Political Ideology and Storytelling Within FFXIV

[KageTokage]

I'm pretty concerned about this as well. What grand enemies are we supposed to overcome now? What complex mysteries are supposed to thread throughout the story now?

It wasn't "Meanwhile, in Gridania" or "Meanwhile, in Limsa Lominsa" they've always used as a plot hook cutaway at the end of every patch. It was "Meanwhile, on the moon" or "Meanwhile, in Garlemald". We have a bunch of spoilers from Emet for the future, but those all seem like comparatively tiny, disconnected adventures. There's no looming antagonists like the Garleans or the Ascians, nobody to represent monolithic power or overarching schemes. We're even looking at a dead, empty universe at the moment.

There are some really big narrative shoes to fill, and nobody seems to be around to fill them. The only exception I see could be the Void and the Voidsent... But we've already beaten the best of them multiple times over.

I'm not convinced the Ascians aren't going to continue to be a problem going into the future because it's not like they just up and vanished after Zodiark was defeated.

For all we know, the missing Paragons may have been operating overseas in Meracydia and the New World and while Zodiark may be gone, they might elect to continue attempting to cause calamities and rejoinings simply for the sake of bringing the world as close to its original state as possible.

Hydaelyn/Zodiark's story may have ended, but the legacy of the Ancients almost certainly has not.

[aveyond-dreams]

I thought I heard Yoshi-P said that we almost got The Cieldalaes for 3.0 instead of Ishgard. So I don't think it was something that he was "purposefully dangling in front of our faces for those who were bored". We only got it because he said that the players from 1.0 have already been stuck just outside its gates for years only to have it continue so it was him throwing us a bone.

Along with the lack of traditional fantasy elements in 1.0 which was also something huge swathes of people were complaining about. The original 3 city states may have been unique but they certainly weren't regarded as good or interesting. Sending us over to a tropical island would have added very little unless they were as culturally rich as the islands of Spira. Given the situation, he made the obvious correct choice.

I think your correlating without establishing causality. Shadowbringers by and large avoided or subverted the castle in the sky trope, as did Endwalker.

The Crystal Tower and surrounding architecture of the Crystarium, the ruins of Laxan Loft in Lakeland, Il Mheg being one of the most popular and well-received zones in the entire game. Totally-not-Fusoya's moon castle-lookalike is one of my favorite setpieces on the moon. These things are major symbols that people have in their heads when they think of these expansions. Shadowbringers did not try to preach to us about nation-building or democratic reform in the way that Stormblood did, and thankfully such a trope wasn't present in Garlemald at the time we visited, though no one can say for the future.

As for the rest of your post:

The sultanate and Ul'dah is a boring desert zone governed by a weak-willed ruler and did little to sell itself as a nation to be invested in or care about. Instead it actively made me despise the time I spent there, similar to Ala Mhigo whose people I couldn't care less about.

Thavnair was a zone I was uncertain of until the events of the Final Days happened. Otherwise it just looked like a tacky mess with way too many colors thrown in that seemed to clash with each other in odd ways. The segment during the final days and the characterization of its people was enjoyable. Now that the final days are over the zone looks still looks hideous except for the interior halls of Radz-at-Han. I buy my gear and leave without sticking around in stark contrast to the days I spent idling in Idyllshire and Eulmore.

Aesthetics very much matter seeing as how zones like Ishgard/Il Mheg make people go "wow! I want to go there!" and zones like Gyr Abania make people go "huh? this is...odd looking...where's the cool stuff again?" especially now that Ala Mhigo has no magic factor left to it. Just Lyse running around making a mess of things behinds the scenes no doubt.

In any case I refuse to entertain discussions touching on skin color or "Europe isn't the only fantasy" - just give us something that isn't a continuation of this nonsensical Alphinaud and G'raha democratize the world nation by nation plot and buck the trends we've seen with us slowly sucking what little magic remains out of the world. You can have a kingdom or empire made of people of any race. Period.

Also thank you for demonstrating that not all nobles are bad guys. You can be a good person and use your inherited position for good without upending the entire political structure of a nation. Now lets take that a step further and keep someone with a crown on their heads instead of turning places like Ishgard into republics. No need to bore us with further moralizing or "power to the people!" tropes.

If you're going to make me choose between King Arthur and his knights going on adventures or the scions fighting colonists in the New World or trying to depose another monarchy in favor of a republic, I'm going to choose the King Arthur story and doubtless most people will too. I don't need a crystal ball to see that far ahead.

[Theodric]

I liked some elements of ARR but it did often feel as though the classic fantasy elements were largely absent until HW. Ishgard remains one of my favourite locations in the game for that very reason.

[EaraGrace]

Along with the lack of traditional fantasy elements in 1.0 which was also something huge swathes of people were complaining about. The original 3 city states may have been unique but they certainly weren't regarded as good or interesting. Sending us over to a tropical island would have added very little unless they were as culturally rich as the islands of Spira. Given the situation, he made the obvious correct choice.

I think your correlating without establishing causality. Shadowbringers by and large avoided or subverted the castle in the sky trope, as did Endwalker. While we’re shown a plethora of different societies and governments, the only one that matches your description was long dead and it’s lands populated with the fae. And I don’t think anyone is going to argue that those expansions are unpopular.

At the same time, I’m going to point out that what you’re describing as “fantasy” is not actually fantasy as a whole, but a very specific white European conception of it. The Sultanate very much matches you’re descriptions, except it’s not based on European monarchies and their aesthetics. Same for Thavnair. And Ishgards ~critically acclaimed~ (hehe) plot was rooted in showing the evils of such a system, with those in power either agreeing for change and thus on the “right” side, or opposed and shown to be in the wrong. The fact that the head of House Durendaire is now working at a clinic alongside his son and a lowborn girl, as he explicitly says how wrong he was to cling to notions of class hierarchy, should make clear enough how the writers intended Heavensward to be.

I can understand arguing from aesthetics but saying the good expansions are the ones rooted in some sort of Arthurian or Charlemagne esque legend doesn’t really track.

[Cleretic]

Gods I wish there was a Fire Emblem themed quality MMORPG, but the more I think about it more it would be akin towards World of Warcraft faction type scenario between nations or kingdoms. Might be hard to do since ffxiv is considered a hero fantasy and does not want us to deviate from winning side that much also the main story is structured that way, told like a single player experience.

A little late on this, but I think the struggle with this is that going hard 'political conflict and strife' in an MMO just... generally doesn't work in the long term.

I used to play The Secret World, and that game had... a lot of potential it didn't reach, but basically the first thing it faltered on was content around factional conflict. It means you have to make equal amounts of content for all factions, but what also inevitably happens is that your playerbase fragments into unequal portions. In TSW's case they had three factions, but while the Templars and Illuminati had reasonably equal population sizes, the Dragon were very small. That meant that not only were players only going to experience a third of the interfactional content (since very few players had more than one character), but only a tiny amount of the playerbase was going to play the Dragon's side of that. When you make a singular game without ongoing content like Fire Emblem you can bank on plenty of people playing all factions over time (or at least, by the time you know that's not true the game's already done), but if you're making a live service game it's going to eventually reach 'is it worth making equally in-depth faction-exclusive content when it means we spend a third of our effort on content only a tenth of our playerbase would see'.

Then you also hit a different, weirder problem, where the people who are most likely to get into an 'interfactional conflict' focus actually tend to be PvPers who aren't super into the story content, while pure story content is more likely to attract people who want to go 'let's all get along and fight the greater evil'. So you hit a super weird problem where if you try to write some proper conflict between factions, the people who might like it probably won't play it, and the people who might play it probably won't like it.

[Lauront]

I'm not convinced the Ascians aren't going to continue to be a problem going into the future because it's not like they just up and vanished after Zodiark was defeated.

For all we know, the missing Paragons may have been operating overseas in Meracydia and the New World and while Zodiark may be gone, they might elect to continue attempting to cause calamities and rejoinings simply for the sake of bringing the world as close to its original state as possible.

Hydaelyn/Zodiark's story may have ended, but the legacy of the Ancients almost certainly has not.

It'd suffer from exactly the same problem as Veloran mentioned. 7.0: 2.0 all over again, just with new faces and places. I sincerely hope they have something more than this planned. Plus I've little desire to sit through yet more holier than thou lectures on why restoring the ancient world is a Bad Thing (tm).

[Erendis]

It wasn't "Meanwhile, in Gridania" or "Meanwhile, in Limsa Lominsa" they've always used as a plot hook cutaway at the end of every patch. It was "Meanwhile, on the moon" or "Meanwhile, in Garlemald".

Considering that half of "Meanwhile, in Garlemald" was Zenos sitting on his ass and doing nothing, anything would be better.

[KageTokage]

It'd suffer from exactly the same problem as Veloran mentioned. 7.0: 2.0 all over again, just with new faces and places. I sincerely hope they have something more than this planned. Plus I've little desire to sit through yet more holier than thou lectures on why restoring the ancient world is a Bad Thing (tm).

I agree I'd definitely want to see 7.0 go in a fresh direction...though my meager imagination is struggling to think of how they'll introduce a new threat without involving Ascian tomfoolery and/or Allagans again, or touching on similar story beats to HW/SB that involve political reform and/or liberation.

[EaraGrace]

The Crystal Tower and surrounding architecture of the Crystarium, the ruins of Laxan Loft in Lakeland, Il Mheg being one of the most popular and well-received zones in the entire game. Totally-not-Fusoya's moon castle-lookalike is one of my favorite setpieces on the moon. These things are major symbols that people have in their heads when they think of these expansions. Shadowbringers did not try to preach to us about nation-building or democratic reform in the way that Stormblood did, and thankfully such a trope wasn't present in Garlemald at the time we visited, though no one can say for the future.

I think if you ask most people their favorite zones they would say places like Il Mheg for sure. But I don't think many would say Lakeland. In fact, and this is only a hunch, I think most people would say a certain area in the Tempest ranks pretty highly, and its not exactly a Medieval inspired fiefdom.

And I will say SHB did have both the Save the Queen and the Eulmore plotlines, both of which portray royalty and monarchy in less than glowing terms. The gluttonous, cruel, king holding court with his nobles while the peasants down below starve and are literally made into food was not preachy exactly.

Butttttttt

I'd say its pretty close, and I love SHB let their be no doubt.

The sultanate and Ul'dah is a boring desert zone governed by a weak-willed ruler and did little to sell itself as a nation to be invested in or care about. Instead it actively made me despise the time I spent there, similar to Ala Mhigo whose people I couldn't care less about.

I'd argue the Sultana has shown a lot of growth and become a strong leader for her people, but actually I don't that has any bearing on the subject. Its just as much of a fantasy monarchy as any other, with literal Paladins and knights. I mean its pretty fantastical I'd say.

Thavnair was a zone I was uncertain of until the events of the Final Days happened. Otherwise it just looked like a tacky mess with way too many colors thrown in that seemed to clash with each other in odd ways. The segment during the final days and the characterization of its people was enjoyable. Now that the final days are over the zone looks still looks hideous except for the interior halls of Radz-at-Han. I buy my gear and leave without sticking around in stark contrast to the days I spent idling in Idyllshire and Eulmore.

To each their own I guess. I think its beautiful and the colors a welcome contrast. This is still mostly just aesthetics though and has nothing to do with the actual plot of Thavnair which is quite literally an benevolent king storyline.

Aesthetics very much matter seeing as how zones like Ishgard/Il Mheg make people go "wow! I want to go there!" and zones like Gyr Abania make people go "huh? this is...odd looking...where's the cool stuff again?" especially now that Ala Mhigo has no magic factor left to it. Just Lyse running around making a mess of things behinds the scenes no doubt.

Many of the other zones that don't resemble Ishgard have gotten positive receptions, perhaps that has more to do with the way Ala Mhigo is designed? Rak tika is very distinct and very clearly has roots in Central America/South America, and many think its cool.

In any case I refuse to entertain discussions touching on skin color or "Europe isn't the only fantasy" - just give us something that isn't a continuation of this nonsensical Alphinaud and G'raha democratize the world nation by nation plot and buck the trends we've seen with us slowly sucking what little magic remains out of the world. You can have a kingdom or empire made of people of any race. Period.

So the issue is democratization, ok that's again a "to each their own" aspect and I perfectly respect that! Its just when you use "African or Australian Inspired Meracydia" or "New World full of colonial conflicts" as examples of things you would not wanna see in the game, I guess I just get a bit confused.

Like, ones about an aesthetic that has nothing to do with democracies, the other doesn't necessarily mean democracy is a given since many pre-colonial cultures in the Americas/Africa and elsewhere had monarchies or similar systems, I guess I just misunderstood.

Also thank you for demonstrating that not all nobles are bad guys. You can be a good person and use your inherited position for good without upending the entire political structure of a nation. Now lets take that a step further and keep someone with a crown on their heads instead of turning places like Ishgard into republics. No need to bore us with further moralizing or "power to the people!" tropes.

But I don't that's something any of the nobles mentioned would agree with though, and in fact I'd say most would advocate for the something similar to the system we now see in Ishgard. That's the catch right? Putting someone in power who wishes to be just would mean having someone who believes people have a right to a say in governance, which by necessity mean liberalization in my mind. So in effect, the person you'd want in control... would be someone you wouldn't want in control. Right?

And I do have to say that the person were describing sounds a lot like the Sultana to be honest xD

[aveyond-dreams]

Lakeland and Il Mheg were some of the main locations GPOSErs and RPers like taking screenshots and hanging out in. The Tempest and by extension Elpis are also beloved due to the unique development of the ancients: heavily inspired by Greek mythology, and all but ruled by a pantheon of demigods named after the Greek titans and gods. A classic fantasy element merged with an otherwise more modern one served to make the area more palatable and the ancients more than just dudes in hoodies.

Furthermore, Eulmore was a democracy. They elected Vauthry’s father, and later elected Vauthry himself. As dysfunctional as Sharlayan’s democracy is, Eulmore is an even worse disaster. As for Bozja, Misijia’s ancestor, the Queen, was not an evil person. She accepted her role as a sacrifice after her death and was content so long that her people remained safe-the very spirit of a true leader. Gabranth’s faction was also full of more interesting characters than the entirety of the Bozja resistance, who I had very little reason to care for. The whole “the empire oppressed me” backstory a lot of them have has gotten completely stale.

Thank you for reminding me of the paladins of Ul’dah who have little to no plot relevance and whose job questline is regarded by the playerbase as the worst one in the entire game. They contribute nothing to the makeup of Ul’dah, save for a single npc whose armor style is completely out of place for the kingdom he serves. A believable Paladin in the context of Ul’dah should have looked like this, the ones they actually have hanging around would have been better suited being woven into the lore of Ishgard’s knights as the paladins of San d’Oria like in FFXI.

You are correct regarding Rak’tika, it was a visually impressive zone with a fleshed out cultural identity. It’s a pity we could not explore further into the Ronkan Empire aside from its ruins, but now that this aesthetic and culture has been woven into the fabric of the game a repeat of it would come across as boring if done in 7.0.

While Namano isn’t a malevolent leader she’s about as interesting as a sack of potatoes and I do not care what happens to her or her people. A weakling who was ready to drop everything and run for the hills and after awakening I vaguely remember Godbert Manderville turning down her ideas about how to help the Ala Mhigans because they would negatively impact Ul’dah.

Contrast this with someone straightforward and (usually) competent like Aymeric and it’s clear whose better off taking charge and having the spotlight shown on them. A leader with a backbone who says, “I am in charge, this is my right, and I know how to fix this problem we are facing” after a character development arc where they come to terms with their fate/responsibility like Aymeric or Garnet is infinitely more interesting than “I can’t handle this so I’m quitting” like Namano.