future expansion: The Garlean empire to be enemy territory.

[SendohJin]

Why do people believe we'll go to Garlemald and overthrow the empire in the next expansion again?

because it's the only things left in the storyline outside of Zodiark and that doesn't require new cities/zones.

Garleans and Ascians are the basis of the entire world that these characters live in.

though i think we won't be completely opposed with the entire nation.

[Kazrah]

because it's the only things left in the storyline outside of Zodiark and that doesn't require new cities/zones.

Garleans and Ascians are the basis of the entire world that these characters live in.

though i think we won't be completely opposed with the entire nation.

If Doma can be shamelessly shoehorned into a story, I'm pretty sure that goes for any nation, including neutral zones such as Thavnair and Old Sharlayan.

Then there's all the other islands throughout Eorzea along with the rest of Doma (think we've covered maybe less than half of the landmass) and maybe Hingashi.

[SendohJin]

If Doma can be shamelessly shoehorned into a story, I'm pretty sure that goes for any nation, including neutral zones such as Thavnair and Old Sharlayan.

Shameless as in Yugiri wasn't introduced in patch 2.2 of your game? Doma and Ala Mhigo has the same exact story, it would've been a total waste of time to stretch that liberation story out to two expansions.

They're setting up the introduction of Thavnair as a major player with the Thavnairian Consulate in Kugane. The issue is how to get the WoL interested in their problems and how those problems can be made bigger and more important than Garlemald retaliating against the 6 existing nations. You can't have a standalone expansion based on Thavnair jump ahead of Garlemald without doing that. it'd be much easier for them to draw Thavnair into conflict with Garlemald.

That's the same issue with Sharlayan, we have more than enough association with them with how many Scions are from there. Would not be surprised if it was introduced as part of the Ascian storyline but that alone can't carry an entire expansion.

[Kazrah]

Shameless as in Yugiri wasn't introduced in patch 2.2 of your game?

Yup, especially not only how far Doma is compared to pretty much everything else, but there was no real reason for it to be in the main story other than giving Samurai its reason to exist as a playable job. Just because two places may have similar situations doesn't mean they need to be crammed into one story.

As for Thavnair, you said it yourself, Garlemald would have to strike first, and their presence in Hingashi tells me it's not an "if", but a "when", as something found within a neutral zone would be far easier to attain for an invading force than anything worth gaining from opposing nations that have proven to be strong enough to hold their own. Thavnair's greatest alchemy, Sharlayan's vast knowledge resources; both prime targets to both the Garleans and to their opposition as well as something that could be attained from islands elsewhere (swimming now has been and probably will be building up for that) or even the rest of Doma.

In short, to think we'd be going to Garlemald so soon would be to completely ignore everything else on the map.

[SendohJin]

but there was no real reason for it to be in the main story other than giving Samurai its reason to exist as a playable job. Just because two places may have similar situations doesn't mean they need to be crammed into one story.

Doma being in this expansion has nothing to do with Samurai. they didn't want to tell a liberation story twice it would be repetitive and boring and the playerbase wants closure on Doma, that's plenty of justification to do what they did. yes, it is a little rushed but the opposite is not better, they didn't have two full stories to tell between the two areas.

In short, to think we'd be going to Garlemald so soon would be to completely ignore everything else on the map.

It's not soon at all, if Garlemald is not in 5.0, 6.0 is FOUR years away. 6.x won't end till 2023 that means it takes 10 years to tell the Garlemald story? and that's already not counting 1.0 at all. Wrapping up Garlemald in 5.x means they have liberties to introduce other parts of the map with a 6.x story that's not dictated by the Garlean influence.

There's also nothing wrong with ignoring everything else on the map because the playerbase and the characters don't know or care about them whatsoever at this point in time. You complain about shoehorning and want them to shoehorn even more irrelevant stuff at the same time?