8.0 and World

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Like, to just start with a dumb thought exercise that my Discord server stumbled into at one point: I think that a well-rounded FFXIV expansion should have all five Magic the Gathering land types in their zone lineup. There should be a Plains, Mountain, Island, Swamp and Forest somewhere in there as a primary defining element of a zone, just to ensure that you have a lot of aesthetic diversity. My concern with something like a 'Gelmorra Expansion' is that you're not gonna be able to hit all of those, and the expansion suffers because of it.

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I think there could be a diversity of environments underground besides just stone caverns. Subterranean forests like in Journey to the Center of the Earth, for example.

But Iscah's also right, I was mainly imagining all the possibilities to explore in general for Gelmorra, and beneath the Shroud. There'd be room for other locales to fill those niches in an expansion like that. :)

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

There are too many flaws that need resolving to get this to work well. Keep in mind that this already happened in HW, and worked in every single expansion beyond that..

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uh sorry but i'm more referring too making zones feel more alive in general with more locals and sights to see etc. not like how the areas themselves are meant to function etc we need more things to explore and visit. i really like rak'tika for this reason cause it gave us ancient ruins to visit and underwater areas to find and see,
and i really enjoyed ARR's open world as you could go into shops, go into buildings and see people interacting in them an the areas had alot of variation this is what i want them to do for future expansions to really flesh out the world and make us want to explore it and find places or monuments or areas of interest we aren't called "Adventurer" for nothing after all and the open areas should reflect that they should be an adventure all on their own not just a "farm" simulator that we return to farm gathering materials or spam fates, hunts, etc. another good zone is Lakeland its immersive an feels surreal i want them to do more of that kinda stuff

On the topic of zones, while I adore the more natural zones, especially ones that remind me of places I've been to IRL, I have fallen in love with Heritage Found, and just how fantastical it is. It's cowboys, castles, and robots haphazardly smashed together. No one belongs anymore, and yet they do. It reminds me of some of the locations in The Dark Tower series or The Real World from The Matrix. I hope they take me somewhere I've never been to in 8.0 like they have with Heritage Found, I hope we get more fantastical zones.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

On the topic of zones, while I adore the more natural zones, especially ones that remind me of places I've been to IRL, I have fallen in love with Heritage Found, and just how fantastical it is. It's cowboys, castles, and robots haphazardly smashed together. No one belongs anymore, and yet they do. It reminds me of some of the locations in The Dark Tower series or The Real World from The Matrix. I hope they take me somewhere I've never been to in 8.0 like they have with Heritage Found, I hope we get more fantastical zones.

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Heritage Found is such an interesting zone, in that I'm genuinely not even sure how you would approach making 'more zones like Heritage Found'. It's such an extremely specific concept for a zone, that I don't even think it's possible to repeat; you just have to go that high-concept again and hope you hit the mark a second time in a different way.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Off-topic (more or less) - but... Discord server? Presumably for Lore discussion? If so, am interested!

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It's around my Youtube channel and videos! The link's not hard to find, but you can probably understand, I'm not about to link it here!

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Heritage Found is such an interesting zone, in that I'm genuinely not even sure how you would approach making 'more zones like Heritage Found'. It's such an extremely specific concept for a zone, that I don't even think it's possible to repeat; you just have to go that high-concept again and hope you hit the mark a second time in a different way.



It's around my Youtube channel and videos! The link's not hard to find, but you can probably understand, I'm not about to link it here!

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Understood - I've been subscribed to your YouTube channel for a while anyway, so wasn't difficult to find! Thank you :)

To start with, I think it's worth saying a few important things:

1. 7.3 is slated to be the end of Dawntrail's MSQ arc; Endwalker was unique in that the arc ended with 6.0 because it was a wrap for the MSQ arc that began in A Realm Reborn (or maybe even Legacy), so 6.X was just filler to get Dawntrail prepped and ready to go (not unlike 2.1 - 2.3 being filler for Heavensward). 8.0's MSQ arc should start being set up in 7.4.

2. The Scions already took a major backseat in 7.0 to Wuk Lamat. Complaints about the latter aside, I'm not sure how popular pulling them out of the spotlight has been. Also we need NPCs to run Trusts, and they're already there...

3. The whole point of sending us to the other side of the world seems to have been an effort for a fresh start. As such, I do not think we're going to go back and explore "old world" areas except as side content (Stellar Exploration, Deep Dungeons, Custom Deliveries, etc.). The MSQ writers clearly want to break away from preexisting lore and do their own thing; I can't fault them for that, though the results so far have been less than impressive.

The current trend seems to be setting up a reflection as a bizarro incarnation of a previous Final Fantasy title and us stepping in to resolve some crisis (after the fact). 6.X was the first taste, Tuliyollal seems to continue this (Gulool Ja Ja, Zoraal Ja, and Gurfurlur are all named after XI characters with characterizations contrary to their original incarnations), and Alexandria cements it. While they may pivot considering how poorly Dawntrail's been received (all you hear in news about it these days is how stale the game is and how subs are dropping like flies), the most likely path forward with what we know is using the Interdimensional Key to visit other reflections which will have similar bizarro setups to IV and the Thirteenth and IX and the Ninth. Where they go from here is anyone's guess, but if I had to venture a guess I'd say something to do with X (since it's sandwiched between the games Dawntrail references and one of the most popular games besides).

Will Preservation and Calyx have anything to do with it? Maybe. Will we go around eating Azem shards? Probably not. Will real Sphene join us on such adventures? It's a personal want, but who knows.

Apropos of Azem reflections, it's deliberately left vague as to whether or not the "original" Golbez or the RPR Avatar is "Thirteenth Azem." Yes, I know the EE suggests it's the latter, but there's too many suggestions in the game to rule out the former. It's a moot point regardless - if it's the former there's no way to actually retrieve them, since "original" Golbez's memoria crystal was lost or subsumed into Zeromus (whose own memoria crystal is being used to revitalize the First's Empty), and if it's the latter RPR doesn't function in-lore anymore.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

2. The Scions already took a major backseat in 7.0 to Wuk Lamat. Complaints about the latter aside, I'm not sure how popular pulling them out of the spotlight has been. Also we need NPCs to run Trusts, and they're already there...

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From what I can generally vibe about people's responses to Dawntrail (and I'm generally pretty good at vibing out community responses to media), Dawntrail kind of hit an ugly midpoint that nobody was entirely happy with, where all the Scions were there but nobody was really doing anything. So nobody was really super happy with it; the people who wanted a Scion-free story still had them hanging around making their presence known, but anyone who wanted the Scions to actually have a Scion Story were annoyed that they didn't really contribute.

I'm squarely in the former camp but also see the latter, and like I said on the first page, I think it gets solved in the future by only bringing in Scions that actually have something to actively do.

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Originally Posted by Cilia

2. The Scions already took a major backseat in 7.0 to Wuk Lamat. Complaints about the latter aside, I'm not sure how popular pulling them out of the spotlight has been. Also we need NPCs to run Trusts, and they're already there...

3. The whole point of sending us to the other side of the world seems to have been an effort for a fresh start. As such, I do not think we're going to go back and explore "old world" areas except as side content (Stellar Exploration, Deep Dungeons, Custom Deliveries, etc.). The MSQ writers clearly want to break away from preexisting lore and do their own thing; I can't fault them for that, though the results so far have been less than impressive.

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the whole point of DT was supposed to be to have a vacation away from eorzea and the disbanded scions but unfortunately they still kept them in anyway an yes i think the trust component might be a factor to it but also the JP an CN communities often have this problem with idol worship.. an it shows with how they keep shoving y'shtola in ads an having the twins advocate for clothing lines etc.
but i think the scions need to go do their own things for at the very least one whole expansion like sure fine use them in sidecontent if they MUST but keep them there do not let them impact the story as whole and let our character for once have the spotlight back on them. this whole excuse of "they need npcs for main scenario" doesnt fly when in the same token the duty support they added adds in random people we've never even met or interacted with before but are allies none the less an i think a majority are okay with that having factions offer their aid to us via proxy representation or hell they could just combine our grand company squad to the duty support system and people would be content with that as well.
it just needs to make logical sense as to why they are there an not be shoe horned in at a whim. (looking at you Estenien )

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Originally Posted by Cilia

To start with, I think it's worth saying a few important things:




The current trend seems to be setting up a reflection as a bizarro incarnation of a previous Final Fantasy title and us stepping in to resolve some crisis (after the fact). 6.X was the first taste, Tuliyollal seems to continue this (Gulool Ja Ja, Zoraal Ja, and Gurfurlur are all named after XI characters with characterizations contrary to their original incarnations), and Alexandria cements it. While they may pivot considering how poorly Dawntrail's been received (all you hear in news about it these days is how stale the game is and how subs are dropping like flies), the most likely path forward with what we know is using the Interdimensional Key to visit other reflections which will have similar bizarro setups to IV and the Thirteenth and IX and the Ninth. Where they go from here is anyone's guess, but if I had to venture a guess I'd say something to do with X (since it's sandwiched between the games Dawntrail references and one of the most popular games besides).

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i would love a final fantasy X themed expansion we already have so many references to Spira such as Ixion, Yojimbo & daigoro, the tidus and yuna glamour, and now the pelupelu too as well as Ronso. an Yoshida has said before that X was his most favorite FF so i think there is a high chance it could happen that we visit a Spira-esk world with alot of designs an themes that closely resemble what fans know an remember

I have a feeling when we go to Meracydia, it's going to be have a lot of VI, X/2, and maybe even VII references. Meracydia was the birthplace of Primal summing, and our version of the Warring Triad originated from there, and during that time they had to tend with a technologically advanced empire, but all of that happened 5000ish of years ago. That is a long time ago, and we don't know what's happening there now. So we have this land that had an age of magic/summoning that is now over, especially now that the Ascians are no longer a threat, and we have a cure for tempering. Whatever people who somehow continued to live in Meracydia probably have a complicated relationship with technology, and tradition. On top of that, Allag's conquest left a lot land an uninhabitable wasteland which by now could be in recovery, and we want it to continue to recover, so to me it seems ripe for a story about environmentalism like VII.

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Originally Posted by ShadowyZero

i would love a final fantasy X themed expansion we already have so many references to Spira such as Ixion, Yojimbo & daigoro, the tidus and yuna glamour, and now the pelupelu too as well as Ronso. an Yoshida has said before that X was his most favorite FF so i think there is a high chance it could happen that we visit a Spira-esk world with alot of designs an themes that closely resemble what fans know an remember

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Meracydia in Dragonspeak is 'Mera' which kind rhymes with Spira.