Preferences for a new world in 6.x, 7.x and beyond

[Zohar_Lahar]

I want to see what's underneath the giant clouds on the world map.

[Tracewood]

I have a personal wishlist in my head that I know will never happen but it's still nice to have hopes so.

7.0 - Ilsabard Expansion dealing with the fall of Garlemald and dissolution of the empire/helping newly independent territories re-establish themself before the power vacuum implodes
8.0 - Return to Eorzea expac, go to several new high-level areas back in mainland Eorzea such as O'Ghomorro, the Coerthan Lowlands, Cape Deadwind, West Shroud etc; mostly helping to deal with Eorzea's own political issue post-war.

Actually second this. Maybe some areas that were inaccessible since 1.0 (West Shroud, Corth. Lowlands, expanding on Nym + Mhach).

Not sure why, but I get the feeling that after we finish EndWalker, we might get to see some form of Bahamut take to the skies and eventually leads us to the new world, a full on frontier themed expansion. Where instead of traveling by boat, it's by a giant adamantoise from waaaay back in the ARR benchmark trailer. Yes, I'm still going to bring that up! Also Rune Fencer. Needs more Rune Fencer.

[Kytrin]

I didn't read the whole thread so I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but I think what would be interesting would be if all of the remaining shards merged back into one world at the end... without the cost of life. Like our world literally became that much larger and more encompassing. I imagine that would lead to all sorts of fascinating new problems and places for us to explore and deal with.

[Katie_Kitty]

I didn't read the whole thread so I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but I think what would be interesting would be if all of the remaining shards merged back into one world at the end... without the cost of life. Like our world literally became that much larger and more encompassing. I imagine that would lead to all sorts of fascinating new problems and places for us to explore and deal with.

Certainly wouldn't be the first time. We've seen this kind of plot event happening in FF5, so I wouldn't be surprised if it happened. Would need some kind of explanation though for it lol

[Cleretic]

I didn't read the whole thread so I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but I think what would be interesting would be if all of the remaining shards merged back into one world at the end... without the cost of life. Like our world literally became that much larger and more encompassing. I imagine that would lead to all sorts of fascinating new problems and places for us to explore and deal with.

See, here you run into a structural problem with MMOs: doing this requires getting rid of The First. Since the First has entire persistent zones that can't be deleted, and FFXIV isn't the type of game to just go 'yeah this region isn't canon because we say so' (and thankfully, definitely not the type to retire content), the First has to remain in its current state. And because there's not actually anything special about the First... yeah, this idea's kind of a non-starter.

Also, it basically nullifies the entire purpose of the questline with Cylva and Unukalhai, which I assume they've included because they want it to have a point.

...Also also, I'm pretty sure that the shards rejoining by nature actually does involve a lot of loss of life, it just loses it in a way that doesn't involve literal death. You fuse the First with the Source, Runar does stop living, the fact his body didn't stop functioning doesn't invalidate that. There is no way to rejoin the shards without the loss of lives, which requires us to dismiss all the Ascian rhetoric that the Rejoining is an unambiguous, inherent good.

[Theodric]

I didn't read the whole thread so I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but I think what would be interesting would be if all of the remaining shards merged back into one world at the end... without the cost of life. Like our world literally became that much larger and more encompassing. I imagine that would lead to all sorts of fascinating new problems and places for us to explore and deal with.

Yeah, I think that would be pretty cool. It wasn't so long ago that there was absolutely no way to resolve Tempering but now it can be fixed. If the writers decide to have some sort of partial, non-lethal Rejoining take place, then I think it could work rather well. It's actually what I was hoping would happen to the First in order to keep it relevant in the long term. As it stands, it's largely forgettable to me. Sure, the Warrior of Light can go and visit anytime but the other characters can't and the majority of people on the Source are unaware of its existence.

One thing I envy about ESO and WoW is that they are written in such a way as to allow even regular civilians and soldiers to just hop through a portal and arrive in a strange new world. It's not without consequence or threat, either, since many are slain as a result.

Though as a role-player, the First does nothing for me. I don't portray my characters as Warriors of Light so they have no reason or plausible way in which to go to the First. If the First had been partially merged with the Source, however...well, that'd open it up to many more role-players!

[KizuyaKatogami]

There is no way to rejoin the shards without the loss of lives, which requires us to dismiss all the Ascian rhetoric that the Rejoining is an unambiguous, inherent good.

Pretty sure this is left up to the interpretation of the player.

[Enkidoh]

Pretty sure this is left up to the interpretation of the player.

It's not left to interpretation - the Exarch's explanation of the process during ShB makes it pretty clear that when a Shard is rejoined, it's completely destroyed and it's aether returned to the Source; Alphinaud outright reacts with horror at the realization of what that means - that Shard's entire history, culture and the lives of every living thing that made up that world are completely obliterated and erased from existence when it's Rejoined. There is basically no doubt or interpretation of it, it means total death for that entire world, and countless deaths on the Source as well in the resulting Calamity that is needed to occur on the Source at the exact same time to ensure the Rejoining actually works.

This is also the reason for Emet's little misanthropic rant about his complete lack of empathy or remorse to all the lives lost in the seven rejoinings so far on both the Source and the Shards rejoined - that because the people of the Source and Shards are all Sundered, he does not consider them "alive", and thus their deaths are meaningless to him, and thus the Ascians such as himself care nothing for the death and destruction caused by their Rejoinings. It's all part of their 'great work'.

[KageTokage]

I feel like the shards are going to end up having some role to play in this whole mess regardless; obviously not via a complete rejoining, but if the Crystal Tower enabled Elidibus to call out to all of the shards and empower himself with the faith and prayer of their heroes, perhaps we may end up needing to do something similar to give Zodiark and/or Hydaelyn the strength to halt the Final Days.

[SargeTheSeagull]

The void quest. That is all.

In all seriousness, I like the theory that however Hydaelyn/Zodiark is resolved, our new woes will be caused by more primals. Essentially, the reason Hydaelyn is so weak and hasn’t been able to help is bc she’s been enervating all the primals that keep getting summoned. Or dampening out abilities to summon. Whichever. And she will no longer be weakening them or stopping people from summoning so more primals and more powerful primals will be running amok and we’ll have to deal with that. Maybe like a microcosm of the final days where people’s abilities to summon end up causing them to summon their fears.