Havoc Snow

I think some of this may have been retconned however in the 2.3 and 2.4 storylines when they explain how Aether works, the Primals, and the Ascians. I think they just say that we return to the Flow of Aether when we die, though perhaps I'm wrong. I'll have to go rewatch the cutscenes again.

I can state at least one point where someone other than the Warrior of Light uses a Soul Crystal as well, that being Curious Gorge in the Warrior quest line. He makes reference to how his Soul Crystal no longer glows anymore until the end where his fighting spirit is rekindled. Whether this meas it is required or not isn't really clear. Ninjas also wield Soul Crystals, as you pick up the one you use off the dead body of a Ninja near Wineport and Oboro tells you that they all use them. We actually know this is possible, as the questgiver for the CT weekly quest is an archmagus that put her soul into a vessel and then transferred her consciousness into the body of the woman that found her. But I believe that is an entirely separate magical function than the one soul crystals are used for. This is a little nitpicky, but Noah was actually a he when he was alive, not a her, and not it wasn't a Soul Crystal that he contained his consciousness inside of. Soul Crystals as far as I have been able to tell are basically like Holocrons from Star Wars, they are a crystal that contains gathered information, knowledge, and experience and are capable of passing that onto the wielder as they become more and more attuned with it. Most Soul Crystals never have a designated previous wielder (some do however) and in some cases they are implied to contain the experiences of numerous people of that Job (like the Warrior one and Paladin ones). When you do the Materia questline that teaches you melding they state that Materia works pretty similar, that all of the experience and knowledge within your gear can be forged into a crystal form which creates Materia, so basically Soul Crystals are kind of like Super Materia. In FFXIV lore, Aether and Souls are one and the same, your Aether returning to the Lifestream Aether Flow is the same thing as your Soul passing on to the Afterlife.

Given that you an do an Eternal Bond with someone of the same gender and no one bats an eye about it in the game, this isn't surprising at all. There are still a lot of racial prejudice that we see quite often in the game however, especially involving the Miqo'te, so it's really not that big of a shocker they would gloss over the same sex couple but not the interracial couple part.

Yay! Got my last two alts made!

Yeah, that was pretty much me: 1) I'm a ranged DPS. 2) I have no idea about any dungeon mechanics at all... 3) I will probably get vote booted instantly. So, yeah, that's probably about 80% of the trauma right there. Nothing quite like being humiliated on the Internet. -steers the rudder 'cause we're headed for Lame-Ass Nub Island- Unfortunately that list is exactly what I was looking at. ;w; Most dungeon mechanics are relatively easy to figure out even without help, though for those who do need the extra "boost" that is definitely what youtube is for. MTQ tends to come out with fantastic guides shortly after content goes live, and they're typically no longer than 5 or 10 minutes each, breaking down the mechanics piece by piece and explaining them. I definitely recommend looking her up on youtube if you need help figuring out how to clear a dungeon. Getting caught up to the ilvl is probably the hardest part, but now that they have made it so that dungeons always drop gear it's a bit easier to get caught up. I would recommend going through the story as far as you can, doing every dungeon at least once until you come to a point where your ilevel needs to increase, at that point start farming the highest dungeon you can to up your ilevel. Additionally you could run Labyrinth of the Ancients to at least boost yourself to i80-ish, while picking up solidery gear on the sides. Then you can move on to Syrcus Tower for i100 gear while still picking up Soldiery gear. I'm always happy to help new or returning players, so if you need someone to run with you toss me a friend request, my display name here is the same as my character name in game. I can help as either Tank or DPS.

This will probably help a lot.

WOAH WAIT. Do you think the whole out of combat you can't die from falling will still apply?! Imagine how high off of something you could jump and come out unharmed. Honestly it's very likely you won't be able to jump off the floating islands anymore than you can jump off the "edge of the world" areas they have in many of the zones that creates the barriers around each zone. Aww now that I think about it that is probably true But I mean flying mounts allow you to get to places you could not normally get to, so it may lift the restrictions at that zone to some extent :3 What happens if you dismount in the middle of the air over one of the gaps? Probably won't be able to dismount in the air, it'll likely give you an error message and only be allowed to dismount while your mount is on the ground.

Also like most have said, I plan on using an airship to get out their. Ashren has been working on constructing his own since 2.4 ICly, working with other groups and trying to get the components or the revenue to help fund the construction. We've sort of been drawing out the process with speed bumps in the construction and design until we know for sure when we'll be getting the personal airships, but basically as soon as they are available Ashren will be taking to the skies to explore the new world.

WOAH WAIT. Do you think the whole out of combat you can't die from falling will still apply?! Imagine how high off of something you could jump and come out unharmed. Honestly it's very likely you won't be able to jump off the floating islands anymore than you can jump off the "edge of the world" areas they have in many of the zones that creates the barriers around each zone.

Urianger, Y'shtola, Papalymo, Yda, and Cid just to name a few. Many of these characters tend to take a backseat when it comes to getting involved in the story, but I would hardly call them completely helpless idiots, and I'm fairly certain none of them have become villains. They have all remained fairly true to their character through 1.0 and into 2.0.

This is why my main is a Secret Au Ra man!

Sorry, but Ul'dah being under any monetary strain makes me think of this appropriate comic: Is it the Syndicate's right to do with their money as they please? Absolutely. However, the Syndicate's choice of how to handle their own money is what's causing unrest in Ul'dah, not the lack of money in the Sultanate. Refugees, unless exploited, equate to a loss of profit. The Immortal Flames, which the Syndicate has been trying to abolish along with Raubahn (another Ala Mhigan), also equate to a loss of profit. Helping in the affairs of other nations, loss of profit. I never said it was monetary strain, the issues are political which is an entirely different and far more volatile problem.

I think people are looking at things the wrong way. They see the fact that the Doman were turned away as being wrong or cruel, it's really not. Imagine for a moment if you lived in a three bedroom house and had six children you had to put a roof over and feed every day and you were already stretched thin trying to just manage that. Now imagine if some homeless guy asked if he could come live with you and eat your food, and in return he would mow your lawn or wash your windows. Is it cruel or wrong of you to deny him?

It's already been stated but I'll just elaborate on it a little. It is very likely that Godbert didn't veto the Doman refugees out of malice intent, but because it was for a greater good (both for Ul'dah and for them). Current Ul'dah is wracked with criminal activity from the Ala Mhigan refugees who feel entitled, there is a massive class divide in their society between Upper Class, Lower Class, and Refugees, adding more refugees would only cause further divide and perhaps a secondary refugee class as the Ala Mhigan and Doman fought for scraps. In essence, life for the Domans in Ul'dah could have possibly been worse than life under the rule of Garlemald back in Othard, and Godbert spared them that with their vote hoping that they would find better shelter elsewhere. Ul'dah is falling apart currently, they can't even maintain their current population of refugees, taking on more would have likely caused the city to just crumble.

The same thing could be said about the current storyline though. You do a few small quests running back and forth talking to people then you do a dungeon, then you do a bit more back and forth, then you go to Northern Thanalan, run around clicking on objects, talk to some more people, run around Northern Thanalan looking for shiny spots, fight mobs, run around talking to people, cutscene, boss fight, run around talking to people, the end.

My point was that the current 2.5 story was short enough that, if this is about halfway through it, they didn't need to split it at all. They could have included the full MSQ and it would have been maybe a little longer than the storyline from 2.3 or 2.4.

3.1, they move her out of Mor Dhona to establish the Risen Stones, but you still have to return there every freaking quest. In so far as the LBs are concerned, they can be flashy as they want, just make them cancellable. Even better solution would be to make the user immune to most damage while animation locked. I say "most" because I could see situations where it could be abused by people, but for the most part you should be immune to a lot of things while using it.

It's sort of strange, I think that the new storyline is perhaps the most hit or miss with the playerbase that they have had. I see a lot of people who just didn't like it at all, and I see a lot of people who loved it. Personally I feel like it was a bit short, the reason they gave us for splitting up the story was because there was too much, but I kind of feel like there was less of it this patch than there was in any of the previous ones, save perhaps the 2.1 storyline which was 90% fetch quests. I kind of feel like they could have just included it all into one patch, World of Darkness was more than enough to keep people logging in and playing, at least for that weekly quest and weekly drop.

inb4 "I know you're on a floating continent malms and malms into the sky, but could you return to the Rising Stones so we can have a brief conversation that is totally possible to be had over Linkpearl? That would be greeaat..."

I don't know how well it works, but this site was suggested to me by a friend. I'm going to test it out and see if it actually works based on the real server, or just off the website but for anyone else wants to give it a try: http://www.world-alerts.com/

I watched this video like 10 times in a row...

I don't mean to come across as rude, but can people please stop bumping this thread unless it's to alert others that the server is open? Most of us have this thread subscribed specifically so we can get an alert when the server is available and every time someone posts in here (this post included) it gives everyone waiting false hope.

I sincerely doubt Nanamo is aware of Ul'dah's seedy history in this regard, the fact that even the Thaumaturges weren't aware of it would suggest as much and that the people who were in charge of covering up that dirty little secret didn't even know anymore that they were covering it up. She's the 16th descendant of the first ruler of Ul'dah, that is a loooooong ass time, probably dating back to even before the war between Ishgard and the Dragons.

That may seem to paint one side as 'good' vs 'evil' But consider: With wealth you can buy knowledge. With knowledge you can earn wealth. Seems fairly balanced to me. I'm just going off of what the game says Cocobuki: Two scales, one of gold and one of silver. The gold of Ul'dah, weighing prosperity and power. The silver of Sil'dih, weighing knowledge and power. But the power sought by the two nations differed greatly─yes, greatly indeed. The power wrought by Ul'dahn prosperity was that of justice and good, while the power wrought by Sil'dihn knowledge was horrific beyond belief─the power to rip the living soul out of a man and render him a mindless killing machine. Though we know by the end of the storyline this isn't true, this is the line that K'ailia was referring to in her post.