[Spoilers] The Patch 4.2 Discussion and Speculation Thread!

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It never sat well with me that Ul'dah received such a disproportionate amount of story focus in comparison to Gridania and Limsa. In particular, a lot of the potential issues with Gridanian society were hand-waved and lessened during the shift from 1.0 to 2.0 whilst much of Ul'dah's problems carried over in full.

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That was probably because Gridania's 'problems' were mostly supernatural/metaphysical in form (the whole greenwrath/woodsin thing with the elementals), while Ul'dah's were mostly political (save for that whole raising the dead thing with Warburton) and thus made for much easier implementation (and thus is more believable).

It's also far easier to craft narratives around familiar concepts like political corruptions and conspiracies when it's just dealing with human spoken-led societies and not a magocracy dictated by a race of bad-tempered aetheric faeries who are nature personified.

As for 4.2, new info is up on the Lodestone - looks like some ideas from FFXI are now sneaking in. Besides Byakko being the new trial, none other than Tenzen from Chains of Promathia now has a Hydaelyn counterpart. If it turns out he has a katana with the power of a Primal inside it (*cough* Phoenix *cough cough*) I'll eat my Curtana. :p

Also, on the patch artwork, who is that bloke standing next to Cid? I recognize Biggs, Wedge and Jessie, but that guy with the shades I just can't place.

May you elaborate on what you know of Byakko and any other FFXI stuff? I never played it so I’m super curious and excited about 4.2. My first thought when I read 4 lords were the elemental arch fiends.

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Also, on the patch artwork, who is that bloke standing next to Cid? I recognize Biggs, Wedge and Jessie, but that guy with the shades I just can't place.

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It's Nero.

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Originally Posted by Wolfman88

May you elaborate on what you know of Byakko and any other FFXI stuff? I never played it so I’m super curious and excited about 4.2. My first thought when I read 4 lords were the elemental arch fiends.

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Well, Byakko along with Seiryu, Suzaku and Genbu were the four so-called 'Sky Gods', four HNMs (High Notorious Monsters) players could fight in 'Sky', the floating citadel of Tul'lia. They were part of the Rise of the Zilart expansion but I can't remember if they ever had any real storyline or lore behind them other than being ancient monsters from the Zilart civilization (I only fought them once with my then linkshell, and they fully deserved the 'HNM' moniker ;)).

As for Tenzen, in a kuponutshell he was a major character of the Chains of Promathia expansion where he was a SAM from the Far Eastern nation that came to the Middle Lands desperate for help as his nation is being consumed by Emptiness, his katana containing the spirit of the avatar (FFXI's summon monsters) Phoenix, which vibrates to alert him when danger is approaching.

Although primarily a protagonist he did end up temporarily as an antagonist in a particularly difficult CoP main story boss fight, but he eventually is made to see sense and by the end of CoP's main story, apologized to the player for his actions. There is far more to his story but more would be a spoiler, but this is his history if you're interested. ;)

Either way, I am very intrigued how his FFXIV counterpart is going to be featured, although he is stated as being part of a legend, so it's presumed that he's now long since dead alas. But I guess we'll find out either way. :)

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's Nero.

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Really? It doesn't look like him at all (I thought it might have been that chap in the Ivalice quest line - Jenomis I believe his name was? (I haven't done that storyline though as I'm not a raider, so forgive my ignorance).

Either way, as the others next to this guy are all clearly the members of Garlond Ironworks, I doubt it would be Nero as he regards them with disdain (to say nothing of Nero's lingering resentment towards Cid). ;)

Nero is currently working for the Ironworks (Jessie hired him to get back at Cid since she was getting tired of Cid using Ironworks money to fund his personal projects. Nero's apparently getting paid 4/5 of what Cid is getting paid for the Omega job.). Cid, Biggs, and Wedge's reactions to Jessie managing to do that are hilarious. Nero's also not as abrasive as he was in previous patches. There's one point where he compliments Wedge on an engineering job in the Deltascape and everyone else gets minor brain breakage over the idea of Nero admitting someone else did a good job. So yeah, he's one of the more active characters in the Omgea story and will probably be here though the end of it.

Ah, right, that makes sense (I admit I haven't done Omega yet either - as mentioned me and raids.... do not go together, owing to a very bad experience in Labyrinth of the Ancients one time soured my whole attitude toward raiding that I won't go into). Hence my ignorance of that little detail (in hindsight, it makes perfect sense, given that superdeformed SNES-era chocobo from the Omega story (Alpha I believe his name is?) is also in that pic (I admit most of my raid story info comes from second hand sources like the FFWiki so it's bound to not always accurate), so therefore Nero's appearance does ring true.

Anyway, thank you for clarifying that Obsidian and Theodric. :)

From the MSQ preview, it looks like we're going to be dealing with Gosetsu and "Yo"Tsuyu's reintroduction to the narrative.

This could get interesting. Hopefully the trailer doesn't make the plot too predictable...

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

Ah, right, that makes sense (I admit I haven't done Omega yet either - as mentioned me and raids.... do not go together, owing to a very bad experience in Labyrinth of the Ancients one time soured my whole attitude toward raiding that I won't go into). Hence my ignorance of that little detail (in hindsight, it makes perfect sense, given that superdeformed SNES-era chocobo from the Omega story (Alpha I believe his name is?) is also in that pic (I admit most of my raid story info comes from second hand sources like the FFWiki so it's bound to not always accurate), so therefore Nero's appearance does ring true.

Anyway, thank you for clarifying that Obsidian and Theodric. :)

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Alpha is from the Chocobo spin-offs which began with the PSX and Wonderswan.

Any speculation on the beastman tribe quests? Something new or just the usual series of fetch quests?

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Originally Posted by Enkidoh

As for 4.2, new info is up on the Lodestone - looks like some ideas from FFXI are now sneaking in. Besides Byakko being the new trial, none other than Tenzen from Chains of Promathia now has a Hydaelyn counterpart. If it turns out he has a katana with the power of a Primal inside it (*cough* Phoenix *cough cough*) I'll eat my Curtana. :p.

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Doubt that he will have Phoenix in his sword, as that particular primal already does exist in the game as part of the Coil of Bahamut raids.

Also, the game points out that using primal infused objects is a bad thing. According to the lorebook, that's how the 13th shard ultimately fell. To more specific it was about using the power of trapped primal/eikon/whatevers in auracite I believe, but swords sound just as bad.

But I wouldn't be surprised if he's connected to Suzaku.

Finally been about to come back to the game and catch up with the story! Just in time for hints about 4.2 as well. I have missed this place.

Anyhow, I think it is unlikely we will see 4.2 and Yotsuyu be effectively a copy of what happened in 4.1 though I think there might be some similarities. I an see two directions it could go.

Firstly it might involve information Yotsuyu knew. If she knew important information and she has reverted to the mind of a child it might mean we need to find a way to have her recover her memories. It would also explain why she doesn't get executed once she gets there.

Secondly, her return might start causing skeletons to come out of the closet. Doma lived under imperial rule, acquiescing to Imperial direction for a long time. The things that Doma and its people may have allowed to have happen during that time to placate their masters might be something that is dredged up by Yotsuyu's return.

Either way I expect we will learn a lot more about Yotsuyu's past and what it was like before the first rebellion in Doma in 4.2. The other thing I think we will see start to happen is hints on the direction the story is going as far as leading to the next expansion (which I will eat my keyboard if it isn't going to Garlemald).

As for Omega, we will clearly be moving forward. Perhaps we will find out how the Allagans put him on ice or why the restraints aren't working. I have had a feeling from the first part that Omega has made two potential mistakes. Firstly, if his theory holds, he has effectively made himself the target of whatever 'power' to surpass the odds he believe we have. Secondly, I think it has made an error in judgement with Alpha that will somehow end up coming back to Omega's detriment. Clearly he seems to have annoyed the little psudo chocobo.

I wonder if Midgardsormr was the original Shinryu that spawned the legend.

I don't have many thoughts about the four lords. The main thing for me is I kind of hope they aren't primals this time round. I think it would be more interesting otherwise.

Edit: Apparently the Scions are in financial troubles and we have someone wanting to potentially hire the WoL according to the new Dungeon preview. Makes me wonder if this is a side thing or a lead in to whatever is happening in Doma. I can't imagine any of the people we worked with in the Liberation need proof of our abilities. Maybe it is tied to the Four Lords instead of the MSQ? That would certainly be different.