Final Fantasy XI Origins project

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

I've been thinking submitting job profiles on each forum as I've noticed while we have a lot of FFXI players, there are quite a few that haven't played any of the other games in the series or just a few of them. Some people pick up roles out of trial and error, others pick up roles similar to those they played in another MMO and then there's the players who picked their favorite jobs from the main series.

I thought it might be nice to profile each job in such a way it that it gives insight to how FFXI jobs were inspired and also might spark some interest in trying out those other games these jobs hailed from.

So, just from a formatting perspective, it would flow like this

Job
First appearance in Final Fantasy series
FFXI character(s) representative of the job, a spoiler-free description
Other FF Characters that job is inspired by, with a spoiler-free history, citing which games they appeared in and the availability of said games.

When I say "spoiler-free" that doesn't mean we can't give them some back story or their involvement in the game, just don't give away any important details, twists or surprises (Yes, even THAT ONE from FFVII)

Additionally, I'd like to see some illustrations.

Example:

Final Fantasy Origins: Dancer

Dancer
First Appearance: Final Fantasy V
Other appearances, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy X-2, FFXII
FFXI Character: ???
Lenne (FFX-2) - a spirit of a songstress lost during Zanarkand's war with Bevelle and influences Yuna during her journey to find a lost friend in FFX-2.
Penelo (FFXII) - Etc, blah, blah, blah

A bit more fleshed out than that, but you get the idea.

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So, consider this a sign-up thread, since Dancer was announced this week, we'll toss that in on the job list and postpone yet-to-be confirmed jobs at a later date. But let's go ahead and set a date for this project to begin, which I would like to begin on October 5th.

For now, there are three orders of business before we can really get started.

(1) I'm of two minds of how we can assign a thread to each member. We can do this by member nominations or "first come, first serve." I think the community should also just have a say in who does what so someone doesn't start their own "Origins" thread, giving moderators a headache.

(2)The other matter, and why I set Oct. 5th as a date, is to reach an agreement on some rather ambiguous characters and jobs in the post-FFVI era. Before we can start profiling, we need to decide - as a community - what do define those jobs as from an FFXI perspective.

Cloud Strife is a good example. He's been described as a WAR in some places, but I'm inclined to say he's a SAM based on how Square has written him and how he plays out. Vincent isn't really a RNG, he's a Morph and Berserker, so he really can't be applied to FFXI by any definition. These are just examples, there are a quite a few other characters that need to be sorted out.

So we need to reach an agreement on some of these roles. I don't want the discussion to get heated in this regard, we're just going to go with what character most closely resembles an FFXI job and what most people agree on.

(3) Finally, I'd like to avoid any "job flavoring" of characters from the other games where you could be any job. While FFX-2 and FFXII are also full of roles you can conform to, but at least the main characters from those games at least had a job to identify from the start. Yuna was a RNG in FFX-2, Rikku and Vaan are THF and Penelo is a Dancer, not other real way to define them.

In other words, what I mean is just because Lulu cast spells with a doll doesn't mean she was a Puppetmaster, she's a Black Mage. And just because Faris was a pirate captain and Balthier and Fran are sky pirates does not mean they are Corsairs. Let's keep job flavoring out of it.

There are jobs that do lack a character, though. Red Mage doesn't really have a character to symbolize them outside of FFXI, so that needs to be discussed. Additionally, Dark Knight didn't have much character basis outside of FFIV, though its original appearance was in FFIII. Cecil and Zeid are all DRK has, so to give it more space, let's include Gafgarrion from Final Fantasy Tactics games as one to reference as well. At the same time, lets not go too far with job association outside of those FF games.

And a magical (4) I'm just gonna pull out of nowhere. At no time should this thread fall into a "FFVII is the best FF ever" thread. I don't care which FF you like the best, this is to cover the majority of the series from a FFXI perspective. I'd like contributors to have at leave five Final Fantasy games under their belt, preferably more. No profiling of a job should be done from once single game of the series, with the exception of PUP and any original job SE decides to cook up.

Anyway, that's it for now.

BTW, I'd be ok with covering COR's profile, but I'll let you guys decide that. Plus we need define Wakka anyway.

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Jobs and users covering them:

Starter:

Warrior
Thief
Monk
White Mage
Black Mage
Red Mage

Advanced T1:

Paladin
Dark Knight
Bard
Ranger
Beastmaster
Summoner

Advanced T2:

Dragoon
Ninja
Samurai

Advanced T3:

Blue Mage
Corsair
Puppetmaster

Advanced T4:

Dancer
???
???

To be updated later as users get signed up.

[Tyros]

I wouldn't mind working on Dark Knight.

[Ziero]

Sounds very official-y, as such it would be interesting if it turns out well. I'm not gonna outright sign up myself as I have a nasty habit of getting sorta flakey with research stuff but I'll certainly offer any assistance I can.

One thing I would like to mention, I agree that Cloud us more of a Sam, similar to Cyan from VI. Going by his special sword attacks and choice of weaponry, many of which are named and modeled after Katana, he seemed far more Samurai-ish then Fighter/Warrior/Knight.

And Vincent is more or less a Morpher/Berserker as stated, leaning more towards the Morpher side. Similar to Gau he would assume the form and powers of a monster, but Vincent's monsters weren't other enemies in the game. As such neither of them would really fit into an FFXI job class. Barret was more of the Ranger in VII, as all his special attacks were ranged attacks. And Red was Warrior/Fighter/Berserker as far as I could tell, despite his few buffs he was mainly a direct attacker and made use of Berserk (enhanced attack/no control).

When I think of more info I'll be glad to share

[Feba]

If you want to have a shred of dignity, don't talk about the characters. That just gets people upset because they took their differently-- and it puts you as being wrong.

[Murphie]

It's an interesting idea, but I don't know how necessary or really, viable it is. It seems to be the sort of thing more suited to the Wiki (or a Wiki, depending on where you stand on that whole issue) as opposed to FFXIO, but that's obviously your call to make.

Personally, I don't care about the minutia of the jobs, and how they came to be. It's just not interesting to me. But then again, neither is all the math that gets some people all hot and bothered. So you know, different strokes.

Anyway, best of luck.

edit: This came out sounding mean, when that wasn't my intent. Basically, it's not my thing, but it's totally other people's, so I hope it goes well.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

edit: This came out sounding mean, when that wasn't my intent. Basically, it's not my thing, but it's totally other people's, so I hope it goes well.

Your response didn't surprise me in the slightest. It came off sounding very Murphie.

As far as Wikis go, I understand making new ones is the cool new thing to do, but you know, rather than contribute to wikis by communities I couldn't respect before certain incidents, I think I'd just like to add to the forums I do like.

Anyway, if you're not interested in the discussion, move along. If no one is interested in talking this up, we'll know it won't work well before the deadline anyway

[LilithAngel]

I'd like to toss my name in the hat for Dragoon and/or Blue Mage (big surprise there, eh?). I find those jobs to be rather interesting from a design standpoint.

On the one hand, you have the concept of a heavily armed/armored knight who's stylistic leanings evoked the dragons of old, yet their power and ferocity was tempered with agility and grace, something that one wouldn't think to be possible from one wielding such a large weapon.

On the other, the concept of a mage, someone traditionally known to be on the back lines, lightly armored and unskilled in physical arts, instead on the front lines, constantly putting themselves in the line of fire, in order to study and aquire an enemy's combat technique and make it their own, growing into a force to reckon with over time. Both interesting takes on traditional concepts.

[Skoal]

http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/jobs.shtml

I guess you could just use this as a reference.

[Mhurron]

http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/jobs.shtml
I guess you could just use this as a reference.

Actually why not just copy that whole site, since that's the exact information being asked for. Only formatting is different.

[Malacite]

Pretty cool idea.

We're only covering the FFXI jobs though? Does that extend to jobs that existed before FFXI that were used as inspiration? Such as RDM (putting my own personal grudge against SE aside for a moment here) borrowing from Mystic Knight's Spellblade ability with their new Enspells, or how Time Magic was split among WHM and RDM?

I'd like to get in on this, but idk what job to do

Also to correct an above statement, Yuna starts off as a Gun Mage in X-2, which is essentially a BLU/RNG hybrid. You can't really classify her as one or the other since she uses blue magic, but it's through her guns so... yeah >_>

[Murphie]

Actually why not just copy that whole site, since that's the exact information being asked for. Only formatting is different.

Because...actually, I don't know why because.

[Skoal]

Yuna starts as a gunner. Later you can be a gun mage.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Also to correct an above statement, Yuna starts off as a Gun Mage in X-2, which is essentially a BLU/RNG hybrid. You can't really classify her as one or the other since she uses blue magic, but it's through her guns so... yeah >_>

Gun Mage was unlocked later in the game, She was "Gunner" from the beginning, I restarted a game recently just to look over the Dances for Songstress. " Yuna changes from Gunner to Songstress over the course of the initial tutorial, but defaults back to gunner later.

[Sevv]

id be willing to help on Nin, about to start a guide for Ninja. Maybe as well as Warrior . I maybe posting the Drg guides I wrote as well.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Well here's the sticky part, Sev, we kinda have guides established on every forum as it is. However if you wanted to detail out job abilities existing within the role, where they began and such, that would be fine.

The FF Compendium thing: that's kinda the idea, but what's there is rather bare-bones, a cut and paste from the instruction manual. I'd like see something a little more in-depth, to give the jobs some lore.

DRG could be a really interesting one to write. When you break it all down Kain and Cid Highwind were DRG/WAR. Freya Crescent was DRG/WHM and Khimari was DRG/BLU. DRGs have also been rather isolated and stoic characters, each loners in their own way.

BLU is pretty cut and dry overall, but to save a lot of debate, I think we could just say both Strago Magus and Gau are BLU. Gau was Berzerker, too, but since we have no Berzerker job and Gau could only use enemy skills to fight, his pretty much a full-on BLU. He's also somewhat of a catalyst for FFXI's BLU taking on enemy traits. For example, if Gau used "Bomb" he'd gain "Float" status because bombs hovered and this granted him immunity to earth based attacks such as Quake.