I cannot believe how far in advance the story has set itself up. (spoilers of course)

I'm re-watching all the cutscenes having to do with talk of the warriors of darkness. I boggles my mind how far in advance the foreshadowing of this expansion was put in place.

Please sample this clip where the WoD are talking with the Mother Crystal.

https://youtu.be/RtulRvaMv0o?t=5018

What we all thought was some weird story tangent at the end of HW was in fact strong foreshadowing of things to come 2 expansions later. Not just placid, mild foreshadowing, but strong!

I walk to talk about it with someone! reeeeeeeeeeee

Given that the Warriors of Darkness were introduced and then whisked away with all the impactfulness of a wet fart, sometimes it feels like they originally planned for Shadowbringers to come before Stormbringers. If that was originally the plan, it suddenly doesn't seem all that surprising to see that sort of content at the end of HW, since it would've been less long-term foreshadowing, and more direct foreshadowing for stuff coming in mere months. (Also I feel like Lyse's SB gear would've made a lot more sense if she had become a DNC, but I digress...)

With that said, I seem to recall it being stated that the whole Bahamut-inside-Dalamud scenario that they used to destroy 1.0 was originally planned for like... expansion 3 or 4 or something, so yeah they definitely do a lot of planning ahead.

I always believed it was a loose end

This cut scene at the Mother Crystal practically spells out who that Minfillia character is in the ShadowBringers cutscene.

"I will hie me to your world and there take upon myself the Light which riseth even now to drown it, as Darkness once did drown another."

Go back further. The Cutscene with us first talking with Hydaelyn shows other WoLs traveling to the other shards to do her mission. You see another spawn and travel off like a shooting star to another shard.

I don't think they are planning as far ahead as you think they are.

One of the necessary skills of planning serial fiction (and an MMO like FFXIV is serial fiction) is to purposely leave hanging minor plots in a major plot that can then be gone back to and fleshed out. Do it right and it feels like the writers have been planning things out much further in advance then you think they are.

Of course,this can also go the opposite way if it feels too convenient. For me, the writers tied up the story of the 1st Shard and the WoD well enough all the way back in 3.4. I didn't (and still don't) think they need to revisit it. For me, this entire plot seems like an excuse so that the writers can give us a break between an expansion heavily focused on the Garleans (Stormblood) and another expansion heavily focused on the Garleans (6.0). So they decided the end of a finished plot (the 1st Shard and the WoD) wasn't actually the end of that plot and are sending the WoL on a massive cosmology lecture disguised as a side-plot for an expansion.

Now... I hope ShB does have something to do with the plot that started back in 1.0 besides just the greater cosmology, but I don't have my hopes up. If SB's MSQ taught me anything it's that the story team has a major weakness of not making different plots organically mesh with each other and not pacing the MSQ well.

If what Solus has said is true, then Hydaelyn is not the Mother Crystal. The Crystal existed before the sundering. The entity before Zodiark and Hydaelyn is also not the Mother Crystal since the planet also existed before its summoning. While it may or may not have been foreshadowing it's still cool, you could also apply this kind of thing to what Ifrit said in 1.0. Just to grab a quote from the wiki "The true nature and origins of the Echo are unknown, but according to Ifrit, there's a deity who gave the power of Echo to everyone who currently has it, but not even he seems to know who the deity is." He knows who Hydaelyn is, so Hydaelyn didn't give us the Echo, and we've had the Echo before receiving the Blessing of Light. There's lots of stuff we can say is foreshadowing or as stated above just left open so they can come back later to expand upon it.

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Originally Posted by ObsidianFire

Of course,this can also go the opposite way if it feels too convenient. For me, the writers tied up the story of the 1st Shard and the WoD well enough all the way back in 3.4. I didn't (and still don't) think they need to revisit it. For me, this entire plot seems like an excuse so that the writers can give us a break between an expansion heavily focused on the Garleans (Stormblood) and another expansion heavily focused on the Garleans (6.0). So they decided the end of a finished plot (the 1st Shard and the WoD) wasn't actually the end of that plot and are sending the WoL on a massive cosmology lecture disguised as a side-plot for an expansion.

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To me it seems like the opposite. To me it feels like Stormblood was the sidequest and now they are getting back to the plot of Acians trying to bring about a calamity in order to bring all the shards together. We're literally going to the first shard in order to prevent a calamity.

Minfilia, the representative of Hydaelyn and our old friend told us during the WoD plotline that she is going to the First shard to make things right. That doesn't sound like wrapped up story line to me.

They kind of sort of did this with Stormblood, too. Ilberds entire coup in ARR was based around a promise to go liberate Ala Mhigo, and when that fell through that's why he stopped working with Lolorito. Omega also got brought up a couple of times at the end of ARR, and that was when the Doman refugees showed up looking for a place to stay. Too much coinciding at the same time to be a coincidence.

Hell, you could say they did it with HW too. Even before Ayemeric showed up, Ishgard, their solitary disposition and their war with the Dragons came up every now and then, and you even got a bit of info about it around level 30 when you go to Coerthas and help out good ol Haurchefant.

I don't know how much of it was setting up future expansions and how much was just developing lore with the possibility of addressing it in an expansion, but by this point we should be keeping adttentive at the seemingly random side plots developing in the post-launch quests. To me, Stormblood is pointing out Garlemald itself as the next expansion following Shadowbringers, and will when this Black Rose gas and all the Solus clones will most prevalently be addressed.

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Originally Posted by IntrovertAnt

To me it seems like the opposite. To me it feels like Stormblood was the sidequest and now they are getting back to the plot of Acians trying to bring about a calamity in order to bring all the shards together. We're literally going to the first shard in order to prevent a calamity.

Minfilia, the representative of Hydaelyn and our old friend told us during the WoD plotline that she is going to the First shard to make things right. That doesn't sound like wrapped up story line to me.

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Agreed. Im not sure why people think the Garleans are the main focus of the core story when that's obviously the Ascians and Zodiark.
They're our Shinra/Galbadia to the main villain Sephiroth/Ultimecia.

Stormblood was formulaic "liberate the town of the month" stuff with a sprinkling of character development, with the only meaningful revelation being that Solus is an Ascian, and that was at the very end.
It was all sidequest.