"What do you mean this isn't World of Warcraft?"

 So for those not in the know World of Warcraft is not doing so hot. There are a number of reasons why. A over reliance on RNG, too much time gating stretching content out purely as a "sub trap", trimming abilities away in a fashion that makes classes less enjoyable to play and general designing as though its mechanically looking at mobile games rather than rpgs for design ideas. Given some of the developers comments about preferring mobile games to pc or consoles this might not be far from the truth but regardless of reasons the games not quite the unrivalled monster it used to be. Which brings us to the topic today. A situation leading to the term "Wowfugee" and the growing stereotype associated with it.

 Now i played WoW for about a decade before FFXIV and i've mentioned it on more than one occasion and maybe in the past i will have mentioned that while they are both basically similar hotbar combat MMORPG's the biggest difference comes from the WoW userbase on the whole being absolute poison outside of an insular Guild environment.
 Theres plenty of reasons for that. Cross realm zoning, the ability to jump characters on the fly since everything isn't tied so often to one main and lack of ramifications means theres no actual reason to not be an asshole in World of Warcraft since you can get away with it all the time scott free and that has basically lead to it becoming the norm. Newer players then come in and see its the norm and behave the same to propagate it and this vicious cycle not only continues but from Wrath of the Lich King onwards has only appeared to exacerbate year over year. Compared to the literal in game queueing mindset of FFXIV its a world of difference. I will revisit it once per expansion and be astounded that every time it is worse than i remember it being the last. Every single time. Compare this to FFXIV where by and large you have one character and as such one name and face your in game reputation will be associated with and i believe that only compounds this sentiment of "you wouldn't behave this way irl, why is it okay here?".

Credit to WhyMaige on Reddit

 Right now though this really seems to be showing up more often in the most irritating of ways. In FFXIV none hardcore content the common sentiment is "the party can only move as fast as its slowest member" and "if someone is a 'Sprout' with a green leaf by their name then they are new and deserve the same help and patience we were given when we started". Which is totally antithetical to the modern WoW ideas of "you assholes exist to serve MY good time" and "well the party wiped once, time to ragequit the group, thanks for nothing you fucking retards" which is totally alien to the FFXIV userbase.
 Sure during ARR there was a period of the "fuck you, you don't pay my sub" 'Ice Mages' that eventually got the idea that the game wasn't for them and moved onto other games and i hope they found something they enjoyed in the process but nowadays? if there is a more patient and chill online game userbase than FFXIV i can honestly say i legitimately don't know of it. Maybe Monster Hunter in none persistent content or perhaps when Animal Crossing hits the Switch unless theres a cutthroat Bell economy?

 Not that this means there are not problems in our own userbase in other ways, but they are far less regular and argumentative as the situation i'm seeing lately. I still have a few jobs left to get to cap and naturally that means doing my daily dungeon roulettes for the easy xp to get those 60-70 runs down without having to spam things like Bardam's Mettle for hours on end. During that time i have repeatedly witnessed the fascinating display, almost like clockwork since Shadowbringers trailer came out, where someone with a name like "arhtass lichkinge" or "princess silvanas" -misspellings of Warcraft character names if you don't know- basically spending most of a Alliance Raid, Dungeon or Trial doing little as their character and mostly just heckling others and trying to shit on the Sprouts for not knowing things while at the same time ninja pulling and spamming "GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO" as we attempt to explain things like King Behemoths Meteors or Phlegethons Ancient Flare. The truly fascinating thing with these people is the reliable reaction from the other players.

 For the most part its total silence, you ignore the dickhead whos not contributing right? not like we can't clear Crystal Tower due to one arse who didn't know Yoshi had yet to add the Keyboard Warrior job. What was interesting though was when others broke their silence. Silent until the time it was when these players started to specifically target Sprouts, trying to shame them and in cross party alliance chat try to get them kicked, choosing to generally shit on them and tell them to kill themselves. The usual "i'm an anonymous dickhead and theres no repercussions for this behaviour" bingo. That like clockwork is when the veteran players across all parties all chimed in to say some variant of "Leave them alone, grow up" or most commonly "i know this game is popular for wowfugees right now, but that behaviour doesn't fly here like it does there".
 Often the offensive player just calls everyone else a 'faggot' or something equally charming and keeps going but every so often you get one who pauses and goes "doesn't every mmo shit talk the bads?" because they have been trained to treat any slip up, even when its clear the player is a beginner, this way as the norm.
 Hopefully they learn thats not the case and players only get better with help and experience. Hopefully they will integrate with the community and find a more friendly userbase where they don't spend all their time on the defensive, expecting a insulting attack from other players as the norm/baseline expectations. But thats not really the point i'm making here. The idea that assholes exist on the internet should not exactly be a grand revelation should it? the issue is the idea of the 'wowfugee' becoming its own black mark regardless of the player because of these stand out douchebags.

 We all remember the days of ARR and Heavensward where, after Dragoons fighting the lag on Titan, the running joke was all the "Kirito Starks" running around with 8 lines long speech macros for their limit breaks that were perfectly polite but considered the height of cringe. It became such a regular gag that the SAO/GoT characters kind of just stopped being a fad over time. Now it seems wowfugees are the running fad and sure someone named after a WoW character being a venomous dickweed to everyone does have an air of 'fresh off the boat and in the wrong neighbourhood' about them but can't that also get pushed to the point that ironically the very sentiment leading to dislike becomes the default due to stereotyping?
 Like i said i myself made the jump from WoW to FFXIV over half a decade ago now. The 'asshole as default' stuff in WoW started years before that. By that logic shouldn't i have also been one of those assholes if everyone coming over is? if we default to 'everyone from WoW coming over for Shadowbringers is a douchebag' aren't they going to see it like we are being preemptively prickly douchebags ourselves?

 The fact that some of the people coming over include these assholes is a sad fact indeed. But i'm a firm believer that no one person can truly represent a group outside generic comparability and no group can be representative of the single person. Its important to remember why XIV as a community has its reputation and keep up those appearances so to speak. Its easy to see someone be a totally demeaning asshole out to ruin another beginners good time and yeah the fact that they might be driving a much nicer person away is enough to get your virtual hackles raised but the best way to deal with the asshole is to remember not to become the asshole yourself. To not let that sickness infect your own community like a communicable disease. More often than not i've seen these people go quiet when they see their opinion is not the norm and won't be tolerated or outright leave. Either they do some self reflection and learn from the experience or just decide its a game full of easily offended snowflakes and try somewhere new which ain't no loss at all is it?

 I guess ironically given we are about to go into an expansion where we go from Warriors of Light to Warriors of Darkness i'm saying 'Don't let others change your own disposition' in this way but its a strange situation where another game is having a sizeable drop off thats stepping their toes into other games and we just have to remember that while the standout volatile dickheads should be given a polite what-for we should also maintain our own sense of community identity because there are also people who may have played a MMORPG for 15 years and are now dejected and looking for a new home and this might be the right fit for some of them and its far more important to make the good ones welcome than assume they are another one of these assholes just because they are a "wowfugee".

Because like i said, for a very large number of us back in A Realm Reborn we were the wowfugee's being welcomed by Legacy players. Remember the story i told of the guild that tried to take over my servers economy and how we beat them by working together as a community? thats Final Fantasy XIV to me and that should be the FFXIV we welcome those people too even as we let the bad apples know the toxic elements of World of Warcraft are not and will never be welcome.

Like the big blue Crystal Lady says:

"Hear, Feel, Think"

EU Fanfest 2019

Well this one actually snuck up on me. i've been real busy lately, hence why no post yet about 4.5 since you should know by now i save my opinions till i've seen everything and have yet to complete the Ivalice raid or the last few fights of the Masqued Carnival, so i'll get to that soon as i have more free time, but in my business i straight up forgot fanfest was today. So i was pleasantly surprised to be woken up by my phone going off with people sending me pictures of a certain someone i'll get to later.
Overall bit of a quiet fanfest in some regards, but last time was kind of a info dump blowout along with the CEO showing up to announce BLU as well. We got some confirmations, some clarifications and a bit more info but it feels like they are saving the last big hurrah for the JP fanfest which isn't surprising since thats the domestic market after all. But what we were shown was exciting and i have seen so many people i know go "so where do i go if i want to start this game now?" on forums and social media this morning so i guess Yoshi and the team sold it well.

First off we get the expected reveal of the extended teaser trailer as we did for Stormblood last time around. Not too much new stuff here but what there was was interesting.
We see Urianger as an Astrologian addressing Ysh'tola as Matoya while she appears to be a Black Mage, meanwhile Thancred gets a bit more where he outright calls the young girl Minfilia. Thats about it for new stuff but it does make me wonder: Are these even our scions at all?
Some fan theories lean to them being 3 from a dark future where we fail, others see them as counterparts from the Warriors of Darkness' world and maybe the guy in the trailer is not 'derplander' at all but Arbert from Heavensward who returned to his shard with Minfillia two years ago. Its interesting we are like 5 months away from release and we still don't know the story or setting of the expansion. New landmass, alternate shard or even a days of future past style dark possible future? we have no idea and personally i find that exciting. A big problem with MMORPG's is telling you everything before you go in, shame they spilled the Minfillia reveal in that regard, but i think that one was kind of guessed by almost everyone at the moment she was shown with Thancred.

Then we have the first Job reveal and would you believe its a Gunblade user, who could have predicted this shocking reveal eh?

Jokes aside the Job is called Gunbreaker. It is a Tank which starts at lvl.60 in Gridania and also unsurprising seems based on/inspired by Squall from FFVIII.

Its nice to get a new Tank. Personally i think we can go a little while without more DPS jobs. Theres some i want like GEO but they can't keep padding the dps gear lists on bosses and not giving the people that only tank or heal nothing. Hopefully Viera bring in Dancer as a healer as well. As for GUN i'm excited. My main tank job is DRK and thats probably getting a nice revamp but VIII was my first Final Fantasy and jank as its conflicting systems were i have a soft spot for it and i can't wait to throw on a gunblade and that Squall glamour set for a while!

Next up they move onto talk of areas, no Moon says Yoshi "maybe for 7.0", but we do see the Rak'Tika Greatwood. A clear analogue to the Golmore Jungle from FFXII. Home to a certain bunny eared people, wonder if they are showing up somewhere...

Its a nice enough looking zone but i wonder about both the ancient ruins that don't match any culture we know of and the burnt out buildings that look decades old at best. We still don't even know where this is. Is it on the edge of Dalmasca and its a burnt out imperial fort? or is this somewhen rather than somewhere and thats a familiar location after years of disrepair yet to occur? not in a video i can find yet was also 'Il Mheg. The more bright and Sea of Clouds feeling area home to the Pixie Beast Tribe who worship the Primal Titania.

Someone people are quick to point out bears a certain resemblance to Allisae. The last, and really only caster Primal in XIV is Ramuh and that will be a full half a decade ago almost dead on by the time Shadowbringers releases which will be a refreshing change of pace. Its only on reflection you notice how many of the Primals are no more a caster than a King Behemoth casting Meteor is. Unless plumes Make Titan a wizard rather than beefed up Elemental? i mean maybe Lakshmi counts too but you just can't beat a giant boss with a staff raining spells down on you in a fantasy MMORPG can you and we've been starved of that for a while.

It got a little bit more bullet points in its pacing after this for a bit:

-New skills from 70 to 80, naturally

-The Battle system revamp will be revealed around May

-World visit should be in 4.57

-Trust NPC's are dungeon only, maybe too many made Fates a nightmare like ole' King Behemoth and the Chobobo issue back in the day?

-Preorders start next week, expansion releases on July 2nd

Then we got the last two big bits of information. First off, surprising nobody we see the next playable race for FFXIV and if you played the current Alliance Raid content the race probably wont surprise you even if you missed the bugs bunny shirt at the US fan fest.

So yeah. Thats bunny girls alright. Guess now we know how the companies $133 million loss is going to be recouped. Hope they have the fantasia stockpiled. Shame Miqo'te will probably go the way of the Elezenn after this. Seems like a mono gendered race thus face but maybe they are saving something for the JP fanfest in a few months?

Finally after all that we get the last big surprise. There had been rumours of Yoko Taro, famed internet gif producing crackpot and tortured mind behind the 'DarkeNier' games, working on something Final Fantasy related since last year. People seemed to assume he was just being given the reigns to FFXVI after the attempts to make XV a strange 'jrpg as a service' that fell flat. Turns out he's working with the FFXIV team instead!

Yes thats real and not an early April Fools joke. The Alliance Raid storyline for Shadowbringers is going to be written by Taro and be a Nier story. For some this is a gross level of cross over that kills their immersion and its gotten some people upset. Personally i have been a fan of Taro's games since the buggy but memorable mess that is Darkengard/Drag on Dragoon and while i love Automata a lot the original Nier Replicant/Gestalt is the rpg i wanted from Square during the PS3 generation that i got while games like FFXIII were massive let downs. Taro's storys defy traditional rpg conventions and are often about loss, morality and the choices we make that are rarely the same kind of basic moral quandaries rpgs throw at their protagonists and more, in his own words, 'if you believe you are doing the right thing then you can do great evil for the most selfish of reasons' and maybe that thinking really resonates with the core story of Shadowbringers?

All i know is Taro is jrpg equivalent of a Hideo Kojima level Auteur and i cannot wait to see what we get out of multiplayer Nier content. A bit bigger than the Lightning Returns style fate people asked for an expected all of last year huh?

So with that the shows over. One more fanfest before the expansion releases and we know more but we still seem to know so little outside of the mechanics/features side. Which to some is probably frustrating but personally i hope they don't just blow their load and give us a massive reveal of all the story like they did with Stormblood. I remember the ending to A Realm Reborn had people in a mad panic and all we knew was "we go to Ishgard on the lamb" and it made things feel more like an adventure than another tier of levelling content. Hopefully we get that back again as Stormblood seemed to lack that feeling of 'mystery' and has not kept people as interested as Heavensward did. So i really hope this is a return to form in that regard. Beyond that i'm super excited, all the more so with Taro doing work for the project so bring in June!

So lets talk about a peddler from the New World

 So allow me a minute to feel a little smug about this one. Since the rumours of it or RDM for Stormblood my theory on BLU and how it would work was constantly met with "thats stupid, you are stupid, they would never implement a class like that!".  However Fanfests announcements have come and gone and after waiting for the 4.5 special site to show up for confirmation i can whip out 'smug_anime_girl.png' in any forum argument over it with a great big 'told you so' on this one.

 With that moment of smug ass behaviour i earned out the way lets get to Blue Mage and why i didn't shit out some heated reaction like so many other people i know over this 'Limited Job'.  So what is a 'Limited Job' in this regard?
 Essentially it is a job with a specific focus or you could say 'market' of user. There have been MMORPG's in the past that to some measures of success or failure introduced new classes with a focus on being a pure pvp class, or a support in a game with nothing else outside the 'holy trinity' of traditional roles. Theres are intended to not be the endgame class for every activity and to not really excel in the same ways as others. Just to throw a twist in the mix and give players something to do as a fun alternative. Like how you can level by quests, fates and dungeons on an alt Job or if you want to just hit the Deep Dungeon train hard. Kind of.


 Basically it goes like this: Next month when patch 4.5 drops a questionable looking trader will spawn somewhere in the 2.0 areas. He claims to come from 'The New World' which if memory serves has only been this strongly name dropped before by the Mamool-Ja in Wanderers Palace Hard Mode and is assumed to either be an analogue to the undiscovered Americas of the world or a reflection of Vana'diel in the same way our Ivalice is to the Tactics games setting. He has brought with him strange new Soul Crystals that confer a new type of magic neither White nor Black but one that taps into the aetherial abilities of monsters. Simply put 'Monster Magic'. For a price, as in Gil not some kind of Bloodpact mind you, one of these new sketch as fug Job Crystals can be yours. You get one starter ability and then its on your way as a new lvl.1 Blue Mage!

So pretty much this is mechanically at least exactly what i predicted. Like Quina or the Warriors of Light from FFV you go out into the world, fight monsters and some run ins give you the ability to learn some Monster Magic. Cactuar will give you 1000 Needles, Malboro/Morbol will give you Bad Breath and so on. Treated like drops some skills are common, some very rare and some inbetween. There are -to begin with at least- 49 skills out there to find.

 Once you have gained a skill it can then be dragged onto a cross role style set up to allow you to arrange up to 24 of those 49 skills to form a loudout of sorts to match the activity or simply your tastes. Maybe there is a situation where 'Lvl.5 Death' is super useful but close range skills are pointless? Maybe you are going to constantly be dropping in and dragging out Spells and Abilities for every kind of situation. Not that you will be doing every kind of situation mind you.
 See this is what has some peoples jimmies all up in a rustle and i'll touch on that in a minute but the BLU mage is 'Limited' in the sense that it isn't a class you rush to 70 and jump into the final Ivalice raid with. In fact upon release they will be hard capped at lvl.50 with level increases coming during Shadowbringers. Perhaps this is so its not a balancing nightmare they dont need when it would just need the same again in 5.0's system wide combat revamp. Perhaps its never intended as something you take to endgame like the other three Mage Jobs at all?

 The only clear cut thing to go on from Yoshi and the team right now is this: The Job is going to have some ridiculously overpowered moves and will not be allowed in Party Finder. Period. Does this mean you will have to stick to PUG's for some content or you just cannot enter at all? Does this intended the class to be a way to get more life out of older content as a move hunting minigame? we just don't know. In some ways it almost makes BLU feel more like a combat version of a Disciple of Land Job than a traditional PVE MMORPG combat class. Not that you are just revisiting old content that is.
 Announced with the Job is a new activity called 'The Masked Carnival' which they seem to be teasing as BLU specific Guildhests but lets be honest anyone who has played World of Warcraft from Mists of Pandaria onwards can recognise this: Its the Brawlers Guild. A enclosed single player PVE combat scenario with increasingly challenging bosses or combinations of enemies right out of the Olympus Tournament from Kingdom Hearts. I doubt it will be for everyone but after seeing the Brawlers Guild grow a fanbase and knowing how crazy the min maxers can get with things as simple as materia melding alone i could see this having some ridiculous speed run style competitions as people try to get the right combo of abilities and tactics down to shave time off the servers high score for a clear or something.

Now we need to talk about people, shock of shocks, being mad on the internet.

 So fanfest ends its opening show and already the news that BLU won't be something you can speed to max level and jump into new content for has people ranging from mildly disappointed to what i can only describe as "Platinum Tier Buttmad". A whole lot of 'not a real job' and 'what a waste of time and resources' going around. Ranging from people from XI who have been waiting to retake their old main job as i did with RDM and finding for now at least thats not going to be the case to people who honestly seem made for the sake of it.

 To a degree i can get it but at the same time this is a game with a job system y'know? You aren't being locked into BLU and being left behind. Just as i have all the crafters and gatherers maxed because i want to live out muh Log Horizon production class fantasy doesn't mean everyone wants to or has to. Like Chocobo breeding/racing, Lords of Veminion or Triple Triad BLU seems less like yet another dps job in a game thats really not starved for dps right now at all but a new minigame/sub activity and personally thats fine. For me at least.

 Right now if i log in i need like 2 more yellow script items and i'm done with crafting. I finished Doma and the Namazu last night after taking it real slow so after completing the MSQ in the next patch my options are going to be BLU or Eureka WHICH APPARENTLY STILL HAS ANOTHER BLOODY AREA TO COME I FORGOT ABOUT?!? so you know what i'm going to do? I'm going to walk right by the Eureka npcs as usual and go pick up that BLU job crystal. Why? because it looks like fun. Does it suck for the people from XI who wanted their main job back? absolutely. I was worried when we first heard the leaks about RDM that it was just going to be a severely limited BLM in mechanics and thankfully its a Rune Fencer with Black and White magic and while not exactly the same i got my main back. For those who haven't yeah they should be as buttmad as they wish to be and more power to them.

 The people otherwise who are still acting like the sky is falling? i say what i say when i recommend the game over its competitors: Your character is your account, not your class. You are never locked into anything so if BLU sucks its a shame but at best it cost you some gil and time. Thats it. If its great eventually its level cap will be increased for more content but who cares if its fun right now doing the 50 levels of stuff it has to do now? it honestly beats the SB 60-70 of "do you want to spam like 3 of the possible dungeons inbetween the daily roulettes? again? 14th times the charm right?" alternative right now. After a year of that yeah i'll go stomp around our ARR grounds on a BLU vacation till Shadowbringers. 

Who knows, if its popular enough and can be balanced or given a 'locked in for duty finder content' rotation maybe 'Limited' wont be a prefix forever?

 right now i'm excited for the job after enjoying it in multiple other games in the series and worst case scenario i don't care for it and simply don't take part in it longterm. Considering the fact it scratches my completionist/collector itch and offers a unique activity i'm going to guess its probably my kind of thing but who knows right? roll on January so we can all get our hands on it and find out!

Fan Fest in review

 Well i let this sit for a while rather than vomit out a word salad like a fair number of places i visit in the last week or two. All in all this fanfest has been an interesting one. We have an expansion name and rough release window, but we don't know where or even when its set. We have a new job, but we don't know what its for. We have new mechanics, but we don't know when we will be using them.
 Its not like people are upset, its just a lot more vague and i imagine some of that is because they dont want another thing like the previews to Heavensward that spoiled the absolute shit out of the shocking twists at the end of A Realm Reborn. I guess its just an unusual feeling for FFXIV to know about content, but also to know comparatively little when put up against the fan fest reveals of Heavensward and Stormblood.

 So anyway. Shadowbringers. Guess the leaks were legit thus far huh? What we know however is pretty slim. The trailer shows the highlander going through all his jobs from 1.0 Archer to 4.0 Samurai/Monk while talking about becoming the warrior of Darkness. We see Thancred with a Gunblade, perhaps as the rumoured Soldier job escorting a young girl and -something which i feel people haven't really touched on that seems important- both Thancred and the warrior of light are being attacked by Amdapori constructs. Last time we saw them was when the magic levels in the ruins of Amdapor were going haywire and the SB Summoner questline where you find out Kuribu was in part connected to a summoning ritual rather than just being an animated statue. I can only imagine the latest patch talking about the aether being drained out of the land is related to this. Beyond that very little story. We know Zenos/Elidibus will be the final big bad of Stormblood so thats no spoiler. It was nice to hear Sokens theme since Uematsu is on a break but on the whole it was a great teaser trailer that ultimately tells us very little and thats weird but new content is new content so thats that announced.

Now we come to the quickfire info:

"Multiple new jobs coming in the expansion" - Strange thing here being that BLU was announced, i'll get to it later, and thats not coming in the expansion. Its a patch job for Stormblood. So whats coming in Shadowbringers? we know a Gunblade user is confirmed but aside from that? nothing. Just 'multiple jobs' and with the leak suggesting Blue Mage, Soldier and Dancer maybe multiple just means two in 5.0 and Dancer is coming later and Soldier uses a Gunblade? who knows. Personally i'm hoping SLD is a tank and DNC is a healer as we have enough dps for now and could use more tanks and healer jobs for variety. Lots of mmos treat tanks and healers like second class customers and give them one new job every 5 or so years in general and it would be great to see FFXIV give them some more love.

"Level to 80 in all new areas" - Big question here was "where?". We have new zones listed. The Rak'Tika Greatwood which looks extremely similar to a locations from FFXII and is home to a certain race of note in that game and Amh Areng which is a destroyed castle dotted landscape similar in appearance to the final area of Dark Souls 3. Apparently a new culture, well a new old dead one that is, but beyond that we know nothing. Where are these zones? are they even connected to each other? we simply don't know anything more about them at this point. New areas are always exciting for me regardless but its odd to see an MMORPG expansion reveal without a big "and we're going to [BLANK]!" during said reveal. Maybe its Thavnair. Maybe its undiscovered parts of Aldenard. We just don't know right now.

"9 dungeons at launch and new raids and alliance raids to follow" - nothing too shocking but 9 is a solid number to start with. It feels like you only really do Sirens Song, Bardams Mettle and Doma Castle before cap nowadays in SB and the lack of variety really makes levelling alt jobs a bit boring so variety is very welcome. Big question is whats the raid storyline this time? theres no Alexander or Omega set up thus far and we don't have many large tier bosses from previous games to dust off in this regard. These speculation of time travel in this expansion so maybe it comes in there, but i feel that could just feel like Alex again even if its not clockwork and gobbos.

"Take the war to Garlemald while averting the greatest Umbral Calamity of all and become the Warrior of Darkness" - This ones interesting. I wasn't expecting Garlemald so soon and the trailer makes it hard to tell if we are the hero's or the villains of the story. Perhaps the Kuribu style entities are attacking to defend something rather than be mindless monsters attacking the player? When we were warned of 'the world being destroyed in overwhelming light' does that mean a straight up army of light aligned constructs like the amdipori creations?

"Nu Mo beast tribes, a familiar face from XII showing up in the final Ivalice raid and a new playable race" - So Nu Mo from 12, a certain character thats a 'fan favourite but not balthier' in the next patches raid and a race teased by a Bugs Bunny shirt? Hmm. I wonder what that could be? (yeah we all know its Fran and Viera, get ready for SE to make back those recent losses on Fantasia alone!). Overall its nice to see Ivalice love. Hope the rumours of 16 being a return to that setting but viera being the last race isn't that surprising. In terms of archetypal FF species they are really the only none beastial one left that could wear current gear models.

"TP is gone, freeing up the GCD and DRK getting a rework" - TP is interesting. Were it at the end of HW it might seem a bit more dramatic but considering a lot of the gauges are good for so little i can easily imagine those reworked to be a resource gauge like how RDM uses it for its melee combo attacks. As for DRK? well i've not had much issue with it right now as a casual tank but the people i know who main it and only tank have barely played Stormblood because they hate the class. Apparently thats quite common and we all know what happened to PLD and WAR in the past and with Shadowbringers looking like the DRK expansion as the current is SAM/MNK and the last was DRG/PLD leaning who knows how big the changes will be?

All in all it was some interesting stuff but nothing too breath taking. There are a couple of other things i will talk about in other entries to break this up but we all know it ended with a bit of a surprise thats left people 'mixed' in terms of reactions, shocking for the internet i know, but i'll get to that at another time. For now its more FFXIV and we have 4.5 on the way and thats also promising to make Stormblood go out with a bang so exciting stuff all around, but a bit more vague than usual and Yoshi alluded thats clearly for good reason. We just gotta wait for the next fanfest to see what it is!

No i'm not making a pun about the 'I'm Blue' song.

But lets talk about the Blue Mage Leak/Rumour anyway. According to said rumour not only is Blue Mage or BLU one of the Jobs for the next expansion but it will be a preorder bonus of sorts and will become available to players who prepurchase the game. Sort of like how Blizzard did with the Demon Hunter Class for World of Warcrafts Legion expansion.

So first off what is a Blue Mage? Blue Mages first appeared in Final Fantasy V as a new option alongside the traditional Black, White and Red. While Black was damage, White was healing and Red was a weaker blend of the two Blue Magic was essentially a form of mimic magic. In Most examples of the Job -even times like in FFIX where it was never actually given the name- the Blue Mage does not learn their skills from a mentor or a tome but by experiencing it themselves. Most often from Monsters. Fight a monster that uses the regen spell White Wind? well you can use 'copy' or a similar skill to learn it should you defeat the monster and you keep the spell forever. Notable examples being the Warriors of Light in V, Quina Quen in IX and most popular with fans Khimari Ronso in X. As a notable side thing the rumour also states Ronso are a playable race in 5.0. Perhaps they are the more tribal mages who created Blue Magic while the Amdapori and Mhachi worked on Black and White magic?

 So how did that work in an MMORPG? in FFXI Blue Mages showed up as a Job in the Treasures of Aht Urghan expansion. They were basically elite anti monster tanks, trained to become a monster themselves and take in the essence of powerful monsters while struggling to combat their "inner beast" lest they become a mindless force of destruction themselves. To any WAR's reading this i'm sure the concept sounds familiar to a degree.
 In gameplay terms they were a close combat, tanky mage. They had a few basic attacks and buffs to power up Blue Magic but by and large their focus was on -shock of shocks- utilising Blue Magic spells to deal damage and resist damage. Crazy i know! But unlike other mages they were regarded in two ways. Physical spells were close range, impactful magic. In XIV terms think something like a RDM's Enchanted Rapier Skills. Then Monster Magic or Monster Affinity Magic. None impactful stuff more connected to elemental abilities. For example you might fight a crab and learn a water element spell. Just like a conjurer casting Stone or Water. The big deal for BLU was how you got them.
Monster Magic is acquired by defeating, or being in a part with allies that defeat a monster using the skill you want. You just need to be a BLU and not get KO'ed while doing so. You them, based on level have a number of BP or Blue Magic Points you can use to spend on a hotbar of skills from your library of skills. Basically imagine the cross role spells of XIV but with the mod mechanics from Warframe. Have 8 BP free for your last slot but Bad Breath costs 10BP? too bad you dont have the points even though the slots open.

 Now how would i implement this in XIV?  Essentially i would use job quests to give the core skills and the hunt log to point you in the direction of what you can get skills from. I know they kind of want the hunt to replace the hunt log but it just seems like such a perfect fit. You leave your early town and can get your stun from the jellyfish outside Limsa Lominsa for example. You just take the hit, beat the monster and bam. Now your spell list has a monster magic spell to add onto your BLU specific version of the cross bar. Simple. Kind of.
I would make it a tank myself since magical cloth tank is a really neat idea, maybe give it evasion based stuff and use NIN gear? but knowing how popular dps are in online games over tanks i could see it becoming another BRD or RDM. I wouldn't care for it as a RDM main who already heals and res'es players in raids with no desire for another supportive mage job but you never know.


A lot of people think the leak is legit and honestly i wouldn't be unhappy to see BLU added to the game. It could fit with the Ronso and we all saw last time around the demand for it is really up there in terms of FF jobs yet to show up in game but honestly i also wouldn't be upset if it didn't show up this time. I can take or leave it.

What about you? excited for it? worried it wont be the role you want?

What kind of BLU do you want to see in FFXIV?

Happy 5th Anniversary!

Good lord. Half a decade gone by already? It feels like just yesterday the internet at large was having a laugh at Square -not popular at the time during its "decade at lightning" debacle- shoving out FFXIV 1.0 or "4.0" as it was known based on review scores at the time with people considering the game dead on arrival.

 But we all know what happened, or who happened, to FFXIV next and Yoshida saved the game and arguably salvaged the Final Fantasy brand that once again seems to be in need or another goodwill boon from just about every product but XIV again giving the consumer issues with the brand. roll on Fanfest right?

I've mentioned it to a degree before but i think the only reason i got into FFXIV as a Final Fantasy die hard that had finally written the ip off after its disastrous PS3 experiences was the novelty of getting a beta code to try an mmo on my PS3. I had to delete all the installed games and it ran like shit but playing that A Realm Reborn beta as a WoW veteran getting disillusioned with World of Warcraft i found myself exploring Gridania and the South Shroud and thinking "Hey now, theres something to this game. Maybe this is worth looking into on release?" and the rest is history. From Raiding Coil as a BLM with his brand new Stardust Rod to taking down Nidhogg on the final steppes of faith as NIN with my Sandungs Lux to Taking down Omega as RDM and just waiting for the big bad of the expansion to show up for a bruising its been a hell of a ride.

Now just in game however. I can gush about the art style, amazing music that puts all over MMORPG's to shame and the like but what keeps me going is also the community. People that unlike every other online game i've tried don't rage on the first wipe. Don't quit over the smallest things. They come together be it to solve a new raid boss, deal with a massive organised group of assholes trying to crash the server market in a bid to take over the economy or worse. This is a community that cares about being in this together. Its not the individual power fantasy or the single player game with optional multiplayer. These are names and faces you know, for years now. You wave when you pass. You recognise each other from memorable times in expansions past.
 To say nothing or outside the game. When i'm running into a Hildebrand cosplayer at Comicon and dancing the Manderville, playing the FFTCG at a local tournament and shooting the shit over what might be coming in the next expansion or as simply as having someone in a comic book store tap me on the shoulder, point at the Job Stone on my bag and say "Hey man, what server?" both inside and out its the first fanbase for a game i've ran into that feels like an actual community comparable to stuff like the FGC or TCG crowds. These are people with a passion and its the same one you have for the same virtual world we all inhabit and thats really the MMORPG dream, isn't it?

Now days from the next Fanfest and the expected reveal of 5.0 and while excitement for Stormblood has been honestly pretty muted over the last 6 months or so people are really revving up the excitement for what the future holds. Heres hoping they can keep this up for another 5 eh?

Its pre fan fest expansion predictions time! again!

 Is it really that time again? so soon after the shitstorm of nobody's paid stream working for the last one? boy how time flies eh?

 Naturally of course this means its time to speculate our hopes, dreams and far less exciting expectations for the next expansion in what at the time of writing appears to be Square Enix's only ongoing Final Fantasy project thats not some form of burning trash fire. No pressure Yoshi.

 So this time around i'm basically listing things two ways: What i want to see and What i expect to see. One is my personal wants no matter how unlikely and the other is what i honestly expect based on the games support up to this point. So lets cut to the chase and jump right in!

What i expect to see:

New Job GEO/Geomancer: Will be a melee ranged magical dps with support elements like BRD. With positional effects added to moves right out of FFXI. You hit from the north and a move adds a fire dot, hit from the south and the same move gives your nearby allies a small attack speed buff. Positionals have had a bit of a rocky history in this game but i dont see how else you use the job without making it just another mage -or conjurer for that matter. But the entire SB expansion has been dropping strong hints and while i can't consider any expectation set in stone this certainly feels like a job in XIV's future even if its not in this particular expansion

New Job SLD/Soldier: Not a personal want but something a lot of people are expecting and i can see why. In working with Garlean rebels -gunblade users included- we have an already very fleshed out set of flashy moves and story connection. If MCH's can make artificial job crystals in some sweaty workhouse in Ishgard is it so unlikely the Garleans havent made similar? Folks seem to be expecting Squall: the class, personally i'm expecting a tank like FFVI's magitek knight as a defensive equivalent to Machinist. Things like the SMN questline in SB in particular has started pushing the idea that allagans pre collapse were beginning to augment weak magical abilities with technology and that sounds like something Garlemald would dig up and learn to use doesnt it?

New Playable Race Viera: Its been in high demand forever, they have been namedropped in the Ivalice storyline and most importantly they modelled a woman with bunny ears for the Tsukuyomi primal fight. They know people want it and some measure of the works done already. I could see them before something like Bangaa or some form of beast tribe.

New Regions: Now personally i don't think we are heading right to the empires front door with this expansion. I think they are intending for rebellions and internal struggles to push Garlemald over the course of the next story arc to become the big bad. Perhaps in reference to FFXV they are put so far on the defensive they do something unspeakable to weaponise the innocent civilians to turn them into some monsters or resort to summoning like beast tribes? i think they are going to be pushed to cross some line and have yet to reach the point to be desperate enough. We need to fight back and break down their expansion for a bit longer to rationalise that i think.
 Instead i think we are going to head south to southern Islabard, Thavnair -with the expansion capital in tropical Radz-At-Han, home to the morden Eorzean school of Alchemy and the only nation to trade with Garlemald- and perhaps the end of Erueka will lead Krile and Alphinaux back west to the 3 island chain of Old Sharlayan?

Class changes: Instead of something like another meter i imagine upon hitting level 80 our signature skills will change. They started to implement this in SB. If you hit the right level of Summmoner Bio II becomes Bio III automatically for example. It scales down for level synchs but at max level is a stronger, more flashy version. I think thats the direction in general for lvl.80 abilities.
To use Summoner as an example i think we will finally see Egi changes with max level changing them so Titan Egi becomes Sephirot Egi for example. Its not as exciting to some as straight up new moves but it allows your character to feel more powerful without buttonbloat. You might hit lvl.30 and get your carbuncle replaced with an Ifrit Egi as a new player and then see a lvl.80 summoner with a Ramuh Egi replacing it and go "oh man, i want to get to that level of power!"
 I also think we will see a couple of class revamps. Not as dramatic as PLD and WAR have had in the past but i firmly think DRK, NIN and WHM are all going to get some form of soft rework as their participation numbers have dropped dramatically in Stormblood and the sentiment seems to be DRK is mindlessly easy and NIN/WHM are either boring or their new SB mechanics made them actively less fun to play. I think 3 jobs being left behind is something Yoshi and the team wont want to see left to sit and thats going to change.

Theming: I think, based on the writers past ebbs and flows and the current state of the MSQ while writing this that the next expansion is in some ways going to be a lean back to ARR in some aspects. I think Ascian influence and Allagan tech causing trouble will come back to the forefront. Perhaps as some kind of arms race, perhaps as Garlemald is put on the defensive it simply gives others more time to dig too greedily and too deep but i think 'digging up forgotten secrets' is going to be the active theme of the next expansion and theres nothing that represents that better than stuff like the Allagans. Maybe we will even get a new zone by Mor Dhona? Beyond that i think they can't leave the idea of 'overwhelming light destroying the world' to just sit. Something has to give and i think thats going to start happening soon. Something is draining aether out of the land and if its not Zodiark then perhaps its actually Hydaelyn? What if the 'Shadowbringers' rumour is true and we have to end up taking a role more akin to the warriors of darkness?

Raiding: This is a bit of a muddy prediction but i think something is going to chance. Again. People are getting very vocal about missing something like Coil and having "the baby raid where everyone wants a carry and wipes all the time" or "savage with the perception that its only for the hardcore" which completely ignores normal modes as anything but a training mode and ultimately hurts the raiding overall. Back in ARR we went into Coil for the story and the fights. Sure there was gear but it wasn't seen as a pinata like alliance raids but nor was the early coil seen as the hardest of the hard stuff like savage that drove people away. Anyone who was playing at the time remembers the huge crowds at Wineport as pick up groups got ready to take their first steps into the Binding Coil of Bahamut and while few got to the end it was a memorable experience for all. In the current system it seems like the options are brainless loot farm -though i think the last Ivalice raid that released was a nice balance in terms of difficulty- or savage that people view as the elitist content and by and large dont bother with.
I'm not sure what the easy remedy is to be honest but i feel like the raiding model is going to change once again. Raiding proved far more popular in its domestic market than anticipated and they want that draw to still be there. But if you arent a savage raider it seems like the overwhelming majority see extreme primals as their endgame and for one item per job. I just dont see them settling on that as the happy outcome. I dont know what the change will be but i predict there will be one.

Gimmicks: The little things, the quality of life changes, the things you use to sell the casual player. These aren't the big sweeping changes but the things that add a little something to the core to expand upon it. We've had flying, swimming, diadem, eureka, treasure maps, squadrons, housing. What do they do next?
 Personally i don't think we see a new transport gimmick. Flying is already suffering from 'the warcraft problem' where upon its introduction it was like getting the Zoras Flippers in Zelda. Now places you could never reach are easily accessible and thats great. Its feeling like you reached a new tier and all these new secrets are waiting to be found. Then in SB i'm basically using it to reach mining nodes and otherwise just to skip gameplay just like modern WoW and to be frank that sucks. Swimming even more so. Without underwater combat swimming only serves to collect items for quests and thats so bland. So i think they have no ideas for them as gameplay ideas and probably wont try new ones anytime soon. Perhaps bring back real time airship rides and have them fly over zones with the option to jump off to get to out of reach places or something instead?
 I imagine housing might get a new area or simply new wards but i would love some more interaction with them. Technically you can make your house a item shop, blacksmith or cafe but why would players go there and how would they even know it exists? that needs work.
As for another Diadem/Eureka? ehh i think its been a failure as an experiment. Personally i think its more rational and logical to expand on successful systems like the Hunt or Khloe's diary instead. It just feels like time to revamp and improve existing systems instead of another time consuming experiment and while SE is not exactly doing so hot nowadays it makes sense to improve your core rather than waste time on another risky potential for failure.

Now thats all i expect to see. There may be more stuff i havent mentioned or maybe less stuff changed with more dramatic changes but what would i actually want to see but dont expect?

-Puppet Master as a job. Some kind of pet using tank that has constructs hold aggro while you lay traps and use the puppets to bring them into their path. With some kind of gothic/baroque aesthetic like the clowns/jesters from devil may cry.

-2 announced jobs and a 3rd kept secret. This would never happen with dataminers but i love how in FFXI there were times i just want into the quest to unlock a none starting job like DRK and it was a nice surprise to show my friends i was this new job they didnt even know was in the game yet. It would be spoiled in hours for most of us that keep up with the game news of course but i still love the idea of finding some old dude in trouble and getting a BLU job crystal as a reward and freaking out.

-Replace triple triad with an ingame version of the FFTCG like Hearthstone but for XIV. I like triple triad, but i love the physical card game, my XIV deck in particular. Trouble is finding people to play with is a hassle but if the ingame card game wasn't a 30 second steamroll i would be more inclined to play it and collect cards. Will never, ever happen but i can dream can't i?

-Give us a reason to fly and swim. Underwater combat, High up villages like some native people that live off the land you can only reach via flying for new endgame content. Stuff that makes us use the mechanics as something to move from A to B to collect something and avoid the mmo gameplay we pay a sub fee for. Give me adventure and a reason to explore!

-Highly unlikely but with the Ivalice stuff in game i would love one of my favourite underrated games to get some love with Vagrant Story's Sunk City of Lea Monde as an underground, inside based quest zone. We've had a sky zone, a sea zone and deserts, forests and more. Why not underground? and why caves when ivalice has a perfectly explorable buried ghost town right out of demon's souls?

But these are things i want that i also know are never going to happen. Its now a couple of days to the US fanfest which will at least be an expansion reveal and a trailer, maybe they will be kind and give the Americans a job reveal or something for once but who knows. For now we can only wait and dream of what new jobs and adventures we will be getting in the next major expansion pack to our mmo of choice. What are you expecting? What do you want?