Character Creation Benchmark, and Information on Ishgard, Ala Mhigo,and Key enemies!

[Myllor]

Read over this introduction to the Holy See of Ishgard and the conquered nation of Ala Mhigo, and learn what lies beyond the borders of Gridania, Ul'dah, and Limsa Lominsa.

 

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/news/article/130801_cities

 

Come face to face with the foremost minions of Gaius van Baelsar─three distinct individuals united in their undying loyalty to the legatus. (Also Ascians/Paragons)

 

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/world/threats

 

See just how well FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn will run on your computer. This official benchmark software uses actual maps and characters to assign a score to your PC and rate its performance.

 

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/benchmark/download/index.html

[Mtoto Wamoto]

``````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````I'M SO HAPPY THEY RELEASED INFO ON THESE NEW GUYS AND THE ASCIANS. END CAPS LOCK.

 

Seriously tho, I think I might have figured out the history of the Ascians.

 

/inbeforesomeoneelsespoilstheloreforeveryone

 

Here are a few things about the Ascians we know...

 

The beastmen fear the Ascians. They fear them so much, they are willing to halt their quarrel with one another when one of them appears in the 1.0 Main Quest line and the Sylphs are asked to shroud the group in protective magic to hide them from the creature. 

 

The Paragons are the ones who taught the beastmen how to summon the Primals. The current Primals didn't appear until recently, post Tragedy of Silver Tear Falls when the Agrius and Midgardsormr crashed into the lake in Mor Dhona, creating a huge imbalance of aether throughout the realm and freeing the lesser primals. In fact, the lesser Primals didn't assume corporal form until about 1564 when Ifrit and other Primals began to appear. Garuda and Moggle Mog didn't appear until 1572. Titan and Leviathan appeared sometime between that.   

 

The Ascian we see in ARR remarks something to the extent of "To think that I would live to see Bahamut once again". We know Bahamut was sealed away sometime in the 4th Umbral Era, during the fall of the Great Allagan Empire. Dalamud is a construct of Allagan technology and magic. For the Ascian to have last seen Bahamut, he would need to be several thousand years old. 

 

The 6th Umbral Era was brought about by the rise of immortal mages who made a pact with the demon lords of the seven hells for immortality in exchange for full dominion over the realm and sacrificing (I believe it was, I'll have to find the line of text) 2 million souls. The Archons, men and women who are believed to be reincarnates of the Twelve themselves, rose to fight against them. It can be speculated that these mages are the Ascians.

 

My theory is that the Ascians were once Allagan mages who made a blood pact with the ruling creatures of the void in order to become immortal and gain power. In exchange for their power and immortality, the Ascians were bound to completing their blood pact by destroying the mother crystal, in effect creating a huge imbalance in the aether of Eorzea, possibly expanding the rift between the Void and our own realm and killing off several thousand, if not millions, of people in the process by returning the world to nothing (A common Final Fantasy bad guy theme). The Ascians were likely the ones to have summoned the Elder Primals in the first place which brought about the 4th Umbral Era and ended the 3rd Astral Era. In a last ditch effort to save the realm from destruction, heroes (possibly the Archons) sealed away Bahamut inside Dalamud and casted him into the heavens. They may have also imprisoned other Elder Primals as well (such as Odin). 

 

Having failed that time, the Ascians may have tried another catastrophe in the 4th Astral Era to bring in the 5th Umbral Era. Not much is known here aside from the tidbit that darkness descended onto the hears of man, but I speculate the Ascians managed to bring about war between the various nations that rose up after the fall of the Allagan Empire (Nym, Gelmorra, etc.) The Twelve may have intervened and stopped them somehow (again, possibly Archons)

 

The 6th Umbral Era was known for the Great Deluge brought about by the Twelve to purge the lands because of the dark magic that was consuming the realm by a group of "dark mages". The Grand Companies rose and the Archons came back. They succeeded in driving back the Ascians and the 6th Astral Era came out, this was about 1572 years ago prior to the start of 1.0...

 

It was in the 6th Astral Era that the Ascians, now calling themselves the Paragons, went around and taught the beastmen tribes how to summon the Primals and use crystals to feed them energy. This created a huge schism in the balance of aether in the realm, which was likely the Ascians goal in the first place. 

 

The 7th Umbral Era was brought about by the rise of the lesser primals (this is a term I use, not a term used ingame) and the fall of Dalamud along with the return of Bahamut. I suspect that Nael van Darnus (who was of Allagan descent) was corrupted by the Ascians to get the events which would bring back Bahamut. Because of the aetherial imbalance, the world was thrown into chaos. The archons (the Circle of Knowing) attempted to do what they could to save the realm while the powers of Twelve once again intervened before Bahamut could actually destroy the realm for good. To be honest, I think that the Twelve is simply a thing that the five races created to explain the divine powers of the Mother Crystal, so when Louisoix 'called upon the Twelve' he was simply using the power of the Mother Crystal...which if I recall, calling upon the Twelve uses a great amount of aether...and aether is the lifeblood of the mother crystal...

.

Anyways, now that the Mother Crystal is weaker and vulnerable, the Ascians might be approaching what is their endgame and plan to destroy the mother crystal once and for all to fufill their several millenniums old blood pact. 

 

This is all speculation of course, but I think its pretty solid based off what we know...

 

Either way...

 

IF I'M RIGHT, SOMEONE BETTER BUY ME A MANSION IN GAME.

 

Edit: Gospel reminded me of an article talking about Garuda, and the Garuda questline says she's been an enemy to Gridania for night on ten years. However, this still asserts the fact that the lesser primals didn't appear, or rather, re-appear until recently.

[Gideon Aryeh]

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/benchmark/download/index.html

 

Here is the link for NA

[Keru / E'ir]

I'm in love with all the new info~

All I can tell is that the closer we get to launch the more info we get?

 

Although the benchmark is all "A fatal directX error has occured (10000000)"

[Myllor]

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/benchmark/download/index.html

 

Here is the link for NA

Thanks Rock! Updated OP.

 

Although I've noticed some people had issues downloading/running the benchmark, and I wonder if it was because NA was messed up. I had no problems from that EU site. lol

[Myxie Tryxle]

Mine didn't work if I extracted it to the same directory where the zip file was located. As soon as I extracted to a different folder, I had no issues. For some reason having the zip file there prevented it from creating a text file it needed to run.

[Havoc Snow]

Matters have grown so grave as to prompt the archbishop and his advisors to consider throwing open the heretofore sealed gates of Ishgard and calling for outside aid.

 

This excites me a great deal!

 

Edit:

 

 

So if the Ascians are also the Paragons, does that mean they're the ones teaching the Beastmen how to summon Primals? That seems very foreboding.

 

[Mtoto Wamoto]

Matters have grown so grave as to prompt the archbishop and his advisors to consider throwing open the heretofore sealed gates of Ishgard and calling for outside aid.

 

This excites me a great deal!

 

Edit:

 

 

So if the Ascians are also the Paragons, does that mean they're the ones teaching the Beastmen how to summon Primals? That seems very foreboding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seems like it.

 

"Almxio: Paragons? The Paragons are not of the feathered ones, nor are they of the scaled ones, or even these ones. It was the Paragons who taught all tribal ones the means of summoning the primals from the aether."

 

"Zoxio: Legends say the Paragons arrive in times of strife to lead those ones in darkness to the light of the primal ones. These ones have heard rumors that the Paragons have already called upon the groves of the feathered ones and scaled ones."

 

"Almxio: The tribal ones will listen to the Paragons."

 

"Zoxio: If these ones can speak with the Paragons, perhaps a pact can be forged. Perhaps the Paragons will help convince the tribal ones of their folly."

 

http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Forever_Taken/Plot_Details

 

We see the Ascians in two different forms in 1.0 and they are directly given two different titles - The Shadoweaters and the Ascian. 

 

Ascian means someone or something that is without a shadow. 

 

Paragon means someone or something that is a model of excellence, a perfect example of a particular quality.

 

Taking that further and to a literary stance, a shadow can only appear where there is light. To be shadowless means that there is an absence of light and that you stand in the dark. A dark place...hmm hmm. Light, dark...good, evil. Pretty classic Final Fantasy tropes if you ask me. Perhaps the Ascians present themselves to the beastmen tribes as Paragons because they believe they are the example that they should follow. The spoken races, of which we fall under, can be said to walk in the light. Hell, we are the Warriors of Light after all. Seems to me the Paragons/Ascians have simply been fueling the fires between the various groups of man and beast to set the stage for what they are planning.

 

This brings up the interesting point on Primals and exactly what they are. We know that Primals aren't destroyed when they are defeated. They simply return from whence they came. There are two sources that NPCs say they come from, and in some instances, they use these two places together - the Aether and the Void, or the aetherial void in some cases. Again, we stumble across a situation where words are used interchangeably like the Ascian/Paragon situation. We also know Primals require aether to sustain their form in our plain of existence and that the land itself is slowly being drained of aether. 

 

Louisoix: Alas, they paid no heed to the consequences of its use. You see, in order to remain in our plane of existence, a primal must needs devour prodigious amounts of aether─the energy bound in crystals and at large throughout all creation.

 

Louisoix: Consequently, the land is slowly but surely being drained of its aether, and the day fast approaches when the fount will run dry. Should that happen, what then? Why, all life in Eorzea will end. Even as we speak, the land bleeds, with every passing moment another ilm closer to death. And die it surely will─unless we purge it of its blight. Aye, I speak of the primals.

 

Louisoix: It is to bring about their downfall that I have journeyed to Eorzea. Ifrit, fell primal of the Amalj'aa, shall be the first. I should welcome your help in this.

 

http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/It_Kills_with_Fire_(Gridania)/Plot_Details

 

In ARR we discover a couple things in the opening story line. We find out that the planet's "spirit" itself is manifested in the form of the Mother Crystal and is the source of all aether on Hydaelyn and that we are Warriors of Light if not the second coming of the Warriors of Light. We discover, within the first five minutes of the game's opening, that the Ascians have quarrel with the Mother Crystal and seek to destroy it. We also discover that the Ascian duo is present during the battle of Carteneu and are quite pleased with the happenings, going so far to say that things are going according to plan. Their plan. Finally, we learn that the story line makes it seem that we are the chosen ones to stand against the Ascians as they send creatures to attack us because they feel we are meddling in their plans. Bloody hells, they treat us like the only threat to their plans. 

 

/blahblahblah

[Havoc Snow]

What confuses me the most though is that in 1.0 during the level 30-ish quest you are talking with a couple of Sylphs an Ixali and an Amalj'aa when the grim reaper looking creature appears drifting about in the distance. At this point it's the first and only time we ever hear reference of the Ascians in the game, and the creature instills utter terror in the Beastmen. So if the Ascians/Paragons taught the Beastmen how to summon the Primals in the first place, why would they be so utterly fearful of them?

[Kailia]

oops I just realized this wasn't the thread I thought I was replying too Sorry!

[Niteshade_Rune]

I suppose i can use the character creation to make a few concepts of my 1.0 character. shame we can't import our 1.0 model into this to tweak it, but since we were told we'd get a free shot at name change and altering appearance at launch i can just sit here n play with variations of what i might change or tweak on Niteshade prior to launch8-)

[Myllor]

I suppose i can use the character creation to make a few concepts of my 1.0 character. shame we can't import our 1.0 model into this to tweak it, but since we were told we'd get a free shot at name change and altering appearance at launch i can just sit here n play with variations of what i might change or tweak on Niteshade prior to launch8-)

You can import 1.0 and Beta character save files into the Character Creation Benchmark.

 

Just not into the actual client when it launches, so be sure to load them and save them on the benchmark.

[Moltove]

FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn Official Benchmark (Character Creation)

Tested on:8/6/2013 11:16:38 AM

Score:12003

Average Framerate:113.024

Performance:Extremely High

 -Easily capable of running the game on the highest settings.

 

Screen Size: 1920x1080

Screen Mode: Full Screen

Graphics Presets: Maximum

This is delightful!

 

I had a much lower score on the first benchmark, and even on the first time I ran this, until I read that SLI was configured for it-- so I turned it on and got this result ^^

 

Even back in the earlier phases of Beta, the game ran pretty smooth on my system with just the one video card. I noticed a small bit of lag in the Aetheryte plaza, but that's to be expected. I think the benchmark literally pushes your rig to the limits of what this game can offer, but if there are those worried just about their average game session (goofing off in a city, traveling to non-populated areas), the score could be a little low for your actual, functional use and you may not experience so much lag.