Aetheryte Radio - A Final Fantasy XIV Podcast

Aetheryte Radio - A Final Fantasy XIV Podcast


Lorecast 7: Get To The Chowder

April 28, 2016

Last weekend during PAX East we had the chance to sit down with Koji Fox himself to talk about a whole bunch of lore stuff. If you haven't read it already, make sure to check out the written-up excerpt from this episode regarding the upcoming Lore Book, as well!

If you're unfamiliar with the format of a Lorecast interview, it's conducted live as a conversation and streamed as a podcast which you can find at the bottom of this page. We also transcribe the questions and answers in an easily skimmable format, sans some of the small talk and cleaned up for presentation. Usually, an interview takes place in two sections. The first contains larger questions with more impact on the understanding of the game world, and, if everything falls into place and nobody's strapped for time, the second is a rapid-fire round of smaller clarifications and trivia, often collected from other players and the Official Forums. As luck would have it, this is exactly what we were able to do this time! So listen in or read on for a lot of new information about life on Hydaelyn and, if you read carefully enough, perhaps some hints to upcoming content...?

We’ve seen Oda-san out and about more often since last we spoke! Is he enjoying the interaction with the JP base, and might that lead to some involvement with Fan Festival, either there or here with you?

Koji Fox: I asked him about this, and he just had this scowl on his face, like arrrgh. He really doesn't like speaking in public; he's not a public speaker. But he said that he really enjoys interacting with the fans. Through Final Fantasy XIV is actually the first time he's gotten to interact with the people who use the work he does, and having people come up to him and ask questions or ask for signatures has been really, really cool. He enjoys that ... but, "If I never had to do it again, I'd never do it again."

As for whether or not he's coming to Fan Festival, either in America or Japan, it's pretty much up to the team. "If they tell me I have to do, I have to go!" It would be awesome if I could do a panel with him, but it's up to Yoshi-P. If people on the forums are like, "Oh, my god, we wanna see Oda-san!"...

Fusionx: It's a really weird list of threats. "We want bunny costumes, peaches, and Oda-san."

KF: You'd just have to force Yoshi-P into a corner where he'd have to decide, but I think we would be seeing more of him in Japan. It used to be, again, that lore was pretty much a North American thing. The North Americans and the Europeans were really into and the Japanese fans weren't so much, but now, because of how big lore has become on the North American forums and they've seen how I write these really long replies, there's people like, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute! We like lore, tooo!" So there's a lot more interest in it.

Anwyll: It's revenge for five years of Famitsu!

So far, we’ve faced three enemies with the “surname” Prime: Bahamut, Atomos, and Ascian. Does “Prime” have a standardized meaning that tells us the nature of what we fought in each case? In Turn 13, especially, the nature of the battle inside the crystal heart is left rather vague.

KF: Okay, this is not a "cool" answer, but "Prime" does have a meaning ... It's "Prime." There's no connection; it's a simple marking of that entity as the first and foremost of its group. So... Ascian Prime, what you're looking at is  Asican Prime.

F: So they're all related to Optimus.

A: Ahhhh... OH! Wait—

KF: "Ahhh!" right! I think you have another question here...

So! Speaking of Ascian Prime, Heavensward saw the return of the long-lost “Reaper” Ascian model. Was this just a fun throwback, or does it provide context for what the Reaper actually was?

KF: This is a bit of a two-part question. The reason that we couldn't directly use the old model ties into China. In China, the government has very strict rules on certain designs,