Observations on Summons in FFXIV
So, one of our forum members, Heiroprime has written a brilliant speculation post in the forums, so I thought I would share it with you guys who have not seen it yet in my own little write-up!
It seems Square Enix wants us to know just how big of a role the Avatars, or Summons, in Final Fantasy XIV will have. In recent screenshots detailing what seems to be Ifrit, and even Diablos, we can clearly see some things that give us clues as to what they will be like, and what role they may have in the game. Lets take a look shall we?
Notice the staff that the beast-man is holding? The Horns on the staff, are similar to the horns on Ifrit, in addition to the two red orbs located under the horns. It becomes clear that that mob may in fact, be summoning Ifrit. As the speculation goes; Ifrit and Levianthan will be huge colossus’s worshiped by their respective tribe of beast-men.
“Maybe a High priest or a member of royalty of the beast-men will be trusted with the a sacred weapon such as a Trident of Leviathan, Crown of Odin, or Shiva’s bra..er Bangles. Through epic large scale cooperation of seasoned players the owner of an armor piece of the Gods can be taken down and the weapon can be claimed and thus granting the wielder the mega power of that God.”
Now, speculation is speculation, but there’s even more. The screen shots seem to be revealing a story in their own right. Provoking us to look further into the pictures, to see whats really going on. We see more examples in the next pictures.
In this image we see a similar depiction of one of Ifrit’s well-known attacks, Hells Fire. In this attack, Ifrit jumps into the sky, creating a huge fireball, then he hurtles it down upon his enemies in a hellish wave of magma and rock. Again, it could be a coincidence that a big fire-like monster in the Final Fantasy series just happens to be flying by some magnificent ball of fire, just because. 😉
“This could be from an enemy force controlling Ifrit to attack a group of adventurers, it could be the blazing monster acting on his own accord. It could even be Ifrit being summoned from the core of the planet. If the horns fit…it’s Ifrit!”
“I’m getting the feeling us players are going to be more in factions than in XI; the city’s or tribes will probably be more competitive not to mention the beast-men will me more intelligent. I picture it kind of like entering into a beast-mens stronghold and claiming one of their rarest treasures. The fight would probably consist of you fighting the Avatar. Imagine going underwater to an Atlantis like village fighting through waves of fish-like beast-men trying to claim the power for your city to be able to use the oceans to travel because Leviathan will protect your ships and attack others. The question is will the God items allow you to learn to summon the avatar or will it grant you and your allegiance the power to do epic things like have ifrit cause certain volcanoes to explode strategically or Titan to cause a rift in the continent[?] Maybe the item will have a set time until you lose this power over the God. Tons of maybes.”
Now, I don’t want people to start drooling over the sudden influx of possibilities here, but theres more. It was also pointed out that there are screenshots of what appears to be Diablos, or some other dragon-like beast, and ya know the old syaing two heads are better than one? Take it and apply it to the pictures.
“Look at the screen shot of the bat like creature rising from the beam of light. Do my eyes deceive me? I believe that looks very much like Diablos. I find it no mistake that there is talk of the rising of dragons and so far the god-like avatars that have been introduced (once again this is just my 2gil) all share one thing in common; dragon characteristics.”
“The Diablos picture” .. “has a ray of light bursting from the ground. In another shot [the picture above “diablos”] there is clearly the same ray of light but way into the sky…It would appear the ray of light is destroying an airship of some kind (maybe we have enemy’s in the sky now?) Is this a cut scene? Or is it an impressive attack from Diablo directed at an airship perhaps even controlled by an adventurer whom has earned Diablos bidding?”
“There seems to be something in pieces in the sky and on top of that there would appear to be fire or debris from the airship raining down around Diablo. I’m almost certain those two pictures tell a story together just like the two Ifrit pictures.”
In the end, weather the pictures were meant to tell a story of their own or not, one thing is certain. There will be a deeper story surrounding the avatars in ‘XIV, and it will possibly lean more towards what we saw with Bahamut in ‘XI. This look noticeably smoother, and maybe better thought out, to become a more well-rounded MMORPG then ‘XI was. That’s always a good thing!