Amen to that. Both the Viera in the gatherer questline were 100% more heartfelt and characters than Erenville ever was.
I thought that it was so bizarre how all the really neat lore was shoved into the Wachumekimeki quests. The one where you help a girl bind books together has a bunch of "origin" stories for all the species that live in Tural. The botinist/miner one had some lore about how the viera are here. Hell, the *fisher* questline had stuff about blue mages!
I do all the quests in the game anyway but feels kinda weird to put a bunch of world building behind things some players may not be interested in (now everyone likes to craft or gather)
If Kate has anything to do with it she WILL use the mistranslation about Galka as canon, especially if they go into The Shadowlord's origin story.
if it gets butchered it'll cause more people to go back to or try out FFXI?
And should FFXI get popular again at least that game is far too old to get messed with.
The Crafting/Gathering side stuff in Wachu was actually interesting. Learned stuff about blue mages while fishing of all things, learned about Vieras while gathering, got some origins lore while making books, it was actually interesting stuff, although short. The stuff they actually put in the MSQ though was...really basic. Pelu Pelu are people that REALLY like drinks, alpacas, and trading. Hanu Hanu LOVE their reeds and festival. Xb'raal was...tacos. Mamook was bananas...and a centuries long eugenics problem solved by giving them something to plant that wasn't bananas. There wasn't really a whole lot there overall that we got culture wise outside of the Yok Huy.
Not sure what mistranslation you're referring to, unless they're retconning that Galkas reproduce by reincarnation or something?
I also dunno why people are comparing Tural with Vana'diel... Tural was created by these writers while FFXI and Vana'diel have established lore and canon events that the writers simply need to draw from for their content. It's not the same situation. Remember that the past two FFXI crossover events accurately flashbacked to events from FFXI and involved two characters who were presented as the same as they were in FFXI (Iroha and Shantotto). So unless they've indicated otherwise, I'm hoping for a nice nostalgic run through some FFXI content.
I think Dawntrail is the sidequest expansion because I feel like I've learned more about Tural and its people from a few blue/yellow quests than I did from the entire MSQ
Ever wanted the game to tell you about the Pelupelu; why do they wear the masks? Well the MSQ doesn't say much about that but some random ass yellow quest does; apparently the Pelupelu used to be exploited and subjugated by the other Turali races who saw them as tiny weak wimps to be screwed over and taken advantage of, so they started wearing masks based off the feared Valigarmanda to make themselves more imposing and demanding of respect. Pretty cool little trivia right? I wish they dropped some more small lore like that in the MSQ, it only takes a single dialogue box or two to add some small flavor, and put together all those small drops of flavor add up to make the MSQ show a much more compelling world. Granted that would require the player to read something that's not about the life and times of Poochie which is a tall ask it would seem
Admittedly, Erenville was the only one willing to say it loud and clear when he mentions fearing travelling with Poochie might have traumatized him.
Granted, it's clear that the whole point of his position was to be the tsundere childhood friend to the "ain't she great!" main character and was affected by the black hole of IQ that she is at times because her gravity pull it's just that powefull, but still, he was along with Krile, one of the characters that didn't make me roll my eyes or facepalm every time they spoke.
On the other hand, I really don't want to see Alisaie until the writers give her back the chunks of brain they removed from her this xpac to turn her into Poochie's cheerleader.
I finished the ones for ltw, wvr and crp and just started the one for the metalworks, so far, so good.
I think that unconsciously, I'm dodging the alch/cul ones because if I hear again how soft shelled tacos stopped a decades long war, I might remember how ridiculous that is again.
(And how incredibly disrespectful is that at the end of that quest Poochie handed me merely the leftovers of the food Krile and me made... I guess we were the maids supposed to feed on the scraps.)
Yeah I found out that info doing the side-quest as well. Which is really sad that they put the interesting lore behind the side-quests and chose the best way to "represent the cultures" in the MSQ was mostly...what they eat and drink. Like I'm glad the Pelu Pelu like their drinks and alpacas and trading, but the fact that was ALL they threw at us and left things like why they wear their masks to side-quest status is kind of...sad. They literally could've had someone just ask "So why do you wear masks exactly?" during the MSQ. But nope, mezcal and alpacas are it.
I won't spoil anything major for the Alchemist/Culinarian, but it is very wholesome and does not involve any tacos stopping a several decades long war.
Also Wuk was very, very, very hungry. So hungry she ate everything before her; including all the other characters' personalities and story development, like she did Kriles.