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Some time later...
A chocobo cavalier is off riding somewhere!
Limsa Lominsa is looking pretty good for a town that got swallowed in multiple gigantic fireballs!
The little girl in the sailor uniform is excited for daytime fireworks.
The praying catgirl from the first update looks pretty happy. She's got a very large flower, at least!
Here's the praying pair now. They also look pretty good!
This dude makes the last of the intro trio of praying characters. He looks, if not happy, at least not unhappy?
Well he doesn't look friendly...
A random behemoth howling at the sky? Sure!
And then there's this Icecrown Citadel looking place.
The A New Era cinematic is very short. But it's not quite over yet.
The heroes are still alive! And they just reappeared from the Battle of Carteneau.
They're discussing amongst themselves what the heck happened.
Except for the Black Mage, who found something!
The Warrior whistles...
And so here comes his trusty chocobo!
Jumping while on a chocobo is pretty fun!
Everyone's got their chocobo, and away they go!
But the camera leaves them behind. This is not their story. Their time has passed.
It's time for a new story.
Whose story, you may ask?
Ours!
Will our hero be a Hyur? (Human)
An Elezen? (Elf)
A Lalafell? (Tiny potato person)
A Miqo'te? (Cat person)
A Roegadyn? (Large person)
An Au Ra? (Dragon Person)
A Hrothgar? (Giant Lion Man)
Or perhaps a Viera? (Bunny Girl)
The choice is yours! So please bold your choices, along with roughly how you'd like our hero to look.
Wrong! We're playing a potato girl. Why? Because 99 times out of 100, female armor is better than male. Because Lalafell are cute.
There are a whole bunch of choices here, and many of them we can't remake later at the hairdresser. I'm going to just skip past most of this, because this could seriously take up an entire update by itself just going over all the different combinations for one race and gender alone.
Dunesfolk, by the way.
I'm not kidding, by the way. Once we choose the sub-species of Lalafell, we're given this gigantic list of things we can customize.
Eleven minutes of tweaking sliders later, we have our potato. Purple hair with pink highlights and in a style that I really wish more races had access to.
We need to pick our girl's birthday next.
And what could be more fitting than the day I sat down to record this nonsense? If you can't read the tiny text that's 7/25... or 25/7 for those of you who put the day first.
We need to pick patron deity next. This affects literally nothing at the moment and is mostly for RP reasons. Because I've played most of the available story currently, I choose Rhalgr because he becomes quite important later on.
Also those of you with good memories may recognize these symbols. These showed up in the previous update when Louisoix was trying to contain Bahamut. 
There's a reason for that!
Finally, we need to pick our starting job. This is non-binding, and later on we can change between any available jobs literally at will. So this mostly just affects where we start and what the gameplay for our first 10? 15? levels is like.
For story-related reasons, I want to start in Ul'dah, which means that I'm limited to Gladiator, Pugilist, and Thaumaturge. But there's no reason we can't look at all the starting gear. Plus this gives me an opportunity to talk about what each job is like.
Gladiator uses a sword and shield. They wear heavy armor. The Roegadyn from the 1.0 heroes was a Gladiator. At around level 30, they turn into a Paladin. As you might expect, they're a tank job. They start in Ul'dah, the desert city.
Pugilist fights with their fists, using claw weapons and brass knuckle equivalents. They wear medium armor. At around level 30, they turn into a Monk. These guys are physical damage dealers, and they also start in Ul'dah.
Marauder fights with big fuckoff axes, and wear very heavy armor. The Hyur that I called the Warrior of Light was a Marauder. At around level 30, they turn into a Warrior. Like the Gladiator, they're also tanks, although they start in Limsa Lominsa, the Thalassocracy.
Lancer, like its name implies, fights using lances. They also wear heavy armor and... do you really need me to tell you what job they turn into? Look at the screenshot. If you're reading this thread, then you've probably played enough Final Fantasy titles to recognize Dragoon anywhere. These guys are physical damage dealers, and they start in Gridania, the forest city.
Archer is the last "Disciple of War" starting class. Again, as the name implies, they use bows, and they wear light, athletic armor. Think lots of leather and cloth. That catgirl we saw was an Archer, and at around level 30, these guys turn into Bards. Archer is the only ranged, physical damage dealer available for an extremely long time, and like Lancers, they also start in Gridania.
Arcanist is our first magic-wielding class. These guys fight with magical tomes, and like all caster classes, they wear the equivalent of cloth armor. And if you take a good look at the horn on her head, you can take a pretty good stab at what these guys turn into around level 30... Summoners.
Well, sorta. You see, Arcanist is actually a double job and has the distinction of also doubling as our first healing job. Arcanist can also turn into a Scholar. They also use magical tomes, and can summon little fairy friends to help them heal their friends and companions. Mercifully, levels aren't split between Summoner and Scholar. It's all Arcanist experience. So if you level up as one, the other also gets stronger! Arcanist starts in Limsa Lominsa.
Thaumaturge is... oh come on. Like Lancer, do you need me to tell you about these guys? One look should tell you everything you need to know. They fight with either wands or staves and they wield black magic. Like Summoner, these guys are magical damage dealers, and they start in Ul'dah. (And this is our starting job.)
And just for the sake of completion, we have Conjurer. These guys wield the natural elements. Where Black Mage Thaumaturge uses Fire, Ice, and Lightning; Conjurers use Earth, Wind, and Water. And heals. Don't forget the heals, because Conjurer is the big healer. They obviously turn into a White Mage at around level 30, and they are the last job to start in Gridania.
Also while we're here...
Tanks
Gladiators/Paladins are sword and board tanks. They block attacks and have a lot of mitigation tools. Ask Yapping Eevee sometime to tell you stories about leading groups to victory by dint of being too stubborn to die as a Paladin.
Marauders/Warriors are big angry balls of HP. They don't so much mitigate damage (though they can) as they just take it on the chin and then get pissed off that you dared to hit them. In the previous expansion, the community lovingly called Warriors "Blue DPS jobs". Blue, you see, because the tank role is blue.
Healers
Conjurers/White Mages are THE healer. As of the time of writing, they're unquestionably the strongest healers in the game. They have the most healing spells they can throw at someone to keep them alive through almost anything, and on top of that, they have pretty decent damage spells too!
Arcanists/Scholars are absorb healers. While I might have said above that White Mages are the strongest healers, don't misunderstand me. White Mages are reactionary healers. They're damn good at it, but they react to someone taking damage. Scholars are more proactive. Many of their skills create absorb effects, letting them do preventative work to ensure a hit never finds its mark in the first place.
DPS
Pugilists/Monks are straightforward brawlers. They're damn good at making someone hurt by just punching them. They also have pretty entertaining animations! And also you're doing monk wrong if you don't immediately hide your weapons so it looks like you're bare knuckle brawling.
Lancers/Dragoons are also pretty straightforward. They put the pointy end of their lances into enemies and jump around like fleas. No seriously, Dragoons learn like 6 skills that all involve jumping around. It's awesome.
Archers/Bards are part party support, part ranged damage dealer. On the surface, they're all about shooting bad guys with enough arrows to recreate that scene from 300. But they also provide the party with short-duration buffs called "songs". Also bards can eventually learn to actually play instruments. Square will ban you if you play Freebird, though.
Thaumaturges/Black Mages are ranged magical damage dealers. They're all about nuking the everloving shit out of everything with a bunch of powerful magic. If you aren't making the tank blind due to the spell effects, then you're doing something wrong, full stop.
Arcanists/Summoners are in theory ranged magic damage dealers. They received a major overhaul when the recent expansion launched, and I'm gonna be honest... I'm completely confused. They used to be a damage over time and pet class all rolled into one, and now it sounds like they're the "keep 50 plates spinning" class. Either way, I want nothing to do with it.
Anyway, we select Thaumaturge (hereby referred to as THM because that's the shorthand the game uses) and then are asked to select the world we're gonna play on. Because the Primal data center has three supermassive goon guilds, and several other goon-adjacent guilds I'm aware of, I'm gonna play here.
And while I wanted to play on Excalibur, it's somehow still locked to new players.
Between writing this update and posting it, Excalibur opened up to new players again. So if the four of you reading the thread want, I can remake the character on Excal as a different race. In case, for some reason, you all don't want to see a Lalafell. Otherwise we'll be playing on...
So this character will be living on Ultros instead. It's one of the only two servers open on Primal, and I can easily play with any Excal-goons who want to join in on the fun. Also I know several people on Ultros.
We're finally asked to name our potato and... hold on.
There are two kinds of Lalafellin names. Lore compliant ones are mostly nonsense syllables strung together. And then there's the cutesy ones. Ginger Pepper sounds better (and is easier to type) than something completely out of left field like Tataru Taru. Or Teledji Adeledji. ...don't google those names. Trust me.
Also I can call our girl Spices or Seasonings as a nickname. So that works out.
One last look at Black Mage Ginger because I sincerely doubt we'll be seeing that outfit again for an extremely long time.
An empty void...
A not-so-empty void!
Ginger is slowly dropping.
Hear...
Be prepared to see this quite a lot... our potato gal clutching her forehead.
But she shakes it off quickly enough!
Hear... Feel...
Ginger decides the best course of action is to walk toward the miniature sun.
She doesn't get very far before something wicked this way comes...
Our mysterious masked jerkbag is glowering at us.
Hear... Feel... Think...
Apparently our Black Mage outfit is like a Magical Girl costume.
The last time I saw a black mage with red lightning around himself, he had taken over hell and become its dark master.
The opening cutscene has these little wands, and then after a while, the developers just started ignoring them. Black and White Mages graduate to increasingly elaborate staves instead.
Our "friend" isn't scared and uses a Naaru to scream purple energy at us.
He rushes at Ginger and...
...Hey. Hey, you!
Ginger wakes up from her dream of learning how to go Super Saiyan.
Y'all right, lass? You were moanin' somethin' fierce for a while there.
Feelin' the effects of the aether, I reckon. You'll get used to it, though, don't worry.
The actual game starts with a leisurely ride through the open desert.
Er, nevermind.
There's no need to worry, this is just the carriage being pulled over the the Brass Blades, the police force of Ul'dah. That's massively corrupt. With almost zero oversight.
...wait, shit.
You there--halt!
What's all this about?
This nice policeman is showing his sword to the carriage driver.
(Brass Blade Captain) Inspection! Men, search the carriage!
Looks like there's a couple of other passengers on board. A pair of white haired Elezen children
I'm just an honest peddler, friend. So, er... don't be too disappointed if you don't find nothin', eh?
(Brass Blade) Mind your tongue, old man, lest I cut it out.
By the way, Ul'dah is not a nice place.
(Brass Blade) Sir, look! Somnus!
(Brass Blade Captain) Honest peddler, was it? Since when do honest peddlers deal in prohibited herbs? You're in a lot of trouble, old man. You'll rot in a dungeon till the end of your days... unless you can afford the fine.
Heh, business as usual...
It's a generic portrait for male Hyur. There's a lot of those. Also, yes, that first Brass Blade member just pulled that pouch from his back pocket to "catch" our merchant buddy with it. It's not an inspection, it's a shakedown. Line their pockets or go to jail. Again, Ul'dah is a shitty, shitty place.
Ginger reaches out to warn our friend about something or another...
(Brass Blade Captain) Amalj'aa! Amalj'aa! To arms! To arms!
These fellows are Amalj'aa. We'll meet them later, but for now just know that for the most part, they're asshole bandits.
(Brass Blade Captain) Seven hells... Consider this a warning! Now go--all of you!
The Amalj'aa are huge, beefy, and they can knock the cops around. They aren't our friends, by the way. Anyway, the Blades and the Amalj'aa get into a fight and the scene fades.
Phew... that kind of excitement isn't good for the heart. You be careful 'round them Brass Blades, lass. Bastards'll have the shirt off your back if they fancy it. Like common bandits, they are, only less honest. Thank the gods for sendin' some beastmen to the rescue, eh? Hey, seein' as we've still got a long ride ahead, you mind keepin' me company till we arrive?
Them young'uns don't care much for conversation, see.
Indeed, they look fairly disinterested in pretty much everything.
Brendt's the name, an' peddlin's me trade.
And judgin' by your unusual garments, I'll wager you're one of them new adventurers.
*nods*
I knew it! Goin' wherever the wind blows, seekin' fortune an' glory--now that's what I call livin'! So long as you can avoid dyin', I mean. Ain't no secret that adventurin's a risky business--these days especially. What was it that first attracted you to it?
I legit don't remember if this affects anything anymore or not. In the old, old days it used to determine which starting gift you got. But the last time I seriously played the intro was in 2016. Some googling reveals official forums posts from 2018 stating that the gifts are still determined by how you answer. The short version is "it literally doesn't matter past level 8" so just go with however you think your character will reply.
Also let's take a moment to appreciate this here. Every so often, quests will offer different ways we can respond to questions. It's mostly a roleplaying thing, but you can have a lot of fun with the way you play your character. And there are some pretty cool conversation choices. Don't worry, there's no such thing as NPC affinity. After this cutscene, all it affects is the dialogue immediately following the choice.
To amass a fortune.
Fortune, eh? Heh heh! Then I reckon you'll fit right in where we're goin'! Once you've learned to handle yourself in a fight, you'll want to pay a visit to whichever craftin' or gatherin' guild tickles your fancy. Advenutrin' ain't just about kilin' things after all. A peaceful pasttime may well help you make your fortune! Just remember: there're more important things than fortune an' glory. Such as breathin'. Ain't no profit in bein' dead, an' that's a fact.
Some people have more than one character with all crafting and gathering classes maxed out. Those people are completely mad. I barely have the patience to see it through once, so don't expect to see much of either through the LP.
Believe it or not these are all different pictures of Brendt. He kinda talks at you... a lot. So I'm throwing them in to break up the endless yammering about the most corrupt place in Eorzea.
By the by, is this your first trip to Ul'dah?
This gets us more backstory for the game. 
*nods*
It is!? Well then, let this journeyed itinerant tell you the ins an' outs of your destination.
Ul'dah's ruled by the sultana in name, but as most folk know, the Syndicate holds all the real power. Them and their Monetarist cronies would happily get rid of Her Grace altogether, but that won't happen while she still commands the loyalty of the Royalists--an' the Royalists are nothin' if not loyal. These factions have long fought over power, throwin' the weight of their wealth against each other, an' they show no signs of stoppin'.
Final Fantasy XIV: come for the addictive MMO stuff, stay for the fantasy politics. No, really. The politics of this realm are actually fascinating.
'Course the lizardmen--that's the Amalj'aa--couldn't care less about Ul'dahn politics. They have their own interests, see--an' they ain't afraid to use force to serve 'em. They say war is a gift to peddlers--need breedin' profit--an' though it shames me to say it, I'm inclined to agree...
Ah, at long last. Behold Ul'dah, jewel of the Thanalan, where folk turn sand into gold!
Deep in the sunbaked south, surrounded by the shifting sands of an endless desert, she rises. A solitary rose amidst the dust and rock. A symbol of defiance. Her name: Ul'dah.
Even with the coming of the Seventh Umbral Era, hope springs eternal for the mongers and merchants who vie for fast fortune in this bustling oasis.
As the Twin Face of Nald'thal maintain Their vigil over all that has been and shall be, the present proffers a brave soul...
One whose arrival could mark the beginning of a new era of prosperity for the realm.
An' here's where we part ways, lass. I'm off to the markets to deliver me wares, then it's on to the highroad for me.
Brendt gives us something.
Here, I want you to have this--by way of thanks for puttin' up with me prattle.
You never did tell me your name, though. Hey, but here's an idea... Become the sort of storied personage I can brag about havin' met, an' I'll consider us square.
Brendt walks off and into the city. The next time we meet him, we'll be in markedly different circumstances than these humble beginnings.
May the Traders nurture our fortunes as They kindle the flames which burn within us all.
For by fire are we reborn.
Kind of a slow opening, but things start picking up moderately in the next update. Gotta lay the foundation for the world, and Ul'dah is pretty much the capital of Eorzea.