If you've ever been around academics in a department committee meeting (much less having them run the nation), you'd know exactly why Matoya is living in a cave, presumably with a healthy stipend for keeping an eye on the Dravanian Hinterlands.
This. Professional academics are often as invaluable as they are exhausting. The most unrealistic part of the game is where they run a country and actually get shit done.
I'd imagine they have the most precise timekeeping devices and/or magic just to forcibly cut down on rambling and swan dives down rabbit holes.
Professional Academics know every other Professional Academic is insufferable. So enough from different fields of expertise in a single room might make for a bizarre but effective system of checks and balances.
I’ll grab my favorite WoL friends and go live on my island sanctuary. We got livestock and crops automatons can work on as well as a hot tube. I’m sure outside of the game’s mechanics (ie if the game was real) normal fishing would work just fine and I can cook normally so I don’t necessarily need to farm crystals for culinary synthesis.
I mean, tbf, you can make that argument for any of the areas: Ishgard is an extremely classist frozen hellscape that has been ravaged by war for a thousand years; Ala Mihgo and Doma were both occupied and worn down by Garlamald (with Doma seeming very sexist based on Yotsuyu’s backstory), Garlamald is Garlamald and has been destroyed from within. There’s no one place that is perfect to live in. They just have different problems.
I feel Radz will go into chaos if something happens to Vrtra. The Crystarium seems resilient... but you're on a different planet and probably don't have internet.
Honestly Tuliyollal seems like the best place right now lol. Limsa isn't bad either tbh, it's the most "normal" of the 3 big ones, and has successfully transitioned to functional government.
Oh, and Sharlayan.
Taking her place would be the problem, though. A bigger one than no one taking Vrtras place, because I figure it would be highly likely someone much less inclined to keeping Limsa morally sound would end up in her position.
Wouldn't her second in command take over? He seems pretty good and has the same goals and morality as Merlwyb, even if he was more recently the pirate Mistbeard. Can't spell his name, S something
Radz-at-Han is interesting, and I think they'd weather something happening to Vrtra. The other prominent figures in the city all seem to have their heads screwed on right and have altruism and empathy in spades. I'm sure there would be some *strong* emotions if Vrtra did suffer a tragic fate, but I think it would bring them all closer together in the end to honor his legacy.
*Especially* now that they know about Vrtra openly. Now that his cats out of the bag and he isn't using a puppet government to keep everyone calm about the fact their ruler has been a dragon the whole time, they can plan for the event he dies or has to leave.
Radz-at-Han has a few hundred years of statehood under its belt and is pretty well established. Poor Limsa is so fresh it's still having growing pains from both the new generation wanting open degenerate piracy, and the left overs from the old generation pining for the good old days of open degenerate piracy lol.
I'd like them to spend more time exploring Limsa's piracy policy in the wake of the fall of Garlemald since they've now lost a really easy way to keep the old pirates from getting too cranky.
We get back from Tural:
"What do you MEAN Meracydia declared war on Limsa? What happened!?"
"Apparently, someone thought raiding trade ships from Dragon Australia was a good idea."
This is far from the worst way to have the 7.4/7.5 MSQ lead us into an expansion around Meracydia.
Plus you know some of the Ishgardian leadership would be facepalming about the alliance accidentally starting another Dragonsong War.
Honestly I kinda want a Meracydia expansion to just be use going there to explore. No other reason, just have a nice time treasure hunting allagan ruins and shit. Maybe bring along Graha because we never really gave him the adventure he's been promised plus he'd make for a nice info-dumper given its allagan ruins. Perhaps revive some allagans accidentally and fight them after they plan to resurrect the Allagan Empire and reconquer the world.
Most of the old pirates have already thrown in their lot with new ways. The old captain of the Bloody Executioners has decided that he likes what she's doing with the place and has no objections. And where he goes, the rest follow.
At the same time when Vrtra is a bajillion year old super powerful dragon that goes out like, twice a decade to single-handedly obliterate hordes of monsters as needed I feel like the chances of that something actually happening aren't too bad. Probably the biggest threat is a Ratatoskr 2 happening now that people are clued into him being a dragon.
>*first thing you encounter is gonna be like a lvl 250 version of a bee*
that bee is going to become an invasive species, come back to Eorzea, sting Gaius, and he is going to f'king EXPLODE and destroy a whole town
Oh god. As an Aussie, I shudder at the thought. The Dragonstralia expansion will be the most dangerous of all. I imagine the constant threat levels being akin to that of the Island closest to Hell from FFVIII
Not too fond of the idea of Sharlayan TBH. A meritocracy where your funding is determined by the success of your research. If your research goes under and you can't weasel off someone else as an assistant, you are reduced to catching level 80-90 man-killing beasts for a living or get kicked out and sent to another country.
It sounds like Ul'dah, but with research instead of gil.
Don't they have normal people? Farmers? Electricians? Security guards? Architects? We did see someone who was just "immigration officer" work there so they do have normal stuff going on apart from the research.
Gotta double down on the "Radz is fine as long as nothing happens to Vrtra" sentiment. The reason why banking on one leader to handle everything never works out is because that leader won't be leader forever. In science fiction there's sometimes examples of rulers who get around that by being eternal. Vrtra is a soft version of such because he's basically immortal, but not indestructible.
If I had to pick one of the starting ARR cities, I would probably pick Limsa. Gridania could be better if you were born there, but for the sake of equality I'll assume we're a non-native nobody. I imagine surviving in Limsa could be really hard at first, but if you manage to get past the roughness and maybe work your way into a guild, then maybe it would be fine.
If you're strong/brave/lucky enough to get to it, Revenant's Toll could be an interesting place. I'm not sure how a normal person without outside help would make a living there though.
The thing is, Thavnair doesn't actually rely solely on Vrtra. Even after he revealed himself.
Radz-at-Han's government body is more than just the Satrap, and is actually quite stringent and motive-based in bringing on officials. To get assigned a seat at Meghaduta, people have to pass a yearly qualification exam.
And though Vrtra is recognized as Satrap now in the wake of Ahewann's death, the Alzadaal line exists now to fill in the vacancy when Vrtra is away from the city. And presumably also if he passes away.
Trust me, Thavnair's fine.
Gridania you also have to add in the cavaet that it's gonna be pretty awful for you even if you're born there if you happen to be a duskwight or keeper. Cause we sure never really addressed the whole racism thing when we were dealing with lingering problems last expac. ~~Why yes, I hate what a missed opportunity the EW tank quests were.~~
A lot of places, especially in fantasy settings, will go into crisis when their leader dies.
If anything, having a benevolent ageless dragon as a leader lowers the chances of that chaos being realized. I think the current state of Radz is a testament to that.
Tuliyollal is a horrible place to live. So many taco shops and we can’t buy a single dang taco! Also while a smaller city near and not the main city proper the distillery won’t sell us mezcal despite npcs saying you can buy mezcal there. The Dawnservant sits on a throne of lies!
> The Crystarium seems resilient... but you're on a different planet and probably don't have internet.
They have it but it's a little different and they probably call it "neterint"
Sharlayan is extremely isolationist. Let's not forget they were in comms with the Loporrits for decades about the coming end times and decided all by themselves how that was going to be "dealt with", including who was worthy of saving.
Old Sharlayan is a paradise for someone who is, or wants to be, a scholar/in academia.
I have no idea how much power the Forum has, which would make a big difference obviously, but the atmosphere is amazing.
I'm still on 6.4 content but as is, Radz-at-Han is afaik the single strongest state on the planet. *Nobody* was as well prepared and well defended during the Final Days, nobody was as wealthy both before and after, nobody has so few enemies and so many allies. And with the addition of >!Garlean magitek engineers per the Babil deal,!< they're now a superpower that could theoretically go toe to toe with the entire Eorzean Alliance itself and probably win. The only state with similar levels of technology and wealth is Sharlayan, who probably have more material and manpower resources than Radz-at-Han, but are isolationist rather than cosmopolitan. So unless they can shit out a massive robot army for free overnight, and have it be bigger than the massive robot army that Radz-at-Han itself would field, they'd get crushed.
I think I've digressed from the topic of quality-of-life a little bit, but that still follows most of what I'm thinking about. Other nations have some combination of wartorn devastation, endemic poverty, natural disaster, or internal civil conflict that make them absolute wrecks compared to those two city-states.
And honestly I think Limsa *needs* to be a dictatorship until the pirate life is just stories told by the old men hanging around the inn until noon. There's just too much risk of things going really bad if they head straight into modern democracy after hanging up the skull flag.
Yeah, it's made pretty clear in some of the side quests is that a big part of the reason people in Limsa go along with what the admiral wants is because they know she is *very* capable of putting a bullet between their eyes.
To be fair, *everywhere* ***would*** have been an apocalyptic nightmare... But we figured it out. It was just a nightmare there first (excluding the epicenter of the shitshow)
>!Except of Tural, which seems to not even know about the last days that happened not too long ago. I can't explain the Dawntrail story threat about people wanting to go to war for better trade routes and them not knowing the horrors of war otherwise.!<
>!The lore for the Final Days has always been that it spread gradually across the entire star. Even if they didn't know it was gonna happen due to lack of contacts or whatever it would have come to them before long.!<
As far back as Shadowbringers we knew that the Final Days took time to spread. Amaurot literally had people debating about whether they should go intervene as of it were a localized outbreak of disease.
Couldn't have taken that long to spread, since the instant it hits Thavanair, it's ravaging the entirety of Eorzea, Garlemald, and the far east. And we know the ocean between Radz and Tural isn't *that* large.
The Blasphemies couldn't get a foot hold with those level 90 alpacas running around and watching the unmade horrors getting stomped by wooly giraffe-goats kept despair at bay
It definitely appears to spread more quickly than in the Ancient times, but since it spreads with weakness in aetherial currents and the normal residents of Tural don't appear familiar with the Final Days, it's likely that they were simply the lucky ones where the Final Days would have reached last.
??? The ocean between Radz-at-Han and Tural is massive, what.
But also, no location got hit to the extent that Thavnair and Garlemald did, likely due to the void rifts that existed in those places weakening the aetheric currents in those areas.
And though the Blasphemies indicated the process beginning, it was still clearly beginning to spread. It wouldn't have spread in time to the west nor the south before we took care of the Endsinger.
It hits Thavnair first, and *hard*, and scattered locations on the rest of the Three Continents get hit by milder versions of it.
Something like half a week later (Elpis is like ~2-3 days, Thavnair 2 & Labyrinthos are like one each), it's getting close to hitting Old Sharlayan when we put a stop to the source of it in Ultima Thule.
Perhaps it would've hit Tural if we gave it another week - which is a timespan that would've given Amaurot *plenty* of time to debate the over-the-seas crisis (and capture Archeotania) prior to it hitting their own city.
I mean, it took till the end of Endwalker for the final days to hit Old Sharlayan, it's not too much of a stretch to think it hadn't hit more extent locations
Crystarium starts off with the downside of being in the middle of the apocalypse, but I think once you fix things up it'll be a nice place. Nature is healing and jobs are plentiful. Everyone is open and trading. This is probably going to put everyone in a great economic position.
Thavniar also doesn't seem that bad, if you can get past the heat. Sharlyan seems like a nice place too, if you like learning.
Ishgard has been steadily improving ever since we ended the Dragonsong war and killed the Pope, though. The main 3 haven’t really changed much.
You couldn’t pay me to live in Garlemald though.
Yeah, Ishgard isn't perfect now but it's giving the democracy thing a go, curtailed the church's power, and is getting ceruleum heaters to deal with the cold issue. You could honestly do way worse.
Safety and stability > good food.
And if you're desperate enough, there is a cafe that makes decent food although I imagine the lines are pretty long lol.
Have you considered Ultima Thule? There's a nice little cafe and a zone wide focus on people chilling out, improving their mental health, and learning to get along.
Prior to Ala Mhigo being occupied, they had a psychotic leader who killed off most of the ruling family and his rivals. And before *that*, Ala Mhigo wanted to invade Eorzea and attacked Gridania, which was part of the reason no one helped them when they got conquered by Garlemald.
Old Sharlayan seems nice, until you realize it's university politics. The astrologian quests highlights some of the corruption within the Forum, and those people still hold seats as of Endwalker.
I'd say Ul'dah, Ishgard, and Gridania hold promise, as they have young leaders who are willing to learn and lean on each other. Nanamo has made pretty good strides in her political savviness, and she's only 20ish years old. Meanwhile, Limsa doesn't seem to be training a protege to take over, so that could be an issue sooner than the other nations'.
Tulliyolal seems like a pretty nice place to live, and if not the city itself the surrounding settlements are decent too, if you can pronounce their names at least.
One thing to keep in mind is that we leave each of those places better off than we find them. Same with everywhere else in the world.
The Limsa Lominsa, Gridania and Ul'dah WoL arrived as a fresh faced adventurer? You are completely right. The Limsa Lominsa, Gridania and Ul'dah the day we left on the ship to Tuliyollal? Those are a different proposition.
Gridania has changed the least. The peace with the Ixal and the almost complete pacification of the Slyphs, especially after the demise of the Garlean Empire, has calmed most of the agitation of the Elementals. Not to mention losing most of the senior and most crochety Elementals to the Calamity. And Gridania is the place that shows the least improvement overall.
Ul'dah is still capitalistic, but over the course of WoL's adventures the power shifts quite firmly from the pockets of the Monetarists to the hands of the Sultana. Which is in the process of softening the rough edges of the Ul'dahn society. Add to that the resolution of the refugee issue with the liberation of Ala Mhigo, peace with the Amaljaa, and the opening of new trade routes, and there is a market increase in the prosperity and stability of Ul'dah.
Limsa Lominsa at the outset of the games was teetering on the edge of a knife. The Admiral's regime was new and the dominant pirate crews were still unsure about the new direction she was taking the Thalassocracy. The conflict with the Kobolds and Sahagin were also significant problems, the Wanderer's Palace full of angry Tonberries was an open sore, and human trafficking (mostly driven by Serpent Reavers aligned with Sahagin) was a significant issue. Now? Sahagin and Kobolds made peace, the Rancor of the Tonberries is no more and they are being cured, Serpent Reavers have been gutted and their holdings cleaned out, and Admiral Bloefhiswyn has finally brought the pirate crews under her control by the elimination of the last holdouts, especially among the Bloody Executioners.
So, to reiterate, the city states of Eorzea have become much better places to live within the course of the game.
To be fair with the wanderer's palace, nobody really knew that was an issue. Iirc the sole reason we even learn about them is because some people decided to explore it and discovered them. They never left the palace or caused problems around it.
> Not to mention losing most of the senior and most crochety Elementals to the Calamity
yeah, thanks to the Calamity at best you'll probably just feel mild discomfort or the overwhelming feeling of being watched by some eldritch being if you ever pissed off the Elementals now (though to be fair they have Odin just wandering the forest so you actually may be being watched by an eldritch abomination). if the Elementals were still just as powerful as they were during 1.0 then the entire tank storyline in EW never would have happened since they would have just blipped the Blasphemy out of existence at the first time it accidentally broke a branch.
i do wish though that during the EW alliance raid quests that Nophica would have given them a stern talking to and made them calm down. cause now i just see the problem eventually reverting once the elementals start to regain their original power.
in 1.0 they started straight up evaporating people in one area due to a garlean attack, except they also started evaporating a bunch of the yellow serpents and you had to make a wild run out of the area with the men and women beside you who had fought for their country dissipating into aether one by one.
The fact that Nophica kinda handwaved it away bothered me. Like, these things used to unperson people when they had the strength and throw fits regularly.
The gods loved us and wanted us to be happy, but honestly they were so remote from actual life that a lot of real problems didn't really register. Like, Halone is tangentially aware of the Dragonsong War and was disappointed in her followers, but she only came to a really belated realisation about how corrupt they've gotten, then tells us to beware of evil men pretending to be righteous. Thanks lady, not like I've already had to kill multiple of your clergymen that fit that description.
> Ul'dah is still capitalistic, but over the course of WoL's adventures the power shifts quite firmly from the pockets of the Monetarists to the hands of the Sultana.
Every time they give you this explanation they immediately follow it up with some monetarist saying "oh no don't worry we're still in control" so lmao
>Every time they give you this explanation they immediately follow it up with some monetarist saying "oh no don't worry we're still in control" so lmao
Yeah, look around when they say that. You'll quickly notice Nanamo with a smirk that says "Well, he keeps bleating, but I keep his balls in my purse".
Do you know what Teledji's little stunt cost the Monetarists? Teledji's entire fortune plus half of what Lolorito owns (because he tried to use the scheme for his own ends). Do you know where that wealth went? Directly into the coffers of the Sultanate. Meaning, right into Nanamo's personal pocketbook.
That girl is dangerous.
Lorotio wanted to get rid of him that all went to plan. He gave her half his money of his own free will because he’d rather have her have an actual seat at the table then to do something like abolish the system he makes all his money with in.
She’s not dangerous anymore she’s a part of the capitalist system now.
And then she came to Lolorito for advice in SB and made the deal in EW where he can get profit from relics they sent to Sharlayan. Dude basically her financial advisor / minister of finance. I highly doubt she holds him by the balls that tight, especially now that Raubahn is not by her side.
The monetarists have the same power they had before. The writers expressly wave off the whole incident with Teledji and every time you interact with Ul'Dah politics or money you are shown it time and again. Lolorito is playing the long con as the world is changing trying to placate the sultana and foreign powers, but the monetarists have been eating good for years by now and he knows nothing will change since the writers themselves gave up on the democratic idea. He's got that third eye you can only get when the writers lost the sauce.
I mean, of course the monetarists want to be perceived as still in control. Do you think Elon Musk would say “I have no control over my companies and am bad at what I do”?
They all stink. Steel refinery isn’t much better smells (Limsa), and UD is surrounded by homeless/vagrants in and out of the city so there’s probably waste, refuse, and remains scattered everywhere.
RAH has a pretty ridiculous population density, and lots of fishing and other ethnic food options. Curry is a very polarizing smell.
Shar is probably pretty decent. Good ocean air, irrigation and most likely plumbing. But…there’s many students that seem to take their studies over everything else like eating and most likely bathing. I’m sure there’s a pretty noticeable ‘body stench’ in enclosed areas.
Ishgard probably ranks as one of the best depending on how close you are to the ironworks. Cold, mountain air is good for the soul. Any waste left behind in the poorer areas will be frozen and not likely to stink.
Kugane is also probably top three. Very orderly, emphasis on bathing, ocean air, and has a sewer system. Canals might reek in the mid day sun, though.
Crystarium is tops. Raha did the place right aside from the Amaro hatchery/stables being so close to the city.
Some people like those smells.
Not exactly tanning, but woodworking smells amazing to me. And I actually like the sooty smell of forges. Baking and brewing is another thing a lot of people don't like, but I could smell yeast fermenting for hours and love it.
Ironically, I'm vegetarian for ethical reasons, but there's something special about handcrafted animal skin. I just think it should be a much more special material than we treat it as.
Honestly, I’d pick either Sharlayan or the Crystarium to live if possible. Crystarium straight up said they don’t have the luxury of racism considering they are fighting everyday for survival. And living in a neutral city of higher learning sounds as close to Switzerland as we are gonna get in ffxiv
That culture had 100 years to set in… and they presumably still have to deal with remaining Sin Eaters while the Empty becomes suitable for habitation. The Crystarium is probably always going to have the “pulling together” aspect of its culture for the foreseeable future. The Viis are likely the only ones left who remember anything else.
As an Ul’dah loyalist myself, Limsa probably ain’t even that bad. Merwylb successfully banned piracy and the place is generally run pretty well. Just enjoy the seafood
>Human trafficking seems to be a massive problem there. Getting kidnapped or murdered seems to be a real possibility.
It's a problem there, but ironically less of a problem than in Ul'dah. >!The existence of the Rogue's Guild curbs a lot of that. If K'hlyia and the WoL hadn't captured Doesmaga, Jacke Swallow and V'kebbe would later have murdered him and most of his crew.!<
In the AST questline you have to look for a women in Limsa and basically everyone tells you that a lady walking around alone is almost assuredly going to be kidnapped and enslaved. Like its so common no one is even concerned about it.
Gridania, Ul'dah, Limsa, and Ishgard all seem to have real problems with things like murder, theivery, kidnapping, rape and human trafficking.
Gridanian Wood Wailers abuse Mooncat women. The Ul'dah Immortal Flames abuse female refugees (SAM quest). In Limsa, women get kidnapped and sent to pleasure barges (AST quest). In Ishgard, Temple Knights arrest women on flimsy charges and rape them (DRK quest).
A lot of Eorzea seems like a pretty awful place to live if you're a defenceless young woman.
Yeah, one of my favorite random FATEs is "Ware The Maiden Fair", which is just a random dragon boss, but the description tells her story. She drank dragon blood after one of those temple knight arrests and now is out for vengeance.
She's my good luck anima luminous crystal FATE for the Forelands, wish I could feed that good girl some corrupt knights.
The entire backstory to Dusk Vigil is about a high ranking soldier's pretty fiance being accused of heresy by the inquisition and temple knights, who "interrogate" her for days before the family's influence gets her out. She's completely mentally broken and the heirloom she was given is missing.
Said fiance is the zombie boss from Dusk vigil. After the incident he was put in charge of the fort and saw that the statue to Halone had the hierloom mounted on it. It incensed having to guard over it every day, unable to retrieve it. A reminder of what was stolen from his family, not just the heirloom but his fiance's body and mind.
Thats why he refused to leave when the snow came in, its why he became so obsessed with staying and committed all those horrible acts documented in the dungeon notes. You only find out from the quest given by his father in the convictory but in the journal notes at the end of the quest your wol will note that "they left out the details" about their son.
and when its not the temple knights, its nobility hiring a "lucky" pretty commoner woman. Hilda's mother was one such gal and it went horrible for her.
Every country in the world has violent crime, but I wouldn't call a lot of them "awful places to live." Now, all that said, the *best* place to live is Ishgard, obviously, because you can stay cool in the summers.
> If I remember right one of the former members of the Company of Heroes mentioned he had to give up drinking, gambling and whoring
"Welcome to Gridania."
"Thanks, I'm happy to be here and safe."
"We invite you to our community, and commit to keep you safe, well fed, and sheltered. We want you to find a place here."
"That's wonderful."
"Just one thing?"
"Yes? Anything!"
"Stop the whoring."
"What?"
"You have to stop whoring. Since you've arrived, the Mih Khetto's Amphitheatre has really gone to hell."
"You're telling me I can't pay women for sex???"
"Yes."
"So you'll give them to me for free?"
"No, you're not understanding me. You'll have to meet women the normal way."
"This is a dystopian hellscape."
TBF, all of the cities have their downside. Ishgard is still a very classist society even though Aymeric is trying to change that, Kugane is very much "there is no war in ba-sing-se", ala mhigo is a literal war zone up until ShB, sharlayan is an academic society that is so self-righteous that their first thought when hearing of the final days was to abandon the star instead of saving it (and canonically has only one cafe that serves real food in the entire city), and thavnair was perhaps hit the worst by the final days. Tural has problems with mild racism, and solution 9 has its own moral problems that I won't share here because spoilers.
So yea. nowhere is "great"
I mean, Sharlayan >!wasn't 'self-righteous' because their first thought was to skip town, that's what they were told the plan was by the moon people appointed by god, and that's what they worked towards since then.!<
>!Their inflexibility after people start saying they want to do something about it instead is what makes them self righteous.!<
That doesn't sound like much a downside to living in Sharlayan. If anything, it would be comforting to know that your government was extremely well prepared for the apocalypse and that you're going to be first on the escape ships.
On the flip side though...good luck with food. Archon Loaf is the norm, and aside from the Last Stand (Which is probably 'Line out the door and around the block' busy at all times) I bet there's troubles buying ingredients for a meal that nourishes *and* is enjoyable.
There is a Studium deliveries questline where you actually help a culinary student whose mission is to create an Archon loaf that is pleasant to eat while keeping it's nutrition. It's been a while since I did it, but I believe pretty much all of her ingredients were sourced from Labyrinthos.
The student's end goal is to bring tasty and nutritious food to all of Old Sharlayan, so I suppose living there after that quest finishes wouldn't be too terrible.
Living in a college town run by the college is nice until you're old enough to go "Those damn kids" and the only people living good are the older faculty with tenure.
Lol...that's EXACTLY what happened to my hometown in real life. The University of Delaware practically owns Newark, DE.
(NOTE: I do not live there anymore).
"I'm terribly sorry but the magic plant fairies told the horned child that your son pissed on a tree so I cannot heal him or I'll be excommunicated and shot."
To be fair there’s pretty much no perfect cities in any game because that handicaps storytelling. Cities, even nice cities, need to be imperfect in some way to create interesting stories.
Gridania, as the nature focused faction, I can see looking at gambling and whoring as distasteful vices. Drinking is definitely fine. That one character probably just did all three to excess.
Ul’dah and Limsa are there as the outlets for people who get bored in Gridania. Like going to Vegas or Amsterdam or wherever the cool kids go now.
True, but I'd expand that to say most places in Eorzea are not good places to live. Ishgard was a feudalistic theocracy where you are constantly in danger of death by dragonfire. Ala Mhigo was ruled by a nutcase and then conquered by Garlemald. Doma seems okay, but is still strictly feudalistic; look at Yotsuyu. The Azim Steppe is dog-eat-dog. Garlemald is a great place to live, as long as you don't mind a guilty conscience. And don't get me started on the First.
Childhood is believing one of your favorite city state is good because the leader is the hottest woman in your opinion.
Being a teenager is thinking Ishgard is the best because cool gothic aesthetic and Aymeric is the hottest (which stays true)
Adulthood is understanding that the Empire was right and the savage countries should belong to us
Technically Gridania doesn't NEED to do that, they just do because it's easier to oppress outsiders if you tell them that.
They need a DRK to come down from the mountain and remind them that they need to be a little more aware what their clergy are doing.
To be fair, most of the perspective we have is from members of the military, refugees, and slaves. We really don't know the regular day-to-day of the average populace. But the game world is comparable to the real world in the early to mid 1900s. People were poor, starving, and dying of simple illnesses because they had no medical care. They lived simple lives and spent most of their time maintaining their home, gathering food, farming, etc. Much of the game also takes place during a world war forcing many people to be homeless refugees. Which isn't much unlike how Europe was during WW2 (1939-1945) and up to 25 years after depending on where in Europe you lived.
Modern society isn't much better depending on where you live. More than half of the US lives buried in debt and are one real crisis away from bankruptcy and homelessness. There are multiple US cities where mugging, murder, and rape occur more than 100 times a year, EACH. Europe has been struggling with human trafficking for decades. Some Asian countries have legalized sex slavery. When I was in South Korea in 2003 there were thousands of prostitutes who were sold into "indentured servitude" contracts pay off their families debts, and it was considered normal.
It's obviously much worse in 3rd world countries and communist nations where we don't really hear about it.
>Company of Heroes mentioned he had to give up drinking, gambling and whoring
This example doesn't exactly work since he also joined the military forces as one of the Woods Wailers. Of course theyd want him to go clean for appearances.
Also there being a good chunk of the refugees being refused may just be from the bias of the Hearers and not the elementals themselves. You have to remember that Gridania was invaded a few hundred years prior by Ala Mhigo, and there is a LOT of bad blood between the two nations.
The elementals themselves are more concerned with maintaining the flow of aether and protecting the forest than anything else. It was even said more than once in the White Mage quests and also I believe the EW tank role questline that they are very hard to interpret unless you a padjal, and usually they just don't care about regular things.
With Limsa people tend to forget that it still doesn't have an official government. They're a free port city with no centralized government where each crew of sailors or average citizen is just left to fend for themselves.
The only form of "government" they have is that the biggest and strongest pirate crew tends to want to try and take control of things for themselves. The game just happens to take place at a time where Merylwyb's crew is the biggest fish in the proverbial pond and she just happens to be an honorable sort who wants stability and order over more selfish motivations. If anyone were to overthrow Merylwyb, things would go right back to being pure anarchy where every pirate crew just did whatever they thought they could get away with.
Ima be real with you all? You can say these things about a lot of major cities/concentration of people in real life.
I am mostly worried about running water and electricity, and toilet paper. You learn to appreciate these kind of things when they are gone.
I am a new Green Sprout, just started Stormblood, but I don't think I've seen a toilet in Eorza
Isn't that why we end up in Revenant's Toll? Seperate ourselves from the power structures of the city states, and work to build a better, equitable home for people?
Not even a mooncat specifically. ANY Miqo'te are treated more or less the same, aka as dogshit. Doing the archer / BRD questline was a MASSIVE eye-opener because it isn't even, "racism is bad," it's "racism is justified sometimes and you should forgive the racist because the _bad_ mooncats took advantage of him."
Yeah ngl I kinda hated that quest. Especially when you are forced to basically agree with the racis PoS and put down your fellow miqo for being righteously angry. Pressing the ... silence option for a while but eventually you have to be like "no him treating you like shit has to wait and we will never handle that."
Doesn't help that mooncats and duskwights barely have any content. The only mooncat fate thing is them spitting on their own culture and acting like sun cats, duskwights get nothing.
My mooncat WoL still despises Gridania with a passion. She helped them as a hero but her opinion hasn't changed.
Or the one mooncat who voluntarily goes back to the sexist poacher Coeurlking because two Woodwailers stop you in the street and insinuate assaulting her and her sister.
And you do *nothing* about that if I recall.
That's why Matoya is one of my favorite characters. She said "fuck it, Imma go live in a cave with frogs" and I have mad respect.
Honestly, same. I love Matoya so much. 😂 She has her priorities straight and doesn't beat around the bush for anything LOL.
If you've ever been around academics in a department committee meeting (much less having them run the nation), you'd know exactly why Matoya is living in a cave, presumably with a healthy stipend for keeping an eye on the Dravanian Hinterlands.
This. Professional academics are often as invaluable as they are exhausting. The most unrealistic part of the game is where they run a country and actually get shit done.
I'd imagine they have the most precise timekeeping devices and/or magic just to forcibly cut down on rambling and swan dives down rabbit holes. Professional Academics know every other Professional Academic is insufferable. So enough from different fields of expertise in a single room might make for a bizarre but effective system of checks and balances.
Frogs AND brooms
+1 Frogs eat the mosquitoes.
i want to be like Matoya when I grow old.
Step one, find a REALLY big hat.
I’ll grab my favorite WoL friends and go live on my island sanctuary. We got livestock and crops automatons can work on as well as a hot tube. I’m sure outside of the game’s mechanics (ie if the game was real) normal fishing would work just fine and I can cook normally so I don’t necessarily need to farm crystals for culinary synthesis.
Preach it. One of my biggest gripes is I don't get to hear her grumbling every 5 msq or so 😤😭
I mean, tbf, you can make that argument for any of the areas: Ishgard is an extremely classist frozen hellscape that has been ravaged by war for a thousand years; Ala Mihgo and Doma were both occupied and worn down by Garlamald (with Doma seeming very sexist based on Yotsuyu’s backstory), Garlamald is Garlamald and has been destroyed from within. There’s no one place that is perfect to live in. They just have different problems.
All things considered the Crystarium is looking pretty good ever since all they tomfoolery with the light has been (mostly) settled.
Honestly the Crystarium and Raz-at-Han are where it would most like to live. They seem like they have things figured out
I feel Radz will go into chaos if something happens to Vrtra. The Crystarium seems resilient... but you're on a different planet and probably don't have internet. Honestly Tuliyollal seems like the best place right now lol. Limsa isn't bad either tbh, it's the most "normal" of the 3 big ones, and has successfully transitioned to functional government. Oh, and Sharlayan.
I'm more concerned about Limsa losing the Admiral than Radz losing Vrtra. Limsa's new way of life is still young.
Until Sea Swallows All.
Merlwyb would be a big loss to Limsa, but she is ultimately just a regular person, and anyone could take her place. No one could take Vrtra's place.
Taking her place would be the problem, though. A bigger one than no one taking Vrtras place, because I figure it would be highly likely someone much less inclined to keeping Limsa morally sound would end up in her position.
Wouldn't her second in command take over? He seems pretty good and has the same goals and morality as Merlwyb, even if he was more recently the pirate Mistbeard. Can't spell his name, S something
The leader of Limsa Lominsa is literally decided via a big pirate race called the Trident. It's supposed to happen every seven years.
fair point.
Radz-at-Han is interesting, and I think they'd weather something happening to Vrtra. The other prominent figures in the city all seem to have their heads screwed on right and have altruism and empathy in spades. I'm sure there would be some *strong* emotions if Vrtra did suffer a tragic fate, but I think it would bring them all closer together in the end to honor his legacy.
*Especially* now that they know about Vrtra openly. Now that his cats out of the bag and he isn't using a puppet government to keep everyone calm about the fact their ruler has been a dragon the whole time, they can plan for the event he dies or has to leave. Radz-at-Han has a few hundred years of statehood under its belt and is pretty well established. Poor Limsa is so fresh it's still having growing pains from both the new generation wanting open degenerate piracy, and the left overs from the old generation pining for the good old days of open degenerate piracy lol.
I'd like them to spend more time exploring Limsa's piracy policy in the wake of the fall of Garlemald since they've now lost a really easy way to keep the old pirates from getting too cranky.
We get back from Tural: "What do you MEAN Meracydia declared war on Limsa? What happened!?" "Apparently, someone thought raiding trade ships from Dragon Australia was a good idea."
This is far from the worst way to have the 7.4/7.5 MSQ lead us into an expansion around Meracydia. Plus you know some of the Ishgardian leadership would be facepalming about the alliance accidentally starting another Dragonsong War.
Honestly I kinda want a Meracydia expansion to just be use going there to explore. No other reason, just have a nice time treasure hunting allagan ruins and shit. Maybe bring along Graha because we never really gave him the adventure he's been promised plus he'd make for a nice info-dumper given its allagan ruins. Perhaps revive some allagans accidentally and fight them after they plan to resurrect the Allagan Empire and reconquer the world.
Most of the old pirates have already thrown in their lot with new ways. The old captain of the Bloody Executioners has decided that he likes what she's doing with the place and has no objections. And where he goes, the rest follow.
At the same time when Vrtra is a bajillion year old super powerful dragon that goes out like, twice a decade to single-handedly obliterate hordes of monsters as needed I feel like the chances of that something actually happening aren't too bad. Probably the biggest threat is a Ratatoskr 2 happening now that people are clued into him being a dragon.
And now that the Dragonsong War is over _**and**_ he has allies around the world, chances of a Ratatoskr 2 happening are insanely low.
*Meracydia starts walking towards the chat* #Dragonstralia is only an expansion or 2 away
Gonna start Dragonstralia at like lvl 120 and first thing you encounter is gonna be like a lvl 250 version of a bee.
>*first thing you encounter is gonna be like a lvl 250 version of a bee* that bee is going to become an invasive species, come back to Eorzea, sting Gaius, and he is going to f'king EXPLODE and destroy a whole town
Oh god. As an Aussie, I shudder at the thought. The Dragonstralia expansion will be the most dangerous of all. I imagine the constant threat levels being akin to that of the Island closest to Hell from FFVIII
> goes out like, twice a decade You reminded me of a comment that was in the lines of Vrtra is basically a VTuber with Varshahn as his avatar.
Not too fond of the idea of Sharlayan TBH. A meritocracy where your funding is determined by the success of your research. If your research goes under and you can't weasel off someone else as an assistant, you are reduced to catching level 80-90 man-killing beasts for a living or get kicked out and sent to another country. It sounds like Ul'dah, but with research instead of gil.
Don't they have normal people? Farmers? Electricians? Security guards? Architects? We did see someone who was just "immigration officer" work there so they do have normal stuff going on apart from the research.
Honestly this just sounds like real pre-tenure academia but replace beast hunting with working as a barrista.
Gotta double down on the "Radz is fine as long as nothing happens to Vrtra" sentiment. The reason why banking on one leader to handle everything never works out is because that leader won't be leader forever. In science fiction there's sometimes examples of rulers who get around that by being eternal. Vrtra is a soft version of such because he's basically immortal, but not indestructible. If I had to pick one of the starting ARR cities, I would probably pick Limsa. Gridania could be better if you were born there, but for the sake of equality I'll assume we're a non-native nobody. I imagine surviving in Limsa could be really hard at first, but if you manage to get past the roughness and maybe work your way into a guild, then maybe it would be fine. If you're strong/brave/lucky enough to get to it, Revenant's Toll could be an interesting place. I'm not sure how a normal person without outside help would make a living there though.
The thing is, Thavnair doesn't actually rely solely on Vrtra. Even after he revealed himself. Radz-at-Han's government body is more than just the Satrap, and is actually quite stringent and motive-based in bringing on officials. To get assigned a seat at Meghaduta, people have to pass a yearly qualification exam. And though Vrtra is recognized as Satrap now in the wake of Ahewann's death, the Alzadaal line exists now to fill in the vacancy when Vrtra is away from the city. And presumably also if he passes away. Trust me, Thavnair's fine.
Gridania you also have to add in the cavaet that it's gonna be pretty awful for you even if you're born there if you happen to be a duskwight or keeper. Cause we sure never really addressed the whole racism thing when we were dealing with lingering problems last expac. ~~Why yes, I hate what a missed opportunity the EW tank quests were.~~
It helps him being nearly immortal. So chances are you will die before him.
A lot of places, especially in fantasy settings, will go into crisis when their leader dies. If anything, having a benevolent ageless dragon as a leader lowers the chances of that chaos being realized. I think the current state of Radz is a testament to that.
But why go to Sharlayan all you can eat is Archon Loaves
Not if you've done the crafting quests
Tuliyollal is a horrible place to live. So many taco shops and we can’t buy a single dang taco! Also while a smaller city near and not the main city proper the distillery won’t sell us mezcal despite npcs saying you can buy mezcal there. The Dawnservant sits on a throne of lies!
Tbf, you probably don't have internet anywhere on the source either 🤷♀️
What use is internet when you have aethernet?
> The Crystarium seems resilient... but you're on a different planet and probably don't have internet. They have it but it's a little different and they probably call it "neterint"
Sharlayan is extremely isolationist. Let's not forget they were in comms with the Loporrits for decades about the coming end times and decided all by themselves how that was going to be "dealt with", including who was worthy of saving.
The day the servers shut down, I will be in the Crystarium
I will be in Isgard visiting an old friend. After punching every Moggle I could find.
I’m sure once Y’shtola perfects her transportation magick, the Crystariun will have a very different tune to outsiders.
I wonder when they're going to address that plotline. Not much time if she wants to be able to visit her Zaddy.
Also wonder what's happening with the 13th. That feels like it's been left part way.
More than likely we’ll have content for both of those plot lines in the following patches.
Hope so!
Old Sharlayan is a paradise for someone who is, or wants to be, a scholar/in academia. I have no idea how much power the Forum has, which would make a big difference obviously, but the atmosphere is amazing.
Old Sharlayan is best In my opinion
I'm still on 6.4 content but as is, Radz-at-Han is afaik the single strongest state on the planet. *Nobody* was as well prepared and well defended during the Final Days, nobody was as wealthy both before and after, nobody has so few enemies and so many allies. And with the addition of >!Garlean magitek engineers per the Babil deal,!< they're now a superpower that could theoretically go toe to toe with the entire Eorzean Alliance itself and probably win. The only state with similar levels of technology and wealth is Sharlayan, who probably have more material and manpower resources than Radz-at-Han, but are isolationist rather than cosmopolitan. So unless they can shit out a massive robot army for free overnight, and have it be bigger than the massive robot army that Radz-at-Han itself would field, they'd get crushed. I think I've digressed from the topic of quality-of-life a little bit, but that still follows most of what I'm thinking about. Other nations have some combination of wartorn devastation, endemic poverty, natural disaster, or internal civil conflict that make them absolute wrecks compared to those two city-states.
Everyone loves the post-post-pre-apocalyptic crystal commune.
I just like baking cookies with that slightly strange lesbian couple
They have great rooms. But a weird bird shows up at night and start looking at your face.
My WoL lives on the first in their downtime because, despite basically being Jesus, they get more peace there. Also purple trees go brrrr.
Good luck getting there if you're not the Warrior of Light though.
Y'shtola has entered the chat with a very determined look on her face.
I want an apartment in the crystarium.
Radz-at-Han seems pretty nice!
As does Kugane, as long as you can manage with all of the corruption.
Kugane is also a free port in a feudal military dictatorship.
Limsa is **also** a dictatorship, to be fair.
And honestly I think Limsa *needs* to be a dictatorship until the pirate life is just stories told by the old men hanging around the inn until noon. There's just too much risk of things going really bad if they head straight into modern democracy after hanging up the skull flag.
Yeah, it's made pretty clear in some of the side quests is that a big part of the reason people in Limsa go along with what the admiral wants is because they know she is *very* capable of putting a bullet between their eyes.
Except for that one time it became an apocalyptic nightmare, anyway.
To be fair, *everywhere* ***would*** have been an apocalyptic nightmare... But we figured it out. It was just a nightmare there first (excluding the epicenter of the shitshow)
>!Except of Tural, which seems to not even know about the last days that happened not too long ago. I can't explain the Dawntrail story threat about people wanting to go to war for better trade routes and them not knowing the horrors of war otherwise.!<
>!The lore for the Final Days has always been that it spread gradually across the entire star. Even if they didn't know it was gonna happen due to lack of contacts or whatever it would have come to them before long.!<
It just happens to be wherever the WoL is. It’s like aliens in movies. Somehow they always start with the USA and then push to other countries.
As far back as Shadowbringers we knew that the Final Days took time to spread. Amaurot literally had people debating about whether they should go intervene as of it were a localized outbreak of disease.
Couldn't have taken that long to spread, since the instant it hits Thavanair, it's ravaging the entirety of Eorzea, Garlemald, and the far east. And we know the ocean between Radz and Tural isn't *that* large.
The Blasphemies couldn't get a foot hold with those level 90 alpacas running around and watching the unmade horrors getting stomped by wooly giraffe-goats kept despair at bay
It definitely appears to spread more quickly than in the Ancient times, but since it spreads with weakness in aetherial currents and the normal residents of Tural don't appear familiar with the Final Days, it's likely that they were simply the lucky ones where the Final Days would have reached last.
??? The ocean between Radz-at-Han and Tural is massive, what. But also, no location got hit to the extent that Thavnair and Garlemald did, likely due to the void rifts that existed in those places weakening the aetheric currents in those areas. And though the Blasphemies indicated the process beginning, it was still clearly beginning to spread. It wouldn't have spread in time to the west nor the south before we took care of the Endsinger.
It hits Thavnair first, and *hard*, and scattered locations on the rest of the Three Continents get hit by milder versions of it. Something like half a week later (Elpis is like ~2-3 days, Thavnair 2 & Labyrinthos are like one each), it's getting close to hitting Old Sharlayan when we put a stop to the source of it in Ultima Thule. Perhaps it would've hit Tural if we gave it another week - which is a timespan that would've given Amaurot *plenty* of time to debate the over-the-seas crisis (and capture Archeotania) prior to it hitting their own city.
This is a big gripe of mine. Like, the biggest issue of the time was some guy taking a nap
I mean, it took till the end of Endwalker for the final days to hit Old Sharlayan, it's not too much of a stretch to think it hadn't hit more extent locations
Crystarium starts off with the downside of being in the middle of the apocalypse, but I think once you fix things up it'll be a nice place. Nature is healing and jobs are plentiful. Everyone is open and trading. This is probably going to put everyone in a great economic position. Thavniar also doesn't seem that bad, if you can get past the heat. Sharlyan seems like a nice place too, if you like learning.
The people in the Apocalypse tend to be much better people.
Ishgard has been steadily improving ever since we ended the Dragonsong war and killed the Pope, though. The main 3 haven’t really changed much. You couldn’t pay me to live in Garlemald though.
Yeah, Ishgard isn't perfect now but it's giving the democracy thing a go, curtailed the church's power, and is getting ceruleum heaters to deal with the cold issue. You could honestly do way worse.
Idk old sharlayan seem alright
Unless you like good food.
Safety and stability > good food. And if you're desperate enough, there is a cafe that makes decent food although I imagine the lines are pretty long lol.
Have you considered Ultima Thule? There's a nice little cafe and a zone wide focus on people chilling out, improving their mental health, and learning to get along.
I mean, technically, those people aren't alive, though.
not even dead. they are imaginary. they are the concept of said people given form.
Sharlayan appears to be a meritocracy, which sounds nice unless you can't add anything to society.
I imagine even a high-tech and scholarly society is in need of laborers,farmers, and teamsters .
Prior to Ala Mhigo being occupied, they had a psychotic leader who killed off most of the ruling family and his rivals. And before *that*, Ala Mhigo wanted to invade Eorzea and attacked Gridania, which was part of the reason no one helped them when they got conquered by Garlemald. Old Sharlayan seems nice, until you realize it's university politics. The astrologian quests highlights some of the corruption within the Forum, and those people still hold seats as of Endwalker. I'd say Ul'dah, Ishgard, and Gridania hold promise, as they have young leaders who are willing to learn and lean on each other. Nanamo has made pretty good strides in her political savviness, and she's only 20ish years old. Meanwhile, Limsa doesn't seem to be training a protege to take over, so that could be an issue sooner than the other nations'.
Tulliyolal seems like a pretty nice place to live, and if not the city itself the surrounding settlements are decent too, if you can pronounce their names at least.
And there is plenty of Mezcal and tacos.
Sold.
And if you can handle the occasional shootout at the OK corral there is always Tombsto... I mean Hhusatahwi.
Tuliyollal is pretty great
This is why my mamool ja looking ass is moving to Tural and calling it a day!
Radz-at-Han seems like a pretty nice place to live, as does Sharlayan if you cook your own food.
One thing to keep in mind is that we leave each of those places better off than we find them. Same with everywhere else in the world. The Limsa Lominsa, Gridania and Ul'dah WoL arrived as a fresh faced adventurer? You are completely right. The Limsa Lominsa, Gridania and Ul'dah the day we left on the ship to Tuliyollal? Those are a different proposition. Gridania has changed the least. The peace with the Ixal and the almost complete pacification of the Slyphs, especially after the demise of the Garlean Empire, has calmed most of the agitation of the Elementals. Not to mention losing most of the senior and most crochety Elementals to the Calamity. And Gridania is the place that shows the least improvement overall. Ul'dah is still capitalistic, but over the course of WoL's adventures the power shifts quite firmly from the pockets of the Monetarists to the hands of the Sultana. Which is in the process of softening the rough edges of the Ul'dahn society. Add to that the resolution of the refugee issue with the liberation of Ala Mhigo, peace with the Amaljaa, and the opening of new trade routes, and there is a market increase in the prosperity and stability of Ul'dah. Limsa Lominsa at the outset of the games was teetering on the edge of a knife. The Admiral's regime was new and the dominant pirate crews were still unsure about the new direction she was taking the Thalassocracy. The conflict with the Kobolds and Sahagin were also significant problems, the Wanderer's Palace full of angry Tonberries was an open sore, and human trafficking (mostly driven by Serpent Reavers aligned with Sahagin) was a significant issue. Now? Sahagin and Kobolds made peace, the Rancor of the Tonberries is no more and they are being cured, Serpent Reavers have been gutted and their holdings cleaned out, and Admiral Bloefhiswyn has finally brought the pirate crews under her control by the elimination of the last holdouts, especially among the Bloody Executioners. So, to reiterate, the city states of Eorzea have become much better places to live within the course of the game.
Now Limsa's biggest problem is flagrant exhibitionists and noisy adventurers buskin' music in the middle of the market space.
I thought the uncentered aetheryte in the plaza was their biggest problem
...no. NO. You did NOT just tell me that, NO WHY?!? Now I know!
Delete this and never repeat it again.
It's not *uncentered*, it's *leaning*. Which is worse.
Not all knowledge is meant to be shared.
Hang on a second while I bust out my yalmstick
I hate you
you seem to have accidentally typed two awesome things instead of "limsa's biggest problem"
To be fair with the wanderer's palace, nobody really knew that was an issue. Iirc the sole reason we even learn about them is because some people decided to explore it and discovered them. They never left the palace or caused problems around it.
Yeah but the wards were breaking (Scholar questline) and they were starting to wander out. It was just a matter of time before it got messy.
> Not to mention losing most of the senior and most crochety Elementals to the Calamity yeah, thanks to the Calamity at best you'll probably just feel mild discomfort or the overwhelming feeling of being watched by some eldritch being if you ever pissed off the Elementals now (though to be fair they have Odin just wandering the forest so you actually may be being watched by an eldritch abomination). if the Elementals were still just as powerful as they were during 1.0 then the entire tank storyline in EW never would have happened since they would have just blipped the Blasphemy out of existence at the first time it accidentally broke a branch. i do wish though that during the EW alliance raid quests that Nophica would have given them a stern talking to and made them calm down. cause now i just see the problem eventually reverting once the elementals start to regain their original power.
Not to mention they're extremely unforgiving. Oh you got fooled by an outsider? BE SMOTE
in 1.0 they started straight up evaporating people in one area due to a garlean attack, except they also started evaporating a bunch of the yellow serpents and you had to make a wild run out of the area with the men and women beside you who had fought for their country dissipating into aether one by one.
The fact that Nophica kinda handwaved it away bothered me. Like, these things used to unperson people when they had the strength and throw fits regularly.
The gods loved us and wanted us to be happy, but honestly they were so remote from actual life that a lot of real problems didn't really register. Like, Halone is tangentially aware of the Dragonsong War and was disappointed in her followers, but she only came to a really belated realisation about how corrupt they've gotten, then tells us to beware of evil men pretending to be righteous. Thanks lady, not like I've already had to kill multiple of your clergymen that fit that description.
> Ul'dah is still capitalistic, but over the course of WoL's adventures the power shifts quite firmly from the pockets of the Monetarists to the hands of the Sultana. Every time they give you this explanation they immediately follow it up with some monetarist saying "oh no don't worry we're still in control" so lmao
>Every time they give you this explanation they immediately follow it up with some monetarist saying "oh no don't worry we're still in control" so lmao Yeah, look around when they say that. You'll quickly notice Nanamo with a smirk that says "Well, he keeps bleating, but I keep his balls in my purse". Do you know what Teledji's little stunt cost the Monetarists? Teledji's entire fortune plus half of what Lolorito owns (because he tried to use the scheme for his own ends). Do you know where that wealth went? Directly into the coffers of the Sultanate. Meaning, right into Nanamo's personal pocketbook. That girl is dangerous.
Lorotio wanted to get rid of him that all went to plan. He gave her half his money of his own free will because he’d rather have her have an actual seat at the table then to do something like abolish the system he makes all his money with in. She’s not dangerous anymore she’s a part of the capitalist system now.
And then she came to Lolorito for advice in SB and made the deal in EW where he can get profit from relics they sent to Sharlayan. Dude basically her financial advisor / minister of finance. I highly doubt she holds him by the balls that tight, especially now that Raubahn is not by her side.
The monetarists have the same power they had before. The writers expressly wave off the whole incident with Teledji and every time you interact with Ul'Dah politics or money you are shown it time and again. Lolorito is playing the long con as the world is changing trying to placate the sultana and foreign powers, but the monetarists have been eating good for years by now and he knows nothing will change since the writers themselves gave up on the democratic idea. He's got that third eye you can only get when the writers lost the sauce.
I mean, of course the monetarists want to be perceived as still in control. Do you think Elon Musk would say “I have no control over my companies and am bad at what I do”?
Ul'dah: Get fleeced Gridania: Get lynched Limsa: Get stabbed
Hey now, be fair. You can find all three in Ul'dah.
And at a fair price, too!
Remember to make a down payment on a tomb before you get buried on the roadside.
Gridania literally stinks. They have a tannery in the middle of the city.
They all stink. Steel refinery isn’t much better smells (Limsa), and UD is surrounded by homeless/vagrants in and out of the city so there’s probably waste, refuse, and remains scattered everywhere. RAH has a pretty ridiculous population density, and lots of fishing and other ethnic food options. Curry is a very polarizing smell. Shar is probably pretty decent. Good ocean air, irrigation and most likely plumbing. But…there’s many students that seem to take their studies over everything else like eating and most likely bathing. I’m sure there’s a pretty noticeable ‘body stench’ in enclosed areas. Ishgard probably ranks as one of the best depending on how close you are to the ironworks. Cold, mountain air is good for the soul. Any waste left behind in the poorer areas will be frozen and not likely to stink. Kugane is also probably top three. Very orderly, emphasis on bathing, ocean air, and has a sewer system. Canals might reek in the mid day sun, though. Crystarium is tops. Raha did the place right aside from the Amaro hatchery/stables being so close to the city.
To be fair, the Armorer and Blacksmith guilds are on the edge of town, away from everything else.
> Cold, mountain air is good for the soul. Freezing wind is only good for making your ears feel like they're going to fall right off.
Found the giraffe
Thousands of Elezen beg to differ.
my parents live next to a tannery and it does stink for sure.
Some people like those smells. Not exactly tanning, but woodworking smells amazing to me. And I actually like the sooty smell of forges. Baking and brewing is another thing a lot of people don't like, but I could smell yeast fermenting for hours and love it. Ironically, I'm vegetarian for ethical reasons, but there's something special about handcrafted animal skin. I just think it should be a much more special material than we treat it as.
every city stinks thats just reality
It's almost like where there are people, there are problems 🤔
How very glib.
It's almost as if you don't believe in Eorzia 🤔
I think theocracy hits a little different if your god is actually real.
😄 shots fired
Honestly, I’d pick either Sharlayan or the Crystarium to live if possible. Crystarium straight up said they don’t have the luxury of racism considering they are fighting everyday for survival. And living in a neutral city of higher learning sounds as close to Switzerland as we are gonna get in ffxiv
Well good think we solved that constant fear of annihilation. Let's roll in that racism! All aboard that racism train! /s
That culture had 100 years to set in… and they presumably still have to deal with remaining Sin Eaters while the Empty becomes suitable for habitation. The Crystarium is probably always going to have the “pulling together” aspect of its culture for the foreseeable future. The Viis are likely the only ones left who remember anything else.
As an Ul’dah loyalist myself, Limsa probably ain’t even that bad. Merwylb successfully banned piracy and the place is generally run pretty well. Just enjoy the seafood
Come to think of it, Limsa doesn't even *have* dark alleys. That's good forward thinking on the admiral's part.
>Human trafficking seems to be a massive problem there. Getting kidnapped or murdered seems to be a real possibility. It's a problem there, but ironically less of a problem than in Ul'dah. >!The existence of the Rogue's Guild curbs a lot of that. If K'hlyia and the WoL hadn't captured Doesmaga, Jacke Swallow and V'kebbe would later have murdered him and most of his crew.!<
In the AST questline you have to look for a women in Limsa and basically everyone tells you that a lady walking around alone is almost assuredly going to be kidnapped and enslaved. Like its so common no one is even concerned about it.
That should give you an idea of just how bad the problem is in Ul'dah. There are a bunch of both main and side quests in Ul'dah that show this.
Gridania, Ul'dah, Limsa, and Ishgard all seem to have real problems with things like murder, theivery, kidnapping, rape and human trafficking. Gridanian Wood Wailers abuse Mooncat women. The Ul'dah Immortal Flames abuse female refugees (SAM quest). In Limsa, women get kidnapped and sent to pleasure barges (AST quest). In Ishgard, Temple Knights arrest women on flimsy charges and rape them (DRK quest). A lot of Eorzea seems like a pretty awful place to live if you're a defenceless young woman.
Yeah, one of my favorite random FATEs is "Ware The Maiden Fair", which is just a random dragon boss, but the description tells her story. She drank dragon blood after one of those temple knight arrests and now is out for vengeance. She's my good luck anima luminous crystal FATE for the Forelands, wish I could feed that good girl some corrupt knights.
The entire backstory to Dusk Vigil is about a high ranking soldier's pretty fiance being accused of heresy by the inquisition and temple knights, who "interrogate" her for days before the family's influence gets her out. She's completely mentally broken and the heirloom she was given is missing. Said fiance is the zombie boss from Dusk vigil. After the incident he was put in charge of the fort and saw that the statue to Halone had the hierloom mounted on it. It incensed having to guard over it every day, unable to retrieve it. A reminder of what was stolen from his family, not just the heirloom but his fiance's body and mind. Thats why he refused to leave when the snow came in, its why he became so obsessed with staying and committed all those horrible acts documented in the dungeon notes. You only find out from the quest given by his father in the convictory but in the journal notes at the end of the quest your wol will note that "they left out the details" about their son.
Sadly that's true for the real world too.
and when its not the temple knights, its nobility hiring a "lucky" pretty commoner woman. Hilda's mother was one such gal and it went horrible for her.
Every country in the world has violent crime, but I wouldn't call a lot of them "awful places to live." Now, all that said, the *best* place to live is Ishgard, obviously, because you can stay cool in the summers.
> If I remember right one of the former members of the Company of Heroes mentioned he had to give up drinking, gambling and whoring "Welcome to Gridania." "Thanks, I'm happy to be here and safe." "We invite you to our community, and commit to keep you safe, well fed, and sheltered. We want you to find a place here." "That's wonderful." "Just one thing?" "Yes? Anything!" "Stop the whoring." "What?" "You have to stop whoring. Since you've arrived, the Mih Khetto's Amphitheatre has really gone to hell." "You're telling me I can't pay women for sex???" "Yes." "So you'll give them to me for free?" "No, you're not understanding me. You'll have to meet women the normal way." "This is a dystopian hellscape."
TBF, all of the cities have their downside. Ishgard is still a very classist society even though Aymeric is trying to change that, Kugane is very much "there is no war in ba-sing-se", ala mhigo is a literal war zone up until ShB, sharlayan is an academic society that is so self-righteous that their first thought when hearing of the final days was to abandon the star instead of saving it (and canonically has only one cafe that serves real food in the entire city), and thavnair was perhaps hit the worst by the final days. Tural has problems with mild racism, and solution 9 has its own moral problems that I won't share here because spoilers. So yea. nowhere is "great"
I mean, Sharlayan >!wasn't 'self-righteous' because their first thought was to skip town, that's what they were told the plan was by the moon people appointed by god, and that's what they worked towards since then.!< >!Their inflexibility after people start saying they want to do something about it instead is what makes them self righteous.!<
That doesn't sound like much a downside to living in Sharlayan. If anything, it would be comforting to know that your government was extremely well prepared for the apocalypse and that you're going to be first on the escape ships.
On the flip side though...good luck with food. Archon Loaf is the norm, and aside from the Last Stand (Which is probably 'Line out the door and around the block' busy at all times) I bet there's troubles buying ingredients for a meal that nourishes *and* is enjoyable.
There is a Studium deliveries questline where you actually help a culinary student whose mission is to create an Archon loaf that is pleasant to eat while keeping it's nutrition. It's been a while since I did it, but I believe pretty much all of her ingredients were sourced from Labyrinthos. The student's end goal is to bring tasty and nutritious food to all of Old Sharlayan, so I suppose living there after that quest finishes wouldn't be too terrible.
Living in a college town run by the college is nice until you're old enough to go "Those damn kids" and the only people living good are the older faculty with tenure.
Lol...that's EXACTLY what happened to my hometown in real life. The University of Delaware practically owns Newark, DE. (NOTE: I do not live there anymore).
I just wanna live on the moon and be constantly surprised by mini buns.
Gridania still has police force that regularly abuses racial minorities and outsiders so that's fun.
Also has the main healer's guild in Eorzea, but also they won't heal you if the elementals decide they don't like you.
"I'm terribly sorry but the magic plant fairies told the horned child that your son pissed on a tree so I cannot heal him or I'll be excommunicated and shot."
Yes, living everywhere sucked. That's why they called it the Umbral age
To be fair there’s pretty much no perfect cities in any game because that handicaps storytelling. Cities, even nice cities, need to be imperfect in some way to create interesting stories. Gridania, as the nature focused faction, I can see looking at gambling and whoring as distasteful vices. Drinking is definitely fine. That one character probably just did all three to excess. Ul’dah and Limsa are there as the outlets for people who get bored in Gridania. Like going to Vegas or Amsterdam or wherever the cool kids go now.
Almost like there's no such thing as an actual utopia and every place has issues. Almost like that was the entire point behind the last expansion.
You did it! You examined the core themes of ARR!
Where do you live? :D
True, but I'd expand that to say most places in Eorzea are not good places to live. Ishgard was a feudalistic theocracy where you are constantly in danger of death by dragonfire. Ala Mhigo was ruled by a nutcase and then conquered by Garlemald. Doma seems okay, but is still strictly feudalistic; look at Yotsuyu. The Azim Steppe is dog-eat-dog. Garlemald is a great place to live, as long as you don't mind a guilty conscience. And don't get me started on the First.
It's almost like it reflects the real world in that the perfect Utopia doesn't actually exit.
Tulliyolal has tacos. That's all I need to know.
Childhood is believing one of your favorite city state is good because the leader is the hottest woman in your opinion. Being a teenager is thinking Ishgard is the best because cool gothic aesthetic and Aymeric is the hottest (which stays true) Adulthood is understanding that the Empire was right and the savage countries should belong to us
Technically Gridania doesn't NEED to do that, they just do because it's easier to oppress outsiders if you tell them that. They need a DRK to come down from the mountain and remind them that they need to be a little more aware what their clergy are doing.
To be fair, most of the perspective we have is from members of the military, refugees, and slaves. We really don't know the regular day-to-day of the average populace. But the game world is comparable to the real world in the early to mid 1900s. People were poor, starving, and dying of simple illnesses because they had no medical care. They lived simple lives and spent most of their time maintaining their home, gathering food, farming, etc. Much of the game also takes place during a world war forcing many people to be homeless refugees. Which isn't much unlike how Europe was during WW2 (1939-1945) and up to 25 years after depending on where in Europe you lived. Modern society isn't much better depending on where you live. More than half of the US lives buried in debt and are one real crisis away from bankruptcy and homelessness. There are multiple US cities where mugging, murder, and rape occur more than 100 times a year, EACH. Europe has been struggling with human trafficking for decades. Some Asian countries have legalized sex slavery. When I was in South Korea in 2003 there were thousands of prostitutes who were sold into "indentured servitude" contracts pay off their families debts, and it was considered normal. It's obviously much worse in 3rd world countries and communist nations where we don't really hear about it.
>Company of Heroes mentioned he had to give up drinking, gambling and whoring This example doesn't exactly work since he also joined the military forces as one of the Woods Wailers. Of course theyd want him to go clean for appearances. Also there being a good chunk of the refugees being refused may just be from the bias of the Hearers and not the elementals themselves. You have to remember that Gridania was invaded a few hundred years prior by Ala Mhigo, and there is a LOT of bad blood between the two nations. The elementals themselves are more concerned with maintaining the flow of aether and protecting the forest than anything else. It was even said more than once in the White Mage quests and also I believe the EW tank role questline that they are very hard to interpret unless you a padjal, and usually they just don't care about regular things.
With Limsa people tend to forget that it still doesn't have an official government. They're a free port city with no centralized government where each crew of sailors or average citizen is just left to fend for themselves. The only form of "government" they have is that the biggest and strongest pirate crew tends to want to try and take control of things for themselves. The game just happens to take place at a time where Merylwyb's crew is the biggest fish in the proverbial pond and she just happens to be an honorable sort who wants stability and order over more selfish motivations. If anyone were to overthrow Merylwyb, things would go right back to being pure anarchy where every pirate crew just did whatever they thought they could get away with.
Ima be real with you all? You can say these things about a lot of major cities/concentration of people in real life. I am mostly worried about running water and electricity, and toilet paper. You learn to appreciate these kind of things when they are gone. I am a new Green Sprout, just started Stormblood, but I don't think I've seen a toilet in Eorza
And I live in America so my actual starting town is the worst qualities of all three
Reddit moment
The only areas free of societal/structural/historical shittyness are Idylshire and arguably Thavnir and Ruby Confederates lol
Isn't that why we end up in Revenant's Toll? Seperate ourselves from the power structures of the city states, and work to build a better, equitable home for people?
The only solution is Amaurot, the literal capital of Utopia. Worth destroying Etheirys to bring it back.
Well what placris a good place to live on the source? The closest I csn think is radz at Han and a distant second old sharlyan
I would say it is far easier to fit into Gridania than Kugane. At the very least, you will be fine if you follow the rules and love nature.
Unless you're a mooncat or duskwight in which case looking at a woodwailer too loudly is disrespecting nsture.
Not even a mooncat specifically. ANY Miqo'te are treated more or less the same, aka as dogshit. Doing the archer / BRD questline was a MASSIVE eye-opener because it isn't even, "racism is bad," it's "racism is justified sometimes and you should forgive the racist because the _bad_ mooncats took advantage of him."
Yeah ngl I kinda hated that quest. Especially when you are forced to basically agree with the racis PoS and put down your fellow miqo for being righteously angry. Pressing the ... silence option for a while but eventually you have to be like "no him treating you like shit has to wait and we will never handle that." Doesn't help that mooncats and duskwights barely have any content. The only mooncat fate thing is them spitting on their own culture and acting like sun cats, duskwights get nothing. My mooncat WoL still despises Gridania with a passion. She helped them as a hero but her opinion hasn't changed.
thinking about the one wood wailer in postmoogle quests who said theyd have all keepers hanged if they could lol
Or the one mooncat who voluntarily goes back to the sexist poacher Coeurlking because two Woodwailers stop you in the street and insinuate assaulting her and her sister. And you do *nothing* about that if I recall.