Now that the Tomestone emote's been implemented in FFXIV...

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Originally Posted by Iscah

They're smaller than I thought they'd be.

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I'm glad they're not large, considering we can theoretically hold EIGHT THOUSAND of them at a time...

Then again, we can also carry around more than a hundred Mansion Roofs with no apparent distress, so it may not be for the best to nitpick on that point.

It is a bit irksome that the Tomestones come in different shapes, though, some square, some rectangular. If they were from different generations of hardware, I could understand (5.25 floppy -> 3.5 floppy -> CD -> etc), but they are instead divided by GENRE. Why are poetry and myths kept on rectangular stones, while truth and lies are kept on square? Do they have different readers for different subjects?

I don't really see the tomephone as being 'lore.' Even if we take it at face value, the emote says 'nothing happens.'

I just see it there as a fun thing. Like, I don't see the shiva or megaflare emotes as being 'in lore.' They're just fun little things for players not something with a lore explanation.

That said if people RP with them I'm not going to yell about them being wrong or anything, but IMO I don't consider tomestone cell phones as 'canon' just a fun OOC addition to the app.

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Originally Posted by AurumWitch

-how does the 'tomephone' fit into XIV lore? What does this say about tomestones in general? And can we get an answer from the lore team about this?

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The question that has kept koji awake at night since hearing that it will be implemented...

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

The 'smartphone' tomestone emote as an actual phone is kind of superflorous in the game's lore anyway as linkpearls already fill that role (they are literally phones in function, right down to using radio waves to transmit and recieve messages and having a phone-ringtone-like chirp in certain cutscenes when a npc is receiving a call.).

So I agree with Obsidian, the emote is basically just a tomestone reader and not an actual smartphone (I think we've kind of had enough smartphone placement in the FF series already with FFXV and it's ilk ;)), as linkpearls are already used for communication and serve the same purpose.

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Linkpearls do already serve the place of regular telephones, true, but a smartphone with a touch screen would be something new. If one assumes these exist in lore, personally I don't they're meant to in the first place, just as I don't think the shiva/odin/bahamut emotes are meant as a lore thing.

Remember the emote's own text: nothing happens.

Huh, that is what the Emote states in the English version? Not a big hit to lore then, basically just our characters fiddling with one of the tomestones we collect for Rowena out of sheer boredom.

(The Emote in the german version actually is something like 'you swipe over your tomestone of communication and ignore yout surroundings', but the english version kind of takes the threat away from lore.)

The emote needs to be persistent.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

It is a bit irksome that the Tomestones come in different shapes, though, some square, some rectangular. If they were from different generations of hardware, I could understand (5.25 floppy -> 3.5 floppy -> CD -> etc), but they are instead divided by GENRE. Why are poetry and myths kept on rectangular stones, while truth and lies are kept on square? Do they have different readers for different subjects?

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Allagan beaurocracy at it's finest! The Library of Poetry and Myths refused to work with the Department of Truth and decided to develop their own version of the technology.

(The real question is, why so many tomestones dedicated purely to lies?)


But yes, glad to see someone else talking about floppy disks here! (That sad realisation that you're old enough to be using horribly outdated technology as a reference point.) Obviously USB sticks are just as good an analogy, storage-wise, but I was picturing the square ones as something like the size and shape of a 3.5" floppy disk. Maybe a bit thicker.

The ones embedded in the Scaevan grimoires make it look more like a computer chip, or maybe a large SIM card.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Allagan beaurocracy at it's finest! The Library of Poetry and Myths refused to work with the Department of Truth and decided to develop their own version of the technology.

(The real question is, why so many tomestones dedicated purely to lies?)

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Well it is clear the Allagans had fallen so much into decadence and corruption, so utterly irredemably immoral, that their nation was pretty much little more than an Orwellian dystopia so no wonder their society became incapable of differentiating between government propaganda and 'culture', with everyone believing their own lies. Pride comes before the fall after all.

And what better way to disseminate that propaganda to their masses than by cheap, easy to produce tomestones? 'Truth lies in your pocket' pretty much. ;)

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Originally Posted by Iscah

But yes, glad to see someone else talking about floppy disks here! (That sad realisation that you're old enough to be using horribly outdated technology as a reference point.) Obviously USB sticks are just as good an analogy, storage-wise, but I was picturing the square ones as something like the size and shape of a 3.5" floppy disk. Maybe a bit thicker.

The ones embedded in the Scaevan grimoires make it look more like a computer chip, or maybe a large SIM card.

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I'm also glad I'm not the only one that saw them more as floppy diskettes than thumb drives! ;) (I don't blame Ferne from using the 'USB thumb drive' analogy though, given those born after 2000 might not know what a floppy disk even is alas - hells I think we're getting to the stage people won't even know what a thumb drive is soon, an eventuality I'm trying not to think about :().

The 'Tron lines' on them do seem to also make them look like a printed circuit board though (something floppy disks generally didn't have, so maybe they're a RAM cart or something? (But then maybe this is overthinking the issue). :p

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

The emote needs to be persistent.

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THIS

I don't understand why it isn't persistent at all