Where do we go from here? DT Story and beyond

Love it or hate it, we're at the end of Dawntrail's opening chapter.
We got the McGuffin that's going to let us travel shards 1 2 3 now so surfs up my dudes right?

So, where do YOU think we're headed to next?
Who do you think's going to be with us on the journey?
Why them specifically?
While I'm asking questions, what's your favourite thing to order from when you go to Greggs? Because conversation is conversation. Talk people talk!

I'm hoping we get a story that'll focus purely on the joy of exploration, ideally without the Scions. Might be a little controversial and I've nothing against them of course just I felt they should have been left behind for a little while after Endwalker. Potentially could have seen a brand new cast of adventuring companions as we explored the New World ain the Dawntrail story, and now as we look to sail the reflections.

I wanna know what's at the bottom of that chasm between north and south Tural before anything else. Then head to Fantasy-Australia. We can talk shards after that lmao

If I'm honest, I'm actually more invested in how the Raid series story is going to progress. Eutrope's revelation regarding psychonecrosis (and trying to find a cure), the so-called 'immortalized', and the mystery President seems like it's a story with a lot of potential, not to mention how interesting the Raid's themselves have been.

The MSQ itself - well, the hourglass 'key', and why it reacted to Azem's crystal, is something that will receive some focus, and am interested in seeing how that plays out.

Personally, I'd rather the story not take the direction of having us jump around Shards quite yet since we visited both the First and the Thirteenth in the closing chapters of Endwalker. If anything, if they are going to make 'shard-hopping' a thing, bring a few characters from the shards to the Source instead - I'd love to see, for example, Ryne and Gaia interacting with characters from the source.

Unrealistic hope: That they do something with Living Memory. No idea what exactly - perhaps the Immortalized could move there if/when they're liberated - but as things stand it's just sort of 'empty' and there isn't any reason to revisit, and that's a pity.

We'll probably use the hourglass goblet for the Cosmic Exploration lifestyle content.

Hopefully anywhere that doesn't involve wuk lamat.

I would like a more grounded expansion that doesn't feature any sort of shard/interdimensional travel, before we move onto that in later stories. Meracydia is an interesting place I'd like to visit, and I'd personally like to see more of Ilsabard. I feel like I'm in the minority though - the shards don't really interest me too much.

Personally I love the Scions, and while I think it's a bad idea to have all of them around at once, I'd be absolutely fine with having 1-2 of them around each expansion, and swapping in and out of the story as needed.

I don't like the cup thing with shard travel. It trivializes what before was such a difficult, rare feat, that even impressed Emet Selch when G'raha could do it - and that took him years and a lot of effort to be successful at. Now in less than 2 years we've been to 3 more different shards, have parts of it in the Source and have something that potentially gives us free access to others.

I wish we'd ignore everything about Dawntrail and do as Emet said at the end of EW: let's only explore Etheirys for a while. I'd love an expansion focused on Meracydia, about dragons and allagans. We don't need all the Scions with us at all times, but I still want them there! In a Meracydia expansion, the obvious companions would be Estinien and G'raha because of what they know (and also because we still have 3 promises to keep to G'raha that the game completely ignored after 6.0). We could maybe take Krile as well, because it could be a Students of Baldesion thing and we'd get to finally learn what they're doing and how they work, and give her the development we expected from her in Dawntrail and never got. She got a backstory, but never CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. I want to see her research things, show us what she loved and what she is passionate about.

So I think the immediate direction of the story is the key, as this is what will be also setting up the exploration content. Unless they really take a swing and make that key be part of the story for space exploration and not necessarily the main scenario.

I think the key itself will be a remnant of something that the original Azem was working on. I don't think their intent for how the key is used is for essentially replicating a rejoining, but rather for actual exploration of other worlds. Possibly something to do with Azem's apparently precognitions. - I don't think the developers are against exploring this side of the story, I think the line in the sand is just drawn for what their purpose is. From my memory, Azem's constellation sign was after-the-fact of our invocation, and not reactive during it. But I suppose this is open for interpretation.

For the immediate journey I am going with Y'sthola, G'raha Tia, and potentially Urianger. I think Wuk has served her purpose as far as this is concerned, and I don't think Thancred, or the Twins will necessarily be relevant in this case. Though we may get a filler patch which maybe focusses a little on Garlean relations, specifically with Tuliyollal.

One of my concerns around the key relates to ShB, and how Y'sthola comments on vaguely defined acts of teleportation -- Surely this key would fall under this?

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Originally Posted by Kusanagi7

Hopefully anywhere that doesn't involve wuk lamat.

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SE: People have been asking for ingame romantic relations for some time. So the player will be marrying Wuk Lamat in the future update. She will then act as a permanent companion who will follow you on all your adventures, like any true lover would.

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Originally Posted by Turethir

I would like a more grounded expansion that doesn't feature any sort of shard/interdimensional travel, before we move onto that in later stories. Meracydia is an interesting place I'd like to visit, and I'd personally like to see more of Ilsabard. I feel like I'm in the minority though - the shards don't really interest me too much.

Personally I love the Scions, and while I think it's a bad idea to have all of them around at once, I'd be absolutely fine with having 1-2 of them around each expansion, and swapping in and out of the story as needed.

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Agreed - and to be honest, at this point, a visit to Meracydia at some point seems like its a given. Emet-Selch's last words, where he encourages us to explore our "little Eorzea" have pretty much turned into a tick-list.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

I don't like the cup thing with shard travel. It trivializes what before was such a difficult, rare feat, that even impressed Emet Selch when G'raha could do it - and that took him years and a lot of effort to be successful at. Now in less than 2 years we've been to 3 more different shards, have parts of it in the Source and have something that potentially gives us free access to others.

I wish we'd ignore everything about Dawntrail and do as Emet said at the end of EW: let's only explore Etheirys for a while. I'd love an expansion focused on Meracydia, about dragons and allagans. We don't need all the Scions with us at all times, but I still want them there! In a Meracydia expansion, the obvious companions would be Estinien and G'raha because of what they know (and also because we still have 3 promises to keep to G'raha that the game completely ignored after 6.0). We could maybe take Krile as well, because it could be a Students of Baldesion thing and we'd get to finally learn what they're doing and how they work, and give her the development we expected from her in Dawntrail and never got. She got a backstory, but never CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. I want to see her research things, show us what she loved and what she is passionate about.

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I feel it's a given the Allagans are gonna get the focus at some point.

But I'm not that enthused about it. I like that we only get bits and pieces of their history, and they're something we explore through stumbling across their handiwork. It ruins the magic if it goes further than that.

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Originally Posted by Andevom

I feel it's a given the Allagans are gonna get the focus at some point.

But I'm not that enthused about it. I like that we only get bits and pieces of their history, and they're something we explore through stumbling across their handiwork. It ruins the magic if it goes further than that.

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But couldn't that be said about anything that we learn more about, though? Why is learning more about the Allagans any different than learning more about the Ascians, for example? Did it ruin the "magic" to you?
Even with an entire expansion focused on them, I don't even think we'd learn everything there is to learn anyway. Their influence and empire was huge and lasted very long. If we also compare it to the ascians again, even today as much as we learned about them during ShB and EW, there's still a lot that's not been explained and we don't know about.

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Originally Posted by chizLemons

But couldn't that be said about anything that we learn more about, though? Why is learning more about the Allagans any different than learning more about the Ascians, for example? Did it ruin the "magic" to you?
Even with an entire expansion focused on them, I don't even think we'd learn everything there is to learn anyway. Their influence and empire was huge and lasted very long. If we also compare it to the ascians again, even today as much as we learned about them during ShB and EW, there's still a lot that's not been explained and we don't know about.

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The Ascians are a perfect example of this. Wasn't a fan of the whole Elpis section of Endwalker and Pandemonium. It did ruin some of the magic for me, and I don't feel exploring it that deeply was necessary.

I'm willing to bet Y'shtola will take great interest in the artifact so you'll have to bear with it.
I personally would like to know about the history of Milala's and whether what they say is indeed true.

I'd hope for a true adventure with Erenville, he talked about exploring new grounds, and the WoL said he/she was going back on the roads, so I'd like a true exploration adventure with the bunny boy.

I kinda liked the desert mini-story with erenville before going in Alexandria, unfortunatly it was the classical "ho damn, there are bad guys, Warrior of Light, defender of the whole univers and slayer of ancient gods, solve this scooby-doo mistery !" but the vibe in the desert, it was the only area i wanted to explore at 100%, and the fact that we were NOT with the scions was quite refreshing and it hyped me a lot :)

I still see a convoluted way that time might be involved.

https://i.gyazo.com/c47ef7028bf6fd8e...3037224d43.jpg

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

We'll probably use the hourglass goblet for the Cosmic Exploration lifestyle content.

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Imagine SE using the remaining shards as Island Sanctuary lifestyle content. lmao

Going to Meracydia would be cool since its one of those places that has been mentioned since the beginning. Also wouldn't mind seeing Corvos- honestly I expected to get to go there either in post EW or in the expansion (this was before they announced DT) since G'raha was talking about how the fall of The Empire was going to effect it.

Shardhopping could be fun, though I'm more interested in going back to the First and Thirteenth than seeing completely new shards tbh. Giving the scions a chance to go back and see people from Shb would be some nice content for post-MSQ and seeing if there has been any development in restoring the Thirteenth would be cool too. I would even suggest tying the two together with restoring the area in the first during Eden having parallels to the Thirteenth, but I guess that would cause a lot of continuity issues if players hadn't actually done the Eden raids so that specific dream might be dead in the water. Maybe it could be a side quest.

Outside of the scions, I think Erenville probably has the biggest reason to come with us on any content in the near future since he says he wants to fulfil his mother's dream of seeing all kinds of nature there is to see in the world, but whether they will actually keep him around or he'll just pop up in places as a cameo appearance idk. I hope he stays- rotating reoccurring characters in and out for future expansions might help avoid more incidents like the Twins being in DT and contributing absolutely nothing. Focussing on actually giving characters who haven't had arcs for a while (looking at you Y'shtola) instead of trying to just include everyone all the time would be my biggest wish going forward. So far G'raha and Erenville have specifically said they want to journey with you, and Y'Shtola and Estinien haven't really had much done with them for a while, so they're top of my list for next expac companions.

I'd hope they make Wuk Lamat mature a bit and realise she can't just keep going off on adventures as she needs to rule a nation now, but I suspect she'll probably have to come with us too. Whatever ends up happening, I'm trying to manage my expectations as to not get my hopes up too high and end up disappointed lol.

I'd rather explore more of the world, we've barely seen anything.

However, there's another thing that's been bothering me, specifically who created that goblet... was I seeing things when at the last trial Azem's sigil lighted up atop of it?

By the end of the 2nd story arc (however many expansions that may be) we'll have visited all the reflections in some capacity- even if just a minor visit for raids, dungeons, deep dungeons, Eureka content, etc.

Hopefully, whenever FF14 cashes in on the setup for the 13th, we also get a few more zones on the first. It'd be nice to see the progression of the world healing through the lenses of new explorable locations in the wider world.

I think getting a proper void expansion could work out, the post EW stuff felt a lot like the Warriors of Darkness from HW that ended up turning into Shadowbringers so the same could very much happen.

That said, its been literal years and we have yet to visit Meracydia. We literally freed Tiamat and she flew off there, if we dont go there soon im going to start losing my mind.

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Originally Posted by Carin-Eri

Unrealistic hope: That they do something with Living Memory. No idea what exactly - perhaps the Immortalized could move there if/when they're liberated - but as things stand it's just sort of 'empty' and there isn't any reason to revisit, and that's a pity.

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If you do all the sidequests there, it gives off a lot of hints that it could be related to the third beast tribe for DT, since that is currently unannounced.

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Originally Posted by Midare

I'd rather explore more of the world, we've barely seen anything.

However, there's another thing that's been bothering me, specifically who created that goblet... was I seeing things when at the last trial Azem's sigil lighted up atop of it?

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It wasn't your imagination.

https://i.imgur.com/maSQcB9.jpeg

I have a strong feeling that the mist from ff9 is going to come into play. Maybe over the course of future expansions, we will start to see that aggression and other nations will be at each other throats plunging Etheris into a world war. It is an interesting way to take the story and change the world as we know it. It is one of many ways where they can take the story.

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Originally Posted by Turethir

I would like a more grounded expansion that doesn't feature any sort of shard/interdimensional travel, before we move onto that in later stories. Meracydia is an interesting place I'd like to visit, and I'd personally like to see more of Ilsabard. I feel like I'm in the minority though - the shards don't really interest me too much.

Personally I love the Scions, and while I think it's a bad idea to have all of them around at once, I'd be absolutely fine with having 1-2 of them around each expansion, and swapping in and out of the story as needed.

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I agree. I'm not against Shard travel per se but it needs to be used sparingly. I don't want us to just wave our new Azem goblet around and have portals open--it should be only a piece of a greater puzzle and be very difficult to achieve dimensional travel. Anything less cheapens the previous lore far too much for my taste (though the writers have already lost my trust on that front so I'm not holding my breath). The Scions don't need to disappear, but I'd rather we pick a small group to focus on and learn more about each expansion than having the whole gang around as interchangeable Scion cardboard cutouts that offer nothing to the scene like in Dawntrail.

As to where I'd like to see next, I have been wanting to learn more about Meracydia and what has become of it in the 1000 years after its devastating war with Allag since ARR. We could meet back up with Tiamat and learn about what the dragons of the Southern continent have been up to all this time, which would be a great way to tie lore back in from Heavensward and Endwalker. And we STILL haven't seen Ilsabard beyond Garlemald and the island of Thavnair, despite it being in the middle of the damn map! How are all the countries that Garlemald occupied for the last 40-60 years faring after the collapse of the Empire? What Corvos/Locus Amoenus like, the place where G'raha is from and the ancestral homeland of the Garlean people before they were driven north? That place has been mentioned in lore several times over the years and we've still never seen it. I'm not even a big G'raha fan, but these would be obvious places where his presence would make sense in the story, as would Estinien and Erenville coming with us to Meracydia, while Y'shtola is the obvious choice for any more shard travel.

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Originally Posted by Daralii

It wasn't your imagination.

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Thanks for the screenshot :D

And yeah, that's where I'm, at the moment, the most curious about. I wonder if we're going to go see where it was found and maybe who made it.

i take anything as long we are away from wuk lamat lol

but joke aside, we definitely on the path for ff9 "spinoff" here

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Originally Posted by Evergrey

SE: People have been asking for ingame romantic relations for some time. So the player will be marrying Wuk Lamat in the future update. She will then act as a permanent companion who will follow you on all your adventures, like any true lover would.

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And they'll ask five times are you sure you want to marry her with the dialog options being:
-Yes
-Of course.
-Most definitely!

Eveeyone is focusing on Meracydia (as always) and shard hoping. But i say we will go to Northern Tural (AKA Canada/Alaska) with Erenville.
Once at the edge of Alaska we will see a piece of land in the horizon and go there thinking we discovered the new new world, just to realize that Aetherys was a sphere all along and that we are now back in the unexplored part of Ilsabard.

Giant Colibri: The Revenge

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Originally Posted by Lady_Silvermoon

And they'll ask five times are you sure you want to marry her with the dialog options being:
-Yes
-Of course.
-Most definitely!

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It's wild to me that the dialogue choices usually have no dramatic changes on the scene/conversation... unless it involves calling Y'shtola a mommy indirectly / teasing Y'shtola, or unless it involves calling Alphinaud a nerd or letting him be a nerd and explain everything currently going on like one.

The first thing I said when we finally acquired the key and made a point to take care of its safety was, "That's going to get stolen." So I'd like to see if it gets stolen or not.

Other than that, anything that doesn't focus on Wuk Lamat would be appreciated by me. I just want to learn more about Eorzea for myself. I want the vacation I was promised because DT was NOT a vacation. It was a working vacation and you were a nanny. Give me a real vacation where I get to explore and learn on my own.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think it's time for the game to have its WoW Cataclysm moment. I would love for the focus to swing back to Eorzea with the ARR zones and cities revamped, the removal of the base classes (which would free up more potential jobs while also allowing for the much needed (IMO) SMN/SCH split), and a new level 1-whatever leveling experience for new people.

I mean... it's been years since Ultima Weapon. It'd be nice to see Eorzea change with the times.

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Originally Posted by KevinM1

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think it's time for the game to have its WoW Cataclysm moment. I would love for the focus to swing back to Eorzea with the ARR zones and cities revamped, the removal of the base classes (which would free up more potential jobs while also allowing for the much needed (IMO) SMN/SCH split), and a new level 1-whatever leveling experience for new people.

I mean... it's been years since Ultima Weapon. It'd be nice to see Eorzea change with the times.

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Wasn't the entirety of ARR-Endwalker only a year canonically?

We've been gifted a macguffin that should allow for easier cross shard travel, but we don't know how to use it yet. And there are still parts of Etheirys we have yet to see. The implications that the key has ties to Azem is another mystery as well. I also feel like we've only just started scratching the surface of 'soul stuff.' Alexandria brought with them Electrope technology which is going to impact the world. There are probably a some other things that I'm not considering as well. A lot of doors are open.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

We've been gifted a macguffin that should allow for easier cross shard travel, but we don't know how to use it yet. And there are still parts of Etheirys we have yet to see. The implications that the key has ties to Azem is another mystery as well. I also feel like we've only just started scratching the surface of 'soul stuff.' Alexandria brought with them Electrope technology which is going to impact the world. There are probably a some other things that I'm not considering as well. A lot of doors are open.

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I can't even believe they made a freaking hourglass to solve the problem of exploring the remaining reflections. It's incredible. You have the audience wondering how the next arc will go and the best thing you could do is make a plot device? I'm seriously questioning the future of storytelling in XIV.

And I don't really care if it has to do with Azem at this point. Because then you have to explain why it answers to fervent desires and why it complied with Sphene. How does that have anything to do with Azem?

I can tell you how we are going to activate it too.

Talk to 0/3 people
Speak to G'raha Tia
Do a dungeon

In no particular order.

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Originally Posted by Turtledeluxe

I can't even believe they made a freaking hourglass to solve the problem of exploring the remaining reflections. It's incredible. You have the audience wondering how the next arc will go and the best thing you could do is make a plot device? I'm seriously questioning the future of storytelling in XIV.

And I don't really care if it has to do with Azem at this point. Because then you have to explain why it answers to fervent desires and why it complied with Sphene. How does that have anything to do with Azem?

I can tell you how we are going to activate it too.

Talk to 0/3 people
Speak to G'raha Tia
Do a dungeon

In no particular order.

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I'm worried that they'll do multiple shards at once and further shrink the game world's scale. We went from Aldenard having 8 regions across 22 zones, which still doesn't include some subregions from 1.X, to where we are now.

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Originally Posted by Hallideus

We got the McGuffin that's going to let us travel shards 1 2 3 now so surfs up my dudes right?

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That's not what a MacGuffin is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin

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Originally Posted by Daralii

Wasn't the entirety of ARR-Endwalker only a year canonically?

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No idea, but that would make zero sense. Given that MMO zones are a vastly shrunken down version of 'reality' (cities would have more than a couple dozen people milling about, there are presumably villages scattered around everywhere, wars are supposed to have killed thousands, etc), the time it would really take for travel (traversing zones, to say nothing about the StB boat trip), the necessities of rest, hygiene, food, and the downtime between expansions, there's no possible way that ARR->EW took only a year. None.