Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[localareanetwork]

You bring up a good point. They were trying to be "respectful" of cultures, but then they sanitize something that was a part of early American culture? Yes, duels didn't historically happen all the time like in the movies, but they did happen. Hell one of our founding fathers was killed in a duel with the vice president. And one of our presidents, Andrew Jackson was a notorious duelist.

If they didn't want to have the duel end in death, there are ways around it. Historically, many duels were about honor. Both participants would just shoot into the ground because they had no intention to harm each other. Also before the invention of rifling, a lot of duels just ended with both participants missing each other, shrugging their shoulders because honor was satisfied, and goin home.

Whatever "cultural sensitivities" CBU3 was adhering to seems to be directed towards a group of people who wouldn't care that they got American culture wrong.

zone culture good unless they're guns obviously since guns bad. they should have just used NERF guns in that duel, at least it would have been funny.

[LisseyCrowe]

zone culture good unless they're guns obviously since guns bad. they should have just used NERF guns in that duel, at least it would have been funny.

I was promised a vacation, at least make them water guns.

[Zarkovitch]

Dawntrail MSQ is quite the experience, I will never forget Wuk Lamat 137 times talking to her for my quest.

[Galvuu]

Not to be a party pooper but I think you guys are thinking too hard about the rubber bullets, or at least backwards. That is to say, I was under the impression that the rubber bullets were exclusively for duels, not the other way around, hence the red-headed guy going "Using rubber bullets, of course", as if to bring attention to the fact that that's not the usual ammunition in those guns.

Granted it's still dumb, like someone got worried duels to the death would be too savage or uncivilized (which, to be fair, I agree with) but that's where you probably add a "If the duel ends in death, there are no winners and the killer gets jailed" rule instead to enforce some civility.

It's a symptom- of the sanitation of the whole expac and its "cultures", and also of the discordant imagery ("duel" and "rubber bullets" obviously don't mesh).
It's a minor part of a wider trend in XIV- this game really pulled no punches with its lore in the past. I remember doing a post-moogle quest in Gridania where it was outright stated some of the corrupt Serpents manning the border were SAing Keepers of the Moon, or how people who were tempered were to swiftly and summarily be put to the sword, as that was the greatest mercy you could give them, or even how some adventuring parties failed and met a brutal, gruesome end when tackling more than they could show (Edda and all).
I don't think all of XIV has to focus on this, or that this needs to be the primary focus, but the world isn't perfect. There's evil in every country or civilization right now. XIV did well to show the good and the ill of every nation, and how the scions and especially the WoL were a beacon of hope and kindness is a sometimes harsh, cruel world.
Not only does this make the world less believable, it has the actual issue of leaving no threads for players to follow on. A lot of these problems- the greed of the monetarists, Ala Mhigan refugees and their sentiments of revolt against the Empire, the whole Dragonsong war- would later become either large quests or story arcs for the msq. I still think about the plot thread that there might be a Duskwight settlement in the ruins of Gelmorra, who are racially discriminated against in Gridania (the PotD questline was originally hinting at this, until we swerved into Tactics Ogre necromancy).

I can't believe a world with this development level (now talking about Tural) where there's no cruelty, no violence and no friction of any kind. Worse, this place is already perfect. Apparently, all the dickery was concentrated on Zoral Ja and his dumbass henchman who got gutted by the golden gate. We killed that guy and now it's all rosy and fixed. We have 0 lingering issues or plot threads. Even Mamook got reformed in 10 minutes of dialogue and Bakool Ja Ja's 180 personality twist.
The role quests also do nothing to help this matter. The LNC job quest dealt exactly with that Duskwight discrimination problem, the ARC one with the Keeper one, the ACN one with Limsa's pirates and human trafficking (with some grim implications for the ACN miqo prodigy...)... I could go on, but you get the idea.
If nothing is wrong with the world, what's the point of the WoL and the Scions? We might as well retire for good, apparently we solved evil.

Yea yea, we can go to Meracydia next... my point is that if it follows what we saw in Tural, we can share some vegemite toast and crack a cold one, and everything will be fixed in a couple of days, tops.

[lolnotacat]

zone culture good unless they're guns obviously since guns bad. they should have just used NERF guns in that duel, at least it would have been funny.

Zone culture good as long as "culture" is really stupid, surface level stuff like "tacos" and "we like alpacas"!

[PaleYonder]

Zone culture good as long as "culture" is really stupid, surface level stuff like "tacos" and "we like alpacas"!

You know, when the game was down and they entertained us with the fake tourism site in the meantime, I had fun with that and joked about how tacos and alpacas are the main promised features so far. Back then, I thought it was a joke and we'd obviously get more depth and go in a wholly different direction by level 83 or so. When the game hit, out of the first two zones, I did the alpaca zone first because haha alpacas, let's continue the joke, and alpacas are cute. I thought, OK it won't be the immediate banger zones of early Shadowbringers with everything so wonderfully disconcertingly wrong with them and the striking locales, but maybe something more like Endwalker's early Thavnair, where it's a bit quaint and colourful and you have the nice elephant people, but also the obvious signs of despair and future plots to come.
But the depth never came, and the joke never stopped. It was alpacas all the way down.

[lolnotacat]

It was alpacas all the way down.

[localareanetwork]

Zone culture good as long as "culture" is really stupid, surface level stuff like "tacos" and "we like alpacas"!

okay honest question. Aside from le tacos xD , what was the culture in each zone? It's been like 3 and a half weeks since I finished MSQ, I don't remember a lot about the first two zones, but I do remember a big emphasis on the cultural mishmash and everyone being super happy together. Except there isn't really anything going on in any zone culturally speaking (again, aside from food..?)

Or are they saying stuff like "yay lizard people live with human people"? Or "someone we loved died, we'll remember them despite that" for the giants (this is common sense to me idk)

[lolnotacat]

okay honest question. Aside from le tacos xD , what was the culture in each zone? It's been like 3 and a half weeks since I finished MSQ, I don't remember a lot about the first two zones, but I do remember a big emphasis on the cultural mishmash and everyone being super happy together. Except there isn't really anything going on in any zone culturally speaking (again, aside from food..?)

Or are they saying stuff like "yay lizard people live with human people"? Or "someone we loved died, we'll remember them despite that" for the giants (this is common sense to me idk)

Pelu Pelu = We like trading and alpacas.
Hanu Hanu = We like festivals and reeds.
Giants (Because I can't remember their names) = Our dead live on as long as someone remembers them.
Texas = Rubber Bullets
Big Cat & Lizard Zone = Special Tacos and Dead Babies.
Heritage Found, Living Memory, and Solution Nine = Phantasy Star Online and We Love SPEEEEEEEN!

[EusisLandale]

okay honest question. Aside from le tacos xD , what was the culture in each zone?

Birds like wind magic and reeds, easily forget about big wind magic float making it so they have reeds.
Goblins like kidnapping people who make stuff, have turned to legal means of doing it.
Short people like alpacas, booze, and trading. They also wear big goofy masks.
Giants enslaved people, but it's ok now that they only just recently stopped and became historians.
Cats like tacos, dislike lizards but get along anyway because big lizard liked tacos.
Lizards have a eugenics program that necessitates a dead baby storage area, dislike cats but only some can get along because they hate living in a pit.
Bunnies and non furry cats have banditry, and banditry disguised as law enforcement. Also farming, the only thing they wouldn't give up when conquered by a super advanced society.
Advanced society worships a god queen computer, erased the concept of death by way of mass brainwashing and treating souls as currency but not actually solving death itself.
Deadman Disneyland.