Fan Fest Europe: A Realm Expanded.

WELL SHIT.

So yeah. Bit of a surprise this one eh? We expect the full trailer to get a bit of the Far Edge of Fate story they couldn't spoil yet -outside of a title in game that is- and we get a massive world map expansion in this, uh, expansion.

What does it mean? well the Garleans are fighting a war on two fronts now. The Eorzean Alliance takes back Ala Mhigo and Yugiri and her master Gosetsu will be leading the warriors of Light to retake Doma and the continent of Othard. 

Not exactly what we expected eh?

So first heres the trailer:

and yep thats SAM confirmed alright. Red Mage and Samurai. Both DPS which has some folks going into nuclear meltdowns over. Because forget PLD desperately needing a once over, we needed another tank just because right? sheesh.

Surprised no Red Mage in the trailer, but also no RDM info at all thus far. We know SAM shares gear with MNK but thats about it. We have our second new race and their primal:

The Kojin: a race of Turtle-like Beastmen that live in edo period looking towns in bubbles on the floor of the Sea of Jade and The Ruby Sea.

They are traders, craftsmen and believe everything in the world has a spirit/god inside it known as a Kami. They recruit adventurers to collect these Kami by bringing in rare treasures from the Sea floor and mainland Othard.

Which says to me this is our new Crafting/Gathering Beast Tribe.

and then we have their Primal - Susano, Lord of the Revel. Another new Summon for the franchise. Looks cool but at the same time its a shame its another dude with a sword like Ravana.

But at least we have the launch tribes and primals locked in info wise, shame the rest is a bit confusing still though.

So what else did we learn about?

-A 4th housing Area with an Edo era Japan style but not available at launch so theres no mad day 1 rush when servers will be rocky.

-Blitzball might be happening

-Garo gear will be put on the Calamity Salvager so you dont need retainer slots for 13 sets of pvp gear

-DPS jobs were added because few none tanks and healers took up the new tanks and healers in HW and the payoff for work put in was not worth it when classes like PLD suffered from problems they didnt have time to fix because of it.

-We will be visiting the Steppes of Othard the Au Ra call home. Called the 'first wide plains zone' which reminds me a lot of FFXI areas and the Calm Lands from FFX

Sadly thats really it. There was a lot of tidbits like Yugiri wearing the NIN AF3 gear in the trailer but other than that very little information about the expansion itself. Whats the combat like? no clue. How does gathering and crafting work and what does it drop that didn't in HW? no idea. Thats basically been the experience which is a bummer. The reveals were great and the world size is amazing but we still no very little about the mechanics of Stormblood at this point and with less than 4 months till its hitting retail thats a little worrying.

But this is the mmo with no public PTR style testing so i guess par for the course?

Regardless the fan fests are over and the countdown to launch begins. Till then its time to wait on the final updates to Heavensward to see it to its conclusion and i'm pretty excited for that coming soon.

The Far Edge of Fate review

So the Christmas break is over, our Stormblood pre-orders are out and the finale of Heavensward has begun. For the first post of the new year i thought i would go over my basic thoughts on the content so far while trying to avoid spoilers -a shame that a certain main story quest title could not avoid doing the same eh?

So for story:
Main Story Quest: Honestly i can't say i was surprised this time. The Warriors of Darkness ended all too briefly but what happened and why remained a pleasant surprise. This time however i called on twitter exactly what would happen and lo and behold it was exactly what i expected. It was not bad mind you, but part of the trouble of an expansion with more set up on the horizon means a lot more blanks get filled in for the inbetween content in a way usual patches mid expansion cycle don't have.
I liked it, the story was interesting, not too much 'go talk to different npcs for 2 hours' for once and it resulted in one of the most satisfying boss fights since Ozma. However considering the trailer was name dropping the Omega Weapon and its a no show i can't help but feel a little unsatisfied. Still at least this means Omega shows up in March.

The Scholisticate: I am going to be brutally honest here. I didn't care. I just did not care about the Scholisticate. I am a lore nut. I have my Encyclopedia Eorzea next to me as i type this and i never skip quest text ever. This was the one quest line where i came real close though. The characters were so bland i could sincerely not tell some of them apart, the story across the patches felt like a waste of dev time and on the whole it felt like doing it just for completionists sake.
That said the actual final quest and the reveal of what the scholisticate was and more history of the dark past of Ishgard actually ended up being one of the most interesting bits of lore for the patch. Considering i had written off Ishgard as 'done now, off to Stormblood set up content!' i really did not expect one of the most interesting moments/reveals of the patch. Still on the whole not especially interesting.

Hildebrand: Honestly this was brief, cliche but ultimately fun stuff. It was a different side to the character and Gigi was a nice reference to one of my favourite FF games. The storyline started weak in 3.1 but on the whole it was a nice send off and i eagerly await more in Stormblood.

The Warring Triad: Zurvan was a joke. I'm sorry but Sophia should have been the finale not 'generic monster with generic adds'. Disappointing boss fight aside it was interesting to get our young assistants backstory reveal even if it did feel like something more Kingdom Hearts then Final Fantasy. Regulus was more General Leo than the Kefka people expected but on the whole was a character i wish we got more of. Not a huge finale but its a better side story than a lot of the Ascian stuff near the end of ARR.

Beast Tribes Finale: It was a silly, charming send off with some neat rewards. That did not surprise me. What DID was that nobody i know has done it. Because not one of them finished any of the Beast Tribes in HW up to rank 8. Vanu and Gnath i could understand but i really am surprised how few did not use the huge boost in xp and gil the Moogle quests rewarded you. Honestly i would not be surprised if by 5.0 we have a pve beast tribe just because and a crafting beast tribe as the main focus for a small niche and it gets regarded as a bit of a failed experiment with increasing diminishing returns on their dev resources spent on them.
Still it was nice to be reminded that in some places we are leaving Ishgard and Dravania in a better state than we left it.

Dun Scathe: Hard to talk about without spoiling the ending to the raid but on the whole it was great. No Ozma style really high point but for the final raid of the expansion we got a pretty satisfying final boss and i really hope we don't just see the Sky Pirates as the intro to the new Diadem. I would love if they are part of the next Relic quest and aiding us in exploring Eureka the Forbidden land. Great raid, little easy when you get the small list of abilities down but visually fantastic and the lore implications of 'Hollow' Voidsent gets the mind racing, especially after the triads reveal of what voidsent are to begin with.

All in all a mixed bag but nothing i hated. So now theres the new timesinks.

Anima: I ran 100 A1 Savage party finder runs for 2 hours a day over 3 days. I got my ilvl270 Relic and got to work on my DRK's Umbrite step. An extremely easy light step. Possible the easiest step for the entire chain really. So naturally i fear the final step coming in the next update.




Garo PvP event: That went live? you might ask. Because it has no quests right? well there aren't any. Go to the Wolves Den for a new NPC. All you do is spam Frontlines and the Feast, buy a full class set and weapon and talk to her. You now have a title to equip and use in pvp. 10 Frontlines wins gets a mount, 30 Feast wins gets the second and a total of 60 wins in total in anything gets the third.
Honestly the combination of this and Frontlines Freelancer options has revitalised PvP to the extreme. Ques are near instant. Matches are much more even and everyone is rolling in marks and some of the new sets look fantastic. My only complaint is A: no reward for getting all the sets like the Youkai but its around for 6 months and B: can't store it in the inn and 7 pieces for 13 jobs is a LOT of retainer space nobody has 3 years in! Roll on the inventory expansion come Stormblood.

New Dungeons: This is just straight up night and day. Baelsar's Wall is excellent. Neat mechanics, cool set pieces and the finale boss is easily the best dungeon boss fight in the expansion to my mind. Satisfying to fight and a real test of reflexes. I imagine on keyboard and mouse some of the sequences could be a bit of a nightmare for the more casual player.
Then you have Sohm Al Hard Mode. AKA "Heres some Snowcloak style teasing of models in the upcoming expansion, have fun!" only its hard to have fun when you have a dungeon more boring than Neverreap. The final boss is 'okay' and just okay. Everything else is mindless. Its a loot pinata to let people gear up in the new metal gear looking Fillibuster sets and just feels so uninspired bar the final volcanic cavern stretch. Really disappointing honestly.
So one great new dungeon one not so great. New dungeon set is really cool looking for most classes and the music and art is superb. However i cannot see them really being something people are excited to run 3 months from now. Feels like Neverreap and Keeper of the Lake all over again in that regard.


 So thats my brief reaction to the content. I'm working on pvp sets, some alt relics and tweaking my NIN best in slot gear for the expansion. On the whole a very fun variety of content but story wise it really feels like they kept my most wanted points for the second half of the patch coming after fanfest. So at least i have something exciting to look forward to next month after fanfest and the totally not happening reveal of Samurai.

JP Fan Fest 2016 RDM confirmed!

So part 2 of the 3 part worldwide Final Fantasy Fan Festivals events has concluded and aside from my cleeng stream being a complete dud i demanded a refund for (though i hear niconico was problem free) we have had some interesting reveals. Not as earthshaking as people expected but nothing that doesn't look fun to play which i guess is the selling point at the end of the day eh?

So first off in a reveal that surprised pretty much nobody FFXIV is getting its third Mage class with Red Mage and as i expected it is still the fencing musketeer archetype from XI. In some mechanics it is surprisingly similar to XI in a way that has finally gotten some diehard XI playing friends to finally make the jump from Vanadiel to Eorzea. On the whole it is an interesting looking class. It is a hybrid of range and melee. Using a Rapier and Crystal the job will have you combine the two to form a stave for spells at range, then boost forwards to pierce the enemy with a barrage of physical strikes from the split rapier and crystal then blink away again to pop off a large spell like Flare. There isn't too much known mechanically other than this Jobs mechanic is called "Chainspell" or "Spell Linking" which i could imagine meaning casting certain spells in one school strengthens one school of magic and weakens others and perhaps a balance allows for RDM specific spells to be used? I suppose we will see in the EU fanfest in Frankfurt in about 8 weeks time.
For now i am happy. It is my main FFXI job returning and it looks both similar enough to that and fresh enough in terms of XIV jobs that it may replace NIN as my new main job in XIV. Though personally i am glad it looks like more of a faithful incarnation than BLM turned out to be.

Next up we have Swimming. Perhaps those FFX outfits for buying a stream are not as random an inclusion as we thought and Blitzball is the next Lords of verminion? personally i kind of hope it is even if i know most folks hated that in X. Swimming itself looks less like FFXIV pulling a WoW style "sunken city of vash'jir" with its underwater combat and more adding little sub zones to areas for gathering and exploration. Along with underwater mount use and a new skill for our Chocobos to learn this makes me wonder what neat things this can be used for in none combat areas. Perhaps some interesting ways to hide some secrets in game? or just a Manderville beach episode adventure.

Then we have the shirt. Because of course Yoshida worse a shirt. This time it was Spiderman and i have NEVER seen people argue and bitch this much in the community. Some are certain it alludes to Sam Raimi which naturally means "SamU Rai-mi", because shut up reasons. Personally? thats a bit reaching. But the people who want SAM reaalllly want SAM in XIV and like the new Ridley in Smash its going to be pushed at every opportunity because that thirst is strong. Amongst other guesses like "web swinging means PUP confirmed" my personal leaning is the straight forward one. Peter Parker was bitten by a Spider and gained the abilities of a spider. That is a 1 for 1 description of how a Blue Mage works. I would be completely unsurprised if BLU is the new tanking job in Stormblood. BST could be a possibility but characters like Raubhan have been teases for BLU for a good while now.


We also had information on the new Beast Tribe of Lamia, the allagan experiments had to come from something right? and their primal. The new raids 'Return to Ivalice' and 'Beyond Time: OMEGA' and a tie in event for a 'mature sentai' series from one of the megaten artists. Aside from that though there wasn't much information about stormblood proper this time around, with the real reveals being promised for Frankfurt. Honestly? kind of a bit of a meh event compared to the US fanfest and i hope the EU one is better. There is nothing i disliked here but it didn't really reveal what we will be doing beyond 'playing more FFXIV'. More zone and enemy previews would have been very welcome since more Primals and Omega Weapon were already a certainty at this point. Perhaps more gear set reveals for the next artefact tier would have been good but with 6 months before release the collectors edition confirmation and the release date of June 21st was better than nothing.

And at least the waifu fans have a new Primal to obsess over on pixiv. Swings and roundabouts and all that right?

On the whole i feel its been played a bit safe this time since everyone outright knew about DRK before its reveals last time and so it fell a bit flat, so mystery is not always bad and the team has earned the positive expectations for their work i just personally wish this fanfest had some more world info, perhaps a picture of Ala Mhigo after its been a none entity in the in game world for all these years now.
Still with some patience we will get it all in the end, for now i am just happy with have multiple new jobs, primals and raids confirmed so i get more of what i love.

Even if the 'Ivalice=Eorzea' tinfoil crowd are now crazier than ever after this event. Remember kids Primals can't melt steel memes.

Well that didn't take long

So this was easy. A little TOO easy in fact. Which really does beg the question: Just how bad is it going to be if the next form is the final stage?

We already know it involves repairing an Allagan mini ADS servitor so i imagine that means Crafted items AND something from Azys Lla.

Hopefully my recently 60 and full HQ Ironworks gathering jobs will come in useful for something, anything beyond making Gil!

Still i can't complain. New shiny weapon for a couple of days work two weeks in a row. Bit underwhelming but after those massive grinds that came before it -and no Umbrite nerf to speak of as well- i think Yoshi wanted to give us tomestone grinders a bit of a vacation this time.

I'm not complaining.

But i'm prepared for the worst in the next patch...

Beyond Heavensward part 4: Further Skills to pay Further Bills

I dont make it a secret that i love crafting in MMORPG's even if most of them tend to have garbage crafting systems. Luckily FFXIV is one of the good standouts. I love the way crafters are their own valid jobs. Have their own gear and can purchase housing to make a quasi store and so on. I know a few people in game that only play as crafters and love it because it doesn't make them feel like they are a combat class not 'really playing' like so many other games in the genre. That said however i still think there is more that could be done with the systems in Stormblood and i'm here to ramble a while about what i would like to see based on my own likes and dislikes with MMORPG crafting systems.

To begin with lets talk about what got my interest to begin with. For the most part it would probably be early anime based on MMORPG's like .HACK//Sign, though Log Horizon is a more recent well known example of my point. It showed crafters in an online game to be valid players who had different goals more focused on creation than destruction and who's items where lovingly crafted for other players who would need a reliable weapon or tool when out and about exploring the world. I wasn't into games like D&D as a teen so wasn't really experienced with role playing of any kind but the idea of a none combat shop owner in a virtual world seemed like fun to me and still does. Its why i enjoy the Atelier games on the PS3/PS4 so much. 

Sadly however my early experiences in Online games basically summed up crafting as: farm stuff just to make the same stuff for a few ranks till you reach a new material to do the same with till max rank when you make one thing for raiding and thats it. Which to be blunt sucks. Then FFXIV comes along and after the 1.0 debacle it really was not on my radar as WoW kept me happy as it had yet to hit its massive late Mists of Pandaria quality decline and 'The Decade of Lightning' really put me off Final Fantasy as a whole at the time and so i had no interest in FFXIV. That is until i saw a new none combat preview. It showed a lvl.1 Botanist in the central Shroud. They used skills to search for trees, 'mined' some logs and returned to Gridania. Then they switched to a lvl.10 Carpenter and suddenly their gear and 'weapon' changed and they knelt at a log to actually work on it in real time. They were using moves to shape and craft the item towards a final product, tweaking it as they went in hopes of producing a higher quality item as the final result. This reminded me of an itch no game was scratching so i ended up looking into FFXIV 2.0 and the rest is history.

Since then i have seen an alliance of German Free Companies create a grey Market of player goods after a huge French free company decided to undercut everything to 1 gil to crash the market back in 2.0. Seen people actually become the go to guys and gals for certain goods who are known by name as "The really good Blacksmith who gets the HQ stuff every time" and eventually the ability to turn home plots into shops -even if they sadly remain unused 99% of the time since its basically just a retainer interface as of right now. Its a great start but i think in 4.0 we can take the ideas we have further.

 So what do i mean? well by this point as Master Craftsmen on their way to lvl.70 i think more focus should be made on players creating their own stores or workshops. We have already seen items added like the player forges that increase your ability while working at them. With a new housing location and hundreds more wards coming in Stormblood perhaps its time for the long forgotten turn of the century idea of player ran Shopping districts to make a return to form?
 Imagine a place like Uldah only instead of the majority of buildings being walls with doors that never open they can open to little arcades where players skilled in crafting can rent a space or store and peddle their wares and to keep it fresh you must pay a rent/upkeep fee to hold your spot thus ensuring you are putting out product to make money. Think of heading into town looking for a particular item and instead of hoping the market board has it you ask around for a good Alchemist store or something and other players direct you to a small free company ran building where retainers stand at the counter as FC members bring in materials for their friends in the back to process. Really bring the industry side of crafting to Eorzea y'know? Make crafters desired but also make crafting a desirable goal to play as.

The trouble with this however is twofold. On one hand players in the west hate interacting in MMORPG's, its crazy i know but thats the post WoW world we live in. You dont go out and look for other players, you que for something and then back to solo play. They already added Materia Melders in cities even though i had no trouble back in 2.0 finding a crafter to meld the Materia for my Stardust rod questline. People just don't want to interact that often unless they get a good kick in the pants or carrot on a stick. Which sadly means these player houses you see turned into Cafe's or a Blacksmiths Workshop remain empty for the most part. Retainers standing about in silence waiting for customers that never arrive. Perhaps its different on JP servers but for the EU ones housing seems largely for FC's to laze about and shoot the shit between structured content and little else. Which i think is a tremendous shame.
Then on the other the developers themselves basically treat crafters as the gil vaccums that put out some new green quality gear and vanity clothes each patch to get gil out of Combat jobs hands and spent again on materials. Which is really kind of boring when you think about it.

This i think is where Yoshi P's team should look for the future of crafting. Player shops in cities could be a huge recourse hog or simply a lag issue. But allowing people who purchase a housing lot to decide "Do you want to make a Free Company House or a Player Shop?" would be a wonderful step in the right direction. Let players decorate and design clerks to serve customers. Let them advertise them on a new board by the market boards. Maybe remove the selling fee percentage to incentivise private player shop selling over the market board. In a virtual world all these high level crafters should have something to shoot for beyond the next end game Tool and gear set. which in turn gives beginners the inspiration to being crafting themselves with their own dream to shoot for in game. Its probably never going to happen however since the audience of most mmos nowadays are so anti social in an ironic way but player ran shops is my most wanted Crafting change for Stormblood.

Thats not to say its the only thing to think about of course. We dont know if the cross class system changes will effect Crafters as well, which would mean almost all the crafting Macros might simply no longer be viable and for a brief time the number of HQ products will shrink as people rush to figure out the new winning formula to make the best items. Though maybe that might be something of a refreshing new expansion clean slate feeling for crafters who knows?

Personally i feel we may see more new Collectible style sub skills but i imagine the 1-50 baseline will remain the same as it ever has. Though i dont think we will see the return of crafter job gear sets ever again. They were nice flavour wise but took up so much space by the time you got all the jobs to lvl.50 and having one Ironworks set wasn't just space effective that saved a lot of Gil on Materia infusing to boot.

Beyond that i think its time to really look at what some jobs offer. Take Alchemist for example. When Deep Dungeons were announced players expected a huge boom in the production and sales of all kinds of potions and in the end the dungeons showered you with them for free. I havent crafted a potion since as i have 99 X or Mega Potions at all times thanks to running DD just to get the potshards and level alt Combat jobs to 50. That sucks. Its a cool job that supports a lot of other crafting jobs but seems to really exists at endgame just for 3 or 4 types of stat boosting potions for Savage raiding and little else. Why not give the jobs things to do differently? Perhaps Alchemists can make explosive potions you throw in combat for added damage? Or perhaps an 'oh shit' potion that makes you and your party invisible and drop out of combat in the world for a few seconds if you are fate farming in the max level zone and an agg train rolls in?

These are just ideas off the top of my head but you get the idea. Give crafters reasons to make items to keep in the inventory 'just in case' they could use them. It may be a balancing issue to ensure they arent OP enough to become mandatory or weak enough to be never used but making crafters feel like they have an impact beyond farming Gil at the Marketboard is something they could really use looking forwards.

 In terms of player identity and the notion of recognisable crafters i think an element FFXIV sorely lacks is some form of customisability on the crafters side. Why not tweak the system so a player made version of an item has "Made by Edgelord Adjectivenoun" in its description? or naming items? So two Blacksmiths could make a sword for a paladin but based on their skill the stats are different but so are the names? perhaps even letting you alter the colour using a dye? so while it is both technically the same sword made with roughly the same items the player adds their own twist to it. So if you get a purple NIN dagger set with a song lyric for a name and high crit you know it was made by a person and they gain a reputation for their wares?
Really give the player some pride to see players using their creations in town and out in the field. Right now its so ephemeral for everyone to make identical gear, throw it on the marketboard and see it turn into gil and thats that and back to the crafting menu again. Creations we care about, player reputations based on product quality and server communities are a way to make an already great crafting system even better!

Lastly, and i imagine this would not be that popular an idea, i would like to see more ideas worked into the 'well fed' system. I'll always look back in a "what might have been way" at an idea from the earliest days of WoW that was cut. Players would rest at campfires for buffs, make torches to light dark areas and eat to stay strong. Basic survival and nourishment systems that were really stripped back and largely forgotten. 

 But what if they weren't? Culinarians can make lots of different foodstuffs, Blacksmiths can make stoves, Carpenters and Botanists can get a campfire going. One of the comfiest feelings in FFXIV is settling down with a bag full of freshly farmed ingredients and cooking up lots of food as CUL or mixing up some items as ALC or working on desynthing some treasures as BSM. Imagine if they expanded on the idea of your characters resting and maintaining their health? Perhaps a food system where you starve and lose a percentage of stats and well fed that boosts your stats for a few hours? People could survive on buying lemons and bananas from the city vendors but those folks with high CUL or a FC friend who does could stay stronger for longer by eating more extravagant HQ meals. The demand for crafted items would increase e.g Sugar made by Alchemists or new pots and pans made by Smiths and the like. Systems like these would add more flavour to the world and really are no more intrusive than needing to spend gil to repair every few hours of combat or crafting.

I guess my big hope for Stormblood is just to use the Crafting jobs to add more flavour to the world and make it more like a real MMORPG like those shows i watched as a kid promised and less of a single player world where players are just passing each other by and never stopping to say helo and ask directions.

Maybe a hopeless thing to wish for, but a crafter can dream can't he?

Beyond Heavensward part 3: RDM and its possibilities

Fan Fest has come and gone and amongst all the reveals for Stormblood no bit of news has had people talking more than Yoshi P's shirt alluding to Red Mage being one of the jobs in the next expansion.
It could be a troll on his part and we are getting BLU or something instead but assuming RDM is soft confirmed the question remains: what kind of Red Mage will it be? because unlike jobs like Black Mage or Ninja RDM is a job that has had many incarnations in the Final Fantasies games and its spin offs. So lets take a look at a few possibilities for what could be the next Job you unlock in FFXIV!

Possibility #1: The "Vanilla" Hybrid. -  A true hybrid. Another Mage that uses a sword but still is largely based on rank 1 and 2 BLM and WHM spells. Listed in games past as a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" but ultimately in MMORPG terms not really exciting enough to warrant the resources for balancing, designing and so on for what is always going to be 'the not as good at its job' Mage.
Likeliness: Not at all likely 

Possibility #2: The "Mix master" Hybrid. - Seen more often in spin offs an titles like Bravely Default/Second this from of Red Mage is similar to #1 however as well as using low level BLM and WHM spells they can combine them to make new options eg a Fire 2 which afflicts the enemies caught in the blast with a damage over time fire damage spell. Could be an interesting way to let players take what they know in a different direction. Though ultimately in terms of time spent vs output its again not different enough to be a new MMORPG job in a game with BLM and WHM already.
Likeliness: Not likely 

Possibility #3: The Swashbuckling Dandy. - Most fondly remembered from Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy XI this form of Red Mage is a melee fighter. Using a Rapier, a Rapier and buckler or Dual swords this flavour of Red Mage is a swordsman with a musketeer meets colonial frontiersman theme. Fighting in close quarters and buffing/debuffing based on en spells currently used in game by all breeds of Beastman tribes this brand of Mage would still be using BLM/WHM spells but in different ways. Instead of casting Fire to damage an enemy you could cast En-Fire to light your rapier aflame and deal additional fire damage or use En-Water to increase your speed and add a hp regen. Still using the BLM/WHM spells in name but in an entirely different way. In previous talks about RDM Yoshi P stated "it will come should we ever add a support role" and assuming PS3 being dropped allows for far more engine updates its not impossible that BRD,MCH,RDM and others yet to be revealed could become a 4th role as support. With MCH being a ranged physical support and RDM being a close combat magical support.
Likeliness: Very LIkely 

Possibility #4: The Tanking Mage. - The wild card of the lot since most agree that if they ever add a Mage tank then BLU would take the role. Never the less the image of a rapier and buckler with limited healing and damaging magic does have the beginnings of a possible tank role for Red Mage instead. In FFXI a RDM with a NIN sub job became a popular tank build for solo'ing group content out in the world of Vanadiel and some are wondering if the same may happen again now to balance out another sword and board tank against the two two hand tanks and one sword and shield type we have now. A magic tank could be the breath of fresh air tanking needs however the team has said Samurai or Beast Master may be more likely to take the role next and as mentioned BLU inspired by characters like Raubahn feel like they could pull off the defensive up front mage far better.
Likeliness: Possible but not expected


 So thats the 4 possibilities doing the rounds right now. A lot of it based on assumptions of what the upcoming expansions 'combat system overhaul' will be but for we can only judge on what works in game, what roles are still unfilled and what doesnt overlap too much with others.
My personal opinion is that RDM is going for the Fencing support type and like NIN will be played less for straight DPS but for its utility it brings to a fight. Though bare in mind RDM was my first job in FFXI so with some experience of a FF MMORPG version of the job already working that may colour my expectations some what.

What are you expecting for RDM in Stormblood? New range? new role? or riding the Swashbuckler train right to the station?

We should know by the Japan Fan Fest but its always fun to speculate. Personally i cant wait, new Jobs are what brings me back time and again and i know i am not the only one.

Random 'King Crimson' reference here

-Which may also be a Vento Aureo reference, but in this case a little more of the RDM variety.

So. Stormblood. Its real. Its the expansion and it is coming in summer next year. Surprisingly still not for Xbox One, unsurprisingly however it is not coming to the Playstation 3. Square Enix is finally dropping support and as of the day of patch 4.0 attempts to load the game on PS3 systems simply will no longer work.
The good news however is from today till December 31st PS3 owners who have yet to upgrade will be able to do it now completely free of charge, including collectors editions. Which compared to Bungies "we will give you a bit of a discount but you need to give us more money" approach is very nice, though for a sub game i suppose it all evens out in the longrun.
Its a little sad to see the PS3 era end. To know the copy on my shelf is now just a disc with no use which is odd since i still have my "Vanadiel Collection" of FFXI and its first two expansions i can reinstall and play any time -for now at least- and it feels like the last vestiges of 1.0 are being put to rest in a way. Its officially a PS4 game now with a last gen version running on borrowed time for a few more months. Thats a strange feeling. Though with the PS3 hardware being around 12 years out of date it is a necessary thing. Last gen was the longest console generation in history and while graphics are entering a period of diminishing returns for increased polycounts the background numbers need more power to simply do more things and the PS3 was really holding the game back development wise, hell they are even suggesting you abandon 32 bit OS's on pc as well at this point. Hopefully this means bigger events, bigger areas and jut more freedom to add or change new systems.

Speaking of changing systems how about that "battle system overhaul" eh? half the internet thinks the games turning into Tera and the other half think its going back to FFXI like either of those will ever happen. Personally i think the dropping of the PS3 allowing for larger background changes means we are finally getting a 5th dungeon party slot for supports. Being BRD, MCH, RDM and maybe DNC. Since Yoshi P has mentioned RDM before and said "when we add support jobs" and lo and behold he made a big deal and taking off his hoodie and showing everyone his Scarlet Witch shirt this Fan Fest which isn't exactly the most subtle way of saying RDM confirmed as he did with a Batman shirt for DRK last time around. If RDM is support then at least 3 jobs could be considered as such which is equal to the number of current healers and could justify expanding the party system to incorporate a 4th role people have been desperate for since 1.0.
Beyond that all we know is that the Ui is now going to change 'based on Job' which may mean something similar to many UI mods for World of Warcraft that allow players to change their windows and menus to suit the theme of their class e.g a Druid has wooden looking windows with leaves around the border or something. Accuracy may be gone completely for Healers and cross jobs skills will now be a set list for each role to cut down on clutter and usless abilities. So if you are a tank you can select provoke wether you leveled up a Gladiator enough or not.

Part of this overhaul comes from the new level cap of 70. Which is gonna be a doozy if they increase the exp requirements too much, i still have 3 combat, 2 crafting and 1 gatherer below 60 and while not super hardcore im not exactly the most casual player either. Doing it all again is going to be a slog if it is a huge exp jump. Still with new levels comes new abilities and since this game is reportedly almost 50% PS4 users this raises concerns for button space on a Dual shock 4 to say the least. So they are taking a hard look at skills like featherfoot and armour piece to see if they would be better served as passives instead of an off GDC filler button that takes up space.
For those of us that came from WoW which became a victim of its own ability bloat leading to overzealous pruning, class homogenisation and extremely bare bones class identity by the time i and around 48% of the userbase quit all this news is a little worrying i'll admit. HW classes feel like they are in a good spot right now (even if i think PLD at any level is dull as can be) and the idea of a huge shake up is worrying since this happened a few times before in WoW and one day a class you loved would simply not play at all the same way anymore and it was no longer something you enjoyed playing which sucked to put it mildly. For now all we can do is wait and see.

Story wise its no surprise that this is a story heading into Ala Mhigo to help the Stormblood rebels fight off the Galean Empire. This time around the MNK job will be the focus as DRG was to Heavensward and so far we have seen a soft confirmation of Red Mage and some things suggesting Dancer and a hard confirmation of multiple jobs in the expansion. The new High Legatus enemy Zenos Yae Galvus suggests Samurai so thats also being talked about but i'm still on the fence with this one.
The new hub will be the Rhalgr's Reach which should sound familiar to anyone who levelled a MNK in ARR and looks like a larger, more ornate version of little Ala Mhigo where the forests of the Black Shroud and the deserts of Northern Thanalan/Paglth'an meet so right from the hub the choices of areas seem to be very north or south verdant or sandy in nature to choose. However the concept and live in game dev video showed areas of woodlands, swamps, deserts, mountains and sea. One image has been pointed out as bearing an uncanny appearance to the haunted woods from FFVI where players fought the Ghost Train which as you can imagine has players excited.

The new areas will be connected to Gridania via Gyr Abania and Bealsars Wall that has tantalised players since 1.0 will finally be breached leading into a swampy region that is now just as filled with Garlean constructions as Ala Mhigan ruins. The Garlean Empire has been in control for 20 years. Many have acclimated to them and the children dont know anything life but one under the heel of the Empires rule. The Stormblod revels however remember when Ala Mhigo was "The Shield of Eorzea" and want to route the Empire from their lands and retake their homeland for themselves and all the refugees stranded in Thanalan.
So basically what everyone expected really. Not exactly a huge surprise but a necessary step in the story and a chance to restore the human capital? i imagine Hyur players will be really engaged with this since i can't name another mmo where Humans have no land of their own to call home and i'm sure that resonates with the players.

Outside of the story and new Jobs we have Eureka, the Forbidden Land a more exploratory and 'jump in friendly' Diadem 2.0 with world bosses, Notorious Monsters and will possibly be used for the 3rd XIV Relic instead of grinding tomestones, which would be nice. To grossly understate it. Along with new Primals (Doomtrain and Magus Sisters are my guesses) and "At least as many zones as Heavensward" and flying is making a return along with the aether system used in Coerthas/Dravania.

Overall Fanfest gave a lot of announcements but not too much concrete information with Yoshi P stating "if i dont save some stuff for the JP and EU fanfests they will kill me" and promises a bunch of new reveals in live letters and even in game in the next two months. Personally i am thinking Yda will be given a more prominent role in Heavenswards final patches and Alisae will be revealed to be a Red Mage which naturally would raise the question "Red Mages are not Sharlayan Magicians so where in her travels over the last few years did she learn the art?" Perhaps she will introduce us in the next patch to the future RDM class trainer? or perhaps in XIV Red Mage are brand new and she is the first and will herself be our teacher?

Stormbloods reveal has left us with a lot of speculation and food for thought, but over the next couple of months a lot more infos going to come in, for now all the internet can do is speculate and wonder.

But thats always half the fun isn't it?