1st year Review - Horizontal Story line (Fattening up the story)

To Yoshi-P and the Dev Team:

Can you provide the community with more information about the plans and generalized timeline on when we can expect more horizontal story line progression within the overall story of the game?

The story line has been very vertical for the last year, and personally, totally expected that and also expect it to stay that way till the 3.5 patch update (ish).

I am a player who started with FFVII and even though this is an MMO, I am still expecting, since it is FF, that the story and lore will be opened up similar to the games before it.

Please let us know more than "we are talking about" type of answer please.

Aren't they already on this? The Moogle Mail quests are pretty much all about fleshing out the game world.

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Originally Posted by FJerome

Aren't they already on this? The Moogle Mail quests are pretty much all about fleshing out the game world.

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There's also the Coil and Crystal Tower subplots

Sightseeing log, riddle questline, beastman quest chains, ...

I agree there could be more done, but the story didn't keep chugging along in a linear part after you turned fifty; it branched open, just how the game you are talking about did. (I, too, started really getting into FF after 7 but it's a common RPG occurrence to open up the world after the "intro" quest line or area.)

What I'd like to see is more lore and backstory related quests around the place. Some as riddle quests(but I want those riddles to be lore based NOT logic/cypher/etc... based puzzles - add those as mini games) some as courier quests(loved those). I'm leveling up monk and that quests has quite a bit of lore behind it as well. I want more lore quests. But I also want a lore library. Either make it so that each city has some form of a library/knowledge master or that the scions get that or that some npc at the scions can be that. Something browseable - so we can read up on stuff as we keep doing quests and as stuff is being added to it.

At worst and least effort it could just be various leve, npc chat, quest logs in a single entry for a specific theme.

Allow me to clarify some things that may be getting mis understood:

@Ruskie - you are generally right on with where I was intending to go with this post.

@FJerome and Morningstar1337 - There is (in my opinion) a difference between side quests and horizontal story progression. Moggle Mail, Coils, and CT are side quests in their own rights, but also directly related to the vertical story progression of the overall game. Coils relates to the otherside of a family dispute between siblings. CT is a dedicated series of side quests that relate to the study of Erozea's past currently primary empire which also in turn relates to recent past events within the vertical story. Moggle mail still has yet to be developed enough for me to know what it is besides a nice NPC relations series of quests.

The Horizontal Storyline that I am looking to discuss as well as get the dev team to tell us if it is being considered right now are the following:

1. More backstory on characters, events, history.
2. Expansion of the adventurer’s guild. It is nice to start the story that way, but add to it as well.
3. Goblins, Poachers, Hunters, Pirates, and other random encamped NPCs thought the open world maps and major cities:
a. I know that we hunt them, FATEs against them, guildheists, etc etc
b. Being able to join them would add an interesting dynamic to the game Additional Careers? Like we saw unlocked with Mog Mail side quests?. Possibly being able to become villainous kinda like in Fable.
4. Being able to study the various tomes that we all are grinding for in game to get high lvl gear. Would make it interesting for allowing players to unlock the overall game lore as we want to – maybe even make them worth more since we translated them…?
5. I saw someone mentioned working on Monk, I am staying out of this since they have said they will be doing lvl unlocks and I would expect those to progress as they allow us to lvl up.
6. Expanding upon the riddle quest:
a. I mean that after they release a riddle quest, the following patch (ish) they add to that by having quests to find truth to the end of the riddle.
7. Allowing players to aid in the expansion of Mor Dhona (working on aiding the construction like we do with the Ixal) and other places when that unlocks as Yoshi-P has mentioned I think 2 LIVE letters ago.
8. Providing aid to Forgotten Springs and helping them to prosper. They currently strike me as a people who are almost equal to what happen to Noel in FFXIII-2. This is a “Realm Reborn” after all, why do they have to perish?

I bring this up due to the simple fact that we have now put 1 year of the game behind us, and there are 9 more years to go. Every, EVERY patch since game launch has been primarily vertical storyline progression, side quests that directly relate to launch storyline.

The Dev Team has hinted to a hell of a lot of things that can be expanded upon. The question is what are they planning on expanding, and when?

I for one understand that they are already brainstorming the 4.0 game expansion which is good. Help us, the community, out with long term ideas behind the game content so we, the community, will not be hammering a million questions on the same subject for every LIVE letter, etc.

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Originally Posted by Aoxaviar

Allow me to clarify some things that may be getting mis understood:

There is (in my opinion) a difference between side quests and horizontal story progression. Moggle Mail, Coils, and CT are side quests in their own rights, but also directly related to the vertical story progression of the overall game.

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When I first saw this post I was confused by your terminology so I didn't contribute to the discussion, but I think I'm even more confused now :( You say that the moogle mail quests don't fit the bill for "horizontal story progression", but the very first example you list for it is "More backstory on characters, events, history", which is exactly what the moogle mail quests are. Story on characters, events, and history seems to be why you're ruling out CT and coil as not "horizontal story progression" as well.

Could you please define horizontal and vertical storyline progression for me?

Also, Coil and CT are actually branches of the main story. I consider them optional main story even.

I don't understand even with the further explanation what you want because Coil and Crystal Tower literally fit the bill.

CT and Coils to me is vertical based on:
1 -They have starting points in the original story that follow along the overall progression of the existing story line.

2 - Even though they are optional (which is nice) they can also in turn be turned back into the main story line very easy with the existing story progression.

Horizontal Story Line progression (specifics provided for an overall generalized idea):
1 - Expansion of the Forgotten Springs area that would explore their story and why they are on the decline, and in the future allow the player to also work to aid in restoring what they were

2 - Riddle quest extension without the riddles. I have made several posts other places about how this ended and wondering if the end of that riddle quest is also the basis of the issues brewing in Carteneau with regards to the topic of Omega Weapon. Sorry for being cryptic but don't want to spoil in case anyone hasn't finished riddle quest.

3 – I don’t include the Little Ala Mingo settlement and the Corpse Brigade due to the fact that I fully expect that we will find ourselves in the Ala Mingan Empire probably around the 4.0 Expansion. Who knows, may even before that, but I doubt it since the Dev Team has said we are going to the air with the 3.0 Expansion and the Ixal are talking about their homeworld high in the sky.

4 – Scions of the Seventh Dawn – going on missions similar to the existing NPC membership and getting the cool looking googles they have for missions.

5 – The Pirates inside the Sastasha Dungeon. Who are they, possible pirating sidequests, etc.

6 – Goblin Expansion for actually accessing BrayFlox on the open world, and a non-primal based “beast tribe quest” style of interaction.

7 – More of the NPC interaction along the lines of the end sparring fight of the patch 2.3 storyline.

Moggle Mail:
At this time, I am not certain if this is vertical or horizontal since it is the first run of this game add. Yes, this first run does seem to expand on existing NPCs that we have dealt with during the game, and has the feel of being a really cool NPC relations expansion (which would be horizontal in my opinion) I am one who needs more before making a final decision.

I have a feeling you just want to complain. Coil and Crystal Tower are horizontal story and we already have quests in regard to the U tribe. Beastman quests are also a huge source of horizontal story. Heck, so are EX Primals. There are sooooo many of what you want if you'll stop and smell the roses.

I get what you want and thats fine to want more of but we have it already.

I appreciate you defining these terms for me, but I'm afraid your logic looks faulty :x You rule out CT as being horizontal because 'it has a starting point in the original story' (I assume because it includes Biggs, Wedge, and Cid?), but so would many of your suggestions for horizontal story lines.

It sounds to me like you want more side quests (I agree, who wouldn't? :P), but your request is bogged down by semantics. Many of your suggestions sound great, but I find the horizontal vs. vertical structure makes it hard to understand what your real point is. I don't really know what makes your requests different from the story lines we already have.

Basically he wants sidequests about the things he requested and everything else that already exists "doesn't count".