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Thancred would, but he'd somehow do it without anyone noticing it was him who did it.
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Jun 20, 2022 21:03
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Lahabrea would, but he’d be so caught up in hamming it up that he never reveals anything beyond the broadest of broad strokes
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Jun 20, 2022 21:13
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Kan-E-Senna would just break the knees of whoever posted spoilers.
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Jun 20, 2022 22:12
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Papalymo won't post spoilers anymore.
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Jun 20, 2022 22:14
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Farg posted:another helpful tip is that the various threads on the websites have different names that indicate their content there is a poster who routinely mixed up the NBA and Trump threads
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Jun 20, 2022 22:56
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Bruceski posted:Papalymo won't post spoilers anymore. He got that one from beyond the grave, though.
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Jun 20, 2022 23:23
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Elidibus posts untagged spoilers, but you can’t get mad at him because then you’re attacking an emissary. Also the spoilers help the Scions learn how to kill Ascians, but even harder this time.
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Jun 20, 2022 23:41
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Ilberd condemned his countrymen to a serverwide ban, believing them too indulgent of spoilers and undeserving of experiencing the story.
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Jun 20, 2022 23:54
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Yugiri tries to keep the spoiler under wraps, and by the time she reveals it you already know and have to pretend to be surprised.
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Jun 20, 2022 23:55
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Gaius posts a spoiler by accident. It was not his intention.
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Jun 20, 2022 23:59
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Shogeton posted:Gaius posts a spoiler by accident. It was not his intention. And when he does, it’s so massive that it causes such devastation in the comments.
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Jun 21, 2022 00:23
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Hydaelyn vagueposts in a way that's borderline skirting any Spoiler policy, but never quite crossing the line into actually being an understandable spoiler.
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Jun 21, 2022 00:50
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Aenor spoils the end of her self x Boulder x Boulder fanfic in the notes Zomborgon fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Jun 21, 2022 |
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Jun 21, 2022 00:51
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Gosetsu posts untagged spoilers in allcaps then gets indignant when he eats a sixer for it.
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Jun 21, 2022 01:08
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Nidhogg was so angry about someone posting spoilers that he posted about responsible spoiler policy for so many pages. Everyone else can’t even remember what the original spoiler even was by now, and is just trying to save the discussion from being derailed after one of his drive-by shitposts.
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Jun 21, 2022 03:23
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Thordan posts fake spoilers to muddy the waters so nobody can work out what the actual spoilers are.
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Jun 21, 2022 03:31
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GilliamYaeger posted:Thordan posts fake spoilers to muddy the waters so nobody can work out what the actual spoilers are. Why was he the bad guy again? 
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Jun 21, 2022 03:35
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Murdering a bunch of innocent people and maintaining a lie in order to keep his society in a perpetual hellwar.
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Jun 21, 2022 04:39
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I was being tongue-in-cheek about the spoiler thing, but I guess I should clarify that I don't think Thordan did nothing wrong.
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Jun 21, 2022 04:59
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:Why was he the bad guy again?
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Jun 21, 2022 05:33
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:Why was he the bad guy again? Very long, but skinny beard. No volume. A shameful facial hair.
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Jun 21, 2022 09:14
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A Sometimes Food posted:I don't like Fire Emblem enough to argue, but I played enough to know this a really divisive view of things and I know when it's something I actually care about it's a dick move to post something like this then say "no derails". Like just saying. I think Fire Emblem provides a decent example to discuss regarding Stormblood and its depiction of imperialism and war, actually. Fire Emblem, like most games, almost always depicts a very sanitized view of war and conquest. There's a good kingdom and an evil empire, and often the good king (and it is always a king) needs to reclaim a kingdom from usurpers along the way. Often there's a church that some people believe in and some don't, but there's almost never any kind of actual widespread religious element to the conflict, just a few characters whose personal motivations and backstory are informed by it. We've already gotten a good taste of how FF14 treats war and conquest: as a messy, human thing full of suffering and death even when the good guys win. It's easy to play as an aggressor in war when the game has no interest in showing you the reality of war for the common men and women, often with a bland assertion that your army is comprised of Eagle Scouts, and I think it's because games like that are rarely if ever about war. The story is typically about grand mythological arcs, or the personal travails and battles of a few specific characters, using a war as a narrative backdrop and as a gameplay layer. Which is in itself not a bad thing, but one that I think is prone to being misleading if you don't think about it.
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Jun 21, 2022 18:15
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Cythereal posted:I think Fire Emblem provides a decent example to discuss regarding Stormblood and its depiction of imperialism and war, actually. Fire Emblem, like most games, almost always depicts a very sanitized view of war and conquest. There's a good kingdom and an evil empire, and often the good king (and it is always a king) needs to reclaim a kingdom from usurpers along the way. Often there's a church that some people believe in and some don't, but there's almost never any kind of actual widespread religious element to the conflict, just a few characters whose personal motivations and backstory are informed by it.
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Jun 21, 2022 19:30
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NachtSieger posted:Very long, but skinny beard. No volume. A shameful facial hair. Ramuh parachute account spotted
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Jun 21, 2022 21:32
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Chapter 3: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work Kheris meets back up with Alisaie and M’Naago. The latter takes a moment to offer a proper thank-you for saving her life back at the Rising Stones. She didn’t have the chance before because, you know, war and apocalyptic monster battles and bleeding. Then (after getting the Stormblood upgrade to my Sightseeing Journal from yet another member of the Ironheart family), it’s back out to the Fringes, where we’re treated to the haunting beauty of the zone’s night theme,  “Hope Forgotten.”M'Naago takes us on a different route back to the Castrum, swinging much closer to the crashed airship. Along the way, she shows us what a consummate huntress she is by sensing the location of a Magitek mech and the rough disposition of the seven infantry escorting it before we even detect their presence. She notes that when you grow up in the Ala Mhigan wilderness, you either learn to recognize every clue the Garleans give you or end up dead. Seekers of the Sun can be rough-and-tumble, but I think even my old pals, the U Tribe, might balk at such a deadly existence. No wonder she’s an eager Resistance fighter. We take out the patrol with a carefully coordinated strike, giving them no time to radio for help. This plan was also M’Naago’s, and she didn’t even hesitate to start giving orders to the Warrior of Light when the situation called for it. A natural leader, that one. Alis notes how easy the fight was despite it being three-on-one, and this is for a logical reason.  We heard this was the modus operandi for imperial occupation way back in ARR, but now we see that scheme’s costs. The bulk of the Garlean military is disposable bodies whose main task is to terrorize civilians and wave the flag, reminding folks that the real army will come down on them if they cause trouble. This not only ensures that many healthy military-aged natives are not in their home provinces to see the oppression or think about giving their lives for their people, it ensures that if the subjects ever strike back, the first ones who shed blood are non-Garleans who didn’t have a choice in the matter. Brutal. With the way clear, we arrive at the Castrum to find Pipin. He’s been looking for any remains Papalymo might have left behind, but so far, he hasn’t had any luck. Hopefully, that doesn’t mean someone else has recovered Tupsimati. Of course, M’Naago has no time for that because she’s far too busy fangirling over THE BULL OF ALA MHIGO, FLAME GENERAL RAUBAHN ALDYNN. I can’t say I blame her. The conversation gets a bit morose when Raubahn reviews the disposition of Resistance forces and notes their numbers are far below what he expected. M’Naago admits how bad their losses were because of Ilberd. As we were told in the other quest, worse than the actual deaths is how the event dried up recruitment. Many who had been considering joining the Resistance watched the heroic Griffin unite people from across all of Ala Mhigo, boldly strike a towering symbol of Imperial oppression, and get obliterated for their trouble. After that, the cause seems hopeless. I referenced this obliquely in the last chapter, but Ilberd’s desire to get revenge on his people for not living up to his expectations succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. He crippled the Resistance by killing many of their best people, weakened the villages and towns of Ala Mhigo to the point where they’re suffering worse than ever, and utterly snuffed out hope for freedom and a better future. All on the eve of Alliance intervention, when those things were most needed. Shinryu may not have burned Gyr Abania to the ground, but the man who summoned it seems to have burned it out. The reality of the situation and the rawness of this wound weighs on the group, but Pipin still has faith. More importantly, he has an idea. If a crushing defeat snuffed hope out, what better way to revive it than with a crushing victory? A pitched battle against Garlean regulars, not occupation conscripts. Alliance and Resistance forces shoulder-to-shoulder, triumphing over the invincible Garlean Legions, giving both groups credibility when they say things will be different this time. It would be a reason for everyone to believe that a genuinely united Eorzea has what it takes to win this war. The best part is that Pipin already has a target all picked out.  Some brass helmet back in Garlemald decided that as long as we’re just skirmishing rather than fighting openly, the Alliance patrols would make perfect targets for this new toy’s field tests. We’re going to drop the pretense that this isn’t a real war right on the thing’s head. It’s a relatively small risk of men and material, with a colossal propaganda reward if we pull it off. We might even derail this expensive weapon development program as a cherry on top. While the commanders get prepped for this attack, Kheris has the perfect opportunity to get in some sidequesting. There are two batches available, one at the Castrum and one back in the Peaks. The Peaks quests aren’t too noteworthy, focusing on how life is even more challenging for the folks in that region than we already knew. Most of the work is killing wildlife for Ala Gannha so they can keep their water supply clean and gather edible plants without being killed. They’re forced to rely on these subsistence methods because of the poor state of the largest farm in the region, Byron’s Bread.  The proprietor, Immodest Mouse (nice), and his farmhands explain that the soil quality is so poor that the harvests get worse every year. They only have limestone to fertilize, which Google taught me doesn’t even enrich the soil. It only makes it less acidic so the plants can absorb more of what’s already there. Yet everyone agrees that this farm, which can’t even afford to sell any of its harvest because the last yield was so bad, is one of the only things keeping Ala Gannha habitable. That’s bleak. I can’t even make a “Float On,” joke it’s so bleak. One other point of interest was a FATE I came across featuring a much friendlier-looking Qiqirn.  He claims the evil-looking ones are the kidnappers, and I’m to escort him to the Ziggurat so we can rescue them. Naturally, this turns out to be an elaborate ruse, and he and his pals attempt to eat me. But what’s interesting is that the bad rats are holding some Qiqirn prisoners, and they have the same earth-tone-y not-evil color scheme as Mimiroon’s disguise. Perhaps there’s a Beast Tribe faction in my future? The sidequests in Castrum Oriens are a bit more interesting because they reveal just how much trouble is bubbling under the surface of our united front. As I mentioned, overall control of the base is mainly in the hands of the Twin Adders, which has left them in charge of many things. Not everyone is happy about it. For example, they’re providing the food supplies for the base, and per Gridanian military standards, that means a vegetarian diet. The other soldiers are getting very testy about all the rabbit food. Even Kheris simply asking what’s bothering them is enough to make the dam burst, and soldiers around the base start lodging formal complaints about it. The Gridanians are also taking on the bulk of scouting duties, which makes sense. It’s one of their army’s specialties, and the forest is their favored terrain. This becomes a problem when a couple of Garlean POWs manage to make a break for it because of a screw-up during the midnight guard change. A Maelstrom commander gets word back from the scouts regarding the last known position of these prisoners and sends his men to take them back. This gets them ambushed, which they are happy to blame on the Immortal Flames for the initial screw-up during the guard. Their captain finds another problem: The Adders men knew the ambush was coming.  To be clear, this was nothing nefarious. The Adders simply kept their communications protocols and signal codes secret because it’s what they’ve always done. Its good practice for any military, especially one whose combat doctrine is predicated on ambush and guerilla tactics. But now that they’re in the field with three other armies who don’t know their comms, that could lead to a disaster. Another thing the Gridanians are doing is checking into any environmental damage the Garlean occupation has inflicted on the area. Not hard to understand why that would be something they think is worth devoting resources to, even if it’s just one overworked officer, but it’s also pretty funny when juxtaposed with two other quests. One features the Alliance troops hunting for a creature that’s been messing with their supplies only to discover it’s a local sub-species of Morbol, which they’re not equipped to handle and almost gets an entire squad killed.  Another sees you assisting a Resistance commander in tracking down a lost courier. You discover he was set upon by giant spiders, which the Ala Mhigans thought they’d wiped out of this region generations ago. So, the Gridanians are making the balance of nature part of their military concerns even though they know nothing about the local ecosystem, and their native allies can’t help much because the area’s been out of their hands for so long. This isn’t to say that one of the other Grand Companies should be running this base because the Adders are making a hash of things. On the contrary, the others are scarcely doing any better. The squad responsible for managing the captured Magitek accidentally activated a group of drones equipped with new armor impervious to standard-issue firearms. Luckily, Cid was on-hand to give them a weapon that could disable the robots, but they still ask Kheris to bring them down because it had to be mounted on a captured vehicle that none of them knows how to operate. They lacked the equipment and competency to handle the job, but they were given it anyway, seemingly out of political concerns for giving every force something to do at the Castrum. So, in short, nobody knows what they’re doing. These wrinkles must be addressed before the war heats up, or it could get ugly. ~*~*~ Speaking of, Raubahn is ready to ride. We hit a few Garlean patrols, and just as we predicted, this draws out the experimental weapon team. The machine appears to be an upgrade to the standard Vanguard unit. As for its escort…  Oh, this is going to be a treat!  This is an instanced duty quest, which leads me to believe it must be the infamous “Raubahn (Savage),” I’ve heard people reference. Any long-time MMORPG player knows that an expansion with a big instanced set-piece quest near the start is asking for trouble. Since players aren’t in any other part of the world or doing any other activities, you’ll end up with a significant bottleneck due to instancing limits, stability issues, or both. I thought the developer’s foresight in offering a big platter of side-quests and an entire alternate MSQ episode in a separate zone would have mitigated the problem somewhat. Not nearly enough, I guess, if this went down in history as meme-worthy. World of Warcraft had a couple of similar events in its history, most famously the competition for specific quest kills in Hellfire Penninsula during The Burning Crusade launch and the mandatory Garrison Set-Up Quests in Warlords of Draenor. As for the event itself, it’s a large-scale battle between your NPCs and the Garlean forces. In addition to some generic troops, you’ve got Raubahn, who Grynewaht immediately goes after in the hopes of getting some clout for himself, and Alisaie, who starts tanking the mech for you. Raubahn orders Kheris to make killing the mech her priority, which is complicated by a few waves of reinforcements. At first, they’re no big concern, but then Gryne calls in a secondary secret weapon, kamikaze drones which have to be kited or they will explode for lethal damage (as I learned the hard way.) Things get a bit hairy when a massive wave of support mechs comes in, so numerous they demand to be kited if you’re not on a tank job. Raubahn, after complaining he’s going to have to chew the scouts out for missing all these, puts down a big damage marker intended to kill the things for you. You must keep them inside his range, or you’ll struggle to kill them before they kill you. However, a bomb spawn, and Gryne swinging his hammer right in the middle of this mess can make for a tense moment if the timers all line up badly.  If you manage to clear that hurdle, the big guy attempts to escape, only to be cut off by the Resistance. With no options left, he activates the mech’s self-destruct, which causes all the Garlean troops to comically drop their weapons and cower because their insane leader is going to kill them all. I can only hope this continues to be a recurring theme for this dude. We disable the machine before it blows, and Gryne runs for it again. Raubahn is happy to let him go, telling him to inform the Viceroy we’re all coming for him.  Our victory was, in a word, perfect. We didn’t suffer a single casualty while completing our objectives, and we sent the enemy running from the field. Though Alis manages to find the cloud in our silver lining by pointing out that doofus was matching one of our best fighters blow for blow, we got everything we needed for a story to rally the people. M’Naago even mentions that she’ll be able to tell everyone she saw the Warrior of Light in action at the battle and that she’s everything the rumors say and more. Awww, shucks. Conrad couldn’t be happier. There’s more profound meaning than even the symbolic victory here. The Ala Mhigans will now look at the Alliance and see brothers and sisters who took the field for them when they were ready to give in to their despair. If the majority are anything like that boy back in the village, that’ll inspire a lot of action. Today might go down as the day the scars of the Autumn War healed and Eorzea became truly united. ~*~*~  I don’t know what I expected when we cut to this message, but it wasn’t what I got. …  …  This is our first look at Zenos yae Galvus, heir to the throne of Garlemald. Based on that golf bag he’s got propped up next to him, he's fresh from the country club, but he still receives a report on our raid. The Prince seems impressed that we managed such a positive outcome with a simple pincer ambush. Whether he’s being sarcastic or that’s just his aristocratic airs isn’t clear. He decides that Gryne won’t be executed for his failure, finding merit in his stubborn will to survive, but orders that he be transferred out of the XIIth Legion. It is “no place for the weak.” The commander in overall charge of the weapon test unit agrees wholeheartedly, mocking Gryne as a coward who valued his own life more than the Garlean cause. Zenos agrees that he despises cowards.   drat, he’s been working on that backswing down at the driving range. Not one of the assembled generals moves an inch as he cuts down one of their own, not even a turn of the head. They remain equally still as he explains, rhetorically, why he’s allowed the Alliance to take Baelsar’s Wall without a fight. To Zenos, this is a hunt. Emperor Varis hasn’t allowed him to invade the rest of Eorzea like he wants to, so he’s taken this whole Griffin mess as an opportunity to invite his neighbors in for a bit of sport. He does not wish to corner them too quickly, as that will make them poor quarries, predictable in their desperation. They must continue to believe they have a chance to win even as the Garleans score enough blows against them to keep their adrenaline pumping and their minds casting about for the next stratagem. With his parameters set, he invites the assembled commanders to impress him with a plan. Naturally, they remain silent, whether out of fear of being the next one on the floor or complete bafflement at this Caligula-worthy speech. But then someone unexpected volunteers:  The Ala Mhigan daring to speak in their presence is enough to rouse the generals. The top-ranked officer, a Tribunis by the speech bubble, shouts that she only has a place among them on Gaius’ orders, and that place does not make her primitive notions worthy of their ears. Even the boss Quisling is nothing but another savage to this lot. Fordola has to visibly grit her teeth to stop herself from retaliating, but she can’t banish the defiance from her eyes even as Zenos steps into stabbing range. Maybe it’s that defiant look, but he addresses her as a fellow hunter and asks what she has in mind… Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Jun 22, 2022 |
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Jun 21, 2022 23:38
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Cythereal posted:I think Fire Emblem provides a decent example to discuss regarding Stormblood and its depiction of imperialism and war, actually. Fire Emblem, like most games, almost always depicts a very sanitized view of war and conquest. There's a good kingdom and an evil empire, and often the good king (and it is always a king) needs to reclaim a kingdom from usurpers along the way. Often there's a church that some people believe in and some don't, but there's almost never any kind of actual widespread religious element to the conflict, just a few characters whose personal motivations and backstory are informed by it. The Tellius games had a princess/queen as the good aligned royalty figure  and a war against god
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Jun 21, 2022 23:47
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:The Tellius games had a princess/queen as the good aligned royalty figure Tellius ends with three queens on three thrones and no change in borders even. (Ok and also three kings on three other thrones.)
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Jun 22, 2022 00:11
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Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn played with the formula a bit. You still had heroic royals misled by corrupt subordinates eventually uniting against the real enemy, but at least it moved around perspectives to try and show how one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.
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Jun 22, 2022 00:12
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And Three Houses does play a lot more with that (albeit it's still rose-colored, specially since whichever side you join is the one who does less warcrimes).
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Jun 22, 2022 00:13
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Ah, Grynewaht I also enjoyed the sidequests in Castrum Oriens a lot, it's fun how the Alliance are, like, clearly not prepared at all for a war of this scale. I mean heck, they weren't even involved in the fighting that captured this base, that was all the WoL and Ilberd's false flag soldiers.
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Jun 22, 2022 00:16
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Sanguinia posted:
 But yeah, you even had people trying to organize orderly lines which could only have actually worked if everyone on every datacenter coordinated AND got everyone playing other, earlier content into the same loop as well, because the instance servers don't actually discriminate between the duties they're being used for. So, in short, the only way it could have had a clean launch would be for Square Enix to have invested in more instance servers prior to the game coming back up. Live and learn.
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Jun 22, 2022 00:17
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Sanguinia posted:
To make things even worse, the cutscene happens before the transition into the duty. What that means is that even if you were skipping the cutscene (as you'd start doing after the second or third go, never mind the fiftieth) you'd have to hear this line before you finished skipping and saw whether you got in or not. Day of it was a thing to behold, featuring among other notable features an impromptu line being formed all the way back to Castrum Oriens, people leading FATE monster AOEs over to try and boot other people out to boost their own chances, people going and getting stuck going through job quests with duties, people being ferried over the zone wall to at least pick up aetherytes and aether currents...the works. And a few really sharp people like me leveling up their gatherers and selling the proceeds. Raubahn (Savage) helped finance my first FF14 house. Still, while it was a complete shitshow, the Stormblood launch was my first launch having started in 3.4 (back when the free trial was two weeks long!) and so I have fond memories of it anyway.
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Jun 22, 2022 00:19
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Raubahn (Savage) locked a whole lot of people out of progress past this point for a couple of days during early release. It was bad! The lucky ones who did get past it got insta-queues for dungeons all weekend though, even the DPS, just by virtue of being in rare company. Zenos and his magitek golf bag have entered the chat. And he wastes no time letting you know exactly what he's all about. You'd think the Garlean officers who have presumably spent more time around him would have figured it out by now, but no. No they have not.
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Jun 22, 2022 00:24
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Rosalie_A posted:people being ferried over the zone wall to at least pick up aetherytes and aether currents...the works. Hogama fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jun 22, 2022 |
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Jun 22, 2022 00:27
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I believe Raubahn (Savage) brought down the matchmaking servers too (at least for Europe any way)? I actually started playing FFXIV around the launch of Stormblood and I remember them going down around the time the game has you do the first three dungeons back to back, I managed to do the first two but Copperbell just wouldn't pop and I had to call it a night. At the risk of getting people shouting about spoilers again, Square learned their lesson from this. Shadowbringers and Endwalker don't have any instances this early to avoid server issues. Not that their launches were without issue, either. EW quite famously so.
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Jun 22, 2022 00:34
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IT'S GRYNEWAHT TIME, MOTHERFUCKERS
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Jun 22, 2022 00:37
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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Jun 22, 2022 00:41
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Stormblood launch issues really didn’t go away completely until they started doing daily server dumps and then they immediately got better. They said tons of people were afk in their houses engaged in crafts or using the summoning bell which would prevent you from being hit by the 30 minute afk logout. It was funny, you would find people all over the place hiding in every nook and cranny sitting motionless at a crafting station so they wouldn’t get logged out.
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Jun 22, 2022 00:42
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All my namedays have come at once!
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Jun 22, 2022 00:56
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Runa posted:All my namedays have come at once! And Grynewaht had a whoooole lot of namedays that weekend.
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Jun 22, 2022 01:05
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