The Empire Strikes First (Pics and Video)

[Onizuka]

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!

[Platinumstorm]

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

[Vahzl]

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

[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

[Valark]

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 Good find.

[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!

[redmage]

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

[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)

[Abriael]

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)

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

[Sephr]

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)

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.

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

Isn't it 30, not 3?