SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello everyone, it's the Aorsian update, and I'm your host, Violet Catrick, and I am here with the lovely Hoka Oza with Pope.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

And we're gonna be with not in Ruby Red recently. Not in Ruby Red.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

No, with hot lovely hot pink.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

I've been hot pink lately.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Oh yeah. Uh the the glam update for uh 7.4 hit on December 16th, and it has basically taken the entire game by storm. Like I have spent more time in my glam chest doing glam stuff. It's been it has been awesome. We're sitting here in 2026. We are living good. Um our our Christmas present from Yoshi P was for the game to get even more customization options. Um the drop of 7.4 on December 16th, I have been, I mean, I I can go into detail and I will, and I will, but I'm gonna give an overall score of like it's it's a it's a 11 out of 10 for me. It's so good.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

This is I I will say, out of all the post um MSQ content or whatnot, this is by far one of my favorites. Um I agree. It's I'm gonna it's beyond a 10. I can't really go like 11, 12. It's it's by far one of my favorites. It's so good with with the with the addition of the new raid, like just the music by itself. I'm not even talking about the fights, I'm just talking about the music by itself.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Yeah, I mean, honestly, they could have they could have given us less exciting fights and that music, and I still would be like Juice.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Juice! Uh with the with the MSQ being the way it is, and and and just the it's so oh what by far one of my favorite post-msq content uh with with everything, including like the new PvP maps and oh so good.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

So are we gonna let them in on like your your so I of course am one of these crazy people who uh like the minute that the MSQ drops, I'm on that. I'm on it. So I was I'd already finished by the time that uh Hookah had had a chance to actually like get into it. So I'm playing, I'm doing my Arcadian stuff, and the next thing I know, I get a message that is like really okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

So so I that week all I wanted to do was to just let me get through the raid series. I will de I'll tackle MSQ when I got back from from my vacation. Right, right. Which which I had a great time. Uh especially. Awesome, I'm so glad.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Yeah. But my holiday season in the void was absolutely terrible. So let's move on.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Um but but when when I got back, I'm like, I know everyone has probably gone through MSQ uh and whatnot. I'm like, okay, it's I'm gonna I'm gonna savor this as much as I can. And I was as I'm going through this, I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah, no details, no details. We're not gonna get into details, but oh my god, it's but yeah, so good.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

I'm sitting here going like this story is so good. And just the fact that you know they they integrated uh Final Fantasy IX so well into this uh into this MSQ world.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

It is a lovely like Final Fantasy XIV. If you are a Final Fantasy fan, this is like the most cameo walk-on, lovely game because you just get to to have all of the like experience and get to kind of notice stuff. I on the other hand am not I'm I'm just now going back and enjoying like other Final Fantasy games. I've played 16, which I liked. It was okay. Um, but I have to find that I honestly I was never a turn-based like a JRPG fan, and I'm struggling with Final Fantasy 1. Um, because like the story is actually very good. I understand where people picked up on it and they got like into it.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

And I've played Seven a bit and I've seen other like I get it. I just it never clicked in my little ADHD like gremlin brain. Like, but 14, I get it. Like you put all that stuff in a pot. Um damn.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

So, okay, so talking about some of the older ones, uh, maybe not like the original Final Fantasy VII, but I think you might enjoy like the remake.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah, I've watched my wife playing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Like the battle system is a lot more uh interactive than uh than just the turn base or whatnot. I mean, it's not quite like well, I mean, it's similar to 16, but not quite like that uh heavy into the combat system and whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Okay. I mean, I've as soon as as as my wife lets it loose, like I've I've you know, I'll go play it. But um uh honestly, I just spend so much time playing this game, I don't really have a lot of time playing anything else.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

I mean, I still have to play other games too, and um I'm sitting here like just like staring at uh just staring into the void in 14 because I'm just logged in.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

I mean, it's where it's where all my friends live. But uh, okay, so of particular note for me, um the things that let's let's talk about the things that like really we enjoyed most. All right. So I'm gonna ask you first since you've got a little bit fresher in your mind. I experienced all the like I jumped right in and swam around in it the minute that it dropped. You were on vacation. Um, so when you came back, like what things struck you like have been your favorite?

SPEAKER_02 6:51

Aside from MSQ? Um or are we talking about like just overall?

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Well, I mean, just like we can't talk about MSQ. No, I mean for obvious reasons. No, I don't know. But what other things other than MSQ? Like you came in, you saw 7.4, it dropped on all of its glory. Like, what what parts did you go? Oh, this is so new and I love it.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

The the new PvP map. Uh I enjoyed that a lot. I think the new PvP map for me, it takes a little bit more. Strategy a little bit more strategy on trying to move forward, move as a group and try to capture the point as opposed to you know, you have this open area and whatnot. But it it it's in my view, like it's like you can't just have like a small group and try to like or split split between like two uh two main groups of like yo, one goes this way, one other group this goes this way, like you have to like battle in a group or else you're pretty much gone at that point.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I'm gonna be honest with you. I found a lot, I got a little I loved it. It was a lot of fun. And if you found a group of people who like understood that this was probably like the one map where they really did design it around everybody's in an alliance, yeah, and you're supposed to stay in the alliance to go take points, right? Or shield points or whatever. And um, then it was so fun and it was great, but then you would have those those uh times when I went in like the first five times I went into the new map, it was with people who still hadn't completely grasped the new strategies, and so they were trying to use like frontline shatter tech like strategies on it, and it was oh, it was bad, it was not a good time.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

And I want to give out a shout out to Arcana real quick uh for getting the already PvP mount on that track.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Oh yeah, I mean, uh honestly, oh all the kudos to to Arcana. Like Arcana threw down on that that new map and just like completely annihilated so so awesome. Um, so what else? Like, like we had so many changes. Like there uh have you have you done much with the strategy board, for instance?

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Um, I mean, not much about actually uh trying to try to use it or whatnot, but I got a meme out of it though.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

It's like welcome to Final Fantasy XIV. We got an incredibly useful tool for rating. What here's how do we actually use it? Memes. Memes, tall memes, tall memes all the time.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

I I I think it's like I joined a group and all of a sudden I got a strategy board and it was the uh the Rick Ashley uh never never giving you.

SPEAKER_01 10:04

Oh my god, Rick memory straight up.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

I'm like, um, are you kidding me, Rick?

SPEAKER_01 10:11

I I was okay. I couldn't focus on the fight because I was laughing so hard.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

I know. Uh the only thing I hate about it is that like you'll share a strategy board, right? And the the only time I had a strategy board shared with me that was actually useful, actually useful, was when I went into a crystalline conflict, uh-huh. Uh PvP. And here's okay, so I'm gonna express a little bit of anger about the strategy boards. Ah, okay, it drives me nuts. All right, so get this. So the strategy board pops up, you're trying to read through the strategy board, the the gate opens up. You have to go do the PvP while the strategy board is now up on your screen. So you're trying to click out of that, and then the little notification for it just stays on your screen the entire time, and if you're on controller, it keeps wanting to click on it. Oh no, that's not cool. I mean, but other than that one incident, it was like it was so bad too, because the person who shared it genuinely was trying to give, like, here's the strategies for this board, here's how to deal with the PvP, here's how we, you know, we just need one person on the crystal, and we need everybody else to protect, and blah blah blah blah. And it was so useful, nobody paid attention to it. I think people like purposefully went, how dare you try to teach me things? How dare! And did the exact opposite.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

And I'm trying to get you to scoot over like two pixels to the left.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

That's all I want you to do. It was so bad. Um, and so that was the only useful strategy board I've gotten. I have I now have a backlog of somewhere around like 15 memes from from going into raids and getting strategy boards.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

So oh boy.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Oh let's just say, okay, so anybody who's familiar with game development will know a little term called TTP. It it is it is time to to to to to penis. Time to penis. And so if you and and and I hate that this is a real thing, but it's it but it is. So every single time that a game developer puts something in the game in which people have the ability to creatively like interact or create something artistically with the game, they have to be aware that there will be a TTP. Like, there's and what they have to also kind of be aware of is how are we going to like keep this so that it's not something that forces this on other people, right? Yeah, strategy boards are great. I have seen entirely too many strategy board weenesses. I don't want to see them anymore.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

How dare you give me the eggplant?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

I know, right? I'm just done. So done.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

Too many.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Is this like the new version of like I'm gonna send you my quote unquote like dick pic?

SPEAKER_00 13:42

I yeah, I you know what? I if it weren't for the fact that it's something that okay, get the here's the part that they don't mention is that apparently if you share a strategy board, you can't see what you shared. It doesn't pop up on your screen, it pops up on everybody else's, though. Everybody else gets to see the thing that you shared, and if you accidentally shared your private meme from your friends to an entire group of strangers on the internet, let's just say this has been an interesting experience. Um but leave it to a bunch of gamers to take an incredibly useful tool and turn it into something that's only useful for tools. Um tools for tools. All right. Okay. But but and here's the thing I have to say is uh put aside, the the thing is actually incredibly powerful. It's it's really well done. The strategy board is actually something that as a person who is a I I guess a casual raider um would see as very, very useful. Uh it it it does not have the limitations I was afraid that it was gonna have. Because um while you are limited to 50 boards and the sharing is not, you know, it is kind of awkward. Uh it's still like for that board, you have as many slides as you need to explain all the mechanics for for the fight. So it's honestly it's great. Honestly, it's great.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

No, I I I want to mess around with it some more. Hopefully, um be able to get some of the like uh savages and mess around with it and see you know what it's all about and stuff like that. So I'm looking forward to playing with it some more. Um along the line. Oh was it the command panel? I need to mess around with that too.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah, okay. So I I saw the command panel and I I hopped on that like immediately because like I am kind of like I understand that anybody's gonna look at my UI, and I have had a lot of criticism over the time. I don't really care, it's my UI. You don't have to play with it. So I have but I'm ADHD, like I'm I am an ADHD gremlin of gremliness, so I have to have a lot of things like where I can see it, or I will forget that it exists. Um but I don't like having like all like I've been struggling with trying to find different ways to like have collapsible. I don't like the standard collapsible mini thing. I didn't like the macro setup for it, it was hyper complicated. It was it required a bunch of setup, and I was just like, I don't want to spend six hours having to figure all this. I just want to be able to put the things that I need where I need them and and use it that way. And it's not as though they haven't given us enough like UI manipulation capability, but the command panel solves a problem that quite frankly, um, I had been having for a while, which was uh the collapsible like macro setups still meant that you had to have a button set up for the macro, and you still had to have like you had to spend tons of time messing around with the A UI to put things in certain places. And having these four 25, you know, panels means that I can get all of my jobs on one, plus any like accessory buttons that I need. The fact that it's it's easily man uh maneuverable with a controller because I'm a con hybrid controller keyboard player, um, is incredible. Honestly, I just love the damn thing. I've have two uh or at least one whole page that I haven't even set up yet, and it's still it like I've been able to remove three hot bars from my UI, and um, it's been great.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Nice. I I didn't even mess around with that because yeah, I like I don't know why people criticize people hotbars to begin with, but uh like I need to see everything like all the buttons needs to lay it out in front of me. Like I know where everything is at. I have it like really similar from um one job to another, like all my tankings um they they're all laid out pretty much the same way as all the you know, all that.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Um yeah, same, same, same, same.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

So like so that way, you know, when I go from one tank to another, you know, it feels comfortable, I know where it is at. I want to mess around with this so that I can, you know, pop possibly add like clear up some window space, uh, because I have like all the jobs in like two hot hot bar areas, and then I have all my emotes, and then I have like some other stuff on on the side. I'm like, okay, I need uh I need to figure that out so that way I can clean it up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

So well, the thing I like more about it more than anything is that right now to to get to like emotes and stuff like that, I have it on my um I use cross hotbar. So I have it on like uh I think it's like hot bar four and five of my uh cross hotbar. But on controller, the way that you have to get to your cross hotbar could be really awkward. Um because of course it's like you hold this button and then you press this thing, and then you get there, and then you have to like you know pull your triggers and da-da-da-da-da. And sometimes I just want to be able to um, you know, just be able to open something up and maneuver because it's I don't know, it just feels like it's laid out in such a way that it's easier to get to for your lesser used stuff or for jobs or for like timers and things like that. Um, all the stuff that I used to have like buried in my macro hot bars, I can now just put on the command panel. And because it has a button that goes directly to that page, it's so much easier than um having to have all these macros set up. Also, as someone who does a lot of like crafting and gathering and has like a bunch of like macro, like I have a ton of macros. Like uh I was running out of macro space. Oh jeez. So so to have um to finally be able to clear out some of my macros was really nice.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Uh so yeah, and then I mean, I haven't played around with the new colors or anything of the UI because I am I am a dark UI lover. Me in my weak void loving eyes, I'm just just mega dark. I don't care. Um uh so I don't know if that's something that you played around with or cared about, but it's kind of cool that they are giving like customization seems to be the watchword of what they're they're working towards with 14 right now, which I'm totally into.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

I'm all for it as well.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Speaking of which, so how many new outfits have you made?

SPEAKER_02 21:53

One one!

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Oh my god!

SPEAKER_02 21:58

I I have I okay, I made My my magical girl uh glam, and that's the extent of all that I cared about at this point. So no, I I know I plan on making more. Uh I I just need to sit down and just look at what I have and see what I can come up with and everything. But yeah, I I I made my magical girl glam, and now I have it on my uh you finally have the weapon to go with your magical girlness.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Yes, I love it. Which is now why hookah is no longer about that Ruby Red, she's all up in that hot pink, that hot pink.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Okay, I I would go to a major city and just sit there uh for a little bit. Like I'll go AFK and I'll come back to a message. I love your glam.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

It's so good. I will admit. I mean, if you were just gonna spend the time on one glam, you you did a good job.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Um but uh like I of course have become completely obsessed, and I now spend hours and hours and hours trying on all my news. I have um like there's so many like little hidden things that kind of like get dropped in. Just the idea that I can go through my glam chest now and literally just try on anything and make it work for whatever job I want. Like, I have very weird job ideas because I'm not limited by the final previous Final Fantasies or anything like that. So for me, a lot of my influences and things that I pull in for different jobs and how I think of them is not based necessarily in Final Fantasy, it's based in things like DD or, you know, uh even Discworld or like a bunch of other different influences that may not be directly related to Final Fantasy at all. So for me, Dark Knight I've always thought of as like caster tank. And one of the things that I have always been very like, I don't love the fact that every single Dark Knight set has always been extremely like metal armor heavy. And I get why they were doing that, because the only other metal, like you know, classic armor heavy tank we had was paladin. And so having like the dark version of that kind of made sense in an aesthetic way, but to me, I mean, I have to use my MP a lot. That's magic points, that's what MP stands for. So therefore, my Dark Knight should be dressed as a caster, like they should be full on. I have a giant sword and I cast magic. So having the the ability to now put caster gear or even like black mage gear and some of the the the the um the stuff that kind of references that on my uh dark knight as a tank has been incredible. So good. I love it. Um so yeah, the the the glamour drop, quite frankly. I mean, that and the music for the Arcadian, they could have done those two things, and I would be singing praises and I would be losing my mind. But they gave us so much more. Um the new, yeah, like you were saying, the new PvP is is so much fun. But um, and and I love the new command panel. I know I I really have enjoyed a lot of the the UI updates, the the all that. Okay, so let's we've built up to it too much. I think we need to I think we need to talk about the Arcadian.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

Oh, yes, please. Because that the well, okay, so I'm happy how it ended. My my one wish didn't come true, which I'm I'm not disappointed. I'm not disappointed. I wish they would have implemented them somehow, but but I I love each one of the fights, and I love how the moment that that you were in Arcania, you messaged me going, I didn't know you gaslight as a fighter.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

I know, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Or I mean, I'm not gaslighting, I mean you moonlight as a as a as a fighter. I was like, what?

SPEAKER_00 26:38

I didn't know hookah was moonlighting in the Arcadian. Go do it, you'll find out what I mean. If you but uh yeah, it's um that fight is so good. I don't want to spoil anything about the story, so we're not gonna do that, but we are gonna talk about um in some generalities about it. First of all, the music.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

So good. They did a great job uh with with this series alone.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Um, from who could who could, sweetheart. I'm so sorry you're underselling it. It's amazing! It's absolutely insane! I love it so much. Like, oh my god, I have been playing these songs on repeat, on repeat, on repeat, on repeat. It is so good. Oh my god. Okay, um, okay, I think I have all of us to get them sorry, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Catch your breath, catch your breath.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Of course they dropped like the the like hint for the music, and the live letter went on about like Tom Morello and Br Beartooth, and like we were gonna get heavy like rock and it was gonna be so good. And I am a huge rage against the machine fan, and I'm I'm big into that entire like genre of music. Like, I listen to it and all the time, and then I was expecting, I was like, surely the rest of these songs are going to be okay in comparison. Like, don't I underestimated Sokin and I'm so sorry, Sokin Son. I take it all back, I absolutely completely bow down to the master. It is so good. If you get a chance to try and like look it up on your like streaming service of choice for music or YouTube or whatever, oh my god, please do it. It's so good.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

I know, right? Oh we need to get we need to get Tom and Heather get all caught up with the Arcadia stuff just so they get they experience it because we need to do this before fanfest because I'm afraid they're gonna be playing the songs and they don't know where it's coming from. And so I know we need to get them caught up somehow.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

I know I know, I know. I really, I really wish. And the normal fight, don't get me wrong, the normal fights are tricky, they've got some really interesting mechanics, but the music is so good, and um they were really fun to figure out. And I I mean, one of the things I love about it is that we've had more time between a normal raid drop and a savage raid drop than we've ever had before, which should mean that we had tons of time for people to like latch on and like get into it and learn how to do it. And don't get me wrong, like I've been going nuts on them. Like, I have been doing the normal fights like crazy, yeah. Way more than I normally would, uh, to the point where I forget whether or not I actually can roll on gear or not. It's just I I've done it so much that I'm like, wait, have I done it for this week? Has there been a Tuesday? There was a Tuesday. So um, but uh it but it's just because um I'm also uh gonna get involved with a new group that's doing on-content savages, uh, hopefully coming up near the the end of the month, beginning of February. Um because uh I've never done on-level savages, and I'm very, very excited about doing this, and I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Shout out to Marky for putting it together as usual.

SPEAKER_03 30:40

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Um we we will see if we can get everybody together to do the thing. Um, right now we're still looking for people, so you know, hit up Marky. He just got home from uh his vacation. So if you're in the HJP group and you are interested in doing some odd level savages, uh hit up Marky. Um uh or just go uh post something in the raid group and and ask questions. We are always down for that. But yeah, okay, so the first one, um the um the fact that it that it incorporated a lot of mechanics that we've seen before. Like there was even a throwback to a mechanic from an uh an Alexander raid in there was so good. Um but the the the DPS check in the beginning, the fact that that's still catching people, woo! I mean, that is that is this that is it. That is one of those measures of a really great mechanic, a really great setup. Um and then the second fight, the music is great, it's very surfer rock, you know, uh blink 182.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

I was about to say blink.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Very yeah, very blink, very 2000s, very, very into it. I loved it. It was a lot of fun. Uh the mechanics in that one are also like that one is it's positioning, it is 100% top tout. I'm just positioning, positioning, positioning.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Um which I can't imagine the salvage in that one. Oh, jeez.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Oh, it's gonna uh I can't wait to try it. I can't wait to try it. I haven't even seen the Savage Fights yet because I've been um busy with, you know, of course, like real life. Like people do that crap.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Um we touched grass? What?

SPEAKER_00 32:44

What is this? I've had to touch so much grass in the last week. I think I'm allergic to grass now. Um like it.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

I mean, we don't have grass currently right now. We have snow.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Uh sucks. We've had nothing but grass. I want to stop. But um uh, and then we get into uh oh my god, so they confirmed, by the way, for anybody who has done the storyline and got to see it, uh the tyrant has a vehicle that's very that's the third fight in the the series that came out. He has a vehicle that's very unique to him, it is very reminiscent of um a classic muscle car. It is gorgeous. I mean, it's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

I want it so bad.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

I want it so I mean ah ah okay, so yeah, um, that's been confirmed as the amount that you get out of 12. So there's that. Um and then uh let's see, and then of course the last fight where you you have everything burns playing on loop repeat, and I'm gonna be honest with you, Tom Morello. Like one of the things that the man has gotten really good at, like that song plays on repeat, on repeat, and it's only a three-minute song. Yeah, and and the fight lasts for eight minutes, so you get to hear that song repeat at least three times.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Depending whether or not you uh you wipe it.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

It never stops being good, it's just good all the way through.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

There's like, okay, so like there are certain in this in this entire raid series, alright, there's certain songs that you know I don't mind. You know, generally when I play the game, I have like my background music turn off because I'm not you know, I'm I'm watching a streamer or I'm watching a video or something in the background and stuff like that. So but like whenever these these latest four pop up, I mute who whatever I'm watching hitting pause, and I'm turning my background music on and I'm turning it off just a little bit just so I can hear the music and stop.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

I literally have a macro just for this raid series that back in when it first dropped, um, as soon as the the raid series came out and the music was so good from the very beginning. I literally set up a macro so that um because I normally play, I can't play with background music off, but um I usually have it so low because honestly, for me, I'm very sound sensitive. So I play with most of my sounds very low.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

But um when I'm going into certain raids that have audio cues, I have like certain setups that I have macros for that I will use. Like I have a raid macro for my raid sounds, and then I have like, you know, so when I I do fill in for U or I fill in for whatever, and you have to listen for the screams, or you have to listen for different audio cues, I have that set up. But for this, for the first time ever, my background sounds like the only other thing that has gotten me to turn my background music above 20 was the 20. When I go into the 20, don't try to talk to me. I my it's at 50. And 50 is normally very high for me. Like, I don't even try to talk to me. I'm good. Um, but for this 100%, like, don't try to do calls-outs for me. I don't need your call-outs. I'm I'm just here for the song, and I'm I've got my entire rhythm of how to deal with these mechanics straight in. It's so good. Um, I'm gonna be such a menace. No, no, no. I'll turn it down, but still, it's just like it's just been so good, especially when I go in by myself or practice or whatever. It's so fun.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Oh, it's so fun.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Um I did the PvP a little bit. Um, I enjoyed it, but like I said, I had some had some bad experiences with people that no matter what people tried to give it, it's like, please stay in alliance because then like you can actually have your spells work together and then yeah, nobody was listening. Nobody, nobody was looking at chat. They were all just like, free for all, let's go! Murder, death, kill. Um, and then uh uh as far as like oh gosh. Uh and then we're gonna talk about like okay, small things that have come out that I'm sorry, but they just make my little heart happy. The new uh Air Force One for the Cielo Days, I love it so much.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

It's so fun, it's so it's such a silly little like you know, arcade shooter thing, but it's so fun just to see something different. And they actually came out with, and here's the part that uh there's two of them. They they did the same thing they did for the old Air Force One. There's not just one version, there's two versions.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

I must have just gotten to one version then because I've not seen the second one.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Well, it's it's all in how um there the um the you know there's the shooting gallery part where you you sit in one place. One of those is in the um is in a cave where you have like a bunch of ghosts and everything, and then the other one is actually uh if I remember correctly, it's like on a ship, or it's just like yeah, so it's like on another pirate ship, and so it's like a different setup. But yeah, it's it's it's fun. I like it. I had a lot of fun with that.

SPEAKER_02 39:05

Okay, so I've only gotten the one in the cave, not on the ship. Okay, so that's good. That's good to know. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Yeah, and it actually has like a slightly different fly-in. Now, again, this could be me hallucinating. You never know. Like, um, I'm pretty sure I'm not AI, but nobody can prove anything. Um, anymore. That's the world we live in. Deal with it. Uh but I I seem to remember there being some differences. But uh the um the other stuff that's dropped. Uh the I have not okay, so full confession time. I uh I have not done the occult crescent stuff.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Neither have I.

SPEAKER_00 39:53

I've been bad and I didn't want to do it, so I didn't.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

Um don't worry because I don't want to do it either.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

No one's gonna be mad at you. I know I just I didn't want to do it alone, and then on top of it, I just didn't I just don't want to do it. I didn't want to do it. Um uh I enjoyed a cult crescent for a little while, and then honestly, uh it fell off for me. And I I know that there are a lot of people who still enjoy it and good for them, but I the exploratory zones have always been a bit weird for me anyway. Like, um I'm even struggling with cosmic exploration. Like, it's it's good, and to be fair, it's really interesting, and I can tolerate it better than like um than a cult crescent. But a cult crescent's one of those things where I absolutely do not want to do it on my own, and I absolutely do not want to do it with less than like six or seven people at least, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:09

At least, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Um and even then it's a struggle because of the way that things are it's weird. I think the reason why I get I have a struggle with some of these zones is because they are both very, very have a party, like have a party, like get in a party, be in a party, right? But if you are in a party, understand that that everything is gonna be harder. Everything is gonna be so much harder because you're in a party. But if you're alone, it's also almost impossibly hard. So it's like the being in a party is more about the synergy of powers, which can be very interesting, I guess, but it's also exhausting after a while.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Because you get very used to, at least for the rest of the game, that have being in a party means that not only do you have skills that you can rely on each other and you can kind of like lean on each other's like abilities or whatever, but you also the difficulty tends to go down just a little bit because you have more people involved and more people can can take everything on. Whereas when you are solo, it's harder because all the DPS is on you, all the healing's on you, all the everything's on you, right?

SPEAKER_02 42:33

And that's why I go in as a warrior.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Right. Yeah, and don't get me wrong, like I'm a warrior main, so of course I go in as a warrior, but even as a warrior solo, it's it's it's frustrating. It is frustrating. Um I uh I have yet I've seen on the now other things. They made some changes to the um to a cult crescent because they added the jewelry. Um I've seen it on the market board. That's the part that's confusing to me. Apparently, the jewelry that comes out of a cult crescent can be traded on the market board.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Wait, what?

SPEAKER_00 43:23

What? Yeah, trust me. I also have uh a confuse. Um, but at the same like, okay. But the item level for it is about the same as what you would get from um item level uh for gear that you can find outside of a cult crescent. Huh. So I I'll be honest with you. I'm I'm gonna faint it. I I I'm total ignorance on that one. I don't know what's going on with it. All I have done is I've just seen the things being traded on the market board, which I thought was an interesting. Change, I guess. Um, but uh I'm waiting until 7.41 to officially drop, which should be somewhere near either the end of this month, beginning of next month, which is uh the end of January, beginning of February, uh for them to figure out for me to figure out whether or not it's something that I actually want to deal with. Because of course that's when the next relics come up. And uh me being me, you know, crackpot insane. Um, I actually have all of the uh the relics currently up to the top level that you can get them at. Um, I don't love all of the models, but some of them, some of them I am deeply in love with. Deeply in love with.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

Well, luckily.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

A lot of the tank the tank weapons are beautiful. The red mage weapon is amazing. The white mage weapon is so good.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

And I'm still sitting over here trying to collect some crystals.

unknown 45:11

I know.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Oh my goodness. Yeah, the number of people who are still at the demi atma phase is it's wild because it's like I don't know. The drop rate on that is just crazy talk. Like, why can't the drop rate be closer to like 30%? It would be one thing if it was like for out of 10 mobs, right? If if out of every 10 mobs you at least got one to two pieces, that would be one thing, right? But it's out of ten mobs, you have a chance at maybe having one drop. Maybe, yeah, perhaps. So the only advantage at this point to the exploratory zones for me is that at the very least, um, they are not locked to your server. So if you find the server that you're on, the one we're on, uh tends to have fewer people, and therefore you can't get like uh critical engagements or fates to pop as often as you need to have as many opportunities to get the highest drop rate because the highest drop rate has been proven to be in a cult crescent, even though I've seen a lot of people have a lot of success with doing the fates out of a cult crescent to get them to drop. It's just that it it takes longer and it's it can be something that it's it's a very definite like two-monitor situation. Like you you or or like a a TV and a phone or something, I don't know. It's it's not a you can keep your brain on it because it's just hopping to from the same fate to the same to to the same like series of fates over and over and over again until you get it to drop.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

No, so quick question though. So like it's because I've been trying to do it via via fates and whatnot. Right? So if I go to if I go in there, is it I can get it off like off a random mob and not like the events that's been going on, or is it just the event?

SPEAKER_00 47:30

No, it has to be a fate. It has to be a fate. Yeah, yeah. It's not like it's not that level of grind. It's not the level of grind where you just like pick a corner and just murder your way across the f the board, hoping for the needle to drop um out of the haystack. No, it is you have to specifically travel from fate to fate to fate to fate to fate to fate to fate. Which does mean on the bright side, does mean that if you are someone who does not have all of your fates completed, because of course there's an achievement um that unlocks a new uh vendor and a lot of other special items, if you complete a certain number of fates, I think it's 60 fates total or something like that, uh-huh per zone in an expansion. Um then you get a new bicolor gemstone. Uh vendor gets unlocked in the main cities, uh, which for this one would be solution nine and Tuleol. Um, and they have specific items that are only available if you've completed. So there is, in fact, a reason to do it. And then, of course, every zone that you finish all of the fates, um uh you get a not only an achievement if you care about those things, but you also the vendor for bicolor gemstones um winds up uh having new items like minions and sometimes uh housing items and things like that that you can open up. So there is a secondary benefit. It's it's it's an MMO. We grind up in here, okay?

SPEAKER_02 49:28

I'll grind, I'll grind for other things, but you at least bump up the percentage a little bit, please. Like, can we do that? Because like I will I will spend like an hour or two in there, and like not a single gem will drop. And I'll that's where my frustration lies. Whereas like, okay, I'm putting in all this work, grinding away, and all that stuff, and not a single one will drop. And that that's where um my patient level just sinks down to zero.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

So okay, so here's where uh the I I totally understand your frustration, and okay, so here's where we have the difficulty of it. So I'm gonna I'm just gonna break the whole thing down. In occult crescent, if you're in the exploratory zone and you do um fates and uh well, specifically uh critical engagements um and fates in occult crescent have between I think it's a 15% and a 20% drop rate of your demi atma. Okay. Um if you are in overworld fates, which are the fates that you find in the zones outside of occult crescent and all the other areas of Dawn Trail, you only have a 5% chance.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Now, granted, there are more fates that you can hit in the overworld than you can in the occult crescent because occult crescent, the fates pop automatically, but they have a lower drop rate than the critical engagements. But critical engagements require you to actually kill a certain number of mobs to be able to activate the critical engagement. So um the the other thing is that the colors that you need to get, because there are six different colors that you have to get, um, they're also split into zones. And the way that the mobs are distributed across the map for a cult crescent means that there are certain mobs that are just easier to get to and less dangerous to attack, and so therefore, they are attacked more often. So you just have certain areas that wind up having critical engagements pop more often, and of course, the fate, because they have a you know, they they also pop on their own timed basis, but that timed basis is based on the amount of people who are in the zone, so it's like everything has a weird downside, whereas it's a frustrating like grind on the overworld, but the fates don't require you to actually spawn them at all, and you can just you just wind up taking the time and you grind it out and you just sit there and go over and over and over again, unless you're like me, and you happen to find someone who is blessed by the Yoshi P. I'm not naming names, eight men, uh Cerberus, but um we decided when I was finally down to I'd done 50 hours in a week. That is 50 hours of playing a video game to get demiatomas. And I was finally uh at the end of my rope, had not slept, was frustrated, and was just like, I just need four. I don't even need four. I think I just I need three. I need three of these green things. Who wants to help me go find the green things? And so I I went out with uh a bit serber a friend of ours from um HGP, and uh we hit three different fates in succession, and every single one of them dropped to demi atma. We actually wound up with an extra.

SPEAKER_02 53:50

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

It was hilarious. So yeah, yeah, the whole thing's been it's been a lot to deal with with that whole thing. So, and then of course, recently we had another friend that I helped doing do stuff, um uh that I was only able to help them for so much, and then they wound up hitting up a bunch of other friends. And it's just it's just one of those things where sadly you just have to kind of like sit down and go, I'm going to do this, and you dedicate a huge amount of time. It is very old school MMO mentality. But to be fair, in the old school MMO mentality, I didn't have a mortgage to pay. So um, this was uh yeah, um the time dedication, a little much. Uh yeah, a little bit, a little bit. Uh at least to be fair, once you get past that gate, you and you you get past the demi atma gate, then um it's it's relatively smooth sailing from there if you have a crafter or if you just have money. Um uh or you have a friend who crafts or has money, um then it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 55:15

But uh it's all fine.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

It's all fine, it's all fine here. And then you just have to have all of your your tombstones uh your uh held hostage for you know months and months and months at a time. It's fine. Um, you know, the grind uh the the the grind. I hate it anyway. Um so yeah, I mean don't be get me wrong on some level, it makes me feel so proud of myself that I have my my um uh my relics where they're at, but at the same time, I'm also not delusional enough not to bull to to understand that it fully is luck. It is luck, and I dedicated way too much time in the beginning to getting these things. Um so yeah, I don't I don't blame anybody for for not having them. Um anyway, so yeah, I I will eventually go back into a cult crescent. I will eventually find out what's going on in there, but I'm gonna wait until 7.41 when I feel compelled to do so because there's another level of relic that I have to deal with. Um, and until then, it's fine. It's fine sitting right there, all by its loan song.

unknown 56:45

It doesn't need me.

SPEAKER_02 56:48

I mean, eventually I'll probably I'll probably go back in there or whatnot. I've been uh slowly focusing on my crafting uh stuff because I have two of the crafters at 100 right now. I'm trying to get everything else to 100, but as opposed to just spreading my time and trying to do all everyone all at the same time, I think we're just gonna focus on one and then go to the next one from there and whatnot. So I'm not trying to go try to drive myself going insane and stuff like that. So oh, and sprinkling a little bit of fishing in there as well.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

So uh yes. Um, okay, so next, next we talk about the other layer of crazy that I have, apparently. Because I have all of my crafters and gatherers at 100, but let's let's learn let's learn about boundaries and limitations today. Um I have found out that when it comes to Final Fantasy XIV, I can either put my time and effort into learning um the raids and the raid series and and and doing all that stuff and in like exploratory zones and all these other things, or I can care about crafting and gathering. I can't do both. Like I just I cannot. I'm not a person who hadn't like I know that there are people in our group who are special, talented, amazing, spectacular people. I am not one of them. I am not, I cannot, I do not. Um I have all of my crafters and gatherers at 100, and I'm gonna I'm gonna be fully honest with you. The whole reason why I got my crafters and gatherers all to the top level, and this started in Endwalker, is that I joined at the end of Shadowbringers, and so like I was still newbie, didn't really know about what was going on with Shadowbringers yet because I was like, you know, still in the the the haze of I'm just starting this, I'm still in ARR, I don't know what y'all are talking about, whatever. Um so I decided because I love crafting and gathering. I've always loved the crafting and the gathering part of it. My favorite thing to do in WoW for ages and ages and ages. I always picked up um herbology and I always went around, and I was just like, me and my little druid self flying through the air, picking flowers, flower picking, picking, picking, picking. Like that's that's me, and that's how I waste my time, and that's how that's how I spend my my existence for the longest time. And then Final Fantasy XIV came along, and you could learn all the crafting and the cat. Like, they didn't limit you, they weren't like, oh no, you only get to be this kind of crafter or this kind of no. If it's available in the game, you can do it, just go do it, just go do all the things, and I'm just like, oh my god, this is awesome! Except then you learn the trick, and the trick is that they have interwoven all of the crafting and the gathering together. Yes, so you sit down and you go, Well, I want to do weaving because weaving sounds full fun. I'm I'm gonna be a weaver, I'm gonna make some pretty dresses, I'm gonna make some pretty clothes, I'm gonna be that that person, right? Yeah, and then you sit down and you realize that actually you also need a ton of leather, you need a ton of metal, and you also need like a ton of other specialized things. And oh, oh, then there's stuff that you have to buy from vendors, and then there's other stuff over here. So now you're not only spending tons of money, you're also now traveling all over the place to gather all the things, which, to be fair, in the beginning is kind of fun until you realize that you have to go to the market board. And when you go to the marketboard and somebody is selling a crafting material, they're like, hey, this is a thing that I can easily make. I can bulk craft it. It doesn't take me really any time to do it. I'm gonna put it up on the market board for an absolutely exorbitant amount, and I am going to bankrupt any baby crafter that comes anywhere near this.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:23

So, of course, I'm stubborn and also broke. So I'm gonna look, I look at that and I go, oh, absolutely not. How do I get this item? At which point the internet tells me, well, you can get this app, uh, this if you go learn leather working. And I'm like, okay, great. I will go learn leather working just so I can make shoes. Okay, so I go learn leather working. Well, now I'm invested in the leather working story. And beyond the leather working story, I'm now able to make all the leather working stuff. Great. All right, except now in the leatherworking stuff, I learn I need wood. Why do I need wood? What is the wood for? Why are we doing wood now? All right, fine, great. Okay, fantastic. Let's go get wood. So now, now I have to go chop down trees, and now I'm a woodworker. Okay, so and everything's just all stacked together in one giant pyramid scre scheme of crafting and gathering of omni crafterism. And so now I'm sitting here at the top of this pyramid, and here's the thing, here's the thing I want absolutely everyone to be aware of. Crafting and gathering is actually, if you're into that sort of like min-maxing mini-game stuff, and just being able to explore all the zones and gather, it's fun, it is actually a lot of fun, but it's a pyramid scheme. It is you start one, and then the next thing you know, you have fallen down a rabbit hole of having to start another one, and then you find out you need something else, you start another one, and the next thing you know, you have all of the crafting and all of the gathering, and you're spending all of your time digging rocks out of a cave so that you can make a pretty dress. Um like this is this is how they get you, and then then there's another layer. Like, there's the normal person layer of crafting and gathering in Final Fantasy XIV, which is where you're just like, you tripped, you fell, you you landed and rolled down the hill of the ADHD crafting and gathering, and now you have all of them. And that's great, you've gotten to your max level. You're you're like, awesome! Now I can really truly craft crazy awesome stuff. Hold up there, Tex. Um, let me tell you about this little thing called material. Let me tell you about how you now have to have uh top-end crafted gear and you have to have it pentameled. And oh, now you have to have crafting food and crafting tanks, and it's it's literally like okay, so if you ever come across a high-end crafter or gatherer, I want you to revere that person with the exact same amount of reverence that you hold in your heart for a legendary ultimate raider. Like, you need to understand that you can actually buy a skip. You can buy a skip, you can start this game, start playing it, and go, you know what? I don't have time, but I do have money, and I'm gonna go ahead and buy myself a level, like whatever's the 10 levels below the top, that time, and you can get yourself a lovely little job skip, right? Still might have to do the story list, do the story story skip too. Hey, you get those things, you can skip those. Guess what you can't skip? Crafting and gathering. Yep. Crafting and gathering. Every single person who has their crafters and their gatherers at top level, they did that crap from zero. Yep, they they did that from the very bottom. They drug their their you know, screaming bodies all the way to the top, and they will have their tools in hand shouting their victoriousness until the giant four tons weight um lands on them, that now they have to figure out how to get timed nodes, how to get um like the appreciation that I have for people who can actually craft on level gear high quality, bow down. Bow down. Right. Totally. Oh my goodness. I just I have tried and I have tried, and the amount of oh okay, so this. Is completely deviating from what we were talking about with 7.4, but this is how conversations work. So here we go. Oh my god. Okay, so my trauma. Um, and this is not to scare anyone away from crafting and gathering. I want to make that really clear. Because to be honest, you can, in fact, do crafting and gathering and never have to care about the top-end stuff. And it's still very cool to do crafting and gathering because you can make a lot of money. You can make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

Gil.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

And that's just Gil making like basic stuff. Like, you don't have to have like top tier amazing crafters and gatherers. You can just have, like, I got up to level whatever, top tier, and I have okay gear, and I'm just crafting some normal quality stuff that I'm gonna put on the market board and still make tons of money from. Like, that's legit. That's 100%. Or I'm just gonna do housing items. Housing items, you don't have to make high quality. See, you can usually make like crafted housing items, you can sell that stuff for tons of money. It's great. Um, because housing designers aren't always omni crafters. Let me tell you. Uh but oh, okay. So starting in Endwalker, let me tell you my sad tale. So Endwalker comes about. I get uh a level 90 battle job. I decide okay, I'm gonna push all my crafters and my gathers. I'm gonna make my own gear. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna have my own high-quality gear, and I'm gonna be amazing! Um, and then I had to pent meld my very first piece of gear to be able to craft that. And um, I lost 35 materia.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:08

Oh no, oh no.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

I want you to understand, just like as an aside, that's not even like the worst amount of materia that I've lost. Uh pent like pentamelding this gear is um I have lost and here's the thing battle gear is uh materia is actually pretty easy to get. Um, every single time you do roulette, you get turn-ins that allow you to go and get battle materia. Um just going through the dungeons that are on level for content, you get materia drops left and right. So battle materia is just it is free, it is easy, it flows like water. It is it is not even like mana from the heavens because it's literally like turn on the tap, get blasted in the face with materia. It's and it's so bad too that people complain about like uh older dungeons where they started this stuff where you go through the dungeon and basically the tap for the materia gets turned on, and you're just in the face with materia you do not need anymore. Oh wow. And so you walk out with like all of these giant magic balls, and you're just like, what do I do with this? I'm gonna sell it. I'm gonna sell this to a vendor. This is useless garbage, right? Because it's only useful for the period of time in which you are in that expansion for the most part. Like, there's men-maxers that will argue with me, I'm sure, but for the most part, it's only useful for that expansion. But um crafting and gathering materia has a very limited amount of ways that you can get crafting and gathering materia. And um, they are you can do collectibles and turn them in for scripts, which you can then turn scripts in for materia. You can, for instance, in cosmic exploration or Ish Guardian Restoration, you would be able to uh do certain you know gotcha games, or you could turn in certain scripts or things to be able to buy materia. Um, but it's the exact same scripts that you would use to buy your minions and your mounts and your your dies and your all your other special stuff. So why are you spending it on materia? Because the materia for at least the time period in which that zone is on level, that's the most important stuff there. Like the minions and the mounts are nice, but they're not gonna get you to the point where you can sit down and you can craft high quality raid gear. Just gonna let you know. So these are people who are like completely not buying minions, mounts, uh housing items, cool stuff to decorate their homes with, specifically so that they can buy crafting and gathering material that will explode in their face trying to stuff it in a piece of gear. The system is um um it's a little crazy. It's a little, it's a little crazy talk. Let me just say. This is from Endwalker, not recently, but Endwalker. I lost 92 materia. What? I have no luck.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:59

That's insane.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:03

So again, if you are someone who is like dedicated to the cause, please do not let this like discourage you from doing so because it's a lot of fun, and uh most people have way better luck melting material than I do. But there there are um and there are a lot of advantages to having all of your crafting and gathering at max. Not only do you have access to treasure maps that you can dig up, but you also have um uh tons of like really nice glam gear and stuff like that that you can create, uh, as well as being able to repair all of your own gear and all your friends. So, yay, there's lots of advantages to it. But yeah, just understand that every single person who is geared with top-end gear at high quality, penta melded for crafting at level 100 has done ultimate level crafting. Okay, so I just want everyone aware of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:14

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:15

I am not I'm not on that level. Uh so yeah, respect.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:24

Much, much respect. Uh I know a couple people uh in my old FC, they they craft all like they log on, and all that's all I see them do is just craft. So it's like yeah, goaded, goated 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:45

Yeah, so um I have I have recently, and even then, I even when I used to spend like way more time, I am I my ADHD is not compatible with hyper focusing on crafting and gathering to that level. So like I can handle I would say savage level crap. Savage level on-level crafting, by the way, is is where you can craft the on-level glam that's coming out of uh treasure maps, right? Yeah, because it does push you to a certain extent, but it's not gonna force you to do it like high level, high quality, because um, quite frankly, it doesn't need to be high quality to be a glam. In fact, it's kind of a detriment because it could be a waste of resources or whatever. But um, and also it adds like a weird glowy thing that makes it hard for me to see the little dot that it's dyable or not. So I usually don't bother with my glams being um high quality. However, if you were making gear for raiders and you can make high quality gear, whoo, that is yeah, that's that's uh that's ultimate level.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:07

And I don't I don't hang on that level. Not yet. No, not ever. Like there's I've been down that road, and it's just like I I try sometimes, but I don't uh no, I can't I can't make myself. Um all right, so moving on from the crafting and gathering. One of the things that has been happening recently, because of course we are heading into fan festivals, yay. As I I uh um so you have your tickets, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:50

Oh my god. Yeah, okay. So that was my so smooth way of saying, by the way, if you're going to fan fest in Anaheim this year, you'll get to meet the one, the only Who Kosa! Yay.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:06

I'll be there. Uh I recently just purchased my plane ticket. Which is like I because it's either I do it now or that ticket price has got to go up drastically.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:24

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I unfortunately live on the literal other side of the country from uh, and it's a big country, uh, from Anaheim, and I all of my thoughts, my my my prayers, my my love, my appreciation will go out to all of y'all in the HJP that are gonna be hanging it in Anaheim, and um hopefully there will be some FaceTimes, and uh I will I will get to experience it virtually, provided that the networking holds up.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:00

Providing considering that the Anaheim Convention Center is literally right across the street from Disneyland.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:10

Oh, I know, I know. I imagine that that pretty much means that like cell service is completely overwhelmed on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:23

I remember going to BlizzCon uh because they hold it at the Anaheim Convention Center. Right. And mind you, this was like over 10 years ago at this point. Right. Like even then, like even back then, like the cell service was actually pretty decent. Um, I'm not sure if like it's just because the amount of cell towers they have there or or whatnot, but it you know, my internet still worked um while I was out there or whatnot, but I'm hoping it's uh a whole lot better because there's gonna be a lot of people there.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:59

So it's well, yeah, I mean, yeah, that's that's the way it works, it it being like Disney and convention and all of the other stuff. So I'm I'm very much I I I want to see all the pictures. I hope y'all have an absolutely amazing time. The I will go ahead and state that one of the reasons why I have not put more focus into because the reality of the situation is that yes, of course, if I you know move things around and I, you know, worked really hard, I could probably come up with enough money to get over to Anaheim. But um, I didn't get a ticket, so I don't really have a uh an impetus to do it that way. Um, I know other people were you know selling tickets or whatever, but also uh, and this is just from my own experience working conventions and from reading about FanFest uh last uh the last time it came through. Um their treatment of disabled people was not great. So as a disabled person um who has to um rely on mobility uh tools and mobility and accessibility uh devices, um, I don't feel comfortable spending that much money and putting myself in the position of potentially not being able to enjoy myself because the environment and the vibes, as it were, for the for disabled people are rancid. Yeah. Um so no, I understand.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:51

I understand. Um that sort of sucks. I'm hoping they they learn from the last time. Um because like that uh the Vegas convention center was very Yeah, it was it was not good.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:09

It was not good. It was it was it was awful. Um, and to be fair, this is just sort of this is a problem with conventions in general, um, especially very, very, very large conventions where space is at a premium, where everything is very beholden to uh like um advertisers and corporate ideals of things, and they're the thing about the just an aside about conventions, I don't want to get like too far into it, but conventions in general, just so the people who are going maybe are aware, um yes, Square should have more control, yes, creative business unit should be verifying that their fan fests and so forth are accessible and you know fun and a good time for everyone, but understand that conventions till to this day have a rampant problem with this belief that these are volunteers and they are very heavily invested in using volunteers who, as a part of their volunteer work, get access to the convention in lieu of pay. So because many of them are not getting paid, it is harder to hold them to certain standards. And so that's that's a problem that we have with certain conventions, like in you know, that I've been to, that I've worked. One of the things that we run into is we have like you have the as the little layer of actually paid employees of the convention company and the convention center, which is separate from the convention company that's being hosted. Um, and then you have this layer of people who are just volunteers. And volunteers, because they are not technically employees, cannot be held to the same standards of employment because they're not they're not being paid.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:28

So just something to be aware of. That's just from my own like past experience of working for conventions and stuff like that. Just heads up. Um, but I'm really seriously looking forward to all of the the announcements, everything we've been getting out of Yoshi P and like uh he came on for his new years, um, jumping onto materia and answering fan questions. And of course, a lot of fans were just it was just basically like Santa Claus requests, like, can we get the Ultima uh horns dable, please? And can we can we get you know this item diable? And hey, can we do this? And so on and so forth. And of course, his response to all of those were we're I'll pass that along. Just any kind of requests that you have, put them on the forums, we'll pass them along to the appropriate team. We, of course, try to, you know, customize our game. And then there were things like, hey, um, we appreciate that you've made more things dyeable and that you've added more die channels. Have you considered perhaps instead of making us buy a ton of dies, instead just having like a palette unlock system where we can just have a palette of colors that we can use without having to have like investment of money or whatever? Um, and the response was yes, actually, we are looking into that. And in fact, um, things that he's mentioned in a lot of interviews lately have been um customization options will increase in 8.0. So what what kind of things does that conjure up for you, Hookah?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:17

A lot. Um just the fact that if you're gonna give me like a palette system and whatnot, and it makes things a whole lot easier, but then that also affects my my pocketbook a little bit because I've been selling a lot of dye lately.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:36

Uh so okay, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:41

So it's it's a double-edged sword because on one end I love it, and the other end I don't like it. No, I I I do on I do understand it though, because like the pricing for a lot of the dyes is a little bit ridiculous, and I will I will PvP the market board just so my items get sell get sold, alright? Um yeah, but no, I if they're looking to that, that's great. I absolutely love it. My my main concern is like just what parts is gonna be diable or whatnot, because I do not want to run into a situation where like you give me two choices, and one of the choices is a small little button on a shirt.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:28

Yeah, I will agree. That's been kind of that's been an egregious, like yeah, I've mmm I have been displaced with that, I will say. It's like, oh, what is this whole other die channel that I'm going to spend something that I mean I don't care what it is, whether it's cheap or it's easy to come by or whatever, it's still it's still an item that for the most part you have to spend gill on, which is in-game currency. So every single die you're using is in-game currency, and for it to be a tag, a tag, or a button, or like a tassel, I would be like a buckle or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:21

It's like are you kidding me right now? Like a whole die channel.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:27

Don't get me wrong something so if it was something where you could where it was just a palette system, like I could understand those choices, and I would probably be not necessarily like fine, fine with it, but I would be more understanding of it, and I would be like, Yeah, okay, sure, fine, whatever. But having to spend even 50 gill on a die, and it only changed like the teeniest, tiniest thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:06

Don't get me wrong, like I spent I I spent a lot of time, you know, doing uh like Island Century and whatnot just to buy certain dyes and whatnot without having to go through the market board and whatnot. But it's at the same time though, it's like if I'm spending all this time just to get this dye to use it on this particular uh glam and whatnot, don't put it on a button, don't put it on a on a on a buckle, don't put it on like the smallest part of it. It's like what is this?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:36

Can we also talk about how um there are dyes that are sold on the cash shop? Like they're cash dies. So we we may be looking at dyes where people are legitimately spending real money exactly on these things. This is this is a little this is a little unhinged. Anyway, so um here most of those dies, though I I all of those dies, I will say, are available in game, or at least a good good deal of them, I think, are available in game one way or the other. Uh I know that some of them are only very easily available through either ish card restoration or um having to like recruit a friend or like change data centers and get uh chocobo feathers to exchange for jet black dye. Like that's that's a little that's a little wild. Um, but no, the thing that excited me when I it was that he wasn't just talking about like die channels and and glam and stuff like that, but he was actually talking about an 8.0. They may be looking now. This may be me reading into it, this may be copium. Um I'll fully disclaimer that. But he did say no, we're looking at updating the character creation system and giving more options for character creation.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:21

Not to the extent of like Black Desert or anything like that, but I'm I'm I'm guessing a little bit more option than what we currently have.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:29

Well, and and the thing is is that there hasn't really been, other than the addition of more races, yeah, a significant upgrade to the character creation system. I mean, there's there's uh of course with the um graphics update in 7.0 uh in Dawn Trail, there has been you know increases in like uh skin textures and lighting and stuff like that. But no, as in the actual options that you get to choose in the character creator, we haven't had a change to that since the game dropped.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:07

Yeah, that that is that is true.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:11

So I I'm I'm I'm gonna put it out there. I'm gonna manifest it and putting it out in there in the universe. Butt slider. I want a butt slider. We get a boob slider or what a butt slider. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:22

Or both. Yes. Let's do it. Or both.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:25

I want both. Booth. Booth. Well, we already have the boob slider, so we just need the butt slider to like balance it all out. That's that's this is what we need. Uh but yeah, of course, so that means all of the speculation for uh 8.0 has been going nuts on the internet. Um, so we we'll get into that as it comes out. Honestly, uh to kind of like wrap up this incredibly long and rambling podcast today. I think that 7.4 has been a triumph. I can't wait until 7.41. Um, because uh that's when we're gonna see the new uh variant dungeon, which I am, I am like so into variant dungeons. I'm the person that pretty much I helped lead a bunch of people through the last few like variant dungeon things that have been a part of like the Mog tome events and things like that. Yeah um I love the variant dungeons. I don't love the way that they did Criterion because I just don't have a dedicated team of people who can meet and like go through this stuff and fight through what is what is essentially like three bosses and a bunch of trash mobs that might as well be bosses, and it's it was uh don't get me wrong, it's it's fun, but it would be fun if it was instead just like here's boss, and then here's a boss, and then here's a boss. Not okay, here's boss. Um you prog through that, and then you get hit by trash mobs, or you don't walk the right direction, and now you have to start everything all over again. Not as much fun, not as much fun. So I'm looking forward to the the the changes they're gonna make. We're gonna get new phantom weapons. I want to see what they look like. The the the models have been superb, they have been beautiful. The particle effects that got added, for the most part, I like them very much. Probably the only beef I have with the entire set really has been uh the sage weapons. I am four square opposed. I know that there are people who will fight me in the comments about that, but I rockets, rockets, really. Rockets, uh-uh. Nope, don't care. Not not a sage weapon, not for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:05

Uh um, don't don't don't we have one that looks like uh gatling guns?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:13

I that's a that's an ability, thank you very much from Machinist. Um, although the four the four square pistol is very weird looking. I will I'm I'm not a fan of that one either. Uh and I also wound up um uh having beef with the scythe. It's pretty at first, and it's actually kind of cool looking until you look at the way that the particle effect was was like added to it, and then you realize that it's it's it's inconsistent and it doesn't follow the blade very well, and the blade kind of like bends too far in. Anyway, I have weird complaints about it, but yeah, I'm not I'm not as big of a fan of it. Um but the rest of the weapons have been gorgeous. I've really, really liked. I created an entire glam around the paladin weapons that included a huge amount of white, which if you have ever seen my goth butt in this game, like walking around with my character, like I'm in all black and purple, and then all of a sudden I showed up in white and purple, and everybody was like, What happened to Pilot? Um, I was like, I couldn't die the white part, so that's what happened to me. Um but uh but that was kind of an interesting challenge. I like that. But um, and I'm also really looking forward to 7.45. Like 7.4 has just been really good all the way around. We're gonna get a lot of like Savage for the Raiders, apparently, has been awesome. People are still still fighting through that one, still trying to prog through all of those, which I'm am both terrified and excited by. Um and then getting into we're gonna get new Hildebrand, and then of course new variant dungeons, and then we're gonna get a bunch of like little piecement. We'll go into all those details later, but yeah. Um it's it 2026 looks like it's gonna be an exciting year.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:30

I think I think so. And I cannot wait. Um and whatnot. It's been it's been so so far. This patch has been so much fun. And oh yeah, we already talked about it and and everything. So it's it's been a good time, it's been an excellent time.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:46

And if you want to come play 7.4 with us, then might I suggest you go to heatherjustplay.org and click on the Discord tab, and you'll get an invite to our Discord where you can hang out with me and hookah. And we're online probably more than we should be. And uh we we love to to to go and and and uh play with you. So if 14's something that you enjoy, come and join with us.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:16

And may all the etherite travels be free.

unknown 1:36:20

Yay, we're gonna go.