Thread: Patch 7.1 Discussions

Extra thing on Vana'diel:

Is Alxaal supposed to be filling an existing role? I had assumed he was being a WoL-insert character but then Prishe was muttering about someone else in a clearly-talking-about-the-WoL sort of way. Unless there's going to be a "multiple simultaneous identities of the WoL" meta-joke going on or something.

Originally Posted by Iscah

Extra thing on Vana'diel:

Is Alxaal supposed to be filling an existing role? I had assumed he was being a WoL-insert character but then Prishe was muttering about someone else in a clearly-talking-about-the-WoL sort of way. Unless there's going to be a "multiple simultaneous identities of the WoL" meta-joke going on or something.

It's a bit of an enigma even to FFXI-knowers, as far as I can tell.

The best guess people have right now is basically what you said, that he's essentially the FFXI Meteor equivalent, standing in for the player character, but Prishe's asides are throwing a wrench in the works there (and doing the same 'conditional based on player gender' as Azem, to boot).

It's possible they're having their cake and eating it too, somewhat; that Alxaal is a FFXI player stand-in, but not explicitly That Guy so people who internally believe that their female Tarutaru is the FFXI protagonist don't get told 'no'. Which would essentially make him the Ardbert here; a 'hey you get the reference' without actually breaking the illusion.

Originally Posted by CNitsah

ok, I have to ask : it's a spoiler thread, why are you all putting your opinion in spoiler tags. I really makes the thread a pain to read.

It's so that people can avoid spoilers for the parts of the patch they haven't played yet. It's nice to be able to discuss the MSQ without worrying about spoiling yourself on the alliance raid, or the tribe quests, or the Pandaemonium epilogue, and so on.

Originally Posted by Iscah

Alliance raid

The XI connection isn't a drawcard for me so the raid itself just feels really disjointed. Not too excited by the outfits so I might be sitting this one out and not bothering with the weekly run.

Plot-wise... I knew there was a good chance Sareel Ja wasn't dead, but wasn't expecting him to turn up here. It also tells us a bit more about the gate, which I had assumed was a direct portal to the Ninth, but it seems you end up in the larger rift along the way? If it wasn't for the external context I might assume that the world he had visions of was the Ninth before the apparent Flood of Lightning, though the different names for races would suggest not.

I like the detail of Alxaal ending up with a Mamool Ja name (more or less) because he was named by one, though I assume it is somewhat coincidental that it looks like a name and not just a word. (Mamool Ja names in Japanese don't have the final "L" they have in English, but Alxaal still does.)

The auction felt so wedged in for the sake of it. Was it some kind of nostalgia hit for XI players or just an unnecessary tone shift?

Bakool Ja Ja feels... flat? I guess the writers may have had to work out what to do with a character who was more popular than they anticipated, but he's just feeling very utility-story-driving now.

As others have noted, Prishe and Alxaal are now wandering. I've only seen them in Earthenshire so far.

About the auction

I feel that he only looks over at the auction house in hopes of an idea of how do we go about obtaining the electrope. There were two others interested in it and we didn't have an idea of how much they were willing to spend on it. The XI tie in is the auction house is XI's market board. But interested of being able to see how many of an item is put up and for how much you could only see how much the last few were bought for. Let's say you wanted to sell a stack of HQ coffee biscuits back in ShB. In XI they would have a going price dictated by the playerbase. There would be times when someone would try to raise the going price of an item but it tended to not last long. The most "interesting" thing about the auction house is you also had people who wanted to plummet the going price and would sell them at a cheaper price. Then there would be times when someone made a mistake in setting the selling price and end up selling a hot ticket item for 1 gil. So smart and sometimes broke players would try and fish from time to time to try and buy something at a more affordable price.

Pandaemonium

I have to give it to them, each time I think I've set the lowest bar for expectations possible, they keep finding a way to limbo under it.

I don't really have much to say except that was some genuinely awful writing. Endwalker was bad, and the Void quests were even worse, but I put at least part of it down to both arcs being rushed. Is the whole of DT like this? Everyone sounds so painfully stiff and awkward.

Originally Posted by Lunaxia

Pandaemonium

I have to give it to them, each time I think I've set the lowest bar for expectations possible, they keep finding a way to limbo under it.

I don't really have much to say except that was some genuinely awful writing. Endwalker was bad, and the Void quests were even worse, but I put at least part of it down to both arcs being rushed. Is the whole of DT like this? Everyone sounds so painfully stiff and awkward.

Dawntrail is the best expansion in my book; I don't think you'll take that as a vote of confidence, but there you go. But is the Pandaemonium bonus quest really the only part of Dawntrail you've done? Because I feel like this question can only exist in those conditions, and those conditions are baffling, especially given that I don't think you actually liked Pandaemonium.

Originally Posted by Cleretic

Dawntrail is the best expansion in my book; I don't think you'll take that as a vote of confidence, but there you go. But is the Pandaemonium bonus quest really the only part of Dawntrail you've done? Because I feel like this question can only exist in those conditions, and those conditions are baffling, especially given that I don't think you actually liked Pandaemonium.

To be fair, the Pandaemonium capstone quest is level 90. It's very possible to have it unlocked without reaching Dawntrail.