Revelations from Fan Festival 2017 Frankfurt

[Belhi]

Zodiark's revival or rapidly approaching revival would be a pretty good way to force Eorzea and Garlemald to work together. Given that Elidibus gave Nidhogg's Eyes to Ilberd it's pretty clear that the Ascians want a war between Garlemald and Eorzea/Eorzea's allies. Ultimately it's the Ascians who are the 'big bads' - and I have little doubt that they will continue to approach key individuals on all sides and given them dangerous powers to push things towards chaos. Didn't Igerythom pretty much outright state that war benefits Zodiark back in the Aetherochemical Research Facility?

Considering that the Zodiark plot is the major one of the game leaping straight to his revival would seem rather premature. It really isn't the Ascians style either. They like manipulating their enemies. Its not like Garlemald is a totally united and completely loyal whole. Sophia got out because of attempts by a rival garlean political faction to sabotage Regula's efforts. The ground work for internal conflict is already in game. Turning Garlemald against itself is exactly the kind of think the Ascians wold do.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

At some point, Garleans will control half of our continent, while the other part will be under the Eorzea alliance.
If a powerful army (Mamool Ja for example) appear, the whole continent will be in danger.
Garlean empire and Eorzea alliance will stop to fight each other and will work together to fight off the new threat.
And furthermore, I think Garleans would prefer to collaborate with humans than see their homeland fall into the hands of some beasts.
Ultimately, WoL would not longer be a hero for the Eorzea alliance but will become the protector of the Three Great Continents.

What makes you think the Mamool Ja would be powerful enough to stand up to the Empire? WE can barely stand up to the Empire; in fact, it's only the existence of Primals that keeps them from simply steamrolling over us. My guess would be that a Western invasion would be ignored by Garlemald and left to the Alliance to fend off anyways, at least until they had no choice but to take action. I mean, why not? They can watch and prepare, and if they're lucky, the remaining side will be so weak that they could swoop in and take the Realm for themselves.

If we ally with the Garleans, it's going to either be against the Ascians or against some other faction of Garlemald.

[PogueX]

Revelation from fan fest - Square makes the best trailers ever. Watching that Stormblood trailer I haven't had goosebumps like that since FF7 trailer

[YianKutku]

What makes you think the Mamool Ja would be powerful enough to stand up to the Empire? WE can barely stand up to the Empire; in fact, it's only the existence of Primals that keeps them from simply steamrolling over us.

Suddenly I'm wondering if the Mamool Ja will ever have a Primal of their own, and how Eorzea and Garlemald will respond to that.

Also, how much of Eorzea's resistance is due to Primals, and how much because we have lots of magic to sling around? Othard is where the Empire first encountered Primals (or "eikons", I suppose), and that didn't seem to slow them down that much, as far as we know. Then again, Eorzea has many more Primals, due to both a greater wellspring of aether and Ascian shenanigans.

A lot of the issues the Eorzean Alliance have against the Garlean Empire is due to poor coordination between the city-states and their forces, be it politicking or internal strife or the respective beast tribe problems. I'm not expecting these problems to go away, since they provide a lot of the setting in which we adventure, but I'd imagine Garlemald can theoretically be stopped by something with Eorzea's resources, in the remote chance that everything aligns correctly.

[Theodric]

I think, ultimately, once we do go to Garlemald we'll be dealing with stuff from Garlemald's perspective. I'll be all the more convinced of that if once we head to Othard we see things playing out from Othard's perspective. What's interesting is the talk of Doma, not Othard, being liberated. I think we'll see some places either remain aligned with Garlemald or simply remain neutral - and I think that would make for a more interesting story overall than everybody who isn't Garlemald allying with Eorzea.

On another note, I wonder how Yuyuhasa and Laurentius will play into 4.0? They showed up at the end of 3.5 so I assume they're going to play into things moving forward. I also hope we get to see some prominent male Au Ra in 4.0 since as it stands none spring to mind.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

Suddenly I'm wondering if the Mamool Ja will ever have a Primal of their own, and how Eorzea and Garlemald will respond to that.

Also, how much of Eorzea's resistance is due to Primals, and how much because we have lots of magic to sling around? Othard is where the Empire first encountered Primals (or "eikons", I suppose), and that didn't seem to slow them down that much, as far as we know. Then again, Eorzea has many more Primals, due to both a greater wellspring of aether and Ascian shenanigans.

A lot of the issues the Eorzean Alliance have against the Garlean Empire is due to poor coordination between the city-states and their forces, be it politicking or internal strife or the respective beast tribe problems. I'm not expecting these problems to go away, since they provide a lot of the setting in which we adventure, but I'd imagine Garlemald can theoretically be stopped by something with Eorzea's resources, in the remote chance that everything aligns correctly.

The Primals aren't so much our resistance, as they are the reason we don't really need one at all right now. Garlemald faced heavy losses when dealing with Othard's Primals, and so don't want to commit a major force to Eorzea until they can eliminate the Primal threat entirely (this was the whole reason they moved to control Silvertear). Were they to find a way to do that, it's not likely we'd be able to put up much of a fight at all - after all, the entire mustered might of three Grand Companies could barely hold off the scraps of the VIIth Legion at Carteneau.

[YianKutku]

Were they to find a way to do that, it's not likely we'd be able to put up much of a fight at all - after all, the entire mustered might of three Grand Companies could barely hold off the scraps of the VIIth Legion at Carteneau.

Which is the "poor coordination" I mentioned, yes. The lorebook mentioned that while the three Grand Companies far outnumbered the VIIth Legion, they had terrible strategy, while the VIIth Legion was well-conditioned to fight as a unit (EE pg 44).

Having said that, I'm not sure all the city-states of Eorzea (ie the three GCs plus Ishgard, plus possibly liberated Ala Mhigo) would be enough to face the might of Garlemald should the Empire get serious, but I'm also not sure they wouldn't at least make it costly enough that Garlemald doesn't commit to a conventional invasion. So far Eorzea has chewed up and spat out three legatus, as well as one flagship, possibly two depending on what happens to the Gration.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

From Gamer Escape's interview with Yoshida at PAX:

Q: At FanFest you said that in order to see Ala Mhigo we would need to liberate it and go there. Will there be a similar system for Doma? How will liberation be different between the two cities?

A: There may be a bit of misunderstanding on that part in terms of accessing Ala Mhigo. There was a question raised about stepping into the Ala Mhigo region, and there was a mention of first driving away the Garlean power that holds that area. Access to that area is limited. For Doma, you don’t have to worry about liberating it first before you can enter it.

This substantially (maybe even definitively) implies that we'll go east, then back west. I find the wording of his last statement about Doma pretty interesting, too - if we can freely enter it, but not Ala Mhigo, then it's likely Doma has actually been completely abandoned by its citizens and Garlemald both. Unless he's speaking of the region, of course.

[Khalithar]

Considering that the Zodiark plot is the major one of the game leaping straight to his revival would seem rather premature.

I agree with this, however there is also the fact that they keep talking about him and talking about him and it just keeps going on and on etc. Sooner or later there has to be a point where we finally face him. I don't want them to keep talking and building up to him for the next eight expansions and then when we're level 160 we finally learn he's awakening in the next expansion or whatever. Too much build up will get really dull after a while.

[SaitoHikari]

I just realized something.

Remember the Wintertide event? The event revolved around a sickly boy who thought his father abandoned him when he didn't come visit him and the other children. But as it turned out, the father was planning on going to the Far East to search for a rare herb to cure his son's illness.

Our journeying to Othard was literally hinted at as far as 3+ months before the Fan Fest (along with the Hidibrand quest outright saying that he was flying towards the Far East too). And no doubt we'll probably run into the kid's father again.