White Raven earring given out at The Rising event 2018

[Enkidoh]

As someone who has spent a very large amount of time trawling the internet and Youtube to find bits of text regarding the storyline of FFXIV 1.0, this is terrible! I've seen what I believe to be most of the cutscenes following the main storyline of 1.X, but being just the cutscenes, there are fairly large gaps between sequences at times that don't make sense without the context of the quests in between. I would have liked to know everything that was said to make sense of what was there, despite being "shambles". A book or a DVD would've shown me everything I want to know, and would still like for one to happen. I've greatly enjoyed it when I can make connections between the same characters in 1.x and 2.x.

SE actually did release a compilation disc of 1.0 cutscenes with the Collector's Edition of ARR, called The Waning of the Sixth Sun. This disc only includes the 7th Umbral Era event cutscenes though, it does not include cutscenes for the original 1.0 starting city storylines and the truncated Path of the Twelve story. This is because those storylines were being cannibalized for ideas and concepts for ARR's storyline, and SE probably did not want to 'spoil' that.

Thus, this shows that really only the 7th Umbral Era story is still fully 'canon' to ARR - the original starting city story and the Path of the Twelve were effectively abandoned and retconned (quite a few ideas and 1.0 story concepts still remain canon in ARR, such as F'lhaminn and her connection to Thancred, and Minfilia's deceased father Warburton), but the majority of 1.0's original story has been quietly ignored or outright decanonized, SE seeming to adopt a "it's only still canon if we say so" stance unfortunately in regards to 1.0's story).

Though I suppose at least that little bit about forcing the 1.0 storyline into the Seventh Umbral Era arc explains the biggest gap of them all. The last of the earliest main quest cutscenes(I think, anyway) ends with you talking to Minfillia about the Resistance no longer sending people south to suddenly launching into the Seventh Umbral Era. I tried really hard to find something, anything that made a connection, but if there really isn't anything, that explains why I have not found it.

It's ironic this comes out of a topic about the White Ravens, I suppose. The main reason I started fishing around for 1.0 storyline was because I was doing the Coils for the first time during HW when I got to the Nael fight. After the cutscenes and all were done, I just had to know who Nael actually was and why s/he was there. So I set about trying to find out.

To end, I suppose I'll just say, I'm so upset that my computer at the time couldn't handle 1.X. I really wanted to play it, I did. I was there, but my computer would force a shutdown due to overheating if I went anywhere other then Thanalan, so I gave up on it. Alas, not everything works out.

That was because the Path of the Twelve story was effectively abandoned after that quest ('Future's Perfect'), due to the staff change-over from Tanaka's original team to Yoshi's team (that then decided to replace 1.0 with ARR completely), and so repurposed the storyline for the '7th Umbral Era' events to explain lore-wise the replacement of the zones with new maps (the original zone design being a major complaint of the original game).

Some dialogue and cutscenes for the planned future Path of the Twelve story beyond Future's Perfect did make into 1.0's client, but they were dummied out and never used, a shame, as that specific quest line is canon in ARR, as it concerned the Company of Heroes encountering Titan (from what I understand the player and their Path Companion were meant to head to O'ghomorro, only to find the kobolds had already summoned Titan and the Company of Heroes were already engaged in battle with him, something that naturally does not end well).

The reason this story was never implemented was the same reason Leviathan also never made it into 1.0, despite his model also being likewise included in the game files, and that was because to the terrible earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in March 2011 -SE naturally felt having storylines that involved summons that evoke earthquakes and tsunamis would be too insensitive to Japanese players (SE actually had to shut down the game servers temporarily for two weeks by order of the Japanese government at that time as a power-saving effort).

Either way, sadly the Path of the Twelve storyline ultimately ended up being quietly dropped at that point and was never completed, with the 7th Umbral Era story taking over (when Primal fights were added, besides Ifrit and Garuda a more 'cute' summon was decided to be added instead of Titan and Leviathan in the form of Good King Moggle Mog.

I admit it may be confusing to a new player, but really, the way ARR is written, ARR's main scenario really does not require knowledge of these prior events to enjoy or understand, as ARR really just retread the same ideas and concepts 1.0 had already dealt with, but in a different manner. So don't feel you've really missed out on that much only joining the game in ARR.