Final Fantasy 14 Anniversary

[Anlerian]

To celebrate the upcoming Final Fantasy 14 Anniversary, I'm curious to hear everyone's favorite moment they've experienced in the game (1.0 and onward).

Also as a fairly new player to the game, I'd be interested in hearing what the rest of the FF14 Community has been up to the last 365 Days, and also any suggestions on what I should strive to check out (as I was not part of 1 or 2.0 anything is welcome) in the next few weeks.

Happy Anniversary FF14, and let's hear your stories General Discussion.

[Enkidoh]

Well, we're still waiting for information about this year's 'Rising' event (which is the anniversary event that occurs around this time), although I think last year's 'Eighteenth Floor' (the Developer's Office) would be a hard act to follow.

Anyway, as for my favourite moments in game, both 1.0 and ARR:

1.0 - both shutdowns (the first or real shutdown with the lead-up to the Calamity, it was just so darkly apocalyptic, it really did feel like this world was coming to an end and no matter what we did, it was doomed... alas, I was booted off the server half an hour before the end and couldn't log back in, so all I could do was idle on the launcher watching the 'time to impact' counter wind down to zero, and then see the login panel disappear and replaced with a download link to the 'End of an Era' trailer on Youtube. And my jaw hit the floor.

And the second shutdown on New Year's Eve 2012 after the servers had been reactivated for a month or so was another thing I won't forget, but because it was so poignant, putting 1.0 Enki to sleep in the Inn Room in Gridania for the final time, it was just so sad that this game was going away for good. Yes it was broken, had a terrible launch and despite Yoshi's valiant improvements and tinkering to the game, a lump of dung is still a lump of dung no matter how you try and dress it up, but I still shed a tear for it's passing...

ARR: where do I even begin? Participating in the *cough* Alpha *cough cough* and Beta tests was a major highlight and hooked me well and truly.

But story wise, I don't think anything can beat the end of 2.55, the banquet scene and the... resulting flight to Ishgard... I was just so shocked SE pulled this off (of course there was more to that then met the eye, but we didn't know that then). And despite what some players have said about it

(that "we should have been able to fight back blahblahblahblah"), it did make perfect sense we decided discretion was the better part of valour and fled rather than be captured or vainly trying to resist - we became the Warrior of Light after all for our virtue and willingness to do temper both martial prowress with restraint and diplomacy - beating down the Crystal Braves and Brass Blades who were chasing us down would only have served to condemn us of the guilt they were already labelling us with.

Either way, the 'bloody banquet' still is my favourite scene/part of the game.

A close second would be the 'Grand Melee' during 3.2 -

it was hilarious seeing the best of the Grand Companies sneering at the haphazard Ishgardian contingent... until my character struts in wearing full House Fortempts armour... I could almost hear their jaws hitting the floor. And the one on one fight with Raubahn, it just seemed so.. right to fight him (although that's more because my character is a gladiator by training, when Emmanellain squealed "that it's just the two of them in there!", I actually shouted to the screen in character; "Don't worry! He and I are gladiators! This is just like old times on the Bloodsands!" And fight we did.

Amazing stuff. It's going to be a hard time to beat that in 4.0 and beyond.

And I cannot forget a more personal event that is special to me - my character's wedding to my boyfriend's character. We had both been waiting nearly ten years to see our characters officially marry since we first met in FFXI (in both FFXI and here in FFXIV we both play miqo'te girls), so for SE to allow same-sex marriage here in FFXIV, we were just so thrilled. And all that waiting paid off, seeing them walk down the aisle together. And amazingly, how the scene handled our characters' facial reactions... it suited their personalities perfectly!

Thank you so much SE!

[Alahra]

It's probably hard to pin things down to a single most favorite moment for me, but top contenders would be clearing Titan EX, buying my first FC house, getting NIN to 50 (I had been waiting for it since relaunch), finishing my first Zodiac Weapon Zeta, and finishing Kannagi (I have a soft spot for Kannagi because of FFXI).

[Joe_Schmoe]

• Discovering level sync. What? You mean I can actually tank without overgeared players just taking off and clearing whole rooms before I even get started (And not even giving me a tip for the free ride to the dungeon )? Awesome!

• Discovering the crafting system. A nice refreshing change from the assembly line crafting systems they have on other games. This one's got some depth.

[Ametrine]

The Hildibrand series. I can't help but laugh at the sheer silliness.

[synesthetic]

Doing stupid stuff with fun people is the best. Otherwise... three things really stood out to me.

First, the sky is beautiful. And the sky in Heavensward still makes me stop to watch once in a while.

Second, seasonal events. The Rising was amazing, but a few others were cute too. Like the Valentione's Day when we helped Yellow Moon.

Third, death is a thing here, and it kicks me in the gut.

From major characters to minor ones like the thieving orphan girl, or obscure ones like the two adventuring groups when you're a newbie busy trying to learn how the world works. Games don't usually push you to look at it.
As patches roll out and quests move along, you watch as the world changes and a better or more exciting future looks like it could happen. But then people die. People you know, not even villains. They didn't have to. Not everyone gets to have a happy ending. And that's a reality that I try not to look at.

edit: added spoiler tag

[Linadae]

My number one, hands down, no questions asked, do not pass go, do not collect $200 best moment of all time in Final Fantasy 14 was the entire sequence of rescuing the Scions to escaping the exploding Castrum on our rebuilt Magitech armor.

As someone who's first and favorite Final Fantasy was VI this section hit me right in all the feels. Nothing they've done afterwards has been as memorable or as emotional to me. Heavensward has been a blur to be honest. I hope the next expansion will bring back some of the magic that I just couldn't find...or at least give me a class I don't find completely miserable to play...

BTW: As soon as it's possible to solo the final Castrum and Ultima weapon on Paladin I'm SO going to fantasia to look like Celes Chere and rip that place a new one just for the EXTRA feels!

[Xlantaa]

Normally, what I like from Final Fantasy series are the epic battle. And this one is not different. I love the desing of trials and raids, specially Nael, Bahamut or Thordan to name some. Also the landscape is beautiful, even if is not the best of the graphics, even with this limit, they look wonderful with a good level of detail.

One thing I like, is how our character is represented. In similar way like other games, like the The Legend of Zelda or Pokemon, our character is "mute". Well, not really mute, as we can see him/her talking in cutscenes, but we never hear their voice (except emotes and animations), which make our character represent us better, allowing us imagine what she/he is saying, how she interact with others. This feel like our character represent us, on cotrast to other MMO games like The Old Old Republic, where our character has a preset dialogue voices, that maybe won't suit us, and don't make feel it the same as a "mute" character. I didn't like how the 3.1 and 3.2 put our character as observer of the story, but on 3.3 she return strong, and I hope in the future, devs don't forget who are the main characer of this story. Us.

[Millerna]

My favourite moment was when I switched server. It was a tough decision, but living in Europe and playing on Balmung (was on Balmung in 1.x as well) just wasn't working out anymore. I moved to Phoenix after first checking it out with an alt, and met some great people there. Eventually joined a small FC and had lots of fun.

A few weeks ago, a lot of the FC members met up in RL, which was quite the experience since there were people there from 5 different countries.

[Zafrei]

Having recently returned, my favourite moment came at the end of 2.55, which I experienced last week! Seriously those scenes seemingly completely changed the game and upped the stakes, they were fantastic! It's just a shame that so much of it was backtracked on in HW to swiftly return us to the status quo, man they could've done so much more with those plot threads!