Quote Originally Posted by HereticBliss View Post
This isn't accurate. 1.0 was nowhere near XI-2, and wasn't supposed to be. The only thing different was the class system? Just off the top of my head; the battle system, crafting, equipment system, quest system, leve quests, aetherytes, group mechanics. All were completely different from XI's.

As for Ishgard's storyline, there was next to nothing about it in Tanaka's time. I don't think you can claim they are back in line with a story we didn't have.
When I say XI-2 I don't mean system for system identical. I mean he was making a very similar world with very similar values at the heart of the game. Look at the things that made XI unique in the modern MMO world: access to all roles on one character, massive reliance on group play, a story driven main narrative, realistic travel times, lots and lots of downtime (which actually is the key to building a social community and precisely why so few players care to be social in newer MMOs). The soul of XIV was clearly intended to be the same as XI, even if the systems themselves were different or evolutions of XI.

As for Ishgard's storyline, no we don't know much about what was originally intended. But we do know that the 2.0 arc was a deviation to facilitate the fall of Dalamud and reintroduce new players to the Garlean threat. Essentially 2.0 was a catchup story to get everyone that missed 1.0 on the same page. We already knew that Ishgard was intended to be opened in 1.0 so in effect the story is now back where it was originally supposed to be, even if the cast has changed and some events played out differently. Whilst it's possible they may have entirely re-written Ishgard's story for the reboot I find it very unlikely as that would entail huge amounts of extra and unnecessary work if there was already something planned that would still fit with the rebooted 2.0 story.