[FFXIV] The Ayerie - Hidden 1.0 dungeon | SoaR

[@KGrooveBlanka]

You sir, are an Eorzean archeologist. Love the dig into the past lore.

[@noodlegumm_]

truly

[@やぶさおびなた]

Ayerie; the lofty nest of a bird of prey (such as a hawk or eagle)- Aerie; a large nest of an eagle or other bird of prey, built high in a tree or on a cliff. A high or inaccessible place from which someone can observe what is below them.

[@Leonesaurus1990]

I would really love if someone could sit down with either Tanaka or someone on the XIV team who originally worked on unreleased parts of 1.0, like the Coerthas dungeons, and delve into what their original plans were for them. Would it have been the first open-world Coerthan dungeon, like with Mistbeard Cove, or an instanced dungeon like with Darkhold? Getting some neat behind the scenes info on the dragon eggs inside the dungeon, what boss they were planning on introducing in that room to accompany it, or some input on the mossy stone structure at the end of this dungeon would be a treat to hear about! I was never able to gain access to these unreleased dungeons back in 1.0, and my curiosity for what was inside them always drove me mad, but I'm glad someone was able to break into them and fully explore like I've always wanted to. This one is probably my favorite 1.0 dungeon design, along with the other hidden Coerthan dungeons. Keep up the great work!

[@Beneficialitificul]

Indeed. I would think Koji Fox would be able to shed light on a good deal of it since he was there from the beginning in 1.0, if I'm not mistaken.

[@damianfatale8503]

Might not answer everything due to confidentiality, and respect for other employees. If he spilled too much, people might turn on the current devs.

[@sasamosamo]

Just a thought, if it's persistent lag, then its possible that: a. It's attempting to render something with a massive number of tris/polys. b. It's attempting to render a TON of objects (possibly with their own high poly counts) c. Perhaps something is trying to spawn objects in an extremely unoptimized way (like particles of smoke or water) d. It is trying to play some high density animations (usually uncompressed mocap. mocap was used in 1.0, but always had its animations reduced except in some cases) e. It could be having an error with unrestricted sounds or unlimited echoes (though I'm not sure if the ff13 sound system had dynamic echoes). Sounds do take up quite a bit of memory, so if a specific sound was being called per tick/frame, it could be causing the lag.

[@Azdaja13]

"It fortuned, faire Venus hauing lost Her little sonne, the winged god of loue, Who for some light displeasure, which him crost, Was from her fled, as flit as *ayerie* Doue, And left her blisfull bowre of ioy aboue, (So from her often he had fled away, When she for ought him sharpely did reproue, And wandred in the world in strange aray, Disguiz'd in thousand shapes, that none might him bewray." - from The Fairie Queene, by Edmund Spenser (1590) 1590 puts this around the period of Early Modern English. It's quite obviously a form that changed over the years.

[@Azdaja13]

By the way, the "u"'s in this would probably be "v"'s today. So it'd be "ayerie Dove" and "joy above". Because of this, I'm inclined to believe that "Ayerie" is an Early Modern English or Middle English spelling of the present day word "Aery".

[@thebardkestrel]

I don't know how much/if the Ishgardian heretic obsession existed in 1.0 the way it does in the 2.0 and HW msq, but that was my first impression here, an introduction or elaboration of the heretics' presence in Coerthas. I was really impressed with how detailed and beautifully textured this unused dungeon was.

[@katomamundara8106]

Fully agreed. I think it was meant to confuse us and make us doubt - "are we killing humans who have been corrupted into dragons? Heretics willingly turned? Or natural born dragons?"

[@frogradar]

You notice that this dungeons assests are used ALOT in Dzaemel. for example, the first room is the 2nd boss room in Dzaemel except they removed the path to the corridor and put in a teleport. the symbol room is the room after that which houses the exploding crystals and gigantoads/spirit enemies.

[@nicktwoshy9651]

Next month? This was almost two years ago! So sad, I love these T_T

[@MiBrCo4177]

Just saw this lol and had to reply. Having the physical copy of 1.0 I wonder I can load these and explore a bit? Otherwise I'll need a private server setup.

[@Taikomo]

This whole series says a lot about 1.0 design philosophy. Why would they create so many half finished dungeons in such different states of completion?

[@katomamundara8106]

Stupidity if you want bluntness. Instead of completing each thing one-by-one as they go they seemed to work on everything at once, resulting in so much incomplete content. Had they been more pinpoint, and stop focusing on excessive size for precision, they'd have gotten a lot more done. Gutsy design decision but also too ambitious.

[@IsilmeTuruphant]

@@katomamundara8106 As someone who played 1.0 extensively, I have to agree, though I would call it a lack of discipline and focus. They had put so much work into stuff like this, which was obviously far, FAR beyond any endgame we got before the servers shut down, but they hadn't optimized the engine. or figured out even the bare basics of how the player economy would work, or built quests or tutorials or even given most of the NPCs dialogue. The built towns and left them empty, they left the beastmen out entirely (They were added afterwards, despite their importance to the MSQ) and they neglected so many of the basic staples of an MMO in favor of huge dungeons we never got to see, and massive swaths of the game world they then made inaccessible with ridiculously high-level monsters. It would have taken them YEARS to have Eorzea in a properly playable state the way they were building it. 1.0 was ridiculously indulgent, and in a lot of ways they really couldn't afford to be. Beautiful pots, huge windmills, and expansive caverns, but no life or purpose to fill their massive world.

[@granmastersword]

@@IsilmeTuruphant damn. 1.0 was quite an ambitious MMO, suffered by lack of focus and underestimation of the capabilities of the Crystal Engine

[@4diamondz318]

we all know it was rushed from the very beginning, even during beta testing and beyond but it was pushed out for release- a cooperate decision

[@rexellate]

None of the design teams were communicating with each other

[@MidnightWonko]

That Symbol Room reminds me of the sections in Tam-Tara where you fight a mini-boss, then disable the sealing ward. Perhaps that room was used to undo a magic seal on the door you no-clipped through?

[@cattysplat]

Labyrinthian dungeons of old MMOs always fascinated me. Especially the open world parts. One of my favourite things of Classic WoW was walking through essentially a small open world dungeon to get to the dungeon proper, that even getting to the entrance was a hostile dangerous journey in itself and required you team up outside before venturing forth. Helped even more so if there were quests to do outside.

[@RyuuSkyez]

The mystery and intrigue of this dungeon is overwhelming. So many questions, these kinds of secrets are a gem! I Wonder if we will ever know the truth behind this masterpiece, or perhaps these things are better left as monuments to what once was.

[@morteaux3662]

Man,watching your videos, is like watching Discovery channel for Final Fantasy. Absolutely LOVE it. Thanks!

[@WabiTheChocobo]

12:23 this part is after first boss of darkhold, with the frogs, slightly altered, many areas of this huge cave are from the dungeon, so i guess this is why the dungeon itself has so many teleporters? they did not want to rework the whole area, even if it was instanced, less work for them probably.

[@foxdavion6865]

Sounds like this dungeon was in development when the decision to end 1.0 was decided and it was just left as is unfinished in the game files when focus shifted to the calamity and was patched in alongside it. Part of the originally intended Ishgard content, abandoned when focus shifted in development, prioritising ARR before Ishgard content. Same happened in WoW when development shifted to Burning Crusade.

[@rexellate]

12:19 that upper path there is straight up used as part of ARR Darkhold right after the eye boss

[@BlanchetFlaurian]

It felt like exploring your first Dwemer ruin in Skyrim to me. I would love something like that as a 1-player kind of dungeon :o

[@algallontheobserver3780]

This place reminds me of that dungeon you do as the mage warrior of darkness in Shadow Bringers.

[@kaoruhonjou]

That green mossy rock formation near the end of the video reminds me of the amberscale rock.

[@HollowiiMarz]

This is like the eorzean history channel i need

[@SorasShadow1]

Just the thought of actually trying to run this dungeon, even touched up & populated, is daunting. I haven't left the ARR areas just yet but most dungeons barely run past a half hour if you wipe a few times (& that's if the tank is going slow, they usually go full sprint in my experience), I can't even imagine how long this would take even with an archer boosting our speed & sprinting at every opportunity. I do wish they'd gotten it finished enough that we could hear the harrowing tales of the 1.0 players who played through this monstrosity of a dungeon because that's always fun, but it's for the best that it wasn't. Though it does make me wonder just how disorganized everything was with the 1.0 dev team that they'd have such detailed (if copy/pasted) & comparatively huge areas mostly ready to go while the rest of the game suffered.

[@sukitburanasun2006]

Hersande..... Wait, is she the same Hersande, the hunter scholar, at Kugane in FFXIV: Stormblood? O_o!!?

[@TheAzulmagia]

From what I understand, a number of 1.0 characters are around in a fashion in current XIV. I think Ser Yuhelmeric, the guy who cannibalized his men in Dusk Vigil, was someone you could talk to in 1.0.

[@TempestStrife]

Hey! I just wanted to say thank you for the subtitles. Perfect for when I’m sleepy or my sewing machine is roaring. Also say hi to Pedro for me. They must get lonely.

[@Adramelk]

its more then likly a take on FFXI's Dragon's Aery "Nestled high above the peaceful tree-lined areas of The Boyahda Tree and The Sanctuary of Zi'Tah lies this treacherous plot of land home to some of the strongest creatures to roam Vana'diel. The aery, or nest, while home to some more common animals, is often guarded by one of two powerful Wyrms."

[@Bongaboi151]

Somewhere here, Nidhogg is lurking...

[@darkfury1733]

Awesome work bro

[@katomamundara8106]

My guess here, is that this was meant to be where we meet the Dravanian cultists like Iceheart for the first time. We'd probably see them using that pad to conduct a ritual to transform someone into a Dragon, and then witness the eggs, which one hatches into a normal dragon, giving us the idea dragons got two sources, to make us uncertain who it is Ishgards been fighting at this point. With that said, it feels like someone would have broken past the guard, or the cultists were seen moving in and they let us in to discover tf is going on.

[@cao215]

Holyyy I love the creepy vibe from this dungeon, it's like dark souls graveyard I love it 😍

[@ShivaServer2009]

That is very interesting. The coerthan dungeons with dragon egg shells, they probably were intended to be 1.0's HW. The more you find of what we never got to experience in the 1.0 world we lived in for 2 years, the more I'm intrigued by what never was and what could've been. Makes me wonder more and more, what the original intentions of these never used places were to be. Especially since it has the same name, albeit slight variation on the spelling, of The Aery in HW.

[@katomamundara8106]

Honestly? I think it was better this way. With this it sounds more like Nidhogg's base would have been in Coerthas west instead of high up where it is now, and made us question: "How the F haven't you dealt with them again?"

[@amberyonkman1085]

I just discovered this channel and I love it so much. I didn't start FF14 until after Heavensward and I adore anything that alludes back to the 1.0 game that I unfortunately missed out on. Looking at the sheer size of this, I can see why the game had so many issues. I feel like they were trying to go for seamless transition dungeons, like in FF15 and the sheer amount of pre-rendered assets must have put an enormous strain on the game engine. In any case a ton of these assets have been reused in ARR and HW. There's Tam Tara and Dzemael of course, but also I think Mourn in Dravanian Forelands--the altars are similar if I remember correctly (those altars are in Tam Tara too I think). Looking at the Fesse, I feel like some of that got put into Copperbell and Halatali. They sure did like their caves in 1.0 XD. I can't wait to watch all of these. Thank you for putting them out there.

[@Kisai_Yuki]

The flames are probably missing from the braziers because they were probably intended to be animations switched on/off, and thus the particle effects would need a server cue. Same with the doors being open/closed. We know they're supposed to open and close, but they have states that the server controls, and thus if you're exploring a dungeon without the server knowing about it (which is essentially all that a PS can do, since nobody would have been there when it was operable to capture the data needed to create it) then there's no way for the game client to know what the state is, so you get whatever the initial condition is. At any rate, It's probably intended to be "the Aery" , a nest for a bird of prey. It may not have been intended to be the same "Aery" as HW, just it's name.

[@clubfro]

When are they going to continue the SoaR series?! It's been forever.

[@HazelMage]

So I was looking at the markings and you pointed out that they are Dravanian in design. Which, from further looking and comparison, they are! If you also look at the markings in The Hundred Throes up on the Northeastern part of the map in the Dravanian Forelands, it also shares those as well. Perhaps its meant to be something tied to the Landlords of ye olde times? Or at least a tie into the 1.0 of Heavensward, as you said. Man, I'd give anything to just. Go and explore that haha.

[@riaclerica]

I kept flashing to this episode in a certain location in Dawntrail. Most likely unrelated of course, or else the heretics were up to really weird magic.

[@leafleaf6560]

Actually the nest of ayerie reminds me of the second boss of 4.0 dungeon “the Drowned City of Skala”....

[@rohiogerv22]

Some geography and contours vaguely remind me of Snowcloak. I wonder if any of this stuff got used as the starting point for Snowcloak assets. It would kind of make sense, when making new Coerthas dungeons, if they HAD at least scoured through these half-finished dungeons to salvage what they could.

[@KevinSatron]

man, idk why, but this is what i'm expecting about "dungeon" in any video game. a labyrinth cave dungeon. would love they create a special dungeon this big in ff14

[@IrideaeSnowbloom]

A single decent until you reach the hub, then several paths that lead to the Circle Symbol Room? Sounds to me like they were pondering a changing dungeon, i.e. one where you can decide which path to take (or which changes paths each time)

[@rexellate]

From what I understand, the events leading up to A Realm Reborn were always planned, but due to the reception of 1.0 they moved the events up faster and Bahamut’s destruction was changed to be more damaging to change the world into what became 2.0. It could very well be that the events of Heavensward, to an extent, were planned down the road.. as Nidhogg was referenced a lot in 1.0 DRG story too.

[@Dessarius]

What if this could have been the first end-game Raid? I'm not very far in, perhaps the layout isn't that huge in the end, but what if it goes really far down to hide a vast, expansive raid zone? Could have been interesting.

[@Dessarius]

To continue my theory; that area you labelled as "The hub", perhaps it branched off to different bosses and after each one you would either run back to the center or perhaps be teleported back to the hub, or in future attempts you could go back there, like a checkpoint? Alternatively, perhaps each one did lead to a boss, but you could only do one boss a week, perhaps, with 6 or 7 options of bosses you could do. Just a thought, but it could be interesting.

[@Dessarius]

Theorycraft-A-Raid: The Dragon's Ayerie Level: 50+ (Perhaps 60+, if this was meant to be content in the first expansion) Party Size: 8 Players. Zone: Coerthas Western Highlands Bosses: 10 Story/The Reason to Hunt the Treasure: The Dravanians have been locked themselves down in this cave for many decades. Previously, we (The Ishgardians) assumed they were dead, but now the roars of dragons sound once again. The main gate has been opened, blasted apart presumably by dragons. We need several healthy and ready adventurers to go down into the cave and find out what the Dravanians have been doing for all these many years, wipe them out, and report back with what they find. Any treasure you may find, adventurers, is yours to keep for doing such a great service in the name of Ishgard. I'm spit balling 10 bosses due to the hub seeming like it could be intended to branch off into multiple boss rooms --- in my head, I imagined a boss at the end of each "wing", with a final boss/wing perhaps opening up after the others were cleared. Perhaps the branches off the "hub" could be done in any order, perhaps there's a very hard order you have to do with certain wings dropping keys to open up other wings, with the final boss perhaps being an ancient slumbering dragon. And then, of course, a "gatekeeper" boss near the start to ease players into it. I imagine a lot of the early mobs that populate the dungeon would be humans (Dravanians) or smaller dragons (Whelps? Maybe similar draconids to what we saw in WoW's Blackwing Lair?) later perhaps changing to more normal cave creatures later in the dungeon for the more open cavern bits. Maybe a wandering Goobue or two as either sub bosses or just there for mob variety. Perhaps one of the bosses could be a dragon-ascendant, someone the jobbers in the raid zone looked up to as a "god", with him being the "only one able to speak to the ancient dragon".

[@DourFlower]

That symbol vaguely reminds me of symbols in Dravanian Forelands northeastern ruins, with the water in the Coliseum like area

[@ruadeil_zabelin]

One rock formation looks exactly the same as part of the current dzemael darkhold. It's where you have to stand in the circles for a while.

[@midiko]

About the strange symbol, i could be wrong but the symbol in the middle of the akh afah amphitheatre looks similar to it.

[@seankkg]

I can't believe how massive this is to simply leave in the game world.

[@toastiemelons6776]

kinda reminds me of a mixture or aery and the skadia dungeon, was most likely the 1.0 concept of aery if the ishgard story ever were to happen

[@MegamanCraft]

So, How exactly are you going back and exploring 1.0 in the first place? I'd like to know and possibly do it myself

[@Its_Casprin]

How do you think he was able to get into these dungeons?

[@_incogni_]

"We swear it's finished guys - it's finished! Rushed part of the map? no, no, no don't be silly"

[@Dor_Z]

I'm gonna ask you again and again Lukile.... HOW ARE YOU FILMING THIS!?!?!

[@SparkleSporks]

They use a privately-runned 1.0 server, which normally have monsters off for them. :]

[@ColorOfSakura]

SparkleRecordings actually private 1.0 servers don’t have monster data compiled on them yet. Turns out that 1.0’s coding is a massive mess of different systems and most of them would have to be reconfigured to work properly

[@SparkleSporks]

@@ColorOfSakura uh... that's basically what I said? Monsters are off for them since there isn't really any coding lol

[@MagnificentSunrise441]

I was just going to ask this! I wanna play on the server! T^T

[@cattyclove]

@@MagnificentSunrise441 same!

[@nebulous57_2]

Isnt this what they used in ARR for Dzemael Dungeon remake?

[@finalfantafish1181]

the ayrie stone reminds me of the dragon stone in 'the boy and the dragon gay'story...

[@Crowlie2009]

I believe it was intended for Shiva, that same symbol is in the Shiva fight and makes a lot of since in the Heavensward Story to be Shiva. Also Ayerie I'm sure was meant to be Avery meaning old english for aelf which means elf, and Shiva is Elezen...

[@briann.7715]

WITH THE RECENT RELEASE OF EORZEA ENCYCLOPEDIA 2, I guess it would have been better if the contents of the book included 1.0 lore. Let's face it, whatever we have on both books are basically re-hashed info, art work from the game transcribed in a book format. there's nothing new there really. My bet is that if you simply play the game properly without skipping cutscenes there's no need for a book... xD

[@MintyArisato]

there's a whole lot of stuff packed into the encyclopedia not in any cutscenes or artwork. the twitter acc @FFXIVXD has piles of info all from the books I have never once seen mentioned in game for a single second. too many examples to list, but character ages and background stories never mentioned, the entire hingan script is in there, on and on...

[@Caioacampos]

Probably this is The Aery and suffer the same consequences of that dungeon in Sea of Cloud I forget the name.

[@michaelcosta7235]

It's clear this was intended to be 14s version of 11s Aery.

[@ernestoivanmcmillangonzale6699]

U rock so hard my friend!!! how can i explore 1.0 exactly like you?

[@DarthAlphaTheGreat]

Aery?

[@steweygrrr]

I think the reasoning behind the name is that the Japanese follow the German example of spelling ancient Greek and Roman 'ae' sounds as a hard 'i' in English. For example Caesar is pronounced Kaiser.I believe that is the most likely reason they called it the Ayerie instead of Aerie.

[@foozzys]

your subtitles are VERY off, as in that whole paragraphs/sentences are just not shown, some are just flat out wrong, some are flashes of a sentence that WAS NOT SAID! I'm not deaf, I just have trouble understanding words, and it seems the subs are like that for EVERY video (that I've seen so far which every SOAR video)

[@TheAzulmagia]

Maybe The Ayerie is Nidhogg's summer home.

[@Tsukikorao]

I would love to see a map of that place

[@cstaie85]

I wonder if they plan to recycle the resources from this dungeon and populate it. They may have to of course demolish a few paths because all FFXIV dungeons are really linear. And the giant room with the symbol would have to have less exits to ensure the adventurers move on. They could use it as an active time event and have you jump onto a dragon's back and jump off at the right time into the boss chamber. Which could very well be one of the larger rooms below that we would have walked through. This could be a very good dungeon populated with dragon spawn enemies and such. With 3 to 4 bosses total. I hope that SE sees this and implements it as a new dungeon. Even if it was intended to be lv 50. It could easily be populated for lv 70.

[@briann.7715]

ff14 dungeons are linear? people still lose their way in Totorak! XD

[@Kisai_Yuki]

@@briann.7715 which was also 1.0 dungeon that they just cut some of the paths from. In all honestly it looks like the prime reason they didn't directly use all the 1.0 content was because it was like this, long, loading tunnel-galore, and designed like a seamless dungeon designed to take hours instead of something quick that people can queue for.

[@patrickweber4109]

This wasn't a secret. And "Aery" means loft or a nest.

[@DarthAlphaTheGreat]

Shows how incomplete 1.0 was.

[@AxelSteelBMX]

...pretty certaIn of an extra perSon in that End scrEen. also, whY the change in wardrObe at this jUnction?

[@CipherXIV]

i dont get it how u make this better than the current ffxiv x))

[@MirageCipher]

Oh no its Bookile :( go awaaaay!

[@JangoFox11880]

This is the kind of dungeons I would like to see in FF XIV! But no... everything should be fast clearable so we get this dungeons uyou need under 30 minutes... But this thing with this size would be the perfect dungeon for a RPG!

[@Skijaramaz]

What I want to know is how this guy gets the footage for these 1.x videos. O.O

[@ViewTube_Dan]

This smells a lot like GoT

[@Probably_Gonna_Die]

It doesn't smell like shit.

[@hollowgriefband]

What is that joke ??? Theres just nothing inside

[@mascotvt]

Well, what did you expect? It was a dungeon that was left unfinished.

[@shinjiex7354]

Kind of creepy large complex level design dungeon that never went public