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

[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.

[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.

[Nalien]

Alex had little to no build up since it had no prior involvement with the story.

That's the problem I have with Alexanders plot... They could easily have used the Idyllshire portion of the main scenario to build up Alexander somewhat... It's just lazy that they didn't...

Slap a NPC from Mides past in there, have him die losing something to the Illuminati (a piece of the Enigma Codex), have an Echo cutscene with him to introduce Mide (though not by name) at a time when she might have actually been likable... Done.

The idea that the Illuminati are planning something would have been introduced before Alexander was summoned, having Alexander get summoned, then having us run around going "What are the Illuminati planning?" seems ridiculous to me, the Alexander Project, or whatever they called it in the quest, should have been introduced before Alexander was actually summoned, makes no sense to me for it to come after... Investing players against them could already be established when they kill off the NPC, though that depends on what kind of an impression he left on people. Mide would also be somewhat better, since your introduction to her would have been a (hopefully) likable character, making her current brooding personality less of "You're sapping the life out of the area more than Alexander..." and more of "What happened to you?". Sure, we're told she used to be somewhat of a dreamer, but that fails a fairly simple rule of storytelling; Show don't tell. That's the biggest problem with Alexander to be honest, it's all exposition, we don't actually see much... When we have a nice little convenient plot device for exactly that, it's kind of surprising they missed that opportunity...