RP commitment with additional and realistic means of communication with our linkshell.

((Thanks to everyone who was in attendance! It was a bit chaotic at times and we learned something about how visual synchronization works the hard way (particularly in large crowds), but overall I had a great time and I hope everyone else did too. I do have some plans in the works for revised editions of this event (not too many of them of course, and I know an hour of watching talking heads isn't the most exciting thing in the world ) but for now A.E.T.H.E.R. will be focusing on it's first public "season", and I look forward to seeing how everything plays out with the rest of the community!))

The first thing I have to say is what while an OOC RPers channel is fine and all, I'd hate to see it turn into a planning room for RP sessions at the expense of freeflowing in-world RP. Aside from my personal feeling, just keep in mind that there is a character limit of I believe 132 (or somewhere in the 130s) for a linkshell. That alone cuts the viability of this proposal significantly. In addition, there is currently no way to kick players from linkshells without first getting in targeting range, so god forbid you end up with a harassment situation, good luck resolving it. SE dropped the ball a bit on that one.

(OOC) translation for those unable to read Eorzean: OOC Details:

Happy Birthday Castiel! :moogle:

This is precisely how I have and will continue to handle the subject, although I personally take it a step further and, at least in the case of WoW, would base storylines around patches moreso than I would around full expansions. Granted, this depended upon whether a patch actually moved a storyline forward or not. For example, the Sunwell patch made it clear that Kael'thas was a traitor to Silvermoon, and so the political atmosphere changed then rather than in Wrath after he would have been considered dead. Similarly, by the time ICC was introduced, the Trials would have already determined the unnamed heroes that ultimately defeat the Lich King. I also agree that its possible to place your character in certain events as participants, just not the central heroes. If for example there ends up being some gigantic battle between the Garlean armies and the people of the city-states, it's reasonable to say that your character might have been a participant or witness. The same applies to the parade in Ul'dah, or even as was mentioned earlier, using the Limsa Lominsa opening sequence in some fashion.

Thanks! :cheer:

And I somehow missed this thread as I was typing up my other coverage thread D: Castiel, feel free to delete the one I just posted.

The pre-launch event for FFXIV was held yesterday...or this morning...or something, I dunno these strange japanese times. In any case, the event featured the debut of the game's , which I have to say is pretty damned amazing and tells a much better story than anything Blizzard has put out there. /biased. In addition, a great deal of updates have been planned. While it isn't clear whether these are intended for launch or a patch later on, they all sound absolutely fantastic. Check out the full list below: [*]Guildleve availability/cooldown Right now, there is a 2 day cooldown for guildleves. This is not enough for a single person, but the aim was that people would share guildleves to extend this time. This is why we have the leve-link and the bonus rewards for higher difficulty selection, to make it more rewarding and better exp/skill gains to play in a party. However, the time was just too long, and we heard many complaints of this nature, so we will shorten it. With that, we can see the problem with having to travel via teleport more frequently, so we are currently tweaking an anima regen increase. [*]Upcoming guildleve introduction We will be adding not just normal guildleves, but a wide variety of types of guildleves. First, there will be higher level guildleves. Among those, many will have more variance in the rules/goals as well as being able to fight with more varied monsters in many more target areas. In particular, we heard many comments of "I want to fight more and more NMs!" so we want to respond to that quickly. Also, the faction leves that were in the Open Beta are designed to be a somewhat "different taste" from regular leves, with hidden starting conditions or npcs. The rewards for these are fairly good, so please try them out! Finally, we are going to be steadily adding more and more leves that encourage coordination between all the classes including gathering/crafting/magic/war. Please look forward to it! [*]Notorious Monsters Soon, there will be NM's even in the world of FFXIV. These will look very different from most of the other normal monsters. We're planning to introduce NM's that are so huge they make a Malboro look small. The tranquil era is about to end! We're going to torment adventurers with these powered up, aesthetically varied NM's which we've prepared "episodes" for. [*]Damaging monster body parts: There are monsters which have different body parts that can be damaged. Using a specific weapon skill while standing in a specified position can lead to cutting a monster's body part off. For example, you can cut Malboro's vines or a horn/tail if the enemy has one. In addition to changing the monster's appearance, those actions can have the following effects: - Weakening the monster - Preventing monsters from using specific skills - Acquiring materials from cut/damaged body parts [*]Other: By combining a particular race's equipment etc with city-state it's unavoidable that a certain degree of being tied down will occur, so this time we are not thinking of doing that. [i'm a little unclear here but I think this means they want to avoid certain races being tied to certain city-states] Scenario's are balanced, basically, completely soloable or depending on the situation doable with a small number of people. "For the most part, soloable" [*]City-states' Guilds: Not all guilds are in every city-state By passing a certain condition, "class quests" will become available at guilds. Class quests are of course related directly to the class itself, but at the same time are a way to truly learn the details of each city-state. Please enjoy the story revealed in these quests, in addition to the quest rewards themselves. When you complete a quest, you will receive Guild Tokens [marks?]. We are planning to add more and more things to exchange tokens for. [*]Balances to enmity in party battle: In beta, they made adjustments to enmity based on magic and abilities, but they have plans for more. These changes, however, will probably take a while to implement. They plan on adjusting the enmity according to contents, equipment, abilities, monsters, and so on. These changes will be made continuously after service begins based on how things are going. [*]Mana Regeneration: In FFXIV, management of your MP use is supposed to be an important part of strategy. Theyâd also like magic to have explosive power in fewer hits, and not just be used to spam enemies with light damage attacks. To promote this, theyâd like to continue to balance the recovery methods used for MP, including the abilities and aetherite, as well as adding new methods later on. [*]Usefulness of Battle Regimen Battle regimen serve a double purpose: to expand the strategy of party play, and to reduce the difficulty/rigidness in forming parties. They are not just for doing extra damage, there are lots of various effects. For example: [*]- Phys Resistance Debuff [*]Normal melee attack -> Normal melee attack (ex. slash -> punch [these are basic DoW abilities]) [*]- Magic Resistance Debuff [*]Normal melee attack -> Normal magical attack (ex. slash -> spirit dart) [*]- Cast speed down + MP consumption up [*]Normal melee attack -> Magic (ex. slash -> Fire) [*]- TP gain reduction + TP consumption up [*]Normal melee attack -> Weapon skill (ex. Slash -> Red Lotus) [*]- Action aptitude up (Using a different class ability on the current class grants the same effect as when used on the other class) [*]Same class magic -> Magic [*]Same class Weapon skill -> Weapon skill (ex. Trunksplitter -> Brandish) [*]- Damage up [*]Various class WS -> WS -> Magic [*]Various class magic -> Magic -> WS (ex. Blizzard -> Scourge -> Puncture) [*]For example, if it's difficult to continue dealing physical damage, use Phys resistance debuff. If it's a casting monster, use cast time debuff + MP consumption increase etc. [*]Negotiations are another way of obtaining loot (other than battles). By choosing the right conversation subject with a NPC, player can engage in negotiations and receive items in exchange for items wanted by the NPC. If player does exceptionally well, it's possible to get some free stuff as an extra. [*]Ishgard: Ishgard's people have long been at war with man-eating dragons, and thus have not taken on Adventurers. In this city, there are already several quests appearing for the "Dragon Slayers" [faction?] who are at war with the dragons. [*]Guildleves in the Beta: We sincerely apologize to our open beta testers for the client errors that would occur more frequently during guildleves in the beta. In the release version, we are dealing with these diligently. [*]Retainer: Right now, when you buy something from a retainer, there is an unnecessarily long delay. On release, we plan to make this a lot more smooth. We would like to make improvements to make commerce even easier for everyone. [*]Relationship Crafting/Gathering & PC Status: PC's physical level & attributes will have an effect on crafting and gathering. There are hints in the game as to what does what, so please search for it. [*]Crafting [*]Physical: Closely related to the tool being used and will particularly affect quality [*]Attributes: related to "Godsend" [i think these are the extra result/HQ result] probability & "attribute stability" [?] [*]Gathering [*]Physical: Affects difficulty in obtaining items in the "gather" phase as well as the number of items obtained [*][translator note].. this is a literal translation of "physical" and "attribute" I wasn't sure here if they're talking about skill level or what, but judging from the use of katakana for Physical, I must assume it means physical level, even though that sounds odd to have an effect here. [*]Market: We don't want crafters and gatherers to simply "put up" their items on the market and that's it. We want them to also act as salesmen and learn to play the market intelligently. For this purpose, we will begin with focus on the Bazaar market system. On that note, in order to be able to tell "What's for sale?" etc, we are planning to adjust policy and add functionality to improve the user friendliness. [*]Retrying guildleves: The best way to level is with guildleves, that is, even without the guardian's favor, you will earn way more exp and skill points per each kill. For this reason, we wanted to prevent abusive use of leves by killing all the monsters but failing right at the end and then retrying on the spot. However, if you visit the NPC that gave you the leve, you can retry it. [*]There will be hardware mouse support! [*]We believe that the item selection interface should be very responsive, and by release we will have introduced a MUCH improved version. After release we will continue improving this. [*]The FFXIV development team acknowledged that there's issues with the mouse and user interface and apologized about it. Hardware Mouse + UI improvements will be a major focus for them. [*]There will be package discount pricing on the subscription (Japan-3months, NA/EU 3/6 months) [*]Due to game balance consideration, the level cap on release will be 50 [*]We will change it so you do not lose disabled abilities when changing class any more. [assume this means they won't leave the ability bar, they will probably just gray] [*]Physical stat distribution will affect both crafting and gathering classes as much as it does everyone else. [*]There aren't any "open world" NMs outside of guildleves. [*]New hairstyles will be added, as well as the ability to change hairstyle in game after you make your character. [*]Crafters will be able to cooperate in large-scale projects (boats, cannons, wedding cakes! YUM) so more fun for you and your company! [*]There will be guildleves where crafters and adventurers have to cooperate. [*]The guildleve issue will be fixed so they cooldown will be significantly decreased from 48 hours. [*]Anima regeneration will have to be raised since you'll have to travel more for more frequent guildleves. [*]The faction leves have you fight different beastman tribes and such.[/list:u] Source: FFXIVCore

>.> <.< My only regret is my motherboard doesn't want to acknowledge my additional 3 gigs of RAM.

My trusty gamepad, apparently. Thankfully it's wireless for easier maneuverability!

While I won't deny that it misses the traditional city-esque vastness that makes Ul'dah and Limsa so appealing, Gridania really captures that isolationist "middle of a dense forest" feel that I was hoping for. However I can see how people would be easily turned off by both the layout of the city and the Black Shroud region. All I know is you can barely see the sky above the canopy, and I <3 that. Its like a city built out of the Sanctuary of Zi'tah / Boyahda Tree.