@storjohan_: In the Marvel universe, Thor is a title more than a name. An inscription on the side of Mjolnir reads "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor." In other words, whoever wields the hammer is "Thor". Thor, as we know him, no longer wields Mjolnir, but instead uses a new axe that was forged during Infinity War. Since Portman's character is returning to take up the mantle of Thor, that probably means she is able to wield the hammer (and we don't really know where it wound up after Captain America brought it with him into the past). Considering we now have multiple universes to deal with, we don't even know which "Jane" becomes the new Thor.
I'm not entirely sure how character names will be handled. The modern audience just associates Thor as a name as opposed to a title, and the films themselves have treated it as such for simplicity.
@ministersin420: I'm glad you found that helpful. I forgot to mention though that if you buy Shadowbringers, it comes with the expansions. You don't need to buy each individual expansion separately.
@ministersin420: So here's what you are looking at. To get to Shadowbringers, you have two options.
1. Play the normal way, start to finish. This will require you to get through quite literally every main story quest, for each and every expansion, until you make it to Shadowbringers. That is a LOT of content to get through. It will take you months if you are a casual player (IE, you only play a few hours a day, sometimes skipping days). I don't have an actual researched amount of time you would need to invest, but it is a lot. Everything in this game requires you to complete the story quest line to progress. You cannot access the level 50 city Ishgard (which is where you can unlock Dark Knight, Machinist, and Astrologian), until you have completed A Realm Reborn and the main story takes you to Ishgard. It does not matter what level you are at this point, as most content in this game relies entirely on you completing the story. You will be max level long before you reach the most recent content.
2. Spend some extra money to buy a consumable that allows your character to skip the story. You can choose to skip through A Realm Reborn, Heavensward, or Stormblood. If you buy the Stormblood option your story is ready to begin Shadowbringers, however you will still need to level. The story consumables only progress your story quest chain, not your actual level. If you want to jump your character to level 70 so you can begin Shadowbringers, that will require an addition purchase of a Level to 70 token for the class you want (your character can play virtually every class, that is why you need to specify the class in their online store). If you start on a Preferred (low population) server, you get a passive level boost for up to 4 classes to 60 for combat, and 4 classes for up to 60 for crafting/gathering. You really won't need a level token if you go to a preferred server.
This is a very story-driven game. Unlike WoW, where many view leveling as an obstacle to end game, Final Fantasy is very much about the journey, with end game still providing a lot of content when you finish the story. So if you are not interested in the story, I would advise against playing this game. The story does not really pick up until around the level 35 content (when you will fight Titan). Everything before that is basically a very drawn out tutorial and the game holds your hand. At some point, usually around Garuda (level 41), the difficult begins to ramp up and you should understand your class on a base level.
Which brings me back to options 1 and 2. If you choose option 1, you will get the full impact of the Shadowbringer story and will be very connected to your character and the supporting cast. However, this is going to take a very long time, so you need to be interested in playing FFXIV, not simply Shadowbringers. If you, however, choose option 2, you will miss out on a huge chunk of story, and the meaning of a lot of topics will fall flat for you and you won't feel such an impactful finale with the final boss and the game's ending. However, you will jump right into the expansion, albeit without really knowing your class(es), which is probably going to cause some stress on both your part and your team's fault when doing group content.
In any case I love this game and don't feel like the sub fee rips me off either. They are always adding new content between expansions. On average new content gets added every two months, and I'm not talking about simple seasonal content. I mean actual story continuation, new dungeons, raids, equipment, etc.
@batusai4ever: These devs at least use the sub money to turn around and provide real new content. We are not like the WoW players who don't get a whole lot of content inbetween expansions. Every 2 months (about) we get at least 4 new instances, a new primal/boss to farm new weapons, a few hours of new story with cutscenes and some voice acting, a new holiday event of some sort, and every 4 months on average we get a new 24 man raid of some sort. We get other content too but this has been a constant thing since 2.0, and the old content still has a use today, meaning the amount of content a new player has to get through is quite enormous. Not requiring an alt to play every class in the game is pretty nice too.
But if an MMO isn't your preferred style of game (or you just can't afford the $15 a month), there's nothing wrong with avoiding it.
@warmblur: Eh, reviving takes longer across the board. Medics are the only ones who can revive people reasonably quick enough to not wipe a squad in the process. It encourages people to do more than spam medic in gametypes like Domination, while making the other three classes be more useful to the team at large.
I am of the opinion that Battlefield was at its peak during BF3, and I consider that game (strictly gameplay wise) the superior BF (even to 1942 and BF2). BF4 was good but should have just been a jumbo-sized addon for BF3, complete with a revamp of the menu systems. I actually did not enjoy BF1 much at all.
@Cmgizzi: Yeah 1942 was a good game, but the times have changed, and it is not always the fault of the developer. Game development was cheaper and required less staff when 1942 was released. That's why there were more maps back then. But you can't argue with most gamers these days. Everything pisses them off and they have tunnel vision. I see gamers take bandwagon and mob mentalities to new heights lol.
Most people hating on this game over the females, did so before any of the bad PR comments were made about being alternate takes on history or "being on the right side of history". Those were certainly dumb moves by EA + DICE, but it wasn't what really sparked the outrage. It was that very first CGI trailer with the prosthetic-armed woman. One trailer set people off. Now I think they just latch on to every hiccup that is made, and when no hiccups are being made they beat a dead horse.
Anyone who thinks Battlefield has always been a military simulator true to history is an idiot.
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