All I seem to write about these days is Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Now, part of this is my fault: in the wide world of gaming, there has to be more to write about on any given day. The trouble is that, for starters, a lot of it is less interesting to me. Some of it is outright banal in comparison. I don’t want to be that guy that posts uninteresting dross. Yes, I realise the irony in this statement should you not give a toss about FFXIV.
The flip side of this coin is that there’s a lot I could write about, but choose not to. I could rant for volumes on matters that very few people care about, or in some cases, very few people care about far too much. In circumstances like this, I try to boil my viewpoint down to a more succinct statement where possible, so that if I feel utterly compelled to let loose my bile, it’s at least of a length unlikely to induce a coma. Depending on the topic matter, this can be difficult, but not always.
Take this whole GamerGate fiasco, for example. I could go into great depth about the issue of transparency, ethics, the role of men and women in promoting equality, what exactly that should mean and so on and so forth. But I won’t. Mostly this is because there are a lot of people much smarter than me who have already commented on the issue. Partly it’s because no-one cares what I think about it. But it’s also because my entire argument can be reduced to the following statement:
Don’t be a dick.
Now, with that out of the way, let’s talk about FFXIV.
The recent Fan Fests in Las Vegas and London revealed what had long been speculated: the first expansion pack for FFXIV: A Realm Reborn is going to be called “Heavensward”. It’s due out in Spring 2015 – much sooner than many would have hoped, given that Patch 2.4 has only just come out today. With such an abundance of content on the horizon, it’s difficult to imagine just how much is on offer. Let’s break down what we know so far.
– The main setting for the expansion will be Ishgard and its environs.
– The storyline will revolve around the “thousand year war” between Ishgard and Dravania (i.e. dragons).
– We’re getting a new race, but we’re not being told which one (speculation: same race as Lady Yugiri).
– Multiple new classes and jobs (this is on top of the Rogue and Ninja just released).
– An increase in the level cap for all classes to 60, including Disciples of the Hand and Land.
– New beast tribes (The Vanu-Vanu and the Gnath) and two new Primals to go with them (Bismark and Ravana).
– New dungeons and high-end raid content, with plenty of variety / quantity in the former at least.
– New beast tribes and
– Flying mounts (chocobos and airships at the very least).
The London festival expanded somewhat on the above, giving us information on the first of the new jobs: The Dark Knight. It’s a bit of a strange one, since it doesn’t require a base class. Speculation is rife with what this might entail, with some imagining a WoW-esque “hero class” in the same vein as the Death Knight. Others, perhaps more sensibly, think it just means you level from 1 to 60 without the need to cross-class with anything else for a Job Crystal. All we know for certain is that it’s a Tank class that uses two-handed swords and the power of darkness.
With more details promised in the Tokyo Fan Fest in December we’re sure to get clarification on some of the above. While a firm release date isn’t likely until then at the very earliest, I would be surprised if we didn’t at least find out what the second class / job is. I would personally love another healer class of some sort and Yoshi-P may have hinted at such. At the end of the London keynote, he took off his Batman t-shirt to reveal a 007 one… maybe this is a reference to the Agent class from Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift? It had both guns AND healing, although its single-gender aspect (along with the womanising) may not exactly be appropriate. Especially given this climate of overreaction to everything.
Anyway, have a trailer for now and keep checking back here at Zero1Gaming, because you just KNOW I’m never going to stop talking about this game.
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A twenty-something gamer from the North-East of Scotland. By day, I’m a Computer Technician at a local IT recycling charity, where I fix and build PCs. Outside of that, most of my time is spent either sleeping or gaming, which I try accomplish in equal amounts.
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