Ask Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE Part XXVII! (Localization Koji Fox)

[RiceisNice]

MCH and BRD share too many parallels to each other, almost to the point that they are essentially the same job with some differences. Are there any plans to dehomogenize their gameplays from each other to the same extent you'd see from the three melees and both casters? Are there any plans to re-implement the original design of MCH centered around using different barrels and a more involved ammunition/turret mechanic?

[Rowyne]

MCH and BRD share too many parallels to each other, almost to the point that they are essentially the same job with some differences. Are there any plans to dehomogenize their gameplays from each other to the same extent you'd see from the three melees and both casters? Are there any plans to re-implement the original design of MCH centered around using different barrels and a more involved ammunition/turret mechanic?

Similarly, are there any plans to re-implement BRDs original design centered around mobile, fluid gameplay?

[Rahela]

Would Koji be willing to provide a family tree with the four High Houses of Ishgard, complete with bastards and their mothers, along with names and birth years? Partially because we don't have any names given for either Edmont's wife or Haurchefant's mother, and also because it can get slightly confusing differentiating between "son of House [x]" and "son of the house's current count"; for example, are Grinnaux and Archombadin brothers, even when they look nothing alike? (And if they are, why is it never brought up in the Scholasticate quests that we killed Archombadin's brother?)

[Rahela]

There's an old plot point mentioned in 1.0 by Erik;

When the oppression became too much to bear, the people revolted and stormed the palace. The royal guard cast aside their vows and allowed the Ala Mhigans to pass. A noble revolt? For the best, no? False! It was the absence of leadership and solidarity in the wake of this chaos that prompted Garlemald to attack! In the end, Theodoric was lucid enough to judge suicide preferable to death at the hands of an angry mob. He ended his own life, and with it, his reign of ruin and his own bloodline. Or so it was thought at the time! But Theodred, a nephew to the king, was hidden by his mother in a remote temple of the Fist of Rhalgr which had survived the purges, and thus he escaped his uncle’s fury.

Is this still canon, particularly the rather important part about there still being a living member of the Ala Mhigan royal family?

[Rahela]

There used to be an in-universe rumor that Nanamo was fathered by one of Mistbeard’s pirates during a raid on the royal palace on the day of the then-Sultan’s wedding. In the level 30 Alchemist the raid itself is still canon, but is there any truth to the rumor about Nanamo really being half-pirate? Because that would cause a serious uproar if she weren't really blood-related to the House of Ul.

[Rahela]

There's an old 1.0 quest entitled 'Of Archons and Muses' which mentions that Archons are the Twelve taking mortal form.

Tyago Moui: Caught wind of all this Archon talk yet? Some folk make them for the very incarnations of the Twelve, come to Eorzea. Old prophecies and wives' tales say they descend from their heavenly seat whenever disaster threatens Eorzea, see. Needless to say, many believe the Archons to have otherworldly powers─both of mind and body. According to the loremasters' books, there was an age of shadow and calamity some fifteen hundred-odd years ago, when a great flood drowned the world─the sixth Umbral Era, they called it. Believers say it was the twelve Archons what came to fight the darkness then.

Seeing the modern-day Archons like Matoya, Y'shtola, Yda and Papalymo, Thancred, G'raha Tia, and Moenbryda, I'm almost certainly sure that they aren't gods and this information no longer applies. But one part of the quest is particularly interesting:

Tyago Moui: They say Ahldbhar was the mightiest of the twelve Archons. Rhalgr the Destroyer himself, taken form in Roegadyn flesh─a bloody mountain of a man, and a fearsome warrior, besides… You must've seen renderings of Rhalgr at some point─in paint or stone. Looks like a bag of angry muscles in a mage's robes, right? Aye, well, those are done in the likeness of Archon Ahldbhar. Ahldbhar fought relentlessly against a clan of wicked sorcerers that sought only to wreak havoc on the world through their dark powers. But then, something happened... Something that threw Ahldbhar into deep despair. And in the end, he turned and took up with the enemy, though none can say as to why.

The part about the 'clan of wicked sorcerers' is without doubt referring to the Ascians; did one of the past Archons turn traitor? And if so, why?

And is any of this information nothing more than outdated lore from before Yoshi-P took the reins? Should it just be completely disregarded, and not to be taken as a hint of dark things to come?