Please bring forth ALEXANDER!

[Lusavari]

I'm going to assume you switched your Roman numerals, meant FFIX, and give my full support to Ishgard itself being Alexander

Nope. He means Alexander in 11. If you didn't play XI or quit before Treasure of Aht Urghan, Alexander's old and broken husk of a body is the Ruins of Alzadeel, also known as Nyzul Isle. During his battle with Odin long before the FFXI story, Alexander's body was broken by Odin. Odin sought to finish Alexander, and maintained himself in the world through a Dark Rider who was someone Odin made a pact with for the sake of revenge, granting him immortality with the promise of Alexander's Destruction in return. The Dark Rider is Prince Luuzaf, with the option of the player to become Odin's new Vessel. Meanwhile, the Aht Urgan Empire sought to revive Alexander to quell uprisings among their people and the beast men alike. However, the control body that was created to control the Alzadeel ruins became possessed by Alexander, resulting in his second coming of Alexander, leading to the penultimate battle of ToUA. Basically, you fight a dark Alexander within something that resembles Classic Alexander. There were also 2 raids (Nyzul Isle Exploration, a 100 floor 6-man dungeon, and Salvage, an 18-man Raid in which your powers and armor are sealed and you must slowly regain them) that take place within Alexander.

[Lusavari]

Alexander is my favorite Final Fantasy summon, though it's tough to figure out a way to include him in an MMO that actually does him justice. He's basically an animated castle, and therefore much larger than any other summon. In previous Final Fantasies, he generally wasn't fought directly, and when you obtained the ability to summon him, he'd appear, do light damage to the enemies (generally not any more damage than his smaller summoned peers) and then disappear.
In this game, though, as well as Final Fantasy XI, summons are things you fight directly. How do you fight something whose foot is larger than anything else in the game you can fight? In XI, the answer *SPOILERS FOR FFXI* was kind of a cop-out, but with a lot of thought and story behind it. Alex was an entity who was summoned into a mechanical construct created by humans. The civilization that last summoned Alexander went all-out and created an enormous castle-body for him whose ruins (now vacant of Alexander's consciousness) could be explored by adventurers. When Alex is summoned in the present, though, he is summoned into a much smaller body (albiet still vaguely castle-shaped). To sum up, Alexander was given a practical size for gameplay, while a nod was given to his "proper" size by the Alzadaal Undersea Ruins.

I'm actually not sure what kind of presence Alexander could be given in this game that would satisfy me. "Journey into his body and beat up his core" doesn't really do it for me. Neither does "fight a tiny version of Alexander". On the other hand fighting a full-sized Alexander would just be silly, since the only possible way to succeed would be if Alex was considerate enough not to just end the fight by stepping on you. Hrm...

The 1st concept of Alexander is actually the Giant of Babil in FFIV, where in the player defeats ADS. However.... I'm pretty sure you're sick of ADS at this point :P Anyway, I think that FFXIV can come up with something larger than XI. At the very least it could be a raid in which you first fight chunks of Alex externally before finally fighting a core that looks like classic Alex that's still larger than Titan.

[DoctorPepper]

I would love to see Alexander make it into this game as a full fledged primal fight. I'd also love to see Phoenix as well.

[Ultimatecalibur]

I'd also love to see Phoenix as well.

*Cough*Turn 12*Cough*

[coldreactive]

A lot of people are theorycrafting that alexander is Coerthas. If Alexander is indeed a castle-like entity, it would be a multi-stage boss fight where you have to actually traverse the boss to kill it (In one massive moving arena.)

[WingsofWar]

Binding Coil of Bahamut -> Holy Staircase of Alexander Turn 1

please look forward to it

[DoctorPepper]

*Cough*Turn 12*Cough*

Oh wow, I saw the boss in turn 12 in a picture but never would have guessed it was phoenix until you said something because in the picture the boss was blue. Kind of makes me want to look for a new coil static haha. Thanks for pointing that out.

[zar]

4man with simple mechanics

forward it to please look

[Shougun]

Aww yeah, bring on Alexander. He is one of my favorite summons. Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought FFIX's Alexander was not the city itself in the sense that the body of the city became him, rather he protected and had summoning point there. At least how I saw it.. XD. I only say that since someone said using the city might break lore, although it could be neat to have SE phase the city into a broken state. Would be problematic if they want Ishgard to be the new hub for players, not so if they don't - also depending on how long the quest is. Say he spawns, big fight pretty graphics pew pew, city is wrecked and you work to fix the city. Technically you could make it all in world state, like Revenants Toll - but then players going through the story at a later date would have the same issue as Toll's.

I like the idea of making him a dungeon, perhaps they can get a back drop in certain locations to give a massive movement feeling (God of War Titan fight). Or like the Weapon that attacks the Shinra coast cannon in FFVII, could even have the time limit refer to stopping/helping him reaching his destination (depending on if they play mindless evil Alex or good protector).

Not that he needs to be either of those, I just hope they keep him big.

[Ilitsa]

dont forget horizontal progression. we should post more about horizontal progression.

It's gonna kill the game, man! KILL IT!