F/GO Watch!

And what about Summer Lartoria (True or Alter)? And maybe make them Rider class?
Oh, and by Ishtar, are you talking Servant Ishtar or Demiservant Rin?

It really sucks that I'm already down to mere rank grinding. Should I be spending some golden embers on leveling lesser Servants I don't use for Interlude purposes?

Not sure about summer Lartoria, but that's not the first time I've heard about it.

Yeah, it's best to do some experience grinding for the servants you don't use, for two reasons. One, they'll have interludes and strengthening quests that make them more effective and give you more quartz. Second, certain servants are actually helpful with some strategies and against certain event or story bosses. Having the options and flexibility of choosing between higher level servants to make up your party is a good thing.

Well, at the very least, that'll be especially easy for me on Saber/Rider EXP day. I'm doing multiple Expert-level runs and not even losing a single character, my supporter usually being a level 60 Vlad with (Kaleidoscope?) 80% NP Gauge. And considering how far I can ascend most of my characters (NOT VERY), even Saber Lily is starting to look decent for the level I'm able to take her (yes, I understand she's a lot less useful as I go further).

Not to mention the rank points you get farming Expert Embers, goddamn...

Part 2 of Gil's treasury is a week of special login bonuses. 1 summon ticket every day, plus another bonus.

Just saw that.  Also, apparently a tentative schedule for what's to be released over the next four months for the NA version has been posted on the reddit board.  We seem to have a two month head start, since it has the Christmas event and Londonium in October.  O.O

Please keep in mind that this isn't confirmed.  But considering that there is circumstantial evidence that we're on an accelerated schedule, and that the NA version will structure the timing of when some events drop (or come up with campaigns to fit NA), I do believe that this has some validity.  I think the Christmas and Halloween events will drop around the times they're normally supposed to, but outside of that, I would not be surprised if most of the game's events and campaigns drop a month and a half ahead of when they initially did for the JPN version.

Going to save up the tickets from the second half of this Gil campaign towards Nero Olympics, which may drop as soon as the end of this week, if the posted dates are true.

Well, that's definitely two less months of waiting for the hypothetical pickup banner I'm looking forward to.

I think I'm going to try farming the Germania chimera to see if I can have a shot at getting Cu Chulainn to the next stage.

And now I need to issue a correction. The calendar dates weren't for the NA version, they were the release dates for the Chinese version, where they crammed about five to six months' worth of content into three months. So disregard about half of my last post. >.o

That aside, we do seem to be on a bit of an accelerated schedule, so chances are that we are going to see some events drop sooner than they did in the JPN version. We just don't have release details for the NA version to confirm this at this time.

Things of note: I have been hearing around other places that apparently we're not getting "Gudaguda Honnoji."

I can't imagine us missing out on Honnoji, there aren't even any potential rights issues there in comparison to something like the Prisma Illya event.

I don't see why we wouldn't get the Honnouji event, for the reasons that Zero specified. Licensing and distribution rights wouldn't be an issue, unless GudaGuda didn't want to expand beyond Japan or have its name used outside of there. That aside, even if the Chinese version has it due to copyright laws being really damn loose there, if it showed up there, I don't see why it wouldn't show up here. I'd be more concerned over the Kara no Kyokai and Prisma Illya collabs, as the first hasn't really been picked up for distribution by any NA localization company from what I've heard, and the second would need to clear legal hurdles before it'd be okayed.

Worst case scenario, the GudaGuda is dropped and it's just called the Honnouji event, or a special campaign is held where you can earn NP5 Nobu a different way. That aside, DW and Aniplex has guaranteed that the roster of servants made available in the JPN version will be made available to the NA version, so we are getting Shiki, Nobu, Chacha, and Kuro, one way or another.

Extella (for Switch) special stuff after maintenance. Mystic Code and Extella character CEs.

I haven't done anything except login and free summon lately. I doubt that'll change until we get an actual event or next Singularity.

Same. Got Tamamo Cat from a ticket yesterday though, so I'll probably level her up at least.

Only advice I have regarding the Mystic Code you'll get from the Extella promotion: level it up as soon as you can. It's pretty handy for an Arts team with its Arts buff, but the third skill will be a lifesaver in the future. Not going to hint at who, since that's a massive spoiler for "Season 1" of the game's story. But you'll know when you face them and get wiped in a certain way.

Nero Festival/Olympics should be coming soon, probably by the end of the month or the start of next month, I'd wager. I wouldn't put it past DW to implement it about a week after the end of the Gil rate-up.

I may have Chaldea Uniform at level 7 myself, but don't all other Mystic Codes pretty much require all that EXP just to get to level 2? At any rate, I'd more likely end up focusing everything into Chaldea Battle Suit when it comes out (Londonium again, right?), because girls in tight suits.

DoubleEdged wrote:I may have Chaldea Uniform at level 7 myself, but don't all other Mystic Codes pretty much require all that EXP just to get to level 2? At any rate, I'd more likely end up focusing everything into Chaldea Battle Suit when it comes out (Londonium again, right?), because girls in tight suits.

There's only three Mystic Codes that I can think of that require stupid amounts of exp, the Chaldea Battle Suit being one of them. The Extella Mystic Code actually uses the same amount of exp, if I recall.

Ah fuck...

The update killed my way of getting in.
And I didn't save the bind code, in case I eventually get a different way to play.

DoubleEdged wrote:Ah fuck...

The update killed my way of getting in.
And I didn't save the bind code, in case I eventually get a different way to play.

That suuuuucks. >.<;

Just found out yesterday that the recent patch for the NA version of Grand Order set up another batch of preventative measures to keep the app from working on emulators and rooted phones.  MEmu is currently a no-go, though there is another emulator that can work if you tweak the settings just right (forgot the name of it, though).  Check on the reddit page to see if you can get your questions answered.

As for current news, NeroFest is right around the corner.  Going to be released at 4am UTC on the 25th; this is actually ahead of the time zones in NA, so we're going to be getting it on the evening/late night of the 24th (I live in Cali, so I'm actually 7 hours behind UTC, which means if the update goes as planned, I'll be doing runs at 9pm tomorrow).  I hope you guys have saved up at least five of those gold apples, because you might need it here.

Speaking of, I've heard some really good advice on how to get everything during the event.  For each round and segment of the event, get the quest rewards first, as those are much needed materials, and you also have a chance of getting material drops from the mobs themselves.  After you've cleared all the quests and gotten the rewards, grind only the 20 AP quest for medals.  It has the best distribution of bronze, silver, and gold medals.  Don't worry about not getting enough gold medals from this, because after you buy everything that takes silver and bronze, you can exchange extra bronze for silver and extra silver for gold.

Also, I'd recommend actually saving the apples for the end of the event, just in case you're behind on medals.  You're going to get larger amounts of master exp from these event fights, so you'll get AP refills more often from levelling, especially from the 30 AP fights (think they give out a little over 20k master exp, so if you're around levels 50-70, three to six runs of that will level you up).  NeroFest was bad when it first came around on the JPN version only because AP recharged by 1 AP every 10 minutes, not the 1 AP/5 minutes ratio we have here.  So chances are that if you stay consistent in clearing quests and doing some grinding, you'll have more than enough time to get everything.

Considering that it's taken a little over a month from launch for NeroFest to come out (whereas the JPN version took between seven to nine weeks, if my estimates are right), I'm anticipating that Okeanos will be out in three weeks, five weeks tops.  If that is the case, and a few other campaigns and events come out earlier by a degree of a few weeks each time (other than those events for Valentine's, Halloween, and Christmas, which I expect to be held around the same periods), then not only will we be sure that we're on an accelerated time table, but some events might actually come out sooner and out of place with the JPN version's time table, or there will be new campaigns made for the NA version based on particular servants' popularity.  We'll see.

On the JPN front, we have about another week for part 2 of the Summer 2016 rerun event.  Which means that by the end of July or August 1st or 2nd at the latest, we'll finally have the 2017 summer event, and the 2nd anniversary event at the same time or right after.  I'm really hoping that the released alternate outfits for Jeanne, Nero, Herc, and the others are actually unlockable, but I'm also wondering what rewards are going to be passed out to celebrate.  I'm expecting the same 5 star paid quartz gacha like last year, where we got to pick a class and roll for a random non-limited 5 star of that class.  If that is the case, then I'm either rolling in Caster or the Assassin+Extra classes.  Sorely tempted to roll Caster just for a shot at getting Waver or Scheherazade.  An NP2 Tamamo or a Sanzou would be fine as well.  ...actually, I think those are all the 5 star casters that are non-limited...

I'm also saving up for the Summer 2017 gacha, in case there's anything that catches my eye.  If Swimsuit Jeanne or Jeanne Alter is a thing, I'll drop a 10 roll and some tickets towards her.  Otherwise, I'll just save them for later in the hopes of Jalter getting a rate-up.

That's all that I have to talk about at this time.  In an upcoming post, I will give a summary of Agartha's story, and give some analysis and postulations on how this will impact the rest of EoR going forward.

https://www.reddit.com/r/grandorder/comments/6neq81/epic_of_remnant_ii_the_woman_of_agartha_section/

Scratch the summary of Agartha, but I will read this plot synopsis and give my thoughts and analysis later.

Caved and did a 10 roll to try for Nero (and maybe Altera).

Got 5 4 star CEs, another Heaven's Feel CE...and a third Jeanne. XD

Maintenance announcements for the JPN version: one falls on the 30th from noon to 1:10pm JST, gives out two quartz; the other is on the 31st from 1pm to 6pm, gives out five quartz. Outside of that, news on F/GO JPN's second anniversary should be out sometime during this weekend.

I'll have my analysis of Agartha up soon. Just need to go over a few things.

I'm going to give a list of details that I've observed that I found most notable, then work from there to my speculation and analysis. WARNING: BIG ASS POST INCOMING.

The singularity was associated with one of the surviving demon pillars, so that's confirmed. It's location and time are weird for a singularity to occur; should be unthinkable, but it's happened. Since these singularities are caused by the demon pillars that ran from the destruction of Solomon's temple singularity, and it's your job to clean them up, these missions are called "Remnant Orders". Which explains "Epic of Remnant".

At the moment of the singularity's appearance, several servants disappeared from Chaldea, Helena Blavatsky being among them. Her disappearance is notable, due to the fact that she was researching Agartha, and Da Vinci named the singularity after that place due to it being underground. Also disappearing was Heracles, Fergus, and Drake.

When they encounter young Fergus, it seems that Fergus's personality actually reverted to when he was younger; focusing on training, inexperienced, not having a particular preference to be a ladies' man, etc.

The average people who wound up in Agartha found their ways there by "holes in the Earth opening up under them and suddenly taking them there." There is no route in or out of the land itself. Something is taking men, specifically, to Agartha, and the amazons that live there are taking advantage of it by collaring them and using them as slave labor/breeding stock. The amazons themselves seem to simply appear in Agartha, seemingly 'created'.

Each major territory is ruled by a female servant, three territories in total. The Resistance, made up of males, is lead by a male Rider (who is an amnesiac that we later learn is Christopher Columbus, who turns out to be a giant dick when he gets his memories back). Men are treated as slaves.

When Drake appears, it turns out that she is merged with another figure, a princess named Dahut who ruled over a city of vice and corruption. She built that foundation of evil on piracy and plundering from others. The personality of Dahut is in control of Drake, essentially making her Dahut in Drake's body. So no Drake Alter.

The city of Ys, which Dahut ruled, was obsessed with equality through pleasure; specifically, the pleasure of taking what one wanted and discarding it once having it. With the Nightless City, people are conditioned into obedience towards Wu Zetian's sense of righteousness and justice through tyranny, torture, and the threat of her hidden watchers monitoring everyone and everything. Penthesilea's rule was simply the rule of the strong: crush those weaker than you, kill those who show fear and cowardice, and use the seed and resources of those who defy you to grow stronger.

After the amazons forcibly took the Nightless City using Megalos, the citizens of the Nightless City immediately acquiesced. As Da Vinci put it: "Counterfeit residents (familiars)...created by the rulers in Agartha. If so, it is not weird to believe that there is a system where if the ruler changes, their ownership also changes."

It turns out that Agartha was created by the demon pillar-enhanced Noble Phantasm of Scheherazade. Due to her NP's nature having stories added to 1001 Nights after the fact, she was able to fuse and piece together tales that occurred outside of the middle east and all throughout recorded history to create this Agartha as its own story.

Holmes states, in regards to fiction and truth being mixed together: "In Shinjuku, that aspect came about because Baal chose phantoms as the means to his end, but Agartha is different. A clear intention to bring about this result can be felt here. This vast, unnatural and sealed off underground space was created, and heroic spirits that exert great spiritual influence were summoned. It is not strange that a couple of unavoidable counter-reactions arose. Those would be the stories that distorted the Servants."

Fergus's state as a child was a miscalculation by Scheherazade, who assumed that a younger Fergus might have even more unbridled lust, in order to add another aspect relating to wreaking havoc on women to Agartha. But she made him too young, to the point where he was in a period where he was too young and innocent to have lust for women.

Scheherazade's ultimate wish is to not die, but living and existing inevitably leads to death, so a conclusion of her wish is that she wishes the destruction of the world so she doesn't have to experience death a second time as a servant. That called to the demon pillar, which summoned her. The final play she makes is using up all the amalgamated stories that had formed in Agartha to tear it from the underground, turning it into an island city in the skies, Laputa, which she will then crash into the planet, having fantasy collide with reality, and undo the concept of concealing mystery. This would in turn destroy the capability to summon heroic spirits, thereby ensuring she wouldn't die.

This ties in with the demon pillar that called to her, Phenex. A phonetic play off the word phoenix, this demon pillar governs death and rebirth, a contrast to Scheherazade's fears. A contradictory wish: to not die when alive (though death is inevitable when alive), and to live when dead (though death is the end of life and cannot be naturally reversed).

Fergus brings to Scheherazade's attention that she constructed Agartha as a land where women rule because she subconsciously associated the rule of men with death, due to her own fear of dying by the hands of a king.

----------------------

Whew, lot of crap to go through. So! First thing's first that needs to be addressed: the surviving demon pillars can summon servants, and with Scheherazade as an example, can even merge with them. Obviously, this relates to what the site is about, giving some good corruption potential. :3

Besides that, though, it calls into question the nature of demon pillars. Goetia, as the demon pillar king, merged with Solomon and influenced him, so it's obvious that demon pillars and servants are kinds of spirits who have enough similarities that they can actually merge. But the demon pillars also contain enough mana and power with magecraft/magic to be able to summon servants themselves. We're likely to get more information on how this is actually possible later, if it hasn't been touched upon in season 1.

Second, whether it was because of the nature of Scheherazade's Noble Phantasm itself, or because her powers were enhanced by merging with and being summoned by a demon pillar, Scheherazade was able to actually alter the natures of heroic spirits, namely Fergus and Drake. By combining stories and blending fiction, she was able to corrupt or alter people, and create familiars that were almost people in their own right, as well as create entire regions and cities. There were inconsistencies, certainly, but part of her power involved taking creative liberties to keep the story going.

Finally, though it wasn't directly spoken of by Phenex, the events and subconscious motivations of Scheherazade's actions do give more circumstantial evidence to an idea that I had posed in my analysis of the Shinjuku chapter: the demon pillars are interested in continuing Goetia's plans, but also seem to be attracted to certain negative aspects of humanity. In the case of Agartha, it's the conflict between men and women, and a subtext of slavery. The previous conflict I made mention of in Shinjuku was an impression of the elite versus the common man, though I may be off base with that. Considering that the CCC event story also takes place in the EoR timeline and deals with negative human traits (Kiara's desire for self-gratification of pleasure and how the oil platform was a place of fulfillment of mankind's desire for both resources and to explore the unknown, which is also a kind of self-gratification, which attracted a demon pillar to her), I don't think I'm far off. But we still don't know the full extent of this connection, and everything I've got is circumstantial, so I can't push it forward with confidence.

I feel that the demon pillars are looking at negative aspects of humanity that call to them, either to find a way to undermine Chaldea, or because they're inquisitive about humanity due to Goetia's defeat but are focusing on the aspects of humanity that they can understand. If EoR chapter 3 continues these themes and tropes, then I'll push the idea on the F/GO subreddit and see what others think there. By that time, we'll also have enough info on these themes and tropes to make educated guesses and postulations that would likely be seen in chapter 4 of EoR.

Thank you Sega and Type Moon. Now I may actually be able to play a Fate/Grand Order game. Provided it is brought over that is. Fate/Extra CCC was skipped and this 1 might be too.

Well, we have got Extella, and CCC was a PSP game, which the PSP died rather hard over here. So I'm optimistic. Also read the last page in Riyo's manga. It's sad that we might not see Gudako's reaction to new female servants, or as much as we got of crazy Riyo illustrations, but it was a good run...

Now it's time for everybody to get on the fuckboy Ritsuka express, which is running 3 trains at the moment...

...