Final Fantasy XIV

People brought up Ronso because of "blufever" "leaking" that there would be two playable races with one of them being lion/feline. Not sure if he said Ronso outright or just acted vague and the fandom just going into full Wild Mass Guessing mode.

dalmasca references ff12, not 10

I was more pointing out that they have been doing XII for a long time but X is the one game they have been staying far FAR away from. There is not even the slightest hint of Ronso in the game and damn near nothing from X/X-2.

Edited by Memers on Feb 2nd 2019 at 8:05:14 AM

ah

well

we got clothes? :V

Also Yojimbo.

Yojimbo is the only real thing they have done with X. And this xpac being so Japanese and ocean inspired gave them real chances to introduce a lot of X stuff to ramp up to the Ronso as they did with the Viera.

Most of X's design motifs aren't in the same sphere (hahaha) of Japanese influence that Hingaishi or Doma use.

Oh hey it's primetime.

Yeah, admittedly it might also be a bit of my fault because I was with the band that thought Blufever was entirely legit (And he really has been, the only things he's been wrong about were pedantic things like names), even BLU being in 4.5 which seemed extremely unlikely and people levied as being the most unbelievable part of it.

So when he said "look to his icon" for the new races and had a lion and a bunny, Ronso was the natural draw, since a lion-themed Little Bit Beastly race would be redundant with Miqo'te existing.

I wouldn't say it's ENTIRELY my fault that Ronso is the name circulating in the internet communities, but... if we get them I'd take them, even if I'd rather have Burmecians as the playable fully-anthro animal race.

Edited by NaraNumas on Feb 2nd 2019 at 10:36:19 AM

If there was some build up then I could see either being playable but there has been absolutely nothing.

The Au Ra and Viera both got lot of build up via having one of their race show up in the story before their intro as playable and the Viera got more and more location name drops over the patches. There hasn't even been so much as a name drop of Mt Gagazet or anything from Spira to drive the speculation.

Maybe 6.0? They sound like they have their hands full with just female Viera.

Edited by Memers on Feb 2nd 2019 at 8:45:04 AM

I could see the Bangaa getting made playable since, according to that April Fool's joke they showed off again they had the fanbase calling for them, too, and they were shown off during the Ivalice raid even more extensively than the Viera were. They even made Ba'Gamnan into a hero, which is odd, considering.

We're also going to an Ivalice equivalent if the Nu Mou and Viera being around are any indication and they haven't brought the Bangaa up at all outside that joke. Could just be a throwaway gag. Might be a hint.

The problem there is that's a ton of work that needs to go into the models and they aren't remotely human in anything but their stature, so it's pretty unlikely considering how much trouble the Viera alone are giving them, unless they take shortcuts.

Edited by Hashil on Feb 2nd 2019 at 9:50:35 AM

they said they have their hands full just making ear holes for viera in every single piece of headgear in the game

the bangaa have such a vastly different body type than any of the other playable races they'd need an entire expansion exclusively dedicated to bangaa and literally nothing else

edit: you ninjad me in your edit >:V

Edited by MetaflarePrime on Feb 2nd 2019 at 9:52:37 AM

I got hopeful when the Bangaa showed up in the screenshot but yeah the issues would be too much.

Ba'Gamnan was weird, he mourned for Ashe's death and wanted revenge but Fran hinted that the princess was just in hiding.

If it is the same Ashe. The Lorebook volume two points out while there is a young woman claiming the name and title princess Ashe to rally Dalmasca's resistance that the real Princess would be around 70 years old by now.

Or it could be someone like her daughter who also taken up the name of her mother. As for the Bangaa, as much as I love that race, no way in hell will they be playable. All the playable races are at the very least, human-like, so they are gonna stick to that for the sake of easy gear design and for emotes to actually look good. Human faces have a huge range of facial expressions you can animate, but good luck doing the same for a non human model. Hell, it was a surprise to see a dragon (Mr. Broody White Dragon because I can't spell his effing name) and a fat walking bird (Vanu Vanu) smiling, but it doesn't look quite the same compared to human characters.

Yeah, in games like Warcraft it works just because the cartoony style lets them exaggerate and express on beast races, XIV's beast races just don't have that much attention put into them and the designers seem to have issue making actual beast races (look at the Lupin, they look more like jackals than wolves, even before you account for FF's habit of Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp") look good while also keeping them out of the Uncanny Valley with the game's more realistic style.

Though, to be honest the model team is working with the best tools they have if the rumors are true this is the same engine that XI had, but a lot of the game's models are kinda... bad under close scrutiny, the actual race models are probably the best it gets, but even level 70 armor looks really pixel-y if you zoom in enough.

Edited by NaraNumas on Feb 3rd 2019 at 2:42:35 PM

Yeah, seeing how terribly animated the Palico from the Monster Hunter collab was compared to how they look even in the older MH games really puts how inflexible their models are in perspective.

Even the player character models can't express emotions too much without warping and looking strange.

Edited by Hashil on Feb 3rd 2019 at 2:24:07 AM

True... it works well in cutscenes like the Hildibrand questlines, which I honestly think are some of the most creative uses of cutscenes I've ever seen, but oftentimes they don't look great in more serious uses.

Live letter tonight.

New Rival Wings dungeon with what is effectively a Jungle to go in and recruit mercenaries, further making it a MOBA game mode.

New and final wing of Eureka Hydratos, heavily water-themed. Will bring the cap to 60 and be a definite end to the story, weapons, and armor.

Absolute Virtue is going to be found in a Mega Dungeon after finishing Hydratos. It has no connection to the story so nobody will be forced to do it, it can hold up for 56 players at once, and raising is limited so you can't cheese it with rezmage.

Final Fantasy XIV X XV crossover is getting the XIV side. Questing with Noctis, including bro-ing out by the campfire and helping fight soldiers, will come with a unique fight against the XV design of Garuda. AND a Regalia mount which suits 4 people, and when it lifts off and flies transforms into a jet car.

I also have a new favorite quote that I saw in the stream chat - "*drives my car passed rathalos to get to the new Nie R raid* male viera just ain't lore friendly i tell ya"

Edited by NaraNumas on Feb 3rd 2019 at 4:00:41 AM

Garuda didn't actually make an appearance in XV, did she? That ought to be cool.

XV's end got a unique design of Garuda based on XIV's Garuda, which is now recursively being turned into a trial boss in XIV

It's a bit confusing

Also, it's worth noting that when asked about Male Viera at a panel yesterday, Yoshi-P said what amounted to "There's still one more fanfest" and when the character designer almost slipped, he shushed her. So presumably they're either leading us along a little bit longer before deconfirming males, or like people were thinking, they just weren't ready to be presented.

Edited by NaraNumas on Feb 3rd 2019 at 4:47:54 AM

Well, just finished Prelude in Violet, and I have to say... I'm not really buying it here. Like, sure, the world may be closer to Hydaelyn and therefore biased toward Light or so on, but I don't see how forming an on-paper United Nations and defeating the literal laughing death cult liches attempting to cause an apocalypse would be enough to tip the balance back out of the safe zone and into the WHOA TOO MUCH LIGHT catastrophic failure point.

It also kind of rubs me the wrong way that the Garlemald Empire is counted as a force for chaos when it's a giant, monolithic fascistic state that controls 85% of the world and has for, what, 50 years? Like, the Ascians teaching people Primal summoning and destabilizing governments with their usual tricky business I can see, but unless the "chaos" is derived from making people miserable with shitty living conditions, I don't see how that works.

Also, and this may be answered in the next few quests, but I have trouble buying that Gaius could have defeated so many Ascians. I remember when it took a special invention and someone literally dying to kill one of those bastards, and he's offed six of Lahabrea class or higher since the end of ARR?

Edited by RedSavant on Feb 3rd 2019 at 8:37:40 AM

FFXV spoilers but you can see the whole quest here

FFXIV Garuda vs FFXV Garuda and Noctis gets the XV Garuda summon.

Edited by Memers on Feb 3rd 2019 at 6:28:27 AM

Regarding the empire: They are expansionist, is the thing. Sure, they rule their territory with an iron fist, but they're always out waging war to get more territory. Also, it sure is convenient for the ascians that provinces keep rebelling and causing more conflict.

I agree that it seems weird that the balance should apparently be in danger of tipping towards light. There is the whole aether-draining thing and another lion of dialogue that will come up in Requiem for Heroes that implies something big is about to happen, though, which might explain it.

The thing is, the messages about impending catastrophes of Light are almost certainly Zodiark contacting those with the Echo - and Zodiark isn't an unbiased source by any means. I guess the WOD already brought up something similar, but.

I dunno, even for a fantasy series, the idea of "too many people are getting along, not enough orphans are starving to death, and standards of living are too high. The world will now be enveloped in a beam of sterilizing light and nothing will survive!" feels a little off.