Revelations from Dawntrail (7.0)

Regarding lalafells:

Tthe milala you talk to in the air themed garden’s msq, right next to the aetheryte. He says that he comes from xyz village and that the people there greet each other with “lali-ho”. I cannot see any way a greeting that specific could evolve independently twice, so I can only conclude that this means some of the milala dimension hopped again at some point (as krile’s parents say they were trying to do) and became the ancestors of dwarves.

I cleared a while ago and might have spent too long digesting this one, but let's see what I can cough up.

WoL dialogue choices (MSQ clear)

I second the feeling that Wuk Lamat stole all my lines. I get that she needs someone edgy to play off of to seem more idealistic, really not thrilled about it being me.

Also, when Gulool Ja is asking the WoL about family, I wanted to outright namedrop the Scions or at least mention something to the effect of found family (given the direction he was about to be taken in), but it wouldn't let me. Endsinger did happen, right? What's with the aloof card?

That Final Zone

I think some variant of Memoria was inevitable. Where FFIX's was the heart of the FF multiverse (!?!?) and included some surprise bosses from earlier games, this one was trying to serve FFIX nostalgia except, as many times as I've played that game, I don't actually remember riding a gondola. That definitely happens in Fantasian, though.

I liked the plausible deniability gondola date. G'raha has no way of knowing this, but the Exarch's timeline did actually survive, but it was still nice that he was around to point out the elephant in the room after seemingly ignoring it through Endwalker.

I could have lived without Amaurot 3 as the final dungeon, though. It's a good recipe for a setpiece dungeon, but I miss the sheer spectacle of the Aetherochemical Research Facility.

All that grumbling aside, I really like Sphene. I feel like the story is usually pretty naive with how it throws about phrases "at any cost" when there's not much cost to be paid, but the entire Alexandria arc goes there. I think she might have actually improved on FFIX Garland by having a slightly more tangible objective than weird metaphysical terraforming. An Ascian was definitely involved in the groundwork here, but I'm curious how and why it got cut short. To be continued in 7.X?

Good Boys All Around

Like, seriously, though. Did the NPC team wake up one day and suddenly remember that Hyur boys are cute? Between the Viper storyline and MSQ post-95, I ate really well, but had no idea any of that was going to be on the menu. That's on top of Bakool Ja Ja earning his card and keeping it, and the surprise Gulool Ja we didn't even know existed.

I was totally expecting Zekowa to live up to his character archetype (the "young gun") and win the duel but die anyway because his opponent was using live ammo, but he circumvented that possibility entirely by drawing faster and shooting the gun. We're not in Heavensward anymore, Toto.

I'm glad that extradimensional lookalikes aren't limited to Rowena and Gerolt.

Shepetto... just kind of exists? You can check in on him after certain events and his position and dialogue changes, but I still don't know why we have a unique face model on a character with only 5 lines in the MSQ. That entire settlement was strangely underutilized.

Overall, I'd put this one around Stormblood tier. Good, but not the best. I think it knew it had the thankless task of being a breather episode after Endwalker and did the best it could within those parameters.

MSQ

The story was fine. Did I tear up in some places? Yeah, but not as much or as often as in Shadowbringers or Endwalker. I didn't expect the mamool ja bath dancer to be on the boat. Nor any nods to the silverbacks from Wander's Palace Hard. I really wanted to be able to have an option when we 1st met Bakool Ja Ja that he's not as special as he thinks due to us having beaten up a different two-headed mamool ja. Also didn't expect Krile again to be the only one to bring up you being a respected healer (if you were playing as one) or that you have culinary skills if you at least unlocked culinarian.

At one point when Koana was still super focused on his belief that only future innovations were the way to go if the story wasn't some kind of allegory for Japan. As many a time the country has needed to find its way and a middle ground of going forward with innovation while also understanding why some still prefer the older ways of doing things. While also having a part of the country's ruling power seeking war for one reason or another.

I do wonder if those who followed Zoraal ja or placed their hopes for him to win really understood what it meant when it came to things like more territory to trade or more farm land. As I'm not certain any of them thought that meant what it really would have meant.

I was fine with Wuk's involvement in the story even in the 2nd half. In the 1st we're meant to be a mentor. After all everyone who knows us has told Wuk Lamat that not only are we a very experienced fighter, but that we're world traveler. In the second half it makes sense to me for her to come along and jump into things. Even at the end of the 3rd trial. I'm not sure if you're supposed to use a healer LB for the 2nd count down or not. I just know that when my group got to that point both times due to us wiping we used it to raise about half the group or more. If that's actually what you're supposed to do then wow.

But I also felt bad for Krile as she barely got any screen time and any time she tried to ask more about her earring or why Gaulf had been there she got told "sorry it's not my place to say." I also felt bad for Erenville as even tho he was our narrator I got the impression that someone didn't like him as the poor man just kept on having the worst time except when he teamed up with Thancred for one part of the feat of repast.

I also expected him to blow up at his mother sooner than he did with all of the "My fussy little bunbun." and the constant use of his birth name despite him telling her and Iyaate of his chosen name.

I don't know about anyone else, but I was starting to become suspicious of Wuk Evu as he kept on showing up everywhere only to give us exposition or a help of some kind. Didn't expect Ketenramm to still be alive l, but he looks good for an old man that's been asked to keep an eye on the mamook mamool ja and the gate. I did think that he had died when his full set of tablets had been stolen.

It does feel a bit strange that Bakool ja ja didn't get punished for all of the crappy things he did until he got beaten by Wuk Lamat. Yet I don't think he would have even tried to become a claimant if he hadn't been conditioned to think the way he had by his father and those who were staunch believers in Blessed Siblings. I also find it sad, but hilarious that only in the Japanese version Bakool the mighty's laugh sounds like donkey/monkey laughter. Which to me makes it feel as the devs were trying to hint at much more about him by giving him that laugh.

Um when did Vrtra have kids? Or are we to assume those were actually Azdaja's kids? Cause all throughout Endwalker it was only the dragon or a dragon. Even Vrtra himself never mentions having a brood of his own and most of the ones shown were way bigger than what you'd think his would be if they were fairly young.

Also where are we sure Galool ja isn't a clone of Zoraal ja? We get zero mention of his mother and those two are the only mamool ja we ever see in Heritage Found, Solution Nine or Living Memories. That and it feels strange that the body Otis is in is of a blue skined Hoobigo. Especially if he supposedly has been in that machine for a few hundred years.

Sphene is the poorest villain ever and that's even putting her under Grynewaht. For me she just felt like a worse version of Meteion. I get that she's an AI, but you're going to tell me that there was no way to convince her even a little bit to change her ways? Cause yes death and loosing friends, family, lovers sucks but it doesn't mean that they're gone the instant they died.

Normally I'll go and poke npcs to see what they said, but when I reached Living Memory I just couldn't be bothered to clicked on any of the ones the msq or the few quests we get in the zone didn't have us interact with. Cause I couldn't care less. I tend to be very empathetic, but if you can't even get me to care enough about some random npc I'm about to delete the memories of then there's something wrong.

I haven't done any of the Doh/Dol stuff outside of the initial quests. I did however like that if you're a Viera the non quest giving Viera for the Bnt/min quest mentions that they think it'll be fun working with two other Viera. I also liked that if you at least have blue unlocked that you could mention knowing Martyn in the fishing quest.

I have also only done the caster and healing role quests. The caster one took til the lv98 one to start to annoy me. The healing one annoyed me the instant we meet the antagonists. We at least learn why the guy in the caster is doing what he is doing, but the two in the healing never say why Ellerete and Kokonowa are doing what they are doing outside the fact that their mischief was never liked in the past. And I mean in the why do they think their mischief should be seen in a better light. As it felt that their tricks were misunderstood. I also felt the role quests felt like Hildibrand light and that scares me due to knowing we will have more Hildibrand later on. I used to not mind Hildibrand until Godbert for the relic quests revealed that the secret ingredient for one of the steps was literally sweat.

Oh and why was Estinien even in the MSQ? He felt so out of place. Yes we knew he would be somewhere in Tural due to the cutscene in 6.55 and the trailer, but he just felt so disconnected from everything else. I'm pretty sure you could have taken him out of the MSQ and it wouldn't have changed much except for when he could show off that yes he is fully capable of taking care of all the hover bikes.

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

Regarding lalafells:

Tthe milala you talk to in the air themed garden’s msq, right next to the aetheryte. He says that he comes from xyz village and that the people there greet each other with “lali-ho”. I cannot see any way a greeting that specific could evolve independently twice, so I can only conclude that this means some of the milala dimension hopped again at some point (as krile’s parents say they were trying to do) and became the ancestors of dwarves.

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That part's probably more joke than anything, but my read:

Perhaps dwarves are just more common than lalafel across the shards, for whatever reason; maybe the Source's lalafel would've been like that too, but constant calamities meant that the lalafel eventually lost that culture through much more cycles of migration, integration and diaspora, until eventually winding up in the South Sea Isles among other places.

Really though, it's just a joke relating to the fact that FFIX also had the 'lali-ho'-style dwarves off in their own community; Conde Petie didn't survive, so we're not exactly able to visit.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

WoL dialogue choices (MSQ clear)

I second the feeling that Wuk Lamat stole all my lines. I get that she needs someone edgy to play off of to seem more idealistic, really not thrilled about it being me.

Also, when Gulool Ja is asking the WoL about family, I wanted to outright namedrop the Scions or at least mention something to the effect of found family (given the direction he was about to be taken in), but it wouldn't let me. Endsinger did happen, right? What's with the aloof card?

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They're going for vagueness in a few places, and I personally liked it.

In both this scene with Otis and Gulool Ja, and the gondola scene with G'raha, we're given choices that we never would have before; I can easily see a world where the Gulool Ja scene isn't a question and just shows us a freeze-frame of one of the Scion gatherings, and similarly where G'raha's question about if we have someone we'd want to see again with a flashback to Harchefaunt (there's realistically like a dozen characters they could pick from there, but let's not kid ourselves, it'd just be Harchefaunt).

I think it's a good angle; for all FFXIV likes letting us define the WoL's verbal responses to things, they've never been this willing to define their emotional responses, and I found it really refreshing that this time they actually let me choose that. I liked being able to say 'yeah my WoL feels they have a found family' (without the game declaring one for me) and 'no my WoL doesn't want to revisit the dead' without the game butting in and going 'no your WoL still mourns and regrets the death of this one specific man and nobody else'.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

They're going for vagueness in a few places, and I personally liked it.

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I feel like there were a lot of moments in DT that were handled with a bit more subtlety than normal, and it was a really nice change of pace. The one that stuck in my head was...

The scene between Wuk Lamat and her real dad, after we save him from Bakool Ja Ja - so much of their interaction was left to subtext, and I feel like the scene hit a lot harder for it.

The gondola scene was a big one for me as well - I was immediately bracing myself for the Hauchefant freeze-frame, so it was a pleasant surprise that they let you just... read into it whatever you wanted. More of that, please!

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Originally Posted by 17cupsofcoffee

I feel like there were a lot of moments in DT that were handled with a bit more subtlety than normal, and it was a really nice change of pace. The one that stuck in my head was...

The gondola scene was a big one for me as well - I was immediately bracing myself for the Hauchefant freeze-frame, so it was a pleasant surprise that they let you just... read into it whatever you wanted. More of that, please!

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I don't disagree with this in principle, but...

...for my WoL it's a really awkward question considering it's G'raha asking. Both times the subject came up, the "good" choice felt like it was phrased in such a way as to specifically rule out the intent I would have gone for. A vague "I already did" might have preserved the intended segue while not clearly specifying any particular miraculous rescue.

To me it felt like the choices were between "I don't have people I care about" or "Yes, I would absolutely tarnish Haurchefant's memory with necromancy" and neither of those really fit. Even G'raha's response ultimately led to "but not like this," and after Amaurot it kind of already feels like the WoL could have landed at that conclusion. An option to acknowledge that I haven't been sleeping in class for the past five years would have been nice.

("Call his name" was such a good option in Shadowbringers. You didn't have to pick it, but it was perfect for the people who wanted to.)

Wild speculation about races.

I wonder if all the races used to be bigger the closer to the sundering we get. As if you talk to the High Luminary he says that most Yok Huy aren't able to grow as tall as he is after they retreated from the north. That his people used to be his height on a regular basis. Which got me thinking of well what if the other races also used to be a lot bigger than what they are today? Just with all the wars and whatnot no one else has been able to keep as continuous record of their history as the Yok Huy have due to seemingly a lack of interference by the Ascians. I know it's just one example and that the illness they encountered seemed to be the culprit as to why they're no longer able to reach such heights and it would be a tad far fetched if that is also the reason why no other race retained a part of them that made them stand out.

I doubt it's sheer coincidence that

A post sundering world expanding empire didn't exist and didn't somehow have the ability to cross to the other reflections. As we find isn't Ronkan but looks the same structures at the end of the "It belongs in a museum." dungeon including a serpent of not Ronka. We also see the same structure in the floor 70 area of Heaven on High which we know was made if not repurposed by the Allagans. Along with it showing up in the 1st as Ronkan great serpent and all.

Level 98, arrived in Solution Nine.

I said at some point in the past that I didn't want S9 to be an evil empire because it would be too similar to Eulmore, and it seem that prediction has turned out right. So far it's feeling like the same vibe dressed up in sci-fi tropes but Vauthry's a pretty girl and the citizens know what's in the meol.

I've also written, perhaps a little too fervently, about the alternate (now thoroughly debunked) possibility of it being "just another town" with an unusual aetherial situation and architecture to suit, and I still think I would have preferred that low-stakes approach to make it just a fun town to arrive in, not feeling wary and ominous.

I'm assuming Sphene is some kind of aetherial construct or equivalent.

Also the whole "calamity in the reflection" thing goes against everything that was explained to us in Shadowbringers about how calamities work; doubly so when it sounds far more like they caused a Flood of Lightning, which the Ascians should have known about - which they briefly let us suggest, then skimmed straight over. Maybe it could work if the accelerated time in the shard means the Flood happened really recently by Source time, to the degree that it hadn't yet occurred in Shadowbringers, and everyone there is now using the term "calamity" generically to describe a disaster and not an Umbral Calamity.


On the general subject of redoing things that Shadowbringers did first, it feels like the writers now feel obliged to have some kind of "all your past allies come together to help you get to the important objective" scene every time. It was great in Shadowbringers, probably necessary in Endwalker as the grand finale of everything, but now it's feeling a bit formulaic.


I'm bothered by the logic of how Cahciua has an American accent and not the same as Erenville. Also figuring there's a strong chance she's actually dead and it's just her memories in the bot.

Still waiting on an explanation of how Erenville actually came to be regular friends with Wuk Lamat as kids if he was living over in Yyasulani and she was in Tuliyollal. Parents were friends, I guess, so maybe some regular visits where they were playmates by default, which would explain the mismatched "we're best friends since childhood" / "we're just acquaintances" attitudes. But they make it sound more frequent than that.


Finding exact copies of the Ahm Araeng railroad team is also a bit jarring, but I guess now we can know what Magnus's wife Agna looked like. I was hoping they might go and redo some of those flashback narrative screenshots to actually show her, though I guess that would ideally require them to make a child Hrothgar model as well for their son. (They should use it as an excuse, and finally make all the other races' child models as well.)

This expansion's character modelling budget has evidently gone into filing out the Mamool Ja though, with two types of female characters and the children as well - which (come to think of it) is perhaps why we've ended up with recycled beast tribes for the other village groups.


I'm going to guess that the Hhetsaro tribe is going to be one of our "society quest" groups in the patches. Unless they're suddenly going to get some big role in the finale, it seemed a bit weird to have us detour to a town just to say "hello, nice to meet you, goodbye" and then have no further plot with them. Or are they involved in one of the role quests?


Nice to see Alisaie finally saying "Raha" in line with the Japanese version. I wonder if they can go back and edit the previous recorded lines too?


On a minor note, the cities are huge and it takes too long to walk anywhere. Tuliyollal absolutely feels like we should have access to mounts, being all outdoors and probably as big as a field zone, and Solution Nine could do with some more of those fancy teleporter pads positioned along the streets so you can speed along the pathways without just teleporting through the aethernet. It would let them give that sense of scale without making it tedious to traverse.

Re: Erenville's accent

they needed just one line where they pointed out that he had adopted an Othardian Viera accent to go with his Viera instead of Shetona name

Child models and Hrothgals

reminding myself that we have no baby Hrothgar model is why Wuk Lamat's backstory with the cenote is unshown and unresolved. I did like seeing the trolley guys again and expanding it to other random NPCs, though they need to do Source counterparts that are explicitly other races so our WoL and Ardbert aren't the weird outlier. Agna was the female Hrothgar to give the clue about what she looked like if any were, but I do hope retroactively the First gets Hrothgal NPCs and another Viera male that isn't Anden. And Bozja.

Gulool Ja Ja's adventuring party

meet-ups and the original Tuliyollal government is my guess for the familiarity, and glad I nailed that was Erenville's backstory instead of a secret fourth prince. The unnamed Hrothgar in the flashback is probably a grandfather of Hunmu and I have a feeling our Alliance Raid into Vana'diel or the Shade's Triangle or Deep Dungeon will have Ketennram call up the other surviving adventure buddy, probably the Moblin, to be the NPC to start us on the questline.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

Gulool Ja Ja's adventuring party

meet-ups and the original Tuliyollal government is my guess for the familiarity, and glad I nailed that was Erenville's backstory instead of a secret fourth prince.

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Ah yeah, that was something I was glad about too.

The theories about him secretly being a prince felt like it would be making him "too special" and I'm glad they didn't go that route in the end.

Krile feels like she might be going somewhere in that direction though.

Another detail I noticed is that the Hrothgar characters in Shaaloani have Tonawawtan names and accents, so that's another culture option for them separate from the Xbr'aal.

Still trying to figure out whether Tonawawtan and Shetona names are the same or separate. It seems logical for them to be separate but thee seemed to be some overlap too. Sidequests are providing a few translations for Shetona place-names too.

Considering we know the Shetona are spread out over vast distances and adopt to where they settle without changing it, including living in abandoned houses (BOT/MIN quests), I think it would make sense for at least the local Shetona to have adopted the Tonawawtan names. Which I'd prefer if that's the case or that the Shaaloani people speak a similar language family (which people have pegged as inspired by Zuni), as one of the elements I like in XIV is that they don't do the 'Planet of Hats' trope for every race and some name themselves via the local dominant culture.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

Considering we know the Shetona are spread out over vast distances and adopt to where they settle without changing it, including living in abandoned houses (BOT/MIN quests), I think it would make sense for at least the local Shetona to have adopted the Tonawawtan names. Which I'd prefer if that's the case or that the Shaaloani people speak a similar language family (which people have pegged as inspired by Zuni), as one of the elements I like in XIV is that they don't do the 'Planet of Hats' trope for every race and some name themselves via the local dominant culture.

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This was my impression as well; as far as I can tell there is some overlap between the names of all the peoples of that region while each retaining some elements are exclusive to each of them.

eta: additional insights from the melee role quests that slipped my mind

The melee role quests feature three Shetona that seem to be from further north of Yyasulani in a forested region, and their names are all very different from each other (Shashepya, I'toca, Kuiyki) as well. I think the hyphenated structure, at least, is unique to them.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

I think it would make sense for at least the local Shetona to have adopted the Tonawawtan names.

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That would make sense, although it's complicated by at least one of the place names (the sightseeing log for the pterandon nesting grounds) that it's specifically a Shetona name.

Yeah and we later get a confirmed Shetona name in the MSQ, so a form of creole would make sense.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

Good Boys All Around

Shepetto... just kind of exists? You can check in on him after certain events and his position and dialogue changes, but I still don't know why we have a unique face model on a character with only 5 lines in the MSQ. That entire settlement was strangely underutilized.

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Someone pointed out that they might be involved in the tribal quests later, so there's that as a possible usage.

Also

Shepetto in particular stood out to me b/c one of his major dialogue contributions was to talk about Koana. And purposely not in a flattering way, imo. I responded to his blunt assessment of Koana with the third dialogue option(said Koana loves his people as much as Wuk Lamat does.), cus the other two felt like running down Koana in front of strangers to me and I didn't want to do that. Shepetto's expression struck me as... less than impressed. The whole interaction left me feeling like there might be something more personal at play there.

Koana told us he originally came from a cat tribe in xak tel that migrated and abandoned him as a kid. I have a feeling there's more to that story; but even if there isn't and he has the right of it, I can't see us just not exploring that backstory at some point. Maybe Shepetto is involved somehow. A cousin or childhood friend or something, maybe. The dad seemed kind enough and didn't give any indication Koana was anything other than a name to him, so I don't think he's secretly the dad who abandoned him; and therefore Shepetto is probably not his brother. But who knows.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

WoL dialogue choices (MSQ clear)

I second the feeling that Wuk Lamat stole all my lines. I get that she needs someone edgy to play off of to seem more idealistic, really not thrilled about it being me.

Also, when Gulool Ja is asking the WoL about family, I wanted to outright namedrop the Scions or at least mention something to the effect of found family (given the direction he was about to be taken in), but it wouldn't let me. Endsinger did happen, right? What's with the aloof card?

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Speak with Wuk Lamat once more.

That is kind of the crux of the problem, though it's arguably a necessity after 2 expansions of the Warrior of Light being the protagonist. The epic payoff of Shadowbringers and Endwalker necessitated tying them into Amaurot's backstory; now that we've left it behind they're kind of adrift. That said the fact Wuk Lamat virtually monopolizes the spotlight really rubbed me the wrong way, when places like Heritage Found / Solution Nine and Living Memory could have easily had more story relevance for supporting characters like Erenville and Krile.

Aside from epic adventures all but making the Scions a found family, there's also the Fortemps back in Ishgard, who we're all but an unofficial adoptee of. Not being able to say "I have many close friends that may as well be family" was, indeed, a very strange thing especially when you know where Gulool Ja Ja is going with it.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

That Final Zone

I think some variant of Memoria was inevitable. Where FFIX's was the heart of the FF multiverse (!?!?) and included some surprise bosses from earlier games, this one was trying to serve FFIX nostalgia except, as many times as I've played that game, I don't actually remember riding a gondola. That definitely happens in Fantasian, though.

I liked the plausible deniability gondola date. G'raha has no way of knowing this, but the Exarch's timeline did actually survive, but it was still nice that he was around to point out the elephant in the room after seemingly ignoring it through Endwalker.

I could have lived without Amaurot 3 as the final dungeon, though. It's a good recipe for a setpiece dungeon, but I miss the sheer spectacle of the Aetherochemical Research Facility.

All that grumbling aside, I really like Sphene. I feel like the story is usually pretty naive with how it throws about phrases "at any cost" when there's not much cost to be paid, but the entire Alexandria arc goes there. I think she might have actually improved on FFIX Garland by having a slightly more tangible objective than weird metaphysical terraforming. An Ascian was definitely involved in the groundwork here, but I'm curious how and why it got cut short. To be continued in 7.X?

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Dead Mall Zone

I see Living Memory as the antithesis of Ultima Thule; it's not bad as a final zone, but really, we could use a little more variety than "already dead civilization(s) recreated from memory." It's definitely meant to invoke Memoria, though the presence of other people and shutting it down are markedly different. (Memoria, in IX, is some kind of weird metaphysical space that also leads you back through spacetime to the original Crystal; the whole reason you have to stop Kuja is because if he succeeds it'll cause a temporal paradox and unmake life altogether.) Whether or not it's the nexus of the Final Fantasy multiverse isn't exactly elaborated upon.

I also liked Sphene, even if she was hamstrung by well... not being Wuk Lamat. I also agree that she improved upon Garland (IX ver.) though in the sense that she had feelings of guilt and remorse, but no option except to stay the course. Garland, to his dying word, feels no remorse or regret for what he does, and Sphene being conflicted about it yet powerless to do anything else puts me in mind of Elidibus (only worse, because there's no indication Elidibus would have chosen a different path were he able to). Getting more screentime and a more sympathetic proper introduction helped immensely (Garland is introduced nuking Alexandria right when you think Bahamut's been routed by Alexander; Sphene is glimpsed during the attack on Tuliyollal but isn't properly introduced until you go to Heritage Found, where she's nothing but as kind and helpful as she can be until Zoraal Ja is dealt with).

Compare Garland's dying thought of "Even if I was created for a singular purpose, I do not regret being born into this world." with one of Sphene's being "I should never have been created." The difference in tragedy is damn palpable.

I'm not yet ready to throw my hat into the "It was Ascians! Again!" ring just yet. I can't imagine they would go through the whole Rejoining business if they had the doohickey that could brute force dimensional fusion, but Yoshi-P did say to remember both the Ascians and the Twelve...

95-97 zone:

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

Someone pointed out that they might be involved in the tribal quests later, so there's that as a possible usage.

Also

Shepetto in particular stood out to me b/c one of his major dialogue contributions was to talk about Koana. And purposely not in a flattering way, imo. I responded to his blunt assessment of Koana with the third dialogue option(said Koana loves his people as much as Wuk Lamat does.), cus the other two felt like running down Koana in front of strangers to me and I didn't want to do that. Shepetto's expression struck me as... less than impressed. The whole interaction left me feeling like there might be something more personal at play there.

Koana told us he originally came from a cat tribe in xak tel that migrated and abandoned him as a kid. I have a feeling there's more to that story; but even if there isn't and he has the right of it, I can't see us just not exploring that backstory at some point. Maybe Shepetto is involved somehow. A cousin or childhood friend or something, maybe. The dad seemed kind enough and didn't give any indication Koana was anything other than a name to him, so I don't think he's secretly the dad who abandoned him; and therefore Shepetto is probably not his brother. But who knows.

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Yeah, there's something there, hopefully MSQ and not allied society related.

At most I was able to deduce that both Shepetto and Koana have purple eyes, though not the same shade of purple. Also, he's height 0 tail 0 (like G'raha) rather than being a new body type, so the illusion of youth is the result of making his head slightly larger than normal, which also makes him slightly taller than my height 4 WoL.

Anyway, if you talk to him after the attack on Tuliyollal, he mentions being treated as too young to fight and (unwillingly) having to stay back, so I think he might be too young to know Koana personally, but there could still be a relation. Erenville mentioned going back to Shaaloani to investigate the increased monster hostility (which is also brought up and left unresolved in the side quests there), so I do think it's likely some part of 7.X will take us back there sooner or later. It will probably end with the WoL and/or Koana acquiring a new fanboy as Koana deals with the unexpected impact of his Ceruleum mining venture.

99-100 Zone:

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Speak with Wuk Lamat once more.

That is kind of the crux of the problem, though it's arguably a necessity after 2 expansions of the Warrior of Light being the protagonist. The epic payoff of Shadowbringers and Endwalker necessitated tying them into Amaurot's backstory; now that we've left it behind they're kind of adrift. That said the fact Wuk Lamat virtually monopolizes the spotlight really rubbed me the wrong way, when places like Heritage Found / Solution Nine and Living Memory could have easily had more story relevance for supporting characters like Erenville and Krile.

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You are definitely not the only one I've heard that complaint from. (My sister cleared MSQ ahead of me and spent the day after bellyaching about Krile's lack of character focus while I was still on Iron Chef).

I'd classify Wuk Lamat as an "expansion heroine" in the vein of Nashmeira from Treasures of Aht Urgan. (They tick a lot of the same boxes, come to think of it.) I like her more than not, but only because I've become very accustomed to that character type at this point. It may be rose-tinted goggles, but I do feel that Alphinaud shared his day in the limelight much more gracefully with Estinien and Iceheart despite the similar level of focus. He was also established back in 2.0 (as was Lyse, a bit indirectly) so it didn't feel like we were suddenly taking a back seat to an entirely new character.

Hopefully we're about to settle into catching up with everyone else now and can just leave patch 7.0 itself as the "hope you like Wuk Lamat" part of the story.

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Aside from epic adventures all but making the Scions a found family, there's also the Fortemps back in Ishgard, who we're all but an unofficial adoptee of. Not being able to say "I have many close friends that may as well be family" was, indeed, a very strange thing especially when you know where Gulool Ja Ja is going with it.

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And here, I get that not everyone playing should be expected to have a writing degree, but I do feel like the WoL was a little more genre-blind than usual despite the fairly obvious lessons in play. I don't dislike the message, per se, but I wish it wasn't so consistently delivered as something my character needed to learn. It took a long time for us to get to the variety of choice we had by Endwalker, so it feels we regressed a bit.

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I'm not yet ready to throw my hat into the "It was Ascians! Again!" ring just yet. I can't imagine they would go through the whole Rejoining business if they had the doohickey that could brute force dimensional fusion, but Yoshi-P did say to remember both the Ascians and the Twelve...

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There's probably a catch to explain why it's not as direct as it seems. The Milalla couldn't use it to go back the way they came, which seemed to suggest their shard was rejoined after they evacuated... until the other shoe dropped and their shard was actually the Source all along. Emet-Selch mentioned both the city of gold and the advanced civilizations on the shards, so it's likely he at least knew about Alexandria and was trying to steer us there. It could also be something as basic as not being capable of the scale required for a complete Rejoining, though we never did see how much Mother Eternal would have merged the dimensions, or if that scale only became possible now that Hydaelyn isn't actively maintaining the boundaries. Please look forward to the expodump.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

Speak with Wuk Lamat once more.

That is kind of the crux of the problem, though it's arguably a necessity after 2 expansions of the Warrior of Light being the protagonist. The epic payoff of Shadowbringers and Endwalker necessitated tying them into Amaurot's backstory; now that we've left it behind they're kind of adrift. That said the fact Wuk Lamat virtually monopolizes the spotlight really rubbed me the wrong way, when places like Heritage Found / Solution Nine and Living Memory could have easily had more story relevance for supporting characters like Erenville and Krile.

Aside from epic adventures all but making the Scions a found family, there's also the Fortemps back in Ishgard, who we're all but an unofficial adoptee of. Not being able to say "I have many close friends that may as well be family" was, indeed, a very strange thing especially when you know where Gulool Ja Ja is going with it.

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Tank Role Quest spoilers:

You cna tell someone Ishgard is a second home to you in the tank role quest, which is close to what you are saying, kinda. I havn't finished them, yet, so I dunno if the Fortemps themselves make an appearance, yet. But yeah.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

95-97 zone:

Yeah, there's something there, hopefully MSQ and not allied society related.

At most I was able to deduce that both Shepetto and Koana have purple eyes, though not the same shade of purple. Also, he's height 0 tail 0 (like G'raha) rather than being a new body type, so the illusion of youth is the result of making his head slightly larger than normal, which also makes him slightly taller than my height 4 WoL.

Anyway, if you talk to him after the attack on Tuliyollal, he mentions being treated as too young to fight and (unwillingly) having to stay back, so I think he might be too young to know Koana personally, but there could still be a relation. Erenville mentioned going back to Shaaloani to investigate the increased monster hostility (which is also brought up and left unresolved in the side quests there), so I do think it's likely some part of 7.X will take us back there sooner or later. It will probably end with the WoL and/or Koana acquiring a new fanboy as Koana deals with the unexpected impact of his Ceruleum mining venture.

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Hope so. He was one of my favorite things to come out of Dawntrail.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

I'm not yet ready to throw my hat into the "It was Ascians! Again!" ring just yet. I can't imagine they would go through the whole Rejoining business if they had the doohickey that could brute force dimensional fusion, but Yoshi-P did say to remember both the Ascians and the Twelve...

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Considering the symbol on it...

was Azem's, even if the ascians were working on it, they probably couldn't get it to work cus Azem ascian-proofed it.

But either way, I doubt Preservation was ascians, cus their goals of preserving people from the lightning would be counterproductive to ascian goals of rejoining. And also, are any ascians gonna be ok with directly consuming soul aether like mako from FF7? If it actually destroys the aoul aether, then I'd think that's a hard no.

Course they could have been involved till they weren't....? Like Allag being set in motion and then left to do w/e stupid stuff it wanted. G'raha even compares Preservation/Alexandria to Allag during one of the dungeons. So what do I know? lol

I'm most interested in the artifact that can bridge worlds having our symbol on it when it activates. Perhaps THIS is what Azem was doing during the Final Days-- finding a way to peacefully bridge the separation that Hydaelyn would cause, without killing everyone to do it. Still leaves the mystery of how Azem knows to pursue this course in the first place? Could be Venat told them, but they also have that unexplained foreknowledge that we'd be showing up for Panda. So they might know about the sundering for the same reason they knew about that, whatever that reason is.

I'm excited to get more answers on this. The idea of leaving what Azem was doing ambiguous always bugged me. If they were truly Emet and Hyth's best friend/found family, they should have been there for them at the end if they were able. Especially for someone who's primary magic is motivated by the idea of friends being there when you need them most. Unless they had a good reason to not be there. Finding a solution to the aftermath of Hydaelyn/Zodiark is a good reason.

Actually, involving that scene, I assumed that the

reason Azem's symbol appeared on it is because we hijacked control over it to use it to summon other Warriors of Light to help us. So its probably a device of Ascian make.

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Originally Posted by Fenral

95-97 zone:

Yeah, there's something there, hopefully MSQ and not allied society related.

At most I was able to deduce that both Shepetto and Koana have purple eyes, though not the same shade of purple. Also, he's height 0 tail 0 (like G'raha) rather than being a new body type, so the illusion of youth is the result of making his head slightly larger than normal, which also makes him slightly taller than my height 4 WoL.

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Regarding the character customisations

I haven't done a direct comparison on heights, but the hairstyle Shepetto uses is the same style (and same face) I use for my character Zi'aba and it is very fluffed up around the back of the head, and I've thought before that it makes his head look bigger than it actually is. It works well for shorter characters since they just end up smaller overall, so making the head look bigger balances them out a bit.

I need to play around with it, but I suspect the actual customisation they've done is just removing the thick eyeliner that has been added to face 3 during the character redesigns, which on the standard faces (and G'raha) is covering up that they've moved changed the shape of the eyelid a lot. At one point while discussing the character changes at the benchmark stage I had experimentally photoshopped a version of Zi'aba with the eyeliner erased back to skin colour, and it ended up looking not unlike Shepetto's face.

I'm generally not happy with the alterations to male Miqo'te faces – not just my own two characters but a lot of NPCs just have an off look about them.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Regarding the character customisations

I haven't done a direct comparison on heights, but the hairstyle Shepetto uses is the same style (and same face) I use for my character Zi'aba and it is very fluffed up around the back of the head, and I've thought before that it makes his head look bigger than it actually is. It works well for shorter characters since they just end up smaller overall, so making the head look bigger balances them out a bit.

I need to play around with it, but I suspect the actual customisation they've done is just removing the thick eyeliner that has been added to face 3 during the character redesigns, which on the standard faces (and G'raha) is covering up that they've moved changed the shape of the eyelid a lot. At one point while discussing the character changes at the benchmark stage I had experimentally photoshopped a version of Zi'aba with the eyeliner erased back to skin colour, and it ended up looking not unlike Shepetto's face.

I'm generally not happy with the alterations to male Miqo'te faces – not just my own two characters but a lot of NPCs just have an off look about them.

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I agree on some of the customization change stuff. Like, the twins have noticeable puffiness under their eyes that I do not recall existing before. Their mom had it, but I thought it was a sign of age, not just a family trait. I mean, I suppose it makes them look more like their mom to have it now, but still, it was jarring. To be fair, I'm mostly not noticing it now. lol

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

I agree on some of the customization change stuff. Like, the twins have noticeable puffiness under their eyes that I do not recall existing before. Their mom had it, but I thought it was a sign of age, not just a family trait. I mean, I suppose it makes them look more like their mom to have it now, but still, it was jarring. To be fair, I'm mostly not noticing it now. lol

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Puffiness under the eyes seems to have been an all-round curse across lots of character models, and in at least one case I think it has been deliberately added and not just the new "realistic" lighting casting shadows differently. It's really disappointing and I hope they can fix it, or change their mind if it was a stylistic choice.

It's making some of my characters look like they haven't slept for a week.

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

Considering the symbol on it...

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I actually think the symbol knocks a lot of theories people are throwing around, while also raising a lot of questions.

So, the key lets people travel across to another shard--possibly just one other shard, possibly multiple, it likely doesn't matter. That makes sense why it pulls up Azem's symbol; they're the traveler, they're exactly the right figure to evoke for a form of impossible transit.

...but the form of transit it provides actually rules out it being made by Azem, because the shards didn't exist until after they did. The key would have been utterly useless back when they were someone who could've made it. On a slightly different tack, it also reasonably wouldn't be the Ascians, who didn't need the extra help to do that. So I'm just left with a big shrug; I don't know who could've possibly made it, or to what end.

...however, the way Sphene talks about it, I can't entirely rule out that it's somehow a trigger weapon being described and evoked by someone who doesn't have a concept of primals. That seems really unlikely, but if it's true, that means EUREKA'S BACK ON THE MENU, BABY!

And as for Preservation: if the Ascians are involved in anything around Alexandria that matters, I think it's there. It smells like them, especially from the angle of, again, the perspective of people who don't know their angles. It reads to me like an Allag-style 'set up a big piece for a big fall', perhaps also mixing in Elidibus' 'controlled opposition' angle. However, I'd also add that if it is an Ascian plan, I don't think it's a successful one; I think they screwed it up even before they started dying to Critical Underestimation Incidents.

I've been calling our new plot MacGuffin the Hougyoku from Bleach, because the parallels are a little too strong. Said jewel was at first theorized to be just a power-up creation but then the theory was too limiting in its true plot vague potential of "grants the secret unacknowledged desires of the holder" - and ultimately it was also the plot device to create the artificial key to open up a dimension to travel to.

The MSQ keeps beating you over the head that its original purpose was more extensive or originally designed for something other

than Shard opening. It only got pigeon-holed into that because the South Seas Lalafell wished for 'escape our island' instead of 'power to melt all the ice'. Speaking of which, until proven otherwise, it is the best explanation for the secret of Gulool Ja's creation.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I actually think the symbol knocks a lot of theories people are throwing around, while also raising a lot of questions.

So, the key lets people travel across to another shard--possibly just one other shard, possibly multiple, it likely doesn't matter. That makes sense why it pulls up Azem's symbol; they're the traveler, they're exactly the right figure to evoke for a form of impossible transit.

...but the form of transit it provides actually rules out it being made by Azem, because the shards didn't exist until after they did. The key would have been utterly useless back when they were someone who could've made it. On a slightly different tack, it also reasonably wouldn't be the Ascians, who didn't need the extra help to do that. So I'm just left with a big shrug; I don't know who could've possibly made it, or to what end.

...however, the way Sphene talks about it, I can't entirely rule out that it's somehow a trigger weapon being described and evoked by someone who doesn't have a concept of primals. That seems really unlikely, but if it's true, that means EUREKA'S BACK ON THE MENU, BABY!

And as for Preservation: if the Ascians are involved in anything around Alexandria that matters, I think it's there. It smells like them, especially from the angle of, again, the perspective of people who don't know their angles. It reads to me like an Allag-style 'set up a big piece for a big fall', perhaps also mixing in Elidibus' 'controlled opposition' angle. However, I'd also add that if it is an Ascian plan, I don't think it's a successful one; I think they screwed it up even before they started dying to Critical Underestimation Incidents.

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the fact the shards didn’t exist yet doesn’t rule out Azem making it. Venat knew what was going to happen and how. She may have confided in Azem what she was planning to do and Azem just needed to be familiar with the mechanism behind the sundering to eventually work out this rift bridge.

Or there’s the more out there idea that Azem knows the future on their own somehow and used that knowledge to give them an idea of what they needed to make. Again, Azem knew we were coming for Pandemonium and nothing has explained how, yet.

Regarding the ascians in the unlost world, I’d have expected their fingerprints to be all over Lindblum and it’s super weapon rather than on Preservation. I mean they could be in both. But the weapon very obviously creates the overwhelming presence of lightning on the shard, which is what you’d need from it for a rejoining. Preservation seems to bring the world back from the brink in a way. Of course, eulmore offered a certain kind of solace from the flood, too, but it ultimately served their plans, so this could be the same. It’s certainly a house made of dubious moral cards, like eulmore.

So i finished the msq a few days ago I've been half disgusted of it to even finish up my thoughts on it. However I decided to go ahead and try to. And if people agree with me they agree if they disagree they disagree.

so i stopped off basically with the first half of it. Which was some of the most boring parts of the game mostly and that is by much either. I still stand by the fact that Wuk Lamat is this worst character I have ever come across in any game, book, or movie that I've laid my eyes upon and took in. People like to tout that she had character growth during the game, however, there was little if any... absolutely none in my estimation. She's an over powered unlikeable Mary Sue/Blackhole Sue and quite honestly looks she's someone's OC character that was put into the game. Her English voice actress from from the previous patches caused me to play it in Japanese which while she was better that doesn't even save the character. Her comedy also fell flat and looked like it tried to emulate Sailor Moon... No Tsukino Usagi had better silly slap stick comedy than what the character Wuk Lamat has. Also she was better written than that cat person.

The whole portion with us going to the wild west version of the world was while better than the beginning of the game still had the plot jacked by something that involved Wuk Lamat and killed any enjoyment that I would have had with it. That's also not mentioning the whole it's the "lawless" wild west but using rubber bullets. I mean even Mch uses an aetherically created bullets for their guns. All in all even though i was running around with Erenville, the enjoyment just wasn't there.

the last areas and last parts of the game... I don't even know where to begin. They took, SHB, Endwalker, as well as pieces of the Matrix and decided to smush it all together in a rewrite... it was horrible. Honestly this is the portion where I'm sitting here holding my head in my hands saying what the.... the whole time. I mean using souls as batteries and putting the memories in a VR system to they can "live on". It kills me to see people constantly go on about the Endless and our characters turning off the computers but not one person is saying a peep about the whole they're using souls as fricken batteries!!!! Like seriously if souls with the memories were going to be going to the aetherial sea when they died the MEMORIES are going to be erased to begin with. What exactly is happening with the actual Soul portion that they're using to raise themselves. are they destroying the souls or what?!?

Then there was what looked like the ass pull of them just so happening to create a treaty between Radz at Han and Tural? All because of Alphinaud and Estinien...

I'm not going to even get started on that "azem" Key Mcguffin... no... just no...

I just really don't know what the writers where thinking when they wrote this....

I've been playing this game since 1.0 Closed Beta... and having to repeatedly start in Limsa in beta didn't even make me hate this game this much. I get that a story can start out slow. Even then a story can be slow but still have hooks in it. This one had absolutely none and quite frankly I'm really starting to wonder if i should even keep my sub.


One more Edit:

I forgot to mention... Krile got shafted HARD in this expansion especially after they said that she would be more of a focus on it. Like i said in another thread... Damn near ever time she dared to asked about her grandfather she was rebuffed with a "we can't talk about it" .... like seriously i'd rather be drip fed and had little parts of the story told as we went along... no we get an echo scene that was narrated and not even a true echo with what happened. The show don't tell is completely lacking in this story.

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Originally Posted by Alleluia

10characters

the fact the shards didn’t exist yet doesn’t rule out Azem making it. Venat knew what was going to happen and how. She may have confided in Azem what she was planning to do and Azem just needed to be familiar with the mechanism behind the sundering to eventually work out this rift bridge.

Or there’s the more out there idea that Azem knows the future on their own somehow and used that knowledge to give them an idea of what they needed to make. Again, Azem knew we were coming for Pandemonium and nothing has explained how, yet.

Regarding the ascians in the unlost world, I’d have expected their fingerprints to be all over Lindblum and it’s super weapon rather than on Preservation. I mean they could be in both. But the weapon very obviously creates the overwhelming presence of lightning on the shard, which is what you’d need from it for a rejoining. Preservation seems to bring the world back from the brink in a way. Of course, eulmore offered a certain kind of solace from the flood, too, but it ultimately served their plans, so this could be the same. It’s certainly a house made of dubious moral cards, like eulmore.

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I have to agree.

I always assumed that the reason for Azem's absconding from society during the Final Days was due to the knowledge of Venat's plan requiring them to be sundered rather than a necessarily ideological objection to the summoning of Hydaelyn, but I think there was at least some acknowledgement that neither endless sacrifices to Zodiark nor the Sundering were ideal solutions. Even Hydaelyn views her trial of mankind as cruel and unjust and borne of urgency rather than being the ideal solution. Going rogue and pursuing a means to mitigate the metaphysical fallout of the two summonings seems in line with Azem's prior characterization, and like Denishia said it seems likely that the Key has other purposes as well.

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Originally Posted by Rannie

What exactly is happening with the actual Soul portion that they're using to raise themselves. are they destroying the souls or what?!?

Then there was what looked like the ass pull of them just so happening to create a treaty between Radz at Han and Tural? All because of Alphinaud and Estinien...

I'm not going to even get started on that "azem" Key Mcguffin... no... just no...

I just really don't know what the writers where thinking when they wrote this....

I've been playing this game since 1.0 Closed Beta... and having to repeatedly start in Limsa in beta didn't even make me hate this game this much. I get that a story can start out slow. Even then a story can be slow but still have hooks in it. This one had absolutely none and quite frankly I'm really starting to wonder if i should even keep my sub.


One more Edit:

I forgot to mention... Krile got shafted HARD in this expansion especially after they said that she would be more of a focus on it. Like i said in another thread... Damn near ever time she dared to asked about her grandfather she was rebuffed with a "we can't talk about it" .... like seriously i'd rather be drip fed and had little parts of the story told as we went along... no we get an echo scene that was narrated and not even a true echo with what happened. The show don't tell is completely lacking in this story.

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I enjoyed Wuk Lamat and could see her progression, but the other two people we were meant to care about got so little screen time.

Even tho seeing Vrtra being a badass was my favorite part the how it came to be did feel a wait when the fudge did that happen? As I said in my own post I'm not even sure why Estinien was even in the story the rare times we even saw him. And so far it doesn't feel as tho that one interview that said Krile and Thancred were going to have screen time was correct. Or maybe it's our faults of hyping it up somehow. Though I don't remember there being a whole lot of enthusiasm after that interview came out. I'm glad that I'm not the only one who is going what in the name of the Twelve is going on with the regulators. As even after reading how the 1st two steps are supposed to work while on explorer mode going through the lv99 dungeon I'm going but why tho. I also feel the we don't use souls begotten from beasts rule they state was being followed. Not if the lady Erenville's mother bade us to visit so we could understand the regulators better made it come off as going beast mode was sort of normal for her and others in her line of work. The story to me was fine and I get this is meant to be a restart point. Yet it felt like it was a rough draft. I wanted to feel more than I did when the story got to the emotional beats, but they felt more akin to when a toddler falls down and scrapes their knees. Vs what the story wanted to convey.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Regarding the character customisations

I haven't done a direct comparison on heights, but the hairstyle Shepetto uses is the same style (and same face) I use for my character Zi'aba and it is very fluffed up around the back of the head, and I've thought before that it makes his head look bigger than it actually is. It works well for shorter characters since they just end up smaller overall, so making the head look bigger balances them out a bit.

I need to play around with it, but I suspect the actual customisation they've done is just removing the thick eyeliner that has been added to face 3 during the character redesigns, which on the standard faces (and G'raha) is covering up that they've moved changed the shape of the eyelid a lot. At one point while discussing the character changes at the benchmark stage I had experimentally photoshopped a version of Zi'aba with the eyeliner erased back to skin colour, and it ended up looking not unlike Shepetto's face.

I'm generally not happy with the alterations to male Miqo'te faces – not just my own two characters but a lot of NPCs just have an off look about them.

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And this is the part where I have to settle for sending my condolences, because W'fharl looks absolutely gorgeous post update, even in standard environmental lighting. I guess in my particular case, the obvious differences result in something closer to what I wanted than I could pull off with the original spec (especially with the eyes), and in some cases fixed things I considered to be outright errors in the original meshes. The most I changed was adding a little color to the lips since it blends more naturally now, and using a flesh-tone eyeshadow to adjust the permanent guyliner. I have faith that you can find something that works.

But back to the less off-topic topic:

Face 1 Eye 6 is the largest mancat eyes can go (over Face 3, surprisingly, as compared in the benchmark 2 editor) and even a side-by-side comparison shows Shepetto has some ginormous peepers. I think he might actually be using a female Miqo'te face (they're noticeably wider) but with the texture of male face 3 (including eyelashes), since the update standardized the UVs. Not the most important Lore topic, to be sure, but I think it narrowly slides in under sekai settei (世界設定).

7.0 talk about Sphene and her kingdom......

This is a rather interesting things they decided for this expansion. Choosing to have these aspect for 7.0 about being a What if Zidane never existed to save the world in FF9.

Sphene being a reflection of what Garnet could have become because she never met Zidane and the fate of her home being what could have happened because Zidane never existed in FF9. Resulting in the final boss for this expansion basically being a Evil version of Garnet that had long since lost her hope and consumed by desperation. A desperation that Garnet never gave into because Zidane was there for her in FF9.

The only thing left because Zidane never existed are just memories and the Warrior of light must finally turned off the lights for this dream about what could have been.

think about this, I wonder if the expansions from now may focus on showing What If scenario about specific Final Fantasy games being mostly showing us the result of a What If Bad ending just because a certain character never existed to perform the feats they did in their FF game that lead to their world being saved.

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

7.0 talk about Sphene and her kingdom......

This is a rather interesting things they decided for this expansion. Choosing to have these aspect for 7.0 about being a What if Zidane never existed to save the world in FF9.

Sphene being a reflection of what Garnet could have become because she never met Zidane and the fate of her home being what could have happened because Zidane never existed in FF9. Resulting in the final boss for this expansion basically being a Evil version of Garnet that had long since lost her hope and consumed by desperation. A desperation that Garnet never gave into because Zidane was there for her in FF9.

The only thing left because Zidane never existed are just memories and the Warrior of light must finally turned off the lights for this dream about what could have been.

think about this, I wonder if the expansions from now may focus on showing What If scenario about specific Final Fantasy games being mostly showing us the result of a What If Bad ending just because a certain character never existed to perform the feats they did in their FF game that lead to their world being saved.

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While I broadly agree that this could be a neat angle (if potentially one that oculd get very stale), I actually disagree with what you think the angle for 7.0 is.

I don't think Alexandria is 'what if Zidane never existed in FFIX', because I think there is a Zidane. It's just that they have a few Kuja traits.

Let's boil down what Zidane was supposed to be in FFIX's story outside of character: he's a non-human fighter from another world, that was sent to Gaia with the intention of world domination and eventual consumption. Who, depending on the weapon equipped, either dual-wields shortswords/daggers or one double-bladed sword.

We have that character; it's just that he arrived himself rather than getting sent there, and arrived as an adult rather than a child. We have a Zidane: he's just a lizard-person rather than a cat-person.

Expys in FFXIV generally get to keep their names. Even Ramza did, despite having a significantly different personality.

Sphene is so off-base from Garnet that they made a deliberate point of assigning her a different gemstone and even changed her retainer's name. I think you're in for a massive stretch if you want to find a parallel for Zidane.

I think the Alexandria reference is just about as meaningful as Daichi Hiroi's frivolous namedrops of other beloved Final Fantasy entries.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Expys in FFXIV generally get to keep their names. Even Ramza did, despite having a significantly different personality.

Sphene is so off-base from Garnet that they made a deliberate point of assigning her a different gemstone and even changed her retainer's name. I think you're in for a massive stretch if you want to find a parallel for Zidane.

I think the Alexandria reference is just about as meaningful as Daichi Hiroi's frivolous namedrops of other beloved Final Fantasy entries.

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Zidane = WoL but he is a blonde catboy viper. After all we already got his clothes from years ago as an outfit to glamour with.

Its also just part of the nature of this mmo. Not everything is together at the same time.

Just an observation for two of the zones

Living Memory and Solution 9. There is a staggering amount of Duskwight npcs you can see. It may not seem that important, but considering this is a group that barely features much at all in content aside from ARR, it certainly feels relevant.

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Originally Posted by Chasingstars

Just an observation for two of the zones

Living Memory and Solution 9. There is a staggering amount of Duskwight npcs you can see. It may not seem that important, but considering this is a group that barely features much at all in content aside from ARR, it certainly feels relevant.

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I noticed that as well! It was a nice touch.

There are a lot of parallels in IX to stuff from Dawntrail, though it's often recontextualized to make it feel fresher and less predictable.

Wuk Lamat is the best of both Zidane and Garnet - Zidane's ever-optimistic attitude and willingness to help anyone for its own sake mixed with Garnet's sheltered royal upbringing and devotion to her people.

Zoraal Ja mixes Kuja's methods, Brahne's goals, and Amarant's personality. Post-Rite of Succession he empowers himself by gorging on souls and transforming with their power a la Trance Kuja, and hides feelings of inferiority (believing Gulool Ja Ja favored Koana and Wuk Lamat over him) behind a gigantic ego; his lust for war and conquest brings to mind Brahne's own ambitions of conquest; and his taciturn attitude and trust only in his own power are evocative of pre-character development Amarant. His weapon(s) of choice are ironically the same as Zidane's.

Ser Otis Velona is transparently inspired by Adalbert Steiner, Captain of the Pluto Knights from IX. Gulool Ja takes some cues from Vivi, being unusually erudite for his age and being a good friend with Otis (mirroring Vivi being the only person Steiner gets along with early in the game, and Steiner's protectiveness towards Vivi).

Sphene is Garnet recast into IX Garland's role. Both are artificial people created to preserve and restore long-dead civilizations, parasitizing other worlds in a futile attempt to stop the inevitable. Archeo Alexandria (found in the southwestern area of Heritage Found) looks strikingly like a ruined version of the same city from IX; when you run through it recreated during the Storm Surge in the final MSQ dungeon it looks even more like it did back in that game. It's important to remember that the Sphene we (quote unquote) interact with in Dawntrail isn't actually the original article, but a modified, memory-based construct created solely to love and protect the citizens of Alexandria. IX Garland serves much the same purpose for Terra.

Solution Nine is named after one of Zidane's Trance-only Dyne attacks. The fortunetelling building you warp in front of at the Neon Stein aetheryte features neon images of Yans (both the hostile ones and the friendly one) on its facade; these were the most powerful non-boss enemies in IX, with the friendly one being the final step to making Ozma more manageable.

The popcorn buckets in Living Memory are styled after the Gimme Cat, a fake friendly monster from IX. A Milalla (Lalafell / Dwarf) in Living Memory mentions his greeting of "Lally-ho!," his home of Conde Petie being destroyed in the Storm Surge, and Conde Petie being near the Iifa Tree (which the Aero Terminal is styled after); all of this is taken from IX, though the dwarves' greeting in IX was mistranslated as "Rally-ho!" and Conde Petie was destroyed when the Iifa Tree began to run wild after Disc 3. The Cleyra Museum of Nature references Cleyra, Burmecia's sister city built in a giant tree and protected by a sandstorm (until Beatrix stops the sandstorm and it gets nuked by a Brahne-summoned Odin). Asyle Volcane and the arena inside of it likely references Mount Gulug, which has something similar (where Kuja tries to extract Eiko's eidolons and you fight Meltigemini).

The final boss of Ihuykatumu, Apollyon, is a dead ringer for the Abaddon enemies from IX's rendition of Castle Pandemonium.

Tuliyollal being attacked almost immediately after Wuk Lamat (and Koana, I guess) are made the new Dawnservants references Kuja's attack on Alexandria the night after Garnet's coronation.

Lindblum, Alexandria's neighbor that set off the Storm Surge, has a counterpart in IX. The airship the real Sphene was riding when it was struck by lightning that implicitly killed her is patterned after Lindblum's air taxis in IX, albeit somewhat more high-tech.

That's just off the top of my head.

I was just rewatching the credits scenes and realized

There is a sunrise in Living Memory when we're done, and I've just realized this implies that there is NOT constant lightning on the 9th (or w/e) shard. So... that again makes me question the dome's purpose when they were on the home shard and reinforces my theory they were keeping the lightning *in*, at least at this point in history. The shard as a whole doesn't even seem to be experiencing a Flood of Light(ning), anymore.

Which has interesting implications. Perhaps other societies besides Alexandria survived. Do the Alexandrians know this? The talk of "You come from beyond the barrier" implies they thought passing it couldn't be done, but its never really specified if they mean "done in the last 3 decades" or "done ever". Did Sphene keep them in the barrier by making it impenetrable and telling them there was nothing beyond? If so, was this an intentional lie to "protect" them, or did she just not know either?

Can we just mosey outside the city limits of the 12th floor of Everkeep and see this new landscape for ourselves? Maybe that is the upcoming exploration zone?(!) So many questions, now.