Our passive characters and why the 2.55 story fails (BIG SPOILERS) (rant warning)

[lun4tic]

Everything said about 2.55 could be said about the rest of the story.

[Airget]

I have to agree with OP! The story was fail! It was nice to see a SC so long and full of stuff BUT why they hell nobody believe the ppl who saved the world so often? Why did Limsa and gridania people ran away? (its not spoiler,just my theory,that they might just knew whats going on and get more ppl); then they decide all run to away but every 10 yalm 2 thinks its better to fight (WTF? 1min ago you said its better to run and now you split every 10yalm?) So if all would fought together,they had better chance? They seriously just looked how raubahn got smashed!!!! Why is our Char lvl 50 with all the stuff when we cannot kill stupid guards (which we killed in so many quests already).

Of course what happen is to make ppl hot for heavensward, to find out what happen to other ppl.

And btw: I went to uldah right after the last CS and no guard cared about me? So.....good job to make a story which not really fits

They have to worry about their own nations first and safety, involving themselves in matters of another country in such a way would of put themselves and their civiliansin danger. Consider this, you see a member of the Crystal Brave on the side of the ones who are most likely involved in the murder of the Sultana. What do you think, for your nation. "Oh no there are Crystal brave stationed within our borders we must do what we can to remove them without causing to much disruption."

Now think about the pockets of the Syndicate, one of the nation leaders decides to fight back or kill one, they get accused of murder of a war crime and then they could easily put a bounty on their head that any UL'dah refuge would gladly aim for in an attempts to pull out of poverty. It would be easy for Lolorito to put 1billion 3 billion 500 Billion gil for the head of Merlwyb or Kan-E-Senna and by doing that not only would he cause refugees from Ul'dah to aim for them but also targets within their own nations. They would become enemies and Civil war would arise within their own countries as well as an uprising occurring within the borders to claim the bounty on their heads.

/10charlimit

[MiniTofu]

Having a system like Bioware for storyline progression is patented and it is very complicated to do, double amount of works.

Maybe a soft option during the conversation just to make your character shows different emotions or responses but the story is still progress the same.

[odintius]

All I wanted was to punch someone in the face or kick that pillar myself saying up yours >.>

[Aeyis]

Honestly I loved the story.

I really think this is just a JRPG vs WRPG issue people are having. I've played tons of JRPGs, shouted at how stupid my main character can be, groaned when something predictable happened....but then again, I also play a lot of visual novels, which are just glorified electronic books. So the passivity doesn't bother me at all.

Also, still having access to Ul'dah: I remember when Ragnarok Online razed Morroc to the ground and you could no longer access the city and anything in it. It made me soooo so angry. So I'm glad I can still do things in Ul'dah, especially until they can figure out the guilds, sidequest locations, etc.... best to have access to it. Especially in an MMO. Single player, they would've blown the city up.
Otherwise, how would this go:
Newbie: Hi, can you help me?
Veteran: Sure, where are you:
Newbie: Ul'dah
Veteran: Oh, sorry... I can't go there.
Newbie: Why?
Veteran: You'll find out

Hahaha no.

Yeah uhm, no. I've played a ton of japanese games myself. And while protagonists are often stupid, theres also plenty of average, smart, or even genius protagonists.

As far as choices go, most novels have many choices. Some even have over a hundred choices with most of them leading to bad ends, heh. Atleast in the ones with a dumb hero you atleast see that he/she has a personality (however flawed it may be). They dont literally sit there for the whole of 3 seconds just staring at someone dying in front of them.

Sometimes tho, theres really just one choice for a character to make regardless of your choices up untill that point.
Good writers realise that:

Not being able to access Ul'dah would be a good thing. Its not like I want to visit that place any time soon anyway. (unless it is to burn it to the ground)

[Cedane]

Here is why you can enter Ul'dah without anything happen, yada yada yada...

Its an MMO. There are still some restraints to that. They can't just lock you out of cities for three months until the expansion, with the easter event coming up and maybe other little things. To prevent people from doing that wouldn't be fair and not to mention the amount of work and programming it'd take to re-direct EVERYTHING out of Ul'dah or even out of the cities to treat you like a fugitive.

It took them a year to make one class, alone. Even more for three for the expansion. Imagine the amount of time and effort it'd take to re-program everything to re-direct stuff.

[Spawnie]

only story character i cant stand actually is Alphinaud figured if yoshi decided to kill anymore off then i hoped n prayed it was gonna be him lol

[KisaiTenshi]

Technicalities. Your character is a soulless puppet because giving your character a personality would remove the feeling that its you. Imagine they made your character an overly aggressive moron who gets blown up all the time. You'd sit there like "That's not what I'd do!" SE can only do so much.

Though in all the FF games save for FF1, all the characters have a personality. In FFXIV (and I assume FFXI) because it's a MMORPG, you aren't playing a single character, nor everyone in the party (as in all single player FF games.) If FFXIV were a single player game, your companions are all the Scions.

Thancred, Yda, Papalymo, Y'shtola and Urianger would be your "party" , but they are only really used in cutscenes. 90% of your interactions in the game that move the story along involve Minfilia (Up to level 50), or Alphinaud (All post level 50 content save for the Raid's.) I'm not sure if this is because Yoshi-P wants to "kill off" the V1.0 cast or just take them out of the storyline long enough to setup V3.0, and they all eventually show back up.

If Nanamo is permanently gone, then I expect the same of Kan-E-Senna and Merlwyb at some point as well. It would likely mess up the game balance for new players if they pick a Grand Company/Starting City based on spoilers about who is alive at the end. It's far more likely that Nanamo comes back otherwise completing the remaining crafting jobs (of which Culinarian and Goldsmith both involve making something for "the Sultana") might result in some broken storyline plot points.

If FFXIV were a Single Player game, then having the companions and the leaders of the cities "supposedly die", would be pulling the Louisoix V1.0 deus-ex-machina again, and they would just appear later (Both FF4 and FF6 pulled this before.) So you'd effectively start "Chapter 3" with nobody again, like at the beginning of the game, and have to (optionally) find everyone again.

[AskaRay]

words darn you char limit

I meant more along the lines of "the protagonist is you" -type silent characters in JRPGs, not named protagonists with actual backstories and the like.

And really, while -I- personally don't care much about Ul'dah, the fact is that it's an MMO. If they were going to cause a game-wide lockdown of the city to player characters, they absolutely have to move the necessary things first (at the very least, the DoW and DoM guilds).. The best place for them to do that would be at the beginning of an expansion....so I don't see it completely off the table for Heavensward, at least.

[LunaHoshino]

Another thing that I found very odd was our pick of exile to Ishgard. Why Ishgard?

A couple of simple reasons, one of which Haurchefant states himself. First of all, as he says, Ishgard has a reputation for being hostile to outsiders. If anyone were to come looking for you, it wouldn't be seen as odd for them to tell whoever is searching to get lost (which he says he's going to do). Technically, Ishgard hasn't rejoined the Alliance just yet, so they don't have to answer to the other city-states in anything. It won't cause a political uproar if they tell someone from one of the other city-states to piss off.

Second, you just helped Ishgard out in a major way by dealing with Vishap. It's in their best interest to want to keep you around so you can help them out again if necessary

And perhaps most importantly, Haurchefant has always been one of your staunchest allies, going back to the 2.0 Main Scenario Quests. He was the only one in Coerthas willing you help you find that airship, even if it meant risking his own reputation to do so. Later on, he's the one sending supplies to Mor Dhona, which angers the higher-ups in Ishgard (see: the meeting with Aymeric in 2.4). He got so upset when you went to face Shiva by yourself that his men had to physically restrain him to keep him from going after you. Now that you're on the run, he makes it very clear that he will do everything in his power to protect you and help you out, not just as an ally, but as a friend. He has a personal investment in wanting to make sure nothing happens to you.