Season 2 Storyline (another 10 years) [discussion]

[GoldStarz]

I really, really do not want to go straight to another planet after 6.0. The reason why it feels so good that we're going to the moon/aetherial sea now is because we've built up to it over the past 8 years. Throwing us into another world so quickly would remove that buildup and logical story progression, leaving us with an expansion devoid of any real depth, regardless if it was the Dragonstar or Omega's homeworld.

We need to go back to basics for a bit, especially with how long we've been away from the Source. If Shadowbringers proved one thing at least is that people want and resonate with the high fantasy locations/themes it introduced and as cool as Endwalker is, its theme is more cosmic dealing with the literal end of a world and a battle between gods as opposed to saving and exploring fantasy locations. There is no new "kingdom" for lack of a better word on the scale of what we received when Ishgard was opened up to us and there hasn't been for quite some time.

While I also don't want to immediately be whisked off to another planet while there's a gaping hole in the world map where Ilsabard is, there's nothing in Shadowbringers that proves high fantasy locations resonate any more or less than others. The Source only has slightly more of the European fantasy you describe with the remnants of the Elves' kingdom in Lakeland and of the pixie's coopting of Voerburt's castles and town, all other locations really don't have that same vibe and the final area is the recreation of urban environment which takes stylistic inspiration from art deco. I also snipped it off, but your loathing of gunbreaker also runs pretty counter to what you're saying considering it was introduced in Shadowbringers as well. Final Fantasy has never been a purely sword and sorcery affair, its diversity in stylistic inspirations has always been its strength and shouldn't be cast as a weakness.

[KageTokage]

A large part of why Endwalker is exciting because most of the zones we're visiting are places that have been repeatedly mentioned in the MSQ and side content

Having 7.x follow suit by exploring places that we know to exist already would be a better move then sending us off into the unknown, IMO. I'd like if it's just the reasons that we go to those places that ends up being surprising.

[symbiote129]

I want to echo this, because I think we are thinking narrowly on the "You're going THAT far?!" comment. What if that he was talking plot wise, not actual distance.

For example, 6.1 starts with a celebration the WOL and Scions are invited to. We all attend only to watch said city-state leader be assassinated, showing clearly there are large problems already afoot.

Or, instead of the WOL dying, we're lost into the life stream at the end of 6.0 and everyone who lives retires. Only to have the story move forward 5 years (so no fact about your identity needs changed) and you are suddenly pulled out by a character we may or may not know (just to spitball, what are the implications of an older Ryne wearing an apocalypse like outfit, carrying Thancred's old gunblade is the person and says "We need you old friend."?).

Or the plot devise of shards fail in ending of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark and we've all come to live in a world where everyone has been rejoined. New people and continents will have appeared out of nowhere over night. The amount of exploration, potential new villains, and problems to fix has multiped by however many shards were left and the potential new frontiers are unending.

Easily it feels like they could go "THAT far".

Wow, if Full Rejoining really does happen like how you described it, instead of a world-destroying event but still a geographic-changing event, it would be really interesting see how much the dynamics of the countries/states of the planet/star would change. Like will a state from a foreign world like for example the Crystarium appearing close to Mor Dhona be something be accepted immediately or be watched with caution? How will the Ishgardians react if the Fae becomes present to....

Wait, this all sounds cool in theory but we would have to add the other shards into equation, which we don't even know if the dev team already have lore for these worlds/shards prepared.

[aveyond-dreams]

While I also don't want to immediately be whisked off to another planet while there's a gaping hole in the world map where Ilsabard is, there's nothing in Shadowbringers that proves high fantasy locations resonate any more or less than others. The Source only has slightly more of the European fantasy you describe with the remnants of the Elves' kingdom in Lakeland and of the pixie's coopting of Voerburt's castles and town, all other locations really don't have that same vibe and the final area is the recreation of urban environment which takes stylistic inspiration from art deco. I also snipped it off, but your loathing of gunbreaker also runs pretty counter to what you're saying considering it was introduced in Shadowbringers as well. Final Fantasy has never been a purely sword and sorcery affair, its diversity in stylistic inspirations has always been its strength and shouldn't be cast as a weakness.

The First:

Lakeland - Elven castle ruins
Il Mheg - Faerieland castle ruins
Amh Araeng - desert castle ruins (which a significant amount of people originally thought was Dalmasca)
Eulmore - Limsa with more fantasy elements
Amaurot - fantasy urban - it is not at all equivalent to Garlemald in terms of its take on urbanism.

The Source -
Originally so devoid of fantasy elements during 1.0 when it was just the 3 city states that Yoship made it the focus to build up to Ishgard so we would finally have some of that in the game.

Population explosion in Heavensward followed afterwards, etc.

Stormblood - each area is forgettable except Kugane. By far the most criticized zone design besides 1.0/ARR's original lack of fantasy settings besides Gridania, at best.

As for Thancred his role as a gunbreaker is hardly significant. He could have remained a rogue or taken up literally any other tank weapon and it would not have impacted the story much. I'm not saying it's a bad class, I'm saying it wouldn't fit in a high fantasy setting if its going to be used by one of your main cast members. I would much rather have Aymeric or G'raha the Paladins over Thancred at this point.

(Also, they started realizing how tired people were getting of modernism and switched back to fantasy themes for our crafted glamour sets after an entire expansion of nothing but leather jackets. Thank goodness.)

[GoldStarz]

The First:

Lakeland - Elven castle ruins
Il Mheg - Faerieland castle ruins
Amh Araeng - desert castle ruins (which a significant amount of people originally thought was Dalmasca)
Eulmore - Limsa with more fantasy elements
Amaurot - fantasy urban - it is not at all equivalent to Garlemald in terms of its take on urbanism.

The Source -
Originally so devoid of fantasy elements during 1.0 when it was just the 3 city states that Yoship made it the focus to build up to Ishgard so we would finally have some of that in the game.

Population explosion in Heavensward followed afterwards, etc.

Stormblood - each area is forgettable except Kugane. By far the most criticized zone design besides 1.0/ARR's original lack of fantasy settings besides Gridania, at best.

As for Thancred his role as a gunbreaker is hardly significant. He could have remained a rogue or taken up literally any other tank weapon and it would not have impacted the story much. I'm not saying it's a bad class, I'm saying it wouldn't fit in a high fantasy setting if its going to be used by one of your main cast members. I would much rather have Aymeric or G'raha the Paladins over Thancred at this point.

Lakeland is hardly the "Elven castle ruins" area, they're certainly a landmark but the defining points of Lakeland are the purple vegetation, Crystal Tower, and (obviously) the lake. Similarly, calling Amh Araeng "desert castle ruins" is doubly ingenuous because firstly they're not the European inspired that would be in most high fantasy stories and secondly it's ignoring that it makes up barely a third of the region which is mostly split between a sand desert and a series of out-of-operation mining facilities. Eulmore, you'll have to point to how exactly that area is more fantastical because I really don't see how adding some carpeting and a literal night club makes an area more fantastic.

As for Amaurot, its design directly pulls from the art deco movement as I said before, a movement that started around World War 1. Call it "fantasy urban" if it makes you feel more comfortable, but it's still a modern style for a modern area and is a pretty shining example of how the FF series (and FF14 specifically) benefits from using influences outside of just high fantasy.

My main point here, though, is that if you're expecting FF14 to suddenly pivot into a high fantasy story and only involve castles and kingdom, you're setting yourself up for big disappointment. We'll definitely go to places like that in the future without a doubt, but we'll also go to places like Azys La that are almost ripped out of a sci-fi novel. Remember that even Heavensward was not something pull exclusively from high fantasy, that is the expac that introduced Machinist and that ended in a scientific facility full of weird chemicals and glowing circuitry.

[Veloran]

Wow, if Full Rejoining really does happen like how you described it, instead of a world-destroying event but still a geographic-changing event, it would be really interesting see how much the dynamics of the countries/states of the planet/star would change. Like will a state from a foreign world like for example the Crystarium appearing close to Mor Dhona be something be accepted immediately or be watched with caution? How will the Ishgardians react if the Fae becomes present to....

Wait, this all sounds cool in theory but we would have to add the other shards into equation, which we don't even know if the dev team already have lore for these worlds/shards prepared.

If something like that were to happen, I could only guess that the landmasses would be rejoined across a new reconstructed planet, rather than all being layered over each other in the same physical locations.

However I think the much more likely version of that would simply be the dimensional barrier between the Source and shards being destroyed, leading to free aetherial travel between all the different reflections.

[YianKutku]

The Source -
Originally so devoid of fantasy elements during 1.0 when it was just the 3 city states that Yoship made it the focus to build up to Ishgard so we would finally have some of that in the game.

I've always been of the impression that Gridania and the Shroud are very Tolkien-esque, ie the progenitor for a vast majority of what we consider the "fantasy" genre.

[aveyond-dreams]

Later on in that post I mentioned Gridania as the one area that has some fantasy elements, even then though there really isn't anything too special about the area besides the fact that it's a forest zone. Its few examples of architecture are so widely spread apart that it feels more like you're walking through a nature tunnel than a city. Perhaps if the people there dressed better I could sort of see the Tolkien vibes, but not while they're still wearing the same hideous robes designed sometime before 2010.

At least the other original 3 city states have an actual silhouette I can picture when thinking about them. For Gridania there's only a forgettable mass of greeness.

[Payadopa]

I just hope we won't have time travel into the past. XI already did that and I'd prefer to see new areas, not the same with a different coat of paint.

[Payadopa]

At least the other original 3 city states have an actual silhouette I can picture when thinking about them. For Gridania there's only a forgettable mass of greeness.

That was true for pre ARR but with 2.0 we got a nice view from the northern part of Central Shroud over the water wheel/airship dock, since people complained about that in 1.0 .