the big tell for me that he's claiming nonwhite status for extra diversity points is that he literally lists fucking "ella" as one of his pronouns in his twitter bio, and has his little Puerto Rico flag emoji next to a German flag???
He's only half puerto rican but because he's only half, he has to milk it to be part of the diversity crowd.
I'm pretty sure he wants to pretend like he knows everything about our culture and how we operate, but judging by what I've seen so far, he's more white than anything else.
As for everyone's doomer thoughts about the upcoming expansion, I'm going to be (perhaps foolishly) optimistic and just enjoy what I can from the new expansion. I care less about the story and more about exploring the new areas and such. As long as the story is okay enough than I'm fine. I'm trying not to let outside influences skew my view of the game. The game is originally japanese and even though the west is doing it's best to ruin it for everyone, I'm gonna hold out and not piss and shit myself over how much I hate this game.
He's only half puerto rican but because he's only half, he has to milk it to be part of the diversity crowd.
I'm pretty sure he wants to pretend like he knows everything about our culture and how we operate, but judging by what I've seen so far, he's more white than anything else.
As for everyone's doomer thoughts about the upcoming expansion, I'm going to be (perhaps foolishly) optimistic and just enjoy what I can from the new expansion. I care less about the story and more about exploring the new areas and such. As long as the story is okay enough than I'm fine. I'm trying not to let outside influences skew my view of the game. The game is originally japanese and even though the west is doing it's best to ruin it for everyone, I'm gonna hold out and not piss and shit myself over how much I hate this game.
I mean, how many times has everyone gotten exactly like this for every expansion so far, both before and after they come out? And then we all go back to being like "Well, maybe the last expansion wasn't so bad after all," or "Yeah, they all sucked but this other one sucked a little less".
Imma laugh if they pull a "ok this experiment to get everyone to be one cultural hodgepodge didn't work out" during dawntrail and all the races end up being separate but equal.
For all the pozzed shit you have to remember the developers are still japanese, they could just as easily go the other way.
Then there's the fact that the "disparate tribes unite under one banner" was the Aztec model (and the way they were united wasn't by feelgood politicking, so much so that even after the empire was formed their way of diplomacy was having warrior castes who would turn each other into paste with macuahuitls), so who knows if our dear king two headed lizard might not end up going the way of Moctezuma II, with everything that follows after.
That and countless examples in history of what happens when disparate cultures are united under one strong ruler and he dies (shit, just look at Garlemald) , far as I know the following power struggle isn't pretty in any of the cases.
The absolute fucking contrast between Endwalker and Dawntrail is astounding. Again, I have plenty of problems with Endwalker, but edgy dark writing is right up my alley. That’s why I loved shadowbringers so much. The fact that we go from an expansion about nihilism and the meaning of life, to one about a bunch of diverse island hippies that love peace and happiness, is so weird to me.
Endwalker was such a rollercoaster for me because you had moments like Garlemald, fighting Zodiark, and the final days which were kino, but then you had all the saccharine shit in between that killed the mood.
Personally would have been far more optimistic if the Maamol Ja, Viera, and Hrothgar were the natives of the new world while only a few representatives of the other races were there as explorers. Also not putting them all in the same tribe. The Viera tribe in Shadowbringers was more memorable exactly because it was all Viera.
Plenty of exciting stories you could do in the New world, but compared to the shadowbringers or endwalker trailer there doesn't seem to be that much plot going on
Oh I would not worry that much about the troon VA, you know how troons are when they get negative attention yet perceive themselves to be in a position of power, it's only a matter of time until they snap at the community in an aggressive manner and they get cancelled for it; not to mention there's plenty of "problematic for AAA" material in their timelines.
Shit these people are so fucking thin skinned merely mentioning "I've been giving the JP voice a try" might be perceived as a dogwhistle to them, great way to make them fall into utter lunacy.
The fact some people are already applying some pressure by speaking out instead of just keeping quiet says something to me.
Endwalker was such a rollercoaster for me because you had moments like Garlemald, fighting Zodiark, and the final days which were kino, but then you had all the saccharine shit in between that killed the mood.
Personally would have been far more optimistic if the Maamol Ja, Viera, and Hrothgar were the natives of the new world while only a few representatives of the other races were there as explorers. Also not putting them all in the same tribe. The Viera tribe in Shadowbringers was more memorable exactly because it was all Viera.
Plenty of exciting stories you could do in the New world, but compared to the shadowbringers or endwalker trailer there doesn't seem to be that much plot going on
Endwalker could’ve been very good if they went with the original plan of making it two expansions, and cut the useless fat out. (Like the loporrits) you can tell there clearly wasn’t as much focus on the final days as there should’ve been. What was there was really good, but it only happening in Thavnair and a small part of Garlemald was lame. As far as trailers go, yeah Dawntrail is extremely underwhelming in that regard. It doesn’t have anything going for it other than cool squeenix cgi.
I'm also giving JP voices a try. About to go into Main Scenarrio roulette. Let's see how this plays out...
Usually I prefer japanese dubbed media because I feel like the japanese are better able to convey emotions, especially during times where the situations demands intense passion. English voices just don't give me that same feel. Most of them try too hard to put on a show instead of just letting their voices naturally flow.
There are some legitimately good english VAs like Ben Starr (that scene where he says "I'll fucking kill you!" and when he starts crying at that one part at the end of the game) and the dude who voices Guts in the first anime adaption of Berserk. But most of them are just utter dogshit.
The tranny voice did not bother me too much, but then I will probably switch to JP just on principle.
What did grind my gear was that we had an dialogue option in a conversation with Graha along the lines of "I dont want to get involved in politics" but the very next choice is between "YES!" and "YES!!". Of course we will help the furry, but they made such a big deal about it being our choice, so allowing us to be a bit more hesitant would have gone a long way.
I'm going to wait and see if I'm going to get dawntrail. Honestly if most of the jobs are going to stay just as boring as they are in endwalker and the content cycle as sparse. I'm not going to bother.
I'm also giving JP voices a try. About to go into Main Scenarrio roulette. Let's see how this plays out...
Usually I prefer japanese dubbed media because I feel like the japanese are better able to convey emotions, especially during times where the situations demands intense passion. English voices just don't give me that same feel. Most of them try too hard to put on a show instead of just letting their voices naturally flow.
There are some legitimately good english VAs like Ben Starr (that scene where he says "I'll fucking kill you!" and when he starts crying at that one part at the end of the game) and the dude who voices Guts in the first anime adaption of Berserk. But most of them are just utter dogshit.
Ben Starr was a genuine shock. He never overdid it, and when Clive got angry, it sounded like he was genuinely angry. Those are the dub actors that video games need, not these shitty troons.
I understand that this is Kiwi Farms and all, but the reality is that you very easily could tell an interesting variant on this story, drawn in part from real-world historical analogue, in part from fantastic reimagining, and in part from various schools of geopolitical thought. The issue is that this writing team is not up to the task for it and has given no reason to believe that they sandbagged an entire expansion and its postgame worth of quests in order to save the "good" writing for the next one.
Friends hopped back into the game, so I decided to give it another go - helped along by Hildibrand coming out. I've started skipping the MSQ entirely. I've only once skipped quest fluff before, for the Eden line. It's unbelievable how bad and how amateur and how worthless the writing is. Zero is an autistic, retarded child who grabbed a fork and shoved it into an electrical socket, and this is supposed to be a powerful, moving, inspirational moment in which I learn, for about the 150th time this game, that Friendship Is Important. Characters will explain a plan, and then someone will - immediately - chime in with a paraphrased version of the plan. Five minutes later, we'll get a flashback to the plan and its paraphrasing. Who is this for? Genuinely, who is this for?
Fantasy is the perfect medium to explore the clash of different political belief systems, because you can remove it from real-world baggage, and you can load it up with interesting events and action and characters. If I tried to compare the US's demographic pyramid to literally any other western country on the planet, your eyes would glaze over and the numbers and the shapes and the implications would be wholly uninteresting.
If I instead use a fantasy scenario to explore that Ishgard has spent 100 years throwing its youth into a meat grinder, and as such has eroded its youth population; lacks anyone to maintain its infrastructure; is suffering the long-term consequences of graft and corruption on behalf of the church; is suffering from calls for protectionism because the influx of foreign goods is harming local merchants, who had to deal with the war economy's restriction to goods and market influence - I can have Aymeric and the WoL talk it out over a dinner and have the Scions - and acquaintances - chime in with different solutions, after which the WoL can spindle off on his merry way to explore these different avenues. While it is the case that the team doesn't seem to like the idea of branching narratives, and thus each 'problem' would likely have one 'solution,' you could at least expose different theories and show the broader interplay of how they work in a semi-realistic system.
Perhaps this new, largely uncharted land has a demographic pyramid that is a perfect opposite of Ishgard's - or other war-torn nations, like Garlemald - and it has a lot of young people idling about. The rush to develop the islands, but also to attract labor from the islands, to other corners of the world introduces plenty of opportunities for culture shocks, heads to butt, and sleuthy competition between competitive colonial interests - which can create rifts in the Eorzean alliance, owing to the fact that each nation-state is scrambling in some way for the various natural and human resources of the country. Throw in a precacious political system governing the islands, and an inept ruler, and you have a frankly stellar premise.
Look at the players we have involved already - Nanamo is an ardent believer in democracy, and may try to export the system to a land that has never known anything but a feudal system of governance; meanwhile the Syndicate might operate behind her back and attempt to exploit local connections and tribes, ensuring that any democratic budding quickly becomes a kleptocracy, with Hancock rationalizing the mixed advantages of democratic flourishing with autocratic stability, provided the right hands have the reins. Merlwyb, on about abandoning piracy and advancing into a mercantile state of globetrotting artisans, might feel a certain kinship with the local populations and encourage them to integrate themselves as irreplaceable components of a global supply chain - with Limsa as their chief liaison. Kan-E-Senna would have less than zero interest in any exchange of labor, and might stridently argue for an exchange of goods and cultural items - while attempting to stymie the influx of foreign competition... but she might also recognize the sanctity of the locals' customs, not unlike Gridania's, and encourage them to preserve their history in the face of foreign consumer imports. Aymeric's idealistic attitude might clash with the continuing realities of Ishgard's precarious situation, and so he might have to compromise his own personal code of morals in order to seek trade agreements that ensure landlocked Ishgard can benefit from trade with an overseas nation. Lyse and Raubahn, wary of any colonial powers' encroachment, might become aggressive with their erstwhile allies and impress that the locals above all else reserve suspicion towards the outsiders, and resist outside influence in the political sphere. Hien might take a similar position, but at the same time might be sympathetic to the plight of the island's people suffering under an inept monarch, and might make use of his considerable spy network to see if there weren't some better leader for the country waiting in the wings - while having to contend with the fact that this kind of political intrigue was necessarily self-serving, and not unlike Garlemaldian infiltration.
There's a lot that you could do, and you could tell a story from the perspective of a realpolitik stan, from an idealism stan, from an end-of-history apologist, from a clash-of-civilizations ardent -- and it could all be absolutely sublime. The what of a story matters far less than the how of it, and the FF14 team has had an entire expansion's run to prove that they stashed the only people who understand the how of storytelling on the Tataru questline and the Hildibrand one. So to say, I have no faith in them.
I assume it mostly applies to NIN and MNK these days - who have pretty clearly signed up to be gluttons for punishment. I actually know genuinely nothing about neo-SMN because it looks so fucking boring.
So I looked into this. In terms of double-weaving for uber-optimization:
PLD-2; WAR-1; DRK-7; GNB-3
WHM-Maybe 1; SCH-0; AST- (depending on draws) 6; SGE -0
MNK - 1; DRG -3; NIN - 1/2 (but a lot of pre-pull wonkery); SAM - 0; RPR - 1
BRD - 3; MCH - 4; DNC -2
BLM - 1; RDM - 4; SMN - 2
Of course, these don't take into account if you miss a cooldown or a phase causes you to pool up on resource that you might need to spend 2 of in a weave rather than 1, and it ignores other obvious difficulties of maintaining a rotation / positioning, but I don't really think the double-weave is much of a trouble for most classes. DRK and AST definitely have to put more in to get the same or less payout for it.
Endwalker could’ve been very good if they went with the original plan of making it two expansions, and cut the useless fat out. (Like the loporrits) you can tell there clearly wasn’t as much focus on the final days as there should’ve been. What was there was really good, but it only happening in Thavnair and a small part of Garlemald was lame. As far as trailers go, yeah Dawntrail is extremely underwhelming in that regard. It doesn’t have anything going for it other than cool squeenix cgi.
I didn't find the Loporits to be that bad. I did find all the shit with Hermes/his autistic bird/Emet-Selch/etc to be a fucking snore, though.
E: And agree with @Rich Evans Ayypologist about the flashback cards. I understand if we're talking about a niche NPC you hadn't seen since like ARR, but holy fuck I found the flashbacks to be excessive in Endwalker.
Eg,
"Hildibrand, you might be an alien."
2 minutes later.
"What are we going to do about that?"
>cuts to 'Hildibrand, you might be an alien' when dialogue gets to 'that.'
And yeah, I didn't think they could find a more obnoxious set of characters than Gaia/Ryne, but, boy howdy, do we have it with Zero and Meteion (with Graha Tia doing his damnedest to out-obnoxious the both of them.)
I echo your question on 'who the fuck is this for?'
Looking over Endwalker's story myself - as someone who honestly enjoys the story - I think it's safe to say that the story in general was undercooked. As stated previously, the story was clearly meant for two expansions but got shoved into one, and the pacing for the story suffers for it. There's plenty of points where it honestly could have been improved; the Loporrits, while admittedly pretty funny, often took up a bit too much time and grinded the pacing to a halt, on top of contrasting a bit too much with the overall story. The Elpis arc also had some pacing issues, and it feels like there just... wasn't enough time to cover everything.
On top of that, there was an awful lot of missed opportunities; seriously, why didn't we ever get to see Amaurot in its prime? Also, it honestly feels weird how Pandaemonium - a side area that's a massive shout-out to the final area of FF2, has a fairly serious villain, rather alarming lore implications, and would've made for an interesting connection to a few plot points from SHB - wasn't even mentioned in the MSQ. Similarly, we only got to really see 7 of the roughly 20 worlds the Meteia visited; what happened to the others?
He's only half puerto rican but because he's only half, he has to milk it to be part of the diversity crowd.
I'm pretty sure he wants to pretend like he knows everything about our culture and how we operate, but judging by what I've seen so far, he's more white than anything else.
Because they act these are elitist country clubs keeping the people down when it's more like friends picking and choosing people they want to hang out with.
I'm a bit disappointed that it seems Stormblood iss going to be the last expansion with a bit of realism when it came to ethnic make up of new areas and nations.
Like back in the day there were exceptions of course, but usually they followed certain rules
You were unlikely to find Roegadyn outside of Limsa Lominsa, the Lalafell were mostly found in Ul'dah, and most elezen would be found in Gridania or Ishgard, the latter being almost strictly hyur or elezen.
Now every area is a multi racial hodgepodge. You could perhaps justify some of it, the First was supposed to be the remains of the world all gathering in a tiny territory to escape the flood, Sharlayan is made up of scholars gathered from across the world,
but my suspension of disbelief is being shattered a bit by having to learn that the new world, which is supposed to be so remote that barely anyone knows anything about it, is apparently entirely multi racial and so accepting of foreign cultures that they
adopt a language based on that of eorzea and have multi racial families. I long for a bit of consistency
There's some weirdness in the setting like Ul'dah used to be ran by a Hyur dynasty or that the New World aesthetic does exist in Gridania/Ronka (machuatls use to be their "sword" of choice). Honestly, what I always found weird is the naming conventions are tied to race rather than regional cultures. And to be fair, Tural is less "uncharted" and more "rediscovered". I do feel concerned that they are blowing their load again with the zones.
Looking over Endwalker's story myself - as someone who honestly enjoys the story - I think it's safe to say that the story in general was undercooked. As stated previously, the story was clearly meant for two expansions but got shoved into one, and the pacing for the story suffers for it. There's plenty of points where it honestly could have been improved; the Loporrits, while admittedly pretty funny, often took up a bit too much time and grinded the pacing to a halt, on top of contrasting a bit too much with the overall story. The Elpis arc also had some pacing issues, and it feels like there just... wasn't enough time to cover everything.
On top of that, there was an awful lot of missed opportunities; seriously, why didn't we ever get to see Amaurot in its prime? Also, it honestly feels weird how Pandaemonium - a side area that's a massive shout-out to the final area of FF2, has a fairly serious villain, rather alarming lore implications, and would've made for an interesting connection to a few plot points from SHB - wasn't even mentioned in the MSQ. Similarly, we only got to really see 7 of the roughly 20 worlds the Meteia visited; what happened to the others?
There's a theory that elements from Pandamonium was originally going to be the disaster that caused the Final Days. They might explore more dead worlds but at the same time, I wonder if I really want to know because the mystery makes them more engaging. Say what you want about Todd Howard and how he's handing TES but he might have a point about never wanting to reveal the true fate of the Dwemer.
On top of that, there was an awful lot of missed opportunities; seriously, why didn't we ever get to see Amaurot in its prime? Also, it honestly feels weird how Pandaemonium - a side area that's a massive shout-out to the final area of FF2, has a fairly serious villain, rather alarming lore implications, and would've made for an interesting connection to a few plot points from SHB - wasn't even mentioned in the MSQ. Similarly, we only got to really see 7 of the roughly 20 worlds the Meteia visited; what happened to the others?
I have a feeling that the Firmament clone for DT is going to touch on some of those 20 worlds. Either resettling things or finding out that, ackshully, Twitter was wrong and some things did survive on a world or two.
I have a feeling that the Firmament clone for DT is going to touch on some of those 20 worlds. Either resettling things or finding out that, ackshully, Twitter was wrong and some things did survive on a world or two.
It has to be that something survived. Otherwise it's going to be very hard for them to find new people for us to interact with now that we've totally jumped the shark and gone to the end of existence. I think it's easy enough to say, if they wanted to introduce a new world, that it's one Meteion and her sisters missed. I'm sure they broke before visiting every possible civilization in the universe.
What I wish they would revisit is the ghosts in Ultima Thule. We are spending all this time and effort to make these fake memories happy but do they live forever? Will they have dreams of wanting to grow beyond their little plot of land? Can they use Dynamis to create children or do they need to come to terms with being the last of their species until they too fade and disappear? Can they even survive beyond the absolute limit of the universe where Dynamis isn't so strong? Either they answer these questions or they will have to find an excuse to introduce new aliens.
