Is there potential for an "African themed" city-state?

Now, Africa is very big. There are tooons of countries and cultures.

Why not pick one for the future?

We've had fantasy Japan, India, and Iran.

But I noticed, there's no Southern African inspiration or facial features anywhere. Africa has all kinds of underused myths and I really like the spin on Hinduism which is extremely underused. With the new facial features given to important NPCs, like Solus, it'd be very possible.

There was when it came to the Egyptian aesthetics Bozja drew upon but with Yoship ending the storyline prematurely it is unlikely one will see the light again.

Some ancient egypt themed stuff would be great.

And they can justify whatever they want in lore for that. Let me fly a sphinx around!

I would definitely like to see some of those less familiar settings used. I don't know a lot about those cultures and it would be good to have some visual reference, especially if they go deep on researching interesting designs.

I think they did a good job with places like Thavnair and incorporating real-life themes and cultural ques, so I would love to see more in the future. There are still alot of places left to explore on the Star, and more Shards too, so hopefully we could see a culture that has more overt African elements.

Realistically I expect us to see Indian/Native American stuff next. New World has been built up quietly by Blue Mage stuff so it kinda makes sense to go there next.

Do we have any idea what Meracydia's theme is?

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

Do we have any idea what Meracydia's theme is?

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Part Africa and part Australia by its known plants and animals; part wild fantasy cultures like tree-people and centaurs as indicated by the Warring Triad questline.

Also apparently still a wreck due to the Allag-Meracydia war, but if we can find hospitable zones in the void then I think we should be fine there.

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Originally Posted by Necrotica

Realistically I expect us to see Indian/Native American stuff next. New World has been built up quietly by Blue Mage stuff so it kinda makes sense to go there next.

Do we have any idea what Meracydia's theme is?

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We don't really have much to go by. Many fans speculate that Meracydia is equivalent to Australia which is made even more apparent with the kangaroo minion.

We know there's some limited trade and I remember a mention of a tribe wearing masks with a sun symbol.

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Originally Posted by myahele

We don't really have much to go by. Many fans speculate that Meracydia is equivalent to Australia which is made even more apparent with the kangaroo minion.

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Important to note that they also have hippos according to that minion, which are definitely not Australian.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Important to note that they also have hippos according to that minion, which are definitely not Australian.

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We get three separate new cultures per expansion right? If we've got Native American/Australian that could definitely leave room for Africa!

Meracydia has both Egyptian and sub-Saharan African themes according to what very little we know of it.

We know there's pyramids and Egyptian things like sphinx and shabti. But there's also West African-themed conjurer staff in the game, Kple Kple, that had Meracydia flavor text in 1.0. Also in 1.0 was a mention of witch doctors being from the continent and trading goods with Limsa Lominsan ships.

Considering the writers bothered to have Emet-Selch mention Meracydia, we'll probably end up going there eventually. Especially since we've already used that speech as a guide for 6.1+. Yoshi-P said that where we do end up going after 6.5 will subvert expectations so who knows though.

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

There was when it came to the Egyptian aesthetics Bozja drew upon but with Yoship ending the storyline prematurely it is unlikely one will see the light again.

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I don't recall anything Egyptian about Bozja except that the climate was dry because it was right next to Dalmasca. All the people and place names are Slavic-inspired.

What were the pre-Ul'dah societies based on? Sil'dah, Belah'dia (Qarn) et all?

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Originally Posted by WellGramarye

What were the pre-Ul'dah societies based on? Sil'dah, Belah'dia (Qarn) et all?

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Sil’dih was probably the same as Ul’dah since they were both “twin” cities. The current Ul’dah sits on top of the old Sil’dih and we might find out more when the new criterion dungeon thing is released.

Belah’dia is a lot of stock Egyptian tropes and mummies, etc. without actually taking larger elements of their culture.


Honestly I like the old 1.0 Eorzea civilizations better because they’re not “X country, but fantasy”. Even Ala Mhigo, which has a lot of Turkish design elements and inspirations, doesn’t lean as hard into it as later civilizations. The people there have Germanic names and talk like they’re from the North of England.

Hell yea! Shaman Job and Druid confirmed?

Druid by my understanding is what CNJ is called in the German version of the game though so I don't see SE using that term. Also, despite some African and fantasy trappings there is also strong evidence Meracydia has asepcts of Australia as well ('mysterious 'great south land', has a very hostile environment filled with dangerous creatures, plus the recent Wind-up Kangaroo minion literally states it's based on a "Meracydian marsupial", all but confirming Meracydia=Australia.

It appears an Australian native tree (wattle) is also found there (samples of which apparently have ended up on Azys Lla and which wattle bark can be harvested as a crafting material by BTN from there, although the item description doesn't mention anything about Meracydia).

So Meracydia seems to be a mixture of sub-Saharan Africa and Australia with fantasy elements thrown in (and yes, Emet did hint at it in his big "these are places you just have to visit on the Source!" thing at the end of EW, although given the first one on his list we checked up on, we nearly caused an international incident so, I think a certain amount of discretion might be the order of the day with visiting it. ;))

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Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams

There was when it came to the Egyptian aesthetics Bozja drew upon but with Yoship ending the storyline prematurely it is unlikely one will see the light again.

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They talked about coming back to bozja in its aftermath eventually, but just not at this moment for awhile.

There is definitely potential, especially if we move towards Meracydia and they chose to go that way. That type of culture in fantasy is very rarely shown which would make for a very unique time.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

They talked about coming back to bozja in its aftermath eventually, but just not at this moment for awhile.

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They fired/dismissed the guy who wrote the plot and hastily wrapped it up in collectible notes. That doesn't sound like a plot they intend to revisit to me. Resembles more like something they intended to get rid of.

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Originally Posted by SentioftheHoukai

They fired/dismissed the guy who wrote the plot and hastily wrapped it up in collectible notes. That doesn't sound like a plot they intend to revisit to me. Resembles more like something they intended to get rid of.

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We're veering off-topic, but Yoshi-P said in an interview in Famitsu last year that it wasn't hastily wrapped up and Matsuno wasn't fired or dismissed.
reddit link/

Matsuno himself said earlier than that in tweets that Bozja finished in 5.55 and they're liberated. There's nothing premature about Bozja and nothing more they can do with it. There was a thought to continue Dalmasca after Bozja eventually, and that idea was the one that is probably canned, but it seems like it's still up in the air.

Going for something more African does seem like the right angle to go for Meracydia, which is presumably where we're heading to in 7.0. We haven't really done that to a huge degree before; the closest being both the Amal'jaa and, yeah, parts of older Bozja (the murals shown between parts and the design of Queen Gunnhildr herself I know had that Mesopotamia-Northern Africa vibe). Honestly I quite like that Bozja had an overall vibe of 'paved-over Mesopotamia' where you could kinda see it if you looked, it was a great element for a nation that had lost touch with its past in so many ways.

Various pets and the like say Meracydia's a combo of Africa and Australia, as said, and that'd be pretty plausible to mash up and give some extra flair.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

We're veering off-topic, but Yoshi-P said in an interview in Famitsu last year that it wasn't hastily wrapped up and Matsuno wasn't fired or dismissed.
reddit link/

Matsuno himself said earlier than that in tweets that Bozja finished in 5.55 and they're liberated. There's nothing premature about Bozja and nothing more they can do with it. There was a thought to continue Dalmasca after Bozja eventually, and that idea was the one that is probably canned, but it seems like it's still up in the air.

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Considering how it ended for Lyon and his unit, I would love nothing more than to meet """Tyger""" *wink wink* in fantasy Africa and have him teach us the ways of Beastmaster.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

We're veering off-topic, but Yoshi-P said in an interview in Famitsu last year that it wasn't hastily wrapped up and Matsuno wasn't fired or dismissed.
reddit link/

Matsuno himself said earlier than that in tweets that Bozja finished in 5.55 and they're liberated. There's nothing premature about Bozja and nothing more they can do with it. There was a thought to continue Dalmasca after Bozja eventually, and that idea was the one that is probably canned, but it seems like it's still up in the air.

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Wasnt there a "to be continued" scene at the end that led to... nothing? And then we got the field notes that wrote out all future potentialities regarding Bozja and dalmasca? Feels pretty canned to me

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Originally Posted by Lustre

Wasnt there a "to be continued" scene at the end that led to... nothing? And then we got the field notes that wrote out all future potentialities regarding Bozja and dalmasca? Feels pretty canned to me

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I don't know why I have to keep going in depth about this. No, it didn't write out all future possibilities.

You had a scientist who could clone people to the point where even their memories and aetherical signature were copied perfectly, Noah being killed willingly without putting up a fight (he is dying of a disease), his corpse being burned to be unrecognizable, very few people having actually seen Noah's face, Lyon being the culprit and leading the Resistance around chasing him, and sightings of Noah's "ghost" in a few areas. It's clearly obvious that he was cloned, the original was killed, and the clone is out there with all of Noah's memories and mind. They didn't write out anything, they practically told you "Noah Gabranth has been cloned and you may see him again in the future."

I am hopeful for Meracydia to be that exactly, with the pyramid minion as well as things like sesame seeds and hippos coming from there . Yes there are obviosuly australian parallels too with the the georgraphical landmass and the kangeroo minion , so it could be a cool amalgamation of different cultures.

I'd rather not. If SE portrays an Africa-inspired region as less than perfect then you'd have people trying to cancel them. Just look how people reacted when some people said Black Panther wasn't that good.

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Originally Posted by TeemoTeemosson

I'd rather not. If SE portrays an Africa-inspired region as less than perfect then you'd have people trying to cancel them. Just look how people reacted when some people said Black Panther wasn't that good.

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They can just use Elsweyr from ESO as a good metric of how to do it.

69th post

Hopefully this idea will be considered later in game.