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One way in which a player can enhance his in-game experience is by learning some of the in-game lore. Sadly, the Shakespearean style wording that comprise the official lore will leave some people scratching their heads in utter confusion. Fear not, for FFXIV has a dedicated lore translation team here for your every need. Over the course of these lore installments, we are going to simplify it into a language the reader knows best: English (of the modern era)!

The Age of Adventure

Since the dawn of time, twelve tribes from across Hydaelyn have arrived and settled in Eorzea. The gods who ruled and looked over the previously empty continent were amazed by the tribes' cunning and resilience. In due time, they began watching over the respective tribes, each one acting as a guardian.

At first, the tribes were fueled by greed, frequently fighting amongst each other. This would continue for many years until hostile soldiers from the Garlean Empire appeared from the east.

In the face of a new enemy, the tribes amassed a resistance, but to no little or avail. It wasn't long before the powerful Eorzean city-state of Ala Mhigo had succumbed to these mighty Garleans. As the Garleans continued their reign of terror, the remaining nations reluctantly put aside their differences, should the empire begin to look south.



Luckily, the invasion never came south. Almost as soon as the Garlean Empire had established itself as a menace, they were gone again. However, the echoes of the invasion were still ever-present in the heart of Eorzea's people. It was during this time that Eorzea slipped into the 'Age of Calm', an age in which an uneasy peace prevailed.

After Ala Mihgo fell, city guard units were restructured into organized armies, ready for action should the need arise. Unfortunately, a majority of the realm's hired swords had nowhere to pledge their allegiances. For fear of the situation worsening, leaders from around Eorzea gathered together and formed a network of guilds for these lost souls. Through the visions of these leaders a new industry known as 'adventuring' has emerged, its primary purpose helping usher in the current era - an era of extreme uncertainty.


A Realm Divided



It has been ten years since beings known as primals were summoned to Eorzea by the questionable ambition of the beast tribes. Each successive year, they only appear to be more drunk on power, and continue to wreak havoc on all Eorzean citizens.

To the northeast, the Garlean Empire is still up to no good, casting a shadow of undertainty across the realm. Seeking to control the continent of Aldenard, the Garleans have once again set out on a campaign to destroy anybody that stands in their way.

It is in the midst of contested Eorzea that a new mysterious power has begin to surface. Known as the 'Echo', it is believe that souls touched by it will resonate with others. In doing so, those touched by this mysterious power will be able to relive others' past experiences as if they were their own.

What is the origin of this eldritch power? Is it a gift or righteousness, or some evil magic at work?

The search for answers now falls to you. Go forth and seek out your brethren, and you can claim your place among legends!

If you have desires to be remembered as a legend, then why not express them through commentary first?

Welcome back to Discipline 101, the premier place to be for all Discipline-related knowledge. Today you are going to learn the in-depth details about the Lancer. First we are going to teach you how a Lancer functions in the heat of battle. From there, we will give you a detailed walkthrough of some of the Lancer's abilities.

Whether it be swinging polearms or throwing javelins, the lancer is truly the premier long-ranged melee specialist in Eorzea. That being said, the primary task of the Lancer is to inflict a heavy barrage of weapon thrusts, all the while keeping a safe enough distance. When the lancer isn't inflicting high amounts of damage, he can also be seen enhancing the group's TP or simply managing his enmity.

When the Lancer begins, he will be armed with a mere polearm and know how to perform only the following:

Light Thrust - Attack with your polearm, dealing piercing damage.

After enough Light Thrusts, the Lancer will eventually learn some of these skills:

Comrade in Arms - Bolster morale, consuming TP to place an enfeebling effect on the target which grants attacking party members enhanced TP generation.

Ferocity – Trigger an adrenaline rush, consuming HP to increase the attack power of your next attack.

Collusion – Employ deception, transferring the enmity (threat) generated by your next attack to an ally positioned between you and the enemy.

Invigorate – Channel your physical energies, consuming HP to gain TP.

Life Surge – Make sport of an enemy, gaining the ability to absorb HP. While active, successful attacks reduce the target's evasion.

As the previous abilities indicate, the Lancer may appear to be more versatile than previously foreseen. While the Lancer carries big weapons that are most likely to be found on Dark Knights(FFXI), he also possesses the cunning and trickery of Thieves(once again, FFXI). Here are some of many abilities the Lancer has come to inherit:

Souleater (Dark Knight, FFXI) - Consume your own HP to enhance attacks

Trick Attack (Thief, FFXI) - While active, all enmity accrued from the user's next strike will be transferred to a party member the attack is initiated behind.

Sometimes, the Lancer may generate so much threat that there may be nothing left to do but stop attacking and DANCE! Dancer(FFXI) bestowed abilities include but are not limited to:

Drain Samba (Dancer, FFXI) - Inflicts the next target you strike with Drain daze, allowing all those engaged in battle to drain its HP.

If you think the Lancer is a glass-cannon only good for high damage output, think again. The highest amount of expertise may lie in long-range weaponry and theft, but never underestimate the deadly art of dancing. With all skills combined, the Lancer may be one of the most valued members of your group.

For all readers who would like extra credit, you can leave a comment to this article. Otherwise, Discipline 101 is officially dismissed!

Even though soloing is now an option in FFXIV, the bulk of leveling should still comes from parties. As it appears, SE has done quite a few things to better the partying ordeal.

Throughout the course of the article we are going to teach you everything you need to know. First we will teach you how to select your party. From there we will give you a quick travel guide. Finally, and most importantly we will bestow upon you some of the fighting and questing basics. Afterward you should be ready to tackle anything in Eorzea!

Forming the Party

The first thing you must do is search for your party based on a variety of factors. Said factors may include class, level, zone, and number of members. After that, it is time for you to select from the menu and join up! All members who click to join on the menu will be automatically added, and all you can do from there is pray that the leader doesn't kick you for a more optimal class.

My only gripe so far is that you must be in the same area in order to join the party. That notwithstanding, I highly commend SE for greatly improving this initial key step.

The Gathering

Now that your party is set up and ready to kick some major booty, all you have to do now is get there. Each individual area has an Aetheryte, which is a teleporting location a previous visitor can access. If your party hasn't had a visitor, good luck handling the potential breakup. Otherwise, give leadership to the appropriate member, and he can teleport the entire lot of you!

When visiting a new area or when in doubt, it is best you follow the leader. For that reason, the auto-lock function is once again here for your every following need. Simply select your player, lock onto him and let his navigation skills do the rest. That being said, use this tool frequently and you will do just fine.

Creating your Battle Regiment

Now that everybody is together, it is time to fight. Before you bust out your swords and spell books, you have to setup your Battle Regiment first. Simply select the desired skills and wait for your party to do the same. With that out of the way, it's time for your party to find that brave soul (or suicidal maniac, depending on the party quality) to attack the mob and commence the Battle Regiment!

Overall, Battle Regiments make for a much different fighting experience. In FFXI, it was highly important to save TP and connect with those coveted skillchains. Although skillchains don't exist in FFXIV, that doesn't mean you can carelessly waste TP. It is important you select the proper skills for each varying situation, and strongly stick to the game plan. While it may not require the same level of team synergy as FFXI's skillchains, a wise and strategically implemented Battle Regimen is still something you should strongly uphold.

Doing Guildleves (Quests)

Now that you have the basics down pat, it is time to do what a party does best: fight and quest. In order to activate a Guildleve, get your party off to the Aetheryte and have the member holding the Guildleve activate it for the group. The experience and rewards you will get from Guildleves are awesome, but are sadly only available every 48 hours. This being said, try joining party with varying Guildleves. That way your party will live on, you will pummel more mobs into oblivion and the good times will keep coming!

Overall, I am already loving the new party system in FFXI. As always, feel free to drop a line and let me know your own thoughts on this new system. If not, I look forward to party with you very soon!

P.S. For those interested in partying with me, I am not a noob (in my own eyes, that is) and won't senselessly wipe the group.

Under normal circumstances, class balance is by far and away the most quarreled topic among players. In FFXI, however, it very well may have been the crafting system. Through the eyes of a casual player, crafting was extremely time consuming, costly and just downright exhausting. On the other hand, the more experienced gamers generally saw it as a way to make some extra cash with insane dedication toward their craft of choosing.

There was only one thing concerning crafting in which all players did agree, and that was the high level of confusion SE created with their system. Whether it was the optimal crafting day, weather effects or the crafting levels over recipe caps, most players saw them as unnecessary. I myself took up crafting for a bit and had trouble scheduling an in-game day for crafting around my real-life university scheduling. Players like myself can rest comfortably knowing that Square Enix is going to be leaving all these things right where they belong: in the past and as a distant memory.

This time around, the most significant change has to be the new Discipline (class). Now that you don't have to level a Disciple of Battle, crafting enthusiasts can continue to do exactly what they do best: craft. This time around crafters will also have a wide variety of Guildleves (quests) to perform in respect to their level. If that isn't enough, Square Enix has further spiced things up by rewarding you with crafting-related materials that can help you keep you pumping out gear like a well-maintained assembly line!

All in all everything appears to be easier. Square, however has added one challenging element to the game, and that is promoting increased cooperation between all Disciples of Hand/Land. Take, for example this very basic Blacksmith weapon:

Shortsword

1 Shortsword Blade (Iron Base) - Blacksmith
1 Crossguard (Iron Base) - Blacksmith
1 Swordgrip (Elm Base) - Woodworker
1 Pommel (Iron Base) - Blacksmith
1 Grip Wrapping (Uncolored Buffalo Leather Base) - Tanner

If an item this simple requires that much cooperation, just imagine the way end-game items will be. Myself being beta deprived, I can only speculate as to how the Crafting system will be in action. I am overall happy with the changes, and look forward to playing the game even more now.

If FFXI has been any indicator, I am sure this will also be a very hot topic, and what better time to commence the discussion than right now?

Eight years ago, SquareEnix set the standard for the way auction houses work in MMORPG's when they launched Final Fantasy XI. As a result, many people have come to the shocking realization that all Auction Houses will be no more in Square's newest MMO entry. If you are a long-term MMO player such as myself, don't panic. I know you may be thinking SquareEnix is out of their mind, but they may very well be onto something big. Even the wheel needs to be reinvented from time to time, and Square has been busy at work doing just that with their new economy.

In lieu of the Auction House, players will have a new tool at their disposal called a 'Retainer'. Retainers are characters designed specifically for selling goods from the Bazaar of your choosing when you are offline. So far SquareEnix has declined to comment how many Retainers each account will receive. In Japan, players have to pay an extra 100 yen ($1.00 USD equivalent) per each retainer with an 8 character cap. As far as the US version is concerned, one can only speculate things will be the same. After all, there is really no appeal in having enough retainers cluttering up a bazaar to the point that it vaguely resembles the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Unlike the vastly networked Auction Houses your standard MMORPG, the Bazaars in FFXIV are highly localized. There is usually one per locale, and the items each Bazaar carries will depend on the Retainers. To make a purchase, you also have to travel to the exact location of the Retainer to pick it up. By doing so, SquareEnix has taken the power of rampant Auction House price-cutting out of the players hands. Not only will it make location a more convenient aspect in selling items, it will be extremely difficult to control the market. Traveling from city to city and buying up the items is hardly a feasible method of controlling the market, rare items notwithstanding. Let's say, for example you want to control the pricing on Aldgoat Meat. It is such a common drop, that by the time you travel through all the cities people would have more than enough Aldgoat meat back up for sale by the time you cycle back through.

The only way I can see a player manipulating the Bazaars in any way is by transporting local goods to a foreign marketplace. If in-game resources are specific to certain locations, there will be meaning to bringing it to a location more convenient to the players in a faraway land. If possible, doing so will also have possible benefit in generating a little extra profit, but only at the expense of the locale, NOT the server.

People often state that "If something isn't broken, then don't fix it." The Auction House in Final Fantasy XI was far from broken, but SquareEnix has boldly shown us that 'If something isn't broken, you can still remove it anyways." Will this bold new change in the economy work out? Only time will tell, and I myself cannot wait to further see it in action!

Welcome to the first installment of Discipline 101, a section devoted entirely to the in-depth breakdown of FFXIV's Disciples. Today we will take an in-depth look at the Gladiator, FFXI's resident defender. First you will learn about the function of the Gladiator. Afterward we will discuss abilities, new and old ones alike.

The Gladiator is simply a master of blades, ranging from daggers to longswords. Traditional players will combine sword with shield to provide strong defense, while players seeking a new approach will opt to carry an offhand or longsword in the shield's absence. A master of blades also wouldn't be complete without a vast array of throwing knives to give him perhaps an extremely diverse choice of weapons.

Due to the high defensive and offensive capabilities, the Gladiator is much like a Warrior and Paladin all rolled into one. As a result, it may come as no surprise that some of the abilities the Gladiator possesses are one in the same from his FFXIV predecessors.

Upon entering the game, the Gladiator will be armed with a sword and merely have two abilities at his disposal:

Light Slash - Attack with your sword, dealing slashing damage

Light Stab - Attack with your sword, dealing piercing damage

Early in the game, the Gladiator will learn the following skills to bolster his defenses:

Shield Bash - Slam an enemy with your shield, dealing blunt damage with a high chance of interrupting casts. Renders the target unable to cast for a few seconds.

Phalanx - Strike from behind the safety of your shield, dealing slashing damage and increasing threat. Can only be executed following a block.

Provoke - Generate lots of threat and temporarily force an enemy to focus attacks on you.

Cover - Come to the aid of another, positioning yourself between the target and an enemy to redirect damage to yourself instead.

Rampart - Fight to protect yourself, increasing defense and magical defense.


Sometimes however, the best defense is a good offense. Here are some of the more damage-oriented skills a Gladiator can use to get things done:

Still Precision - Steady yourself, increasing accuracy and reducing evasion.

Aegis Boon – Recover behind the safety of your shield, converting a portion of damage sustained when blocking into HP.

Spinstroke - Feint before attacking, dealing slashing damage to the target. Increases attack power when the target is not engaging you.

Circle Slash - Spin your weapon fiercely, dealing slashing damage to nearby targets

Red Lotus - Call upon the power of flame, increasing attack power and dealing Fire damage.

If anything was proven in FFXI, it was that Paladin and Warrior was a highly potent defensive combination. Now that some of the best defensive abilities of the aforementioned classes have been passed down to the Gladiator, it appears you would be hard-pressed to find any better Disciple to perform the role of tank. With that being said, you can only wonder which Sub-Disciplines will best complement the highly diversified skill set of the Gladiator.

Thanks for reading, this class of Discipline 101 is officially dismissed!