Change your weird adventurer plates, and don’t be a dick in the chat—Final Fantasy XIV director and producer Naoki Yoshida may be surprising players in Crystalline Conflict PVP matches on Japan’s Mana Data Center. Thanks to a sighting round-up on FF14 Net, we know “Yoshi’p Sampo” is queuing into both ranked and normal matches with that in-game name reserved for the FFXIV boss.
Yoshida’s smirking Lalafell popped up in at least a few rounds of FFXIV‘s new PVP mode this morning, and it looks like it really is him from the screenshots going around. While there’s no official confirmation, the Yoshi’p Sampo character name belongs to the game’s director and producer on every server, and we’ve seen FFXIV channels announce his visits before. From the looks of things, he won a few fights, lost a few, and is way better than me on any DPS in Crystalline Conflict.
Anyway, Yoshida’s Lalafell is kind of precious—like an absolutely up to no good, smirking little goblin creature. Look at that face.
カジュアルマッチしてたら吉Pに遭遇したのワロタ????????????
あとで動画も見返しとこう() pic.twitter.com/Mb8SoUm0lf
— ザブブ・ザブ (@RanmaruRockZabu) May 7, 2022
https://twitter.com/Louisa_ff/status/1522895304550662144
The PVP encounters shared to Twitter and Reddit show the Yoshi’p Sampo name only, with a few folks questioning its legitimacy and bringing up his other aliases. While we have seen Yoshida use just “Naoki Yoshida” and a host of other event-related character names, the tag spotted here is one he’s used for ages to queue up for surprise sightings in the wild. Across many of FFXIV‘s regional data centers, he’s been spotted joining players for the MMO’s most difficult encounters or just hanging out for a few gpose shots. He’s also pretty damn good in Savage raids.
吉田の装備
プレートは見れなかったよ・・・ pic.twitter.com/bRCJUeZiiG— るいるい＠TSUTAYA迷宮製作者????鯖 (@Louisa_ff) May 7, 2022
From what we could gather, it looks like Yoshida stuck to his Mandragora character on Mana for today’s PVP matchups. But, for the folks curious about his in-game name, you can still see his mischievous Lala across all servers like Carbuncle, Aegis, and others. Just watch to make sure it’s stylized correctly and without any special characters, predictably, there are characters changing it up just a bit to pose as FFXIV‘s producer. Yoshida has also had special icons to denote his status in-game, but those are inconsistent, and official appearances have seen him without the icon.
I’m over on Primal, so I reckon I won’t see Yoshida any time soon myself, but I keep having this horrifying thought of someone I respect seeing me on my worst behavior in FFXIV’s PVP. I’m not inflammatory or anything, I’m just really bad at PVP and my Miqo’te often has her whole booty hanging out. So, if you’re someone playing on Japan’s Data Centers, maybe tone down any debauched adventurer plates and dress to impress.
