Lore, FFXI or FFXIV

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

This is interesting! I just started playing XI, and while I've in no way experienced what those who played it even 5 years ago did, I can give a crack at my impressions so far. Disclaimer: I'm still very much at the beginning of the story, so I can't comment about how the Primals compare to the Avatars (although I deeply disagree that anything related to Primal lore is shallow), or how the Beast Tribes compare (so far, about the same, but it's not hard to imagine XI going more in-depth than XIV, where much of the BT conflict is basically flavor text), or whatever. And despite what I'm about to say, I am enjoying my time in Vana'Diel.

That said, so far? Lore-wise and world-wise, XIV is trumping it. I appreciate XI's method of going about things - it certainly does feel more like a big, dangerous world - but it doesn't actually make me feel immersed nor does it bleed history in the way XIV does. Early on, XIV's lore and the sense of Eorzea being a lived-in world with a long history behind it is what snagged me and kept me playing (I believe it was walking up to Ul'Dah and seeing "The 80 Sins of Sasamo" flash up on the screen that first gave me that sense, but it was far from the last thing). Nothing in XI has made me feel that. The cities don't feel as alive, the world doesn't feel as vibrant. Part of that is likely age, but I really do think XIV goes out of its way to make its world stand out as and feel like an Actual Place far earlier and more often than XI.

It probably doesn't help that, as far as story presentation goes, XIV is trumping XI too. I haven't actually hit any real story yet (just the city stuff up to around Jeuno, and whatever Rhapsodies is on about), but for all that XIV could work on its presentation, it's LEAGUES better at that than XI has been. Stuff just kind of happens in XI; there's no sense of narrative flow or build, and having every single add-on and expansion start up when I enter the relevant area is disorienting and distracting. And main stories aside, I feel like much of the world's lore has to be sought out and discovered on one's own...which would be fine, if the world was actually one conducive to exploring and seeking out stories in. XI is not that world. Maybe the story is super rewarding for those who find it, but when you need to spend months to years digging around a game (or using the internet) to experience it, it's far from the first thing I'm going to turn to when I want to have a story told to me.

I hear Chains of Promathia is excellent, though. Really interested in working my way up to that.

[CyrilLucifer]

What a lot of new players don't know about XI is that there used to be a ton of lore on the official site. Like, absolute buttloads. I believe a lot of it has been removed, though, which is unfortunate because there's a lot of world building in that lore that SE continually updated when the game was in its prime.

For example, there's one very, very important character in SoA that actually has his diary on the SoA website that explains who he is, who his role is, what his political alignment is, and his current opinions of the politics of his country are. It also shows his decaying mental state as the expansion progresses. This one should still be up, at least.

Fortunately, you can still find it on the wiki. For example:
http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/G...l_War,_Vol._II

One of my absolute favorite lore tidbits is from one of these excerpts and is about the Hydra Corps (and shows you how absolutely terrifying Dynamis is, in case the game didn't make it clear enough):
http://ffxiclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/L...From_the_Hydra

"...maybe ten days have passed. I still have no idea of where I am. The area appears to be Beaucedine Glacier, but I see no sign of the allied forces. Neither day nor night has dominion here. There is no sense of time passing at all...

"We were fighting with the Kindred when a sudden darkness engulfed us... When I came to my senses I saw the sprawled forms of the other Hydra members, as well as those of our opponents. It seems our enemies were just as surprised as we were. In any case, our battles with them continue. We do not intend to fall in this place..."

Excerpt from undelivered letter dated 9/10/867 CE

"My dearest ****,

This may be my last letter to you. I have continued my correspondence in the hopes of retaining the gift of words, and some sense of time. But there is no escape from this hell. This realm stands apart from Vana'diel. It is a prison. There are those among the Hydra who have begun to think the world was destroyed as we lay unconscious, and this shade of reality is all that remains.

"Our battle has been never-ending. All for the brief flowerings of scarlet color on the endless fields of snow... Most of my companions have lost their grip on sanity, and pursue our enemies with a dull single-mindedness. Why do they fight? Why bother to spill each other's blood anymore? I am losing the will to care the longer I stay here...
"I don't want to become like them. I don't want to forget you. That is why I have decided to entrust my spirit to Mandau. If gentle Altana has any presence here, then surely she will see my letter delivered to you. I will not say goodbye. We will meet again one day, I swear it…"

The isolated realm spoken of in the letters must surely be the place adventurers know as "Dynamis." There are many who claim to have been attacked in that land by soldiers resembling the members of the Hydra Corps. These attackers supposedly have eyes that have lost the light of hope...

We pray that the efforts of adventurers will allow the spirits of these poor wretches to return to Altana's embrace.

Either way, yes, it gets better with CoP and ToAU. WotG andSoA basically have the same storytelling method as FFXIV, except with longer cutscenes. The basic FFXI story is pretty dry until you hit Rank 6. Even Zilart is relatively dry because it was the first expansion and it was more focused on the act of physically expanding the world and lore rather than telling a story. It was telling a story of lore, rather than a story to entertain you. Don't do Rhapsodies yet, you have about 5 expansions of story to go through before you'll even know all the characters.

Edit: Ah, here's some of it!
http://www.playonline.com/ff11eu/gui...ber/index.html

[LineageRazor]

and having every single add-on and expansion start up when I enter the relevant area is disorienting and distracting.

If this bothers you, you might be disappointed to know that this is the likely future of FFXIV, as well. YoshiP has stated that future expansions will likely NOT require completion of previous expansions in order to access their story or content. This is a good thing: As the game ages and piles on more and more content, new players are going to get more and more discouraged if they have to slog through the main scenario of all the previous content just to get access to the stuff that the bulk of the player base is already working on. New players are the lifeblood of any MMO; better that the old Main Scenario stuff be treated as optional content that players can explore at their leisure if they choose to, not something they are forced to do.

While FFXI might have been a bit overwhelming in the way that it would open all of its expansions to you at once, imagine how horrible it would be for a new player if it didn't - but the only way to get to Seekers of Adoulin where the vast majority of players were hanging around, was to work through the Shadowlord, then complete Zilart, then complete Promathia, then complete Aht Urhgan, and then complete Wings. That's not even getting into the mini expansions and Abyssea.

As it stands, instead a player has the leisure to start pretty much wherever they want. If they do the Main Scenario and are curious about where it goes from there, they're free to continue on to Zilart. If they love Blue Mage and want to know more about the intrigues of the Aht Urhgan Empire, they can go there instead. If they want to jump straight to the endgame, they can drive straight into Seekers of Adoulin.

As for the story in FFXIV being better than in FFXI, I do agree to a point. Certainly, the initial Main Scenario story is leagues better; the original Main Scenario for FFXI was pretty uninspired. The tragedy of Raogrimm tugged at the heartstrings a bit, but the story was pretty predictable. The continuation on to Zilart was REALLY rough, what with the whole, "Oh, did you forget, this is how Main Scenario REALLY ended last time!" flashback retcon. Chains of Promathia was a bit better, but got bogged down by its own worldbuilding, drowning the player in half-revealed bits of lore that were difficult to keep track of - particularly since the slow pace and difficulty of the game often meant it'd be weeks or months before you'd be able to pick the story up again (sometimes that time was spent leveling to the point where you could handle the content, other times it was spent trying to put together a party capable of completing the content).

Aht Urhgan was where the storytelling really started to come into its own, in my opinion. It was definitely interesting working FOR the evil empire for a change, even if it was in such a way that you're trying to make things better from the inside. Wings of the Goddess was a bit weaker, but made up for it with fantastic cutscenes and some excellent characters - and they did a great job of portraying just WHY the Shadowlord was a figure to be feared in his heyday, considering that he was such a pushover when you fought him in the Main Scenario.

Seekers of Adoulin was at about the same level as Wings of the Goddess in terms of quality. Rhapsodies of Vana'diel was an interesting experiment in tying all the previous expansions together, and explored some very interesting ideas regarding Altana and Promathia, but I was annoyed by the generic characterizations they gave some of the Prime Avatars (Odin and Alexander, in particular, did not at all resemble how they were presented in Aht Urghan). Abyssea, interestingly enough, while very sparse in terms of storytelling DID provide an enjoyable perspective on how the world would turn out without you (answer: not very well at all).

I feel that the storytelling from Aht Urhgan onwards surpassed FFXIV ARR's Main Scenario in quality. ARR's storytelling was clumsy, largely due to the fact that they needed to salvage remnants of plots and characters from FFXIV 1.0; plots and characters that some of the playerbase would know, and others wouldn't - and the ones who didn't would not have the ability to play through themselves to get introduced to them properly. It felt a lot like starting in the middle of a book. For example, when Thancred was revealed to be host to Lahabrea, I was like, eh, whatever, I barely knew the guy. It did improve a bit from 2.1 through 2.5, but it was really a rough start.

The storyline in Heavensward so far, on the other hand, pretty much blows away anything from FFXI. Its only weak spot was one inherited from the ARR storyline: the giant cop-out where all the horrible stuff that happened at the end of 2.5 was undone, bit by bit. I'm not the sort of person that wants to see FFXIV devolve into a Game of Throne-esque bloodbath - but if you're gonna have a dramatic plot twist like that, stick to your guns and see it through!