The Empire Strikes First (Pics and Video)

Hello, adventurers!

As some of you probably already know, recently there have been attacks by the Garlean Empire in certain areas of our Eorzea. Yesterday, I had the chance to partecipate in one of them:

http://static2.finalfantasyxiv.com/a...MB4pCzYuys.jpg

For those interested, I fully documented the event in my latest journal entry:

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...entry?e=213729

And, as it doesn't seem anyone made it yet, I also recorded a simple video, just to give other adventurers a glimpse of the battle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUDhpPL1_m8

Now I'm trying to participate in a similar event near Camp Tranquil.
Did any of you find the militia with the chocobo near Camp Bloodshore as well? If only we could understand the frequency of his/her appearance...

Well, for now just keep an eye on Alfgar: if he's in Ul'dah, speaking with him not only will grant you the achievement “The Empire Strikes First” and access to the hidden raid dungeon in the Hoth syst... oops...! ...errh, never mind this last sentence... Anyway, if he's there chances are you'll find the Militia in Horizon; I'll see if this applies to Tranquil as well. Also, if you participate in the battle you'll get another achievement.

The threat in Eorzea is surely increasing fast, let's do our best! :cool:

I was able to do it in Tranquil. It was kind of screwed up because the empire was coming in the direction of Gridania, which looked really silly.

It also wasn't balanced well for rank 25s [no sp either, which was disappointing], you would have needed a huge fleet of 20-25s to finish them off, and it was obviously trivial with two-three high level characters beating through them.

I like the idea but they could have thought it through better in the mechanism.

My pictures of what happened are here.

http://www.thekots.com/Platinumstorm...alinvasion.png

This is looking just north of Tranquil, so the enemies are coming from the direction of Gridania, which is silly.

This dude had nice armor.

http://www.thekots.com/Platinumstorm...lcenturion.png

Wait was this a retaliation from the 3rd war, or the 9th Crystal invasion? I am pretty sure that Emperor Bandrai was part of this event, and he was only present during the 3rd umbral moon of the 5th war of the Katanga Canyon.

Hopefully we will soon find out what took place after the 5th Chocobo War, and before the 7th battle of Clayton Ravine.

But my mocking of this games awful storyline aside, the video is really good, nice to see a high quality upload like that, shame that the battle itself looks a little boring, but I am an achievement hunter, so this is right up my street.

Thanks for letting us know :)

Holy crap.. That was Epic.. Wave after wave after wave... after WAVE of Imperials.. WOW O.o Now THAT what I call Content....!!!!

One of the Imperials talked as he died.. wow.... Epic

Would be cool to see them expand on this in the future. Maybe something like campaign, and be a way to get a few GC seals. I assume the claiming feature is the same as always, which could maybe be changed for only events like this. It wouldn't make sense if people were meant to rally together to defend our areas, and the fights becoming a claim battle.

Though yes, I do realize this is a flavor event that is probably leading up to something bigger :p Good find.

I'm pretty sure that one imperial said "My death is for the empire", by ze way.

Thanks for doing that, though, I was interested in seeing it!

Very, very cool! Thanks for sharing, have yet to see this myself in-game =)

Did this the other day... only problem was you get NO sp/xp at all for killing these guys, didn't Yoshi learn from this mistake already? There were about 40+ mobs and I got 4 deaspected crystals (Or whatever they are called) at the end^^ Woulda got a good 4k+ sp, least I got SOMETHING outta it :P (Did it as a 22 PUG)

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Originally Posted by Misha

Did this the other day... only problem was you get NO sp/xp at all for killing these guys, didn't Yoshi learn from this mistake already? There were about 40+ mobs and I got 4 deaspected crystals (Or whatever they are called) at the end^^ Woulda got a good 4k+ sp, least I got SOMETHING outta it :P (Did it as a 22 PUG)

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And those 4 deaspected crystals neet you a pretty cool helm (actually, just need 3). Not bad as a reward.

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Originally Posted by Misha

Did this the other day... only problem was you get NO sp/xp at all for killing these guys, didn't Yoshi learn from this mistake already? There were about 40+ mobs and I got 4 deaspected crystals (Or whatever they are called) at the end^^ Woulda got a good 4k+ sp, least I got SOMETHING outta it :P (Did it as a 22 PUG)

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It's not a proper event, hence why it wasn't in the patch notes. It's part of the on-going flavour event stuff they've had for ages that's slowly building up, and supporting the introduction and development of companies over these few patches.

The rewards are deaspected crystals, which you can trade to an NPC in gridania (possibly an archon) to get flavour items of little value. It's just for fun!

Not everything has to be about SP, sheesh.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

And those 4 deaspected crystals neet you a pretty cool helm (actually, just need 3). Not bad as a reward.

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Isn't it 30, not 3?

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Originally Posted by Abriael

And those 4 deaspected crystals neet you a pretty cool helm (actually, just need 3). Not bad as a reward.

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I'm saving for the 30 crystal reward the npc talks about^^ ...and Sephr ALL mobs should give sp/xp regardless . Get off your high horse LoL The whole non sp for mobs has been done before and Yoshi admitted himself it was a mistake... think before you talk >.< (Doesn't matter if I did or didn't do it for sp, ditto for anyone else)

Thanks for sharing, that was epic. Hope to see a lot of these random events sometimes in the world and in the future (for many other things).

This is great! I love it. Definately looking forward to future events like that

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Originally Posted by Misha

I'm saving for the 30 crystal reward the npc talks about^^ ...and Sephr ALL mobs should give sp/xp regardless . Get off your high horse LoL The whole non sp for mobs has been done before and Yoshi admitted himself it was a mistake... think before you talk >.< (Doesn't matter if I did or didn't do it for sp, ditto for anyone else)

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Meh, not going to argue over it, doesn't really bother me either way. I'm just saying, don't expect it to be a permenant and viable way of levelling etc.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

And those 4 deaspected crystals neet you a pretty cool helm (actually, just need 3). Not bad as a reward.

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Has anyone found out what you get for trading 30 deaspeacted crystals yet? That NPC mentioned a special reward if you bring him 30...

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Originally Posted by Starlord

Holy crap.. That was Epic.. Wave after wave after wave... after WAVE of Imperials.. WOW O.o Now THAT what I call Content....!!!!

One of the Imperials talked as he died.. wow.... Epic

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wait what.. you haven't been in one? psh.. im disappointed in you

That's cool, it's kind of like the 'dynamic quest' structure of Guild Wars 2, if only they weren't handing out +3 crafted gear as a reward. Oh well.

what is this secret dungeon you talk about? is it for realz?

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Originally Posted by Seirra_Lanzce

wait what.. you haven't been in one? psh.. im disappointed in you

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lolz how do I get into one of these things called " Imperial Battles" lol =)

you wait for it to spontaneously happen.

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Originally Posted by Khalus

Has anyone found out what you get for trading 30 deaspeacted crystals yet? That NPC mentioned a special reward if you bring him 30...

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It's a r30 Peregrine Helm, it looks like the Chocobo Helm you get with the CE of FFXIV but it's black and red instead of silver and blue.

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Originally Posted by Yoohre_WildRiver

what is this secret dungeon you talk about? is it for realz?

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The Hoth System? Oh no, that was a joke, I thought it was clear. :D “The Empire Strikes First” is a pun to a famous movie.

Anyway, a small update: a while ago, I went to Eorzea a bit, and when I appeared north of Camp Tranquil, there were already Imperials troopers running around! I fought all of them alone until they withdrew (I guess I was out of time); just a few minutes later, when I was writing a response on YouTube on my other computer, I heard some steps and there were more imperials coming. This time I had more time and was slaying them all (also, one Imperial War Hound dropped a Bronze Chainmail +3), and some other adventurers arrived as well.
I wonder if this also happens in Bloodshore...

I'll inquire further and maybe write another Journal entry in the next days. Ad maiora, adventurers!

If the Imperial March does not play when I see the first cutscene where the entire force of the Garlean Empire is displayed, I'm gonna punch somebody.

ohhh

deerp derp deeh!

off course star wars! im in the office reading to fast to proccess jokes

Awesome!

/char

I saw this NPC yesterday in Camp Tranquil but I think I had missed the fun:

http://imageshack.us/f/14/ffxivgame20110723193041.png/

The NPC here is called Roysia, but I think the gist of the text is the same.

Then today I caught it in Tranquil again - there were lots of people about though as it was around 3.30pm GMT. Here's the Militia Outrider:

http://imageshack.us/f/94/ffxivgame20110725150502.png/

You also get the achievement '"A Taste of Victory": ____ has helped fend off an imperial assault; however you fear there may be more to come.' I received 7 deaspected crystals in a red treasure chest afterwards.

:cool:

Man, what the fu(k is some peoples problem? These forums are becoming a chore to read.

Anyway, loving the new twist. Leading up to something massive?! When the dev team are ready to 'redesign the map'?
This will probably play out of over the next 6 months.

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Originally Posted by Malakhim

If the Imperial March does not play when I see the first cutscene where the entire force of the Garlean Empire is displayed, I'm gonna punch somebody.

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DAH DAH D'DAH DAH D'DAH DAH D'DAH!!

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Originally Posted by Valark

I assume the claiming feature is the same as always, which could maybe be changed for only events like this.

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It seems like the claiming system is different for these events.

I was doing it as a Rank 26 archer. I thought I had claimed an enemy, but there was a Rank 50 Thaumaturge and Rank 50 Archer who were just blasting away with AoE attacks and taking my targets with them.

I've been away from the game for a while... Does this still happen?
I'll be annoyed if you can't get the accomplishments anymore. >.>

It was still happening as of a few days ago. ^^

Any chance someone could reiterate WHEN these events take place, in -8 GMT time, please?

I've been trying to track down that information, and the search engine turns up unrelated results.

Spent hours at Horizon, and Tranquil. Nada.
Fun, fun.

I love these random events there just needs to be a lot more of them.

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Originally Posted by Sephr

I'm pretty sure that one imperial said "My death is for the empire", by ze way.

Thanks for doing that, though, I was interested in seeing it!

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Yeah, the Imperial Centurions sometimes talk when you kill them.
Can't remember exactly what they say but it was something like "My death means nothing in the empire's plans." (Not entirely sure about the last 4 words, but I'm fairly sure about the start of it)

And it's kinda like behest, but it will keep on happening while the NPC is up in town

I wonder how long I'll be waiting to get in on this. :\
A day? Two? Three? Camping those 36 hour spawns in FFXI was more fun. :P

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Originally Posted by Neasa

I wonder how long I'll be waiting to get in on this. :\
A day? Two? Three? Camping those 36 hour spawns in FFXI was more fun. :P

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It may be better to spend time in Ul'dah near the repair NPC -- or if you have a friend who spends time there, ask him/her to alert you.

When Alfgar appears and starts shouting about the Imperials, then it's time to head to Camp Horizon for this event.

Go a bit north of the path that runs past Horizon, and there is an NPC who appears there along with a chocobo. You must talk to this NPC to take part in repelling the attack.

I have a friend who said they'd notify me if they noticed it in Ul'dah. I'm hanging around Tranquil in hopes that it starts there.

I wonder if this is also an experiment to implement the new Claiming System? I took part in the event the other day but it was rather frustrating cycling through all the enemies trying to find one that wasn't claimed, only to have it claimed before I could engage.

It seems to be geared towards Open-World action rather than a Party-based fight, so maybe they will implement a Campaign-style system where we can all attack the same mobs and actually help each other as opposed to fighting each other for claims? (and if it does become more Campaign-style, we need some mega/mini bosses to gang up on...Garlean Machina please).

I just love how SE comes up with such incredible ideas and then implements them in the worst possible way..