Samurais vs. Knights

[Vyncent]

First off, I never played FFXI. To those of you that consider this a fatal character flaw, I am at the mercy of your fury.

Moving on. What is the obsession with samurais? Personally, I think samurais are amongst the most bad-ass warriors in military history, but they just don't feel *right* in a fantasy-based MMORPG. On the other hand, the "knight-in-shining-armor" archetype is a fantasy staple. Without it, the game isn't complete.

Am I culturally biased? Are samurais more of a desire of the Asian community base, who are more accustomed to stories of the katana wielding warrior than the sword and shield soldier? Or is this a cry from the carry-over FFXI community who saw the samurai class implemented so successfully that they cannot continue without it repeated here?

Help me understand!

[AlvaroVanagandr]

Yeah I say there's a bit of cultural bias there. It's a global MMO, so there should be globally inspired classes.

[grandm]

samurai are apart of FF seires. so have pride of place in any FF game. the game is game is japanese. if they want an iconic japanese warrior why shouldn't they. they are putting in a european knight paladin before they are putting in a samurai. so to say they are only thinking of them self is kinda false.

(the kill the final boss in FF5 use 2 whitemages and 2 samurai. heal with your mage and use coin toss with your samuria till the boss is dead) then tell me your samurai didn't belong. that is a FF game you just finished :P

[smokymcweed]

im all for the knight class samurais are so played out i dont want to see a repeat of ffxi where all other classes kept getting nerfed and the japan based class ie sam got improvements again and agian its not fair to the GLOBAL COMUNITY that said if yoshi and the team can keep the biased thing out of it then adding both classes is fine just dont pander to the sam first type of mindset

[Griss]

The Samurai is a Japanese cultural icon of might and justice and all around awesome. It shares the same space as a Knight of medieval Europe and the Cowboy of the old west.

I was going to make a similar thread bit it was going to be more along the lines of Cultural hero's and villain's and how it might be interesting so see at least some of that put into the game.

Samurai vs Ninja ect. with more or less the goal of planting the idea that perhaps the American Cowboy or Gunslinger might be worthy of entering the pantheon of cultural icons that make it into eorzea

[RoyBaty]

Help me understand!

What the?..

So you didn't play SE's last Final Fantasy MMO that had the job samurai in it, then you wonder why it seems out of place to you in FFXIV? I think you need to help us understand your logic first.

[Synapse]

Its cultural bias, ... you don't have enough Knight and shield from others games?

Samurai/Ninja - been around in FF series for a long time, and also one of the few favourite classes among players especially those whole like to play DD.

These classes give different play style than other DDs. If knights(PLD, DRK) gonna be in a FFXIV series, SAM/NIN better be.

[Keftenk]

We will have a Knight class.
Paladin = Knight (ナイト) in JP, it just gets translated from Knight to Paladin for NA/EU crowds.

[Vyncent]

What the?..

So you didn't play SE's last Final Fantasy MMO that had the job samurai in it, then you wonder why it seems out of place to you in FFXIV? I think you need to help us understand your logic first.

And Roy takes the first swing at the pinata!

My answer is in your post. I did not play FFXI, so I have no contextual basis for visualizing the samurai in FFXIV. But my question is actually more general in nature; it asks whether cultural basises play a role in how we imagine our fantasy landscapes and how those ideologies may clash in a global MMORPG, or rather if there is no cultural influence, is the hype around specific classes and/or jobs stemming from their success in prior FF games, such as FFXI.

While your response seems to imply the latter, don't let me stop you from swinging your stick in hopes of obtaining some candy.

[Ferth]

Why not both?

Right now alot of the architecture and visuals have a very western feel so I can understand the feeling that they'd be misplaced... but they could easily add a new area in an expansion that had a more eastern style.

In either case... knights (or paladins) will be here imminently (1.21 if I'm not mistaken) whereas samurai would be at some date TBD...

They have tons of time to introduce scenarios where they would not be out of place.