The Heavensward Site Has Been Updated!

[Fleur]

Glad to finally see the physiology and clan info for the Au Ra! Their horns seem really neat.

But what I really want to know is the full naming conventions. D: I plan to rename my character anyway, and it is bugging me not knowing if it will be to an Au Ra name or not. xD

Also, even though I have no intention of playing a tank, I must say that the Dark Knight lore is pretty awesome.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

I'm sorry, but comments like that reek of entitlement. You pay for the service of accessing the working game's servers. That's it, that's all. You are not entitled to any more than that. If you're so unhappy with the content planned, you certainly don't have to buy the expansion. From the sounds of things, you don't have much experience with MMOs or gaming in general.(Though I could be wrong, I doubt it) A bit of teasing without giving away the whole feature list of a product is a good thing. Discovery is part of the enjoyment. If you don't enjoy that kind if thing, I wish you all the luck finding a company that does it any other way.

Edit: Kyuven's response a few pages back is pretty much right on target.

This kinda line of thought is why 1.0 happened, by the by.
Trying to shut up any kind of criticism with "you're just ignorant" is kinda fanboyish, don't you think? In a "My favorite game can do no wrong!" way.
Basically, I'd appreciate it if you stopped with prettied up personal attacks and false analogies on anybody who dares to question SE.

[kyuven]

This kinda line of thought is why 1.0 happened, by the by.
Trying to shut up any kind of criticism with "you're just ignorant" is kinda fanboyish, don't you think? In a "My favorite game can do no wrong!" way.
Basically, I'd appreciate it if you stopped with prettied up personal attacks and false analogies on anybody who dares to question SE.

1.0 happened because they were opaque on basic details even AFTER launch, something they "inherited" from FFXI (which is so bad at explaining things the wiki is basically required to get anything done.)


Other, more successful games are light on details for months before an expansion's launch. The only reason some of them are more vocal about what exactly is going into the expansion is because they have a policy of releasing the gameplay changes such as class rebalancing and the like as a patch BEFORE the expansion hits. Something XIV doesn't really need to do yet thanks to vertical progression (which is another perk, by the way)
It basically boils down to this: When releasing information about an upcoming content update, you have to choose between splurging a huge amount of detail months in advance complete with your road map and ideas, or letting a little bit trickle out over a long period.
The former has some rather glaring problems: You can't "take back" announcements, so if anything going to be released as part of your game/expansion has to be delayed for whatever reason, you're screwed with the playerbase and may even be liable for false advertising charges if it's paid content. To avoid THAT fate, companies will often rush the work, which creates MORE problems.
The latter approach lets you release a little bit at a time, which lets you ensure the information reaching your audience is completely verifiable and not likely to change before release, AND it helps build hype by giving a little bit at a time.

So make your choice: Force the company to make promises they don't know that they can't deliver on, or put up with getting a little bit of information at a time until release.

[Verdan]

I want more beard options for all races. This isn't in this preview and I am thus disappointed.

[Vejjiegirl]

I'm torn from it.
Because of my dark skin colour, I dunno which will look better.

Raen: Love the lore, I'm fine with the scales BUT it may look worse on my skin. [I don't really like a lot of scale in general. There is a lot lol]
Xae: Don't like the scales THAT much...and I don't care for the lore BUT the scales may make look better on my skin.
SEND HELP!
XD

If you take a look at all the examples we have been given so far it seems Au Ra Scales will be pretty flexible in character creation. Here is a little something I put together to help me compare Skincolor, horncolor, and hornstyles based on the Au Ra screenshots we have been given so far:



From taking a look at those I noticed The Male Au Ra'Raen with Brown Horns and Brown skintones. I doubt Skincolor will be effected by gender so it might be possible to make a female Au Ra with brown horns and with a more tanned skintone even though the lore says they have white scales (It might just mean the scales are more saturated or light rather than pure white).

As far as horn style goes, it seems the Ogre Horns might be male only while the Bat Wing style might be female only
although there is a male Au Ra'Xaela with an almost Bat wing or Crescent moon hornstyle. Lets hope hornshape isn't effected by gender.


Also remember back to some of Yoshi-P's interviews about the Au Ra, especially these two:

How diverse are the creation possibilities for Au Ra?
Y: By combining different colors and horn styles as well as different eye types, you can create a female character that can resemble anywhere from a beautiful woman to a succubus.

It sounds like there's more of a range available than there is for other races - was that your plan?
Y: I told the art team to add more personality to the facial patterns on the Au Ra for both genders. For the original races, the patterns are pretty similar with small changes between them, but the Au Ra change that up.

http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/125...29-Translation

[Kurenai_Night]

I wont be happy untill the benchmark is released!

[Kuroyasha]

Xaela all day.

[Averax]

I'm torn from it.
Because of my dark skin colour, I dunno which will look better.

Raen: Love the lore, I'm fine with the scales BUT it may look worse on my skin. [I don't really like a lot of scale in general. There is a lot lol]
Xae: Don't like the scales THAT much...and I don't care for the lore BUT the scales may make look better on my skin.
SEND HELP!
XD

They said that the Au Ra would be super customizable. I'm assuming that the scale color of both is not going to be limited to snow white for Raen and Ink Blue for Xaela. Someone posted a pic of a brown scaled and dark skinned Raen, perhaps that's what you're looking for.

[Iromi]

Personally, from the last LL 3.0 just feels like a really large content patch. There's no big qualitative jump that makes me really hype because it's gonna change (improve?) how we play FFXIV. It's just more content and that's it. No, flying isn't that jump. It's just a marketing gimmick.

I agree! As it stands right now, it feels like 2.0, but with dragons. I really hope that is not the case. Hoping we get brand new stuff never seen before. More end game, open world, group activities. Not just a massive big patch that is more or less same thing, same ol dungeons that we end up speed running, end game consisted of: four bosses, all in circular rooms with enrage timers designed to hold back the average group and a final boss who has a divebomb mechanic

PLEEEEEASE do not let this be the case lol T_T

[OMEGA_HACK]

Well Dragons = Divebomb, I can see the final fight....random mechanic that targets 4 of the 8 players in sequence, like person A gets marker > person B gets marker just before person A's disappears > etc > etc; all while dodging half room wide AoE attacks (like the Midgardsomr Keeper of the Lake final boss).