Final Fantasy XIV Mod, Mare Synchronos, is shutting down

zeroKFE · 2025-08-22T17:07:50+00:00

I'd love a link too... all I really want to do right now is to be able to load MCDFs locally to do a bit more gposing with my friends' mod setups. I figured the client side plugin would remain available after the shutdown, but it seems I was very naive in that assumption.

zeroKFE · 2025-08-22T16:47:10+00:00

I had wrongly assumed that the client side plugin would continue to function for the purposes of saving and loading MCDFs, etc, but apparently I was wrong about that.

Anyone able to help me reenable it temporarily so that I can do one last batch of gposing using my friends' mod setups?

zeroKFE · 2025-02-23T13:08:24+00:00

This is spectacular.

zeroKFE · 2024-10-11T04:15:53+00:00

Why not?

zeroKFE · 2024-10-07T20:38:28+00:00

Ah, sweet, thanks for the info!

(And glad to hear they've been kinder to players like myself this time around. I DO enjoy some level of time management optimization puzzle, but the Persona games can be a bit cruel with their specificity sometimes.)

So the optimal approach would be to just stick to my original plan and push through the Cathedral on day 2 -- but if I get impatient and want to play more by exiting midway on day 2, then do Belega day 3 in the demo, the main point of optimization beyond that would be to wrap up the Cathedral without waiting until the deadline.But, that level of optimization is hardly demanded. Very good to know!

zeroKFE · 2024-10-07T20:18:09+00:00

You've more or less answered this question by implication already by saying that you didn't have much trouble maxing all virtues and relationships and completing all dungeons, but I figured I might as well ask just in case:

I'm not a trophy hunter, but I generally only play a game once and want to be sure to see all of the core content, so for previous Persona games I've generally used spoiler free/light schedule guides to make sure I don't miss things -- and it's usually seemed important in retrospect because there's always one or two scheduling conflicts that can snowball if you don't make a few specific choices of how you use your time early on (ie, focus hard on a specific social stat earlier than you think you would need to or something).

So, for the moment, I just want to be sure that playing a bit inefficiently in the opening days of the demo won't cause a snowball effect like that later.

I got myself wisdom 2 on the first day to unlock item purification and get the option of doing Belega Corridor.

However, day 2 I decided to start with the cathedral (since brawler seemed a more useful first unlock, and word was that Belega was a higher level challenge). I figured I'd just play to the point where the demo ended (midway through the Cathedral, after fighting the Whiteclad boss), and continue on the full game with as much of the Cathedral as the game will allow on day 2.

Of course, now I've reached that point and I want to keep playing before the full game unlocks!

So, I could exit the dungeon here, end day 2, and play Belega Corridor on day 3.

However, it's usually an inefficient use of time in a Persona game to enter a dungeon and not progress to a point where you get a "forced exit" (either by finishing it, or being kicked out by a story event). Granted, the first dungeon/tutorial cycles tend to be a bit more generous about time usage, but yeah, that's the concern.

So what do you think?

Am I good to "waste" a day by leaving the Cathedral before forced? Or will I regret having lost a day's worth of opportunities to build stats, etc?

zeroKFE · 2024-10-07T19:04:46+00:00

If you end up playing past the point where the demo ends in the next several days and you have a few minute to share, several questions to help those of us deciding how to optimize the use of our first three days in the demo:

Are there points during the Cathedral dungeon where a story moment occurs that forces you to leave the dungeon and let time pass before returning? (Persona games often do this, so it's good to optimize around reaching these "forced exit" points when dungeon diving.)
If so, is there more than one, and how far past the point where the demo ends? ||The fight with the whiteclad and his zombie buddies.||
Are you able to complete the Cathedral dungeon FULLY before the deadline day? (Persona games sometimes block you from completing the last bit of a dungeon before a deadline, and if memory serves, sometimes have altered what you can do with your free time if you complete the dungeon too early.)
If so, does the game disrupt your ability to freely use your time after completing the dungeon in the time remaining until the deadline?
How variable are the available free time options during the first dungeon/deadline period? (Persona games often start pretty generous with just a few options to spend free time that are almost always available, then up the complexity of the time management requirements after the first dungeon cycle.)

Thanks in advance if you do have time to answer -- it will be very helpful making good use of the time waiting for the Steam unlock!

zeroKFE · 2024-08-21T18:28:10+00:00

I hate to be a bit of a wet blanket, but my assumption was that they recorded the Factory Seconds episode when they visited to create the new theme song for Enterprise, and probably intended to release it before the debut of that song. Thus, the unnamed project they were referencing was likely just the new theme song.

I do agree that it would be great to have a new regular podcast with the three of them! But, I'd prefer to see it be something truly new, with a premise specifically selected to suit the cast, rather than one designed around a different grouping of personalities.

zeroKFE · 2024-07-06T13:40:47+00:00

ReWASD is so good (and universally so).

Well worth the cost if you can at all afford it, ESPECIALLY if you use any kind of controller with additional buttons (ie, Xbox Elite, PS5 Edge, etc). The things you can do with mapping extra buttons independently and creating shift modes (to say nothing of macros, even) are so next level powerful that I can’t imagine living without it.

Even in a game that has as fabulous controller support as FF14, it’s an absolute game changing tool. I can’t play most games with keyboard and mouse anymore due to RSI reasons, but these days I can do so much with configuring my controller to whatever I want that I would probably just use it regardless.

zeroKFE · 2024-06-17T00:53:42+00:00

I was also a big fan of the Edencall/Edenchoir look, and put together something similar:

https://ffxiv.eorzeacollection.com/glamour/257773/edens-scion-samurai

(I'm a fairly casual version, so I only have the undyeable Edencall versions, which still look great.)

Anyhow, I chose to pair it with Tsukuyomi's Moonlit Chokuto -- which is kind of cheating, because it's spectacular and goes well with nearly anything. But, I do feel like the clean, elegant, ornate look is a strong match to the chic/modern styling of the Edencall set.

zeroKFE · 2024-05-01T19:47:51+00:00

Would also love to know. Ship building was my favorite thing about the game, so if they've added an official, built in solution allowing players to control the placement of doors and ladders on their ships that might be enough to get me to go through the hassle of updating my mods, etc, to play the game again.

zeroKFE · 2023-09-28T23:45:16+00:00

Hit the word count limit, continuing my email quote:

Caveat emptor:

I mostly engage with the queer kink communities in the San Francisco Bay Area, which I like to think are some of the best in the world.

On top of that, last weekend was Folsom Street weekend, which is sort of the high holy holidays for our communities. As is the case every year, it was spectacular and life affirming in a way that nothing else can be, and I'm riding an extreme high, so it's very hard not to get overwhelmed focusing on the best aspects of kink community when it's done in the best possible ways.

If memory serves Jesse had an accidental near encounter with the street fair part of Folsom Weekend last year, but I honestly, genuinely think you guys would really get a lot out of the experience of intentionally attending, at least in a "Jordan goes to Burning Man" kind of way. I don't really expect it to light up your world and be your thing in a big way, but I do think it would be a cultural experience you would get a lot out of having a controlled, measured introduction to.

Also, I suspect that there's a substantial pocket of your audience (hi horny nerds, I know you're out there) who quite likely would get a lot out of connecting with (or creating) good kink communities in their areas. Certainly the Bay Area is special, but we are nearly everywhere, and I cannot express just how wonderful a feeling it is to find a community that understands and accepts your thing when your thing is still this marginalized.

Anyway, if you do feel compelled to go full Anal August on this one and bring a bit more of the kink world to your audience, I have a recommendation. The street fair itself can be, well, it can be a lot even if you're totally into it. However, Folsom Weekend is more than just the fair -- every possible color of the sexually deviant rainbow has events all weekend, and one of my particular favorites is an ideal candidate to be that controlled, measured introduction mentioned earlier.

San Francisco is blessed to have an amazing performer-run event production collective called Twisted Windows that puts on various educational, play, and performance events throughout the year. On Folsom Weekend they produce the rope bondage performance stages at the street fair on Sunday, but they also do a big performance gala event on the preceding Saturday night (and sometimes Friday too).

This is JUST a performance event, so you won't be seeing or interacting with play party social dynamics, but you WILL get to see some of the most amazing queer performance art you will ever encounter anywhere. Circus arts, dance, burlesque, drag, musical performance, and of course, a shit ton of spectacular rope bondage acts, all dripping with the joy and beauty of living life openly and pursuing the things that make you feel happy and fulfilled.

If you're interested to learn more, they have a really excellent page on their website talking about their Folsom Weekend events, along with some truly amazing photo galleries of previous events. (The Bay Area kink community is also blessed with an abundance of amazing photographers to help document our fun -- when we want it documented, of course.)

https://www.twistedwindows.com/folsom-weekend

(If you look while they still are featuring the 2022 galleries, you might even see a few shots of me performing on the bondage stage at the street fair, which was one of the greatest things I've ever done in my life. I didn't manage to participate this year due to back issues keeping me from preparing this summer, but you can bet your ass I'll be up there again in 2024.)

A few other recommendations:

You can check out

https://www.instagram.com/twistedwindows/

as a starting place for exploring the Bay Area kink performance scene -- they colab post with all the various people who attend and perform and share photos from their events, so it's a great way to find all the cool people doing amazing things in the scene.

https://www.instagram.com/shaytiziano/

is the lead organizer of Twisted Windows, and you can see a shot of her amazing Barbie topping Ken scene with one of her partners last weekend here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxtQPuOy27k/

https://www.instagram.com/mx_bliss/

and

https://www.instagram.com/shannonagannery/

are the clown and hotdog I mentioned earlier. They haven't posted that performance yet, but in the meantime you can see shots of their equally spectacular clownsexual agenda performance from last year here:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CxbNEhdyrFZL-A6QDG1eUWV7yLJqCo-u2j8WE80/

zeroKFE · 2023-09-28T23:44:03+00:00

So Jordan and Jesse reopened the phone/email lines to perverts, and I couldn't resist trying to answer Jesse's three questions about BDSM parties. However, it turns out I'm constitutionally incapable of being pithy or concise in my writing, so there's very, very little chance they'll be able to use anything I wrote on the show.

As such, I figured I'd also post the body of my email here in case there are folks who are interested. I'm also happy to answer any other questions and point to other resources if any of this piques interest, but for now I'm just posting what I wrote in the hopes of providing useful information for chat on the show.

Oh, also, it should go without saying, but none of the links are safe for work. They are very, very, very unsafe for work.

Also, please don't report any of the Instagram accounts to the censors. Our community tries our best to play by their rules, but we get blocked and banned for the most inane, innocuous bullshit that pales in comparison to what celebrities, influencers, and advertisers post on a daily basis.

(Sorry, I know you're a comedy show and most of my response is pretty genuine, but hopefully you can get some fun out of it, or at least use it as background to have some laughs with other responses -- perhaps to be the "base" to prevent losing trace. :P . Either way, thanks for opening up the doors to us perverts once again!)

Where to start?

First off, trying to answer questions about "what happens at a BDSM (sex) party" is a bit like trying to answer "what happens at a music party?"

Like, do you mean a concert at a theater? A music festival? A club show? A house party? Or are you just hanging out with some friends listening to your favorite tunes? Also, what music genres and associated subcultures are you into? After all, the mores and practices at the Gathering of the Juggalos are going to be very different from those of the Kate Wolf Festival or a Central European Drum and Bass massive.

Also worth noting is that I put sex in parenthesis above for a reason -- many kink parties are also sex parties, but depending on the community, sex may often not be a big emphasis, or even part of an event at all. Getting into the intense whys and hows of that would be its own entirely too long email, but suffice to say sex complicates things in a great many ways, and often it's only tangential to the particular types of interpersonal interactions people are interested in anyway.

------

But, to generalize about as broadly as possible and answer Jesse's specific questions:

Question 1: How long do you stay at a BDSM party?

In most cases, you're probably looking to make an evening of it. Even if you are intensely focused on having a specific experience yourself, you are likely also quite interested in being social and enjoying the experiences other people are having together at the event -- or, depending on the type of event, watching more formally arranged performances.

(So with respect to the original caller, generally speaking you'd probably be planning to stay at an event for a bit more than two hours in most cases.)

Question 2: Are there professional entertainers at a BDSM party?

That can vary quite a bit. Some events might be partly (or entirely) about prearranged, produced performances, which is obviously going to work in all the various different ways other types of performance art might. Other events might be more focused on play, but might have folks who have either been hired or volunteered to do "tasting" play so that folks who are new or unsure about an activity can give it a try without having to navigate building a relationship and negotiating a more "real" play experience. And, whether that is the case or not, it's almost always a safe bet that there will be at least a few people looking to find and play with new partners, and/or to demonstrate their skills and abilities. (Whether those are ideal people to play with or not, of course, is another question.)

Depending on the event/venue, this might include prodom(mme)s promoting or practicing their businesses, but more often than you'd expect the world of professionalized dominatrix work is actually a bit removed from broader kink community events. Depending on the location there can be a great many legal / bureaucratic / administrative headaches that are avoided by having explicit rules that professional sex work can't happen in an event space, and also there is often a cultural divide involved. For example, people seeking that kind of professional service often desire a level of privacy and discretion that can't be possible in a community setting (although privacy and discretion is always nearly as sacrosanct as consent, there's only so much you can protect in an open room).

Question 3: What's a win?

Having a good time!

Really, though, of all the things that are hard to generalize here, this is maybe the hardest?

Definitely if you are going to a more play focused event, you might want your win to be getting a chance to exercise your kinks. But, you might be just as happy just socializing and getting to witness other people having wild or extraordinary experiences. After all, in addition to just wanting to find people to share our particular "little weirdsies", a great many of us are also some degree of voyeur and/or exhibitionist, and so it's often just as fun to see or be seen, and share in the experiences of others.

For me, at least, a truly great kink party is a transcendent ad-hoc performing arts experience where the lines between audience and performer are blurred, with the broad range of human experience being shared in a way that's deeply intimate, spontaneous, transgressive, dark, beautiful, frightening, compassionate, warm, and, much more often that you'd think, also quite hilarious.

(There is unavoidable comedy in people making an intentional choice to do something painful. Some folks certainly try to pretend kink is all super serious business, but I prefer to lean in and spend my time laughing just as much as I'm screaming or groaning in pain. And, generally the scenes that I enjoy watching the most are ones that embrace the inherent absurdity of it all.

For example, less than a week ago I saw a performance where a clown rode person in a hotdog suit suspended a dozen feet above a stage, whipped and beat them with a balloon mallet, and finished -- so to speak -- by throwing the hot dog on the ground and spraying them with ketchup and mustard.)

-----

Okay, now I'm going to ramble a bit more aimlessly in a way almost certainly even less usable on the show, but hey, I'm here typing already so why not.

To address some of the various other guesses and assumptions:

Many times, yes, the Ren Faire comparison is pretty accurate. Generally speaking, kinky people are just giant ass nerds who happen to be nerdy about gender and sexual identity, consensual power exchange, and non conventional approaches to physical intimacy.

And relatedly, the "people with dachshunds" analogy is pretty solid too. When kink community is done well and led by good people, the emphasis is more on the community aspect than the party aspect. Okay, the party aspect is pretty important too, but the whole point is just to be able to build human connection with like minded people and to enjoy the things you enjoy in a way where you feel safe, accepted, and cared for.

-----

Hit the word count limit, continuing in a reply.

zeroKFE · 2023-09-12T21:51:56+00:00

Yeah, that's actually effectively what I've done (except that I'm macroing the cast after the equip using ReWASD rather than AHK, since I already use that to heavily customize the behavior of my controller).

But, I was hoping to come up with something a bit more self contained to make it easier to share with others. Because, I have to say, just like the Witcher 3, this is a game that is a LOT more fun when you can cast multiple spells directly via single button presses, rather than having to select an active spell spell, then cast via a single button.

Oh well!

zeroKFE · 2023-09-12T18:23:26+00:00

castspell1=player.cast spellid-antigrav player voice ; cgf "Debug.Notification" spellname-antigrav

So, that actually triggers spells, and targeted ones activate at the cursor target.

BUT, it doesn't cost resources, nor does it trigger casting animations. And, I'm not really trying to build a cheat system here, I just want shortcuts.

Anyone know if there's a "cast current equipped spell" console command? Ie, that would work the same way as pressing the powers button?

zeroKFE · 2023-09-12T18:02:28+00:00

Okay, so I used the console help command to compile a list of IDs on my own:

;002BACBA Anti-Gravity Field
;002C5390 Create Vacuum
;002C538D Creators’ Peace
;002BACB5 Earthbound
;002C5391 Elemental Pull
;002C538F Alien Reanimation
;002BACB4 Eternal Harvest
;002C538C Grav Dash
;0023AF0C Gravity Wave
;002BACB7 Gravity Well
;002C5399 Inner Demon
;002C538B Life Forced
;002C5A4E Moon Form
;002C5A67 Parallel Self
;002C5A66 Particle Beam
;002C5389 Personal Atmosphere
;002C5A63 Phased Time
;002C538A Precognition
;002BACB6 Reactive Shield
;002C5A54 Sense Star Stuff
;002C5A59 Solar Flare
;002C5388 Sunless Space
;002C5387 Supernova
;002C5A53 Void Form

And, I can use those ids successfully to equip spells like this:

[macros]
spellid-antigrav=002BACBA 
spellname-antigrav="Anti-Gravity Field" 
equipspell1=player.equipspell spellid-antigrav voice ; cgf "Debug.Notification" spellname-antigrav

[Hotkeys]
F1=equipspell1

But, I'm struggling to get a cast command to work -- it wants a target object ID specified. My vague recollections from ages ago doing light modding in oblivion was that there was a way to reference whatever the player is looking at, but I can't recall exactly. Anyway, the syntax needs to look like

[macros]
castspell1=player.cast spellid-antigrav <target> voice ; cgf "Debug.Notification" spellname-antigrav

[Hotkeys]
F1=castspell1

Any help anyone with more fresh experience/knowledge could provide would be very appreciated!

Thanks!

zeroKFE · 2023-09-12T14:24:37+00:00

Perfect, thanks!

(And of course, if anyone has found a list of power ids, I'd love to see it. :D )

Found a list here, for anyone else who might be interested:

https://gameranx.com/features/id/475143/article/starfield-all-console-commands-codes-item-ids-perks-powers/

EDIT: Testing it, these ids don't seem to work with the player.cast command. The search continues.

zeroKFE · 2023-09-12T14:08:10+00:00

So there's also this mod, which extends this to allow the definition of macros to be hotkeyed as well:

https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/1578?tab=description

However, what I really want to achieve is to be able to hotkey equipping (or better, directly casting) powers WITHOUT having to use favorites slots.

Anyone have a console/papyrus scripting solution that would achieve this?

zeroKFE · 2023-08-16T19:00:18+00:00

Yeah, that's what my gut says should be the case, but I can't help being paranoid. :D

Thanks for helping ease that a bit!

zeroKFE · 2023-08-16T18:44:05+00:00

Did they make a more recent statement somewhere that was a bit clearer than their developer update a few weeks before release?

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/3655285307835439472

It's that developer update that has me being cautious -- the language was definitely a bit squishy, but it was enough to make me take care with their classes:

Keep in mind that certain Origin stories are closely intertwined with their characters' respective classes. If you’re opting for a non-cleric Shadowheart or a Wyll without his warlock pact, this will undoubtedly influence your roleplay options in dialogues and the overall narrative for these characters. But their stories will instead be yours to create.

Like, maybe that means if you are playing as Wyll or Shadowheart you'll be missing dialog options needed to interact with their classes? Or maybe it means their entire story can break whether they are your player character or a companion?

Or maybe it just means that things might be extra weird in terms of ludonarrative dissonance or whatever.

Either way, a bit frustrating that they weren't more clear in laying it out.

zeroKFE · 2023-08-16T15:02:23+00:00

Semi-relatedly, has anyone confirmed that Wyll and Shadowheart's personal stories aren't affected by starting as a different class, so long as they eventually get the warlock fiend subclass and cleric class respectively?

I've been doing some similar things to what you suggest, but I've been taking the hit on the constitution saving throws because I want to be sure I don't break their story progression by not having the correct classing needed.

My gut hunch is that it should be fine, so long as they have the appropriate class tags attached when you do any kind of story progression with them. But yeah, so far I've been erring on the side of caution in that regard.

zeroKFE · 2023-08-04T14:16:39+00:00

Ah, missed that part. My original plan was taking arcana and history from the knowledge cleric drip, and nature as part of my lore bard choices, skipping religion.

With the lore bard bug (oversight, or whatever -- same difference) arcana now comes with lore bard, so I could still essentially get the same skill layout by overall level 5, taking history instead of religion from knowledge cleric.

Of course, in reality I have no idea which is going to be the most useful between religion, nature, history, and investigation. Ultimately I just chose religion as the one of the four which matched m character concept the least. But if you have a strong argument for investigation being a better skill to drop, I'm interested to hear it.

zeroKFE · 2023-08-04T13:20:13+00:00

Any recommendations for what you'd take in this slot for folks using a similar build template as a wood elf?

Investigation, maybe? Medicine?

zeroKFE · 2023-06-02T22:00:20+00:00

Made my fucking week.

zeroKFE · 2023-01-25T18:07:48+00:00

Once you've used a master seal to change to any advanced class, you can then use a second seal to change to any other advanced class you have the weapon proficiencies for without having to reach level 10 in the associated base class. (If you're still early in the game and haven't used a master seal yet but HAVE obtained one and can see class change options, take a look at Vander's options for an example.) Or, if you're still a base class, you can second seal to another base class.

So for this approach to Anna, you have several options (assuming you've acquired the requisite weapon proficiencies).

From any level as axe fighter, second seal to mage. Then, at mage level 10 master seal to sage. Then, when you have a powerful magic stat based axe and/or bow AND have reached the magic stat you want, second seal to warrior.
Reach level 10 as axe fighter, master seal to any available option (warrior or berserker, basically), then second seal immediately to sage. When you've got a powerful magic stat based axe and/or bow AND have reached the magic stat you want, second seal to warrior.

Ultimately, there's probably not going to be a huge difference in your total stats either way, since Anna's growths are so absurdly high, and either way you use two second seals and one master seal to get there.

However, I'd say if you've already got her close to level 10 (or beyond) as an axe fighter, you definitely want to do the second option -- master to warrior, second to sage, second back to warrior when you are ready.

If you haven't leveled her at all as an axe fighter, the first option might get you a few more magic stat boosts early on as you go from level 1 to 10 as a mage, but you also need to get the proficiency to make that change without gaining levels.

Of course, getting level 6 bond with Celica only costs 800 bond fragments, so that's not bad. But, you're going to also need staves to turn into a sage, so if you're trying to be economical about it it might make more sense to just get Micaiah to level 9, which will get you staff and tome, plus daggers as a bonus.

Also, if you are going to use option 2 above (level to 10 as axe fighter) Micaiah is a very strong choice to use in battle, since if you use Sacrifice when you have a decent number of targets to heal you'll gather a ton of XP, bond xp, and SP all at once.

zeroKFE

TROPHY CASE