#cannot wait for Dawntrail

[diamondangelkitten]

Junelezen Day 4: Departure

Soon!

Soon it will be time to take to the road once more.. Time for a new land, new challenges, and new adventures. At least she never has to do them alone.

[totallynotwaffle]

to everyone (like, three people) wondering about how good ffxiv's cosmic exploration content is:

i spent 14 hours basically exclusively working towards upgrading my alchemist relic tool. during that time, i discovered for the first time how expert crafts worked and also was forced to do them while on a time limit, complete multiple on a time limit, complete absurdly stupidly, nearly triple the normal thresholds for quality & progress without expert craft bonuses, complete expert crafts WHILE ONLY HAVING 20 DURABILITY MAXIMUM, and also completely reorder my hotbars on controller in order to accommodate finally requiring crafting actions i literally never touched due to them being chance-based. my brain hurt multiple times whenever i did these in a row, and i'm still 2 steps away from having the relic tool for alchemist.

i recommend this content wholeheartedly to everyone who even has a passing interest in crafting. jesus fuck i have not had this much fun with this game in literal YEARS

[thanatosaria]

🥰

[ffxivaltaholic]

Hiatus

Hello friends! With Dawntrail tomorrow I am taking a short Hiatus from Tumblr to avoid spoilers. Like many of you, I do not have the luxury of taking time off work right now, and I like to progress through at a slower pace so I can get as much lore/dialogue as possible, so aside from anything pre-qued, I will be inactive most likely for the first week or so of the launch. I may also have much less to post until mods are back up and working, but I might play around with some vanilla ideas a bit.

I will not be posting anything spoiler related for a bit as a courtesy as well, since not everyone will have the same tags to be blocked.

I hope you all have a fantastic experience, laugh and cry with our favorite characters and I will see you all soon! I look forward to seeing your writing, screenies and memes when I get back.

~ Che

[eorzeanflowers]

now that its been nearly a full day since the last fanfest, i'm just gonna put my thoughts on Dawntrail as a whole out.

Jobs

Viper is cool. I like the idea of another scouting class. I'm a ranged phys main so sharing jewelry with another job is a plus.

The aesthetic of Viper is really really cool. I love the swashbuckler look that the AF gear has. I cannot wait to put Marisol in something similar. The twin blades into a double blade is also very appealing. I used to play Sith Assassin and Jedi Sentinel in SWTOR and its like a marriage of the two.

So in conclusion, Viper is just cool and its gonna be a lot of fun to play. Just like how Reaper is pretty fun to play still.

BUT Pictomancer is just more exciting to me. I LOVE RELM so much. Its been forever since I played VI so I might go do that sometime.

AND THE SPELLS ARE SO CUTE. They look so fake and painterly that I just can't help but fall in love with them. The AF gear is also so cute and I cannot wait to put it on Lily.

Archie is also going to main this class (I had decided that before the reveal, when it was still in the air between green mage and pictomancer.) Its so cheesy and cute and goofy and feels like it would fit my Doctor Who-like character a lot better than the raw powerful Black Mage.

Pictomancer is just gonna be good healthy goofy fun and its the job I'm more looking forward to!

Fem Hrothgar

I'm so so so so happy that they went big and buff over cutesifying Hrothgar. Cause we know they could've and it would've not looked good at all. I'm still not the biggest fan of the dimorphism of Au Ra. (even tho I main one. ^.^;)

My biggest complaint with Fem Hrothgar is that their starter gear looks so much better than all the others. Like the wrist guards! They look sooooo good. (I also really dislike Au Ra starter gear, that doesn't help.) But you can see the new graphic update with them and just their general design feels better than the OG 5. I felt this way a little about male Viera, but I was not super likely to make a male Viera so it didn't matter to me that much.

I don't know if i'm gonna make a Fem Hrothgar... They aren't my style per say, but I'm not gonna keep that door closed. I'm not the biggest fan of more animalistic faces, but that's a personal problem.

All in all, they look fucking fantastic and I'm glad they went the route they did.

Graphic Update

It looks great and its gonna be good when we get it. I'm very glad they actually showed us dark skintones this time too. They all got such a glow up! Can't wait for the gear to follow.

Now give us more character creator options for everyone, and hats for Viera and Hrothgar!!

Tural

The areas look really pleasant, I do like the whole brand new adventure feel. Its a lot better than the feel of the start of the void quests, that kinda had the same feel but got a little dreary once in the void proper. I dunno. Even as a fan of IV the Void Arc was kinda, meh. I like Zero and Golbez as characters, but the rest was kinda whatever. The world lore was also good but eh.

The new zone designs are just breathtaking. I'm the biggest fan of the Western town and South American highland zones. They are just so different from what we have currently it will be great. Solution 9 and the cave zone (that appears to be under it) are.... really fucking cool. Its so far away from what we were expecting I just can't help but be estatic. (And I can take pics of the Linnaeas twins' home shard there. Since I headcannon it as a cyberpunky shard.)

The dungeons all look pretty neat, I like the thunder crystal mountainside the most so far.

Its gonna be a fun story I think, a nice palette cleanser from the heaviness of Endwalker.

The Arcadian

I have no idea what to expect from a raid that is taking place inside a graphics card. By name alone and the fact its in the cyberpunk area does give me good hope. :D

Vanadiel

As I haven't played XI I'm indifferent. It'll be a fun raid and I'm likely going to enjoy the fights, but its just another FF in XIV. Pretty standard tbh. It'll be fun and I'll enjoy the story but there is no anticipation for me.

Ultimate Eden

Its gonna be bonkers and I'm gonna enjoy watching the full fight once its figured out. (I'm not a savage raider lol)

Other Content

The field zone has potential. Since we know nothing else, that's all I've got. I did miss having a field zone in Endwalker tho. It was the perfect place to while away hours working on relics. (let's hope the next relic grind is as tedious as just gather tomes.)

Cosmic Exploration is going to look flashy and great, but I don't do a lot of crafting/gathering so I dunno how much I will enjoy it past its story. Its gonna just be relegated to going there once in a while like Island Sanctuary for me likely.

Deep dungeons are only fun the first time solo and ok with friends later. I've completed both PotD and HoH but my friends still haven't finished EO so....

Hildebrand is Hildebrand. Perfection in humor form.

I will likely enjoy the Variant dungeons, I've enjoyed the first 2 (haven't done the newest cause I was taking a break from the game) and I like the lore that comes with them.

I can't think of anything else really rn but those are my immediate thoughts! Its going to be fun and refreshing and I cannot wait till summer to play it. (tho we must)

[grahatialiker]

I'm gonna make a rare personal post about my year because idc anymore it's my blog!!! under a cut though in case it gets long and looks uggo mode

if you clicked to read more HIIII I hope your year is ending peacefully. I wanna just put this here where maybe I'll look back and find some strength in knowing I was actually fine after going through the worst time of my life

I said goodbye to some people I loved, some of them I never got the chance to say goodbye to, some of them I don't want to talk to. I don't really have it in me anymore to care whether or not anyone hates me and casts me as a villain in their lives. I'm too old and it doesn't make a difference to me. anyways back to MEEE it wasn't all bad! I met some new friends, reconnected with some I had lost touch with, I tried a lot of new things and had a lot of fun (I went on a bar crawl on Halloween with friends I dressed up as mimikyuu and got compliments I felt so slay), I finally took the step to start printing and selling my art and I'm gonna keep working on doing more. I guess it's pretty common for a lot of people to fall into a kind of slump after they finish college (I never posted about that did I!!? I got my bachelor's last winter, I didn't even stop and think to celebrate that) and I'm still figuring out my career path, whether that means going to grad school or whatever I end up doing.

Even in grief, I learned a lot about myself and what I want and don't want in my life. I disappeared online completely for a month or so, I left spaces that only brought me down and then I built myself back up again with my own two hands. I'm kind of just like recounting my year in a way to contextualize it as not being pointless, because it wasn't! I just have a tendency to feel that way, especially around winter when the Seasonal Affective Disorder hits. I have hope for the future to be better and I'm excited to see it one day

If any of my friends or family read this, I love you and I can't even express how important your love and support are (AND ALSO MUTUALS TOO you are all so real and I appreciate you so much, even if we don't talk I still see you and I am happy)

[andromedawebb]

Being a healer main the whole way was worth it to see my girl drop her starglobe to just punch this guy to death I fucking love Endwalker

[transmiqote]

god i love zenoswol so much I Love Them So Much

[assumptionprime]

Finished 7.0 last night!

Overall I like Dawntrail! The stretch from the Rite of Succession finishing kind of limply until the dome appears is an awkward transition, but it picks back up.

Also figured out what I was bothered by with Sphene it's not just that her goal is similar to Emet's, it's that the two are thematically the same idea. They are both trapped in their inability to let go of the past. The last area in 5.0 and 7.0 are going through recreations of their worlds as they knew them, the final dungeons are both fighting through a recreation of how they ended.

And I'm not even an Emet-Selch fan, but... I think Emet did it better. And this is partly because I hated him as a character for most of the time he was there.

I know it has its flaws, but I really like Stormblood, especially the patches. I was really invested in the storylines of Doma and Ala Mhigo, and in the story of Garlemald. Ghimlyt Dark, the meeting with the Emperor, it's great. Then there's Emet-Fucking-Selch. He comes in and reveals that the colonizing, fascistic empire was actually founded by an evil shadow wizard specifically to be evil. Lame. Lame! Humans will make fascist evil empires all on our own! We don't need shadow wizards to convince us to do it!

So then we're whisked off to the First and the Garlemald story gets screeching halted for us to go deal with another dimension and Emet-Selch. He gives speeches about how we mortals are terrible and do awful things to each other and it's all pretty undercut for me by the fact that he and the shadow wizards have been behind every major antagonist so far. Eventually he's hanging around in the party being catty, and that's fun, especially since its extremely clear he's gonna be the final boss and I get to kill him. Cannot wait. I still saw him as the symbol of this diversion away from the story I was invested in.

I tell you all this so you understand that it's a real turnaround when I say that the ending of Shadowbringers *hits* for me. We walk through the nostalgic grief-diorama of a man who has stewed in his loss for ten thousand years, he shows us how he lost everything he loved, and how he'll stop at nothing to get it back. We even get a glimpse into it that he didn't intend, when his recreation of Hythlodaeus reveals that he knows. Emet apparently thinks very little of anyone, but we meet the shade of someone he knew so well, thought so highly of, the he could not help but think that even his shade would figure out what was happening. It's a hint, the lightest touch, to imply and reveal so much about him. There was a real Hythlodaeus once, and however telling this shade of him might be, we can only ever see the shade. We can never know who he was, what their world was truly like. It's all gone. And that's why Emet-Selch is like this.

Emet-Selch, and by extension most of the Ascians, become actual characters here. Up to this point they were cackling evil wizards who only knew how to cast Ultima, eat hot chip, and lie. But now they're doing all of this to bring back their world. Their people. They put forward the whole "we have goals beyond your mortal comprehension" front, but Emet has let you behind the curtain to see who they really are. They're grief, nostalgia, desperation.

And as soon as he's become a person, it's time for him to die. There's no way around it. You both want to save your worlds, but saving yours means damning his as surely as resurrecting his means damning yours.

So you have your massive over the top Final Fantasy boss fight, strike the killing blow, and he turns from the giant monster sorcerer back into a man, and asks you to remember him, his people. That once, they lived. You know that memory is all he's had for all this time, it's the most important thing to him.

I hated him! I hated the story he was in! And then they made me like him! At the same time I killed him! What an incredible feat of writing!

(I hope they don't undercut that excellent ending for Emet and the subtle tragedy of Hythlodaeus by bringing them back for a whole zone next expansion)

Sphene is a well done character, I like her. But on top of being the second exploration of a character that will destroy the world because of their inability to let go, she doesn't have that turn from hate to sympathy right at the end that makes Emet stick for me.

[delta-chan]

Thoughts about Dawntrail map six

Needless to say, very heavy spoilers beneath the read more!

I was initially a bit wary of Living Memory's telegraphed "reverse Ultima Thule" structure until I got the prompt that the scenery would be irreversibly altered at the first terminal. I panicked because like a lot of people I thought "oh nice, I'll come back here later for some nice gpose shots". That this beautiful place would have to be taken away for you to progress was almost incomprehensible to me and in that moment the genius of it clicked. It wasn't just a reverse spin on Ultima Thule's structure--it was a reverse spin that was going to back it up to an extreme.

The ephemerality of life is something FFXIV has touched on many times before, including as one of the chief themes of Endwalker. But while in Endwalker this was on a grand scale as a part of radical acceptance as a whole, Dawntrail's second half explores this idea in a more focused, intimate fashion. While the WoL has no one they are close to that they can engage with in an experience with like Erenville, Krile, and Wuk Lamat--they have the environment. And being that you're the person behind the WoL with an investment in that environment on some level the finality of moving forward hits you like a sack of bricks.

I spent a lot of time being kind of awed by this--it's a very, very solid gimmick. I sort of paused at the first prompt going "haha there's no way, right…?" before going "wait" and immediately setting out to take a bunch of quick shots. That place wasn't going to exist anymore, and I wanted a memory of it. That beautiful place--a painstakingly detailed and gorgeous bit of gpose bait if I've ever seen it--wasn't going to exist if I wanted to move on. It was… weird. I took so many nearly identical shots trying to get perfect ones because there was only ever going to be that moment. In the future there'll be new game plus. You might have alts. But in that moment, experiencing it for the first time... it's… really effective. Startlingly effective.

The fact that when I was watching the map introduction and thought about how Living Memory was an almost tailor-made gposing space (and let's face it probably is for exactly this reason) that I would have a lot of fun taking screenshots at later made me think about how many other people thought, are thinking, and will think the same thing not knowing that they're taking it for granted. Who would...? It's absurd. Why would the map be altered to such a degree that it'd be rendered gone all but in name...? It hasn't happened before. So why would it happen now? Why would it even come to mind?

And the thing is--even if someone warns you, even if you're spoiled, even if you have someone fly you from place to place--the terminals are still going to have to be shut down eventually if you want to move forward. You cannot keep it. Living memory is made to be seen once then destroyed by your own hand.

I mean--at the end of the MSQ I thought, perhaps naively, that Living Memory was going to be restored because the threat was resolved. I mean--everyone's gone. There's no need for the environment to stay gone as well, right...? I mean, they put so much loving detail into it!

Wrong.

In the immediacy of when I first finished Endwalker during its early access I wrote that I never wanted to return to Ultima Thule because it creeped me out. The map was emotionally fraught, and my first experience with it was being released into an incredibly dark map with a discordant soundtrack, jumping out of my seat at another player passing by. But returning to it for hunts and the Omicron quests I saw it for the vibrant, beautiful place that it was. It changed for the better and stayed that way.

In spite of how much I've talked up Living Memory's beauty and how much it inspires the drive to capture the moment before it leaves you, it's also far more disconcerting than Ultima Thule from the very beginning in an altogether different manner. Living Memory is something that you want to be that shouldn't be. Both in the context of the MSQ and as a map in general--you want to take screenshots, you want to linger, but the unchanging weather effect and languidly pleasant music begin to push against you if you stay too long.

When everything's said and done Living Memory becomes a featureless husk that now has natural changing weather. At night there are motes of light, golden remains of the once oppressive reminiscence. And in the background as if being piped from distant speakers, the languidly pleasant and slightly warped BGM echoing through the nothingness like an amusement park's PA system playing music for no one after closing for the last time.

It's something you didn't want that needs to be.

[loleeja]

Obsessed with this preset made by Shifter!

I cannot wait to start my adventure in Dawntrail! I know I'm going to jump right into the story on my bard.

What are you planning to do first?

[the-littlest-kojin]

The Journal of Shio Shinju: A New World To Explore (Dawntrail, Journal II)

Spoilers through MSQ, "A New World To Explore"

I write presently, sitting in the hold of a Sharlayan ship, bound for Tural. Some weeks have passed since my last entry, in which I have done all I can to prepare for the voyage. Vena is in the hold with a supply of Gysahl Greens to keep him in fine fettle, and Shui, Kit, and Vul are all remaining at home, under the care of my family - I may retrieve them later, but I did not want to risk them on the dangers of a first-time voyage to a new land. Upon reflection upon the rite of succession, I remain reserved about my opinion of Wuk Lamat's honesty - but she at least seems willing to learn, which is a sight better than most in such situations. While ordinarily I would learn the combat art of whatever land I went to while on such journeys, a most auspicious happenstance occured to me in the intervening weeks, in the streets of Ul'dah. I met a stranger in the streets, carrying dual blades. Calling himself a viper, he was willing to teach me the monster-hunting art - and as my katana had been fitting ill in my hands of late, I accepted. Keshkwa, as he called himself, was happy to teach me the style of his home - Tural. His monster-hunting prowess was genuine, able to track and lead prey with practiced ease - and that is to say nothing of his style of combat. I watched the fight, and even in his hands instead of mine, his swords sang to me. Immediately, I knew I had to find out more. Apparently, the viper arts are meant to hunt "tural vidraal" - "those who cling to the earth" - which seem to be… Auspices, given over to their aramitama. I will need to do additional research when the ship makes landfall - I confess a deep curiosity for the respective differences. Vipers, as a whole, are named after snakes, small and venomous, capable of laying low the mightiest of beasts with their relatively small fangs. Holding the swords - twinfangs, he called them - I could feel them sing to me, like nothing else ever had. Even with them currently stowed away in my pack as I write this, I can feel the wrapped leather hilts in my hands, the phantom of the training I went through in the intervening weeks. Even my katana - beloved, a gift from my family, blessed by the lord of storms himself - was only ever a pale imitation of this. I am… Concerned. I worry that my family will feel that I am turning my back on them. That the long hours they spent training me with katana and samurai arts will be tossed aside if I take up these new arts. But I cannot deny the pull that they have on me. Just watching Keshkwa perform his hunt filled me with a sense of belonging, so impossibly profound that I cannot possibly transcribe it fully - I can only hope that my family does understand, as I hope they might. On another topic, it seems that the peoples of Tural go by different names than those I am used to from the Three Great Continents - I was familiar with Xbr'aal from Wuk Lamat, but there are others worth noting. Biologically, what the Three Great Continents call Viera are known as Shetona, Miqo'te are known as Hhetsarro, Hyur as Tonawawta, Vanu Vanu as Hanuhanu, and Goblins as Moblins. (Note: Ask each peoples for their own self-identified names at the earliest opportunity.) Wuk Lamat still seems to reflexively lie in times of stress or duress - including about innucuous things, the deceit around which serving her no purpose at all. I am given to understand that we are pulling into port soon. The idea of a new land makes my blood sing with excitement - I cannot wait to see what there is to see.

[shivapvoid]

blinks. i feel like i went through every range of emotion while fighting gundam catboy. i cannot believe me fucking around with yojimbo in gold saucer for so long during the wait for dawntrail helped me with this one's mechanics. i really cannot believe that

also :

he is for sure a zenos shard no mistaking it. his red eyes resembling resonance during transformation? his fuckass samurai tactics?

also his blonde hair. and he also loves to fight. you cannot convince me that this isnt a zenos shard

[lysehext]

okay well. jesus fucking christ. that's enough for today. it's late to start anything anyways i got work tomorrow. jesus fuck. what the fuck. i cannot wait for dawntrail i need this shit to be FUN. REMEMBER WHEN PRIMALS WERE OUR BIGGEST ISSUE? YEA.

[astralfrontier]

The Dawntrail expansion to Final Fantasy XIV seems to have split the community as far as opinions go. I want to talk about one thing I think they nailed, at least for me. Spoilers for Dawntrail so click through if you care.

Zones 5 and 6 of the story introduce Alexandria, a kingdom from another reflection - essentially a parallel world. A bunch of Alexandria's lore is drawn from FFIX, and what we see is essentially a cyberpunk future of that game's world.

The Alexandria we meet has been dimensionally fused with part of Tural, the South/North America analogue of FFXIV. Their society is built around the use of a substance called electrope, and their citizens wear "regulators" based on this tech. A regulator does two things: it brings you back to life if you die, using stored souls, and it removes your memory of those who have really died.

If you read that and think, "wait, where do those stored souls come from?" the short answer is "conquest of the surrounding areas", facilitated by one of the expansion's tragic bad guys, Zoraal Ja.

The thing is, the Alexandrians as people seem really nice. As individuals, they're not bloodthirsty warmongers. It's just that their whole system is built around this theft of souls, and they're afraid to change it. Their ruler, Queen Sphene, is also one of the Endless - an uploaded individual running on advanced computers, and also powered by souls. She loves her people and is unwilling to abandon the use of regulators, even if it means killing the rest of the world, and it's stated that she's essentially compelled to do this as part of her Endless nature.

So what do we have here?

A technologically advanced group of people with European-flavored culture landed in the equivalent of South America

They seem nice, and as individuals seem like they want to get along with Tural

However, the system that makes their lives possible is literally stealing land and souls from Tural itself

This is not fucking acceptable

The protagonists rightly see this as monstrous, but still try diplomacy and communication until it becomes clear that the system cannot be ended without bloodshed

As a player, I'm being asked to look at colonialism head on. The story asks us to empathize with the Endless, but not so much that we let them continue at the expense of the living. The Alexandrians can't sustain their lifestyle without stealing from Tural. The system they live under has to be ended.

[this-is-ris]

I am grateful I was able to upgrade my PC in advance to enjoy my viera in HD

Peeking at how cute the new job gear looks too, cannot wait for Dawntrail!!