Thread: Locomotive- The Eorzian Express!

Teleportation, flying mounts, scene-skippable airships, and the most basic of all..sprinting all serve to do 1 thing...get us to our destination and on with our business with all haste and speed. Wonderful.

Part of the simple magic of any rpg is the ability to be able to slip into an alternate world and lose yourself, even for a few hours or so. I don't think anything would accomplish this better than a very simple, plain ol fashioned quiet train ride.

I fondly recall my days back in Vanadiel of waiting for the airship to take me to Gob-jail prisoncamp Kazham, catching the boatride from Mhura to Selbina (and getting rape-shoesed by skellie pirates when I was lvl 14 O_o While most straight to business types would say such things were an udder waste of time, I found them most relaxing. Many a conversation were had, many a party-waiting time waited on those silent night, cool air voyages, even a bit of crafting done. As such, this be my proposal:

Steelwind Industries (a Biggs and Wedge Company!) presents The Eorzian Evermore Express!


Nothing fancy mind you. Just a simple train that takes one through as many zones as absolutely possible. Imagine doing your crafting while the gorgeous scenery of the Dravanian Forelands race by, sailing through the forest to see the rise of Axyx Trine as it fills your view. The somber, dreary journey in the night through the snowladden fields home to the vigilant Falconsnest and the ever unrestful silent fortress Dusk Vigil. Catch a swift sunrise under Lower La Noscea's everblue skies as you make for the thankless duned landscapes near Forgotten Springs. Lest the weather turn foul, perhaps Odin may grace you with his dark presence as you clatter and clank through the fallen woods just to the left of Haukke Manor. (/le sigh...ff6)

For anyone foolish enough to be sitting in a certain car, perhaps the caboose, methinks there even may be room for a humble pvp element (a random player/ group comes alongside an npc near the tracks who wants to rob the train..and anyone sitting in said car is warned beforehand of the danger, lest he/she choose to ignore, with a modest reward going to the victor.

Either way...considering that there are already tracks in Central and Northern Than..the first stones of groundwork have already been laid. And I am very sure there are those of us who for all the cheap teles and swift chocos in the world wouldnt hesitate to offer up a bound and gagged lala to the gods for a chance to lounge away carelessly and enjoy such a ride.

As much as I would love this (as I love trains period ), sadly because airships are not accessible as explorable 'zones' when flying in them (because, Bronco-class airships are tiny and are little more than flying taxis), I don't see trains becoming something similar.

Additionally, even the storyline explains why the railway in Thanalan isn't being used further, despite Nanamo's attempts to expand it - Lolorito and the Syndicate are deliberately restricting it's use because Lolorito owns the East Adelnard Trading Company, the largest transport company in Eorzea, whose fortunes come from chocobo-hauled carriages and merchant caravans, a very lucrative business which a railway would completely erase. So the little creep has deliberately used his political and financial clout to keep the Thanalan railway restricted to simply hauling ore from the mines and not open it up to passengers, to further his own pockets (this is also the in-game lore reason why there is not an aetheryte at Vesper Bay, it's because Minfilia and the Scions refused bribes from him and so he snubbed them in turn, having an ostentatious statue of himself erected there instead of an aetheryte, effectively laying his own ego over the good of the realm).

Personally I would love to see it expanded to being used in a similar manner to ferries in Gridania and Limsa Lominsa, providing access from the city directly to it's surrounding areas, but again I don't think it will happen sadly. May I be prove wrong though!