Patch 6.55 - Growing Light Part II - Story Discussion

Yoyoyoyoyo!

Feel free to discuss whatever cute new story developments have occured in this new patch.

MSQ: So it looks like

G'raha is not coming? At least not initially. Maybe he'll come later.

I thought Tuliyollal was the golden city. I guess Solution 9 is the golden city. The one claimant who's a jerk probably plans to use Solution 9 technology to invade Eorzea.

Fun fact: 1498 was when Columbus reached mainland Americas. Can't be a coincidence

I'd say Endwalker ends in a high note. The tone in the 6.55 MSQ is so much lighter and casual. Manderville, Tataru and Allied Tribal Quests have great finale too.

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Originally Posted by Yuella

MSQ: So it looks like

G'raha is not coming? At least not initially. Maybe he'll come later.

I thought Tuliyollal was the golden city. I guess Solution 9 is the golden city. The one claimant who's a jerk probably plans to use Solution 9 technology to invade Eorzea.

Fun fact: 1498 was when Columbus reached mainland Americas. Can't be a coincidence

I'd say Endwalker ends in a high note. The tone in the 6.55 MSQ is so much lighter and casual. Manderville, Tataru and Allied Tribal Quests have great finale too.

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We've seen the trailer. There's no way he's staying behind. Taco cat must consume.

I do think the MSQ was rather predictable though. It's going to be Team Krile and Team Thancred. I assume that the actual division won't really begin until we get over there and everyone meets up. Even though we have both twins with us right now, it's likely that they might split up between the teams. The way Thancred discussed it gave it the same vibes as a sporting competition. He's not discouraged knowing that we're competition, and seems to be excited by it.

Also, I know someone's going to point out that it's technically our team, considering Wuk Lamat clearly came to request our assistance, but due to Krile's motivations, her job change, and you know the fact that they literally told us she was going to play a bigger part in DT, it might as well be hers. We might not even stick around with her the entire time.

Given the context of DT the teams aren't going to last long anyways. It'll be a split of 9-12 quests for each team potentially before we join forces and agree to back one of the four contenders for the throne of Tural in order to prevent the one warmongering successor from taking power.

Manderville was alright, Tataru was interesting and Allied BT was cute.

Also just a minor detail from the MSQ I noticed though:

https://i.imgur.com/OFMzOI0.png
They seem to be getting more comfortable with adding references to side content if you've completed it. I assume players that haven't done the EW AR series don't get the second part of this remark.

I know it seems insignificant but it's yet another step in the right direction like with them allowing Gaia to exist in the MSQ if you finished the Eden raids. This will allow them to relax and not worry regarding the importance of the lore they create for side stories.

There is also a reference to the Omega EW quest in the Island finale.

What the hell is up with this dialogue? I genuinely think some of these lines are AI-generated.

"Whatever this creature is, it had better be able to put up a proper fight, or it'll end before we have the chance to get acquainted." Are we serious with this shit?

Origin of Pictomancer

They actually explain how Pictomancer came to be and that is because a version of Relm existed in FF14 world and she founded the arts of Pictomancer in Sharlayan long ago.

I wonder if they may end up doing this more later with future new jobs having them being founded or related to a character from other FF games where the new jobs are based on.

Other reason we are going to Tural......

Preventing another war and a massive invasion on Eorzea is a decent reason to go to the new regions beyond searching for the Golden City. Eorzea is still recovering from the war after countless years in it and now one of the four successors to the throne in Tural wants to take advantage of this by invading Eorzea if he becomes the new King. Ya they are not technological advanced as the Garlean Empire but the countries are still recovering and another war right when the last one just ended is never a good thing.

Tural also avoided getting involved in the war so this prince see this as a advantage since they did not suffer any supply loss to their Nation's army.

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Originally Posted by Aeromancer

What the hell is up with this dialogue? I genuinely think some of these lines are AI-generated.

"Whatever this creature is, it had better be able to put up a proper fight, or it'll end before we have the chance to get acquainted." Are we serious with this shit?

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they explained this already that their version of the language is not as fluent. As a result it comes out alot like broken English (or whatever language the voice dialogue is in) when people from Tural speaks using this new language their country only recently started making common tongue since they needed to start communicating with countries outside of Tural.


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Thoughts on growing stories about the City of Gold...

At this point in the story, I am starting to think the City of Gold is going for the more Metaphorical meaning when it means "Gold". I won't be surprised this new Civilization we will find in Dawntrail is the City of Gold and the "Gold" is actually the knowledge this civilization contains.

New Primal.....

I am a bit surprised they decided to bring Asura into FF14 now. I was partly expecting her to be involved in 6.0 years back. She seem like a Summon that would have been a Primal during the time of 6.0 MSQ considering the situation the world was in.

Though the lore about how Asura is not popular enough God by the majority explains a lot why she is rarely mentioned and thought about to end up as a Primal until now.

Short but sweet. I'm not as keen on Wuk Lamat as some people, and sympathising with Erenville.

MSQ and some cross-speculating with Fan Fest:

The expanded world map that G'raha bought for the annex doesn't seem to show Solution Nine, adding to the likelihood that it's a currently unknown location we'll discover along the way. Still no reason to go assuming it or the lightning aspect of the area are anything unnatural until we're given more concrete reason to believe so.

Maybe the ancient script in S9 isn't anything remarkable at all, just what Tural adopted as their common script.

Also the glow on the new Manderville weapons reminds me of S9's colour scheme.

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We now have a better picture of what we're going into with the contest, and can guess that the Miqo'te from the poster is Wuk Lamar's brother Koana, and his more western vibe might come from his time spent in Sharlayan.

We know to expect four royal characters overall and that the "villain" is male; if the girl at the top of the poster is indeed the fourth claimant (as some others have speculated above) then that leaves Koana and the Mamool Ja as the two possibilities for the villain, and it seems a bit cliche for the ugly monster one to be the bad guy, so that would accuse Koana by deduction, but Wuk Lamat seems to speak far more fondly of him than would make sense for that scenario.

That said, the girl has the vibe of being something more special and ethereal than just another claimant to the throne, so I would suspect that the would-be warlord claimant might not be on the poster at all.

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I assume Koana is the one who has petitioned Thancred and Urianger, and has particular interest in Archons because he has been in Sharlayan for a while.

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The business with Krile's letter is quite odd, with it being in the wrong script, but they still just say "oh, it must have been dictated to someone else" and never consider further? Why would a scribe be writing in the wrong language, unless it's deliberately communicating with a foreigner in the foreigner's language, in which case why not just say that from the start? "It's in Eorzean so it must have been written by a scribe, but the signature is definitely my father's" makes far more sense than starting off by saying it's not written by him.

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We seriously caught a giant bird unknown to science and brought it into a hub of researchers to get turned into lunch? Okay...

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G'raha's offer to stay behind and look after the Students is very generous of him, but doesn't line up with him being in the trailer. It seems an odd thing to do and then so immeduately undermine, so I'll be interested in the justification for it (even if it's "lol he's not coming, we just knew people would find the taco thing funny".)

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I guessed correctly that Estinien would be there separate from the other groups, but I thought it would be for something slightly more deliberate than "catch the next ship going anywhere".

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The credits slideshow usually finishes off with some kind of image specially created for it, and here we get a nice picture of Vrtra and mini Azdaja flying together.

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Originally Posted by Teah_Kaye

WoL still has Emet's bucket list on the brain.

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Hard not to, with so many reminders. At least they didn't go on to quote the bit about other shards that people keep pointing to and claiming it's some proof of S9's origins.

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Originally Posted by NekoMataMata

They seem to be getting more comfortable with adding references to side content if you've completed it.

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That level of reference isn't anything new. They've always had small nods like that where you might get a different version of a text box or two depending on quest progression elsewhere.

It's things like characters physically turning up according to sidequest progress that is a recent development.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

That level of reference isn't anything new. They've always had small nods like that where you might get a different version of a text box or two depending on quest progression elsewhere.

It's things like characters physically turning up according to sidequest progress that is a recent development.

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Ya they have done this for a long time.

The first time we got a big change in the storyline based on a side story being finished or not was when we first met Estinien and there are three versions of Estinien encounter being If you never done the 1.0/2.0 Dragoon Quest, if you are still progressing through the Dragoon Quest, and if you finish the Dragoon quest.

The version where we meet him when never done the Dragoon Quest is a neutral reaction and Estinien properly introduce himself.

The version when we are only progressing through 2.0 Dragoon Job quest has the WoL look hostile when spotting Estinien and he tells WoL they will hold off their conflict for later.

The version of that moment when the 2.0 Dragoon Quest is finished has WoL be surprised because he/she thought Estinien died during the finale of 2.0 Dragoon Quest and Estinien tells WoL he has not interests in starting up the conflict they last had during 2.0 Dragoon Quest for now due to the situation in Ishgard.


Looking back on this, Estinien really has come a long way from a side character in a side storyline to Main Character status.


Another example of this during early days of FF14 was during 3.X era contents when Alisaie started to join the Scion team after she was attacked by the Warriors of Darkness. Her dialogue is very different based on if your character finished (or still working on) the Coil Raid storyline or not from 2.X era.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Maybe the ancient script in S9 isn\\'t anything remarkable at all, just what Tural adopted as their common script.

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There is a section from one of the trailers where we can see a bar in Xak Tural with modern Eorzean script

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...33fe2ba035126&

/10 characters

That's...it? That's all until mid to late summer? We see the new cat girl in action and Krile uses a spell we've already seen?

A disappointing end to a disappointing expansion. At least it's over and the next time I log in I won't have to hear that insipid song any more.

Mandervillious Relic Final form....

I really like the design they went with. It has that tech theme with this Final Relic form.

Here is a video showing all Mandervillous Relic Final Form
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxcrQskm7F4

Glad that I saved MSQ for last, it was short but fun and causal and set-up for the next Expac. And that meant that the NPCs in Sharlayan were talking about what happened with the Allied Tribal Quest.

Wuk Lamat has a refreshing energy. Some of her vibes feel like Yuffie, and while she's an energetic ax-wielding lady jibbing on her more serious childhood friend, she doesn't feel like a direct Moenbryda copy. Or Lyse. Though she does help to fill the personality gap left by them.

Koana as the white-haired Mi'qote male on the poster, another adopted brother (I was guessing childhood friend, but I pegged the Sharlayan ties/studies and hyper-interest in technology). I have a feeling that he is the claimant that contacted Thancred and Urianger now.

Estinien randomly chooses adventure in Tural is very on-brand for him. About the only thing missing was that he heard rumors of Valigarmanda and did the same investigate like in SB's DRG questline. Will probably strand himself without cash and thus how he falls into working for the Mamool brother, if he does. Which is the currently assumed to be expansionist warmonger, but this could be misdirection.

Ketenramm is very suspiciously unconfirmed dead and was in Tural during that period 80 years ago when the Dawnservant/Autarch unified Tural (as possibly so was Galuf), so we'll get more details and uncover some secret involving all of them.

G'raha and Y'shtola at least not joining on the initial boat ride, but that could change with the opening quest of DT.

Final Island Sanctuary quest line was cute if a nothingburger on rewards, and made clear why the next Ishgard Restoration event is Cosmic Exploration instead of Garlean Resto (they want to get those Saint titles themselves instead of the WoL, though probably will buy IS mammets from Tataru).

Really not digging the whole reason for going to Tural. We barely know anything about Wuk Lamat, we don't know who the other 3 claimants are, we don't know their policies aside from that one is a warmonger, we don't know Wuk Lamat's policies at all, and we're asked to just fight for a stranger and play kingmaker and give her the throne...why? Is everyone just blinded by furry thirst that no one is questioning the fact that we're going to fighting to put Wuk Lamat, a complete stranger, on the throne of a foreign country we know nothing about? The whole thing feels strange and forced and G'raha telling me I can just slip away if I'm not interested in supporting her at the end doesn't fill me with confidence because FFXIV is not a game where that level of story choice is a thing. We're basically agreeing to help the first person who asked, not the best person for the job. And the fact that politics are involved makes the whole adventure feel a bit grimey to me.

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Originally Posted by BabaM

Really not digging the whole reason for going to Tural. We barely know anything about Wuk Lamat, we don't know who the other 3 claimants are, we don't know their policies aside from that one is a warmonger, we don't know Wuk Lamat's policies at all, and we're asked to just fight for a stranger and play kingmaker and give her the throne...why? Is everyone just blinded by furry thirst that no one is questioning the fact that we're going to fighting to put Wuk Lamat, a complete stranger, on the throne of a foreign country we know nothing about? The whole thing feels strange and forced and G'raha telling me I can just slip away if I'm not interested in supporting her at the end doesn't fill me with confidence because FFXIV is not a game where that level of story choice is a thing. We're basically agreeing to help the first person who asked, not the best person for the job. And the fact that politics are involved makes the whole adventure feel a bit grimey to me.

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The epilogue actually explains the real reason for WoL going to Tural and that is...

the final words from Emet still lingers in his/her mind so when the Golden City was mentioned, the WoL had already decided to go to Tural.

WoL wanting to be involved with the politics or not on a emotional level in Tural is more just personal dialogue choice since going to Tural was already a personal thing due to the Bucket list that Emet left WoL.

The two "other" locations that WoL has in his/her head when remembering Emet's final words are either going to be side content for next expansion or future expansions OR potentially the focus for each new expansion individually.

Speaking of that....

I feel like they may have setting up a Thancred Boss fight for the next expansion MSQ as a Story instance fight

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Originally Posted by EdwinLi

they explained this already that their version of the language is not as fluent. As a result it comes out alot like broken English (or whatever language the voice dialogue is in) when people from Tural speaks using this new language their country only recently started making common tongue since they needed to start communicating with countries outside of Tural.

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This issue is not exclusive to Wuk Lamat. Although her dialogue is particularly bad (and does not at all sound like broken English, rather her lines sound like they just ran them through Google Translate without considering that that's... not how people talk when they're learning a new language), there are several lines from several other characters that are completely stilted.

I will have to say that the writing for Tataru's this time was excellent even if from previews it didn't look like much, and coupled with the finale for Island Sanctuary both felt like quiet, introspective continuations of EW's MSQ instead of optional side stories. And it referenced the Omega extra - If anything in EW has stood out, it's been how integrated all the various content threads have felt, be it the Allied Tribe quests, especially the Omicron and Loporitts, and how Hildibrand and Manderville relics has been one and the same. That's not always a great thing, but it definitely feels like the writing is working off the default of the player doing everything and thus references and builds themes and story beats off of everything.

As far as the stated goal of succinctly defining Wuk Lamat's character the quests were a great success, even if the overall narrative was woefully short and dreadfully boring.

I do like her quite a bit, but I can already predict that being an immediately and obviously flawed character she's going to be as divisive as Lyse or even worse (thousand page thread on why the other claimants are objectively better, anyone?). It seems like her growth is going to be the main overarching narrative between the two 'halves' of Dawntrail, so I'm interested to see where it takes her.

I was hoping for a grand and exciting combat instance like the 5.55 one, but such is life.

Interesting to make Relm into an Archon, perhaps one of the original twelve?

More than anything, what intrigued me the most was the second or third callback to Emet-Selch's travel agent speech. I'm very content to let the Ancients rest, but the one I always want to know more about is Azem. It's probably a red herring, but the title of Dawnservant seemingly predating Tuliyollal's primacy in the region and all the coming dawn/blazing sun rhetoric makes me hope there's some sort of connection there.

Cant wait for new adventure in Tural!

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Originally Posted by Vallavia

I do like her quite a bit, but I can already predict that being an immediately and obviously flawed character she's going to be as divisive as Lyse or even worse (thousand page thread on why the other claimants are objectively better, anyone?). It seems like her growth is going to be the main overarching narrative between the two 'halves' of Dawntrail, so I'm interested to see where it takes her.

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Unfortunately I think you're right on this point, and I just wish you weren't. (MSQ spoilers go)

I love everything about Wuk Lamat already, that clearly both her heart and skills are in it even if she's a completely inexperienced wimp in reality. It's entirely possible we could see a Lyse-style angle unfold, where she realizes that her style of leadership doesn't actually sync up with what she thought the country needed. Although something else I could see them doing is us learning that she actually is good at the important parts of ruling a nation, she's just woefully underequipped for the actual rite of succession, that demands a completely different skillset. Which is honestly an element of leader-selection in general that I wish more media explored: that 'ability to undertake the leadership role you're going for' usually has nothing to do with the process in which we select a leader.

...but you're also completely right, that the big Discourse Subject of Dawntrail will absolutely be 'Wuk Lamat is a bad leader'. And I'm sure it's also going to be a complete coincidence that those people are always gonna put forward one of the male characters, including the one that explicitly wants to take them to war.

And all of those people are wrong, Wuk Lamat is great. I took a bit to completely warm to her voice acting, I did have that struggle of 'this is a new accent to me and I need to get used to its cadence', but even then I adored her character, and her, Krile and Erenville will make for interesting parts of the 'A-Crew'. Unfortunately, every other choice for the Scions is exceedingly lame; there's nothing new to say about the twins or G'raha as allies (and yes, I know G'raha is staying home, he's still an ally), while getting Urianger in a core party without getting pushed aside by sheer cast size is overdue.

Finally: as someone whose chocobo has been named Tritoch this whole time, I'm happy to see that Valigarmanda will get such a starring role.

Tataru quest I unfortunately don't have much to say about; it's nice, I liked it, but it's ultimately a 'smooth landing' kind of ending; it's a satisfying, touching end that's also pretty much note-for-note what you expected. Did like the cameos, though.

Allied tribe quest, though? Delightful.

Yeah, turning up the volume on the Hippo Riders' Initial D to the point where it turns into Speed Racer (or possibly Wacky Races, the line is kinda blurred) is fantastic, and honestly, any further exploration of the Nibirun is welcome: I find it really interesting to see the exploration of exactly how their 'world without suffering' had nothing to live for: being so focused on avoiding the negatives of an experience that they also cut out the positives, with the concepts of adrenaline and competitiveness being completely foreign. It was quietly there in the Omicron quests, but it's nice to see it take center-stage, and it's empathetic in its way; I certainly know the experience of having staunchly avoided a badfeel so much that I forgot the joys that came before it.

Haven't done Hildibrand yet.

My only disappointment is that all the cosmetics are a little plain; none of them are bad, but if you're not interested in specifically that thing, then they don't really have the 'sparkle' to win you over. That's only a real shame with the allied tribe quest, though, that quest is full of awesome potential cosmetics that we didn't get. (I still want the Karellians' uniform)

The succession candidates

It's painfully obvious that Wuk Lamat with be divisive because well, she's a female character that isn't the player's own insert, she has a personality, which includes flaws that will be blown out of proportion and the plot line will focus at least partially on her growth, and she's entering in politics competing against male characters, at least one of which is the attractive cat-boy race. And there's a more conventionally attractive female character to be added in too. Doomed.

They are writing some optional ambivalence to supporting Wuk Lamat, and as she is framed now is someone who is using bravado and a Yuffie-esque 'genki' attitude to cover up self-doubt and anxiety. And it would be nice the have the arc be that the martial skill she is trying so desperately to project isn't what Tural's ruler needs. The bait-and-switch won't be that she's evil, but that one of the other candidates is better- and one of the other three is worse than initially seems and probably a puppet for something else. That and Wuk has only the sanitized and simplified version of her adopted father's unification efforts and will be disillusioned by the truth but not halted in her efforts to ensure peace. Koana has more bait-and-switch set-up vibes, tbh. But by the end I think it's more likely to have a coalition governance than one winner.

I will be pleasantly surprised if Mamool John isn't our would-be imperialist candidate, just the traditional and isolationist guy.

MSQ

I suppose it did a good job of establishing Wuk Lamat's character (an earnest young woman with more moxie than experience), but beyond that there wasn't much movement. We learned about the the central conflict and tidbits of information on the other players, as well as the setup for getting everyone over to Tural and the conflict amongst the Scions (Y'shtola and G'raha not withstanding, the latter of whom is even supposedly staying behind in Sharlayan) but... not much else. It is an X.55 patch though, and those tend to have no story whatsoever, so a story-light patch is fine.

... yeah, I'm guessing Wuk Lamat is going to have to learn that her moxie and martial prowess doesn't make a good peacetime ruler, someone like Koana is more suited to the role, and her father's unification of Tural into Tuliyollal (sp?) wasn't as clean as she thinks. Further information notwithstanding.

I have no idea what went on in Hildibrand, because I lost interest in it like halfway through the series and just skipped all the cutscenes. There was some inquisition, and then a fight with Asura, and now I have a gunblade that looks like it came from Solution Nine.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

Wuk Lamat has a refreshing energy. Some of her vibes feel like Yuffie, and while she's an energetic ax-wielding lady jibbing on her more serious childhood friend, she doesn't feel like a direct Moenbryda copy. Or Lyse. Though she does help to fill the personality gap left by them.

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Probably a coincidence, but Wuk Lamat also talks like Yuffie, at least in Japanese. Most of her dialogue is "rough tomboyish" in word choice, but she also uses "atashi" pronouns, which is supposed to be more "feminine"/"girly". Which is how Yuffie speaks in FFVII (at least the original).

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Originally Posted by BabaM

Really not digging the whole reason for going to Tural. We barely know anything about Wuk Lamat, we don't know who the other 3 claimants are, we don't know their policies aside from that one is a warmonger, we don't know Wuk Lamat's policies at all, and we're asked to just fight for a stranger and play kingmaker and give her the throne...why? Is everyone just blinded by furry thirst that no one is questioning the fact that we're going to fighting to put Wuk Lamat, a complete stranger, on the throne of a foreign country we know nothing about? The whole thing feels strange and forced and G'raha telling me I can just slip away if I'm not interested in supporting her at the end doesn't fill me with confidence because FFXIV is not a game where that level of story choice is a thing. We're basically agreeing to help the first person who asked, not the best person for the job. And the fact that politics are involved makes the whole adventure feel a bit grimey to me.

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I'm pretty sure the dialogue is explicit in saying we're going to Tural to see for ourselves what the situation is like. I think that is a very fair and reasonable decision to make.

Also playing as a mid-height FemRoe, Wuk Lamat comes across as, well, short. Not excessively so, but very much a teenage girl who hasn't reached her adult height. The character is probably supposed to be no younger than nineteen, but she has the 'quasi-tomboy princess on a mission underplaying her royalty' that Yuffie did. But I would not be shocked if she introduces herself as the "White Orchid of Tuliyollal" at some point.

The FF X-2 vibes have not dissipated in the slightest, and I will stop myself from relabeling Koana's faction either the Youth League or Catboy-Gippal with great pains.

And I think that we're entering Tural with more hesitancy and willingness to question our proposed actions and alliance than we did helping the Cirina and the Mol win the Nadaam, with Erenville roughly filling in for Gotetsu and Hien in this parallel.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

Also playing as a mid-height FemRoe, Wuk Lamat comes across as, well, short. Not excessively so, but very much a teenage girl who hasn't reached her adult height. The character is probably supposed to be no younger than nineteen, but she has the 'quasi-tomboy princess on a mission underplaying her royalty' that Yuffie did. But I would not be shocked if she introduces herself as the "White Orchid of Tuliyollal" at some point.

The FF X-2 vibes have not dissipated in the slightest, and I will stop myself from relabeling Koana's faction either the Youth League or Catboy-Gippal with great pains.

And I think that we're entering Tural with more hesitancy and willingness to question our proposed actions and alliance than we did helping the Cirina and the Mol win the Nadaam, with Erenville roughly filling in for Gotetsu and Hien in this parallel.

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You should absolutely embrace that labeling convention. Though that would immediately distance me from a new Yevon faction by default.

MSQ thoughts

I love Wuk Lamat. I also fear that she will suffer from the same crap people flung at Minfillia and Lyse. That she's inexperienced and that she doesn't do things a good leader or even one that isn't experienced go and do. When I saw the hand tremble I immediately thought about her being like Lyse while also having the "Point me at the enemy and I'll kill it." mentality that Estinien tends to have. Man Raha is making himself even more lovable. He saw the hand tremble and chose the nice thing and gave Wuk Lamat a confidence boost. It is a bit odd that we just take a giant colobri and have it served up for lunch. I do wonder how expensive that map is that Raha bought. An interesting thing is in the Japanese version Krile mentions Alisaie and Thancred during the "As you all have adapted your methods to suit the circumstances" part of her explanation as to why she chose pictomancy. I feel as though half of the books held information we already knew in game or at least from an EE. Was the Blue Mage book Martyn's words or those of Wastrach? I don't think we need to fear too much about Wuk Lamat as I don't think Erenville would vouche for her if she was shady. I enjoyed that Zero started a trend with her spicy cury eating.

Island Sanctuary

It sort of makes sense that they put that quest in this patch as it wouldn't make any sense for you to get who shows up in it if you hadn't gotten to the relating part in the MSQ. It makes me wonder if you can do it if you got your Island to 20 and saw the previous quest before getting to that point in the MSQ. Or if you would need to wait until you had Jullus tell the twins to go take a break. Is this the 1st time we are told Jullus's ser name? I chose the lets go swimming choice just to see if they even knew how to swim. Only for Jullus to try and calculate how far out and how long should we swim. I'm very glad he was able to drink from that cup without a flashback to the last time he held a similar cup. Also how dare the devs use up so much animation on food or food scenes. /s loved the other mention of Zero. No Devs I still refuse to go with the whole everything happened in a year.

Allied Tribe

I liked it. It was about on par on the last one we got. I love that Acala post race found out his hippo likes the smell of flowers. I somehow wasn't expecting that a Nibirun would transform into Ra La. That they would just summon them. I like that most of those at the Last Stand do mention the race and that there are radio enthusiasts that appear after you're done with the race. Not quite a fan of the trophy. Oh and I'm not sure which cuisine Trna brought back for Maru but whatever it was seems to have been spicy.

Hildibrand

Just give us a dang sports mini game already. Wooo we get Julyan back this time and we even are allowed to use her frying pan. I liked the trail, but felt it was kind of easy. Even easier than the last one we got vs Jim/Greg. I do wonder if we will see the Pupu in random spots like we see Omega and Alpha now. Haven't finished the weapon quest but I started laughing when Godbert fights back with the whole your drinking bill is partly why my wife is kinda pissed at the amount of gil it is taking to make just one od these. Oh and look they're not descendants of indestructible aliens. They just use Dynamis... or maybe not with how readily Julyan was to beat the ever living crap out of Godbert at the mear mention of it.

Tataru

I wasn't expecting to cry at that shot of the Path of the Twelve. Or how and when exactly Tataru first met Minfillia. I guess it's one way to make sense of the Cylva and not Ardbert and friends, friends from the 1.0 trailer.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Unfortunately I think you're right on this point, and I just wish you weren't. (MSQ spoilers go)

I love everything about Wuk Lamat already, that clearly both her heart and skills are in it even if she's a completely inexperienced wimp in reality. It's entirely possible we could see a Lyse-style angle unfold, where she realizes that her style of leadership doesn't actually sync up with what she thought the country needed. Although something else I could see them doing is us learning that she actually is good at the important parts of ruling a nation, she's just woefully underequipped for the actual rite of succession, that demands a completely different skillset. Which is honestly an element of leader-selection in general that I wish more media explored: that 'ability to undertake the leadership role you're going for' usually has nothing to do with the process in which we select a leader.

...but you're also completely right, that the big Discourse Subject of Dawntrail will absolutely be 'Wuk Lamat is a bad leader'. And I'm sure it's also going to be a complete coincidence that those people are always gonna put forward one of the male characters, including the one that explicitly wants to take them to war.

And all of those people are wrong, Wuk Lamat is great. I took a bit to completely warm to her voice acting, I did have that struggle of 'this is a new accent to me and I need to get used to its cadence', but even then I adored her character, and her, Krile and Erenville will make for interesting parts of the 'A-Crew'. Unfortunately, every other choice for the Scions is exceedingly lame; there's nothing new to say about the twins or G'raha as allies (and yes, I know G'raha is staying home, he's still an ally), while getting Urianger in a core party without getting pushed aside by sheer cast size is overdue.

Finally: as someone whose chocobo has been named Tritoch this whole time, I'm happy to see that Valigarmanda will get such a starring role.

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I personally feel like they are going with the very basic trope used a lot in animes/manga/light novel or any type of underdog royal succession story.

Wuk Lamat is the basic underdog that people see as the worst leader because she is consider not "Strong enough to make the right choices" trope most main character status characters start out as then got to work her way up to make people realize she is what they need.

Then there are her three siblings following the basic other trope....

We got the Miqo'te brother who is the smart one of the siblings and probably the type to be all strategy and knowledge acting like with a personality that is consider calm all the time. A large amount of people probably support him because they think they need someone to be calm and always think logically as their king.

The third one we do not know much about yet but I am guessing this one is either the Sibling that is always supportive of Wuk Lamat or the sibling that is the "almost perfect" person type that fits the image of a ideal leader who is always the Good brother or sister the majority of their people support. If this sibling is this type then we can probably expect the Warmonger brother to kill him/her off early in the storyline to remove the the only sibling that can win the succession from Wuk Lamat along with to establish how dangerous the Warmonger brother is and provide more reason not to allow him to become the new king.

Then we have the Warmonger brother who they setup as one of the Antagonist already. The Candidate that plays the classic "I am Strong, only the Strong should rule, and the weak deserve to be conquered by the strong" character trope for any Royal Succession storyline.

Not going to bother adding it to my other post, but I did find it a bit odd that the last Tataru quest makes it feel as though you should be doing it post MSQ as she gets all LoL if you think I won't track your ass down just cause you went to some place new to give out new samples of my wares at the end of it. N I had done it before doing the MSQ and went wait how do you know I'll be going somewhere new hmmm? I am also a little bummed that Estinien doesn't even mention Meracydia as a possible place to go even if we all know that he wouldn't have chosen that as his destination due to the trailer. It will be interesting to see how he and the other two who currently aren't coming end up in Tural. I am glad that he has an adventuring bug. After all he went from sheppard to being a symbol of Ishgard for almost most of his life time and now he is just following his heart. Hopefully this time he will check in with his found family more often than he did between 3.3 and 4.5. I am a bit disappointed in Emet-Selch's journal entry. Sure he gets mentioned in other entries but in his own entry he barely gets anything.

MSQ

I wonder if they'll commit to keeping G'raha and Y'shtola benched for this next expac for a while story-wise. I know they exist in the Dawntrail trailer, but 6.55 seems to set up all of the known players so far, so if G'raha and Yshtola were to be involved, it'd say so in this part. It's definitely an interesting move because it means they can focus on new characters, which so far seems great from the reception that Wuk Lamat is getting from everyone. I'm already excited to see what Koana and the other older sibling set up as the antagonist will be like. And I'd like to think that the 4th Hyur girl in the key art is the 4th claimant/sibling to the throne, since the devs do a good job of not showing their hand too early, if SHB and EW are anything to go by.

Hildibrand

The writers understand very well what characters are popular. I'm extremely happy that Brandihild has a future in the storyline still, and can't wait for them to have more antics. The scene where he and Hildibrand work together was perfect. I'm also happy with how the Relic steps progressed story-wise. Worked very well with the themes of Endwalker.

Allied Tribal Quest

I think this is my personal favorite Allied questline. Wacky Races was not where I was expecting this to go, but it was amazing. And seeing the Nibirun feel frustration at their loss and determination to get better really drives home the lessons learned from Endwalker. It makes me wish we could get a Chocobo Racing version of this though.

Oop, Sanna's reminded me that by the time I'd made my post, I'd slept and evidently forgotten the actual worst part of the patch for me. Which is kind of a good sign, really--if the worst part of a patch is so forgettable that you literally do forget it within the day, it literally just isn't that bad. But it still annoys me.

C'mon, did we have to have that scene of Emet's little sequel hook speech? What is that even doing for anyone aside from going 'hey, remember The Guy?' We didn't need the explicit reminder, an earlier scene in the patch already gave us the dialog option to bring it up, and in my experience people prefer that level of subtlety in their callbacks. Is this just for a possibly-fictional group of players that's so critically Ancient-brained that they'd switch off unless the story wasn't directly linked to one?

I'm not even sure it does much for the Emet-likers; they're mostly there for the complicated emotional and character dynamic, and this is as flatly positive as it gets for him.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

Oop, Sanna's reminded me that by the time I'd made my post, I'd slept and evidently forgotten the actual worst part of the patch for me. Which is kind of a good sign, really--if the worst part of a patch is so forgettable that you literally do forget it within the day, it literally just isn't that bad. But it still annoys me.

C'mon, did we have to have that scene of Emet's little sequel hook speech? What is that even doing for anyone aside from going 'hey, remember The Guy?' We didn't need the explicit reminder, an earlier scene in the patch already gave us the dialog option to bring it up, and in my experience people prefer that level of subtlety in their callbacks. Is this just for a possibly-fictional group of players that's so critically Ancient-brained that they'd switch off unless the story wasn't directly linked to one?

I'm not even sure it does much for the Emet-likers; they're mostly there for the complicated emotional and character dynamic, and this is as flatly positive as it gets for him.

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It is more for establishing and reminding players why the WoL will go to the expansion region regardless of personal involvement or not in the politics going on there. A very classic Epilogue moment that most stories use to setup and remind the viewers of the story reason why the Main Character is actually going to a certain region since it has been a while for that moment when Emet establish the reason for WoL to go there.

Players can choose earlier in this MSQ to say they want to avoid the politics going on which would suggest he/she has no interests going to Tural. However, Emet mention of the Golden City is meant to be the real reason why WoL is going regardless of his/her stance with getting involved in the succession part of their journey. Though I find it a bit strange there was no dialogue that allow the WoL to tell everyone he/she is only going to investigate the Golden City and only option close to that is "I am always up for a new Adventure" dialogue options which the characters can interpret as many things.

Spunky axe-wielding amazon and helpless lala girl who desperately wants to assist her fellow scions on the frontlines...

Why do these arcs sound familiar...

MSQ thoughts

At this point in time, Wuk Lamat's story and it's development seems way too obvious and I don't know how to feel about that. It feels too much like Lyse.

I think what I'd like to perhaps see happen is that WoL manages to do much of the heavy lifting early on, and when it's time for Wuk to take charge, she'll fail miserably because she has just rested comfortably on her laurels while WoL has done all the work essentially. And because of her incompetency, I could see some of the scions who have teamed up with her bailing on her as well, because there are clear signs that she is not fit for this position at all.

I think Wuk will end up failing to get the throne, partly because even she ends up realizing she doesn't have the necessary qualities to succeed her father. She might even be motivated by WoL to seek adventure and personal development instead.

But hell, I thought Myths of the Realm wasn't going to be another '' our work is done, now let us die please '' story that has been rehashed in the past two expansions two times already, but they managed to do just that regardless, so perhaps we are going to get a very similar story to Lyse again.

On another note, not excited for more twins. G'raha staying back is rough though because I really like him but perhaps it's necessary so that people wont keep whining about how he is supposedly forced on them and that he is such a fanboy ugh sigh (when he has done barely anything in Endwalker). I really enjoyed him basically saying to WoL that '' go to Tural for adventure and to meet new people, and if you don't care for the politics, just bail out lmao. '' He is not all goody goody that catboy!

Thancred's position is going to be interesting. He has a lot of... weird flags popping up the last few patches, in his dialogue and cutscenes. I can't help but wonder if he'll end up being more antagonistic than expected. Will one of the supposed good guys (scion or otherwise) switch to the big bad's team? Will it be Thancred? Who knows.

I feel like Estinien is going for a simple adventure and find himself getting along with the locals, and after hearing their opinions on what is going on, that might influence him to join the competition on the side of the person who the locals seem to support the most. Or perhaps there is an even bigger underdog than Wuk Lamat who Estinien will support. It might also be that Estinien is completely out of all of it. His position is going to be very curious.

That Emet voice clip was the fly floating in my drink, but it was the predictable blatant thing to do and aside from reminding me how much Emet’s narration soured the experience of entering a new zone, it felt like we’re finally done with the pandering until an Ultimate. And it reminded me to be excited and speculate over who Dawntrail’s narrator will be. If it’s not a new character, I think Erenville and Krile are the two most likely candidates and I’d love either. Some possibility for Wuk or the twins.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

That Emet voice clip was the fly floating in my drink, but it was the predictable blatant thing to do and aside from reminding me how much Emet’s narration soured the experience of entering a new zone, it felt like we’re finally done with the pandering until an Ultimate.

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I didn't hate it solely because I'm foolishly hoping that there's some yet-unforeseen personal significance and not just blatant pandering, but you have reminded me how utterly nonsensical it was to have Emet-Selch narrate Endwalker when Venat was right there. The only zone where it made any sense was Garlemald.

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Originally Posted by Denishia

That Emet voice clip was the fly floating in my drink, but it was the predictable blatant thing to do and aside from reminding me how much Emet’s narration soured the experience of entering a new zone, it felt like we’re finally done with the pandering until an Ultimate. And it reminded me to be excited and speculate over who Dawntrail’s narrator will be. If it’s not a new character, I think Erenville and Krile are the two most likely candidates and I’d love either. Some possibility for Wuk or the twins.

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The narration side of the expansion was something I always found interesting because there is always some kind of story importance to them but we usually see it once we reach a certain end.

The narration in Heavensward was Edmont writing his book about events of Heavensward and thus establishing a history book for future generations after FF14.

3.X narration during the last half of was Papalymo letter after he died for Lyse.

Stormblood was basically Lyse telling the story of Stormblood sometime in the distant future after FF14. Most likely making it into a book as well at that point.

Shadowbringer was G'raha Tia telling the story in the distant future, most likely writing it in a book as well.

Endwalker is a bit funny one out of the narrations since it is just Emet having some kind of personal fun due to being literally dead, a bit bored, and all he could do was only watch the WoL go through his/her story.

I hold that the character whose narration would have made the most sense and had the biggest impact was Meteion. We wouldn’t know who the narrator was until Elpis for mystery, it would make her presence stronger and allow more characterization, especially depending on which version and level of hope/despair, and ties into her initial role as am observation probe.

Not my idea, it was someone on twitter, but I agree that Minfilia could've made a good narrator for EW, as the character who effectively set us on this path it would've been fitting for her to also be there at the end in some capacity, especially since we didn't get to spend much time with her (or her new VA) compared to so many of the other characters from back then...

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Originally Posted by Tsiron

Not my idea, it was someone on twitter, but I agree that Minfilia could've made a good narrator for EW, as the character who effectively set us on this path it would've been fitting for her to also be there at the end in some capacity, especially since we didn't get to spend much time with her (or her new VA) compared to so many of the other characters from back then...

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Now I'm upset that we never had Minfilia narrating anything because she would have been perfect for anything.

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Originally Posted by Tsiron

Not my idea, it was someone on twitter, but I agree that Minfilia could've made a good narrator for EW, as the character who effectively set us on this path it would've been fitting for her to also be there at the end in some capacity, especially since we didn't get to spend much time with her (or her new VA) compared to so many of the other characters from back then...

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Would have made a ton more sense that Emett. No amount of tragic backstory is going to make up for having wiped out entire planets or the untold amount of suffering caused in the first and thirteenth AND source during the calamities. Even Venat made more sense but nah, someone on the writing team has an obsession with this particular villain so we'll just have him ring out the old world.