So, the story

I must admit, half the reason I wanted to try this game out is because I believed it'd feature quality final fantasy level storytelling. A lot of people believe the story to be good and so did I... that is until I progressed far enough to find out something.

From about lvl28+ quests, I started noticing weird things: it's as if scriptwriters suddenly got bored of thinking up good twists and smart lines. Or perhaps all their spark went into thinking up as many ridiculous names as they only could, leaving no room for interesting story. Boy, I must say that after 10th quest saying "Hey, you didn't think we'd actually just allow you to do this, YOU MUST FIRST EARN TRUZD" I was pretty much ready to break something. That alone would have been something tolerable, but it had to be intensified by the "TO EARN TRUST, YOU MUST FIRST KILL STUFF IN OUR STEAD" move.

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The story is incoherent and at times outright makes no common sense. When I was helping find Fey King it felt odd that someone would suddenly send me across the world to deliver long forgotten ring (hey, Fey King is definetely fine, no worries, why don't you run deliver this worthless thing in the meantime). When I moved to Costa Del Sol and that whole company plot had me running across the realm finding RARE DISHES for the feast while a continent was on a brink of destruction outright pissed me off. "It's ok we're about to die to a Primal, we won't move an inch until you can prove you can travel around the world. If you cannot feed yourself at a banquet there is no chance we're telling you how to face the guy".

At the end of Costa Del Sol arc I was hoping the story would again pick up, but no luck, instead I'm sent to the shallowest place in the whole game: Coerthas (by the way, whoever decided Castlevania type music is what should fit a snowy wasteland filled with dragons has a really uncommon imagination) where Company of Heroes plot repeats itself, this time actors being named differently though. Boy, isn't every Coerthas npc a scum. Every speech line of theirs burned my heart with hatred for the plot in general at the time.

Anyway, I would like to hear your opinions on storyline, as it's not so commonly discussed. Really interested to know what people think.

I like it.

The plot has its ups and downs.

Everything Mor Dhona and on is phenomenal.

Also you can bypass the character limit by editing your post.

Yeah I liked it too.

I will agree I got a bit tired of the earn our trust crap, but I don't tend to think of fetch quests as story, just crappy commercials.

Well, I am not dissappointed with how (spoiler) the Tidus primal was defeated. XD

I admit, by the time I was done with the Coerthas quests, I pretty much wanted to punch every Ishgardian I could find in the face.

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Originally Posted by KitCat

Yeah I liked it too.

I will agree I got a bit tired of the earn our trust crap, but I don't tend to think of fetch quests as story, just crappy commercials.

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Makes for a helluva long commercial:
*Fey - earn our trust, dance dance !
*Company of Heroes - earn our trust, travel travel!
*Coerthas - earn our trust, kill kill!

That's half the story right there with small interludes where you have to run across the world to meet Minfilia, even though you have a wireless communictor with you.

I just wonder how Minfilia has bigger breast than the limit of the slider in character creation allow us to do for our characters.

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Originally Posted by Evangela

I just wonder how Minfilia has bigger breast than the limit of the slider in character creation allow us to do for our characters.

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That's definetely what would bother a girl the most within a game's plot.

Haha i loved the point you made about the castlevania music in the snow area, to be honest though i found that a breath of fresh air from the rest of the areas with their super nintendo zelda sounding music.

So far, the story itself has been pretty meh - but, it gives me a good excuse to go explore new areas, and that's all I really wanted. The writing for the main story isn't great but SE did a great job at coming up with an atmosphere and back story for every area. Honestly, I think the zones have a lot more personalities than the NPCs. I really liked Coerthas. A land of gallant Elezen knights, torn apart by scheming dragons and feuding houses... it was all very romantic. Every place feels so unique but they fit together so well to make up Eorzea.

Personally, If I had to choose between a sub-par main story with excellent world design, or an excellent story with sub-par world design...I'd choose the former every time. The story I'm only going to do once, but hopefully I'll be running around Eorzea for years.

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Originally Posted by KitCat

I will agree I got a bit tired of the earn our trust crap, but I don't tend to think of fetch quests as story, just crappy commercials.

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I'm just glad there were quests. I remember in 1.0 when i started, there were almost no quests at all. You had leves, a handful, and story quests every few levels (quite a few if i remember right). The trust quests were probably added to give more quests. There just were none before, which was one of the complaints of 1.0.

Story was good as a whole... oh and did you know you didnt have to post three times, could have posted and simply edited the first post. The 1000 character limit is only for the initial posting. I found that out awhile ago, by simply cutting the message in half then hitting Edit, then pasting the remaining portion of the message in.

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Originally Posted by MidnightS

I admit, by the time I was done with the Coerthas quests, I pretty much wanted to punch every Ishgardian I could find in the face.

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I'm with you there. Spent 3/4 of that quest line glaring at the quest givers.

I never even bothered to read the text. It was just too much, IMO. Even without reading, I could pretty much tell what was going on.

Be sure to hang in there for the scene after the credits when you finish the story quests.

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Originally Posted by KitCat

Yeah I liked it too.

I will agree I got a bit tired of the earn our trust crap, but I don't tend to think of fetch quests as story, just crappy commercials.

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I thought of them more as XP fillers.

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Originally Posted by flavored

At the end of Costa Del Sol arc I was hoping the story would again pick up, but no luck, instead I'm sent to the shallowest place in the whole game: Coerthas (by the way, whoever decided Castlevania type music is what should fit a snowy wasteland filled with dragons has a really uncommon imagination) where Company of Heroes plot repeats itself, this time actors being named differently though. Boy, isn't every Coerthas npc a scum. Every speech line of theirs burned my heart with hatred for the plot in general at the time.

Anyway, I would like to hear your opinions on storyline, as it's not so commonly discussed. Really interested to know what people think.

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just suffer through the story until you get past Garuda.

Then enjoy the fuck out of it.

Story lives up to the name, but its an mmo - I expected filler.

I really liked Coerthas. It's fun to go into a realm of religion fanatics and show them why their religion and zeal is ruining their own lives.

I enjoyed the story, mostly until north thanalan. And I loved coerthas, I'd change nation allegiance to Ishgard if I could to be a Dragoon in service to the Holy See.

I enjoyed the storyline much more than other MMOs I've played. The only thing that bugged me was the Ishgardians calling me a heretic when Halone is my guardian as well.

The story is good. I've enjoyed it (and that's all I can say without spoilers).

As for the Costa del Sol and Coerthas arcs, I think that you missed the whole point of both. In Costa del Sol, for example, they tell you exactly what you've said at the end of said arc: "why did you send me to collect stuff for a party while we have a primal right there waiting to destroy Eorzea". I suggest that you go to the inn and check that part again, as it's answered there. And Coerthas... well, ishgardians are special, you should know that already. A lot of them are just fanatics, and the rest are controlled by the fear they have towards the first (the Holy See and blahblahblah). You'll get to see the opinion of the rest of Eorzea about that, too.

Honestly? I liked it from about after the point you're complaining about.

Suddenly went from an endless, character-ruining stream of 'OMG Hail the conquering hero they're so special!' to a sense of being part of a setting. It's not perfect and I still wish the characters would quit sucking up to mine so much, but.. it definitely improved after the grand companies got involved; at least somewhat.

Problem is it's a lot harder to tell a good story when you need to have a shit ton of quests as well. Need tons of filler and that's what we got.

I agree with pretty much everything said by the OP. All of the storyline seems to have been thrown out the window and replaced with standard MMO fluff, and with extremely ridiculous excuses, no less. "Hey, it's cool that you want to save us all, but I don't trust you, so you better travel around the world and get me these McGuffins or else I'm not gonna do a thing for you. Who the hell cares if we all die". DFYGUYDKSGVBKDBVKFSDYGVBDFSV....

I expected filler, its an MMO so smart money was on meaningless fetch quests sometimes... I mean some of the fetch quests were unimaginative and grindy but personally, the story was fan-f**king-tastic otherwise. I really loved it. I mean, it really picks up about ... 5 seconds after the Garuda fight, and while you still gottta do a few dumb fetch quests, theres less and it helps.

I, personally, can't diss the story due to fetch quests, as far as I'm concerned, fetch quests aren't part of the story to me, its a Filler arc to an Anime so to speak, sh*ts there and its technically part of the seasons but its meaningless to the big picture, and in this case the big picture was epic.

A majority of it was disappointing because they wanted to use it as a leveling tool. Once that started to stop (43 onward) it got pretty good. Hopefully going forward it will not be that way with expansions.