Quote Originally Posted by Rulakir View Post
This seems to be a growing sentiment. I can't help but wonder what we would've gotten without covid, but I also suspect there's more to the meddling than that.



I don't know what 'fantasy Australia' is supposed to look like. :P Africa could be cool, it's certainly been done before (Quest for Glory 3: Wages of War) and we do lack for a proper Egyptian aesthetic.





Amen. I'm hoping the preachiness of EW is a one and done.
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about how much potential fantasy Africa could have. As most probably know, Africa is a huge continent with vastly different kinds of civilizations and levels of society. Unfortunately, it's also been the subject of centuries of misinformation, both unintentional and malicious.

For example, there's a lot of overlap between the ancient world and many African nations. The Greeks, Roman and Egyptian societies regularly had contact and trade with sub-Saharan African nations. The Greek hero Perseus married Andromeda, queen of what the Greeks called Aethiopia. We don't know if this was the same as modern day Ethiopia, but it was somewhere within the same ballpark. To the Greeks, Aethiopia was sort of a catch-all term for most areas south of Egypt. But we do know it was within the sub-Saharan portion of the continent because the term Aethiopia specifically meant "Dark Skin".

Even within the middle ages, there were lots of rich African nations with wealth, power and military might on par with the mostly Christianized Europe. We know this because there were accounts of kings like Mansa Musa -- possibly the richest man who ever lived, in terms of wealth inequality. Mansa Musa traveled from Africa to Mecca spending so much gold that he single-handedly destroyed the European economy for years. They had knights and guards that seemed even more impressive and disciplined than most seen in Europe at the time.

Naturally, not ALL of Africa was like this...but again, it's a big continent. Similarly, not every place in Europe and Asia were as prosperous and civilized as Rome, Greece or China. FFXIV's fantasy Rome is a technologically superior polar state. Its fantasy Greece is an ancient, even-MORE-advanced utopia filled with giant wizards. They can do literally ANYTHING they want with a fantasy Africa.