Revelations from NA Fan Fest (July 2023)

I think of all the new places they've shown off, this second dungeon image piques my interest most.

https://img.finalfantasyxiv.com/lds/...eOMl_65dGM.jpg

The aetherial/elemental forces look like they're in utter chaos, and I can't help but wonder if it's just a local phenomena or perhaps indicative of something more concerning for Etheriys as a whole.

The lore panel was interesting. I'd always thought that Triple Triad was the place to go for hidden lore snippets, but it looks like I'll have to take up fishing as well. I'm not surprised that we didn't get much more in the way of answers around Amaurot, but it looks like some of that is being saved for the EE vol 3 at least, and it sounds like there were a lot more to the Q+A panel that will get posted later on.

I was surprised to note that Amaurot's Convocation was functioning as a sort of 'world government' by the time we visit Elpis. I'd like to know more about how that developed historically, but perhaps we'll find out more at a later point.

FISH LORE ;p

I'm sure someone screen-grabbed the slides that were flashed quickly. The Amaurot governance one was both unsurprising because the Ancients make more sense if they were a monolithic monoculture, because the core problem at the root of the Final Days was that they thought that there was only one absolute all-applicable answer to how to live one's life and have meaning, and they they alone had uncontested control over said planet and life, hence Hermes's desperation looking into unknown space to find a second opinion and later the having lost that illusion of control and freedom from pain, the inability to adapt and look outward instead of trauma-inducted clinging to nostalgia-illusion past. But there goes my last shred of hope for something appealing and interesting about the Pre-Sundering World and its prolonged usefulness as a game setting. Ultimately not surprised though, as to their meta-function to the narrative and setting is 'root origin of setting's overworld mobs and the overarching endgame antagonists and aids in the H/Z saga'.

The Convocation's inaction and people having debates if even to help the other cities during the Final Days does have a different feel to it then before when it was positioned via implication to be a parallel of Sharlayan debating if to go help Eorzea.

And now that the Omega raids, Ultima Thule, Ultima's auracite, and Manderville of all things establishes the extraterrestrial civilizations, the story usefulness of additional pre-Sundered civilizations to our current and future game can be covered from those origins.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The lore panel was interesting. I'd always thought that Triple Triad was the place to go for hidden lore snippets, but it looks like I'll have to take up fishing as well. I'm not surprised that we didn't get much more in the way of answers around Amaurot, but it looks like some of that is being saved for the EE vol 3 at least, and it sounds like there were a lot more to the Q+A panel that will get posted later on.

I was surprised to note that Amaurot's Convocation was functioning as a sort of 'world government' by the time we visit Elpis. I'd like to know more about how that developed historically, but perhaps we'll find out more at a later point.

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I wanted to say, congratulations on getting your question in, by the way!

I wasn't that surprised at this revelation about Amaurot, because I've always said that Amaurot should really be digested as essentially a one-world government, just because it's a world where only the one nation is ever relevant; it being the literal only nation just helps that along. I think having that confirmed does change the tone of that one debate that everyone pointed to when talking about this, but not in a way I don't buy, it just becomes darker. If this were a story set on a contemporary Earth facing horrible, basically unstoppable and unmitigable disasters that nobody understands, US politicians (or just citizens, as it is in that quest) making the grim decision of 'we can't help London, we have to protect our own' would just be a setting of the stakes, you see that happen in so many 'worldwide disaster' movies; it makes complete sense that, after a point, a country has to protect their own over protecting their allies. It instead being one of their own cities makes it read more like those US politicians instead giving up on Hawaii: much darker, and depending on your read more cynical, because it actually does seem like they should have some sort of duty there. Depending on the timeframe you think Fake Amaurot is based on, and probably your personal read of the Ancients, People in the capitol considering turning their back on them either reads as a dire sign of how bad things truly are that they have to make these decisions, or a sign that the Ancients aren't truly holding as close to their supposed values as they first seem.

Personally, I read it as a combination, as it's almost a low-stakes microcosm of the same conflict we'd see when Venat faces the crowd in the post-Elpis scene: starting to see that for all their supposed duty and self-imposed importance, there are Ancients that will choose to preserve their own safety and comfort at the expense of others.


EDIT: And yes, on a lighter subject: I absolutely adored the look at fish lore, and highly recommend getting into it if you're a lore nerd, there's so much cool stuff. If you want a place to start and have Fisher somewhat leveled and equipped maybe through ocean fishing, I'd probably recommend going for Azys Lla's fish first: nothing there is super difficult to catch, and has some insane stuff in it, almost all of it clearly connected to exactly the subject you'd expect. It's a rare zone that's just all hits as far as fish lore goes: I don't think there's a single Azys Lla fish that isn't in some way interesting beyond the more mundane 'oh hey I kinda recognize what they based that fish on'. But really, if you've got a specific part of the game world you're curious about, checking out the fish of that region can tell you a bunch of neat stuff.

Speaking of more New World locations, it has been mentioned in the past the Garlean Empire had sent out expedition teams already to conquer some of the lands in the New World so we know they have setup control in certain areas of the New World already. However, we only get mentions that uprisings happened in those locations as well during the War when word spread about how the Garlean Empire was being pushed back and the status of those locations and the Garleans left stranded there due to losing contact with the Garlean Empire remains unknown.

If we are going to one of these locations eventually, I suspect we may get a Final Fantasy 7 theme expansion in a way. We may even get the FF14 version of Shinra in that expansion as well but have them be a Garlean Noble Family house that has control of that location.

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Some people are pointing this out but we can see something under that robe when the WoL is kneeling down for a very short moment.

https://i.imgur.com/F6FUoH0.png

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

I got mine off reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._dawntrail_70/

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There seem to be good chunks of land and islands stretching to the south of Tural (South South America?) and Meracydia finally has a place on the world map. Strangely, it's not obscured with clouds as Ilsabard so you can see how Meracydia actually looks like, which is weird to have in an expansion not focused on it.

If the plotlines were to be about stranded Garlean colonizers, we have Ilsabard. Same for any Allagan ruins reappearing - both Ilsabard and Meracydia. Having them as a narrative point while in Tural defeats the purpose of choosing Tural over Ilsabard and Meracydia (and lessens the point of going to those places in a later expansion, so let's save them or else the cloud cover will never leave).

And while we had VII representation with the Weapons trials in Werlyt, that doesn't mean that we need Garleans involved at all to have a Shinra-esque villain to hit up any references that haven't already been covered- though Aulus and the other Garlean mad scientists have covered everything but the actual super-soldier program of SOLDIER (unless idk you count Nael and Zenos), M'zhet Tia had Nanaki's plotline and BLU for Cosmos Canyon.

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Originally Posted by Kranel_San

There seem to be good chunks of land and islands stretching to the south of Tural (South South America?) and Meracydia finally has a place on the world map. Strangely, it's not obscured with clouds as Ilsabard so you can see how Meracydia actually looks like, which is weird to have in an expansion not focused on it.

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Yeah, I noticed the same when I saw someone else post the map in the general discussion forum and it looks like reddit also thinks the whispy clouds are suspicious since other undiscovered areas have much thicker cloud cover. It's also suspicious because Tural north of Tuliyollah is just as obscured as Ilsabard while the pampas? part of Yok Tural is teased.

So far we have only had 2 zones revealed to us: Yak Tel and Urqopacha, both in "Yok Tural", so there should be 3 other zones out there plus whatever whacky final zone they decide to do if they decide to stick to tradition.

I'm not sure if the tepuis (flat-topped mountains) on Yok Tural are their own zone or part of one of the 2 previously revealed zones. But Yok Tural looks too small to contain a whole expansion so I anticipate other parts of the map to be revealed later either in fanfests or during the expansion itself.

While I'd prefer a more centrally focused expansion that concentrated on one thing in one place like ShB, I don't think we can completely write off Meracydia since we now have a map that shows more of what it looks like than we do of Ilsabard. But hopefully we see more of Tural as a whole before swinging to the other side of the world for Africaustralia/Austrafica.

Wondering about the Alliance Raid info and screenshots we saw.

This could be Oschon's domain because we can see a Tonberry statue in the middle. The architecture seems somewhat Sharlayan-esque though.. so it could be Thaliak but again, Tonberry statue.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F2OKXNya...jpg&name=large

This one though baffles me though. It doesn't immediately really fit either Llymlaen or Thaliak. It's far off from resembling anything Sharlayan or Limsa Lominsa-esque, it looks more like Yanxia. But does Nophica's domain resemble Gridania, I guess not, so perhaps this is a moot point. Honestly it looks more fitting as Oschon's domain, more fitting for a lone wanderer, but I can't see any Tonberry statues there!

It could also lead to the last mystery boss.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F2OKQRNb...jpg&name=large

Yoshi-P mentioned there was a third screenshot he opted out of showing because it's too spoiler-y, I wonder what that would've been.. Probably just one of the bosses.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

If the plotlines were to be about stranded Garlean colonizers, we have Ilsabard. Same for any Allagan ruins reappearing - both Ilsabard and Meracydia. Having them as a narrative point while in Tural defeats the purpose of choosing Tural over Ilsabard and Meracydia (and lessens the point of going to those places in a later expansion, so let's save them or else the cloud cover will never leave).

And while we had VII representation with the Weapons trials in Werlyt, that doesn't mean that we need Garleans involved at all to have a Shinra-esque villain to hit up any references that haven't already been covered- though Aulus and the other Garlean mad scientists have covered everything but the actual super-soldier program of SOLDIER (unless idk you count Nael and Zenos), M'zhet Tia had Nanaki's plotline and BLU for Cosmos Canyon.

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I am talking about a Future expansion after 7.0. Not the 7.0 expansion being about the stranded Garleans left in the New World when Garlemald fell..

With so much of the New World we have not access to yet, they can easily focus each section or two of the New World for each expansion which we do know among them do have Garleans left stranded there after Garlemald fell. This open up one of expansion in the future to be maybe FF7 themed in a way if a certain region already gone through massive Garlean Influence before events of FF14.