Warrior of Darkness: Deceptive Marketing?

[IttyBitty]

Did we, or did we not, bring darkness back to a world flooded in light, fulfilling the legend of the heroes of folklore (ie The warriors of darkness) on the First (since the WoLs are villains in their collective consciousness)? Anybody who thought we'd be "switching sides" or batting for Zodiark for a lark is an idiot. "Um actually Hydaelyn is the true villain despite everything in the game showing and saying otherwise" is a pretty poor take. Genocide is wrong. I don't care how thirsty you are for Foxy Grandpa Emet.

The entire point of a trailer is to create intrigue and make you ask questions (eg "Why is Y'shtola going by the name Matoya? Is she doing the folklore/fae thing of hiding her true name? Did she get possessed by grandma? Is Matoya a title like the names of the Ascians we know?" "Why is the Crystal Tower surrounded by a bustling settlement?" "Why is Minfilia a kid?" etc). Red herrings being sprinkled in is not uncommon. Frankly I'm more disappointed when there aren't any.

[Barraind]

I remember running Xelphtol in a 50/60 roulette and someone was all why is the boss summoning Garuda? ... a question which the story answers it’s stuff that that which really makes me appreciate how interconnected the story in this game is to everything else’s

You will interact with that story once (or hopefully only once). You will run that trial in a roulette many, many times afterwards. When people say 14 is story-driven, they usually mean "You have to do the cut scene barrage to unlock stuff so its OBVIOUSLY A STORY DRIVEN GAME".

Theres lore behind every boss in every MMO, most of those require the player to go hunting that info down, it doesnt go "HERES A CUTSCENE PLEASE WATCH" before and after. You read books and npc chatter, read quest test, do turnin quests and listen to the npc's tell you things.

Theres MMO's with multiple discoverable languages in them that nobody tells you exist, its on you to go hunt them out. They dont say "Heres what the big bad is up to and why" in a series of cutscenes, you have to talk to people, do side quests, do dungeons, do raids, and interact with the world to figure them out.

[ElazulHP]

I was not expecting us to become evil. What I was expecting was that we were going to work with Zodiark and get the blessing of darkness so we would end up with both the blessing of light and the blessing of darkness. Sort of like a yin and yang thing making us "complete" in a sense. Neither good nor evil. We would just bring balance wherever we went. The whole fight the light with the light was a little odd to me, but I still enjoyed what they did with the story so whatever I guess. Looking forward to see what happens next.

[SerLuke]

You will interact with that story once (or hopefully only once). You will run that trial in a roulette many, many times afterwards. When people say 14 is story-driven, they usually mean "You have to do the cut scene barrage to unlock stuff so its OBVIOUSLY A STORY DRIVEN GAME".

Theres lore behind every boss in every MMO, most of those require the player to go hunting that info down, it doesnt go "HERES A CUTSCENE PLEASE WATCH" before and after. You read books and npc chatter, read quest test, do turnin quests and listen to the npc's tell you things.

Theres MMO's with multiple discoverable languages in them that nobody tells you exist, its on you to go hunt them out. They dont say "Heres what the big bad is up to and why" in a series of cutscenes, you have to talk to people, do side quests, do dungeons, do raids, and interact with the world to figure them out.

That’s cool, why don’t you go play those then and let us enjoy what we enjoy?

[Raldo]

Upon rewatch of the trailer, I think most of the stuff involving the derplander is from the Exarch's timeline (showing how the WoL died, then merging into his hopes for the new timeline), which would explain why we never had to experience anything like it. When put into that context, the stuff the gremlin says makes a lot more sense (though it also makes it a rather ineffective representation of the content, since that "history was rewritten").

Apologies if that revelation was an obvious one. I'm not good at reading between the lines.

[Divinemights]

I am not sure why people automatically assume dark is evil and light is good. This is Asian game and Japanese is deeply impact by Chinese that thinking. Teaching, the ying and yang

[Townsperson]

I feel like the main problem is most people don't understand that the title "Warrior of Light" has absolutely nothing to do with Hydaelyn's blessing as far as FFXIV is concerned.

Yes, we technically have Hydaelyn's blessing, but the title is based on our actions, not the fact that we're Hydaelyn's chosen. I mean, 1.0 characters didn't necessarily have Hydaelyn's blessing at all, but receive the title of Warrior of Light because of how they are remembered following the Battle of Carteneau (after which they do receive Hydaelyn's blessing, but the title technically predates the blessing).

The Warriors of Light from the first caused the flood of light, so someone that undoes that would rightfully be called the Warrior of Darkness.

On the flip side, we referred to the invading Warriors of Light from the first as the Warriors of Darkness in the source because they were fighting to undo the actions of the Warrior of Light. They don't actually possess Zodiark's blessing, as far as I am aware, they're just allied with the Ascians in opposition to the Warrior of Light.

End of the day, it's just a title. It doesn't have a thing to do with whose blessing we have. The idea of being the Warrior of Darkness is more in line with us upsetting the nature of that world, and being a villain in the eyes of some of the world.

[DenzelVilliers]

It was "become the Warrior of Darkness" ... it wasn't: "Become the Warrior of Evil" or "Become a Ascian".

People should understand that Darkness and Evil aren't the same thing at all. And i loved all the Warrior of Darkness concept in ShB about bring darkness to a caotic light world, by far the best FFXIV Expansion, not only that, the best MMO Expansion ever.

[Gula]

Being the Warrior of Darkness is a lot like being the tooth fairy. It doesn't mean you have to be literally a fairy made out of teeth. You get the title by doing what the tooth fairy does, and so it is for WoD. You brought back the night as expected, thus you are the WoD. Not deceptive.

I wasn't expecting to have nightmares tonight but here we are.

Looking at the trailer now, the "become what you must" felt more like a bit to get people to go through the story as DRKs for themeing. If the MSQ was anything to go by, you'd think it'd apply to becoming a Lightwarden(because it was something happening to us that we couldn't help). Said tagline is also more applicable to the DRK story especially 45-50.

[Fynlar]

I feel like the main problem is most people don't understand that the title "Warrior of Light" has absolutely nothing to do with Hydaelyn's blessing as far as FFXIV is concerned.

Yes, we technically have Hydaelyn's blessing, but the title is based on our actions, not the fact that we're Hydaelyn's chosen. I mean, 1.0 characters didn't necessarily have Hydaelyn's blessing at all, but receive the title of Warrior of Light because of how they are remembered following the Battle of Carteneau (after which they do receive Hydaelyn's blessing, but the title technically predates the blessing).

I don't want to get too spoilerrific about it either, but for anyone who's done the four role quest lines and unlocked the "ties it all together" final quest after that, that quest actually goes quite a bit into detail about this very subject (that is, what exactly "makes" a Warrior of Light).