Nation change?

[PlanckZero]

I'm talking about legacy though, not new characters

edit: that is to say, simply by virtue of logging in with my main class, my nation (part of the identity of the character) was switched on me.

Stop trying to treat the nation you're first dumped into as "your nation" and a part of your characters identity. Aside from a chain of quests that terminate at level 15 and the order in which you're introduced to some NPCs there should be zero long term ramifications from which nation you're first dumped into. You do not pick your nationality as it would relate to your identity until you pledge allegiance to a specific Grand Company.

This is how the system works. Whichever class is set as your main when you first log in, be it as a new character or a legacy character, determines which nation you get dumped into by merit of providing ease of access to that guild for new players. They aren't going to set up a whole new system just to address the initial surge of legacy players when the existing system works for everyone else that will ever play the game from that point onward.

[Alhanelem]

I'm talking about legacy though, not new characters

edit: that is to say, simply by virtue of logging in with my main class, my nation (part of the identity of the character) was switched on me.

I know what you were talking about, I'm just trying to tell you that in ARR, your starting city has essentially no meaning. Your grand company is the true representation of which nation you have allegance to. Your starting city is just that- where your character initially entered the game for A Realm Reborn. It means nothing else. It doesnt' mean you're sworn to that city or you were born there (because none of us were, all adventurers came to Eorzea from other lands).

In short, your grand company, which you choose during the game, should be what you identify yourself with.

The change to tying starting city with starting class was specifically made to ensure that whichever class you entered the game as, you would have easy access to that class's guild- especially since one of the first quests you do (whether you're a new character or not) has you visit that classes' guild as one of the objectives.

[Shougun]

Do grand companies have their own story missions like FFXI's rank missions? If I want to complete those missions together with friends, do we have to make sure to choose the same grand company?

While I cant say 100%, how it behaved in 1.0, and how Yoshida has discussed the story in 2.0- I'd say no where it matters. You will get your own cutscenes, go to your own halls to get the quests- but then go to the same location with any group of GC members you want and fight together. (There was, and likely will be, some solo missions exclusive to a GC, but that wouldn't effect any party issue)

This is how it was in 1.0 (minus chocobo escorting which you had to unlock at a certain point for other areas).

How Yoshida designs would also be a likely to this being no issue (the duty finder would be at a loss if this wasn't true, and so would players being able to just do things - which are both key focuses Yoshida has worked for, accessibility is an obvious design pillar of his).

Maybe not the answer you wanted but I don't think a rep has said "you can do every GC quest with any other GC" or I'd just say that, still I feel confident that you will have little to no issue with friends being of different GCs.

[Zumi]

Starting city doesn't really matter much because the storyline all converge at level 15. GC matters more then starting city.

[avecha]

Is any of the equipment from the GCs better for a certain class or do they all stock the same stuff?

[sjc03]

Your starting nation is entirely dependent on your first chosen class, there is no changing that.

This is not your "nationality", it simply determines which of the three minor storylines you have leading into the main story. Once you get your airship pass there is no difference between which nation you chose and you can use the same services in any nation you wish to use as your home base.

Your real "nationality" is chosen when you pick which Grand Company you wish to join later on.

Except in the case of the unwanted character editor that changed my starting class of Lvl 38 Conj in Gridania to Lvl 15 Gladiator in Uldah
so my city state changed and I am not using my main class.. I still did the level to unlock the airship so I am not complaining of the course of events but a story driven MMorpg should not alter your link to the story start place.

[Veillette]

I do get the OP's sentiment, though, as your starting city is clearly written in your character sheet (which makes this an identity on the same level as other details such as birthdate) as "Nation (or city-state, or something else):", which is on its own, different line above "Grand Company:". CMIIW, though, I might be misremembering it.

I had the same issue when importing my 1.0 character and it changed my starting city to Gridania (was Limsa, and hadn't raised MRD so never thought of choosing it when being asked to). Sure it doesn't matter to gameplay, but so is birthdate, or even your name in one way to look at it. (No matter what your name is, you still play the same even from the beginning, so why bother?)

Note that personally this doesn't bother me as I won't play my 1.0 character.

[Guasta_Ryets]

She has a point. We chose our starting cities in 1.0 regardless of the class we ran. I felt Lominsan even though I had to FREELY TRAVEL (can't do this anymore from the very start) to Gridania to do Archer class quests. There was storyline here and it reflected the area I started in and prefered overall for world design. I made sure this time to pick ACN to spawn in LL and get the naming. What if someone doesn't want to do ACN or MRD at all but still wants to be a Lominsan? SE says sorry we don't want this to be possible anymore. Sounds like cultural racism. Oh the groups of players defined by the starting classes they use aren't races you say? Well mosey on over to the definition of race and realise that it can be defined by culture, ethnicity, nationality, and techincally how you do something (how you play your first low levels) is can be attributed to culture and open for discrimination from jerks. Ficitonal in game racism. Just saying. Off to a great start. All they had to do was open up the ferry for us start and let us pick any city we want. Would that be so bad? With everyone running around with a mount right now anyway. Sprint isn't even that slow. And then you can get the aetherytes.

It is just this way because they want to make travelling to the 3 cities a storyline event. Or atleast, not being able to leave Vylbrand or go to Vylbrand a storyline event. Ferry NPC won't even give you the time of day until you travel from what I can tell. They want us to be doing class quests while doing main quests to keep us busy before we leave the city. It'd be nice to have the option of willfully not caring about this and voiding it so you can level whatever starting class you want, albeit tougher (a good thing), in any region.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_classification)