Shadowbringers and Ivalice

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Originally Posted by TheGrimace

I believe that Mullenkamp, just like Ashley Riot, is one of the characters the Wandering Dramaturge refers to as a previous Zodiac Brave in his diatribes. With that established those characters are probably long dead.

Then again, Lea Monde is a known him of activity for the dead in VS, so... Who knows?

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It will be interesting, really looking forward it

I'm certainly wishing/hoping the region becomes explorable or relevant either to the MSQ (what with the Dalmascan Fusilier showing up) or a continuation of the 24-man (oooh, which could be based more on Vagrant Story, I can picture starting the raid in the wineries of Lea Monde and ending up in the Iron Maiden). That said, as much as I WANT it to happen, trying not to get my hopes up.

About the Ascians being named after the Scions of Light... I think those were references that got out of hand, they probably had a bunch of them named before Matsuno even signed up for 4.0

I wouldn't mind side content carrying on in Dalmasca in 5.0, but I hope we wont be heading there for the expansion, there's so many more places that have been teased for far longer, we already explored Dalmasca basically in a bunch of other games, there'd be no real point in heading there again, maybe further on down the line, but not right now.

I think Radz-at-Han and Thavnair are much more likely areas than Dalmasca, especially given the Dancer rumours (fits perfectly with Thavnair) and the fact Thavnair got a section in the 2nd Lore book (similar to how Doma did)

More 'Ivalice' is inevitable at this point. I'm thoroughly looking forward to it!

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Originally Posted by Chewy2nd

I wouldn't mind side content carrying on in Dalmasca in 5.0, but I hope we wont be heading there for the expansion, there's so many more places that have been teased for far longer, we already explored Dalmasca basically in a bunch of other games, there'd be no real point in heading there again, maybe further on down the line, but not right now.

I think Radz-at-Han and Thavnair are much more likely areas than Dalmasca, especially given the Dancer rumours (fits perfectly with Thavnair) and the fact Thavnair got a section in the 2nd Lore book (similar to how Doma did)

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I could maybe see the continuation of the Dalmasca/Ivalice stuff being in ShB's alliance raids, making it a sort of sequel to Return to Ivalice of sorts. Maybe call it "Hey we're still in Ivalice."

Dalmasca (Ivalice) is the closest country to Thavanir. There's probably a lot of trade that goes back and forth between the two contries. I could see us having Ras-at-Han as the hub city and then some of the other regions of Dalmasca being where most of the expansions zones are. We already know we're getting the Greatwood which can only be in Dalmasca.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

Dalmasca (Ivalice) is the closest country to Thavanir. There's probably a lot of trade that goes back and forth between the two contries. I could see us having Ras-at-Han as the hub city and then some of the other regions of Dalmasca being where most of the expansions zones are. We already know we're getting the Greatwood which can only be in Dalmasca.

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Though it is the Greatwood, where as the tree covered area in Dalmasca is the Golmore Jungle, which extends into Nagxia, I could be totally wrong though. I can see Thavnair having maybe a zone or two, given its small size

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Originally Posted by Iscah

I dislike the heavy reliance on Ivalice. So far it seems to have been implemented with the assumption that everyone is familiar and will appreciate the references. I haven't played any of those games, was thoroughly underwhelmed by the Ivalice raid series (while overwhelmed by the info-dump they tried to put in so I'd "understand" what was going on), and was looking forward to it being over with.... but now it seems like it's becoming a core element of the world setting and MSQ.

I understand that there are many other elements that reference other FF games, but they seem more isolated (eg. the Crystal Tower - one location on one map). The Ivalice setting seems to be taking up a considerable portion of the world map. It seems out of balance.

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I don't often give out likes to prevent discussions from becoming popularity contests, but I just wanted to say I emphatically agree with this sentiment. (Though I did appreciate the monster designs.) While XIV is, by this point, almost built on references, both the frequency and impact of the Ivalice ones outstrip any other. As someone who didn't play any Ivalice titles (not wholly true - I played about half of XII, but didn't like the battle system; story was meh, but maybe I was too young to really appreciate it) I'm not invested in it either and was hoping they'd be done with it after giving it a dedicated raid series.

With Gabranth transposed onto Hydaelyn as an Imperial Legatus, the Viera seemingly slated to be the last playable race, and the Nu Mou being a beast tribe in 5.0, that doesn't seem to be happening.

Sorry I've not been on lately - KHIII finally, but unfortunately my mobage habit has given me the gaming attention span of a fruit fly.

I don't tend to frequent this place these days due to the negativity but from what I've seen elsewhere such references are highly appreciated by the wider community.

if its not part of the overworld, i could see lea monde and snowfly forest being worked into eureka v2 (now that they have the formula down why not use and expand on it?) as its capable of handling a much more mazelike and interconnected map format than a dungeon or raid could

The Au Ra were introduced back in Heavensward, but it was not until Stormblood that we journeyed to their native lands. They may introduce Viera in Shadowbringers and start to fill in lore for their homelands, but not have us go there for another expansion yet. Adding the beast tribe, though, more strongly hints at some of that territory being added as explorable.

I suspect we may get a lot more hints this Saturday from the Paris Fanfest!

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Originally Posted by Dagget

The Au Ra were introduced back in Heavensward, but it was not until Stormblood that we journeyed to their native lands. They may introduce Viera in Shadowbringers and start to fill in lore for their homelands, but not have us go there for another expansion yet. Adding the beast tribe, though, more strongly hints at some of that territory being added as explorable.

I suspect we may get a lot more hints this Saturday from the Paris Fanfest!

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Possible, but to elaborate on that I need to do return to ivalice spoilers.

I suspect that given the stinger scene with the garleans in the Clockwork City and the unresolved Dalmasca rebellion plot with Fran's group, that the 5.0 alliance raid story may be a continuation of the Ivalice story and have us working with them more, though not necessarily with us getting Dalmasca zones. Part of me wouldn't mind if we got a couple Dalmasca zones, but with how I feel the split story in SB hurt both halves of it, I kind of hope the 5.0 msq is more focused and not half of it spent on liberating Dalmasca and Nanxia or something. But it could play into the alliance raid story I think. I'm pretty sure SOMETHING is planned for ShB and Ivalice given that stinger scene...

One of the zones revealed at the NA fan-fest was all but said to have a village of Viera living in it. So unless something really crazy is going on, I'm betting we're getting at least one Dalmasca zone, quite likely more.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

One of the zones revealed at the NA fan-fest was all but said to have a village of Viera living in it. So unless something really crazy is going on, I'm betting we're getting at least one Dalmasca zone, quite likely more.

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I need to review that...I remember a zone or two being name dropped but I forget what we lwearned about them.

We might get another three zones in Othard and three more in Ilsabard. Then when 6.0 swings around, another three zones in Ilsabard and the rest somewhere else.

https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...24bb1ebf88.jpg

anyone see a southern cross there?
in the real world the southern cross is a constellation that can only be seen in the southern hemisphere

it will be funny if that's a hint about Shadowbringers that people over looked and during 5.x we find ourselves in Meracydia

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Originally Posted by Auryan

Huh, interesting conversation. I was until now under the false notion that Ivalice was the area that we may be venturing to. Hence the mention of the Nu Mous, Viera, Bangaas and so many nods from the raids and quests. Now it dawned on me that I mistook the "new world" for Ivalice when it's likely or possibly Vana'diel, in some form. I guess I didn't pay as much attention to the Return to Ivalice series as I should have.

I really thought XIV's version of Ivalice was a continent and not an extinct kingdom. Then the Viera jungles and Nu Mou territories are located in Eorzea?

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No. The New World is NOT Vana'diel - they've said multiple times that they are two different worlds. Neither was Ivalice in Eorzea - it was in Othard.

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Originally Posted by Kupocoubo

To me explorable mean you can ride the mount of your choice while visiting this place

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By that definition Ul'dah, Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, Ishgard, and Kugane aren't explorable.

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Originally Posted by Kupocoubo

Thanks for the clear map ! We can also see the Greylands, which is part of Vagrant Story

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It says Greylic's Bend, not Greylands.

So is the new expansion going to take place in Ivalice? Maybe Ivalice and Garlean empire

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Originally Posted by PogueX

So is the new expansion going to take place in Ivalice? Maybe Ivalice and Garlean empire

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Impossible to be both at the same time, because the Garlean Empire is a thing now, while Ivalice is an ancient lost kingdom, and the two do not exist in the same timeframe.

However, if time travel is going to be a thing in this expansion, then who knows.

the best guess is for the orient we will explore dalmasca and try to stop whatever gabranth want to do with the remain of goug. while we go to the world of light for stop the 8th calamity to happend, for the west maybe more place between the empire and eorzea, but don't expect us to reach the empire we are stil super far.

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Originally Posted by PogueX

So is the new expansion going to take place in Ivalice? Maybe Ivalice and Garlean empire

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Ivalice doesn't exist any more - it's a nation from an unknown past Astral Era. The nation that now exists in its former territories is Dalmasca, which is part of the Garlean Empire.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

the best guess is for the orient we will explore dalmasca and try to stop whatever gabranth want to do with the remain of goug. while we go to the world of light for stop the 8th calamity to happend, for the west maybe more place between the empire and eorzea, but don't expect us to reach the empire we are stil super far.

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There is no between the Empire and Eorzea, the two border each other.

I'm thinking we'll see some form of continuation of the RTI story in the form of Fran's group and whatever was found in Goug, but I think the game is done with ancient Ivalice.

If we do end up going to another shard or something, my guess is that the expansion will be part western Othard dealing with that region, the Viera etc, and one part time travel or other shard or whatever. And the keynote teasing has me guessing that the main city will be Radz-at-han with Dancer as the second job, but we'll see in March what the city and job are for sure.

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Originally Posted by DarthSanguine

There is no between the Empire and Eorzea, the two border each other.

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can i be means? tell me yes....well i will be:

http://i.imgur.com/qYMg2XF.jpg

here the world map, you can see the empire is in middle of the cloud, we are kinda far of it....
if that was the only thing left to explore, yes, we will be able to go to it.... however, it's not case, worst, what we learn from the story don't tell us about going after the empire.... the empire is kinda pointed like the dark side of our world... why we will need to become a warrior of darkness, the empire is not the light....

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

can i be means? tell me yes....well i will be:

http://i.imgur.com/qYMg2XF.jpg

here the world map, you can see the empire is in middle of the cloud, we are kinda far of it....
if that was the only thing left to explore, yes, we will be able to go to it.... however, it's not case, worst, what we learn from the story don't tell us about going after the empire.... the empire is kinda pointed like the dark side of our world... why we will need to become a warrior of darkness, the empire is not the light....

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The capital city of Garlemald is in the middle of the cloud. What he means is that everything within that cloud is Imperial territory, either other Garlean cities or conquered nations.

I do not think we are going to visit the empire right away...

*Yoshida releases full trailer and we are in the palace room killing Varis while the capital burns as the alliances win*

But maybe we are like, taking care of all the "provinces", as far as we know the empire is pretty much Rome and Rome fell exactly because it began to lost cohesion towards the provinces, we've seen deserters all the time from imperial legions and damn, even rogue ex-legatuses. I think this expansion will be the pave road towards the central part of Garlemald while uncovering maybe all the southern regions of Ilsabard and Western Othard. Maybe finally visiting Thavnair, Nagxia, Dalmasca, and going further north of there into the Southern Provinces. The other route would be through Ghimlyt Dark and east-northeast, probably the fastest yet more heavily defended road towards Rome/Garlemald.

All that assuming we are visiting those regions in OUR reflection, as time/dimensional travel has been pretty much confirmed. We might be going to "re-visit" our regions, or regions inside our explored geography that we have yet to see in game properly. I do know the regions showcased seemed pretty alien to me, that or they were displaying a few tech upgrades to their graphics, i gotta yet to see them in detail though. Also i don't have the encyclopedias cause my country sucks and probably those regions are already know both in location and maybe even dimension.

it's not time travel and that thanks to yoshida that we know it... while the keynote they did admit that Rak'tika greatwood was the house of the viera.... but! we know that the forest from where are coming the viera of dalmasca is called Golmore jungle!

a good map of dalmsca area: https://i.imgur.com/dxW1myy.png

in this map, we have no rak'tika greatwoord.... means it's possible it's the name of golmore jungle in another shard, like the first shard that is satured of light and more need a warrior of darkness than a warrior of light for stop the 8th calamity!

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

it's not time travel and that thanks to yoshida that we know it... while the keynote they did admit that Rak'tika greatwood was the house of the viera.... but! we know that the forest from where are coming the viera of dalmasca is called Golmore jungle!

in this map, we have no rak'tika greatwoord.... means it's possible it's the name of golmore jungle in another shard, like the first shard that is satured of light and more need a warrior of darkness than a warrior of light for stop the 8th calamity!

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I also watched the keynote and live letter. Where did they say it's not time travel? Or are you just saying that because you've concluded that the forests must be alternate versions of each other?

Just because we know one forested area is called the Golmore Jungle, doesn't mean that the Rak'tika Greatwood can't exist elsewhere.

From memory, the Dramaturge said that one clan of Viera live in the jungle, and the other in more temperate forest (further north?). It's quite possible that the Greatwood is the home of this second clan.

exept northern from there we have the map and no forest there...
like said the fact that they have hint that rak tika is the home of a viera race while they are from golmore jungle is from the get go is strange, is true that they haven't said is not time travel, but they haven't talk of time travel too, but my point is the whole idea of time travel come from one line, when every hint, point to the first shard.... the sole presence of minfilia as envoy of hyadelin (her eyes hint to it) and the fact to say that we need to be a warrior of darkness.... is hint big enough.... if we had the capacity to time travel....
why only go back to stop the 8th calamity?
why not go stop dalmud and the release of bahamut?
why not go back in time for stop every calamity? why not go and stop even the creation of the empire!

time travel is a mess.... without a very solide story you will be filled with paradox.... alexander is a perfect example of this.... the whole story of alexander is a time paradox.... since the two that did go back in time, are born from the clan they have themself create!
any author or scenarist will say you.... that time travel is the most dangerous and complicate setup to use without breaking everything! the theory about time travel.... is bogus....

My thought is that the expansion will be half southern Othard, half...something else. Whether it's another shard or time travel or on the empire's continent IDK, but that's my thought.

With the dangling plot threads of Fran's resistance group and Dalmasca still needing liberation, and the Viera likely living in the Greatwood, that's my guess. It felt like they intentionally left some open plot threads in Return to Ivalice with Dalmasca.

They also teased the second job was related to the expansion's main city. And with Dancer likely being it, I'm going to say Radz-at-han is the main city. It's geographically close enough to southern Othard to serve the same purpose Kugane did to east Othard. Dancer lore seems like it could easily tie into it.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

exept northern from there we have the map and no forest there...
like said the fact that they have hint that rak tika is the home of a viera race while they are from golmore jungle is from the get go is strange

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No, it's not strange that Viera can be found somewhere other than the Golmore Jungle because it has been said in the game that they can be found in another location as well.

I went and checked the quote.

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WANDERING DRAMATURGE
The word "Viera" itself means "people of the wood," and true to that name, both the Rava and the Veena make their homes exclusively in the Golmore Jungle, or the primeval forests which line the southwestern foothills of the Skatay Range, respectively.

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The punctuation can be misleading at a glance, and it might be misread as saying that the Golmore Jungle is the primeval forest, but the "respectively" makes the intended meaning clear: the Rava clan live in the Golmore Jungle, and the Veena clan in the forests around the Skatay Range to the north (for which he conveniently failed to mention the name of that forest!).

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

if we had the capacity to time travel....
why only go back to stop the 8th calamity?
why not go stop dalmud and the release of bahamut?
why not go back in time for stop every calamity? why not go and stop even the creation of the empire!

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Because that would break the entire timeline by affecting the events that utimately led to us going back in time in the first place.

I happen to still be unconvinced that we're going to be undoing anything, particularly given our main example of how time logic works in this story, but that doesn't rule out any form of time travel plot.

The Alexander plotline, convoluted as it is, is an example of time travel not breaking the timeline.

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Originally Posted by silentwindfr

time travel is a mess.... without a very solide story you will be filled with paradox.... alexander is a perfect example of this.... the whole story of alexander is a time paradox.... since the two that did go back in time, are born from the clan they have themself create!

any author or scenarist will say you.... that time travel is the most dangerous and complicate setup to use without breaking everything! the theory about time travel.... is bogus....

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There are paradoxes in the Alexander story, certainly - but there's actually a critical difference between kinds of paradox.

Paradoxes are a problem if they alter the timeline in ways that would affect your ability to alter things in the first place.

If you accidentally kill your past self or an ancestor, you should no longer exist, therefore you couldn't be there to cause that death in the first place.

If you successfully prevent a past disaster from happening, it never happened, therefore you don't know about it and won't try to prevent it.


The Alexander storyline is a stable time loop - it runs on a different kind of time logic that avoids these "timeline-breaking" paradoxes altogether. Instead there are oddities that make you ask "how did this ever happen in the first place?" but the fact is that it did happen, and always will have happened, and there is no alternate version of the timeline where it didn't happen.

There is only one timeline that runs from past to future, but at some points people (or things) will relocate to a different position on that timeline. They may experience a certain period of time twice or multiple times by travelling back and going though that period of time again, though as a separate entity from their past self. And it always happened that way.

There are things that probably shouldn't have happened, but they did, and in the end nothing happens that prevents past events from taking place.

If, say, Mide had died partway through the story - let's say Quickthinx shot her at some point after losing his "book of predictions" - that would create a paradox because she needs to survive so she can go back in time and become her own ancestor.

But from another perspective - she will not die partway through, because a past event (returning to found the Hotgo tribe in her future, our past) has happened, therefore she cannot have died before reaching that point.

Therefore, Quickthinx still might shoot her with the intent to kill her, but it will not, cannot, already did not happen. He'll miss, or the gun will jam, or someone will stop him before he pulls the trigger. There is no possibility that he will succeed, because it is provable that he did not.



It's certainly a tricky kind of story to write, and to get your head around how all the parts of it play together.

By the nature of it, there will be "paradoxes". Things will happen that could never have happened if there wasn't time travel occurring.

But if it's mapped out well, the final result balances out.

Maybe Event A couldn't happen without strange time-travel events causing Event B, and Event B couldn't happen without something triggered by Event A.... but what matters in the end is that both of those events did happen, and can support each other's existence because it never played out any other way.



Also, if you can grasp how it works, there are all sorts of clever things that can be done in a "no paradoxes" timeline. You can mess around with "what actually happened" versus "what is thought to have happened".

You can accidentally, or deliberately, cause a past event to happen.

You can attempt to stop a past event from occurring, only to create the circumstances that make it happen in the first place.

You can take your knowledge of what happened in a past event and use it to your advantage. Say you can freely travel in time, and need a magical artifact that was stolen three years ago by a thief who vanished without a trace? Time to start planning a heist, because you know it's going to work. If you're lucky, there might even be notes about how the thief carried out their plan.
(And then it all goes wrong anyway because your rival had the same idea, came to the same place at the same time, and beat you to being the thief.)

Usually it comes with all sorts of "don't let your past self see you" warnings, but I'd love to see a plot (not necessarily in this game) that actually works with this. A regular time traveller might be able to plan to be in two places at once, and "help themself out".