Big 3.0 Surprise Speculation (potential spoilers)

Thoughts?

Think we'll travel back in time?

Think we'll enter a new Dimension via Cloud of Darkness?

Think Bahamut will rise again?

Think we'll have to find a way to side with the Ascians or Primals?

Speculate here!

I think it'll focus mostly on Ishgard, since that's been teased quite a bit. And hopefully some more about that place that was hinted at in the Ixal dailies.

Yugiri's face//race. Or both. That's what I think it is!! :)

War against the Ishgardians and the Wyverns. A war that has been going on for decades that we get involved in~ Actually that's just something I thought up on the spot, but maybe! :o

Well Yoshi stated the expansion will have as much content as 2.0 release. Which would imply around 17 overland zones, 3 cities maybe too?

Coerthas can grow by about 4-5 zones, Ishgard, from what ive read won't be a city/hub. Mor Dona can expand. This is going on the 1.0 maps as a lot of areas are missing from both Coerthas and Mor Dhona. Maybe Yugiris homeland too that will need airship to reach?

Are the Ascians going to survive the end of the 2.x storyline due to what was found out during the 2.3 main scenario quests?

Not sure on Bahamut making a reappearance as coil is upposed to tie up the story of the calamity,

Hopefully we get some official teasers soon.

We will head north-west (beyond the ice wall), north-east (beyond the Gilgamesh bridge) or both, into the regions that lie beyond.

New job quests for every job along with higher level cap for classes, new battle actions learned.

New race, jobs, dungeons. Presumably new fates, quests and hunts for the new zones added.

^not big surprises.

Naoki Yoshida as a playable character

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Originally Posted by Exstal

Naoki Yoshida as a playable character

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He'd be like Chuck Norris, he points and a zone full of mobs disappears. Imagine how fast he could spirit bond gear.

our character will awake in our inn rooms, and realize it was all just a dream.

Omega + Ishghard + Flying islands

My guesses are:
-Bahamut won't play a role in 3.0 as he is supposed to be taken care of in 2.4.
-Ishgard seems obvious since they have had concept art for it since before 2.0 was released.
-The storyline is gonna have something to do with the war between dragons and Ishgard.
-Doma and Yugiri are gonna play a bigger role and possibly create a city some where in Eorzea.
-I'm hoping they take the opportunity and rework the class/job system and rethink the skill layout of each class/job obtaining the same number of skills even if they need more or less than a different class.

I think the expansion will not only bring us Ishgard but Ala Mihgo as well.

If people have been following the story, Teledji Adeledji has been causing unrest from within Ul'dah, with none other than Ala Mihgan refugees, which also double as his workforce. I can see them staging a revolt against the Syndicate and the Sultana herself. He incited a much larger riot through a weapons dealer in 2.3, whom he had assassinated right after to cover up his tracks. This act got the Carteneau Reclamation Bill passed, which would potentially relocate the refugees to the Flats. Why does this matter? Because Teledji Adeledji knows that the Ala Mihgan refugees are a technologically inclined people and engineers, even after the downfall of their nation. He'll use them to [attempt to] obtain Omega, which is buried within the Flats, and then revive the weapon with their technological expertise. Teledji could also be scheming to not only move the refugees to the Flats, but have them prepare to retake Ala Mihgo from the Garleans, while they are still licking their wounds from the previous siege. Omega is just that worth it, Bahamut's entire purpose behind having Nael crash Dalamund into the Flats was to destroy Omega, a weapon created to subdue Bahamut in times of antiquity.

This becomes more interesting if Teledji Adeledji is actually being possessed or being manipulated by Elidibus as well. With so many players in Ul'dah scheming to get to get higher in the upper echelons of the Syndicate, one can only guess this is a perfect storm for the Ascians to take advantage of. Unfortunately, Ala Mihgans will be in the middle of all of this strife and suffer more problems.

Speaking of Elidibus, I can see him manipulating the Holy See to ramp up their war against Dravania, but to also enact war on Lady Iceheart (Shiva) and her minions as well as Eorzeans in Coerthas. He's also very likely manipulating Haurchefant as well to skirmish against Lady Iceheart, further spurring her actions. This creates a three-way war between Ishgard, Lady Iceheart, and Dravania. Meanwhile, Shiva is likely not tempering her followers, but swaying them to her side by telling them the honest truth of what's going on with the Ascians. With this, she gains loyal followers without having to temper individuals and can then use their easily swayed prayer to attempt to transform herself into Shiva to her own ends. Unlike the previous Primals (not including Ramuh), Shiva likely knows what's up and is much smarter than the others, not lusting after Crystals to maintain her being. So instead the Ascians do the same exact thing they did to Gaius and his Legatus, manipulate them all to fight a proxy war with the Primals (now Shiva), only this time with the Holy See. This moves you, the adventurer to stop the conflict by fighting Shiva, something the Ascians wanted all along.

Ascians do all of this for the empowerment of Zodiark. Zodiark's power grows as your power grows in The Echo. The more conflicts that you survive, the stronger their master gets, which is why they taunt you into defeating more Primals and why Ramuh had to judge you to see if you were fit to continue your journey.

Finally, the Isle of Val. Due to what Urianger state about the Students of Baldesion, they, along with the Isle of Val has "utterly disappeared." This is a very heavy allusion to Castle Bal of Final Fantasy V and it's being cast into the N-Zone, within The Void. N-Zone is a magic spell. Urianger states that a great and powerful magic akin to Ultima and Meteor caused this to happen. Maybe the N-Zone will in turn become the next raid tier as well because of this. What more is the irony that the Isle of Val existed in the Sharlayan region near Ishgard.

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Originally Posted by ZReport

Finally, the Isle of Val. Due to what Urianger state about the Students of Baldesion, they, along with the Isle of Val has "utterly disappeared." This is a very heavy allusion to Castle Bal of Final Fantasy V and it's being cast into the N-Zone, within The Void. N-Zone is a magic spell. Urianger states that a great and powerful magic akin to Ultima and Meteor caused this to happen. Maybe the N-Zone will in turn become the next raid tier as well because of this. What more is the irony that the Isle of Val existed in the Sharlayan region near Ishgard.

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This is something that's been intriguing to me for awhile. Something like this makes a lot of sense and I hope you're spot on/pretty close on.

It would certainly be surprise if the surprise was a surprise.

Pretty sure DotH will have a change of classification to professions instead of job, why? Because come on! Who wants to have a classification of being a disciple of the hand job?

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Originally Posted by ZReport

Finally, the Isle of Val. Due to what Urianger state about the Students of Baldesion, they, along with the Isle of Val has "utterly disappeared." This is a very heavy allusion to Castle Bal of Final Fantasy V and it's being cast into the N-Zone, within The Void. N-Zone is a magic spell. Urianger states that a great and powerful magic akin to Ultima and Meteor caused this to happen. Maybe the N-Zone will in turn become the next raid tier as well because of this. What more is the irony that the Isle of Val existed in the Sharlayan region near Ishgard.

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Not to mention certain person whose name starts with K, and who could've taken flight on a dragon to escape impending destruction.
Maybe this certain person is fighting for peace between the 2 races.

I think 3.0 will be based on the Ishgard Vs Dravania war, which would open up Ishgard, Dravania, Farreach, Abalthathia's spine, and possibly (because it's the last area in the west of Aldenard) Sharlayn. Perhaps it's not the three city states that join the war, but the Scions, and this is how they take us into Sharlayn.

I don't think we will see Ala Mihgo until 4.0, perhaps throughout 3.0 we will hear more of this war of succession Yugiri mentioned, which could lead up to 4.0 and possibly another Garlean invasion, or we hear they are planning it so we make a preemtive attack, starting out with taking Ala Mihgo, then going up north to the Garlean empire. This story would ultimately end in Garlemald where we would then end up fighting either the emperor then, or perhaps a version of Solus Zos Galvus in a similar way we fought Xande in Syrcus Tower, after all he is the one who made the Garlean empire what they are today.

Just a list of stuff we should be getting in the next 4-5+ patchs/including exp pack. Some of these been hinted since the creation of 1.0, 2.0, & 3.0.

Kingdom of Doma.
New Race: Lizard/Bunny/Rat/Mouse.
Ala Mhigo
Ishguard
Garlean Empire
Omega is rebuilt and Defeats Bahamut.
Floating Islands/Airship/Flying Mounts
Rainbow Unicorn. (Only obtained after having every primal unicorn)
A huge zone thats very open. A sky zone with islands. Think Skyward Sword.
Wandering Primals - Limited to only open world use.
FF8 Card Game.
Cloud of Darkness/Crystal Tower 3/ World of Darkness/The Land of Eurka- (Endgame zone after CT3)
Samurai Job
Dark Knight Job
Musketeer
AF2 Armor
Lv60cap
Golden Saucer
Chocobo Racing.
Summoning Primals. (Not Egi's)
Hamlet- (Probably large fate style content in the land of Doma and them fighting the Garleans)
Each Job gets its own Limit Break animation.
Gilgameish Extreme
Hilabrand Questline
New Dungeons
Savage Coil of Bahamut 1
Savage Coil of Bahamut 3
Bahamut Primal Fight/ Bahamut Weapons.
Typhoon
Caitsith
Nidhogg. King of Dragons. (Not Primal)
Beastmen Based Dungeons.
Adjustments to enemy levels when level cap is raised.
Zodiac Weapons. Next Stage of Relic Weapons.

Spoilers:
Necron, God of Death. Also know as Zodiark. (Final Boss)

What if the Domas live with the Ishgardians once we make friends with them and help them from the Ascians corruptions? Cause it definitely seems like they snuck into Ishgard to do something at least. ^^;

The Ishgardians probably won't trust us right off the bat either, I mean it did take a while for the people in Coerthas to trust us just to get our Airship for Garuda so yeah. :x

Pretty sure Cosmos and Chaos are pulling the strings in the background and we'll get to see other protagonists/antagonists and maybe even certain areas from other Final Fantasies.

Atomos reappears and creates portals that sends us back to the past so we can re-live 1.0 and maybe change the course of the future!

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Originally Posted by zandervont

Not to mention certain person whose name starts with K, and who could've taken flight on a dragon to escape impending destruction.
Maybe this certain person is fighting for peace between the 2 races.

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Yeah! Can call her by name since it shouldn't be too much of a spoiler now. Krile might have escaped on a dragon to escape sudden destruction, similar to how she uses her Wind Drake in FFV. It does play to the idea that Sharlayan city state is very close to Dravania already since 1.0.

I do wonder if Galuf is her grandfather in this rendition however, but so far it's playing out like they are associates working together instead.

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Originally Posted by Dwill

This is something that's been intriguing to me for awhile. Something like this makes a lot of sense and I hope you're spot on/pretty close on.

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I really hope for this to happen as well, mainly because I'm a huge fan of Void lore and it's interconnection to the various Final Fantasy games, post FFV (and FFIII). There are already so many hints towards the Void in Final Fantasy XIV: ARR, waiting to be explored more or even connected to the larger main story in some fashion. Essentially you have:

1) Entire Black Mage Storyline.
2) Gilgamesh.
3) The Isle of Val disappearing.
4) Cloud of Darkness sucking away Nero, as well as Doga & Unei to the World of Darkness.
5) Cloud of Darkness manipulating Xande for an unknown amount of time.
6) Monsters being summoned from the Void, as "voidsent".
7) Ascians using the Void as teleportation.
8) Atomos in FFXIV 1.0 summoning monsters.

I'm sure there's a couple of more examples of the Void in FFXIV, but these are the glaring ones that should pop out to anyone who has played Final Fantasy V religiously or to some extent.