#ffxiv 1.0 sylphs

[before-calamity]

Moonspore Grove

One of the places I didn't get to visit during my first batch of exploring was Moonspore Grove just because walking there took forever. Moonspore Grove is basically the home of the bad Sylphs in ARR, and where they reproduce. And I was actually surprised about what I found, past these two rocks. Read on for more pictures of Moonspore Grove.

So even positioning your camera behind these rocks you can see some structures. You see their little banners and these things that look like bleachers or tents, which are just decoration.

And in the middle of it, a giant shroom. Possibly untextured? Honestly, I can't tell. It looks out of place though.

Other than the fact that in ARR the air gets a lot more purple, this is kind of similar to how the grove looks.

You obviously can't get to the shroom, which would require jumping, which you can't do in 1.0.

Still. It's very different than the usual copy paste mess that we see elsewhere, or in some places, nothing at all.

[semi-imaginary-place]

ffxiv msq finishing 5.x, 6.0

they really should built an airship landing in revenant's toll

whoa the speech patterns are way different between japanese and english for the kobolds. like in jp they have a very distinctive cadence but no repeating of phrases.

there REALLY should have been an aetheryte in the hinterlands. the sharlayan colony isn't that old and they must have had an aetheryte. is the ones in churning mists and everywhere else are still there

wow all these cutscenes. well isn't squeenix rolling in shadowbringers money

ug is it me or are the dugneons getting harder. it's taking me several attempts to clear now. why does everything give me vuln stacks?

damn the sirens have a welfare system. pension, maternity leave.

having sahagin and kobold in the office that don't get a single line of dialogue is weird. also no way they wouldn't meet in neutral ground and would go to the heart of limsa.

wow g'raha is worse at this than i thought how are you so bad at acting.

the writers really did forget that limsa lomisa is a lalafellen name

this is a good culmination of arr's themes. a story about diversity set to the backdrop of beast tribe hatred was always one of the more interesting dangling plot threads. like yeah limsa signed a treaty than blatantly broke it to take more land. takes land i prommy we won't take more proceeds to take more.

fandaniel wants to destroy the world for fun. we cut his leash. truly the absurdist hero/villain. bruh doesn't have a reason he just does things. zenos doesn't really have a goal or morality either he just wants to fight the pc.

eng leaves it out but jp implies there's multiple lunar bahamuts

why did uriange go to garlemald. is he good at infiltration? it seems like the devs are just pushing Thancred's and Urianger's partnership

aaaahhh i dont want to do bozja. aaaaaaa i want bozja lore so bad!

i'd say this is a death flag for arenvald but the devs got cowardly and stopped killing off characters a while ago

ah fanboy g'raha is back

could we porxie tiamat?

a lot of the dragons have allegan control collars we gonna do anything about those.

we're already here why not investigate the tower. ew flesh dungeon

i once again like patch content more than expansion content

double tempered

with garlemald crumbling and tempering reversal things are looking up for the sylphs. the whole reason they summoned ramuh was garlean encroachment in the forest. which was a slightly different reason than a lot of the other tribes who were warring with the city states.

well hydaelyn has been weakening for a while that was in 2.x. did we ever figure out if the blessing of light was tempering. hydaelyn weakening was why ascilia got hiveminded to begin with which is why i was surprised when her soul stayed on the first reincarnating as the minfilias i thought she needed to be a part of hydaelyn for hydaelyn to continue. then again hw about when we heard from hydaelyn last maybe she did weaken significantly from minfilia leaving which begs the question why have minfilia merge to begin with if she leaves right after.

damn they got disowned. in public in front of a world leader and their friends. brutal.

once again reminded that i suck at healing. "roleplaying"

man i remember pre ew launch. i loved talking out of my ass and saying the moon was going to hatch again just like in 1.0.

the whole aetherisight costing y'shtola's lifespan plot point was totally forgotten

might just be better to kill the other tower captives to stop the summonings even if they are innocent.

6.0

why is estinien coming to sharlayan. not much he can help with in sharlayan better to have him dealing with or the rest of the mess or something like the towers or garleans.

all the scions are moving as one group. this is a stark contrast to arr through sb where they'd separately work on different projects. you can tell this is because of changing developer vision. The devs now want to develop a main cast so they're giving them screen time all together even when it doesn't make sense. Not all of them need to be here especially with multiple problems in the world.

wow look at that animation budget in the intro. there's the crystal mommy twitter was simping for. i thought hydaelyn had run out of juice this is the most physical she's been. giraffe neck!

estinien doesn't even have a visa he should not be here. bruh just say adventurer it's not like they have access to the adventurer register. we really shouldn't have brought him along.

wow sharlayan has all the important places open to the public like the forum. in eorzea you can't go anywhere like gridania's glade.

i know it's because male viera weren't released until 6.0 but it's so funny that the lion's share of the world's city viera bunny boys are hanging out on the frozen scholar island.

so many books outside yikes

really urianger isn't researching? why bring thancred, him and estinien all the way to sharlayan only to immediately send them to thravnir they could have departed from eorzea. this doesn't make sense between sending urianger away from his specialty to bringing estinien to sharlayan. the devs jsut wanted everyone together for dialogue because the characters are popular when it doesn't make any sense or match the scion's previous methods. like literally uranger, thancred, and especially estinien put in all the time and effort to travel to sharlayan only to immediately leave in the opposite direction. wol is so useless for the sharlayan side. should have swapped with urianger but the devs wanted the player to be able to explore. should have just used the roleplay system

noahs arc. that's the forum's plan. stockpile resources and what not to sustain an underground population.

look at all that voice acting budget.

zoology nerd erenville.

well isn't hydaelyn feeling chatty after 4 expansions.

aaand then my game crashed and i lost all my sidequest dialogue.

new writers forgot about coils and the twin books. idk how to feel about the twins not using the paired arcanist books since it fits so well with the summoner scholar class split which is unique in the game. there's the significance of their grandfather giving them the tomes too and that they are specifically 2 halves on a whole. but the narrative of each twin growing into their own separate person is nice too it just feels awkward given the significance place in arr. i think this is another case of new writers having differing visions than the old.

Moen mention, off to thravnir. Is what I'd say but the game crashed again and my free login is up

[gatheredfates]

Gonna be honest, coming from WoW where the story was absolutely jank and you could breeze through entire expansions by the time Mists of Pandaria came out... having a cohesive story to follow that stayed with you no matter your level was SUCH a breath of fresh air.

Could it be contrite and drag on? Yes, absolutely! I personally found the fetch quests before Titan an absolute snooze fest that still influences me levelling alts or thinking about replaying ARR to this day. I'm glad they cut out a lot of the chaff at the end because a lot of those quests (except for the sylph one, I'm still devastated by that) were not necessary and existed as padding while they set up for Heavensward.

However, on the whole? I loved ARR when I first played. I was obsessed. It's pretty much the same for anyone else I've spoken to or helped through the game. I think about the payoff at the end of Titan. I think about Edda and her story. I think about all the lore they built and developed around the calamity and all the storytelling they had to weave into a world broken from 1.0. I think about how accessible FFXIV's lore is in contrast to where I came from. ARR is not a bad expansion; it is simply weak in comparison to the writing that has come after it. To say otherwise diminishes just how good the other expansions are. Without ARR, those concepts wouldn't be built.

People like to rag on ARR and Stormblood because they're narratively weaker whilst taking no time to consider the systems and development put into those games that were not only good, but influenced the later expansions. You cannot tell me Ivalice wasn't a fun raid, for example. Thunder God did not need to go as hard as he did.

People on the other Blue Bird of Despair site are disliking Dawntrail and calling it Stormblood, makes me want to see what the consensus on each story chunk is.

So, I figure a weekly poll should be good. And where better place to start than the latest patches available to the gaming public since 1.0 isn't anymore?

In hindsight or just in general, do you like A Realm Reborn and its content. Whether it was in the past or as it is now with flying, "Trusts", slight streamlining of the story content, change to Post-ARR, addition of mandatory Crystal Tower raid unlock, the changes to Lahabrea's, Cape Westwind, as well as Steps of Faith fights and other QoL upgrades its tangentially gotten over the years?

[levinblossom]

Favorite FFXIV OSTs meme

Created by (and politely yoinked from) @whitherliliesbloom (Original post) Thank you for putting this together!

Rules are simple. List your top five FFXIV (and ONLY XIV) OSTs from each category and any honorable mentions if there are any! It’s not necessary to rank them if you aren’t able to. You’re also free to add any comments or list any additional soundtracks that may not fit any of the categories listed! Then tag as many friends as you wish!

In no particular order,

Top Five Dungeon Soundtracks

Descent (The Dusk Vigil)

The Scars of Battle (The Lost City of Amdapor)

A Light in the Storm (Pharos Sirius)

Tricksome (Wanderer’s Palace [Hard])

Revenge Twofold (3.4 boss theme)

Honorable mentions: The Warrens (Snowcloak) | Silver Tears (Keeper of the Lake) | The Open Box (Shisui of the Violet Tides) |  Alienus (Castrum Abania) | A Pall Most Murderous (The Ghimlyt Dark) | Deep Down (Malikah’s Well) | Shadows Withal (Akadaemia Anyder)

So many excellent dungeon themes, so little time.

Top Five Trial Soundtracks 

Thunder Rolls (The Striking Tree)

The Hand that Gives the Rose (Thok ast Thok, 1st phase)

Revenge of the Horde (Final Steps of Faith, 3rd phase)

Beauty’s Wicked Wiles (Emanation)

Good King Moggle Mog XII (Thornmarch) (Yes, unironically)

Top Five Raid Soundtracks 

Unfortunately irrelevant because I don’t really do raids. Oops.

Top Five Location / Area Soundtracks 

A New Hope (Ul’Dah’s day theme)

A Curious Breed of Botherment (The Sylphlands)

Painted Foothills (The Dravanian Forelands)

Fealty (Coerthas Central Highlands)

Nobility Sleeps (The Pillars night theme)

Honorable mentions: Whisper of the Land (1.0 Black Shroud/Slitherbough/Fanow) | Drowning in the Horizon (The Azim Steppe) | Lyhe Mheg’s theme

Top Five Beast Tribe Soundtracks 

Flibbertigibbet (The Sylphs)

Far From Home (The Ixal)

Heavy Rain (Vanu Vanu)

Mogmender theme

Seven Hundred Seventy-Seven Whiskers (Namazu)

Top Five “Other” Soundtracks 

Breaking Boundaries (Job quest battle theme)

The Firmament crafting FATE theme

When A Tree Falls (Fieldcraft leve theme)

The Mikoshi theme (Namazu mount theme)

Prelude - Discoveries

Tagging: @verbroil and anyone else who wants to give this a go.

[before-calamity]

Buffs and Debuffs

Okay, no idea how this is going to go given I'm still relatively new to Tumblr, but here's a very quick look of some buffs and debuffs that you can receive in 1.0. I'm not sure which ones are actually in the game and which one's not. You'd probably need to click to expand each one. This is going to be a lot dryer of a post than regular ones as we pore through black text on white background, because the real horror is data analysis.

In this first one, you'll see Thamaturge and Bard effects which we'll look at later, as well as things like Gold Lung and Goldbile, which are effects from Aurum Vale. There's also an effect called Red Riding Hooded, where you "don a red riding hood as per Chuchumu's request", which might be relevant to XI's old costume system, as well as one effect where you "tote in intact sylph podling" ala the Sylph beast tribe quests.

Oh! And Sanction, which does its ARR ability of simply providing additional benefit (I believe it's in ARR. I know it's completely different from the XI version. Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

In this next set are some Gathering and Crafting ones among a few buffs that are able to stack together, like Power Surge or Life Surge. You also see Double Nock and Triple Nock which I'm not 100% if those were actually in game.

As well as some mysterious removed ones~.

And interesting enough, you have spells that modify your level. Which is interesting, because that hasn't been a mechanic in any Final Fantasy except for the best one, Final Fantasy 5, where there were a lot of Blue spells that would modify your level or a monster's level.

I believe "Comradery" and "Strength in Numbers" are basically similar to the Echo buff you have in FFXIV raids.

Here we have a few interesting ones. I think some of these are either from cut spells or were leftovers from XI. Then some that would break the game like Reraise, unless an NPC casts that on you. Or things like Shell, which was in XI but is not in 1.0 (unless it was planned for it).

Even tohose Absorb Stat spells are from XI, and they are here, and even translated. Why? Absorb-STAT were Dark Knight spells in XI, was Dark Knight in its more XI form (or something similar) was planned for 1.0 at some point? Remember that XI and 1.0 ran on different engines, with 1.0 using a modified version that XIII ran on.

Our last batch.

Here we have some GLA/PLD or MRD/WAR attacks, as well as some things related to Battle Regimens which we'll get to at some point.

The top four - the Incapacitation infliction are interested - what is damaged beyond use? Usually the game uses "incapacitation" to mean that you as a PC are knocked out - this makes it sound like your gear is incapacitated. Something like Couerl Step sounds like it'd be a PUG/MNK action but as we'll see soon (please look forward to it), it isn't one.

Anyways, I hope you found this interesting. I know it's not one of the most visually interesting posts, but it's been on my backlog to post for a bit, and it just needed it done.

Happy Halloween! (And yes, if you are curious, Pumpkin Cookies are in 1.0, I just don't have a picture of them at this time!)