Date of SoA Revealed: 3/27/13

[Hashmalum]

Absorbing magic is good, but honestly the only way I think it'll be able to make itself useful is to have AoE defensive spheres and buff the whole front line. Something like Rampart but up full time. Because even if you give some really broken self-defensive moves to the RNF, it's still only going to be defending itself against magic. Pld can -MDT everything but Meteor down to near-nothing, WHILE using a shield, so they have defense against physical attacks. My prediction is either the AoE buffs or they'll screw up and make it near immune to magic damage and about as offensively powerful as a half-decent Drg.

Well, Runic absorbs the spell entirely, preventing it from even going off while giving the user back MP, and the FF series has had Reflect castable on a whole party at once before. Not out of the question to make damage absorbtion AoE either; we already have at least one mob (troll boss in Besieged) that does a move (Arcane Stomp) that gives magic damage absorb to all its allies within range. Although if absorbing spell damage counts as self-healing for enmity purposes, it might be more useful self-only.

[Slycer]

DUDE you're right. There's another Geo in there in the foreground. Christ almighty. What is going on here? How can amano's work be so minimalist, with all this white space, and still be so damned cluttered? I thought that was just some ukiyo-e Okami cloud bullshit. That one Geo in the back is surfing on the foreground one like Goku on his little golden cloud.

Are they leaping? Falling? Floating? The girl in the front is standing on solid ground with one big Rob Liefeld leg. It's pandemonium.

Assuming they are all in the same dimension, my guess is that the female geomancer is springing forth from the swordmaiden's ass, while the rune fencer is diving towards the swordmaiden's legs and preparing to cut her down, even though he's staring ominously at something off in the distance to the right. The geomancer on the top left, then, is descending from the heavens in preparation to drop kick the lot of them. The floating mithra in the background is one that confuses me. Once again, under the assumption that they are all in the same dimension, the only feasible explanation is that this dwarf mithra is about to unfortunately meet his demise as he nears the ground on his fall from the sky. However, he still has time to take one final look at the spectacle of the geomancer emerging from the swordmaiden's rear.

I have to wonder what Amano is given, though. I'm pretty sure they were just like... this is what Geomancers look like, this is what Rune Fencers looks like, this is the main character in the story - here's some money, draw us something pretty. Perhaps the added mithra in the background, then, is Amano's self-portrait and a metaphor for his fall from grace.

[Tarage]

I would pay to play as a Birdthra.

[Elizara]

LOL you guys! Anyway, been watching on amazon for this and been hoping they'd release it on there since I have $30 of amazon gift cards just waiting to be used. Preordered and done. Would rather have a disk version but I'm not picky; Amazon is nice in you can download it as many times as you need to in the case of redoing a pc. (Which is what I need; if I redo to windows 7 I don't want to go though major shenanigans to get the expansion again.)

Anyway, glad it did show up on Amazon first! I was guessing it'd be Amazon and the usual places for download. ^^

[Edit] To be sure, I just called Square Enix Support just to double check. It does not LIST windows XP on the system requirements, but if you're still RUNNING windows XP, you should be able to install Seekers just fine, the rep said. Reason #20 why I need to rebuild my system however!

[Thiefami]

Amano can art, we just wish he'd stop.

lol. It's awful, looks like I drew it.

[Kincard]

Amano has drawn a lot of good stuff in the past IMO but that box is not one of them, it just looked rushed as hell because of how little there is on it, along with the LOLPERSPECTIVE. I wouldn't compare him to Liefeld though, that would just be cruel. He's not quite on the level of Thunder Thighs and "Lordosis e'rywhere' just yet.

[Cairthenn]

If there's a Rune Fencer mythic with runes on the blade, I'm sold even if it's awful.

[Imoq]

"Downloading: Currently, this item is available only to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address."

:X ¬¬

[Cairthenn]

"Downloading: Currently, this item is available only to customers located in the United States and who have a U.S. billing address."

:X ¬¬

That's fairly illogical, but you could always download over a VPN or something. If not, you can almost be sure that a torrent will pop of here (or, if not, elsewhere) on the sale day.

[TummieGaruda]

I have been thinking about Geomancer lately and something came to mind. It has been said that:

- The job will be able to cast sphere effects on themselves which include: Regen, Refresh, Regain, Stat Boosts, Attack, Defense bonuses
- Use Luopans which are similar to Adelheid's status tubes in campaign to buff players in the area or give debuffs to the mob (Paralyze, Slow, Magic Def down, Eva Down).
- Uses a job ability to have access to certain spells.
- Buffs will be a different buff category

I wonder if it will play out like Scholar where the first 9 levels you get your basic RDM spells (blm elemental magic and bar spells) and then when you hit 10 you get the special job ability that either gives you access to sphere spells (spells you normally learn via scrolls at a certain level), or converts sphere spells into Luopans. It will be interesting to see if these spells are tiered by scrolls (Attack, Attack II, Attack III) or if they will scale like bard songs based on Geomancy Skill.

As far as Luopans are concerned, SE stated that they will have HP which depletes after casting and can be destroyed by AoE's. I believe that Geo skill, or Geo level will determine the starting HP of the Luopans.

Speculation:
- Bells will be required to cast/summon Luopans
- The Mythic club augments Luopans which will allow double the amount of Luopans that can be placed on the field at one time. (I believe currently you can only do 1 of each)
- 2HR doubles the strength and duration of buffs/debuffs

[Chamaan]

I would pay to play as a Birdthra.

But if a catgirl had bird wings, would she try to eat them? I just want to Mancer some Geishas.

Amano has drawn a lot of good stuff in the past IMO but that box is not one of them, it just looked rushed as hell because of how little there is on it, along with the LOLPERSPECTIVE. I wouldn't compare him to Liefeld though, that would just be cruel. He's not quite on the level of Thunder Thighs and "Lordosis e'rywhere' just yet.

You have to admit he does draw a lot of broken spines and one legged bitches wrong proportions standing en point. And the Japanese do use buckles and fur the way American artists use pouches.

[arus2001]

Given Rift did it, I wouldn't be surprised to see RNF getting the ability to block while wielding a two-hander. Could even be a subbable trait to possibly give the job appeal to other classes. Only annoyance here would be if SE went on to differentiate GS types likes shields, resulting in lesser damage options (base damage/delay) being more defensive.

[Chamaan]

Given Rift did it, I wouldn't be surprised to see RNF getting the ability to block while wielding a two-hander. Could even be a subbable trait to possibly give the job appeal to other classes. Only annoyance here would be if SE went on to differentiate GS types likes shields, resulting in lesser damage options (base damage/delay) being more defensive.

Subjob that lets you get shield blocks with 2hd weapon? Sounds like a Sam buff to me. More likely than I'd suspect, but less likely than I'd hope.

[Alkar]

I hope they sell this through Playonline like every other add-on so I don't have to care about the version I'm purchasing.
Unless having my US account linked to a EU SE Account magically fixed the issue.

[SephYuyX]

Amano haters can gtfo.

So no physical copy for PC eh? And no real collectors edition?

[Moridam]

no boxed copy for NA at all eh? too bad, even though that's probably the weakest showing amano's had for any of the XI covers, i'd still be happy having a copy of that on my shelf.

[Shenrien]

I love amano art work but ... fuck no matter how many times I've seen that, even when it was first shown on the launch website I was like augh it's hideous, like he didn't put that much effort into the work as he usually does

[Chamaan]

It's really really not up to the standard of the other expansions. It's napkin work.

[Slycer]

So no physical copy for PC eh? And no real collectors edition?

No and no. If you look on the NA and EU websites it specifies that both the expansion and the collection bundle of the PC release will be only digital download. I'd assume the 360 version will be a boxed release, but it doesn't say one way or the other. If you look on the JP website, they have both digital download and boxed releases for both PC versions with the boxed releases selling for SRP of 480 yen more than the digital download (just boxed releases for the 360 and PS2 versions).

[Eurell]

A day late.. but only 15 new zones? I certainly hope they aren't counting BC or city zones in that, otherwise even CoP has more zones added to the world. I'm still very excited for the expansion either way, but I was hoping for something larger. Maybe all the zones are gigantic or something...