Gamerescape E3 Interview

[EdwinLi]

Exactly what I thought of, and no I don't want to see it happen either.

Any which way you play it, it would turn out strange. Does he survive (and will he be regarded by the fandom as a 'substitute' for the original)? Does he die too? Turn out to be a villain?

I'd rather leave the whole thing alone and just get new original characters.

How far back would they send a reference like it anyway? Does that mean we have alt-Edmont as well? Are they living in alt-Ishgard? What about everyone else that made the city and the people what they are?

...

Oh bother, this whole thing is being run by the DRK quest writer, isn't it? And they've already kinda-brought Haurchefant back once already (and I hated it).

*sigh* Calling it now then. Elf-Haurchefant living in... Il Mheg somewhere I guess, with elf-Edmont married to the counterpart of Haurchefant's mother. At least we'd get to find out what she looks like.

You got to get a bit more understanding of the Multiverse thing when it comes to alternate counterparts. In this case with the Source and Firsts....

Most of the people we know in the Source probably are dead in the First or are turned into Sin Eaters since majority of the world is now covered by the Flood of Light while few we know are probably still alive or few we know are dead in the Source are alive. You can bet that they may have already planned for this and one of the Sin Eaters we meet and kill maybe someone we know in the Source but their First Counterpart ended up as a Sin Eater due to the FLood of light consuming their home region such as the First version of Ishgard.

The majority of people we meet are probably going to be the people who should be dead in the Source due to their different life choices and encounters, never met due to different life encounters and choices, or were originally never born in the Source.

It is just how Alternate Worlds/Realities that parallel our world works. The science itself to calculate what can and cannot happen is just way too unpredictable to know what X or Y can happen in a Parallel World to say it is impossible to encounter a version of some one that lived completely different life or not.

[kidalutz]

Agreed.

It cheapens the established story if it happens too frequently. I just don't want to see a situation where, for example, Haurchefant comes 'back' because he conveniently has a counterpart on the First who looks and acts exactly like him.

What if He's Eden @.@ *tinfoil hat*

[Sathona]

the B brothers are the primals of all primals just watching over us

[Iscah]

You got to get a bit more understanding of the Multiverse thing when it comes to alternate counterparts...

I do understand how this multiverse works, and the way it works should mean we don't have alternate versions of anyone. The world and cultures have gone in radically different directions, and it should be expected that people's lives have done the same. Different people live, die, meet, fall in love... and the consequence is that it's highly unlikely that the same chain of ancestors over 12,000 years should come together for anyone, let alone large numbers of characters. And they still shouldn't (in my opinion) be regarded as the same person, just a chance doppelgänger who happens to look alike.


Right now I'm dreading that they're going to go the "Haurchefant still lives somewhere, so you don't need to be so sad that he died" route, because it would just devalue how his death has been played up to this point... but thus far the DRK writing has annoyed me when handling emotional stuff, so I wouldn't put it past them. I may need to throw something if they do that.

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

I think we are in fact going to encounter 1st counterparts of people on the source. Yes, things developed differently in the 10,000 years since Hydaelyn split, but in all that time, out of all the dice throws that can occur in that time leading up to the present day, at least some of those dice throws had to land the same as they did on the source.

I think the theme will be that people are the end result of their life experiences and don't really have fates that are set in stone. So you will see the same people who ended up radically different than they did on the source and in that way, they are not the same person.

[ObsidianFire]

I think the kind of "doppelgängers" we will see, if we do see any, are going to be less carbon copies of characters and more along the lines of "does that guy remind you of that other guy on the Source". Only the guy on the 1st Shard is a different race and it's only going to be his mannerisms that are similar, not his backstory or motivations. It wouldn't be that hard to make a character with Hargefaunt's mannerisms, but who has completely different motivations.

I don't think it's all that fair to say that any character with similar mannerisms (or story roles) to characters from the Source is a "doppelgänger" of someone on the source. FFXIV is very tropey and needs characters in certain roles to make the story work. Now that we aren't in the Source anymore, we need characters that can fulfill the roles of characters back on the Source.

[Rocl]

Yes, things developed differently in the 10,000 years since Hydaelyn split, but in all that time, out of all the dice throws that can occur in that time leading up to the present day, at least some of those dice throws had to land the same as they did on the source.

This analogy only really works if you're dumping a tonne of one-hundred sided dice and gathering the sum and each individual dice's result. Eventually you'd probably get the same results—the same sum surely, maybe even the same distribution of numbers, but the likelihood of the specific dice rolling the same numbers in two casts (or fourteen, as the case may be) would be astronomically low. The whole butterfly effect concept makes the idea that a Brendon on the First is of the same exact parentage as Brendt, Brennan, and Bremondt hard to swallow for me.

That being said, I acknowledge the trope and its usefulness; but it's a very dangerous game to play imo. You cheapen things like Haurchefant, sure; but it just also feels contrived. Sure, comic books do it all the time in their respective multiverses, but I've always been more a fan of seeing another Spider-Man in another world and learning that it isn't Peter Parker. Figuring out how that masked vigilante became one so similar to the one we know is neat! The same character being the same person with the same backstory and same family except, like, they drive on the other side of the road in NYC is lame. It's honestly just a personal preference.

[EdwinLi]

I do understand how this multiverse works, and the way it works should mean we don't have alternate versions of anyone. The world and cultures have gone in radically different directions, and it should be expected that people's lives have done the same. Different people live, die, meet, fall in love... and the consequence is that it's highly unlikely that the same chain of ancestors over 12,000 years should come together for anyone, let alone large numbers of characters. And they still shouldn't (in my opinion) be regarded as the same person, just a chance doppelgänger who happens to look alike.


Right now I'm dreading that they're going to go the "Haurchefant still lives somewhere, so you don't need to be so sad that he died" route, because it would just devalue how his death has been played up to this point... but thus far the DRK writing has annoyed me when handling emotional stuff, so I wouldn't put it past them. I may need to throw something if they do that.

Just because there is a Haurchefant in the First does not mean he is Haurchefant we know.

The First Haurchefant most likely lived a completely different life than Source Haurchefant to a point the only similarities he has is just his appearance and name while his personality and beliefs are completely different so we can consider him as a different person.

You have to remember that a alternate reality/world version of someone has to be treated as a completely different person and not a replacement for the person we know since their past, beliefs, and personality are completely different due to the difference of the different worlds.

If we meet a First version of Haurchefant then I will be more sad because it will most likely be a scene where we know the person by appearance and name but then realize he is a different person due to the difference in personality and beliefs thus we have to accept this person is just a different person that only looks and sounds like Haurchefant. Then we may get even more sad because we learn that for First Haurchefant to be alive today is because First Aymeric died in his place by a Sin Eater or turned into a Sin Eater when the First version of Ishgard (under a different name) fell to the Flood of Light.

[Gula]

I mean, its not as if dopplegangers is an unheard of concept in fiction. And there are only so many genetic combinations you get at random till you get someone who looks similar to someone else.

Also, Cid isn't a doppleganger, but he does exist as a completely different person in every universe. lol Similar concept, really.

I hope the First has a Cid but entirely different to parallel every FF having it's own Cid.

[Iscah]

Just because there is a Haurchefant in the First does not mean he is Haurchefant we know.

The First Haurchefant most likely lived a completely different life than Source Haurchefant to a point the only similarities he has is just his appearance and name while his personality and beliefs are completely different so we can consider him as a different person.

You have to remember that a alternate reality/world version of someone has to be treated as a completely different person and not a replacement for the person we know since their past, beliefs, and personality are completely different due to the difference of the different worlds.

So if it's a different person with different past, beliefs and personality.... why make it someone we recognise, beyond the shock value of it?

It's cheap storytelling to me. Rocl explained it already and better.

(That said, I'm totally fine with 'Brendon' showing up as if middle-aged blond merchants are some kind of cosmological constant... just not anyone else. Especially for "emotional impact".)