Clink clink, bitch.

Nice to see that FFXVI continues the tradition.

Greetings, Warrior of Light. This is a world that exists outside your reality. Could it be a dream? A flight of fancy conjured by your weary mind? Perhaps…or perhaps not. 'Tis a pleasure to meet you again. As I have in the past, I have beckoned you here that I might express my gratitude. Ten years have now passed since the world was reborn from its ashes. Since we set forth upon this journey. Countless things have happened during that time, and I've had the pleasure of meeting many an adventurer along the way. If truth be told, it hasn't always been easy. There are moments when I wonder why I must struggle so. Days when I'm tempted to cast it all aside. But in spite of this, I always manage to carry on, and it is thanks to my wonderful comrades─and to you, our esteemed adventurers. By now, I must have been regaled with tens of thousands of your tales. You usually share them with a smile, but even when it is with a frown, you tell me that you're still enjoying yourself. 'Tis no exaggeration to say that I derive all of my driving force from you all. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. Ours is an unending journey, and nothing would make me happier than if we could keep walking it together. As you make your way, we promise that we will ever be at your side, matching you step for step. …Now, the time has come for this vision to end; time for your eyes to open from this waking dream. Much time has passed since the world was reborn from its ashes. Countless souls have made this place their home; every single one has left an indelible mark upon it. Together we have built this world, and it is our sincerest hope that we shall continue to do so for many years to come. So please be safe and well. May you ever walk in the Light of the Crystal.

-Naoki Yoshida, The Rising 2023, Final Fantasy XIV

Perfume Nocchi goes to talk with Naoki Yoshida of "FF14" and "FF16" and asks what readers want to know instead.

Nocchi (Perfume)'s serialized article "Nocchi Wants to Play Games! and will visit the workplace of game creator Naoki Yoshida. The series will feature a visit to game creator Naoki Yoshida's workplace, and Nocchi is now accepting questions from readers via X (Twitter).

Nocchi Wants to Play Games! is a series of articles in which Nocchi, who loves games, visits various people involved in games. Yoshida is known as the producer and director of the MMORPG "FINAL FANTASY XIV" and the producer of the action RPG "FINAL FANTASY XVI," which was released this June, and is a director of Square Enix.

Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida has sparked a discussion over the term JRPG, and how it makes certain Japanese developers uncomfortable due to its history of negativity. 

As someone currently on an RPG kick, I'm finding the debate pretty fascinating. As the corn in the basement cries, let's discuss the term JRPG!

Yoshi P and Emet-Selch: there's more to the world than just your lived experience. Explore. Learn. Appreciate. Add to those experiences and grow as a person.

And don't forget to help others if and when you can.

Yoshida’s Gunbreaker maker. Fan Fest 2019.

It's been a wonderful ten years, and I hope we get ten more!

Bringing Closure - Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker 6.1-6.55

This article contains major spoilers for Final Fantasy XIV, up to the most recent patch. At some point in the future what I’ve written here could become out of date. This would be true about every other piece of writing I’ve done on Final Fantasy XIV too. Any work about any game that relies on persistently online servers is inherently a time capsule. MMORPGs are constantly changing in ways that…

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My artist friend Hikayami made Jill for this challenge. Showing off you will find the other colors

So whens the collab?

I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the Final Fantasy XIV writers room during Endwalker

Yoshi-P: ‘Okay, gang. I think it would be fun to re-use Anima from Final Fantasy X. But obviously we’ll need a new backstory for it, to fit the setting of our game’s world. Any ideas?’

*Ishikawa raises her hand*

Yoshi-P: ‘What’ve you got for me, Ishikawa-San? You’re always filled with bright ideas.’

Ishikawa: ‘What if Anima is the late Emperor Varis?’

Yoshi-P: ‘Interesting. I think that might-’

Ishikawa: ‘It’s his mutilated corpse, kept in a state of painful undeath by the focused patriotic zeal of his countrymen. For after all, what is nationalism if not a crude parody of religion, with all of its darkest attributes and none of its positive aspects.’

Yoshi-P: ‘That’s... a little dark. There isn’t a gas leak in this office right now, right? The last time that happened, we ended up with Final Fantasy VIII’s Junction system.’

*Ishikawa puts her feet up on the table*

Ishikawa: ‘Also, I’ve been thinking about the final boss. Let’s make it the literal personification of suicidal depression. Really fuckin twist the knife in.’

Yoshi-P: ‘...’

*Ishikawa is now smoking five cigarettes at the same time*

Ishikawa: ‘Fuck it, let’s also make the endgame a massive, pointed, and ANGRY criticism of Buddhism. Western games criticize their own majority religions all the time, and I have some FUCKING THOUGHTS about our own cultural and religious expectations.’

Yoshi-P: ‘Do you... do you need a hug?’

Ishikawa: ‘I am so far beyond hugs right now. Only cocaine can sustain me.’

FFXIV and Mods: Let’s Review

For the newbies unaware, and reminding veterans who’ve gotten slack, Mods of any kind in FFXIV are Not Allowed by the Terms of Service. It is a blanket ban on all third party tools. This is not WoW where mods are expected and even required to play the game. SquareEnix Legal just says No.

“But there are mods….” Yes. Because people do what they will, and the devs know that. Hence the rules about keeping it on the downlow. Don’t post datamined/unreleased stuff in public. Don’t openly post lewd screenshots in public (they have issues cuz of the game rating and legalities in different countries). Don’t stream with mods obviously running. Don’t use mods to harass people—talking both DPS meters, and the spate of lewd screenshots folks took without permission and sent to those players awhile back.

When you do post modded content, best practice is remove the FFXIV watermark (either cropping, photoshopping, or Gshade has a setting to do that). Post lewds on locked accounts, or at least under cuts with appropriate warnings (which one should be doing in many cases anyway, really). Do not ever tag any official FFXIV tags/accounts when posting your modded shots—the official FFXIV twitters are real active and in the basic tags. Don’t link your social media to your Search info in game if you do a lot of modding.

They generally don’t come after folks unless obvious harassment is going on, or someone’s blatant about it in a very public way. Like a streamer who was using DPS meters live on stream, and then using them to make fun of/harass players in the game—and got banned mid-stream. Frankly, they deserved it for being a jerk, IMO.

There is a Lodestone article up again, 5/9/22, about all 3rd party tools due to concerns about Dragonsong Reprise, but it also gives a general reminder and warning, due to datamining of unreleased models and gear (posting things from Anamnesis just cuz it’s in the game files counts if it isn’t officially released yet). They’ve discussed these things before and while the devs prefer to turn a blind eye when they can, they will take actions as needed.

They have adjusted the game to make some mods just stop working before. They made it so waymarkers can’t be changed midfight anymore due to one of those mods being misused in a previous Ultimate progression. Abusing mods, blatant use, harassment, and cheating through their use will get them removed for everyone. For most of us, this would be cosmetic annoyance. For some people, inaccessibility to play as they use mods to expand on the game’s accessibility features.

Most of us will fly under the radar; most of us aren’t going to catch SE’s attention. But a lot of that also relies on following the unspoken rules of mod use and being smart and considerate and quiet about it.

Ah yes... once a year, the game's director/producer -Naoki Yoshida- visits us. How even, you'd ask?

Well, we're set on the path to meet with Bard Yoshi-P. And through him we travel through a dimension of vision to speak with the Naoki Yoshida himself...it just happened that the rest of his crew were a crowd of Lalafell at the time.

i’ve seen that people are upset that yoshi admitted they were surprised that we (as a player base) did not like hermes/meteion, and could not find it in ourselves to sympathize with them by the end, and that it was the exact opposite revelations with emet selch. 

but at the end of shb he realizes that the wol can save things, so he hands over the reigns. but like hermes (and meteion) are so warped it really does skew a perception of them. 

like i can sympathize with both of the characters, but there was really no way to absolve hermes of what he did on elpis because he refused reason in the end. at least at the end of shb, emet selch was able to understand the wol and that really is what made the difference.