(01-04-2014, 01:14 PM)Ildur Wrote:Quote:What happens in gameplay doesn't necessarily have to match lore at all. Â Gameplay always trumps lore.
That is true. Just as Tlamila said, if we used only gameplay, we would all be using Relic weapons, which are in most cases unique. However, there's a big difference between a Relic Weapon and a White Mage: the Relic weapon does not give you new skills. It's just a stat booster. Being a White Mage, on the other hand, grants you a set of unique skills that no other Job can use. What's more, we can induct that Relic weapons of which replicas can be made because they are objects. White Magic, however? There doesn't seem to be any in-lore way to replicate the powers of Succor.
Technically Conjurers already access Succor - they just don't get the full access that White Mages get. Â So what Conjurers don't have that White Mages have are Regen (a HoT), Holy (an AoE stun/damage), Presence of Mind (um...a Haste boost that is useless), Divine Seal (makes all your healing better for a short duration) and Benediction (an "Oh shit!" tank button that works 50% of the time due to the animation/log parse issues - don't get me started, I have many rants about this spell!).
I don't think that not having access to those spells is a game breaker. Â In fact, I feel that the spells they DID attach to White Mage were disappointing. Â I was hoping Holy would be some big Heal or something, something truly awe-inspiring to use, but I guess they didn't want to go that route. Â If anything, it makes it easier to simply be a Conjurer and not a White Mage.
Quote:Story informs gameplay. I know what potential spells I can make up for a Black Mage because the Job has a bunch of specific spells unique to it and its base class. I don't need lore to come and tell me "Your class can cast ice spells" to accept it as a lore friendly fact. I only need gameplay to tell me, because gameplay is informed by the lore. In the same way, I know what classes my character can be because gameplay allows me to be one.
The problem is, mechanic and class design are not, in any way, inhibited by Lore. Â In fact, the two are not even tied together until after the fact, and in many cases mechanics simply ignore Lore. Â I really am not comfortable with looking at a mechanic and deciding that it "creates" Lore, because it doesn't. Â Lore is written by storytellers. Â Class mechanics are put together by game designers. Â Often, they don't even talk.
Quote:And with the power of imagination, you can very well imaginate that the Padjal have been teaching White Magic since after they taught "the hero". Imagination doesn't just serve to see behind game mechanics, but also to see behind lore. And logic helps with silly lore restrictions that are detrimental to lore play, like this particular bit from the White Mage questline. Why punish all those people who had the very sensible assumption that their characters could ICly be what the game allows them to be?
It's not a punishment. Â But there's nothing in the Lore to support this at all. Â And saying, "Well, there are tons of people playing White Mages in the game and its an available class" doesn't change that. Â It's an available class for reasons of game mechanics. Â It's patently obvious that the devs, for whatever reason, decided to craft Lore that had nothing to do with the game mechanics, and that the two are completely separate in this instance.
From what I understand, this is much the case in the Dragoon and Black Mage questlines, too.
Is it disappointing? Â Yeah. Â But seriously, there's almost nothing a White Mage can do that a Conjurer can't do. Â The only thing a Conjurer doesn't have is unrestricted access to Succor. Â That's it. Â They can heal the snot out of everyone, they can raise people from the flipping dead. Â They just have their access to Succor restricted and monitored by the Elementals. Â That's really it.
Look, people can play whatever the hell they want. Â You don't have to follow the lore. Â There aren't any (I hope) lore police out there who will show up with billy clubs to beat you if you choose to disregard the lore as it's presented in the game and do whatever you want. Â But you can't expect people who do know what the lore says about White Mages (for instance, that the magic is still forbidden) not to look at someone in askance when they claim in public to be a White Mage. Â My character would either think they were out of their minds or lying.
Edited to Add: I thought about this for a moment, because I feel like I'm not putting things into words the way I mean to. What I'm getting at is someone wandering around announcing to people that they were a White Mage would drive me up the wall. Because I don't think it's something you would announce - even if you were one of the people who the Padjal were teaching the magic to. That's one thing that I really hope never to see. :-\
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