Where will the Orbonne Monastery lead?

[Fourbestintoner]

I expect it to be the Great Crystal, and the last boss will most likely be a reused model of FFXII Ultima.

[Nestama]

Or Amemiya Keita also designed the final boss and it'll be something new/unique (he made the concepts for Rofocales, Argath and Yiazmat, if I recall). Hopefully something monstrous (Anima levels) and not (yet another) a beautiful lady/waifu, as it'd be a first for this game.

[Seraphor]

How it is not? It's a huge part of FF12's backstory, even if in actual gameplay it ended up being an optional area (one that the game more or less explicitly tells you is highly dangerous)

Loads of characters in the game refer to Nabudis (usually in a context of warning, like Reddas's "do not forget Nabudis") as a representation of the dangers of mankind's hubris with regard to nethicite, nethicite being more or less the game's allegory to RL nuclear power.

BACKstory being the pertinent word. Not much really happens in the Necrohol of Nabudis, it's what kicks off the story but it's not very unique, it's just a generic city in ruins.

I have to say reading the replies here, I'm liking more and more the idea of The Sky Fortress being the an allagan airship graveyard, having ties to Dalamud, and Alma being possessed by the Ascian Ultima.

[Nestama]

Unless Altima was recently trapped within the Virgo Otius Auracite, I'm pretty sure Alma was getting possessed by the Virgo Otius Auracite in the trailer (she could hear it, after all).

Edit: scratch that, I'm getting my Tactics lore mixed into XIV's. Final boss will probably not even be Ultima... given what we know about the Auracites in XIV, it could end up being Tietra, Alma Beoulve, or Ovelia... or whoever else was really close to Delita in XIV's Ivalice :T

Jenomis cen Lexentale: The Otius -- one of but many auracite shards that aided noble Delita's rise to regent.
Cid: What my studious young friend is trying to say is that the Otius takes one's deepest fantasies and makes them reality.
Lina Mewrilah: If the Duma was imprinted with Argath's deepest desires, then whose desires are rattling about inside the Otius?

[Fynlar]

BACKstory being the pertinent word. Not much really happens in the Necrohol of Nabudis, it's what kicks off the story but it's not very unique, it's just a generic city in ruins.

I'd say a place contributing to "kicking off the story" by essentially getting nuked makes it rather notable, but to each their own I guess.

[Seraphor]

I'd say a place contributing to "kicking off the story" by essentially getting nuked makes it rather notable, but to each their own I guess.

But nothing else of note happens there, no character's are seen there, it's not visited in the plot, it's mentioned in side text and as a remark by Basch when you visit there.

[Jonnycbad]

I don't get Otius/Duma. Duma was the name of the would-be Lucavi of the Taurus Auracite in FFT, but it never materialized because Mustadio was holding onto it for most of the game. Otius is a new term completely...all I can glean is that it means "lazy" in Latin.

[Fynlar]

But nothing else of note happens there, no character's are seen there, it's not visited in the plot, it's mentioned in side text and as a remark by Basch when you visit there.

It's alluded to numerous times in the main plot, not just as side text. Its destruction (whose perpetrator you do encounter in the game's main plot, and he clearly displays regret over what happened) is used to clearly establish nethicite as the threat that it is.

Just because it's an optional area in actual gameplay does not make the area unimportant or not noteworthy. If anything, with the game's overarching theme of mankind taking back control over their own destiny (which the Occuria screwed with by giving them nethicite in the first place), it's arguably one of the most important thematic locations in the game alongside the Ridorana Pharos -- the former marking mankind's surrender of their fate to the gods, and the latter marking its reclamation.

[Seraphor]

It's alluded to numerous times in the main plot, not just as side text. Its destruction (whose perpetrator you do encounter in the game's main plot, and he clearly displays regret over what happened) is used to clearly establish nethicite as the threat that it is.

Just because it's an optional area in actual gameplay does not make the area unimportant or not noteworthy. If anything, with the game's overarching theme of mankind taking back control over their own destiny (which the Occuria screwed with by giving them nethicite in the first place), it's arguably one of the most important thematic locations in the game alongside the Ridorana Pharos -- the former marking mankind's surrender of their fate to the gods, and the latter marking its reclamation.

Yes, it's important to the plot of XII. However, this is all about fanservice, all the raids are, and I doubt it's notable enough in that regard to warrant inclusion.

[Purrsnikitty]

I just want to see Cúchulainn, the Impure.