The Seventh Umbral Era Looms! Let's Play FFXIV

5/24/2013 - Dalamud Awakens



As we get closer and closer to the final run date of the servers, the world has fallen into disarray. Dalamud draws ever closer, its course not even remotely swayed by the destruction of the lunar transmitter and the defeat of Nael Van Darnus.



Nearly invincible monsters are being spawned from the gaping maw of Atmos, the large-mouthed monster that is currently sapping all energy from the world's aetherites.



Completing a free-for-all beat down on Atmos and his spawned monsters gets me a special achievement and title of "Crystal Bearer" that will transfer to A Realm Reborn but will be henceforth unobtainable.



I take this time to explore a bit of the areas that I had less time in, like this cliff in Coerthas overlooking the city of Ishgard. I thought it bore more than a passing similarity to the iconic scene from Ninja Gaiden.



Gaius Van Balesar and his fleet are forever scanning the skies over the nations of the Eorzean Alliance.



Strange weather patterns have forced the cactuar to flee from the deserts of Thanlan to deep within the forests of the Black Shroud.



Seriously, they're everywhere.



In the weeks leading up to the final shutdown, I did an obscene amount of guildleves (10 per camp in each area) to earn another title, "The Sword of Eorzea."



All in all, I'd say I made pretty good progress with my leveling in the 9 months I played.



Eventually, the Atmos monsters move beyond the aetherite camps and begin attacking the cities themselves. Most of the big monsters here can only be seen otherwise at the bottom of the various dungeons.



They don't exactly pull their punches, but at least its a short walk back across Ul'dah.







Within the last few days of the shutdown event, massive amounts of players began building a wall of Goobbue mounts across the exterior of the cities and Mor Dhona.

The atmosphere is bleak to say the least. Lightning crashes about, as a haunting melody is heard in the distance.



I mount up my chocobo, Jaeger, and head to Mor Dhona to take the fight to the Garleans themselves.



The event there hasn't quite started yet, though, and it turns out about as well as expected.



Another interesting part of the end of the world event is that they began allowing the use of chocobos within city limits.



The aetherite battles are still complete chaos, and I get drawn into many of them completely by accident on my way to other things.



At least with Bard / Archer I'm able to keep more or less outside the range of a lot of the more damaging attacks.



Another interesting thing leading up to the end was that a rumor started going around that if you did the emote /pray at the monsters it would allow the seemingly invincible ones to be defeated. Its unknown as to whether this was what was intended by the developers (it seemingly did nothing at first), but as it got closer to the end the ability to /pray to buff yourself and other player characters was implemented. On the flip side, you were penalized for performing a /pray at the monsters themselves.



Eventually some of the spawns got downright unfair, such as this one that was a half-dozen boss caliber monsters in the same area.



Another unique boss monster attacking the town.



The chimera monster was especially a pain.



I make one more stop by my guardian sign in the hopes that praying will further bolster my resolve.

The town attacks don't get any easier to deal with.



Surprisingly, my Dragoon seems to deal with the attacks a bit better than my Warrior.



Having already long passed the point where S-E backed up the player data for the version transition, they get charitable and start handing out normally hard to get Relic Weapons for players after sleeping in the inn for a short period of time. The weapons are all random and can repeat even after you've obtained them, so obsessively checking it every hour or so was the only way I was able to obtain each of them that I wanted for my three maxed out jobs.



Retiring to my room for a short break, I log back in to one of the creepiest things in the entire game. It seriously freaked me the fuck out to have Nael Van Darnus haunting my nightmares long after I had dispatched him.



The Bard relic is kind of neat, because its a harp that folds out to become a bow.



By the end of the world the economy is total shit. Things that normally go for a few thousand gil are suddenly going for millions.



I finally get my Warrior relic.



Enough preparing, its finally time to storm Castrum Novum in Mor Dhona!



Tons of players rush the gates, making quick work of everything outside.



Even the more difficult Magitek Vanguards fall before the waves of players.



Even so, there's a lot of death going around. At least you don't lose exp when you die like FFXI.



Lots of death.



Eventually we're able to work past it, though.



Reaching the interior there is...nothing. No grand Garlean scheme, no massive boss monster to take out. This was merely a distraction to keep the Eorzea Alliance busy at best.



Players begin to just mill around elsewhere, awaiting the inevitable.

I have a hard time taking this sitting down, though, and return to the fight at Castrum Novum.



I actually work my way to the innermost doors a second time.



Then, at about 2am Central time on a Saturday night / Sunday morning, the players look to the sky and wonder what's in store.



And then everything just disappears.

Fifteen to twenty minutes later Square-Enix dropped this on Youtube. Between the sleep deprivation, my time with the game and the song attached I was nearly brought to tears. This was truly a bad ending for the world, a fight that could never truly be won against a cold, unfeeling monster we never suspected was at the center of the disaster. The best the Eorzean Alliance could do was not seal Bahamut again, but rather just transport the heroes of the battle to unspecified point in the future. Louisoix smiles as he's seemingly destroyed in Bahamut's blast.

And that's it for Final Fantasy XIV 1.0! If there is enough interest I would be more than willing to continue this Let's Play in a new thread once the new version launches and all Non-disclousure Agreements are lifted. Hopefully you've enjoyed it, and here's to seeing you in A Realm Reborn later this year!

-SL

That's actually pretty awesome.

Just a poll since I don't know how many people stuck with me- is there real interest in this LP continuing with A Realm Reborn?

I, for one, have been following along. Seeing what is now a lost story was really cool, especially as things got towards the end of the world.


But I plan to play ARR, and whether or not I read that will depend on whether I see it all myself or quit before that. Sorry that's not helpful in making a decision right now.

I'll be giving A Realm Reborn a try myself, but I'd check out the LP just to see how another person's experience went.