I really DO hope Alexander's story steps up, but I don't think it can top Coil's.

[Nalien]

Review T1-5 cutscenes or synopsis, just like the current story in Alex, nothing amazing, nothing horrible. It's just a start of a new storyline.

The difference is mystery. Binding Coil had a mystery, even if it didn't really get into them until Second Coil... Turn 1 and Turn 5 are where the meat was, so right off the bat you get something, and at the end you get rewarded with something that (hopefully) gets players excited for Second Coil. The whole raid was set up to answer what happened after the End of an Era trailer, and it does a phenomenal job of that.

Alexander? At the end of the main scenario I was perhaps curious, at the end of the raid though? We know pretty much everything... We know the Illuminati summoned him. We know why they summoned him. We know what they need to be successful in the future... The only real mystery presented is in the form of a frankly unlikable character; Mide is terrible, I'd honestly rather see her gone than the Goblins... Alexander doesn't even end on an effective hook, it ends with us having the piece of the Enigma Codex the Illuminati need... Binding Coil ended with "We need to shut off the rest of these machines", that was an adequate set up to future installments, with Louisoix and Nael showing up certainly helping. Alexander? That ends with Mide attempting character development, and the revelation that the piece of the Enigma Codex is safe and sound with us... There is no build up to the next part...

Even the threat Alexander poses... It just isn't there... All Primals drain aether, even Bahamut... What set them apart was seeing what else they did... Alexander fails for the same reason Titan and Leviathan "fail", we never actually saw Titan or Leviathan do anything, but at the very least we got a sense of how dangerous they might be when we battled them... When we set foot inside Alexander... Nothing... The biggest resistance Alexander put to our presence was sucking two party members into a vent...

[hagare]

The difference is mystery. Binding Coil had a mystery, even if it didn't really get into them until Second Coil... Turn 1 and Turn 5 are where the meat was, so right off the bat you get something, and at the end you get rewarded with something that (hopefully) gets players excited for Second Coil. The whole raid was set up to answer what happened after the End of an Era trailer, and it does a phenomenal job of that.

Alexander? At the end of the main scenario I was perhaps curious, at the end of the raid though? We know pretty much everything... We know the Illuminati summoned him. We know why they summoned him. We know what they need to be successful in the future... The only real mystery presented is in the form of a frankly unlikable character; Mide is terrible, I'd honestly rather see her gone than the Goblins... Alexander doesn't even end on an effective hook, it ends with us having the piece of the Enigma Codex the Illuminati need... Binding Coil ended with "We need to shut off the rest of these machines", that was an adequate set up to future installments, with Louisoix and Nael showing up certainly helping. Alexander? That ends with Mide attempting character development, and the revelation that the piece of the Enigma Codex is safe and sound with us... There is no build up to the next part...

Even the threat Alexander poses... It just isn't there... All Primals drain aether, even Bahamut... What set them apart was seeing what else they did... Alexander fails for the same reason Titan and Leviathan "fail", we never actually saw Titan or Leviathan do anything, but at the very least we got a sense of how dangerous they might be when we battled them... When we set foot inside Alexander... Nothing... The biggest resistance Alexander put to our presence was sucking two party members into a vent...

Coil has a big leg up over Alex though.
As in you know exactly what will happen if gets loose via ARR cinematic.
Also louisox and Nael in the end of T5, which would not have as much impact as it did if they weren't part of the previous story.
Imagine if they were completely different NPCs that you have never seen before.

I'm still holding out hope on alex story.
It would be better to compare these two stories when they have both finish their stories.

[Nalien]

Coil has a big leg up over Alex though.

Lets not compare it to Coil then, lets compare it to literally any other story in the game... It's still terrible...

Alexander, as a Primal, has zero significance... He has less characterization than Bismarck, who had next to none ("Ima hungry whale herpaderp!"), and he is by far the least threatening of the lot... Leviathan casually swam off when he was summoned, but he at least made up for it when we battled him. Alexander is crawling out of a river, just compare that to every single other incarnation of Alexander for a second... The entire threat he poses can effectively be summed up as "Oh no! One day he might do something!", much the same as Leviathan, but again, Leviathan made up for it by fighting us, rather than being asleep until 3.4...

Alexander is just a location at this point. He is where we fight those silly Illuminati and where we try to pry some character development out of Mide. I think that is what annoys people the most, the plot of Alexander isn't anything to do with Alexander, it's all about Mide and her backstory... The entire plot could literally be handled by a Mail Mog quest at this point... Heck, I'm reminded of the Landenel Mail Mog quest actually, except Landenel wasn't instantly unlikable... Alexander is just the stage for us to learn about Mide and the group she used to be a part of, and what happened to them, except very few really care about Mide, because she's just been so unlikable...

I really cannot see them saving this, either... I mean, right now we're literally holding onto a piece of the Enigma Codex, knowing full well that the Illuminati need it to finish Alexander, which effectively nullifies any potential threat Alexander might pose... At some point the Illuminati are going to take it from us though, because they have to finish Alexander for the final raid eventually, and I'm going to be sitting here going "Why didn't you destroy it, or take it far away from Alexander, or just give it to me?", and I'm going to call the story out on its bullsh!t when that happens. I really don't think I'll ever figure out why they ended the current chapter with us having it... I'm certainly no writer, but it seems to me the obvious decision here would have been to have us lose the piece of the Enigma Codex to build suspense for the next chapter, perhaps throw in a betrayal and/or death to up the stakes... Then during the wait for 3.2, Alexander is still on our mind, we want to get revenge or whatever...

The best I can really hope for is that they don't simply repeat Coil and only give us new story with each new raid. If he is tied somewhat into the main scenario and Idyllshire, then perhaps they can flesh out the plot enough for it to at least be passable... Given where they decided to place Alexander though... Meh... I've given up all hope of anything close to Final Fantasy IX or Type-0, I can't even see Alexander ever doing anything... What's he going to do? He can't very well destroy anything in Dravania, and there isn't really anything off in the distance for him to hit with Judgement...

[Kallera]

I guess the solution is to have alexander do something. Get the gobbies (and/or an awakened Alex himself) do a test firing for science. And have it rearrange the map the attack lands on.

Imagine it taking out Zenith or hitting the garlean territory on Asiz Lla. The ramificstions on human-dragon relations, or Alex's threat being public knowledge to the Empire...That'll shake the plot up damn fast.

[RiceisNice]

One way to give us that sense of urgency behind alexander?

3.1, Idileshire evolves a bit. Part of the Hinterlands becomes black/desolate due to the...you know, usage of aether from a primal of that size that's suppose to render the land empty in a matter of days... Maybe even fire a laser or missile that blasts off the head of a gobbie statue they decided to erect in idleshire. Even for comedic effect, it'd at least give us a sense that we're not safe from Alexander.

[StrejdaTom]

I really like this idea of map changing with the story and that's something that many MMOs already implemented and it really deepends the immersion. Main problem with this is the size of developement team and that it serves only a small purpose so it is probably on the bottom of the to-do list.

[hagare]

snip

sigh....
if that's the way you feel then I got nothing else to say.

well. except this. Don't judge a story by its opening chapter.

[AstralKaos]

Coil has a big leg up over Alex though.
As in you know exactly what will happen if gets loose via ARR cinematic.
Also louisox and Nael in the end of T5, which would not have as much impact as it did if they weren't part of the previous story.
Imagine if they were completely different NPCs that you have never seen before.

I'm still holding out hope on alex story.
It would be better to compare these two stories when they have both finish their stories.

Only, even without the CG scene, or knowledge of 1.0, these people are talked about... a lot, in the main story, side quests, flavour text from various NPC's, and to the amount that even parts of Bahamut's prison lay acrosd the zones. All these things build up intrigue before you even set foot in T1, even before you finish the story... Alexander could have benefited from even just one of them things.

I had no clue who Nael was aside from his name being dropped a bunch in story scenes etc, so when seeing him after T5, still not knowing that was him, I thought to myself "a Garlean is here before us!?" along with curiousity as to why he was talking to Grampa. Of course, seeing the CG made me aware of Gramps, and seeing his name dropped and Alphi/Alisae saying early on their relation to him, so seeing him pop up in the very first turn led to many questions... even if I hadn't seen the opening CG.

Speaking of, Alex could have had a CG, even a few seconds long showing what and why Alex is to be feared and how it got where it is, through an Echo flashback or something.

[MiniPrinny]

Alexander, as a Primal, has zero significance... He has less characterization than Bismarck, who had next to none ("Ima hungry whale herpaderp!"), and he is by far the least threatening of the lot... Leviathan casually swam off when he was summoned, but he at least made up for it when we battled him. Alexander is crawling out of a river, just compare that to every single other incarnation of Alexander for a second... The entire threat he poses can effectively be summed up as "Oh no! One day he might do something!", much the same as Leviathan, but again, Leviathan made up for it by fighting us, rather than being asleep until 3.4...

The strangeness is, the threat is there, but we don't see it. Alexander allegedly drained the aether of the Hinterlands dry just by slamming his fist onto the shore. The problem is, we don't see the repercussions of such an action, and yet... they have the assets needed to make this look right, where's another place torn apart by having aether quickly consumed beyond repair? Oh. Right, the Cartenaeu Flats, a life-deficit wasteland, torn to shreds by both Bahamut's rage as well as his hunger. At the very least the area around Alexander should be barren of life, the trees should be dead, the grass should be browned or gone completely. The water around Alexander should look sickly and poisoned. We need to see how Alexander is a threat, not just hear it.

[hagare]

snip

yup. Coil was very involved with the main story even if it was indirectly.
Alex had little to no build up since it had no prior involvement with the story.
He was just kinda there.
If this was a single player game, they could make him go around the maps and leave a trail of dead lands.
sadly this is an MMO whose world is hardly ever changing.
It would've been cool though, if they made Alex start from one end of the map and head closer towards Idyllshire in every raid update.
With the final battle happening right where he is right now.

though with where he is now, they can make things interesting.
with the next raid update have the goblins unlock the weaponry of Alexander.
Then make Alex shoot out lasers from it to the map every few minutes to a random direction.
make it a one hit kill xD
that way we'll have a sense of danger when travelling the hinterlands.