Marisa

Well my favorite job is Paladin, but I don't really like tanking, so I can't really change much without re-working the entire class. Instead, I have two changes I'd make to White Mage. 1) Benediction heals the target the instant I cast it, not after the target is already dead. 2) The melee-animation should look the way you'd actually hit someone with a staff. The current animation is retarded.

This is more of a player-made thing than an actual in-world slur, but there's a fairly popular opinion that lalafells are overgrown popotos.

Really neat stuff. The way the lore of XIV is structured is very interesting, in how they scatter it in little hints throughout the land rather than directly telling it to us. Of course, I'm not all too fond of the constant and predictable pattern of astral and umbral eras, but you take the good with the bad.

#Mostly Harmless

Barrett Stormsong once said, "The only way anyone would ever make that girl a soldier is if half the knights in Coerthas were eaten by a dragon."

Sounds great, we should talk sometime! I'll keep an eye out for you in the linkshell. Well regardless, I'd definitely like to meet Erik. The Red Wings seem really awesome.

I'm looking for a mentor for my character and her sister. Ages 14 (15 in July) and 17 respectively, they returned home to assist in defending Ishgard, and now seek to be useful in the aftermath. Both are associated with House Fortemps, but have no discernible skills whatsoever. We're thinking something in the military or church, but are open to anything interesting. Both are wildly incompetent, so you should expect any training to be an uphill battle. Ryoko is very eager and loyal, while Mishka is a bit more lazy and questioning of authority. If you are a devout Ishgardian and don't mind a very casual RP schedule, we'd love to meet with you!

"Hey guys, I'ma borrow this for a bit." "Alrighty, we'll just stand here guarding an empty room while you're gone..."

My big problem with writing rumors is that I always have this feeling that I haven't really "earned" the right to do that to anyone's wiki, because I'm not really close with anyone on the RPC. And because I'm not really close with anyone on the RPC, my rumor section in turn stays largely blank.

It is entirely possible that they don't know. Despite his loyalty to the church, Alberic still loved Estinien like his own son. And ultimately, Alberic and the Hero of Light are the only living people who know what he did. So it's not much of a stretch to imagine that Alberic covered for Estinien. He may have even made him out to be a hero in his retelling of the Eye situation.

Honestly, with the ability to fix things with the change-log, I'd really just be curious to see what somebody would do with mine. Might be good for a laugh.

I was cracking up at the pugilists doing flips and spin-kicks in all that chainmail

Big day for Ryoko Stormsong. Despite the general ignorance that comes with being someone who literally lives in a utility closet, even she heard of the unrest in Coerthas. I'd been rather enjoying my little plot about searching for the missing sword, but obviously this more or less required Ryoko to return home. Getting there was simple enough. Sell-swords were headed North by the wagon-load, so getting back to Coerthas was much easier than leaving it in the first place. Once at Camp Dragonhead, she volunteered her services. The Fortemps knights were reluctant to place her and her sister into battle, knowing full well that the Stormsong daughters had no real combat-relevant skills, but they were both old enough to die for their country, and anyone can hold a spear and shield. So they were soon placed among a spear levy, comprised of one hundred and sixty Coerthan peasants and being led by a handful of professional soldiers. Ryoko's unit never did make it to that bridge. They were intercepted by a patrol of wyverns en route. The inexperienced levymen were wholly unprepared for an ambush, and their numbers rapidly thinned. The battle heavily favored the Dravanian forces. When the Fortemps knights fell, the remaining peasants lost their nerve and the line collapsed. A lucky few broke for the forest, with Ryoko and Mishka among them. No news of Barrett Stormsong yet. Doubtless he entered the fray on that bridge, but it is yet unknown if he now walks in Valhalla. Either way, Ryoko will most certainly feel great shame for fleeing the battle for some time, but that hasn't even reached her mind yet. Before that battle, she'd never witnessed death. Today, she watched over ten dozen men all brutally slain within a matter of minutes. She's currently crying herself to sleep in a snowbank, afraid to even consider leaving the woods, not knowing of Ishgard's victory. Last she saw, the world was burning down around her. It was not a fun day.

Holy crap, that's just like my Paladin glamour, but on a conjurer! I actually spoke to this guy minutes ago and didn't even notice... PLS SE, I'LL GIVE YOU ALL OF MY MONEY

Oh good, I'm not the only person who was baffled by that. Obviously something happened after the job quests, but who knows what. I'm almost certain Fern will remain tight-lipped on this. He's got big plans for Estinien. I can feel it.

This raises a good point about literacy in Eorzea. True enough that most would have no formal education, but you really only need one person who can read per village. Then that guy can read aloud to everyone at town meetings and whatnot. I'm thinking this needs to be explored more.

Hopefully I'm not working that night, I'd most certainly like to get involved.

I absolutely love how huge everything in that picture is. Although, I can see that dragon giving me the same problem Cloud of Darkness does, but worse. "Where is she? I still don't see her, she should be here by... OH WAIT, I'M INSIDE OF HER." *vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt* *Ryoko is disintegrated by the laser*

I get next to no adventure, and zero action, unfortunately. Now, the action I can live without. I used to do a bit of it, but I've yet to find any groups that can make it engaging. And that's understandable. It's hard to type and move at the same time, so any combat ends up being wholly underwhelming for me. I do wish I could get more adventure, though. It's kinda tough, because me and Mishka haven't really fallen into any rp groups yet. Even our FC we're only loosely associated with, and not actively involved in any of their story arcs. We go out and do a lot of exploring, but most people stay in their primary RP hubs, and those who do venture out tend to be hard to engage with because they're already involved with something important. I realize we just need to get more confident in approaching groups, but it's hard not to feel like you're intruding. But hey, if y'all ever see two little Miqo'te hopping along the landscape, feel free to drag us into your adventure. 9 out of 10 times we've got nothing better to do.

Now, I'll admit I'm only basing this off a panel I attended with Sonny Strait and his Japanese counterpart (they both did Maes Hughes in FMA, Sonny also did Krillin in DBZ and like a million other dub characters) but I have it on good authority that Japanese voice acting is just as much of a clusterfuck as it is in America. You have a handful of good voice actors who dominate the industry because they can do a wide range of voices really well, and everyone else is somewhere between decent and terrible. This is true for both Japan and America. And I honestly can't see the Japanese actors for XIV being any higher quality than the American ones, because they're being paid roughly the same. Now, one big argument brought up alot in anime with 'subs vs dubs', is that the subs are better, not because the actors are better, but because they can be directly coached by the writer to sound how he originally intended. But... here's the secret. That never happens. That's not how it works on either end. Even in Japan, the voice actors come in to the studio, they sit alone in a sound booth with a script of their lines, and they read them off as quickly as possible. A sound director will sometimes be there to coach them, but that's true for the dub actors too. The writer, however, is in no way involved in this process. He's left them some notes in their script, but the Americans got those same notes. In fact, here's the kicker with anime: The Americans get to watch the show before they dub it, because it's already been made. The Japanese teams are usually trying to record voices for an episode that hasn't even been animated yet. Though, to be fair, this doesn't apply to XIV. In XIV, neither the Japanese nor the Americans get to see any of these cutscenes before they record them. Now, if you genuinely prefer the Japanese version, I have nothing against that. I promise I'm not trying to insult you in any way. I just want to be sure there are no illusions that the Japanese team somehow produces a superior product.

Oh, you don't have to tell me about Clerics. That's my go-to class in any game. Which is why XIV can be so frustrating for me at times: It's literally the only mmo I've ever played seriously that lacks a cleric class. Hell, even The Old Republic had a cleric equivalent in the Imperial Operative, if you built them for healing. And I think a lot of it has to do with lack of class customization. In most games, either our paladin or bard jobs would have been able to specialize in healing, possibly both. But in XIV, a tank is a tank, and will always be a tank. And you know, I'm not gonna claim that one way is better than the other. How SE has it now certainly makes it easier to balance. What I hate is when people try to tell me "The jobs are the specializations, since you can have more than one." (Lookin' at you, Reddit) but no, that's not how that works. Completely changing classes is not the same as customizing a class. My other favorite thing they say is "If we had class customization, there would be one optimal choice so it's pointless" because despite they'll tell you all of SE's decisions are perfect, but they don't trust them to make a simple talent tree... Anyway, back on topic. Frankly, I'm more into aesthetics than anything else. Sure, I'd love to return to my old healing days when I could run up to the boss and smack it with my sword to get mana back between heals. As far as I'm concerned, there is literally no healer design better than that. However, I'd be almost as happy if I could just look the part. I mean, I'm already wearing Odin gloves and Darklight boots as a White Mage, and those are both plate armor. Yet while those are okay, I'm not allowed to wear a chailmail shirt because it would "break the mage aesthetic". Horse shit. Warriors are allowed to wear robes and wizard hats if they want to, and a lot of them do for funsies. But that perk only goes one way. Why is all of my gear marked "All Classes", while theirs is all "DoW Only"? And then I guess the last thing I want to rant about is Astrologians. The class looks... interesting, at least. Can't say if I like it or not, but it's intriguing. But let's be honest, thematically it's just halfway between a SCH and a WHM. They literally combine science and religion. I mean, apparently they also are mechanically halfway between a SCH and a WHM too, but I'm more forgiving of that. It's like, granted, Dark Knight is visually pretty similar to a Warrior, but everyone was asking for Dark Knight, so that's fine. Machinist is pretty new and interesting in the FFXIV scene, and there's currently nothing really like it. But the healing class was wide open. Nobody knew what to expect, everybody had different ideas on what it would be, we even thought it'd be a gun class for awhile, but SE had a million different ways they could have gone. I, in my foolishness, thought "Alright, everything's about Ishgard, we're getting really deep into Temple Knight lore in the MSQ, shit's about to go down with dragons... We're getting my goddamn cleric class!" Then the actual reveal happened, and this pretty well sums up my thoughts the moment I saw the picture. But I quickly rebounded! I realized, "Hey, those are the dudes over at the Observatorium! Every gear set may still be robes and wizard hats, but we'll get to learn about Halone, and the Enchiridion... go do quests in the Observatorium and stare at the sky while mumbling about dragons... it's gonna be awesome!" Oh, no no no no. See, healers aren't allowed to have anything cool in this game. Machinist? That's Ishgardian. Dark Knight? You can bet your Bahamut card that's gonna be linked to Ishgard. Astrologian? Obviously from Sharlayan, why would you ever think otherwise? (referenced from this, the only thing I've ever been mad at Koji for.) Apologies to anyone who's a huge fan of Sharlayan and super excited about this, just not huge on them myself. Anyway, feels good to get all that out. I know it was largely off topic and all over the place, and most of you will have very valid reasons to disagree with most of it, but it's nice just to have a place to yell about it every now and then.

Had to think about it for awhile. WjJvyi23xeU

I could be wrong, but I believe Koji's team actually writes most the the actual dialogue, with the Japanese side merely outlining the story progression for him.

Yay! I'm being noticed! I understand the Final Fantasy purist perspective, so I'll preface this by saying on some level I realize why SE does what it does. That being said, I'd like to mention something about your Odin/Gandalf example. Now here we have two men who are so far beyond everyone else, they don't even really do battle. Odin doesn't do combat with you, he simply smites you and is done with it. He has no reason to fear the swords and arrows of man because those are things of no significance to him. A white mage is not Odin. Even the most powerful White Mage in the world will still die if he takes an arrow to the face. If Odin could have been killed by sword wounds, you bet your ass he would have worn a full set of armor. It's one thing if you're just a travelling healer, but we know that white mages (or, for XIV's sake, conjurers) go to war. At the battle of Cartenau, we see healers and wizards right in the middle of the fray. Spears, arrows, fireballs, and bullets are flying everywhere Literally everyone else is wearing chainmail and helmets, except this handful of poor bastards being forced to wade into this sea of death wearing robes and cloth hoods. Even the archers get a little bit of armor, but the medics who are right up on the front lines? Nope, fuck those guys. I mean shit, the Garleans are supposed to place almost no value on the lives of their conscripts, yet even they give their healers helmets. The Garleans understand that no amount of connection with nature or aether is going to protect your face from shrapnel. So yes, if the Garleans understand it, then by extension the Devs must understand it. So now the question becomes, what the hell is wrong with Eorzeans? This is actually one of my 3 favorite things to rant about in FFXIV, so I'm pretty excited about this thread!

None of those people were online at 9pm D: Guess I'll try again tomorrow