Sage advice

 This is a long overdue blog post that was delayed both by thesis writing, and all the playing around I did. All to gather stuff to write blog posts about. 5.5 dropped on the liver servers, 9.1 the prodigal patch FINALLY appeared on the WoW PTR and of course there was a new class released for Black Desert Online.

It is a funny one too. Remember how Endwalker will introduce a classy caster who wields floating metal tingies, called Sage? Well BDO released a classy casters who wields floating metal tingies, called Sage. That's right. Of course the BDO Sage is pure DPS and is a tad more ancient than the futuristic looking Sage from Sharlayan. The default character looks a lot like King Leonidas from 300. A surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one. An older, traditionally masculine character in a korean MMO happens like, every third blue moon.

Inspired by the dude being an ancient mage, I tried to make my best Emet-Selch impression. And proceeded to.....have a lot of fun actually.

Now I have to say that I don't actually like BDO that much. The interface is a disaster, everything reminds you that there is an in-game cash shop that you SHOULD use and they don't really give you any reason to care about the story, or any of the characters you meet. Supposedly professions are fun and you can build your own trade routes and shit. But my GOD is it tiresome. I do believe it is a great game who like this sort of experience. You can ignore the plot and just enjoy the action combat, the character creator is very detailed and the visuals are great from a technical standpoint. But the game isn't really for me.

However. I did try six classes, and Sage was definitely ammong the ones that are fun to play. Kinda works a lot like Doctor Strange. Lots of portal, energy patterns and sexy explosions. It wasn't stupidly overpowered, but it was strong, and the spell effects were a sight to behold.

So if you like open world action combat monster yeeting and can't wait for Endwalker to roll a Sage, this might be a good way to pass the time. Those who like BDO will definitely enjoy playing the Sage. Later it can be awakaned to be a Dragoon.

(My favorite was the Hashashin by the by.)

Final Fantasy XIV: Deathflag unto dawn

Welcome back everyone. Normally we would have already had a nice blogpost about patch 9.1 of WoW, but it is still not ready. It should land on the PTR a little over a week from now. So instead let us look at another patch. Granted 5.5 isn't done either, but we've had a live letter that gave us a trailer and additional information. In short, it is going to be epic.

But you aren't here for the short version. You are here for the long one, so let's freakin go.

The trailer begins with something that sounds a lot like my new favorite track, I'm curious where it might be placed. Definitely not the new Dungeon Theme. Paglth'an is the home for the nomadic Amal'jaa, so a banger rock anthem wouldn't fit.

Next we have Fordola returning and giving Alphinaud a forceful shove. If we haven't done much side content we didn't see Fordola since Stormblood. Quite a lot of late Shadowbringers feels like Stormblood. It makes sense though. Before G'raha spirited us away we were fighting against the Empire, more specifically Zenos and Asahi. Now we are battling the Garleans again with Zenos and Fandaniel in Asahi's body as the main villains. I'm glad Fordola is joining us. Fictional wars are often black and white. We have clear good guys and bad guys. Also often the bad guys are ugly to make sure you identify them. Such was the case in Lord of the Rings, is in WoW, and 90% of the cases it is also true in Star Wars. So what happened with Fordola? Well Ala Mhigo was always a complicated place. The Eorzen Alliance was first formed to combat Ala Mhigo and its Mad King. They were seen by the continent at large as agressors. Pretty much everyone was glad when the king was overthrown by a rebellion. Problem is, one of the key figures of said rebellions was Gaius van Baelsar undercover. The leaderless tired Ala Mhigo was easy picking for the Empire. A lot of people fled ironically enough to the territories they used to threaten. And the people who stayed? Some supported the Garleans, some didn't. Fordola's father was the former. Unsurprising when you have a wife and a small daughter. People aren't prone to unnecessary heroics if they have a lot to lose. Of course the more rebellious people took issues with this and stoned him to death. Actually they wanted to stone Fordola (a girl of less than ten years) to death, but she was shielded by his father. This of course didn't endear the rebels to her. But Gaius supported her, so she was loyal to him. But no matter how hard she worked she was always treated as a second rate citizen due to many Ala Mhigans rebelling. This of course just fueled her bitterness. But she would help them without hesitation if they were in danger of being tempered by Primals and she were their only hope. Her story is amazing. And the same can be said about Alphinaud. When first meeting him he was a self important obnoxious twerp. This changed gradually as fate likes to punch him in the face. First his arrogance and naivity got all his friends murdered and him framed for the deed. In Heavensward he spends his time traveling, gathering firewood and doing all that adventuring entails, just like uneducated poor people. We also learn that he can't swim, he took up drawing classes to impress girls, he has no sense of finances due to his sheltered upringing and he is terrified of ghosts. All of which later becomes a plot point by the way. Some of them more than once. And the universe is not done with him. After the Fordola shove we see him trying to heal a soldier before stopping and punching the ground in frustration. Dang. Well serves him right. He is still an Arcanist, which is a base class. We know from Endwalker that he will pick up Sage, the new healer job.

By the way. This whole paragraph? It was about the first half minute before the title card.

Next we get another mix of the Bozja theme as we get a glimpse of the new area for the relic weapons. Zadnor isn't in Bozja proper. It is a plateau between Bozja and Dalmasca. It is there we will have the final battle with the IV Legion. More specifically on their airship which houses the Guard Scorpion from Final Fantasy VII and recurring boss Cuchulainn, the bane of everyone not irish. I think he is supposed to be called koohooolain. The Bozja series is interesting. I haven't gotten far, so most of what I know is form cutscenes, but that's beside the point. A recent interview revealed that 50% of players do Bozja. That is a pretty good number for an optional content. Because it IS optional even if some people don't realize it. Relic weapons are there to give a needlessly overpowere weapon for those who don't raid or do Savagre raids. Still, the exclusive story draws in many people. It is content like this that makes me hope that whenever FFXIV ends and the servers are shot down (an event that will not happen soon considering FFXI still receives content updates) it will be converted into a single player game without server issues and the meta to hold it back.

Next the scene cuts to Carteneau, the single most important place that never became an open world zone.

We also have more of Fordola who now talks with Estinien. Although it should be noted that trailers like to manipulate, by placing voiceovers onto different scenes. Likely Fordola is still talking to Alphie as I doubt a jaded dragoon like Estinien has a narrow idealistic notion of what a hero is. Also a warning, if you haven't done so yet, go play Final Fantasy IV. Or watch a walkthrough. Or just read one at least. But least do it. Endwalker has so many IV allusions, it is not even funny, and it shows in 5.5 as well.

We also get a nice glimps into the new NieR raid. And I say NieR raid instead of NieR Automata raid as one of the bosses is a shade from Reincarantion. Funny how this comes out so close to the NieR Replicant remake. Coincidence? I think not. The story implications for fighting a giant version of the machine network avatar red girl are interesting to say the least. Yoko Taro loves to mess with people and I wouldn't be surprised if finishing the raid once wouldn't end the story. All I know is that I will grind the fuck out of the Devola glamour outfit.

We also get a good look at Diamond Weapon as it casually dodges and kicks missiles. This time our mission is to capture the weapon instead of destroying it. The Sorrow of Werlyt storyline will end as we try to rescue at least one of Gaius' orphans. Again a great story that humanizes past villains and gives us more imperial areas beside the usual boring castrums. I just hope the end won't simply be: A sucession of more capable characters sacrefice themselves so that the cute one can survive. It is a trope I hate with a passion.

But let's go back to the main story. Things are really getting close to a breaking point. Remember Tiamat? Bahamut's wife/sister who let herself shackled due to guilt and wants to stay alone untill the world is ending? Welp the world IS ending and Estinien will go to tell her. She will join the fight against Lunar Bahamut. Remember what I told you about IV? Well Lunar Primals appeared in IV: The After Years. Joining Bahamut are Lunar Ifrit, Lunar Ravana aaaand...

Fuckmothering Lunar ODIN! If everyone was ever in the Black Shroud when the colour drains out of everything, they know what a big deal with is. Odin is a monster. I once had this happen to me while I was in the Sylphlands, an already dangerous part of the place. In fact I won a halloween story contest when I wrote down what happened. THAT Odin is now powered up. Granted we know that Odin is just a convenient transport for Zantetsuken the true Primal. No Idea how Lunar Primals function, but this will be quite the fight. Interestingly he is fought by Thancred and Urianger in this scene. So is he a solo duty boss? Who knows?

Speaking of things we don't know, Zenos is in the palace trying to pick a weapon out of a pile of surprisingly advanced looking ones on the ground, One of them might be a scythe, but we can't tell from the angle. Oh speaking of which, during the Live Letter Yoshi's shirt really looked like an angel. Maybe a fallen angel? A weird cross between an angel and the grim reaper.

And since we are taling about dead things, the final and most enigmatic shot of the trailer shows the Warrior of Light at Silvertear Lake visited by a glowing ghost. Some think it looks like a hooded figure, so every ascian, or a long haired female, like Minfilia or Hydaelin herself. The important thing is that Silvertear Lake still has a mistery. Something is at the bottom of the lake. Something that Midgardsormr had to guard, and we still don't know what that is. We were promised an answer in Shadowbringers.

5.5 is going all out. We thought 5.0 to be a satisfying finalee. We believed the same for 5.3 and now 5.5 seeks to outdo them all even though it is just a lead in for 6.0. This two part finalee is a work of art. One thing left to discuss. The title of the patch, Death Unto Dawn, a lot of the scenes showing people downed by Lunar Primals, and the sometimes desperate voiceover suggests that somebody will die. Hell there are people who believe that all Alliance Leaders will perish. I wouldn't go that far, but considering what we are up against, things were running way too smoothly. My money is on Raubahn not surviving.

Sin(noh) City

 Okay I don't know anymore what's going on. Just as I finished reporting on the three new Final Fantasy VII games that aren't Remake part 2, we get two new Pokemon games announced, and a new trailer for New Pokemon Snap, a decidedly more peaceful pokemon game. Although if I were a wild animal I wouldn't appreciate being pelted with fluorescent dyes and woken up by music. I guess I need a Switch as well. How much do they cost again?

It seems it is Sinnoh year because both games are set in the Sinnoh region. I still think Kanto is the region with the most appearances though. Let me see. Red, Blue, Yellow, Silver, Gold, Crystal, Fire Red, Leaf Green, HeartGold, Soul Silver. That is ten. Sinnoh has had three so far and now we get well three more, because one announced game is a pair. So that is six. Kanto is way ahead, but Sinnoh is now second place. Oh I'm done I forgot the original Green version plus Let's go Eeveee and Pikachu, So three more to Kanto I guess?

The paired game I mentioned is of course the Diamon and Pearl remake. As usual the third version didn't get one. Confession time: It always bothered me that Gold and Silver got a Crystal version while Diamond and Pearl got a Platinum version. Wouldn't the opposite made more sense thematically? Anyroad say hello to Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. There aren't many details yet. It won't look like recent 3D titles. It is closer to a remaster. If we get any new gameplay modes or Mons or region forms, we don't know yet.

And now for the more interesting, but potentially more problematic entry.

Pokemon Legends Arceus on paper sounds like a game I would make. It's Sinnoh, but it is set in the past, where everything looked like Feudal Japan and you used steampunk poke balls. And the player characters totally look like ninjas. Sounds like high quality Pokemon fan fiction, minus the bondage that is included in pretty much every Pokemon fan fiction (take a note Gamefreak). Also the title kinda suggests, that if this go well we might get other Pokemon Legends games. Again, gameplay info is sparce. We do know that we can capture mons without battle if we want and if we are good enough. We also know that the starters are old mons we are familiar with, but not ones we had in Sinnoh. Rowlet, Cyndaquil and Oshawott are starters from Alola, Johto and Unova. But now they are here. Oddly enough Piplup is a wild Mon now. Outside of Go the only starter Mons you can encounter in the Wild are Pikachu and Eevee. Maybe we captured all the wild ones by the time Diamon and Pearl comes? That doesn't sound familiy friendly.
But what concernes me is that a Pokemon Professor will send us on a journey to fill the first ever Pokedex. I'm sorry, what? Professor as a title doesn't sound era appropriate to me. More importantly, Professor Oak invented the Pokedex much much later. Maybe this is just some marketing nonsense and you will complete the PokeScroll or whatever, but I did wince when I read anachronistic stuff like Pokedex, Professor and research. I like how the game looks, the base concept and the promise of more RPG elements. I have concerns nonetheless, but this looks good. I will keep an eye on this project.

Final Fantasy VII Trinity: Intergrade, Ever Crisis, First Soldier

 Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. February is a gift that just keeps giving. We began with Endwalker and now we have a whole bunch of other Final Fantasy news. And it also proves that SE considers the Final Fantasy VII compillation its most valuable IP, because all three new games are related.

The first one is called The First Soldier. And odd one out in the series that is not something C. This will be a mobile battle royal where you play, well one of the first SOLDIERs. So according to this game the SOLDIER project was in full swing even before the JENOVA project was launched and lead to Angeal, Genesis and Sephiroth. You have regular dudes with no alien DNA but a truckload of Mako infusion who fight it out around Midgar in whatever training Shinra deems necessary. It's less plot than what you would expect from a Final Fantasy game, but this is what it is. An excuse to fight others in Midgar. Also if you are wondering, this is still the old continuity before the remake. We know this because....

We are going to get another mobile game. That one if Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis. This is a weird one. It will go over the entire story of the compillation from TFS (not team four star) and Before Crisis (formerly a Japanese only mobile game) all the way to Dirge of Cerberus (poorly received shooter featuring totally not vampire Vincent Valentine). Supposedly it will be chapter based and you can decide which chapter you want to do regardless of completing the others or not. Even with that it will be hard to follow the chronology as events often overlap. There are two pivotal points in the story. The Nibelheim incident (Sephiroth going crazy) and Meteorfall (the endgame of the original Final Fantasy VII).
Before Crisis is like a B-plot where the Turks do their own thing behind the scenes. It begins before even Crisis Core, but has the Nibelheim incident about halfway in and the endgame is during Meteorfall. Crisis Core is pretty straightforward. It ends a little bit before Final Fantasy VII, although it always bothered me that it suggested that only a few hours pass between the two, but Tifa already arranged from Cloud to have a job with AVALANCHE. Anyway things go on smoothly untill the end of Advent Children. Apparently we will be able to play the events of AC which is amazing. Then you have the arleady mentioned Dirge of Cerberus which begins during Meteorfall. Or at least shows it during the opening, but mostly it is after AC. Ever Crisis will cover it all, and supposedly will even include extra stuff. Like the early years of Sephiroth. Now I must stress that we never got the chance to play as him. In fighting games, yes, but never in single player games. I don't think I want to see him struggle with sahagin and cactuars as a fresh recruit, but this mighth be a good chance to give us a taste of true power and provide extra content.

And now for the largest and most controversial of the reveals: The PS5 version. Now obviously a PS5 version is no surprise. It looks even better on the PS4Pro and runs faster. Okay, it takes advantage of the new hardware. Nothing wrong with that. BUT, because there's always a but. It includes something that made many people upset and rightfully so. A PS5 exclusive DLC. Yes, you can't even by it on the PS4. You have to upgrade to an out of stock console to play the new story confent. Now adding payed DLC is bad enogh when you cut down what used to be a full game into god nows how many parts that each cost as much as a full game yet don't give the same whole story or the open world feel. But making that story DLC platform exclusive is just wrong. Admittedly it is an ever greater incentive than the graphic updates, but I sincerely hope that Square Enix reconsiders this idea and makes the DLC available for PS4 players as well.

But enough about this, I'm not the Money Hungry Corporations Vampire. I am the Lore Vampire. Let us look at the DLC itself. Episode Yuffie.

In the original timeline and game Yuffie was an optional party member that you didn't have to recruit, but if you didn't you missed out on some very cool stuff. Like the cutest and funniest Gold Saucer date, or the whole Wutai questline. In my first playthrough I was worried that she won't be strong enough if her stats are too low, so I only gave her materia that boost stats. This ended up turning her into an unstoppable monster. Good times. She isn't very popular in the west due to her age appropriate behaviour and her initial mistrust of the party that includes several members of the company that turned her homeland into a theme park. But she appears in every installment of the compillation so she probably has a strong fanbase in Japan. Now I already mentioned in a previous blog entry how much I like how her foreignness is portrayed. It is an important plot point and crucial to her character development. Which, in my oppinion, the only way to portray exotic characters. I mention all this because most of what I like about Yuffie seemed to have disappeared in the timeline of the Remake. More on that later. First the good part:

So one thing is for sure. Yuffie looks amazing. And I don't mean it in a pedophilic weeb way. Look at pictures and videos of episode Yuffie and compare her looks to Advent Childen. The hair quality alone improved a lot. She also seemed to have aged up a bit. Not surprisingly her combat style also changed. In the Original she was strictly ranged, but one giant shuriken that works like a boomerang doesn't translate well to fun action combat. So now instead she plays a bit like the TERA online ninja. She jumps, she cuts and mows down everything. The animations look great. Interestingly enough one of her attack aninmations include mapple leaves. A much more original choice than the cliché sakura petals.

Storywise we are looking at a B-plot much like Before Crisis, Yuffie comes to Midgar to steal some kind of special Materia from Shinra with the help of AVALANCHE. But not the AVALANCHE we know. This is a different cell. We do see the main gang from afar, but we don't join them. This by the way is set during Cloud's time in the slums with Aerith. We get to see what went on the plates. Frankly this is a great idea. It expands the world, but it is no big deal if you miss it. We don't know how long the DLC will be, how many chapters it will cover, but I would hazard that at least two. For one, Yuffie starts the game wearing a moogle costume as a disguise, but in several scenes she is seen without it. Plus while the story begins near 7th Heaven there are many scenes inside what is most likely a Shinra base. And what is inside that base is even more interesting. Yuffie will have a run in with Deepground, the main enemy force in Dirge of Cerberus. In the original timeline they were deep underground, hence the name, and only managed to climb out after Midgar was devastated by Meteor. Apparently things will be slightly different here. Then again in DoC it was Vincent and Yuffie who did most of the fight against Deepground, so it makes sense for her to encounter them.

Now on to the bad part. Oh dear. So in the trailer Yuffie introduces herself to us and AVALANCHE as an agent of the Wutai government. This might be a lie, but considering Heidegger mentioned that he needs an excuse to attack Wutai, we can at least infer that they are not a theme park in this continuity. Which is kinda problematic. While there are many different places in Final Fantasy VII it still has a more or less western aesthetic, and Wutai stands out. Of course Don Corneo's mansion also has asian elements, but it was always assumed to be from Wutai as well. Now in the original Wutai wasn't far eastern just to be cool. It was a plot point. Because it was different, Shinra decided to turn it into a tourist attraction which of course angered the population who used various methods to restore them to their former glory. This was the motivation of Yuffie as well. She didn't just steal materia because she was a kleptomaniac. She wanted to use those to arm her homeland. So now Wutai is a completely free state with an active government. Okay. All the heroes of the Wutai war didn't accomplish anything at all, Wutai's difference is no longer a plot point and both Yuffie and her father Godo lost their motivation. So far so good. Speaking of Godo. In the original she was acting on her own and her relationship with her father was strained to say the least. Godo was the Suzaku to Yuffie's Lelouch. But even though he does not openly fight against Shinra he still cares deeply for his home and for his daughter, But Yuffie only learns this when she finds the courage to stand up to his father and the strength to beat him in battle. This shows how much she has grown both as a person and as a warrior. Growth is very important. If you start with a cool character and don't go anywhere, you end up with Rey. And I fear that the new direction Nomura and his team are taking Yuffie and Wutai will deprive her of just that. What made either of them great in the original is changing. Obviously Wutai will look amazing on screen when we get there. But looks without substance won't make another classic. Nomura should understand this as he worked on the original. I'm worried, but I will keep an open mind as we learn more.

Diablo IV - Going Rogue and the Rising of the Shield Hero

BlizzConline was underwhelming to say the least. For those who are satisfied, I'm happy for you, truly. But I personally was disappointed by everything that wasn't the Diablo IV class reveal.

The Rogue returns from Diablo I, but as a combination of the D2 Assassin and the D3 Demon Hunter. It has the unique ability to pick a specialization, which is why it can pick shadowmagic or traps or combos. The name of the game is versatility. You can create the Rogue you want. I will probably go with shadow magic as it looks and sounds cool, but who knows? Maybe I will do several.

But this leaves us with an interesting question. What will be the fifth class? There has to be a fifth. Both II and III had five classes at release and two more with expansions. Let's look at it from a few angles:

Diablo very much  uses class archetypes. The Barbarian is pretty self explanatory. You also have a spell caster with sorcerer, sorceress, wizard and now sorcerer/ess again. D1 also had an archer archetype with the rogue, that evolved into a bow and spear using Amazon in D2. In Diablo III the archer was the Demon Hunter, a mix of the Assassin from D2 and an archer. This became Rogue again. As this show, new archetypes emerged and got mixed with each other, especially since D1 only had 3 classes, while the later games had 7. Assassin was the first martial artist, that became Monk in D3. The Druid was the shape shifter that didn't appear in D3 but returned in D4. The Necromancer was the dark spellcaster that split into two for D3. Witch Doctor and Necromancer. Last but not least we have the Knight archetype. Sure in D1 it was a rather vanilla Warrior, but already it was carrying a sword and shield. Paladin was obvious. A holy knight. The same was true for Crusader, but sword was replaced with flail. It is that line I hope to follow up.

Another way to look at classes is with weapon types. Barbarian dual wields weapons or swinging two handed ones. Sorcerers obviously use staves and wands primarily and so does the druid. One of the reasons I was sure we would get some kind of archer is that no class used bows as a primary weapon. And how can you not have bows? Now let's look at the remaining weapon types. Despite them being a very basic part of any fantasy arsenal, we don't have a shield user. And as you remember, the Amazon in D2 used polearms. Well neither before nor after we had a dedicated polearm user. Even Final Fantasy only has one of those. So a shield and polearm user woul be nice. Did we ever have one of those?
Tirck question. This was the Diablo 3 Templar.

And this brings us to another way to look at it. No Diablo game was released without a new class. Diablo Immortal is a different animal as it is kinda a mobile spinoff of D3 and because it is planned to be an MMO with probably way more expansions and content updates than a regular Diablo game. And no I will never stop asking for Xiansai. But back on topic: Diablo 4 revealed four classes so far, with two taken directly from D2, one from D1 and one that is the mix of D1 and D2. You know, Sorcerer and Sorceress are the same, but previously they were gender locked. So not only did we not get a class that references D3 but we only have classes that were playable before. Templar fits both with it being an NPC class from III.

And if it weren't obvious enough that we need a templar, a holy knight that is still dark and cynical enough for DIV that is new enough and fills the weapon void, we also need to consider armor. Barbarian and druid are both more primal characters that wear skin, fur or nothing. Sorcerers will obviously wear robes and rogues rely on speed and mobility so anything more than leather would be a hindrance. Maybe very light metal before Shad jumps at my throat. But all of these classes would look riddiculous in full plate armor. But for the Templar it is the obvious choice.

So get ready for the Templar reveal. Or rather me being completely wrong. You will have fun either way.

World of WarCraft 9.1: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

 Helllllloooo and welcome everyone to a little BlizzCon discussion. This year Blizzard revealed all the stuff that was leaked before, and not much else. There was lots of padding and recap and repeat, but we did get some juicy stuff.

First, we got some new info about the Jailer. Or rather promis about new info about him. In case you are not playing WoW or not at level 50, we are talking about this guy:

Yep, he looks scary and has a deep voice. But that is pretty much the full extent of his villany. He was originally somebody else, but he betrayed his fellow death pantheon members by doing something so he now has to guard the Maw as the Jailer. Every soul entering the Maw makes him more powerful, which is a pretty major oversight. His end goal is unknown, but we assume he is bad, cause he looks like a bad guy, He wants to prove that death was not ment to be chained, whatever that might mean, and for that he needs four keys, one from each covenant leader, who are reluctant to give up their keys.

That's all we know. Oh and he was behind the Lich King and the Burning Legion because he needs a lot of dead souls to grow in power. Now this whole mystery villain with vague goals act can work in some cases. If you have a central villain and another one just chilling in the background pulling strings. Like Solus in Stormblood. Or if you want Lovecraftian horror, like with the Reapers in Mass Effect that only worked untill they took the center stage and the game revealed their origin and purpose.
Lastly if you want to deconstruct the fantasy genre or certain tropes, like the wise mentor (looking at you Jade Empire and Kotor II). But WoW isn't trying to be clever. It never did. It has always been generic high fantasy operating on Rule of Cool. And in stories like that, a bad guy like the Jailer does not work. We haven't even heard of the guy till 9.0. So for me it is fantastic news that we will learn about the Jailer's goals in 9.1. Maybe I will finally care.

Speaking of people I have a hard time caring about, Anduin will be undergoing some change. Good for him. So far he has been blandly idealistic, nice and strong in the Light. Doesn't sound like a compelling character all in all. And every drame he might have had was mostly explored in tie-in novels. But now he is undead (looking) and evil. Ooooh. Guess Hearthstone was right.

Considering all the bad he did so far was punch Wrathion once, this wasn't really a logical next step for his character. This was forced on him by Sylvanas and/or the Jailer for shock value. And it might not be more than that, considering he is not actually evil. In the patch cinematic it was the Jailer speaking through him. It was like Harbinger in Mass Effect 2. When the Jailer's control wasn't that strong, Anduin looked horrified at what he has done. He is obviously still struggling to be his old self. He will at the very least get back to normal when the Jailer dies. Of cours he will likely stay undead looking unless they pull out some very lame fairy tale bullshit. But what can we do with Zombie Anduin?

1. Be the new Jailer in a repéat of Illidan's fate at the end of Legion.
2. Be the new Lich King in a repeat of Bolva's fate at the end of Wrath.
3. Just carry on as if nothing happened.
4. Co lead the Forsaken with Calia as a colossal fuck you to Horde players.

Each has its own flaws and merrits. I would have left Anduin alone personally, but we'll see. Perhaps his character will benefit from this little episode. Much like the Jailer, he needed some reason to make us care. We'll see if this is it.

Endwalker story rant

 Hello everyone and here is another blog entry about not BlizzCon. Have to throw these out as BC is less than four days away and after that gaming media will focus on them till the Fan Fest in mid May.

Anyroad our current topic is the story of Endwalker. Of course with Endwalker wrapping up a story about eight years in the making it is hard to talk about it without spoling everything before. So I won't even try to avoid that. Seriously, don't read after this point if you haven't reached patch 5.4 and maybe want to play the game. Gonna put in the logo just so you don't accidentally read spoilery stuff.

Sooo where was I? Ahh yes, the story. So one of the strengths of the FFXIV story is that not only are the expansion stories connected, but those connections usually make sense and neatly connect with what you did previously. If you are a fan of the Matrix series you are likely familiar with the scene where the Merovingian ruins the pacing of the Matrix Reloaded by talking about causality way too long. Well causality is important here. So what happened since Yoshida took over?

In 1.X the Empire attacked Eorzea for enlightenment, or cultural genocide, depending on your view of the Empire. Good old fashioned warfare didn't work, so Legatus Mulan van Darnus decided to grab the effin Moon and yeet it into Eorzea, Pretty straightforward. But, to the delight of Star Wars fans, Dalamud wasn't a moon. It was a space station. With a very pissed dragon inside. Things went tits up and it took a five year timeskip to make thing normal again.

In 2.X it turned out that all that moon grabbing and dragon release unearthed some interesting things. Like way too advanced ancient superweapons. Midget version of Gordon Gecko really want those for political reasons, so monarchs are assassinated, allies are betrayed and the Hero is forced to flee to the only place not affiliated with the Empire or greedy midgets.  That place being Ishgard, a theocracy at war with dragons.

In 3.X in exchange for refuge you help Ishgardians end the war with the dragons, which includes peaceful talks with those who listen, and murdering those who don't. Very democratic. Anyway the very evil and very strong leader of the bad dragons is killed. Things is, dragons store their power in their eyes. Instead of squishing them we just throw them into a bottomless chasm. Turns out the chasm had a bottom where the badguys found the eyes and gave them to a revolutionary who used them to attack a border with the Empire in hopes of starting a war. The war does get started and since you can't stop it you go there and make sure the war is won.

In 4.X you do a very good job fighting against the Empire. Too good in fact. So to solve this problem, the founder of the Empire decides to kill you with a chemical weapon. Genius. What he couldn't forsee is that in the future the few survivors open up the raid from 2.0 and release a friend who was chilling there ever since. Said friend, who is now very long lived, helps the descendants of the survivors gather data from raids we did in 3.0 and 4.0 to figure out how to travel in time and between paralel dimensions. This not only helps wrap up a different subplot from 3.0 (Arbert and his friends) but saves our sorry arses as the First is being flodded with Light. If it is consumed the light will overflow into the Source (our dimension) and the chemical weapon hits stronger the more light a world has.

And we finally got to 5.X where we currently are. We saved two worlds and killed the leadership of the Ascians (people with scary red masks, dark hooded cloaks and spikes everwhere for decoration. Yep, they are the villains for this story arc). What can go wrong? Well we killed the leadership so the whole faction dissolved into Anarchy. And just as The Beach got ruined the moment the Hatter died and Aguni took the helm, with no Emet-Selch or Elidibus to control all the nasty little buggers murder began. Fandaniel is now free to pursue his life goal, which is to reenact the end times that the old Amaurotians could only solve by sacreficing half their population to summon the god of darkness. Even worse, he manages to do it.

Sooo what do we know of the story? Not much really. It is all hush hush and Sqare Enix would be stupid to spoil it. Somehow Fandaniel's towers help recreate the end times, and we will at one point for some reason go to the Moon. The real one that is still there, not the one Mulan yeeted in 1.X.

What has me most curious is how does Fandango know how to cause the apocalypse? Supposedly he isn't even as strong as the original Fandaniel. Plus the end was a mysterious sound from beneath the earth that messed with the rules of reality. the Amaurotians couldn't figure out what it really was. And we are talking about people that can conjur up totally inhabited cities just to prove a point. There is something really fishy about that guy.

Another key point to consider is that the Ascians pretty much won. Onlyfans of course wants everyone to die, while the ascians as a whole want to resurrect Zodiark, and ask him to bring back the convocation. The convocation being the 14 Ascians leading them back in Amaurot. So what can happen with the end days? There are four possible scenarios ranging from grimdark to teddy bear tripe.

1. They can't figure out shit and everyone dies.
2. They attempt to summon Zodiark to solve the problem again, but since they are not as strong as the Amaurotians, all their life force is drained and fule the summoning, so everyone dies.
3. Zodiark is summoned succesfully which was the end game of the Ascians since the Yoshida era began.
4. Some convenient plot device allows the good guys to avert the end times without summoning big Z and with very little loss of life. One or two major characters, tops.

Only number four would be a defeat for the villains, but that sugar coated nonsense would make me cancel my sub, uninstall and go play Yoko Taro games instead. Seriously we solve too many problems with major deaths. Shadowbringers sort of gets a pass as the whole expansion was the undoing of mass murder. So who will die? Likely not Thancred as he is the muggle. The average character we need to help us in a group of weird magic using nonhumans. Obviously we won't die, because Yoshida is already planning 7.0. However Zodiark coming back isn't that unlikely. Not only did Fandaniel suggest to Zenos that he should hunt Zodiark, but the new 8-man raid for 6.0 will feature Lahabrea. A character who has been riddiculously dead since 3.0 Like not even Rasputin would have survived that, dead. His soul was absorbed into a dragon eye that had its power drained like two times before it was squished. Yet he is back to have a proper bossfight with the Warrior of Light and maybe get his own theme song.

In short it seems highly likely that the Zodiark VS Hydaelin arc will end with a fight against Zodiark himself. And I bet whatever Fandaniel is hiding will shock us all.

Due to the nature of the story, this blog entry was more about what we already know than some new stuff, but hopefully you enjoyed this recap of why we are where we are in the story. Or you spoiled youself but got interested in the game in the process. Anyway, see you after BlizzCon.