Story Span

So I expressed it more or less on my Chrono Fantasy XIV thread, but after thinking more about it I guess it will be better to expand on the idea in it's own thread.

What about the life span of the lore of the game? In my experience most MMO, every time they expand, they do it with a new region, a new story-line and new characters, loosely tied with the events of the previous expansion/content.

But this whole year of Dalamud falling and knowing it's an only once event made it really awesome, and the final event that was live, not in an instance, but all the payers getting there and trying to achieve the same thing, was truly epic, and would have been even better if the servers could have handle it, but hat's not the concern here.

So I hope and wish, that ARR story line does just not last until the first expansion and then we get something else to do, but that Yoshi and the writers have a long story that will evolve with us and be the main force to push the game forward during a period of 7-8 years, maybe more, and that expansions just add more to the same evolving plot.

This is my wish and hope, but I'd like to see other peoples opinions, do you prefer the classic way, "starting anew" in every expansion, or just a single story that lasts a LONG time evolving and expanding?

From personally creating stories pretty much all my life, I can tell you its pretty hard to write a story on that scale set in stone. Unexpected plot changes can happen, or new ideas that might go in a completely different direction can happen.

Take JK Rowling's Harry Potter for example. She had a beginning and ending in mind, but the inbetween parts changed a lot from what she originally had planned.

Also take Rumiko Takahashi, a popular manga artist. She has stated before that she does not always know the outcome of her stories. She pretty much makes it up as she goes along. The result is that her stories are classics and have enduring positive remarks from fans from around the world. In her latest series "Rinne", she was asked if she planned to have the two main characters hook up, to which she replied something along the lines of "I'd really like it to happen! But we have to see how the characters end up feeling towards each other". As if she didn't control her characters.

I'd love to see the same thing happen for XIV.

Also I'm not really sure where you get the "starting anew" with expansion packs. Admittedly, the only other MMO I've really played hardcore was XI, but the expansions there built upon the existing storylines, while at the same time creating new smaller storylines.

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Originally Posted by Vilhem

From personally creating stories pretty much all my life, I can tell you its pretty hard to write a story on that scale set in stone. Unexpected plot changes can happen, or new ideas that might go in a completely different direction can happen.

Take JK Rowling's Harry Potter for example. She had a beginning and ending in mind, but the inbetween parts changed a lot from what she originally had planned.

Also take Rumiko Takahashi, a popular manga artist. She has stated before that she does not always know the outcome of her stories. She pretty much makes it up as she goes along. The result is that her stories are classics and have enduring positive remarks from fans from around the world. In her latest series "Rinne", she was asked if she planned to have the two main characters hook up, to which she replied something along the lines of "I'd really like it to happen! But we have to see how the characters end up feeling towards each other". As if she didn't control her characters.

I'd love to see the same thing happen for XIV.

Also I'm not really sure where you get the "starting anew" with expansion packs. Admittedly, the only other MMO I've really played hardcore was XI, but the expansions there built upon the existing storylines, while at the same time creating new smaller storylines.

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I am well aware that story telling changes as the story evolve "stories write themselves" as they say. And I wouldn't want it any other way, what I mean is not that yoshi knows now where the game is going to be in 2020, but that the game evolves around the same plot, and not just new stories with each expansion.