One of the all time best features of FFXIV (and other MMO’s that allow for it) is having two name fields. People put in some damn good work on those names, serious and otherwise.
Yeah, I think you might be a bit overleveled. 30 should be well past after meeting the Scions, really. If you’re having to travel to show someone a dagger, yeah, that’s like level 20. But that area is where you learn how to Meld and how materia works and stuff. You should also be about to do your first Trial and your first mount very shortly after.
You can rent chocobos that auto travel between towns, but you need to make sure to talk to the chocobokeeps in those towns to unlock their path. That was, like, a lot of my travel time early on. If you’re going to areas way away from towns, it doesn’t help, but by the time you reach a lot of those parts of the game, you should have your own.
But, yeah, it is still definitely a jRPG at heart. I think people are so used to seeing “FFXIV” and equating it with “WoW’s competing MMO” that they forget it is very much treated as a mainline Final Fantasy game with all the positives and negatives that come with it. There are definitely some parts that are a little bit long or grindy, especially in ARR, and that’s not super unique to the franchise. I have some bad news about a cave in FFX if you want to get Ultima…
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I’m glad I played FFX when it was new and I wasn’t yet a jaded old man in regards to JRPGs so I did get Ultima and everything else.
Fastforward a decade later and I stop my first run through of FFVII because I couldn’t be bothered to drop into the final dungeon to spank Sephiroth for the last time because I was so burned out grinding out everything and every fight had become utterly trivial.
Also Sephiroth is like one of the most over-hyped villains of history. He’s like Seymour without the charisma. That’s probably due to me not getting onboard the FFVII hype train at the time (Nooo, I decided to get a N64 because I’m a genius.) and playing it years later. I remember being upset at Advent Children when Sephiroth just pops up in the final act and I’m just like “no, go back to the actual INTERESTING villain.”
i never finished ff7 because I played it as a child and thought the headless jenova was too scary to continue playing
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Shortly after FF7 was released I borrowed a copy from a friend and got the point where you switch disks and disk 2 didn’t work and I was fine with that. I’ve never been big on JRPGs so the hype really didn’t hit me that much.
So, The Isle finally implemented the dino gator into the game…
I am a horrible person. I sat in a river where the herbos were relaxing and just picked off the smaller ones and ate them whole.
Then I ate the carnos who didn’t realize I was in the river because as a 8 ton gator I’m pretty sure whatever I feel like is in the menu.
My wife is playing the Crusader Kings II Azeroth mod and Thrall got dysentery at age 8 and pooped himself to death.
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Wolf Gaming Update:
Joined a Skaven RPG campaign and it’s been a load of fun. Playing a very stupid Black Skaven/Future Stormvermin who just wants to do his best but also be the worst.
Our Pathfinder Strange Aeons game is going along smoothly, it’s been a lot of fun and I’ve double dipped into Barbarian, which I am now an Investigator/Barbarian and it is as funny as you think it is. Also, Combat Study is nasty with Barbarian.
In terms of FF14, I’m at E11S blind progression and it’s… bad dad alright. Bad dad. SO far, E9S is absolutely a terrible fight and I don’t know anyone who likes it, but E10S was alright and much better telegraphed.
Just got my Diamond EX Weapon last night. The AST weapon looks like a god damn shield on your back when it’s sheathed, and its so huge and wield-y looking I feel like I could beat someone to death with it instead of using my spells.
Also, the best change I could have made to my FF14 playtime was to leave Crystal and go to Aether, because I now have zero issues in doing end game content where Crystal felt like I was pulling teeth trying to find a good static and pugging feels a lot more successful on Aether for trials than it ever did on Crystal.
Cheers.
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Picked up a game on Steam called “Trials of Fire”. A randomly generated card battler RPG. Much more my speed, and while “Roguelikes” are dime a dozen, I find it compelling enough.
FFXIV’s fêtes are ridiculous. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people in one place in a MMO before. Saying that there were several hundred people there feels like it would be underselling it.
In other news, I’m very excited for the DbD x Resident Evil crossover.
I think I broke somebody.
They were asking why I’d only ever signed on with the Nords in Skyrim in a single play-through, and I pointed out I’d done it just for the achievement, and every other time I’m going with my heart.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you honestly think anybody with more than two brain cells and the barest flicker of self-awareness is going to enjoy siding with the blue eyed, blonde, fantasy viking racists, with a big old side of anti-magic and anti-education, screaming ‘Keep our nation pure!’ while they oppress anyone that isn’t them. And these racist bastiges fight onwards at the behest of a giant, screaming hypocrite whose is manipulating a religious schism that is now responsible for killing hundreds of people, due to his own actions causing the enemy he hates so much to actively focus on his own people, and whose only agenda is slaying his own personal demons and has a fundamental lack of knowledge of how deeply his nation relies upon trade with the peoples he despises for not being ‘True Nords’ like himself?”
And Gee-Gee has spent the past two hours on his phone googling Skyrim and yelling out to me “DID YOU KNOW THEY DID THIS?” every time he finds one of the delightfully dark plot-points they put into Skyrim involving the civil war.
I had forgotten how dark and twisted Skyrim’s story could be if you started taking notes on some of the set-pieces and throw-away commentary that only happens if you’re sneaking around 24/7.
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The thing consistent across most of my brief discussions amongst friends is just how many possibilities there could be for a potential new killer out of the whole RE franchise. Very few of them being bad choices to boot. The mystery is fun.
If it’s Lady “SIT ON ME MOMMY” Dimetriscu, you just know Dead by Daylight’s playerbase will explode overnight.
But I’d bet we’re just getting Nemmie-sus or something similar.
I feel like the large bois, Nemesis / Tyrant or even Wesker are pretty obvious and likely choices (and ironically the type of body shape / mass I’ve considered the game lacking for a while) but I can’t deny I’d be incredibly thrilled for the absolutely massive woman.
But, while unlikely, it could also be any of a dozen otherwise regular or forgettable enemies or minibosses across the whole damn series and that’s kinda wild.
wesker teleporting up to you, grabbing you, and throwing you on a meat hook
Wesker is the survivor.
Chris is the monster. This man punched a boulder to death, he’s not human.
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Chris “Boulder Puncher” Redfield giving Dead By Daylight a whole new meaning to ‘hook’.
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I’m always bemused by the people who get up in arms about Skyrim’s darker aspects and carry on about Nord supremacy and then boot up the game and they’re maining Dark Elves.
Because the Speciest Slavers whose religion actively worships the Demons of the setting is clearly the better choice.
Tamriel is full of terrible people. I think the only race that doesn’t have a dark insidious past is the Redguard, and even then it’s made quite clear despite their appearance they have no relation to Human/Breton/Nords what-so-ever. So that’s a fun little bit of cringe on Bethesda’s part.
Still, I also laugh at people who complain Skyrim is trash and dumbed down the franchise as though people aren’t still getting into very heated debates over who is right in the Skyrim Civil War 10 years later and you have to peel back some very dark rocks to find anyone discussing the nuances of Daggerfall or Morrowind’s plots. Bethesda deserves credit for actually writing some compelling fiction into their sandbox roleplaying game.
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That’s one of the things I loved about the setting.
Everybody is a bastard, but everybody is also screaming that their hands are clean and you should be looking at everyone else’s hands instead.
Arguably the only races not guilty of attempted genocide, slavery or attempting to conquer the world are the Orsimer, Argonians and Redguards, and the Orsimer have the unique distinction of serving/worshipping the only Mortal-turned-Daedra which firmly puts them into the Neutral-at-Best camp. Then again, Malacath is one of the only Daedric Lords who isn’t actively trying to destroy the world or wipe out mortal life for shizz and giggles, so he kinda gets a pass, like Merida and Azura.
Argonians are in a weird place where they just want to be left alone but everyone wants their territory ‘just because’. The strange thing is, if the Argonians ever did decide to take on the rest of the world, they’d probably give both the Thalmor and the Empire a run for their money, considering what they did to the Dark Elves and what they were like during the Oblivion Crisis.
Redguards alone appear to be the one Race of Man on Tamriel that either aren’t historically involved in humanoid-eating snake-people, genocide, daedric cults and the like, but even then they’ve got their share of concerning stuff going on back home.
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True enough. Though the Orsimer never really get the chance to be terrible, since every time a civilization arises for them the other races come along and knock 'em down. I kind of like the Post-Orsinium life they had in Skyrim. Made sense for them.
Redguards have a chance of being done dirty if the Elder Scrolls VI rumors are to be believed.
Argonians are so terrifying they’re the only ones to invade Oblivion during the Crisis, forcing the Daedra to seal the Oblivion Gates on their end.