Over the last couple of patches, we’ve been given the opportunity to assist with the reconstruction efforts at the Doman Enclave. This comes in the form of the player donating items to the basket on a desk, for which the Domans pay gil, eventually up to 200% the normal selling cost.

This… doesn’t exactly make sense to me, to be perfectly honest. I mean, here’s a struggling enclave trying to rebuild itself, and they’re paying you double the vendor cost for “donations.” And then they thank you up and down for the materials and support they just paid you for.

Okay, yes, I understand that players have to get something out of it to do a thing. And I’m not complaining one bit about having a vendor that gives me double payout for my Allagan Silver pieces every week. It just didn’t really make a lot of sense from a story standpoint.

All that aside, I completely enjoyed helping to rebuild the Doman Enclave. I think this may have been an experiment in seeing what phasing and instancing can do in a city-wide fashion. FFXIV has always smartly used the phasing/instancing (where you see one thing and someone else sees another based on what each player has completed in the game). We’ve seen a lot of this in building up locations for Beast Tribe quests, and now we’ve seen it in a wider scope, in the Enclave.

I was reading an article about the rewards of the Doman Enclave last week at MassivelyOP. One that talked about the player’s perceived lack of rewards, and how the Enclave would never truly become a player hub for several reasons.

I agree that it seems like a lot of work went into building the Enclave for a location that will probably never be a player hub. It might get some use from the RP population. But I feel like I got plenty of rewards from seeing the series through.

Warning: There are some spoilers ahead for those who haven’t completed the ending yet!

I personally enjoyed learning about the Doman culture and watching the Enclave build up. But that’s just the kind of player I am. The fact that we got some pretty nice housing items (cheap windows are a huge plus), and now a cute cosmetic piece, was more than enough for me.

Add to that the extra 30K income per week, the achievement points and the title, and yeah… for fluff content it was an enjoyable story and experience. I would absolutely love to see more of this kind of content in the future, especially if they tie it to something substantial, such as an actual player hub.

It was a little sad that we never got to see Rhalgr’s Reach expanded and cleaned up some, which was always what I expected given it had a “depressed” state during most of the 4.0 storyline. I can see how rebuilding a section of Doman, which was even more in shambles would make more sense, however.

I could also see how the cultural references and exploration of Doma would be more interesting. Sorry, Ala Mhigo. I just couldn’t really get a vibe on what that culture was like. I’m not sure I’m the only one with this issue, either. It’s too bad, too, because I feel like there could be something interesting there if the game wasn’t so divided between Doma and Ala Mhigo in terms of story.

Anyhow, I mentioned a cosmetic. The reward for completing the Enclave is the Yanxian Merchant’s Haori. I noticed that you could rebuy it at the Doman Junkmonger if needed. It’s a cute little dyeable top, which I’m sure some folks will enjoy using as it’s got a Far East feel while still being casual.

Looks a bit like something you’d sit around the house in and chill. 🙂

Anyhow. The game states that you can continue to come every week and sell your stuff up to the max gil payout just like always. And while I’m a little sad to say goodbye to the developments, I’m happy that Amon has just turned in his first donations to the Doman Enclave last week, so I’ll be able to do it all over again with him!