Final Fantasy XIV: The March of the Lalafell – Watch Hundreds of Cute Midgets Romp Around The New Eorzea

Giuseppe Nelva June 23, 2013 10:20 AM EST

One of the most interesting things about MMORPGs are events driven by the community, happenings never planned by developers (that are often left surprised by what their players can come up with) but that turn out more fun and engaging than any raid or epic quest.

Apparently the Final Fantasy XIV community likes to march, and that’s exactly what happened yesterday on the Ultros beta server of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Called by a popular bearded lalafell named Denmo Mcstronghuge (typical lalafell name), hundreds of players from all over the world created a lalafell character and joined up for a massive romp around the redesigned Eorzea.

With a rough headcount between 400 and 500 cutesy midgets (and a few taller people that apparently felt none too comfortable about not having knees) squished in a few yards, the event can easily be seen as an interesting stress test for the new engine and the new server structure, and a positive test at that: Not only the server never crashed and didn’t feel a single hiccup, but everything went smooth with no real lag or slowdowns. My decent but not exceptional GTX 660 easily managed to chug out over 45 FPS at all time with antialiasing forced via control panel on top of maximum detail settings.

The colorful and noisy crowd marched from the city state of Ul’dah to Gridania, with a lot of wandering in between (it’s a well known fact that bearded lalafells like their drinks strong), and below you can see 193 screenshots of the event, that not only give you a chance to check out the design diversity between characters, but also some of the most scenic vistas of the new world that everyone will be able to explore on August the 27th.