Quote Originally Posted by Flay_wind View Post
Are we playing the same game? FFXIV has alcoholics, racism, regular and sexual slavery, tempered people are simply killed off, because there's no better alternative, etc etc.
The difference is in the writing chops of the team here and the team at Blizzard. It's in the way they handle those things, not in the simple fact that they exist. I think Blizzard wants to convey a fairly anti-imperialist story, but simply can't do so effectively because their "budget" for story is completely anemic. Their current expansion is a testament to writer hubris, with half of their playerbase watching in shock as an entire playable race is put to the brink of extinction and the next year and a half is spent discussing and showing how it made the ones who killed them "feel bad". That's a bad trope, and beyond that, it's deeply offensive. It's irresponsible writing.

I don't think that is their intention, but since they commit so little resources to storytelling while also wishing to tell a story of massive scope it simply doesn't play out. In XIV it's not uncommon to touch on multiple plotlines/subplots and points of view in any given patch. WoW is unable to do this because they are a "story second" game, and Blizzard themselves have all but acknowledged this. Past their flashy cinematics they are adepts at writing checks they simply can't cash in on with their writing. It's a game for raiding and dungeon grinding and little else at this point, and it excels at those things without a doubt. There is nothing here in XIV that holds a candle to the Mythic+ system, and WoW's raids continue to the standard imo.

So, yes, it's fair to accuse me of not wanting such a cross over because of my own grievances with their writers, but I think it's also fair that I have such a grievance considering I have been playing Warcraft since Tides of Darkness. But extending beyond Warcraft and my own dislike of Blizzard, I'll go ahead and say that "crossovers" should be kept to a minimum in general. XIV is at its best when it is deeply committed to telling the story of Eorzea, all of Eorzea, not travelers from the other dimension, especially ones who would clash so garishly with the aesthetic of the game itself like Thrall or Varian Wrynn or Tyrande Whisperwind or Sylvanas. It would be utterly bizarre aesthetically. I'm aware that we can justify just about anything due to the way the cosmology works here, but I don't think that gives license to just do whatever you want.

At the end of the day it's not my story though, so they are free to write how they please. I've been pretty satisfied here overall and look forward to my adventures. If the day comes that I'm not, then I'll make like I did with Warcraft and simply stop playing. I really cannot imagine a universe in which Activision would let their IP be used in a Final Fantasy game though. That would really be something and I'd eat my hat.