So, let's speculate about future Story developments (SPOILERS!!!)

[Talia_Hailwind]

Not necessarily. If you don't mind spoiling yourself for an MMO you may never play, try Googling "Darth Malgus" to see how that other major story-driven MMO handles it's continuity. After a point, both players and devs are going to need to accept the possibility of experiencing plot "episodes" out of sequence, not unlike watching a long-running TV series.

This is a screenshot from my level 45 Summoner quest.
There I am, getting introduced to Ramnbroes for the first time, standing right next to proof that we've met before. This game's continuity is already not nearly as airtight as players think it is, so anything can happen.

I can understand ramnbros cause hes still alive and his status hasn't changed, but if the sultan died or wasn't sultan wouldn't if be odd she was in the cutscene for the cooking quest and was still addressed as sultan? (AH! LALAFELL GHOST!)

[myahele]

I don't think the potato will die. She's far too popular and well liked to be killed. However, it's possible that there might be an event that'll taker her out of commission for a while. Like becoming comatose due to poisoning and it'll be up to us either in next patch or the expansion to cure her. Actually, I can see how her being in a coma will provide a nice political turmoil/ civil war in Ul'Dah.

She's not dead, yet, but there are plenty others that wanna be the "temp" ruler until she's cured. Monetarist vs GC leaders (since they know her plans/royalist will be pretty nice setup.

/fantheory

[Nalien]

Just because there are (potential) plot holes in the game doesn't mean the developers should actively make some, much bigger ones at that. Having a NPC dead/etc. one cutscene only to have them enjoying a meal in the next is a massive plot hole. There are plenty of other things they can do instead, all of which are far more likely because the alternative just ends up creating a massive plot hole. Is Nanamo just unpopular or something? Some people seem really intent on her dying considering they're defending plot holes in order for it to be a possibility... Plot holes should be mistakes in storytelling, not an acceptable excuse for bad writing...

Would be much better if Nanamo has more balls than everyone gives her credit for and she ends up not only handing Teledji a new one, but also retaining leadership of Ul'dah. Then all they need to do is change her title in the Culinarian quest from Sultanate to Prime Minister or something (assuming Ul'dah even undergoes such a change). Far more manageable than either leaving a massive plot hole in the game, or doing a substantial rework of the quest. I would much rather see a character arc that takes Nanamo from timid little Sultanate to a serious leader than "LAWL LETS KILL OFF MORE CHARACTERS!". The former is what a good storyteller would do, the later is just a pale attempt at being dark/serious/edgy/whatever, made even worse by the plot holes it creates. I'd like to say I have faith is the developers not to do the later, but considering the last death we got was utterly absurd...

[Fenral]

Don't get me wrong, I love Nanamo, but after a point they are massively limiting the potential of the world to evolve if every single quest-chain, even in the Main Scenario, requires a return to the status-quo. The end of the 2.X scenario is supposed to be a world-altering disaster, albeit on a smaller scale than the Calamity. What you're suggesting is that world-altering disasters can't be allowed to alter the world. Maybe for now that's fine, but in one, two, three years? It'll get old pretty fast.

The same NPCs who could still show up elsewhere of course can't die, because then what would happen to ___, or ___? Any important new characters we meet also can't stick around, because then people would expect them to affect the world in some way, and they can't, because then what would happen to ___? We got hit pretty hard with two of the latter just this patch, and it's definitely a plot device that can lose it's edge pretty quickly.

[Gilthas]

They already have NPCs reacting differently to you depending on the point you are in the storyline. The issue is more redoing cutscenes. If they decided to kill off Merlwyb, they'd have to make alternate cutscenes for the final Armorer quest at least.

[Nalien]

What you're suggesting is that world-altering disasters can't be allowed to alter the world.

What world altering disasters? Even the Calamity was only really an Eorzean thing. There really aren't any world shattering events outside Garlemalds expansion in this game. The fate of Nanamo certainly isn't world altering...

The end of 2.x is an Ishgardian-altering disaster, hence we get to visit the place after several long years of waiting. How is that maintaining the status-quo? I just look at Revanants Toll and I'm fairly happy with how the world evolves over time as it is. Characters can come and go following disasters, the only issue is making quests they appear in requirements. Can I see them making the Culinarian quest a requirement from the upcoming Main Scenario so they can kill Nanamo off in a sensible way? Not at all. Can I see them making Crystal Tower a requirement somewhere down the line to bring back Nero (Who, I should point out, broke his status-quo as Cids mindless rival) and perhaps G'raha Tia? Absolutely. Likewise, the Main Scenario cast, apart from a few exceptions (like Nanamo) could potentially be killed off. So far the only mistake SE has made in that regard (SPOILERS) is introducing and killing off a character practically in the same paragraph. Someone like Yda who, to my knowledge hasn't appeared in any side quests, could easily be killed off in part 2 without it creating any plot holes and with it having significant impact because she's actually been there since day 1.

I do find the idea that the only way to create impact and break up the status-quo is to kill off characters to be fairly silly though. Like I said, having someone go through a character arc is much better storytelling. The status-quo for part two would be Nanamo surviving and being exactly the same. It would be much better to have her survive and actually become a significant leader with an actual personality. That would break the status-quo without defaulting to a lazy attempt at building emotion with a death and without creating a needless plot hole.

All I'm suggesting is that they don't need to, nor should they, create a stupid plot hole. They can change the status-quo without doing so.

[Fenral]

I use "world" in this sense to describe the game world, not the setting itself.

My point on Darth Malgus, which clearly nobody has looked up, is that he was the "leader" of the Imperial faction and the primary quest-giver for the Imperial-side Flashpoint storyline, but also the final boss of the post-game story, who's death had far-reaching consequences in the game's universe. You can still go back and get quests from him (over the phone), but there's an implicit understanding that it all takes place "before" you kill him.

What I'm trying to say is that [game] world-altering events can only alter so much if they are mandated to preserve the status-quo required for every little side-quest available. Why has nobody mentioned what would happen to the Paladin story if Ul'dah goes republic? I think BtF Part 2 is going to have fallout, and it will hopefully change how the game handles continuity.

I'm actually holding onto my last few CUL quests precisely for this reason.

[kyuven]

If Ul'Dah does get changed into a republic, they could let the Sultana keep her title as an honorary one with no real power, just cultural significance, and have her actual position be akin to that of the Japanese Emperor or British monarch. This game IS Japanese, after all. What they're setting up to happen in Ul'Dah is setting the city-state up to have a nearly identical government to Japan's current one: A parliamentary democracy with a figure head cultural monarch that has no real power beyond cultural aspects and ceremony.

Doing so would maintain the status quo for quests involving "the sultana," "sultansworn," and "sultana nanamo" but change the status quo for the story itself.

[Nalien]

I'll be honest, I don't see why you're bringing up Old Republic... They decided to have a fairly large plot hole so XIV should have one as well, or that plot holes are OK because of that? No... I'd rather have better writing that ties everything up nicely, something that can easily be achieved here. The Culinarian quest can have a few lines changed to reflect any changes in Ul'dah, so can the Paladin questline.

Actually, killing Nanamo off for no reason would have more of an impact on the Paladin questline than not. There would be no Sultanate for the Sultansworn if she dies, why would you go become a Paladin after 2.5 when they'd be an order of knights who just failed their duty? If she lives, they can simply be an order of knights which will soon need to find new purpose following any changes in Ul'dah, they could still protect the last Sultanate though. "We were once the Sultansworn, but following plotplotplot we now protect plotplotplot", isn't really hard.

All sidequests mean is that they either have to make them a requirement, or they can't kill off various characters that appear in them without creating plot holes. They can still change things significantly with a few edits to quest dialog. They certainly could follow the Old Republics example and just give us plot hole after plot hole, but I'd rather they didn't. The status-quo can change without people dying and making side quests awkward... They didn't need to kill off Merlwyb to form the Crystal Braves and make the Armorer quest a massive plot hole, they don't need to kill off Nanamo to make Ul'dah a Republic.

[Fenral]

What I'm trying to say is that it's not really a "plot hole" at all the way BioWare chose to handle it, just a different fundamental understanding of "episodic" storytelling. I can't really explain it any better than I have, but it works much better than you might think.

As I see it, they've already written themselves into the trap by creating entirely too many details that fans see as "immutable" because of X quest or Y quest, and it's ultimately stifling the possible directions they can take the story in if the only options are "preserve" or "require." To me, there's a bunch of tension already lost when they try to set up something big if it can't be that big.

You certainly seem to think I'm in the "let's kill Nanamo" camp, but I'm not. I don't want anyone to die, but I also don't want the "major change" to Ul'dah to ultimately result in nothing more than a few tweaked lines of dialogue before and after, because then it's like nothing has really changed at all.