Ryanti Veanysus

Good morning everyone!  The Menphina Madness Blitzball Tournament has only just kicked off, but as of last night, Score for a Cause is already in the lead on the team fundraiser leader board on the To Write Love On Her Arms fundraising site!

As of this morning, we have raised $731.00 for charity (and that’s not even including pledges per goals!) and we are 24% to our $3000.00 fundraising goal!  That already exceeds last year’s goal of raising $500.00 and is more than halfway to what we raised in total.   

If you’d like to participate and support the Score for a Cause fundraiser, you can do so in a number of ways:

Make a flat donation towards the fundraiser or your favorite team at: https://give.twloha.com/team/221691

Pledge dollars per goal scored for your favorite team! Find the pledge form at:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSexVsCwWjEc5b71RBhfa8CK94DpvBCWA_AV9o2Nq6ky8rKg0w/viewform

Consider donating your artistic skills by offering art commissions or other creations for a give away to incentivize other donors!

Issue a fundraising challenge!  This is a chance to be creative with encouraging your fellow community members to take up some sort of challenge, but keep it clean, keep it respectful and keep it safe.  But most of all HAVE FUN WITH IT!

If you have an questions with how to help support or have an idea you’d like to discuss, feel free to contact myself via discord at Dylan Thorne #2556

Does your character love blitzball? Do they love Ul'dah? Do the love /money/? If any or all answers are yes, then we have a job just for you!

The Gil Turtles are currently looking to hire a number of people to help with the Opening Ceremony for the upcoming Menphina Madness Blitzball tournament! We have a need for several specific roles outlined below:

Drivers - We need multiple individuals with the FFXV crossover event Regalia mount to drop off our team members in style. Feel free to dress to match and stand with us for the ceremony!

Security - The Gil Turtles will have some VIP attendance for the tournament, and as such need some extra security with them backing them up! Brass Blades, IC Paladin’s and Uldahn based security groups are preferred but any are free to help!

Congratulations to the Ul’dah Gil Turtles and the Ala Mihgo Royal Griffons for scoring the VERY FIRST pledges of the Score for a Cause fundraiser associated with the Menphina Madness Blitzball Tournament!  

WAY TO GO!

They’ve each gotten a $20.00 per goal scored pledge from Emi of @musecastxiv !

However, don’t count the other teams out just yet.   As an added incentive, I will personally donate $100 dollars towards the charity for whichever of the blitzball teams scores 5 pledges for charity first! 

Want to make a pledge for your favorite team? 

Check out the pledge form below or contact me via discord at  Dylan Thorne#2556

https://tinyurl.com/scoreforacausepledge

ally does final fantasy 14

pray return to the waking sands my dude

Want to keep up on some of the latest info regarding Menphina Madness and the Score for a Cause Fundraiser?  Make sure to follow https://twitter.com/MMBlitzFFXIV ! 

I’ve seen a lot of elf husbandos in Regalia but not enough Garlics. Unacceptable.

So I present you: Nero, Cid and Gaius riding into the, uh, unknown :D

plus bonus gif

It’s time to Score for a Cause!

Hello everyone! Last year, alongside the Menpina Madness Blitzball Tournament, the Balmung Roleplay Community raised over $1000.00 dollars for charity.

We picked this charity because it addresses a relevant health issue many suffer from, and yet is all too often overlooked. We hope that the community will rally together to help support this fundraiser and those who are affected by mental illness. Help us let those who are suffering know they are neither alone nor without support.

Along with announcing our charity of choice, I am also happy to announce that we intend to make our fundraising efforts even bigger and better this year, and in order to do so, we are asking for participation from the entire Final Fantasy XIV Community! This plan will all be made possible by the coming World Visit system! In recruiting people to help promote and raise money for this cause, we started with some of our favorite content creators in the FFXIV community. Many have agreed to become promotional sponsors for this year’s blitzball tournament teams!

Those teams and sponsors include:

Menphina Madness is back, and so is our effort to raise money for those in need! I’m happy to announce that the Balmung RP Community will once again be holding a charity fundraising effort alongside the upcoming Menphina Madness Blitzball Tournament. This year we will be benefiting To Write Love on Her Arms (https://twloha.com), a nonprofit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury, and suicide.

- The Limsa Lominsa Black Abyss, sponsored by Maelstrom Radio!

(website: https://www.maelstromradio.com/ ,

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Maelstrom_Radio )

- The Ul'dah Gil Turtles, sponsored by MuseCastXIV!

(Website: MuseCastXIV.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/musecastxiv)

- The Gridanian Sea Chocobos, sponsored by Moogle-go-Round Radio!

(Website: https://mooglegoroundradio.wordpress.com,  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MoogleGoRound)

- The Ishgard Eyes, sponsored by The Crucible!

(Website: http://www.thecrucibleffxiv.com,

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CrucibleFFXIV)

- The Ala Mhigo Royal Griffons, sponsored by Gather Together!

(Website: http://www.gtffxiv.com/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/GTFFXIV)

- The Kugane Crushers, sponsored by Phoenix Down Radio!

(Website: https://www.phoenixdownradio.com/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/phxdnradio

- The Garelamald Classiarii Technicii, sponsored by She Heals I Tank!

(Website: http://shehealsitank.com/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/SheHealsITank)

- <Undecided Wild Card Team>, sponsored by Aetherflow Media!

(Website: https://aetherflowmedia.com/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/AetherflowMedia)

So, how will fundraising work?

It’s easy. Pick a team that you’d like to support and cheer for and either:

Pledge a dollar amount for for each goal that they score (For example, 5 dollars for every goal Limsa scores) up to a maximum amount not to be exceeded (for example, 50 dollars) that you choose.

Donate a flat amount in support of your favorite team via the fundraiser page (link to be announced soon!)

Or, if you like, just donate to the Menphina Madness fundraiser directly!  

It’s all entirely up to you!

Please note that donations will go DIRECTLY to the charity and NO money will be handled by any of our fundraising staff whatsoever.

If you’d like to participate in the pledge system, please contact me directly, via discord (Dylan Thorne#2556).  

Also please do contact me if you’d just like to help out with the fundraiser by giving your time (through helping to organize the fundraiser, offering art commissions or other digital goods for fundraising giveaways, etc.), or if you’re a content creator and would like to help us promote this fundraiser!

To learn more about the Menphina Madness Blitzball Tournament, please see the following link or contact Aegir via discord (Aegir#5138)

Want to know more about how we play Blitzball? Check out the doc linked below:

With news of the Hrothgar queen and how their tribes revolve around her or not, there’s a small possibility we could end up with a 1.0 Merlwyb situation. There were no female roegadyn PCs in the original version of FFXIV, but then there was Merlwyb, leader of Limsa Lominsa. People apparently debated over her race because there were no femroes, lol?

WoL, about to cry and embarrass themselves in front of not one but two garlean traitors:

FFXIV: Mrhappy Interview w/ Naoki Yoshida From Tokyo Fan Festival

1.) Many western players were surprised when it was revealed that Hrothgar and Viera would not have both genders available, especially after the efforts the team went through to provide more options with Miqo’te and Roegadyn in 2.0. Why did the team decide to do two different races with one gender each instead of one race with both genders?

A.) The timing of the game launch, the races needed to have each gender counterpart for ARR. When I took over for ARR, I wanted to fill the missing gender to make those races seem complete. What is different now compared to then. After multiple expansions, the situation isn’t the same as when we released the base game. My answer will be quite long…

This game has been launched for 6 years currently. It has tens of thousands of armors available. We have to make sure every race can use every outfit correctly. The more unique the appearance of the race, the more difficult these adjustments are to make.

When we create one gear, we have to make adjustments so it fits all these different races. So when we add new races, we have to adjust how to approach this process. The development cost for making a new race is very intense because of how much work we put into the graphics of the game. We also have to make sure these things all work properly. Thats why we are saying these may be the last races because of how taxing it is on the development team.

We wanted to give players options and freedom to choose more races. We envisioned adding a new race, but people really wanted the Viera to play in-game. So if we add another new race that isn’t Viera, people might wonder why we didn’t do Viera, so we had to add them for sure.

We had a big discussion back when we added Au ra in Heavensward about whether to add Au ra or Viera. We knew we only had Female Viera for reference, so we had no idea what to do for the Male variant. We would have to use our own imagination for that. There was fear about how we would approach that. Perhaps an elezen body with a miqo’te face and bunny ears. Would this be the right way to add this race to the game?

When we create a fantasy game, especially for FF14. We have a good variety of races. We don’t really need any more cute or sweet looking characters because we have so many as it is.

Especially for FF14, we have many symbols of power or strength such as Highlander and Roegadyns. We wanted something more animal like. Its not that we wanted to create a wild west of characters, but we do need a good variety. So the simple answer is: Viera was sought after so we had to add those. To expand the game and its options, we also wanted to add Hrothgar.

2.) As a follow up, is the team considering adding the other gender for these two races in future expansions?

A.) Short answer is we haven’t made a decision on that. The reason why we can’t say for sure. We need to optimize our work flow with the existing races and the new ones. After that, perhaps we do the other gender. But we don’t know right now.

We did consider Male Viera instead of adding an extra race, but we tried to take player feedback on adding a more beast like race as well as the strong desire to receive Viera. We did expect strong feedback on the gender lock. It was a tough decision, but we decided to do our best to meet both the player feedback and our development team’s vision. It will be very costly to add a new race or genders. So I won’t say no, but I would not like to set expectations high.

We haven’t had time to look at all of the feedback since this is our first day back at the office after the Tokyo Fan Festival. What was the general feedback from NA based on your experience? Were they upset about no Male Viera, no Female Hrothgar or both?

Me.) It has been a heated topic. Some players are okay, while many players are upset about the gender locking. Many are disappointed about no Male Viera, but with the Female Hrothgar I’ve seen some people be even more upset. This is because in The First Shard they are called Ronso, and in FFX there are plenty of female Ronso.