[Control]

Okay, so there has been some talk about races and classes and all that, which are things which i think very carefully about, so i was re-reading the race descriptions on the official site and i noticed something that seemed like a minor detail; each race seems to have two types to them. High land and low land hyur for example. So the way i'm figuring it is: each race has two "home towns" to choose from, and choosing which one will further change your starting stats. That second assumption is because it says that one of the Roe's "home towns" is a place devoted to magic, which i don't think pirates are very interested in. Thoughts? comments? am i being over analytical? Thank you


Oh and its great to be apart of this site. very exciting. (first post)

[CrystalZodiac]

Ideas have to start somewhere, and I think you're on the right track. Since SE seem reluctant to announce any new Races I think it'd make sense to then split the current races up into clans, seems an realistic way to bring life and further history to what's already established.

I think it's been mentioned before by the developers before that this time stats won't be a deciding factor for races though, so your decisions should be based on looks, since they're pushing 'personal growth' as the key factor to game-play. I do wonder myself then if this would set us up in a different home town, which would be interesting to say the least

[Momotaru]

I'm feeling maybe the clan distinction will work to thicken the lore and maybe make plot points, and we'll all end up just living in one of the 3 cities.

That'd be so cool if there were more towns you could call home. Maybe you could even pick up and change alliances?

[Alistair]

I love leaving the decision to SE when it comes to these things. Their ideas are always so intricate and well developed. Momo, seeing as they had faction changes in FFXI, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to do that in XIV. However, your origin, for example, if you're a Highlander Hyur, that will be set in stone for your character's existence, or at least it should be IMO. You can't change where you come from, can you?

I love their ideas on this though. Perhaps highlanders will be looked upto, or even looked down upon, and the midlanders will be the opposite. I want to see what the developments will end up looking like.

[Control]

maybe certain quests will only be available if you came from a certain place, or at least certain rewards. Like the magic Roe would get a +1 mag hat where the pirate one would get a +1 str necklace. Things like that. Since i know personally i make origin decisions based on how i want my character to be. I played a Galka from Bastok as one character in 11 and i chose Bastok because it was the most industrial place that could potential bolster the bruit force theme i was going for. They did something kind of like that with the rings at the very beginning of 11 with the ring everyone got when they started. Again, more speculation and random theory. Sorry if it doesn't make much sense.

[Momotaru]

Clan association defining an individual's starting equipment would be really cool, and seems like a strong possibility.

Yeh, I forgot about alliance changing in XI. Wouldn't it be neat though, if you could just pick up your belongings and settle down wherever you may be? This would be much cooler too if, like Control says, there were villages and towns scattered across the world, between the main cities, and one could choose to live there (By live, I mean have access to your mog house, or the equivalent, among other things). Or maybe in other towns and nations, you could rent a room for access to your stuff and such.

I guess with the existence of Aethyrite, 'settling down' somewhere wouldn't really be necessary.

[Eorzea]

No, it wouldn't be necessary, Momotaru, but I get where you're coming from. Having that feeling of a wide open world where anything is possible sounds very appealing.

Anyway, welcome to the site, Control! MiniCloudz recently wrote an editorial [here] that touched on the topic of clans and how they may be implemented into the game, but it's always nice to have further discussions/speculations/ideas.

By the way, for anyone who wants/needs quick access to the official descriptions of the different races in Final Fantasy XIV, we have that information posted at http://www.beyondvan...l.com/races.php

Back on topic, I'm really excited to see what kind of role clans will play in this game.

[TempestKin]

I think as a whole, we'll have a choice of choosing from one of the three starting cities, which I will end up in the more water based city. It just looks.... awesome.

However, the site implied that the more reclusive clans would be harder to find, I think perhaps you could choose to be from one of these places but you would have migrated to one of the newer cities. Similiar to how they showed the starting scenes in FFXI, where you enter into the city with a small CS kind of establishing that cities primary concepts so to say.

However, it might be interesting to see a line like.. "Oh a highlander? Don't see one of those coming around these parts..." or "Ah! Fellow lowlander, from which city do you come here from?" along those lines. To kind of establish that sort of role.

The thing I liked about FFXI was that if you choose a race that "belonged" to that city you got that ring. Hume and Galka got the bastokan ring, Mithra and Taru got the Windurst ring, and Elvaan's got the Sandorian ring. However, if you started there as a different race there wasn't really... a negative twist? That kind of made me frown, the cities seemed very established so to be able to start anywhere with out a kind of real back story, made it lacking imo.

Oh, and Momotaru, in FFXI more recently all cities have access to either a nomad moogle, or rent a room. I do agree with you on being able to move about more. However I liked the concept of nomad moogle. To me it was like, no matter where you go... you always have that home to return to in your starting/allegiance city...

I'm hoping we really get a rich story, thats what Final fantasy is known for. FFXI had it, but there wasn't a a real strong pull to see the nation stories to the end. CoP and Zilart we're excellent story arcs imo, however ToAU felt... boring... and well... I haven't done much of wings of the goddess... Here's to some awesome lore!

[Ch1efer]

I like the idea of being able to change your home town. And with the different clan types it makes me wonder how they will do things. Tempest, you have some good idea's there too, even through simple dialog they can give it the feel of what ever race/clan you are, are welcomed or not, in that particular city.