Ishgard, Ala Mhigo, Eulmore, and now Garlemald. One after the other bending to modern day moral frameworks, shattering the fantasy with Alphinaud as the spokesperson for it all. The person preaching constantly about the virtues of freedom and democracy is always him. It's gotten tiresome. Each time sucking more and more of the fantasy out of FFXIV's world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunaxia
Larsa taking the throne of Archades preserved the fantasy of Ivalice and gave hope for the future in a way that actually made sense and made for a story that was interesting to sit through. He wanted to make a better world but he wasn't ruining the magic of it in the process. That is the key difference here, along with the fact that he's just not as annoying.
I am tired of sitting through stories in FFXIV that end with nations turning into democracies and republics. At this point it would a shocking display of creativity if a nation were to actually keep its monarch instead of having them turn out to be evil villains that must be put down by the Scions and their crusade of spreading liberty and freedom across the world.
The last remaining monarchies are Doma (now irrelevant as far as the MSQ is concerned) and Dalmasca (who we'll probably not see the finale of because the playerbase couldn't handle Matsuno's writing). There are no more nations to root for, not Ishgard with its own faceless parliament that practically holds Aymeric hostage, not the 3 starter states who are as boring as they are dysfunctional, not Ala Mhigo with the infamous Lyse forever tainting its image, and not Garlemald seeing as how the writers gave up on telling a compelling story with it. As I mentioned earlier, the most compelling thing now in FFXIV's future is the Void, but given all we've seen across Endwalker and 6.1 I have considerable doubts as to whether or not future storytelling will be handled well.
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06-18-2022, 11:47 AMaveyond-dreams
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06-18-2022, 12:03 PMMikkoAkureFFXIV takes place with a similar level of technology and societal change as Europe had that led to its own overthrow of monarchies so it's no surprise. Each of those examples you provide have reason and context for their becoming democracies and only one of them even has a monarch they could keep who even wants to rule. You can't create something that isn't there for a people that don't want it.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Ishgard was a theocracy for 1000 years because of a forever war of their own creation. The government maintained their power because only through the government and its military could its citizens survive. When that war was removed from the equation, its citizens were armed with guns that leveled the playing field against the old regime-supporting knights, and it was revealed that the war was a lie caused by the original government screwing everything up, the people wanted power and the old ruler's benevolent son gave it to them. For christ's sake, the people you support in this who wanted the monarchy back and wanted the Dragonsong War to start over again tried to stab Aymeric to death and threw a child off a roof.
Ala Mhigo's royal family was completely destroyed by the first rebellion and the Garlean occupation. The only remaining royal has no intention at all about having anything to do with the government and absolutely refuses to even let people know he exists. The last native monarch also tried killing everyone. In the absence of a surviving royal, the country was liberated in part by regular citizens who were part of a rebellion, not Ala Mhigan nobility. It makes 0 sense in the context of the world for them to restart a monarchy.
Eulmore's last ruler turned people into monsters which he fed back to his people to keep them in line. He was also the last of his line.
Garlemald was a republic for ~600 years and a monarchy for 60. I don't see what the problem is with them going back to what they were doing for most of their whole existence, especially when their status as a monarchy caused 2 civil wars that killed the majority of their population. -
06-18-2022, 12:10 PMaveyond-dreamsEverything you've just said does nothing to justify the repeated use of the same "let's become a democracy!" plot that has been used 4 times already.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
Also theocracy via the pope is not the same thing as a monarchy, as far as I am aware Thordan was chosen to be Archbishop from within the Church and his name "Thordan VII" refers to the fact that he is the 7th Archbishop to take the name of Thordan. It isn't his birthname.
Ala Mhigo was a massive failure of writing from multiple fronts but "yay democracy!" won out over the inclusion of any potential surviving royals (Larsas, Garnets, Ashes, etc) that could have been written into the plot, but weren't. Same thing for Garlemald.
Eulmore's resolution was lackluster after having gone through 2 versions of the same tired plot, because by that point my patience was exhausted. I had hoped Garlemald would have been handled better. And then it wasn't.
I suppose that when the Scions go into the void and beat up whoever is in charge there that we will once again set up a provisional government of freedom-loving voidsents to rule over the 13th. The nations back on the source will then proceed to morph into the United States of Final Fantasy, with Hien spontaneously deciding to give up his crown and Dalmasca being forgotten about entirely.
You can get rid of tyranny in more creative ways than "yay democracy!" especially when it's been repeated this many times. The good guy taking the throne would be a near-unthinkable turn of events in FFXIV's world given that as of now, it has only happened once in the case of Doma. These other states are all becoming ideologically homogenous with the likes of Sharlayan, and it's making for bad worldbuilding. Each nation stripped of what made it unique and gritty in the first place, then pacified as the Scions bulldoze their way through.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunaxia
When the writers keep using the same messaging and plot over and over again, what is this if not preaching? This along with the messy themes and "morals" of Endwalker being shoved down my throat makes for a very unpleasant experience and a world that is quickly losing the things that made it worthwhile to explore in the first place.
Combine this with sectors of the playerbase that look down on others for being fans of Garlemald or monarchies in general (along with being on the "wrong" side of the debate regarding the Venat and Ancients situation), decrying them as all sorts of things while they parade around with their borgor catboy plushie, it's exhausting my patience and despite my love for the game I feel extremely strained by everything going on. The pillars of story and gameplay are crumbling, all while the community is too busy fawning over Tweetingway.
Again, why are these people playing FFXIV and not Persona? Why are they ruining this video game world when they already have their high school AUs and other forms of media where they can have their own values preached back to them instead of forcing them into a fantasy video game setting? -
06-18-2022, 12:26 PMLunaxiaTechnically, we were the ones who defeated three of those four, because two of them wanted to maintain a status quo or else instill a new kind that would bring about an apocalypse, another was forcibly ruling against the people's will, while the latter collapsed in on itself due to ongoing power struggles and Ascian influence. They were all later free to choose their own style of governance, Alphinaud had next to no influence on those matters. I don't see what fantasy that's shattering, other than that of living under tyranny. They were hardly sustainable forms of leadership, expect perhaps the theocracy in Ishgard before Thordan jumped off the deep end.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Eulmore's resolution was incredibly boring though, I will give you that. I don't know if it was because the end of 5.0 was so spectacular or if 5.1 was handled that poorly, but I slept through most of it. They have developed a bad habit of going to all the trouble of setting up the stories of these various places and then promptly shoo-ing them off stage when it's time to move onto something else.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
There's something very satisfying about when a game delves into the deeper psychologies behind its characters, and I think it's part of the reason Emet-Selch is so popular. They really dove right into what's going on behind the mask, and it made him that much more fascinating and complex to the extent many found him to be relatable, which is quite tremendous when you think about what he actually did post-sundering, even just during his tenure as Solus. We're shaped by such trivial things as our family, our childhood and our upbringing, even the big bads and seemingly all powerful rulers ever-present in these fantasy games, and I always enjoy when they remind us of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brinne
As another example, I appreciated how they frequently hint at Aymeric being deeply affected by the relationship he had with his father and how he still struggles with it. It's very subtle, yet I felt it really added a lot to his character. -
06-18-2022, 12:32 PMMikkoAkureI'm not specifically talking about Thordan VII. Ishgard's ruling class are noble houses. Thordan VII also comes from a noble house. Aymeric was adopted into a noble house. Throughout the whole expansion it's the church, nobles and the knights who are causing us trouble. The Ishgardian theocracy is powered by the church and the noble houses whose existences are intertwined. I didn't think that needed explanation.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
As for Ala Mhigo, why would a bunch of average, pissed-off citizens who just took back their own country without the help of the nobles who destroyed it and paved the way for Garlean takeover decide that they suddenly need to find a random jerk who crawled out of a specific womb just so they can rule? It could have been different if the monk NPC did the Estinien thing and came out of the side quests and into the MSQ to lead the army to victory but that's not what happened and he wants nothing to do with nobility or his family's "birthright".
Not sure what you would have expected for Eulmore. Would it really have changed everything for you if some random captain of the guard said "I'm king now, I guess" and the story never talked about it again after we move back to the Source?
And again for Garlemald. From at least ARR they were described as a former republic who started doing bad things as soon as they became an Empire so I'm not sure how someone could imagine them staying that way when none of the named ruling family exists anymore. They had 2 civil wars in the span of a year because they couldn't decide which royal butt deserves to kiss the throne when meanwhile they had 600 years of stability as a republic.
Edit: I could imagine the Ala Mhigans wanting to revive their monarchy if they had a favorable opinion of it. That happened with Doma. But the Ala Mhigan monarchy in recent memory purged their own noble houses and destroyed their own culture and religion before falling to a civil war that weakened the nation enough to be taken over with relative ease by Garlemald. As far as everyone knows, there's no one even left who could sit the throne. But the monk NPC (whose name I'm too lazy to look up right now) doesn't want anything to do with that history and has always been a monk. If he took the throne, old resentments that have since been buried would come back up. There's still Ala Mhigan royal loyalists calling themselves the Corpse Brigade in Thanalan and they're not exactly the friendliest people. -
06-18-2022, 01:03 PMaveyond-dreamsWhat part of this did you not understand? You've just described for a second time the flaws in the world-building that led up to each lackluster resolution. It's cyclical logic that would be broken by the inclusion of the necessary plot elements or characters to break free of the otherwise predictable mould. It still doesn't justify why things ended up the same way 4 times in a row.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
There's no reason why they couldn't have added in an Ashe here or a Larsa there in order to break up the monotony and give us better leaders to root for than faceless parliaments 1, 2, 3, and so on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
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06-18-2022, 01:28 PMTheodricLet's not forget the player ran 'venues' which are often little more than brothels or modern day night clubs. Personally I use ESO for my 'immersive world' fix where MMO's are concerned. I'm also hoping Ashes of Creation, Pantheon and/or the League of Legends MMO end up doing very well for themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
I expect they'll each attract a very different type of player as well - one that primarily wants a game and an immersive, consistent world over a glorified visual novel.
It's a shame that it's a bit of a wait until any of them launch but...it is what it is. -
06-18-2022, 01:31 PMCrownySuccubus
I don't see the problem in "this has happened 4 or whatever times already", because it's not like it happens to EVERY single monarchy. Aside from the monarchal beast tribes, we also have Doma, Fanow, and Radz-at-Han. All three of which are some type of monarchy and/or dictatorship, which more or less have stayed the same. So every expansion since 4.0 has basically introduced us to at least one more form of a benevolent monarchy.
The governments that fell are the ones that were actively at war with the Scions or their allies, such as Ishgard, Eulmore and Garlemald. And aside from the outright surrender of said dictators, I'm at a loss how you would have preferred things turn out. In basically every case, the source of the problem was the local dictator who refused to settle for anything less than death, and in all three cases, NONE of them had some sort of heir to take their place. In fact, since Garlemald settles its succession crises with war, the civil war that ultimately wiped them out was the only conclusion they would have even accepted.
So if you have a dictator who won't listen to reason and wants death, and there's no system in place to continue as a benevolent monarchy, exactly how are you expecting the Scions replace the monarch? And, for that matter, it's pretty believable that a nation that barely survived an oppressive dictatorship wouldn't be in the mood to install another one immediately. That's kind of the risk/problem inherent in absolute monarchies in the first place. -
06-18-2022, 01:42 PMBrinneThe emphasis and depth given to exploring his emotional state and internal conflict is absolutely a huge part of the reason Emet-Selch is often considered a cut above the rest in terms of characters. The gaps within the contradictions between what we say, what we do, what we think and what we feel are largely what makes us messy, human, and worth exploring - and with Emet-Selch, you can talk at length about every single one of those aspects within him and how they work with and then clash with the rest of him, creating a character who often technically acts illogically, yet consistently once you grasp him on an emotional level. It rules.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunaxia
With Varis, he certainly presents himself and says the words that may reflect an unflappable, dedicated leader of an empire at initial blush--but dive just beneath the surface and you'll still find the angry, insecure teenager seething from the hurt of his idolized grandfather not caring enough about him. There's a reason the first scene we ever see of Varis - his establishing scene - is him spitting on Solus's coffin. In that respect, I think Varis is a delight.
Aymeric was actually probably my favorite character in the HW era because I noticed that it felt like he had some neat layers to his character that were woven in just for the sake of rounding out his character; there was a consistent undercurrent of low self-worth and self-depreciation to a lot of his dialogue and scenes that wasn't strictly in service to the plot itself that I found really interesting.
If you're interested in narratives that revolve around exploring motivations and psychologies in messy, but authentic feeling ways,read uminekopraise yasudawait wait don't look up any details about either though for the love of godwait what? Not sure what happened there! -
06-18-2022, 02:00 PMMikkoAkureThis "benevolent monarch waiting to take their country back" plot has already happened with Hien and Doma. Gaius for some reason was made defender of Werlyt. The Hannish people kept their dragon lord when their ruler died and it was revealed he was operating behind the scenes. Would you still be complaining about it if they had an Ashe or Larsa figure to appear and gallantly rise the power of a single-ruler government and rule benevolently every single time a government is toppled or in crisis and that we need a republic in there to shake it up or do you just have a thing about monarchies?Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
I feel like this is less about repeated story elements and more about how you have a tendency to pop into threads to let people know how much you don't like republics in fiction. I don't know anyone else who has had a problem with this and of those stories, only the government switchover in Ishgard had any actual role in the plot. Ala Mhigo and Eulmore sort of just happened because there wasn't a need in the plot to concentrate on regime change more than a quest or two since as you say it's trodden ground, and Garlemald is a pile of cinders that people can barely live in, let alone a nation. We haven't even crossed that bridge yet. -
06-18-2022, 02:06 PMCrownySuccubusIt's hilariously ironic that the FAE of all races actually have one of the better systems of deposing and replacing a monarch. And even in that case, said monarch was such a threat that all they could initially do was ignore them until someone came along to actually perform the impeachment proceedings.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
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06-18-2022, 02:07 PMaveyond-dreamsIf you don't have an issue with the same story resolution being repeated 4 times in a row then it is extremely unlikely we will ever come to an agreement as to what or what doesn't constitute good storytelling. I don't have the patience for that sort of writing, I consider it quite lazy and I feel that it is cheapening the game's world each time it is used.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus
Following on from this, Doma is no longer relevant to the plot, Fanow is never going to be revisited again anytime soon, and Radz-at-Han is not a setting that has done much to charm me besides having a dragon. Not a monarchy, an immortal dragon. There's not much in the way of political intrigue there, nor are there any major plot points going on in Thavnair related to its governments or its relationships with neighbouring states. It doesn’t compare with the likes of Ishgard or Garlemald’s plotlines, and absolutely doesn’t come close to scratching the itch that Bozja and Ivalice content does for me.
Ok here goes.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus
Ishgard = Aymeric is chosen by the noble houses as the next king after proving his leadership. This falls in line with how Cecil Harvey, despite literally being half-alien and half-commoner ascended the throne of Baron. Or if they insist on having a UK style parliament then at least let the man go so he can join the party.
Ala Mhigo = With how poorly the WoL was treated there I wouldn’t care at all if Shinryu razed the place to the ground entirely. Otherwise let Raubhan take control as a competent military dictator and focus on establishing order and proper governance again.
Eulmore = This is the sole instance where having a mayor elected via democratic vote would have made sense, contingent on the story not having already exhausted my patience with using the yay democracy plot twice already by this point.
Bozja = A young female Hrothgar queen is chosen to lead her people into an era of peace and prosperity, guided by the stars as they were in days of yore. She is advised by a small council made up of resistance members. Long blond hair like Cersei Lannister and red priestess garments to contrast against the blue-white tones of the other queen.
Garlemald = A young princess survives the catastrophe that befell her nation and by sharing her peoples’ plight, grows closer to them and understands their troubles. As the sole heir and more benevolent option compared to the former members of the senate who enabled half a century of conquest and misrule in the provinces, she is crowned Empress. Long black dress with gold trimmings and snow-white hair, pure soviet princess vibes. The new community waifu. Thancred stays behind in Garlemald to act as her bodyguard and protector like Basch did for Larsa. No one goes to the moon.
Solution = write heirs into the plot. Moving on.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus
See = Baron from FFIV, Alexandria from FFIX, Fynn from FFII, Dalmasca from FFXII, Archades from FFXII, and so on. Granted, Archades is not an absolute monarchy but it can be assumed that with Larsa and Basch in power that their senate who orchestrated disaster after disaster was finally reigned in at some point.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus
Ok so 1 vs 4 times. 4 times we've been strung along only to end up at the same conclusion of "yay woohoo democracy!" while being preached about its virtues via Alphinaud. I'm sick of the receptiveness of it all. I'm not dedicating an entire post to respond to you because I'm wary of the post limit, we fundamentally disagree on what works best for the setting of the game and the story trying to be told here.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
I hope you enjoy whatever the current writing direction ends up doing with the Void or any remaining territories on the Source, the further down FFXIV spirals the more time I will be spending in upcoming releases instead where I can enjoy a decent story without having to pay a subscription fee on top of the base price of the game. -
06-18-2022, 02:08 PMKizuyaKatogamiThe same way you pop into threads to let people know how much you despise Garlemald and love sweet mommy Venat? Give me a break.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
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06-18-2022, 02:28 PMLunaxiaSo I'm getting the impression this is kind of a thing for you...Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
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06-18-2022, 02:30 PMMikkoAkureBits of the Garlemald story are interesting when they're not being written as the stereotypical monolithic evil fantasy empire. While I think they were done dirty by the writing as soon as Zenos took over and they decided to wreck everything, I'm not about to go full Garlean Legal Defense Team and I think story-wise they were in the wrong and shouldn't have done the things they did. They would've been better off not listening to foxy grandpa and the Lemures and a large portion of the senate and their supporters agreed. The whole Reaper storyline chronologically started when one of the Lemures tried assassinating his own emperor over disagreeing with the direction it was going.Quote:
Originally Posted by KizuyaKatogami
The writers didn't stick the landing with Venat but I still maintain that there's no way that Hydaelyn was ever going to be the villain like some people in the forums had hoped. And when viewed in-universe through our character's eyes, for better or worse she's the reason us and everything we know exists. If a shadow ghost came up to me and said that 15,000 years ago people used to have amazing powers and were 20ft tall but there was a disagreement over the end of the world where they created two gods and one side wanted to cull the new life seeded onto the desolate aftermath (that led to us) to bring back their friends versus the one who said "no you can't do that" and stomped the other god so hard that the world broke, I'd pick the side that led to me and supports me continuing to live since that's all I know. Especially when that shadow ghost wants to kill everyone to bring back his god.
The Ascians and the Garleans are the same in that both try to kill you before explaining themselves. Both are also written to be the antagonists of the video game. The writers can give them more background to make you sympathize with them a bit more and make the game more interesting than what is was in ARR, but it doesn't change that they spent the whole entire game trying to kill us and as a video game the whole point is to "win" and one side has to lose. You can write your own book where the narrative ends up different, but the story here is reliant on the medium it's being told in. -
06-18-2022, 02:51 PMCrownySuccubusRepetitive storytelling is kind of par for the course in an MMO plot. There's always going to be yet more dark gods to slay. More evil overlords to depose. More oppressed people to save. Complaining about monarchies specifically is a hill I have no interest in dying on, and since half of your arguments amount to "I just don't like it", agreement was never really feasible. Understanding, at best.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Doesn't change the fact that they're monarchies.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
He's a satrap, which is a monarchal position. Before him, a family of monarchs ruled as the puppet government. The fact that he doesn't age changes nothing about that, since he could always be killed or step down and personally name or father a successor.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
So we've moved from "the game is against monarchies" to "none of the ones that exist do it for me anymore".Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Ala Mhigo doesn't want another dictator since the last one was literally called the Mad King. They literally held a conference to decide.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Eulmore is basically just "I don't like it".
No comment on Ishgard. It's not that different from what we have, except Aymeric just isn't wearing a crown. No comment on Bozja, either. That wasn't even written by the same writers as the rest of the game, and he had to rush the ending...so meh.
Garlemald? ...Yeah, I'll get to Queen Waifu in a second.
That seems like it misses the point and/or goes against the entire characterization of said monarchs.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Thordan's goal was to become Emperor Palpatine and live forever as a god-king with no need for an heir.
Ala Mhigo's entire royal family died decades ago.
Eulmore was run by a manchild whose entire philosophy was that the future didn't matter, so party it up now.
Bozja did have an heir, and she turned out to be insane.
Most Garleans literally scoff at the idea of women rulers, and have no interest in anyone ruling who isn't a generalissimo. The idea of some Disney Princess showing up and melting the hearts of the Garleans sounds like an even more boring and unlikely outcome than any of the others.
So in other words, you want the Scions to rule? That's what it sounds like you're saying. Because in each of the games you mentioned, the endgame is a player power fantasy that ends with various members of their party either as ruler or consort to a ruler. All hail Archbishop Thancred, Queen Lyse, Mayor Alphinaud, and Emperor G'raha!Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Besides that, all of these "solutions" really say to me is that the problem isn't repetition. It's "do the repetition that I like". By your own admission here, you had no problem with the same conclusion in three different FF games (and twice in one of them).
This part I don't agree with. If I could go back in time and stop the genocide of the Indigenous Americans, the Crusades, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Holocaust, and many others, I'd do it even if I ceased to exist.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
Most of these things are the reason the current world is so effed up. -
06-18-2022, 03:06 PMMikkoAkureWhere I see the difference is the means and the result. You can go back in time and stop any one of those things and the world would be a better place but it would also still be our world. The Ascians want to delete 15,000 years of history and in order to do so, they need to cause untold death and destruction time and time again and each time, a whole world is destroyed and along with it all of that whole world's history and every life upon it.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus
I couldn't sacrifice billions of people over tens of thousands of years just for the sake of what once was. -
06-18-2022, 03:17 PManhaatoOoh ooh my turn my turn! I suppose I should assume, based on everyone else's stances on ingame regime changes, that you all support US-backed regime changes in the Middle East, yes?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunaxia
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06-18-2022, 03:26 PMThaciscokiddSuper off topic but.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
This is the danger of linear Closed Loop variety and the branching Open Loop time travel well time travel in general. You are right. For the story to go forward with the world as is the loop needed to be closed(strangely unlike the black rose death timeline that was averted in ShB).
But as cool as it would be to stop one of those real world events there is no telling the repercussions that would happen because that had changed. Heck if you changed the Transatlantic Slave Trade there's a good chance I wouldn't exist and more importantly what atrocities would(or wouldn't) occur because who exist or who doesn't exist. Fundamental butterfly effect theory.
If you want a good example in gaming Chrono Triggers 12 different endings depending on what you do or don't do. -
06-18-2022, 03:31 PMKozhExcept the "new life seeded" are not the precursor of sundered race. There's no other human races other than the Ancients, and sundered people come from them, not the "New life".Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
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06-18-2022, 03:32 PMaveyond-dreamsI am too low on sleep to respond to the entirety of this post but I stopped reading after you attempted to compare the likes of the scions to party members who went on to become rulers in previous Final Fantasy games. The scions have the development of vanilla wafers compared to what characters like Garnet and Ashe endured, who opposed tyranny without being overly preachy in the way of the scions. It is concerning how several posters cannot seem to tell the difference between these two styles of expressing themes and messages. I feel like this post was written to just argue for the sake arguing and little to no evidence was provided as to how repeating the same resolution for political regime situations 4 times in a row was justified.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus
We are unlikely to ever agree on how the writers should handle these situations, all I know is that FFXIV's world lies in ruins with half its nations neutered and the most interesting plot elements straight up gone or wrapped up so hastily that I can scarcely believe some of this writing made it in game. Maybe the English localization team is partly responsible for this state of affairs, there was a thread that criticized their work on several pieces of dialogue regarding Venat and I can imagine their preoccupation with other factors may have had an impact on how badly they neglected everything else. I just don't know. -
06-18-2022, 03:35 PMBrinneOh, I'm absolutely certain that if not for a number of horrific atrocities I wouldn't exist.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thaciscokidd
I still believe it's the right thing to in no uncertain terms condemn those atrocities and the people who committed them. I don't think you give slavers in the past a pass, or qualify your condemnation of what they did, because "well without them our world wouldn't exist as it does today." Shadowbringers had a good line about this when Alphinaud was talking to Emet-Selch - "we define our worth, not the circumstances of our creation." Whether or not it would be "okay" or "better" to go back and unwrite history, potentially erase timelines full of people, is a more complex question - we should probably ask for G'raha's thoughts about this! But asserting our right to live, while also acknowledging the 'circumstances of our creation' sucked and was wrong, and that the people who were wronged deserve justice, are not mutually exclusive ideas.
I had hoped that the narrative word on the Sundering would be along the lines of: "an absolutely horrific thing that should never have happened, but now that it has, probably not worth the human cost to undo at this point." Instead, we got, um, something else? -
06-18-2022, 03:50 PMCrownySuccubusAgain, if your argument here is just "I don't like them", then there's no point. I don't think anyone really cares if you, personally, like who gets put onto the fictional throne.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
I mean, YOUR "better" solution was "put this OC blonde waifu on the throne". Pretty sure there's zero grounds to argue about character development.
Okay. So you read pretty much the entire post except a line or two, then.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Dude, come on. Are we seriously preening about how superior our methods of storytelling appreciation are?Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
As I said, FFXIV and MMOs in general repeat story beats all the time. It's nothing new, it's not "horribly bad writing", and it's not likely to end any time soon. Again, you have simply (for whatever reason) chosen "Oh no, democracy" as the specific hill YOU want to die on. If we're supposed to be complaining about repetition, then we could go all the way back to Shadowbringers revealing "Oh by the way, here's yet ANOTHER advanced ancient civilization, and it's even MORE Ancientier than the rest!".Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Feel free to think whatever you like, but an objective measurement of story quality it ain't.
Nor should we have to.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
Forums are to discuss opinions. Even if those opinions differ. It's not for slowly developing a hivemind.
You can feel free to have whatever opinion you want, but I do appreciate that you went out of your way to provide us with your own proposed endings. I just don't think they're very good. And that's my opinion, just like you have yours.
I mean, I guess, excuse me for believing that the way a storyarc wraps up should follow the themes, character motivations and tone of the story. For example, if the entire point of Vauthry is that he's a hedonist who doesn't care about the future, is likely immortal, and believes that everyone should just party until the world ends....what part of this character indicates, "You know, the writers should have given him an heir"? Granted, I know he said he was mostly fine with Eulmore's finale...but my point is that changes have to make sense in context. Even if we change the context completely and go with, "Well, they shouldn't have written Eulmore to be about those themes at all", then we're basically talking about a story so different from the original that it's literally fan-fiction.Quote:
Originally Posted by anhaato
Same thing with Garlemald. We've been told since 1.0 that Garlemald's political situation is so unstable that Varis barely holds on to his power, and even a hint of a power vacuum will turn bloody. So, I don't particularly find it a "problem" when that's exactly what happens. Notice that we had to pretty much insert Princess Anastasia into the story to create the type of conclusion aveyond prefers. -
06-18-2022, 03:52 PManhaato
Next expansion should be us helping the Garleans reclaim their homeland in Corvos :D
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06-18-2022, 04:05 PManhaatoI like how Aveyond's argument is "it's boring that all of these nations are written to go from monarchy to democracy every time," and the counterargument is "well everything in the writing perfectly justifies the writing's direction!" No shit, of course it does. They wrote it that way on purpose, of course it'll contain all sorts of justifications for its endings. It didn't have to be that way from conception, but they decided to make it so. That doesn't negate Aveyond's argument, it's just restating their issue from another angle but this time with your opinion applied to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus
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06-18-2022, 04:12 PMThaciscokiddYep, its the blessing of helping the protagonist. Just like it was ok for us to stop others for being oppressed but we've put down the Gigas race twice. I held out hope that it would get settled out when we were making peace with the other beast tribes but nope. No primal no dice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brinne
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06-18-2022, 08:50 PMLaurontShe wasn't presented as a villain, but given the nature of her actions, she's not far off from one, IMO. Bearing in mind that in what can be taken as her bid to preserve the timelines, she also deliberately made an attempt to spare Emet-Selch, knowing full well what this would end in. She also decides to favour the sundered world precisely because she believes the suffering in it would be conducive to dealing with Meteion and avoiding one of the Dead Ends. That same suffering is the result of sundering the world, and the Rejoinings were also integral to this, as are the circumstances that allowed for a nation like Garlemald to spawn. Unless you wish to claim that the Ascians somehow forced the Sundered to see the Garleans as easy targets back when they chased them out of Locus Amoenus, or that they are responsible for all their frailties, which mirror those of ourselves?Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
Particularly if the realisation sunk in that AUs are possible in the setting, and how much destruction and tragedy could've been avoided - possibly on an interstellar scale - had a different path been charted, and given the destruction of the great civilisation of the ancients and not giving them the opportunity to handle this themselves, I can't say my character would look upon her kindly. I certainly don't. To top it all off, she lied about it all because she didn't want to dwell in the past and was too busy fending off Zodiark, or something - we'll overlook the conversation in the Aetherial Sea. It's a case of "yeah, thanks, you caused this all, now goodbye."
She's not alone in the FF genre of foes who are not necessarily evil, but nonetheless are so set in their ways, that they cause significant harm in the process and this brings them to a clash with the protagonists. Yunalesca is one example. Hydaelyn just doesn't end up clashing with the protagonists because they incidentally benefited from what she did, although only partly, because the eternal soul has been fragmented in the process, so it depends on how you frame it... but of course until the Omega quest, she really wasn't called out much at all for this; even Y'shtola rushes to say we can take the positive from her actions during her apology to the Scions.
Precisely. I'll add that even if the Garleans may be soured on the notion of a hereditary monarchy thanks to recent experience with one (though what of an elective one like Archades?), they have every chance to add a variety of regimes in Ilsabard as a new way of life is negotiated there, maybe one in which Garlemald plays an integral role still given the engineering prowess of its people, and the fact that it had some good civil institutions about which it can share its experience. I'm sure we will see situations similar to Bozja, where the old regime is seen in a dimmer light, and others yet where the opposite holds (Dalmasca, though further south, still seems intent to restore its monarchy.) Given the focus SE appears to be shifting away a bit from the political manoeuvring heavy writing, they may just end up skipping Ilsabard etc. for now and returning later and giving an "and this happened" account of it, but the point is, they have ample opportunity to make it interesting if they so choose. It's not like they favour democracies in the setting by default; Thavnair itself is hardly one.Quote:
Originally Posted by anhaato
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06-18-2022, 10:32 PMRulakirIt's not want as much as expect. There was little reason to believe Hydaelyn was a "good guy" leading up to EW. Matter of fact, she looks even worse in retrospect not the least of which being it appears she purposely let the First fall to the Flood of Light because it needed to in order to produce the WoL. She's still ultimately an antagonist in the history of the world and its shards. The fact that she aids the WoL, which is only due to her betting it all on their success, doesn't change that.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
This is exactly what Venat did though and for all we know it was much more than 12k years in terms of the Ancients' history. As others have said, we simply wanted consistency, but Venat is responsible for as much and more than the Ascians were yet neither she or the sundering are treated in the same way the Ascians and rejoinings are. This is true even in the Omega quest chain, which was my major gripe with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
As for time travel, for me the only morally correct thing to do would've been to save the Ancients. You'd save trillions in the process not to mention sparing everyone's soul from being torn apart, which I have a lot of issues with since it appears that the original person still exists in some capacity and is now in an endless purgatory of being indefinitely overwritten every rebirth. It's only questionable due to the implication that the WoL would abandon their timeline to a doomed fate, but nothing about this time loop felt good.
While I accept it's well within the Azem soul's personality to be selfish when it comes to their friends over all else even that gets dicey when the WoL clearly cares about Emet and wishes to save him. I basically have to write it off as my WoL being a fool for thinking they could trust Venat to do the right thing, but that doesn't explain the treatment of her afterwards where everyone should have issues with what she's done and yet none do to the extent that I consider it inconsistent and contradictory. IMO, EW broke everything that stood in the way of depicting Hydaelyn as good. I'd even argue it cost us crucial lore because they couldn't show an accurate version of events as it would've made her look bad. -
06-18-2022, 11:41 PMMikkoAkureI can understand feeling that way if you came into the game during Shadowbringers but it's different if you've been playing the game since the very beginning where it was much more black and white and the writers even said the Ascians had no further backstory other than "they do bad things and want to resurrect their bad god". Players from the beginning had years of "Hydaelyn good, Zodiark bad" sink in with nothing to make us think otherwise. Having a twist for the sake of a twist doesn't automatically make a story better or else people would still be watching M. Night Shyamalan movies.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rulakir
The reason the Ascians are written as the bad guys is because they specifically are an existential threat to our character in a video game. The game cannot continue if the Ascians win. All the way from 1.0 they have been bad guys who were specifically created with skeletal imagery, wreathed in dark aether, and laughed maniacally while they caused chaos as narrative shorthand for "these are the bad guys". Starting from ARR, Hydaelyn was portrayed as the opposite and supported us with a calm voice against the people who tried to kill us over and over. You can't exactly walk that back after a decade.
For me I feel like the Ancients stopped being the Ancients when the Final Days happened, their society collapsed, and they summoned two gods.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rulakir
Every decision they made while the sky was falling was made in the context of a dying world. Zodiark's first two acts did save the world, but at a cost of a lot of the surviving population and the creation of a new god. To me, there is no chance at all that Ancient society would resume as normal in the presence of a physical god of their own creation who the leaders openly admit to being tempered by, even if just a nudge. Culling the planet's life would not have returned the souls of those who had died. While we don't know how many people were killed in the Final Days, it could be assumed that it was a fairly high number. Venat made her arrogant decision in the face of her opposition deciding to cull the life of the planet just for those who had already sacrificed their lives to save it.
We were given one chance at actual time travel and we didn't know we were going to be there at the creation of the Final Days and didn't even have the ability to do anything at all until we accidentally fumbled into it. The whole time travel story and the characters' reasonings for things was not written very well past the fan service, but Elidibus, leader of the Ancients, former heart of Zodiark, did say that we shouldn't and couldn't change anything. If he specifically says before we even leave that we can't save them, then I'm inclined to take his word for it.
The Ascians didn't have the ability to time travel. In order to get back what was lost, they committed themselves to destroying multiple worlds and decimating the main world 13 times. At a certain point you have to wonder how someone like Hythlodeus would feel about Emet-Selch slaughtering billions in order to undo the sacrifice he made to save the world. The Sundered aren't any less of people than the Unsundered are. Elpis showed us that they are just as prone to self-doubt, mistakes, and violence. They just happened to be a more evolved society and had an insane amount of aether. The Sundered have had 15,000 years since then. Who knows what they could have gotten up to if they didn't have the reset button hit on them every 1500 years or so? The Ascians could have even helped them get to a more enlightened point, but instead saw them as nothing but Rejoining fuel.
It would have been more interesting if the Ascians and Zodiark played the role of Prometheus and helped the Sundered, but that would have been basically repeating the story of FFXI.
All that said, I hope we get one or more Tales from the Dawn or whatever it will be called that goes over the period of time around the time when the Convocation were going to use Zodiark a third time so that we have more context for what was going on in a spot of the lore that deserves more explanation and ties everything together better than the MSQ did. -
06-18-2022, 11:54 PMTheodric
It was always pretty obvious to me that the Ascians and Garleans would be fleshed out over time and given a sympathetic backstory given that...pretty much every JRPG I can think of has done just that with its own antagonists, including a lot of the Final Fantasy titles...
Furthermore, Hydaelyn was always portrayed as being evasive and shady. It just so happens that anyone who pointed that out was harassed, especially on the lore forum! Coincidentally a place infested with 'mOmMy StEpPy' types even before Shadowbringers.
It's also being ignored that many Garlean and Ascian fans repeatedly spoke up in favour of more nuance and less cackling villainy only to be shot down (ironically by some of those now lamenting the lack of nuance back in the days of ARR). Such individuals also had a habit of pushing for a 'third way forward' that allowed all factions to come to some form of mutually beneficial compromise. Which wouldn't have been difficult to create if the writers are already prepared to conjure up entire alternate realities to justify the continued existence of burger boy.
Furthermore, the Final Days happened because a nutty subversive individual in the form of Venat stood by and allowed them to happen. With that in mind, pretending as if Zodiark was a bad decision is - quite frankly - bizarre given that Etheirys only persisted as a consequence of Zodiark being summoned to fix the mess caused by Hermes and Venat... -
06-19-2022, 12:19 AMKizuyaKatogamiConsidering leaving the sundering as it is is causing far more death and suffering in the long run than the rejoinings ever would, i don’t think they could really truthfully show this. Especially when they had said awhile back that the sundering was objectively not a good thing and that it left the world unstable. It’s either leave the sundering as is and allow things like war,illness,rape etc to thrive still across the shards and let those deaths pile up or reset those lives now and prevent that death from continuing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brinne
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06-19-2022, 12:22 AMTeraqSpeak for yourself, please. Granted, I haven't been playing the game from the very beginning, but as someone who finds the vast majority of good guys boring as sin, I never cared for Hydaelyn, and thought the Ascians obviously were going to be developed more. It doesn't matter how long I've heard Hydaelyn repeat at me the same damn words, because she had always been a non-entity to me before Shadowbringers dropped a nugget of information that finally piqued my interest: the possibility of her being not that good.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
I would posit Shadowbringers was critically acclaimed exactly because it brought much needed nuance to the boring "Hydaelyn good, Zodiark bad".
But as Endwalker went on to prove, the story becoming morally grey was a fluke at best.
Debatable, but they could have very well left him in some sort of sleep mode to ward off the Dynamis waves until they found a way to deal with them.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
Correct. This implies that Ancients would have had to forge ahead anyway, had they been afforded the chance to.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
umQuote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
look I'm an Eli simp but he, like everyone else in the FFXIV universe, was unaware the 8th UC timeline did, in fact, continue. And as you pointed out, they didn't seem to have any practical knowledge of time travel, only theories of what might happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
The fact remains that an AU was possible. -
06-19-2022, 12:36 AMLauront
I still think one of the biggest missed opportunities with the Zodiark fight was for them not to have the ancient souls in Zodiark rise up to undermine Fandaniel's control over him and oust him. Besides being visually cool, they'd get some form of revenge against him and it'd make sense as a collective effort of sundered and unsundered to safeguard the star.
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06-19-2022, 12:50 AMRulakirIt's the same story regardless of whether it took you 10 years and me 3 months. I could say, if anything, I should be more willing to accept Venat as the 'good guy' because I didn't have as much time to sit with ShB as others did. I got 'her side of the story' rather quickly after completing ShB.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
I never had a good feeling about Hydaelyn in the same way as I'd feel about VIKI from I, Robot. A soft, feminine voice doesn't automatically equate to 'good guy' in my head. As I went through the story, I didn't see anything that changed my perception of her. She tells Minfilia to stay behind, who yells "No!", but ultimately ends up pressured into it anyway. Next time I see her she's been turned into a puppet and tells me that she'd been abandoned in the aetherial sea until she offered her body to Hydaelyn. The next time I see her after that, Urianger has to force her hand to save the First and Ardbert is (rightfully) angry at her for having abandoned their world. This is all still in HW, long before ShB, and directly coming from her and her biggest fan Minfilia without the supposed Ascian bias of ShB.Quote:
Starting from ARR, Hydaelyn was portrayed as the opposite and supported us with a calm voice against the people who tried to kill us over and over. You can't exactly walk that back after a decade.
While I did view the Ascians as generic villians up until ShB, I figured there was still some element of truth in what they were saying and we'd learn about it eventually.
Ultimately, it sounds like we had very different subjective interpretations of the story the game was presenting. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, especially as I do not like black & white, protagonist centered morality. I prefer and wanted nuance, which I thought I was going to get until 6.0 happened. I didn't see it as a "twist for the sake of a twist" at all, in fact, I consider that EW tried to subvert expectations and that's one of the many reasons the narrative didn't work.
Edit: Does Hydaelyn intervene on the WoL's behalf outside of Lahabrea and the Ultima Weapon? I'm blanking on her assisting us any further than that. -
06-19-2022, 12:52 AMLaurontAre we forgetting that those souls were inside Zodiark this whole time, in a state of purgatory? And it was never framed as "the life of the planet", so much as a portion of the life Zodiark would seed. At this point I'm afraid I fail to see the relevance of tempering, either. Particularly when Emet-Selch could simply change course. It never is implied to have warped their decision making at the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
I think if anything, Emet was more horrified by it than Hyth, but just because the sundered are a people in their own right, it does not mean that they are seen as equivalent to the ancients from their vantage point; they are materially different life forms, with their own foibles. The fact that the ancients share in some of these does not negate that they differ in traits. Even Emet-Selch, after 12k years of encounters with them, at best comes to see them as child-like beings. This is not how you see members of your own people. Of course because they are living, thinking creatures, this causes him some anguish and makes it harder for him, but as a member of the Convocation, he had a duty to his people and the star - it just comes at a great expense to the sundered. To me, a big part of the blame here goes to the lady that caused this unfortunate mess, no matter how much she may call the sundered her 'children'. While what the Ascians did to the sundered is obviously a bloodbath, she knew enough to know how he would react and most likely, what his sense of duty to his own people and the star itself would result in. The Ascians certainly knew of time travel, and it is clear the ancients had at the least a good theoretical understanding of it, but as we saw with G'raha, it is fraught with risk, because it carried with it the risk that changing time could erase their entire timeline. That alone would've dissuaded them from it. Now we know it can result in AUs, but hindsight is 20/20. :)Quote:
The Ascians didn't have the ability to time travel. In order to get back what was lost, they committed themselves to destroying multiple worlds and decimating the main world 13 times. At a certain point you have to wonder how someone like Hythlodeus would feel about Emet-Selch slaughtering billions in order to undo the sacrifice he made to save the world. The Sundered aren't any less of people than the Unsundered are. Elpis showed us that they are just as prone to self-doubt, mistakes, and violence. They just happened to be a more evolved society and had an insane amount of aether. The Sundered have had 15,000 years since then.
Dead Ends one, two or three according to the story - probably three. Maybe another. Take your pick.Quote:
Who knows what they could have gotten up to if they didn't have the reset button hit on them every 1500 years or so? The Ascians could have even helped them get to a more enlightened point, but instead saw them as nothing but Rejoining fuel.
With their star inexplicably shattered (really, what was stopping Venat from explaining the situation and ending it all if she really did not see this as part of her plan?), and their people degraded into forms they could barely recognise as their own kind (Emet could even see this at the level of the soul), I can't say I entirely blame them for not doing this and instead focusing on restoring their own kind. Emet-Selch is implied to have tried to judge the worth of man repeatedly and found it wanting, and given his burden of duty to the star and his people as Emet-Selch, it is understandable why he would not relinquish his fight until he was certain enough of this to do so in SHB.Quote:
It would have been more interesting if the Ascians and Zodiark played the role of Prometheus and helped the Sundered, but that would have been basically repeating the story of FFXI.
Sure, it would be beneficial for them to fill in the gaps there, but if it turns into more attempts at "ancients bad" and "mommy loves you", I'm afraid I'm just going to wave bye bye.Quote:
All that said, I hope we get one or more Tales from the Dawn or whatever it will be called that goes over the period of time around the time when the Convocation were going to use Zodiark a third time so that we have more context for what was going on in a spot of the lore that deserves more explanation and ties everything together better than the MSQ did.
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06-19-2022, 02:00 AMRulakir
Friendly reminder Xirean set up a discord for this thread. :P
https://discord.gg/htS5TTP2 -
06-19-2022, 03:31 AMaveyond-dreams
There are times when I feel like going back to finish some of the drafts I've written regarding the events of the sundering instead of waiting for a Tales of the Dawn to expand on them but there's something so fundamentally flawed in the writing revolving around Meteion and Hermes' involvement in the plot that I lose confidence no matter what direction I take things in.
A lose/lose situation because on one hand I'd have that roadblock to deal with and other I'd probably be attacked by the Venat stans if I dared to portray her as the fallen angel she literally is regardless of wherever I share my work. Trying to write her as a sympathetic character is also impossible without me adding in my own plot devices and just making things even messier than they already are.
Good luck to whoever is actually tasked with disentangling this mess in order to produce the upcoming Tales of the Dawn chapter, if SE is even willing to go into any further depth with these events in the first place. -
06-19-2022, 03:56 AMCrownySuccubusIn ShB, Emet-Selch directly makes the case that since Zodiark tempered him, he cannot change course. He specifically used it in the context of the Ascians existing solely to obey Zodiark's will.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lauront
https://i.imgur.com/5CPxLgd.png
Like many things, EW changed or ignored this, and we're told Tempering was something that the Ascians deliberately created AFTER the Sundering.
We know that Emet tried to change course, but couldn't for what he felt were justified reasons. But did he come to that conclusion because (according to himself) he was tempered, or were those attempts to fight off the tempering that failed, and he simply justified them later?
It's a chicken-or-egg dilemma. -
06-19-2022, 04:24 AMRulakirI'm half expecting whatever is written for Venat to just be about her and the Watcher, especially after the Omega chain. As much as I'd like to know more about the Final Days, the Sundering, and everything in between I just don't see how they can do it and and portray her as sympathetic. They made it so the sundering was intentional, with knowledge of the future, and based on her beliefs rather than facts so there's no going back now.Quote:
Originally Posted by aveyond-dreams
It's frustrating because I fear it means we'll never know the full details of events foundational to the lore because they can't risk making Venat look bad. Honestly, I feel like her characterization has singularly destroyed the story because for whatever reason they refused to take a nuanced approach to her. -
06-19-2022, 08:17 AMLunaxiaI really wish they would stop openly admitting how much they make up and retcon things on the fly, as much I admire their honesty it doesn't really do much in terms of giving me faith in their writing.Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkoAkure
But I disagree with your premise they couldn't "walk back on" the direction they've taken or that it would have had a negative impact, because they blatantly can and did to rapturous applause in Shadowbringers with the Ascians already. There, they planted the seed that Hydaelyn is a possibly unreliable narrator, and whichever avenue they might have taken with it, be it good, bad, or well-intentioned but misguided, they allowed adequate space for it without necessarily seeming like a last minute plot twist. Unless you think Shadowbringers itself felt that way, in which case that's fair enough, but you can't deny it certainly worked for them. Personally, though I enjoyed what Shadowbringers added to the story, and thought his final scene was beautifully done, I didn't take as readily to Elidibus' sudden transformation into a sympathetic hero. Two or so poorly paced patches didn't feel like enough breathing room for me to suddenly buy into it after the passive role he had taken since ARR, and though I didn't dislike it, I felt almost an expectation to feel similar emotions to what Emet invoked (where he had the benefit of being a much newer character) that I just didn't have. It made me glad we met him again in Endwalker and they subtly reinforced some of the defiance that always underlined the Ascians, particularly after making Emet suddenly rather at peace with the person who was the source of all the suffering inflicted upon him.
On the topic of Zodiark, I don't think it's said anywhere that the souls wouldn't have been returned to them. It doesn't change the fact that no, they could never have returned exactly to the world and the lives they once had, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve as much a chance as anyone else. I agree on the need for more details surrounding Zodiark and what happened post-Final Days, though, it's all very vague at the moment, and a lot of the for-and-against on this subject relies heavily on things we just don't know.
I wanted to talk about this, actually. At one point, I definitely believed this was what they were trying to imply, but it seems as if they discarded that thread and ended up handwaving tempering as a "minor tug" that would not have affected their actions and choices to any great degee and made it a matter of personal devotion to their world? I noticed a few potential plot points seem to have been set up and then later abandoned, perhaps when they decided to make one expansion over two.Quote:
Originally Posted by CrownySuccubus