The Mog Log: Company car
The silence that had been hanging over Final Fantasy XIV since the end of the supremely creepy Hatching-tide event has finally been broken, with more Grand Company information as well as what appears to be the first dungeon preview. And yes, it's all pure lore rather than major mechanical updates, but there's still an abundance of interesting stuff to peer into within the update, especially when you take it in light of some previous statements made by the development team.
Among the information shared, the note that membership in the Grand Companies doesn't have any ties to national allegiance is a good thing when we consider the different foci of the organizations, but it also makes me wonder about what we're going to see in terms of player rewards. It seems like this is one of the first steps toward making the game's content even more open than it's previously been, with plenty for players to do straight on down the line.
Company fame
If it's not obvious to everyone -- and I suspect it is -- the whole "ranking" system sounds like an implementation similar to Final Fantasy XI's fame. Here, obviously, you'll be limited by allegiance to a single company rather than several nations, but in a way it's a blessing not to have several different groups clamoring for your attention. (Did anyone honestly want to have a repeat of grinding up fame with Norg? I didn't think so.) Admittedly, the process involves working with company standing rather than city fame, but the net effect seems to be the same, with higher standing prompting a wider variety of tasks rather than better rewards.
The promise that players will have the opportunity to assist no matter their specialties immediately brings another system to mind, however -- guildleves. Considering the framing device being used, I think it's very possible that "company leves" could be added as a new separate sort of assignment. However, I don't think it would be a simple rehash of the existing structure -- I'm thinking something halfway between the existing quests and guildleves. That aside, it's good to see that the devs are still making a distinct effort to accommodate players who prefer the crafting side of the game.
There's also the promise of high-end equipment out of the companies, which is a bit of a ding to players currently making money on high-end equipment. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we're looking at a separate currency system for purchasing these rewards, along the lines of Abyssea's cruor. That would also tie in with rank, avoiding the dreaded World of Warcraft reputation grind -- higher-rank characters will have more options available to earn currency but may very well not have a tremendously broadened list of potential rewards.
Looking at everything together, I have to wonder how this ties in to the variety of outposts we've been promised for 1.18. Clearly, they're going to tie together in some capacity, considering what we know about the patch thus far. That being said, since the "towns" (I hesitate to call them that simply due to lack of information) don't look particularly militaristic, I'd speculate that they'll have a mixture of quests and Grand Company content. Or perhaps they're military outposts and I am speculating too much.
Also, more beastmen. That makes me happy.
Dungeoneering
The Garleans have been such excellent catch-all villains for the past several events that I have to wonder what's coming around the bend. They're being tapped once again for this dungeon, with agents clearly having moved into the former prison already, from what little we can suss out. Of course, this also means that they're a lot closer to Gridania than any of the higher-ups would like to admit, which is the sort of thing that I expect will be weighing on everyone's mind in the near future. At least from an in-universe perspective.
While the screenshots are sepia-toned and thus aren't conducive to making out details, a glance at the dungeon heavily suggests a similar layout and map to the various underground areas present within Gridania. (The Mun-Tuy Cellars are the first one players are likely to encounter at an appropriate level). That's not going to do any favors for the people sick of seeing the same score of landscapes in the game, but at the same time, there's a certain logic in not reinventing the wheel.
That being said, the big question is going to come down to implementation rather than the look of the place. We know that the dungeons are going to be instanced, but other than that, we haven't been told much about the mechanics of running one. Will we be knee-deep in enemy encounters from the moment we step through the door? Or will it be more like one of the existing underground regions? (If it's the latter, well, that's going to be a major dropped ball.)
Finally, we'll want to know how this content will fit into the existing paradigm of the game. But given the current trajectory of updates and additions, I'm willing to guess that we're going to see this as yet another route to gear and upgrades. Adding dungeons gives players who don't feel like working on Company standing or guildleves or crafting a chance to take part in something new. Hopefully the next few updates will shed a little more light on the overall impact.
I admit this week's column was a bit disconnected, but if it wasn't obvious, the possibilities of this update have me a bit excited. As always, comments can be left in the field below or sent along to eliot@massively.com. Next week, I think I might dip back into the fiction well, unless something else particularly stimulating comes down the pipeline.
Postscript: Naoki Yoshida's most recent producer's letter was posted after this column was written, and while I would have loved to have included some of that material in here, it was too late by that point. I'll most likely be discussing some of it next week -- there's some very interesting elements in there, albeit nothing that invalidates any of the speculation in this column.
From Eorzea to Vana'diel, there is a constant: the moogles. And for analysis and opinions about the online portions of the Final Fantasy series, there is also a constant: The Mog Log. Longtime series fan Eliot Lefebvre serves up a new installment of the log every Saturday, covering almost anything related to Square-Enix's vibrant online worlds.
