Not only did Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn receive its latest content patch today, but the fine folks over that the related subreddit have been filling today's front page up with relevant screenshots showing off exactly what 2.38 brings to the game. Not all of 2.38 is bad, but a lot of the community is pretty upset with the way that personal housing has been introduced. Inflation has been becoming an issue with FFXIV, so in order to address this, the new personal housing that is added in with 2.38 comes with a huge gilsink (read: goldsink) for players, to try to even out the economy.

So, why is the community upset about this? It's not just that not everyone can afford these estates. Players can already either live in their guild areas or buy personal rooms off of these areas. In 2.38, however, estates come into the game. There seems to be no current middle ground here. You get your room or an estate, which costs around 4 million gil for the smallest possible size. That affordable personal housing players thought they'd get their hands on doesn't seem to exist, and that's not all – space is extremely limited. Not only do you need to have the cash upfront to buy a plot, but you'll be lucky to actually find a plot to buy. Square seems to be artificially inflating demand when it doesn't need to.

These personal estates will cost about the same as FC housing (Free Company, FFXIV's name for guilds). Rumors on the official forums are saying that in order to keep the limited housing available, players who unsub and don't log in for more than 30 days will lose their housing, which makes that gilsink even crazier. Square is not confirming nor denying that claim (note: looks like this rumor is being debunked, but it is still coming from unofficial sources on the forums), but they are stating that they plan to double Wards (instances with the personal estates) by 2.4. Folks are doing the math, and that means that even when Wards are doubled, 3% of the population will be able to purchase this housing. That estimate doesn't even factor in whether or not the population can afford it. Why is there so little housing available? Well, here's the kicker: FC plots and personal plots share the same space. If there are too many personal plots, then guilds wouldn't be able to buy plots. I don't know about you, but this seems like a terrible idea to me. If you want to garden (and you know, be able to craft gardening-related stuff for yourself), you'll need one of these plots, since your personal rooms don't allow for hotboxing and greenhouses.

The new Revenant's Toll, images courtesy of pyramidbread

Zodiac Weapons, your Final Fantasy epic weapon quest line, have their next tier added in. Now your Novus can become a Nexus (I was a little lost on the lingo here, so I had to pester my friend who plays the game), to create an even more powerful weapon. Nexus will keep the customized stats from your Novus, but they'll be even better. They come at a price, however.

Once your relic weapon novus has been soulglazed by Jalzahn, complete certain activities with the weapon equipped to increase its soul attunement level. By presenting a fully attuned weapon to Jalzahn, you will be rewarded with a relic weapon nexus of item level 115 that retains all the upgrades made to the original relic weapon novus.

Yeah, that's right. When you do the quest “Mmmmmm, Soulglazed Relics” you end up with this creeper named Jalzahn who soulgazes you. Gross. My friend ensures me that I shouldn't worry, but I've read almost all of the Dresden Files. I know the hazards of soulgazing and why wizards never look one another in the eye. I don't know about you, Jalzahn, and you best just keep your gazing to yourself or I'm going to tell the White Council all about you. Oh and if the soulgazing isn't creepy enough, thanks to /u/cairthenn, we have an awesome montage of the new upgrades, complete with a guy in a Speedo modeling them.

Another Redditor, /u/pyramidbread posted the updates to Revenant's Toll (head over here for the full set of images, hosted on Imgur). Revenant's Toll, the main level 50 quest hub, is slowly progressing from village to town to city as the game goes on. This is a really nice addition to the game, which does give it a sense of a living, breathing world. Players can check out all of the changes, as pyramidbread got some nice comparison shots!

Other tidbits that are in: some new emotes, such as /slap. Tired of trying to memorize several stats at once to compare different items for a slot? You can finally do that now. The UI, in all, received a massive overhaul. All of these positives, however, are grossly overshadowed by the negatives of personal estates.

Special thanks to Naelyan for his FFXVI pro-tips (PPP 4eva).


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 18, 2016

About The Author

Vendolyn's been playing MMOs since 1999, although Vendolyn in-game often becomes a long-term shelved alt. When she's not gaming, she's likely marathoning some questionable TV show or babbling about music to no end. She really likes goats.

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