Mercer

Haha I'm just teasing him, he's an FC member. But yeah. This is... Difficult. I would suggest looking up samurai and daimyo names and make sure to check the years. A friend who is pretty proficient within these eras suggested if we can't find what we're looking that Sengoku period could offer names as well. It's from around 14 cen. to 16 cen. Sengoku makes sense though there is going to be a lot of quirks there. The warring states era had a lost of nuance to the names considering that each region was independently controlled.

Oh definitely. Horsemanship seems to be quite important to the Xaela - or at least for those in environs that support them. After all, we have one tribe that's famous for taming even the wildest horses, one that weds them, and one that spends almost all their life in the saddle. Given the Mongolian roots of the race, that much is for sure.

If you plan on playing in Direct X 11, make sure that you enable that version in your launcher. Just hit the config button and switch on the Direct X 11 switch.

There is however a small male section. Well then, I'll go back and correct myself from looking like a giant pompous ass.

The Edo-Era names that Lianne posted is primarilly for women. Here is a resource for both men and women, as well as explains the combination suffix and prefix terms: Edo Era Names

Hells, no wonder it took until today for them to release the conventions. This is substantial stuff that is going to take some time to review.

FLARE'S NOT PART OF YOUR SYYYYYYSTEM!

NERF HOLY INTO THE GROOOOUND!

I'd like to see more RPers take into account how ruthless the world is. Life spans are short and death is around every corner.

Armory bonus below 50 has been increased to 100%

Already a thread up, friend. http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=12092

Those job specific limit breaks, that's the good shit right there.

NOT EXCLUSIVE TO PS4! NOTE IT IS NOT EXCLUSIVE TO PS4! XBOX ONE AND PC ALSO GETTING FF7 REMAKE

DRK. All I care about is DRK.

Oswin will interact with Au Ra like everyone else that isn't Hyur or Roe. Thinly veiled mild racism in a snark filled package.

SOURCE We will be performing maintenance on all Worlds at the time below to accompany Patch 3.0 and to implement early access to the first FINAL FANTASY XIV expansion pack “FINAL FANTASY XIV: Heavensward”. During this period, FINAL FANTASY XIV will be unavailable. * The World Transfer Service will be suspended 15 minutes before the maintenance, and will be unavailable until maintenance has ended. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding. [Date & Time] Jun. 18, 2015 2:00 a.m. to Jun. 19, 2015 2:00 a.m. (PDT) * Completion time is subject to change. [Affected Worlds] All Worlds

June 8th, 2015: First Revision June 9th, 2015: Added the fantastic Progression and Level Locked Content guilde.

Not all the way to 50 they won't. I don't know if you understand what I'm trying to say. The truth of the matter is that new classes are locked in Ishgard. New players can't play them and must play another class. Why not play a class that will benefit your future main class?

I want to DPS with a sword. What class do I pick? None of them.

Well, we at the Heart of Coeurl take pride in helping new and old players find their spot in the game again. Fill our chat with questions and I know we will do our best to get you settled.

BREAKING! SERVERS WILL BE DOWN FOR THE HEAVENSWARD UPDATE FOR 24 HOURS! Jun. 18, 2015 2:00 a.m. to Jun. 19, 2015 2:00 a.m. (PDT) Welcome new players and veterans alike! This post is meant to be both a quick reference and in-depth reference to the changes and features Heavensward brings. There is a wide range of changes with the expansion starting from level 1. If you are new to XIV I would suggest checking out the Progression and Level Locked guide Ishgard The new country that Heavensward takes place in is called Ishgard. This land of dragons, gothic architecture, traditional knights and the faithful is not an easy land to enter as a new player. In fact, to even get the chance to play in Ishgard and the greater Heavensward content you must level up to 50 and complete the Main Story Quest. It’s important to note that nearly all of the new content in Heavensward is linked to accessing Ishgard. The Au Ra race is the exception. New Race The Au Ra are the new race introduced in Heavensward and are available immediately. This race has several unique features immediately apparent during character creation. This race, like all XIV races, is split between two different sub types: The Raen and Xaela. The Raen is the clan that has embraced tranquility and solitude. Although they hail from the far east, many were part of the Doman refugees that now have taken refuge in the XIV world of Eorzea. The Xaela are a nomadic clan that roams the far east in close knit tribes. They are war like, often in conflict with other tribes in tradition of their ancestors. New Jobs Heavensward is bringing three new jobs that many people are excited about. Unfortunately they are not available from the start. To play as a Dark Knight, Astrologian or Machinist you must have a character class at level 50 and have completed the Main Story Quests leading up to Ishgard. I know this is disappointing to new players, but thankfully your time leveling an alternate class and job will not be for nothing. FFXIV has a unique skill system that allows cross class skills. That means by leveling a Archer, for example, would give the Machinist access to a wider range of complimentary skills. Each Job and Class is able to use cross class skills so your time leveling to 50 before Ishgard will not be a waste. Cross Class table: Machinist – Archer/Lancer Dark Knight – Gladiator/Marauder Astrologian – Conjurer/Thaumaturge If you are interested in one of the new jobs I highly recommend leveling one of your cross classes to help ease you into your role and expand your skills once you have unlocked your chosen job. Leveling to Heavensward The development team is not deaf to the concerns of it’s player base. Recognizing that the time needed for new characters to level to 50 along with the heavy requirements needed to finish the Main Story Quests had grown too large, they have implemented an elegant solution. Instead of removing the emphasis on story the development team has eased the time requirement needed to view all of the content. Starting at level 1, the Main Story Quests will offer double experience points and increased rewards. This greatly reduces the time that new characters and players need to invest before accessing the new content. The new rewards come in the form of armor and weapons. There are also several instances and duties required to continue on the Main Story Quests so all new characters and players will be placed in a priority queue to further reduce the time needed. This experience boost should also help propel characters beyond level 50 before stepping into Ishgard, further easing new players into the new content. Flying Mounts Flying mounts will be common in Ishgard, but not immediately available. Your company chocobo as well as other mounts will be able to fly through the varied areas. To enable flight, you must collect the assorted wind currents in each zone. A full collection of wind currents must be collected before flight will be enable in each individual zone. Some mounts, like the Ahriman will not be able to fly until a later patch. Combat Difficulty Combat has been revamped in Heavensward with a focus on increasing the difficulty of the common enemy in Ishgard. Caution is advised when approaching hostile monsters or beast tribes as the design goal is for a single enemy to offer a moderate challenge while two enemies will push a character to the limit. More than two enemies will likely mean death. When approaching the beast tribe cities it is recommended to bring a group along. Prepare yourself, Ishgard is a far more lethal place. Exploring Ishgard The areas in Ishgard are dramatically larger than they are during ARR. Each area is about twice the size of the biggest ARR areas. Not only are they wider they are also taller as each area has areas, quests and enemies that can only be accessed with flying mounts. Old Job Revamps All of the old Jobs are being revamped in some way, shape or form. These changes come gradually over your leveling in Ishgard, so do not feel like these changes are going to dramatically change how you play right away. Do not get comfortable either, the 50-60 job abilities will alter your play style at a base level no matter which job you play as. Crafting Revamp All crafting classes beyond 50 will be able to specialize in a specific branch of their class. This will create a greater variety of crafters in the game as a whole. Crafters will also be able to create company airships by banding together with their free companies! Heavensward Raids The new 8 man trial is Alexander. Although Alexander is an endgame raid, it will not be available until two weeks after Heavensward’s release. Once Alexander is available it follows the normal loot rules: You can run the trial all you want but can only receive one piece of loot per week. Roll carefully! Two weeks after Alexander is originally available the Savage version will be unlocked. This version of Alexander is meant for hardcore raiders and includes rewards greater than the normal version. The new endgame currency will also unlock, allowing for high end gearing related to Alexander. Both of the new primals will also receive end game hard mode versions. Be prepared to suffer!

Cross class is important and many people would, I think, go back and level up to a certain point in certain classes to get any abilities that might be valid (not sure if we know which classes will cross yet or not but still). However generally this is something you would be able to do on your own time. Level your main job then go back and work on cross classes while technically already being fully capable of doing content. It also seems logical to learn your actual job /then/ mix in other bits rather than the reverse where you learn how to play a WHM per say, switch to AST and suddenly lose most of those abilities for completely new ones. That said they also are locking it behind story which means unlocking the new jobs also forces you to do all the MSQ content past 50. Why not do it right away? Because unless you have a love for your class, leveling 1-50 (60? Not sure if there will be cross class skills added higher) and doing the whole MSQ to 2.55 is not likely to be an enjoyable ride. However, if you can enjoy the class you want, you have motivation to slowly work on getting extra little skills through cross classes that make you and your parties life easier. At least that's how I would see it and how I felt when I had to level Paladin for my Warrior. I hated Paladin but I did it because after playing Warrior I could see the benefit and I would work on it until I got frustrated and switched back over to overpower things in the face instead. It's more of a recommendation to not only ease them into the game, but also ease them into their role. All but THM are directly linked to their role in the game. This is, again, more of a way to help people understand that they may not be able to use their preferred class right away but also encourage them knowing that their efforts leveling their class actually gives them rewards. In a perfect world, we would have access to these new jobs right away. We don't, so the best we can do is adapt and make the best of what we have.

Given the nature of cross skill abilities and the ease of switching to the new jobs once you meet the requirements, I see no reason why people wouldn't want to level an off class first. Truth of the matter is that people are going to have to level that cross skill class at some point, why not just do it right away? Maybe a PSA post needs to get made for new players going into Heavensward. Hrm.