Revelations from EU Fan Fest (October 2023)

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

[*]I am gonna need to take SUCH a crash course on FFXI.

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Oh the XI lore goes places lol I'm honestly not sure where one would find a comprehensive breakdown but there's plenty of vets from there still playing today that would be more than happy to divulge if asked :D

- Viper looks great. Unless it really sucks to play I will probably switch mains, or at least keep it as an alternate because Ninja can finally share gear.
- I'm all for an FFXI nostalgia raid if they bring back Kumi Tanioka. (Naoshi Mizuta already feels like a given.) "Awakening" is still one of the best boss themes in the series. There's... a lot I want from a large-scale crossover, both in terms of people and places, and probably no way to fit it all in. Would a Shadow Lord -> Zilart -> Promathia trilogy be too obvious?
- Hoping the new limited job is Beastmaster, but we won't know for a while.
- It's good to see Sakaguchi on stage at an official event for the first time in 20 years. There is already art making fun of how he pronounced "cosplay."


My hype is pretty much at the same place it was (bumped a little by the XI tease). Mostly I'm glad to have concrete DEX melee information so I can finally exhale that breath I've been holding.

Shaaloani probably has some links to Lapis Canyon from the BLU questline. I'm not sure if we'll see a full-fledged Midgar reference just yet, but if this was conceived as potentially a two-expansion storyline, this 'Ceruleum Rush' atmosphere makes me wonder how industrialized the region north of Tural is. I like longer pay-offs, so I hope they have a good setup in store for 8.x.

Viper looks like it should be fun from a gameplay perspective, but movement tools will be make or break. I hope the job keeps the roll from the cinematic at minimum. I think that going for a self-buff is a good choice, and I hope it opts for higher personal damage numbers over being a buff/debuff provider. It's reassuring that they're pitching Viper as a technically demanding job, but I hope that they keep a positional focus as well as keeping it fast-paced. Players tend to get really insecure over new jobs, so unless it blows everything else away in difficulty, you'll have a lot of armchair experts trying to dismiss it away as being easy.

i hope the 11 raid series isn't done like nier and is properly integrated into xiv's lore/worldbuilding. it'd be an awful shame if they just walk back old statements about the shards not being the other games.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

Could've sworn I've seen cutscenes where Garleans are pushing carts with those little blue lights on the end that are shown in that "mako reactor" artwork.

Then again the railroad doesn't look very Garlean-ish and it would be more interesting if the whole thing came from a culture we haven't met yet rather than Allagans or Garleans all over again.

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We do have Moblins so maybe some more goblin highjinks?

I'm not sure how I feel about the 24man being more XI. Maybe we'll get more Iroha as at the end of her questline from the cross over she walks away munbling something about needing to hone her skills more. Not a lot of people enjoyed Eureka with its old school vibe. That was to emulate how XI was/is. Without the needing to auto-attack just so you can use a skill. I came here mostly due to having done all of what was supposed to be all the story it was going to get before going into maintenance mode. Yes I had fun in XI, but I do not miss a lot about it. Though that's probably more to do with the social aspect than the game itself. That and for most of its lifespan it wasn't low man if not solo friendly. I'd say it probably still isn't as I'm sure you still need the right trusts and gear sets inorder to solo a lot of the game. Which I doubt a lot of newer players wouldn't have or know how to get. Just the same with how Eureka and Bozja are solo friendly.

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Originally Posted by SannaR

We do have Moblins so maybe some more goblin highjinks?

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Oh right, I didn’t even think about the Moblins. Hopefully they’ll be the ones behind the ceruleum and railroads.

I’ve been hoping to have Iroha come back and hopefully she does or it will be a giant missed opportunity.

The mystery of which faction is industrializing Shaaloani (I have to rewatch the Keynote- did they confirm where in Tural this region is from or just the biome? because there's plenty of arid regions if Tural more or less maps onto South America without getting into the freedom of fantasy mapping or going into North Tural- there's patches of desert on the southern border of the Caribbean) is what most intrigues me right now. I think what I'm most relieved by in this second keynote is the confirmation that the expansion is limiting itself to Tural - and to what looks like less than a half of its regions, leaving the rest of it for a follow-up expansion.

The remnants of Norvrandt's civilizations is what interested me most in Shadowbringers, this is scratching that same itch.

Also that the thousand-years-ago-Advanced Tech Fallen Empire looks to be native to the region or at least new, and that its color scheme is gold and purple instead of yet more red/cyan/black of Allag.

Also long as the new Alliance Raid is integrated better than Nier, I'll be happy with only catching that the names/bosses are FF references because I never played XI, same as never playing III except via the osmosis of playing other FF crossover titles like DFFOO. I do wonder if it's going to be more like III's Crystal Tower and Ivalice where this raid's Vaana'diel is distinct from the original XI, not a straight crossover or a shard, but the name of some historical Tural location of a previous era and the name as a meta-commentary on XI as XIV's inspiration and origin of the Mamool Ja concept.

Taking a stab at XI's Alliance Raid.

It's feeling like an alt universe that merged with XIV's somehow, and Shantotto might be behind it. She did vow during her event she'd come back somehow, only her experiment backfired.
They also have Iroha's character model, so maybe she could play a role. I would assume Echo is just that, bits and pieces of XI lore that we can explore like the past wartorn era of Wings of the Goddess, Tavnazian battleground and that one arch city that we never really get to that was in the opening cinematic of XI all those years ago. Maybe one raid could take us from Zitah to Sky and we face Kirin as the last boss.

So many ways they could do this it'll be a treat for XI vets. It has me curious what the hub zone is going to be, they also have to let us free roam like they did for Nier raids.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

The mystery of which faction is industrializing Shaaloani (I have to rewatch the Keynote- did they confirm where in Tural this region is from or just the biome? because there's plenty of arid regions if Tural more or less maps onto South America without getting into the freedom of fantasy mapping or going into North Tural- there's patches of desert on the southern border of the Caribbean) is what most intrigues me right now.

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Worth noting that there's not really indication that the people industrializing Shaaloani are actually from outside Shaaloani, it should be noted. There's mention of them trying to retain traditions in the face of industrialization, but that doesn't necessarily mean an encroaching culture, that could just be them grappling with suddenly having to develop new jobs and deal with new sorts of relationships. I've been watching Deep Space Nine recently, and I sort of get the idea this might be a bit like Bajor: a culture that's used to and comfortable with keeping to themselves and doing their own thing is suddenly the center of attention, and has to grapple with what that means and what they do with that.

Also: Shaaloani is said to be 'central Tural'; I presume that to be the center of the southern part of the continent, so the geographical equivalent of, say, western Brazil bordering on Bolivia and Paraguay. In fact, I just jumped into Google Street View on that area and yeah, cursory glance says that's basically a match for the sort of climate we saw in those pictures.

Yeah, I was getting annoyed at the Texas jokes because the geography isn’t an exact match (nor the Sierra Madre), and there looks to be a giant rift that separates North and South Tural that strongly suggests a gameplay wall to keep us in South Tural for this expansion.

The BLU job quests have already done “Ul’dah capitalists looking to exploit the natural resources of Tural against the native population’s wishes and the WoL intervenes”, so I hope the angle in Shaaloani is an internal split or two Tural factions. Though I do believe there will be at least a yellow quest line in that zone that pulls from VII’s Corel plot line. If I were to bet, Myrna would be the NPC name reused, because it’s similar to known Hrothgar female names and it creates the callback without making it as blatant as using the names Dyne or Wallace.