The Mog Log: Everybody's got something to ask except for me and my monkey

Sometimes, people don't want answers to the questions that you expect. Sometimes people come up with solutions for problems you didn't know existed. And sometimes a question still gets asked even when you thought everyone knew the answer. It's a little bit of an unorthodox time here on The Mog Log, and it's going to be a bit of an unorthodox installment of our usual question-and-answer column. So let's dive right into the Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV questions, yes? Including those that are surprisingly meta.

Baalur asked:
"I don't think [customizable underwear is] half as ridiculous as the author. Why should the underwear be any less stupid than, say, a pet following you around?"

Well, the latter is a slavering beast that's yoked to your will, and the former allows you to take great pains to make sure that your mito'qe is wearing her Lumberjack Boxers of +5 Vitality before she goes off to tank something. I think we can agree that one is just a bit more intimidating and cool, while the other is... well, still cool, but in an entirely different fashion.

All this having been said, while I was a bit tongue-in-cheek about the idea of customizing your character's underwear, I think it's a pretty cool bit of flavor. I'd be surprised if it turned out to be a major stat boost or drop depending on what you had equipped, and it's a customization that we haven't seen in many games. So I gently rib it because it is simultaneously awesome and silly.

Barinthos asked a surprisingly common question:
"I haven't read or seen any updates regarding any ease of soloability at all, is [Final Fantasy XI] the same "grind" and group centric title as it was 4+ years ago?"

In a word? Yes. The game has not gotten rid of the intense amount of level grinding that's necessary. The addition of Fields of Valor and Level Sync have done a lot to help make that grind less painful, but to say that they've in any way trimmed or reduced it is somewhat south of being honest. If you left the game because you hated the grind itself, not just the speed of said grind, you will be disappointed.

However, if it was mostly the speed of the grind that turned you off... leveling is much faster now. What will trip you up isn't leveling, but the hurdles that go along the way -- getting your airship passes, getting to Whitegate, unlocking advanced jobs, and so forth. While those are arguably the more annoying part anyway, it's more feasible than ever for a damage dealer to level up when there just aren't any good parties around, or to group up with folks who just happen to be shy one DRG regardless of level.

Final Fantasy XIV looks to be far more quest-oriented, and while there are strong sandbox elements, the split in levels helps ensure that you're going to be focused on something other than just grinding. If you really are afraid of grind, waiting might be advisable.

A surprising number of people asked:
"What the heck were you thinking?"

Okay, "heck" wasn't the most frequently used word, and many questions were phrased more along the lines of "why do you hate FFXIV?" But the sentiment was the same. I did want to take a brief interlude to answer the question.

I was called on the fact that my pontifications on FFXI were, to be blunt, not always very positive. Hence, I decided to go in the exact opposite direction. After having written that, I thought that an enjoyable companion piece would be taking the exact opposite approach with a game that I usually talk about with so much fawning reverence you'd think Square-Enix was paying me. (They're not, for the record. They still don't know I exist.)

Here's the problem: as it turns out, the idea wasn't as good as I initially thought. I got some backlash for the piece, which was deserved. And overall, it just turned out to be a bad call on my part. What I thought would be an amusing column turned into, well, whining about a game that doesn't exist yet, which gets even more ridiculous when one considers that it's a game that I'm looking forward to immensely.

Did I have another option? Not really by the time I realized that it wasn't going to be a real winner. The piece was meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the humor didn't come across as strongly as I wanted. So what I was thinking, ultimately, was that the whole effort would be a lot funnier than it was.

I do love the illustration, though. I think it was worth it just for that.

Spangenhelm asked what many other people have complained about:
"Why didn't Square make at least one race in FFXIV unique from FFXI?"

Well, they did. In broad strokes, and excepting the hyuran (which have good reason to look virtually identical to humes), there are some design changes to every race. Lalafell have much leaner and more childlike proportions, as well as more vertical faces and more human noses. Roegadyn have lost their tails. Miqo'te have more human noses and slightly leaner proportions. And last but not least, Elezen have somewhat narrower faces and their necks seem a bit shorter.

All of this, of course, doesn't excuse the fact that for most purposes they are the same races as the previous game. What surprises me is that people expected differently from a game in the franchise. Is anyone going to be surprised when we ride chocobos, talk with moogles, learn to summon things and interact with crystals in some way?

There's almost nothing linking the games in the franchise, for the most part. The exceptions are usually games explicitly stated to be linked, such as the games set in Ivalice, and all that ties the franchise together are shared tropes. As it turns out, the races of the online games are one of those shared tropes. I can't say I'm distraught over it.

Those are our questions for this week, and while the quantity might be a bit lower than usual, they make up in quality. Anyhow, feel free to mail further questions, complaints, or horrifying mithra fanart to Eliot at Massively dot com. Next week, FFXIV synthesis, which probably doesn't mean what you think it means.