[SPOILER discussion] Foreshadowing of Future?

[ChandraNoctis]

It would be interesting anyhow. I'm getting a little tired of the WoL as omnipotent super power scenarios we have now as compared to the earlier parts where the WoL was still discovering what they were. One of the big questions is what happens to Eorzea and the Scions when/if the WoL is not around to save them?

It would be interesting to have things fall apart and have the WoL realize that they need to train other adventures with the echo to a higher level (squadrons maybe?). The the MSQ still relies on the WoL as the savior of Eorzea but hints that others might be able to fill a similar function (against primals for example) if there were more echo wielders trained.

It would be fun to explore what happens if the WoL is taken out of action (at least temporarily with NPCs thinking it to be permanent) but I'm not sure how that would be possible gameplay wise.

I do agree however, that the songbird are just likely only foreshadowing that the development team plans to do something different for next Little Ladies Day and not anything more than that.

[Enkidoh]

But we've already had that very scenario occur several times before and things didn't fall apart with the city states (the banquet resulting in the virtual destruction of the Scions, being branded a regicide and our resultant flight to Ishgard is the obvious example, but even back in ARR after Livia's raid on the Waking Sands we end up going incognito for an extended period, with the city states all but certain the Scions no longer existed (and also were unsure as to even if we were still alive, granted we weren't called actually the Warrior of Light then).

In both cases the citystates functioned well enough without us (the Alliance coming within a hair's breadth of surrendering to Gaius only for the player's character along with Cid, Minfilia and Alphinaud to show up at the eleventh hour and thankfully talk them out of it notwithstanding), so I think the story has kind of overstated our importance to Eorzea's security somewhat (don't get me wrong, we are greatly important, especially with our ability to eat Primals for breakfast pretty much, but the world is at a stage now our sudden disappearance probably wouldn't upset the status quo that much really, at least not for a while anyway.).

Gameplay wise there was virtually no change in either situation, although the Rising Stones were sealed off by a Brass Blade for most of Heavensward, speaking to random Brass Blades and Crystal Braves around Eorzea during HW revealed most actually bore you no ill will, usually either willing to "look the other way" at worst or even outright stating they didn't believe the Monetarists' lies for a second and regard us as innocent accordingly, thus again stating more or less that if anyone asked them that they would reply "you weren't here, we didn't talk". And the class Guilds all but mention they were outright stonewalling the Monetarists attempts to track us down, even refusing bribery for information as to our whereabouts).

So really, apart from minor dialogue changes there is no difference gameplay wise, so any future hypothetical situation would likewise have little to no effect on how existing content is accessed anyway.

[ChandraNoctis]

Yes - I was thinking more with respect to primal type threats than the political relationships between the city state. The Alliance and the city states in general would be fine without the WoL but what happens when the next new primal comes along - particularly something like Bahamut, Alexander or Omega?

Probably I am just getting a little bored of the same type of story and looking to shake things up a bit. I'd like us to really mess up and/or get into real danger and stay that way for a while (rather than being all good a quest or two later). We had some of that in ARR but since then it's been a little too easy and things wrap up a little too neatly (not gameplay wise just with the story). Zenos being not dead (or alive again or cloned or whatever) might be interesting though.

I'd love for us to discover that we'd been wrong about how we deal with primals all along and really making things worse, or been mislead about Hydaelyn and Zodiarck or something like that but I don't expect it to happen. I'd like something unexpected to happen.

[FJerome]

Yes - I was thinking more with respect to primal type threats than the political relationships between the city state. The Alliance and the city states in general would be fine without the WoL but what happens when the next new primal comes along - particularly something like Bahamut, Alexander or Omega?

I'd say that for smaller primals they'd go back to doing it the way they did it before WoLs started showing up; chucking vast amounts of lives at the thing until they killed it and then executing anyone who got tempered along the way. The Elder Primals could be more interesting because now that Garlemead is manufacturing artificial Echo-users other countries start thinking it'd be worth bowing to them in exchange for protection.

[MuseTraveller]

Sadly, I think it's just that we won't see the Songbirds next year.

Personally, I'd love to see something happen to the WoL. I'd love to see my hero on their own for a bit rather then being guided by NPC X and when I say by for a while I mean, stay like that for a patch or something... and not not few quests later and everything is fine. I understand how MMOs' stories work, but I also think breaking the mold is something necessary to create memorable experience. After all, wasn't that what happened at the end of 1.x? The developers threw all kinda ideas since ARR was to launch and it worked wonderfully.

I hope no servers close but I also hope the scenario writers won't get too comfortable with the working formula. Just because it works it doesn't mean it won't wear out.

[Ilenya]

I'd say that for smaller primals they'd go back to doing it the way they did it before WoLs started showing up; chucking vast amounts of lives at the thing until they killed it and then executing anyone who got tempered along the way. The Elder Primals could be more interesting because now that Garlemead is manufacturing artificial Echo-users other countries start thinking it'd be worth bowing to them in exchange for protection.

They wouldn't need to do it that way anymore. We're not the only Echo users in Eorzea, and at the very least they could tap Fordola as well for additional help with Primals.

That's not to say the Garleans *wouldn't* take advantage of it, setting up a small party of "Warriors of Garlemald", a group of people with the artificial Echo designed to show Eorzeans not all Garleans are bad and that there are advantages to being a member of the Garlean fold.

[ObsidianFire]

Even if we were to go somewhere else, nothing much in Aldenard would change. We aren't the only person with the Echo anymore. The city-states don't need us to function on a day-to-day basis. Part of the reason we can even go to Othard is because we aren't needed by the rest of Eorzea at that point.

As it is, certain things are changing. Primals are not the craziest thing in the story anymore. The trial storyline this expansion does not involves primals at all. Heck, we aren't even killing them! We're more then likely figuring out what happened to the Isle of Val which disappeared into something that looked a lot like an Ultima blast. We're also learning a lot more about what the Echo can actually do other then just keeping us from being tempered. That was a storyline that dates all the way back to 1.0. Which is a little concerning given that in 1.0 everyone who went on quests to figure out what the Echo is had never returned, so who knows where that will go. Becoming and Esper by using Auracite is now a thing as well. Which is ultimately what lead to the Void and Voidsent being created.

There's a lot of unresolved stuff going on that has the potential to shake up our understanding of how the world really works. Our slice of the world we started out in has mostly stabilized (ARR and HW) so we now have the narrative freedom to go after a bunch of other things far from home. That doesn't mean that home falls apart without us though.

[Alleo]

I saw it more as them giving us a hint that they wont be in the event next year because there has to be a time where the event is about something else or it might get a little stale. I cant see how our character dies and on top of that this event can be done by people that are not even that far into the story so hinting at something that is part of the main story would be a bit strange imo.