As anyone who has read any of my earlier posts about Final Fantasy XIV would know, the new expansion titled Endwalker released today. As mentioned in my last post and the ones before I've been on a mission for the past five weeks to catch up so that I would be able to partake in the launch of the expansion. I managed to do so just in the nick of time and today I was able to get in on the madness!
Let's goooo!
I've been super stoked for this all day. Since the servers were offline all of yesterday I took the opportunity to work throughout the whole day to that I was able to leave work early today. I got off about four hours earlier than I normally would and rushed my way home so that I could queue up to get into the servers.
Because there is a queue. FFXIV has gained some enormous and deserved popularity lately and the servers are filled to capacity. Every single one of them. Luckily they were able to do some upgrades to them before the expansion launched so the wait times aren't that bad. When I first logged on I only had to wait about three minutes in a 200 person queue. As I'm writing this I'm number 878 in queue, and that's after starting at 2500 persons, getting disconnected once and having waited for about 40 minutes to get in. I should have never logged out to make dinner...
First steps into Sharlayan!
Nonetheless I was able to play for a couple of hours earlier today. Along with everyone else I rushed straight for the MSQ (main storyline quest) so that I could access the new areas. With the Final Days approaching, which is basically the end of the world, we're travelling to Sharlayan to uncover what secrets they might hold that might also help us divert the looming threat. It's gonna be super awesome to delve into the secrets of this scholarly nation.
When we first arrive there we arrive by ship in the city of Old Sharlayan (depicted above). The architecture here is just awesome and the background music accompanying really adds to the atmosphere. As is standard in any MMO game where you discover a new city hub we get a tour of the city so that we can take in the views. Being a nerd I of course have to stop and take some screenshots of my waifu along the way.
After the tour ends we start our investigation and get to make some progress in the story. Turns out the doomsday towers that started appearing in the end of Shadowbringers has been popping up here as well. These towers basically brainwash people to become something called "tempered" so that their aether (magical energy) can be used to summon evil godly beings known as Primals. I posted about some of the early game primals here. These are basically new and empowered versions of these primals as well as some new ones.
We're given the choice of which zone to start in. We can start in Sharlayan itself or we can travel to an island nation that has need of someone who can withstand the influence of these towers, namely us, the Warrior of Light herself. I choose the latter as it sounded the most fun.
As you can see from the picture above this zone is really beautiful. It has strong vibrant colors and a generally cool scenery. They've taken some inspiration from India here it looks like, with the elephants and stuff. Speaking of elephants. The local beast tribe are elephant people. Coincidence? I think not. I was quite excited when some NPC told us that the person we were looking for when arriving here had the most beautiful eyes and face he had ever seen. I was totally ready for a new NPC waifu, but was instead greeted by this:
This might be the perfect waifu for someone (maybe 
My queue just ended and I'm now logged back in. Perfect timing as I was just about to round off this post. I've got my tea ready in my cup alongside some chips. Ready to enjoy this evening and uncover more of this story!
Expect more posts about Endwalker in the coming days and weeks!
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.