What is the story the quests are trying to tell?

This is what I've got so far:

-beast tribes have something to do with primals, which we like to kill arena style
-the three nations work together to fight the evil garlean power rangers
-a cute blonde girl with valuable information likes to hide in rooms that are their own zone
-i'm special beacuse crystals talk to me and give me delusions

Uh, maybe you should actually watch and read the cutscenes and dialogue instead of skipping through them? That includes dungeon cutscenes too - in fact, a good deal of important information is mentioned in dungeon cutscenes, so skipping that you'll miss it.

Not that you said you actually ever did skip them, just a lot of players who complain about not understanding the story actually never bothered watching the cutscenes which give this info (don't forget you could easily recap the storyline through your journal which summarizes what happens in each quest, plus most story cutscenes can be easily replayed at will by accessing the 'Unending Journey' in your Inn Room).

However, if you still don't understand the finer points of the storyline (such as the Echo), there's always the Lore forum you could ask.

Yeah, I was sort of making the point that I don't watch the cutscenes, nor do I read... basically anything in the game. The inn room serves no purpose, I haven't been there in months.

For me, this game is simply entertainment, not literature (a comic book, not LOTR). There are too many of "the finer points" IMO.

FFIV, the game that drew me into the series, rpgs, and eventually MMOs had a great story you could almost completely understand without reading anything. I just watned to play the game, but along the way I fell in love with the story. The cutscenes were like, "OMG, Kain what are you doing?!?" I wanted to see them. And on top of that, you could get what was going on without reading a word. I think in FFIV typically something would happen, then you would get the back story. In FFXIV you get extensive backstory before something happens, which is like, "why do I care about this again?" (I do watch the cut scenes at the end of the dungeon, but often they consist of little more than a big falling down.)


I haven't atempted leviathan yet because I find the quest line to be an obstacle to game play rather than enriching it :(



I recognize MMOs have the unique challange of providing excesssive replay that somehow fits into a story... Repeatedly fighting summoned primals sort of makes sense, but fighting Livia in CM repeatedly really doesn't.

Why you want to understand what you dont care about?

If you don't bother reading what is given to you and in between the lines, then you're never going to make sense of the story or even enjoy it. Don't forget too that there was a LOT of stuff that happened in 1.0, so if you weren't there for it, then prepare for exposition up the bum.

I guess the story is much deeper for those of us that were in 1.0 since we basically played the prologue of 2.0 in a sense.

Normally I wouldn't even give you a straight answer since it sounds like you don't even try to pay attention to the dialogue or cutscenes...so let me break this down for you because I'm sure you'll say "TL;DR" if this gets too long too.

1. Garleans are trying to take over the world.

2. In the beginning of 1.0 Beastkin were not a threat, in fact there were some times where you had to play a mini game with them.

3. Garleans started posing more of a threat in 1.0, Beast tribes started to fight back by gathering crystals to summon their Primals.

4. Beast tribes now our enemies because Primals are a threat to Eorzeans and the very "life force" of the planet, the "Aether," takes a huge toll whenever a Primal is materialized. Because of these reasons, we have to defeat Primals. Beast tribes now our enemies because we are killing off their deities.

5. Garleans provoke Beast tribes to summon their Primals so that they can use their powers against them and the rest of Eorzea.

6. We stop Garleans from advancing by killing off their leaders and keeping Primals at bay at the same time.

That's basically it.

Also, just like each tribe has their deity, We have our Goddess. Hydaelyn. The crystal you speak to is Hydaelyn. We don't know if she'll take on any kind of form other than that yet.

That's why we're chosen to fight the Primals because they can't effect us by making us their followers since we're already "touched" by Hydaelyn.

The Echo power is also granted to us by Hydaelyn. Like in the last battle with the white light that's basically just an affect for the last battle to make it seem like you're all powerful.

There's also a deeper plot developing in regards to the Ascians and the Crystal Tower. Patch 2.2 also showed that the Echo itself may be connected to things beyond Hydaelyn herself.

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Originally Posted by Simaril

For me, this game is simply entertainment, not literature (a comic book, not LOTR).

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I think we prefer different comic books. Mine are mostly exposition, character development, and slowly developing story arcs. The images are add-ons to the dialogue, not a replacement for it; they just illustrate the action/scene instead of needing 5 pages to describe the elven hall.

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Originally Posted by MilesSaintboroguh

There's also a deeper plot developing in regards to the Ascians and the Crystal Tower. Patch 2.2 also showed that the Echo itself may be connected to things beyond Hydaelyn herself.

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My explanation is more of a "what we currently think we know."

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Originally Posted by Simaril

Yeah, I was sort of making the point that I don't watch the cutscenes, nor do I read... basically anything in the game. The inn room serves no purpose, I haven't been there in months.

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Sigh....

The inn Rooms have a book where you can watch any cutscenes of any quests that you've completed. There's also an Armoire that stores your AF and Seasonal gear, etc. Which is very useful for making space in your inventory or your retainer's inventory.

They have retainer bells, where you can call your retainer in peace. This is also the only location you can call the Aesthetician and change some parts of your appearance.

And before the towns and everything had rested EXP...the inn room was the only place to get rested exp.

and in 1.0 if you logged off in the inn room and log back in the next day you'd open with a cutscene of your character having an apocalyptic nightmare sometimes which ultimately foreshadowed that Dalamud was going to fall and the Garleans would "win" in a sense. Which was an awesome touch.

But you don't care about the story so I guess that would be useless for you after all.

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Originally Posted by Sagittarian

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Originally Posted by Simaril

For me, this game is simply entertainment, not literature (a comic book, not LOTR). There are too many of "the finer points" IMO.

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I think we prefer different comic books. Mine are mostly exposition, character development, and slowly developing story arcs. The images are add-ons to the dialogue, not a replacement for it; they just illustrate the action/scene instead of needing 5 pages to describe the elven hall.

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...again...Sigh...


Simaril, if you don't actually care about the story, why did you make this thread? And in the quests forum? It's more like the Lore forum. But it shouldn't be any forum. Because I fail to understand why you bothered if you just don't care. It's almost coming off disrespectful.

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Originally Posted by Simaril

I haven't atempted leviathan yet because I find the quest line to be an obstacle to game play rather than enriching it :(

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Why on Earth would you choose a FF MMO to play if that's your opinion?

That's like playing a Bioware game and being annoyed by side quest and character development.

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Originally Posted by Bombast

Why on Earth would you choose a FF MMO to play if that's your opinion?

That's like playing a Bioware game and being annoyed by side quest and character development.

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That's like playing call of duty and hating first person shooters

And Simaril, define "enriching" because by your description, most MMO's "story" would be considered an obstacle then.

It's not a race. Enjoy the game. Because I have a feeling you'd be one of those people who rush through everything to get to end game and then complain there's not enough content because you blew through it all in a week.

Basically the solution to this "problem" and all the people who have this so-called "problem" is, and always will be, unskippable cutscenes that you can't speed up or skip the text to. Possibly a secondary solution would be people not coming into 'literature' expecting a coloring book's level of entertainment value.

Don't worry OP, you're not missing that much.
And, as you noticed, FFXIV totally fail on the "show, don't tell" part, with its overdose of dialogues and botched cut-scenes.
The NPC in FFXIV aren't characters. They don't speak naturally like normal people. They're a bunch of soulless narrators, dictating the story to the player.
Also, quests are made to be short and to allow the player to understand them after a break, thus there are many quests and each quest starts with a summary of the previous one, weighing the narration down even more.
So it's totally understandable you don't want to read the text.

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Originally Posted by Nana_Balthazar

Don't worry OP, you're not missing that much.
And, as you noticed, FFXIV totally fail on the "show, don't tell" part, with its overdose of dialogues and botched cut-scenes.
The NPC in FFXIV aren't characters. They don't speak naturally like normal people. They're a bunch of soulless narrators, dictating the story to the player.
Also, quests are made to be short and to allow the player to understand them after a break, thus there are many quests and each quest starts with a summary of the previous one, weighing the narration down even more.
So it's totally understandable you don't want to read the text.

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Really? We must have played two different "A Realm Reborn" games then, cuz I didn't experience any of this. At all.

IMO, the story is rather strong. I remember playing through it and being like "Holy shit, this doesn't feel like an MMO, this is like a standard single player FF game!" it kept me drawn in, and when I hit the parts of the story that I had to raise my level to continue, I was actually upset, cuz I didn't want to stop! In the end, the game is what you make it to be. if you let yourself enjoy the story and get into the characters, it will be great, if you go into it all jaded and expecting absolute crap, that's what you'll see.

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Originally Posted by Nana_Balthazar

So it's totally understandable you don't want to read the text.

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It's the text I enjoy. I can make it sound natural in my head. But hired VA do not live in my head, so it comes off as stilted and unnatural when read aloud. For example, Urianger is written a certain way that can only be captured by maybe four of the most skilled actors in the entire industry. Anybody else sounds like a high school drama student reading a translation of Beowulf. Most of the cast sound like amateurs.

That said, I'm disappointed OP wouldn't want to read the text as the localization team does a first-rate job on this stuff.

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Originally Posted by Nana_Balthazar

Don't worry OP, you're not missing that much.
And, as you noticed, FFXIV totally fail on the "show, don't tell" part, with its overdose of dialogues and botched cut-scenes.
The NPC in FFXIV aren't characters. They don't speak naturally like normal people. They're a bunch of soulless narrators, dictating the story to the player.
Also, quests are made to be short and to allow the player to understand them after a break, thus there are many quests and each quest starts with a summary of the previous one, weighing the narration down even more.
So it's totally understandable you don't want to read the text.

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This is sort of what I was getting at...

I want to care about the story like I have in other FF games and other MMOs, but this story has been very dense and hard to get in to. The way the story has developed has been like reading an encyclopedia rather than something entertaining that I want to read and understand.

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Originally Posted by Almalexia

That said, I'm disappointed OP wouldn't want to read the text as the localization team does a first-rate job on this stuff.

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I half agree... I think if you took the text and made a novel out of it, it might be really good. But short scenes spread out over a long period of game play are hard/impossible to follow. Imagine reading one page of LOTR once a week... you'd always be lost, and never be able to get into it.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that the way I play the game is part of the problem, but it seems like it would be a problem for anyone more casual than me, and also the people who want to push through progression quickly. It seems like the remaining target audience is incredibly small. And again, previous FF games have had plots/characters/settings that were rich and easy to follow and enjoy - I wanted to advance the plot and see what happens more than I wanted to get to the net bunch of content/challanges.

I will say, the sideplots and world-building as well as some of the class/job quests are much more enjoyable than the main storyline. If all you're looking at is the Main Scenario, you're missing a lot of good stuff.

Story basics: "You're the god damned Batman of Light."

This story basic will basically be the foundation of the entire story until the game shuts down. MMOs do not have an end.

The several hour storyline of Leviathan is about as entertaining as slamming my head into the wall. You aren't required for most of it, and you, despite everyone saying "i'm sorry, someone else should really do this", are basically an errand person.

Go here.
Watch me talk.
Bring me soup.
Watch me talk.
Follow me here and watch me talk.
Nod your head.
Nod your head.
Watch me talk.
Go talk to the funniest Roe in the land.
Watch me talk.
Watch everyone else be awesome but you.
Watch me talk.
Watch us plan.

And so forth.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Story basics: "You're the god damned Batman of Light."

This story basic will basically be the foundation of the entire story until the game shuts down. MMOs do not have an end.

The several hour storyline of Leviathan is about as entertaining as slamming my head into the wall. You aren't required for most of it, and you, despite everyone saying "i'm sorry, someone else should really do this", are basically an errand person.

Go here.
Watch me talk.
Bring me soup.
Watch me talk.
Follow me here and watch me talk.
Nod your head.
Nod your head.
Watch me talk.
Go talk to the funniest Roe in the land.
Watch me talk.
Watch everyone else be awesome but you.
Watch me talk.
Watch us plan.

And so forth.

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Totally this.

The last couple steps were great, the first 10? were unbearable. It's like they had too much story to tell so they made you teleport somewhere else so it seemed like another quest... There was little "challange" and you could be totally disengaged in what was happening.

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Originally Posted by givemeraptors

I will say, the sideplots and world-building as well as some of the class/job quests are much more enjoyable than the main storyline. If all you're looking at is the Main Scenario, you're missing a lot of good stuff.

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I'm am lv 50 in all DoH, Min and Btn. I was surprised that those quests were generally more interesting, challanging, and engaging, than the "errand person teleport here, talk to tat guy" type quests of the main story.

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Originally Posted by Ilitsa

Really? We must have played two different "A Realm Reborn" games then, cuz I didn't experience any of this. At all. IMO, the story is rather strong. I remember playing through it and being like "Holy shit, this doesn't feel like an MMO, this is like a standard single player FF game!" it kept me drawn in, and when I hit the parts of the story that I had to raise my level to continue, I was actually upset, cuz I didn't want to stop! In the end, the game is what you make it to be. if you let yourself enjoy the story and get into the characters, it will be great, if you go into it all jaded and expecting absolute crap, that's what you'll see.

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This is an MMO, the fact that the quests are like a SP mmo is confusing and inappropriate IMO. I know I'm not the only one playing this game, and I know I'm not the only one doing this
quest... I prefer the quests that you can actually understand that there is the need for many adventurers and you are not special. To me it feels like they just ignored that it’s an MMO and made a single player game with online multiplayer content.

So would you prefer the storyline be where you ARE special, but there are many people like you? The Echo makes you special, but you are one of many people with the Echo, which comes in many flavors and degrees.

Unless Square decides to focus more on stories where combat and conflict aren't involved, this is what you will get.

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Originally Posted by Simaril

This is an MMO, the fact that the quests are like a SP mmo is confusing and inappropriate IMO. I know I'm not the only one playing this game, and I know I'm not the only one doing this quest... I prefer the quests that you can actually understand that there is the need for many adventurers and you are not special. To me it feels like they just ignored that it’s an MMO and made a single player game with online multiplayer content.

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It requires some suspension of disbelief. The world simultaneously recognizes the PC as one of many and one alone, whichever suits the content better. eg. Crystal Tower says "gather your companions" - who? Meanwhile, Bahamut's Coil presumes it's just you and elf boy, er, girl, er, elf going up against Twintania together and coming out of it in one piece.

Unless the game was designed from the outset to let the player be insignificant until proven otherwise--uncommon for theme park MMOs like XIV--you'll have to reconcile this little bit of silliness and press on.

Eat, breathe, science facts, show, relax, etc.

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Originally Posted by Rex

4. Beast tribes now our enemies because Primals are a threat to Eorzeans and the very "life force" of the planet, the "Aether," takes a huge toll whenever a Primal is materialized. Because of these reasons, we have to defeat Primals. Beast tribes now our enemies because we are killing off their deities.

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If that's the case then the world should have already ended from the many times Garuda has had to materialize for me . . . rofl.

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Originally Posted by Almalexia

It requires some suspension of disbelief. The world simultaneously recognizes the PC as one of many and one alone, whichever suits the content better. eg. Crystal Tower says "gather your companions" - who? Meanwhile, Bahamut's Coil presumes it's just you and elf boy, er, girl, er, elf going up against Twintania together and coming out of it in one piece.

Unless the game was designed from the outset to let the player be insignificant until proven otherwise--uncommon for theme park MMOs like XIV--you'll have to reconcile this little bit of silliness and press on.

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Given that the designers were willing to accept the silliness of the PC being one of many and one alone - whichever suits the content better, you'd think they could come up with a more compelling story than, "bring me some soup, look for some hiding kids, kill one eye, talk to this guy who lied to you before..." I think I could accept one or the other but those two things together bother me.

There is some disconnect between the older games and new ones. Remember how you used to have to talk to everyone to figure out where to go next? It's not like that anymore, you don't need to talk to anyone because it tells you automatically exactly where to go. It is more convenient, but I think little things like that make it so you don't even need to read to know what to do next (and subsequently make reading the text less interesting/necessary, in general).

That being said, there are some touching moments (moments that touched me anyways) throughout the various story lines. Not all are great, but there are some good moments. There is a lot of text to read sometimes, but at least it's in depth and not just a cheesy one-liner. That, I can respect at least.