What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[NanaWiloh]

Reddit is a cess pool.

[Rulakir]

And the fact that you see a thread reduced to more shitflinging and another thread that never got above single digit upvotes as something wholly positive is telling. It seems like there’s not much interest in discussing these things and more interest in making everyone agree with you.

I don't know what you're talking about, but I visit r/ffxiv almost daily. I shared the link I did because it was an anomaly and I was genuinely surprised to see Venat getting any criticism. Perhaps if you don't frequent it you're less aware of the toxic positivity and any criticism of the game, no matter how mild, being double digit downvoted.

I believe I've said before my primary interest is to commiserate with others who didn't enjoy EW. I believe how someone views Venat and her actions depends on their values and those aren't likely to be changed. Plus, after the LL I'm no longer interested in debate. It was made clear I think about the lore more extensively than the writers do, so it's pointless for me get into the details when they don't do as much.

The number of times I saw people who dislike Venat and/or like Ascians being compared to literal nazis on reddit yesterday was absolutely hilarious.

Coming from the WoW community it's just bizarre. I won't say there were no cases of it happening, but liking or disliking a character and their actions wasn't applied morally to the player themselves the way it seems to be here. The fact that FFXIV is a fictional universe where reincarnation is confirmed and souls can be split seems to be lost on many.

[Kolsykol]

Reddit is a cess pool.

I've stopped using and even reading Reddit and I make an effort to only follow artists on Twitter and to try and not read the comments, I am also way more active with unfollowing or even blocking people I keep seeing popping up in my timeline more consistently with stuff that is just toxic bullshit and gives me a headache.
I've become much happier and less stressed out as a result.
It still does get to me sometimes when I see it and it's impossible to avoid but you can *almost* get rid of all of it if you make an effort.

I think a lot of people view anonymity and the internet as a chance of just being complete garbage with no consequences and they take it.
There's just so much totally unnecessary cruelty and douchebaggery on Reddit and Twitter ( and places like Steam forums especially ), I dunno how even something as simple as not being rude to artists and cosplayers is so hard for some to understand.
Something so simple that should be positive so often derails into negativity the moment you scroll down the comments.

The thing that makes this especially sad too is that both Reddit and Twitter does have a lot of power, it does drive a lot of culture and narrative.
So it's kinda sad how it's essentially just left to turn into brain rot because of an extremely terminally online minority.

[Lauront]

I wish I could say I have no idea what you guys are talking about, because I don't interact with the general fandom much, but I have unfortunately seen this on FFXIV Twitter. People quote-retweeting or outright replying with snark and abuse just to insult other people because they project the other's taste in (villainous) fictional characters onto their real-life ideals urgently need to touch real grass, in the real world that is separate from fiction. My favorite example is one particular denizen of Primal who was apparently offended by SE posting Tales From The Shadows 7 "'Ere Our Curtain Falls" because its main subjects are "genocidal maniacs". This just in: please do not give your main antagonists backstory or the Twitter Vigilantes will judge you as an author.

Is it something specific to FFXIV fandom, or just fandom in general as of late? I mean, there's always been a decent amount of people preferring the villains, right? Sephiroth, Kefka, a handful of Batman villains, Darth Vader, movie characters that happen to be played by the late Alan Rickman – it isn't exactly new. I am just weirded out by how prominent the moral crusaders seem to be in here. I feel like I need some kind of licence to be allowed to like villains, all while constantly walking on eggshells to remind anyone I interact with that I do not condone genocide as an actual person in the real world. I didn't feel like this was the case when I was actively participating in the ASOIAF/Game of Thrones fandom around 2014. Good thing, too, else I would be routinely accused of being a manipulative, back-stabbing malignant narcissist grooming a teenager, and frankly that would be a little awkward.

I've never seen it with any other game fandom I've dipped my toes into - at least, not to the point of reaching any critical mass. Granted, I stayed on the EU side of the WoW fora, but this sort of preachy finger-wagging towards anyone who enjoyed the antagonists or villains is something I've only really seen with this fandom. And frankly, it's one I hope to not see mirrored in any other games I move onto.

[Caurcas]

The war it wageth on. The essays carry on. Real talk, word economy goes a long way. Pages of long form post make one's eyes glaze over a bit and tends to make one unwilling to engage with the argument presented.

[kpxmanifesto]

Also, I thought the notion of "brigading" involved some sort of numerical imbalance, such as mass vote manipulation.

Yes, that is absolutely a part of brigading. But for some reason there's a person in this thread who thinks that creating a reddit post that talks about the EW story's shortcomings is an act of "brigading." Lol.

[Teraq]

Did somebody order one extra long post? Coming right up with uncut quotes!

Quite frankly, a lot of people have little desire to discuss the lore until we get some clearer indication of where things are headed in the future and whether it's even something worth taking an interest in. There's already some good posters on there who either have quit or are on the verge of doing so, including amongst them those originally receptive to Venat as a character, so coupled with the fact that it's a quieter period, I am not surprised.

Out of curiosity, have these posters quit because the main storyline is done so they've decided they are as well? Did some quit because of discontent with Endwalker specifically?

Having lurked on the lore forums from time to time for patch reaction threads, I like reading it sometimes but it's always seemed a little niche to me. I find it a little intimidating too, it's often the same long time posters engaging in long discussions and I feel like I would contribute nothing the lore buffs haven't already said, beside just giving my unrequited opinion (take a shot every time I say "I feel / It feels like ...").

And yeah, the current period is a very particular one. We just finished The Story Arc 3 months ago. I'm guessing things have been discussed to death already, and it's unclear if they're going to go back to dwell on some specific points relating to The Story Arc (e.g. YoshiP isn't quite sure if the remaining Ascians are going to get involved or not), so I suppose what hasn't been disclosed in 6.0 is now conjecture until further notice. The recent Q&A probably ... livened things up a bit.
But so far I feel like there's little to discuss given how little we know about where we're going, bearing in mind the constraints that come with the next 2 years being only patch content. Which means most likely no new continent involved; at most we're getting a couple of instanced zones like Bozja/Eureka, and I am willing to bet at least one region we've heard of but never been to is going to end up as a dungeon (e.g. Xelphatol and Paglth'an), which at least one person is going to be massively disappointed by. I am not sure how engaging the story is going to be with bite-sized pieces every 4 months or so. I am hoping they will give us a lot more info in the next LL, because I just can't imagine 6.1 will be mind-shattering enough to warrant completely hiding the new dungeon. A teaser would have fostered more discussion.

I think people are just more passionate about FFXIV's characters quite simply because of how much better they are and how much more time is sunk into them.
I mean what is there to be passionate about with WoW's characters for example outside of '' I like Garrosh cuz red muscle man Orc cool ''.
Or uh, the complete nothing that is the Jailer?
Sylvanas never says anything her monologues are a bunch of nothing lets be real here she gets carried ultra hard by the voice acting ( which is incredible, I love her voice ) and Jaina basically just stands around looking mad and says '' Anduin '' sometimes.
Whenever they talk it's either pointless nothingness or them doing the usual vidya gaem talk of just pointing out what's happening as if the player is brainless and has no eyes.

Completely agreed here, I've played WoW uninterrupted from 2006 to 2016, then on and off since then but always keeping up with news, but its story has always been just bland background noise to me. Which characters have ever even been an actual hit with the player base? Off the top of my head, recently, I can think of Runas in Azsuna who was pretty universally liked, but he's a minor quest NPC. Arthas was done a long time ago, and them dragging him out just now only to have Sylvanas preach at him without much of a peep from Jaina and Uther literally standing there is, I would say, the opposite of fan service.
Personally I enjoy the Warcraft universe mostly for its setting and world building (when it is/was coherent, I suppose), but specific plot lines and characters have never appealed to me. It's telling that the most involved (and toxic) WoW discourse that most readily comes to my mind is the Great Playable High Elf debate; something that is purely about immersion and in-universe fantasy rather than any particular character.

It is truly astonishing how empty the Jailer feels. As a presence, as a character, even in terms of visual design. He has brought nothing, and even made prior content worse by retcon, like some sort of negative energy. Perhaps he has been the true Void all along.

It's not really so much that '' FFXIV fandom = toxic '' in that sense it's that a particular type of person just might be drawn to FFXIV, they were already toxic to begin with.

That is an interesting thought. I'm not sure what it is about FFXIV in particular that would draw in this brand of moral policing.
You've compared it to WoW as they are both the same genre, and it is true FFXIV is quite in the unique situation of being a narratively-driven MMORPG written well enough to actually engage the audience. On the subject of them being a genre in which you completely create your character, may get immersed in the setting and invested in headcanons, I admittedly don't know much about western RPGs but I can't imagine, say, the TES fanbase getting this weirdly preachy about the Empire / Stormcloak narrative in Skyrim for example.
One particularity of MMORPGs is the time investment and serialised content – combined with the decent writing of FFXIV, it makes it so you've grown to know these characters for a while and have expectations for where the story is going. In this way, it's sort of like a long-running TV show, but I personally don't remember fans of the Lannisters or Littlefinger getting personally attacked for liking villainous characters. But I suppose in the case of non-RPG media, the hero isn't your creation, specifically, so it's less personal.

Or maybe there is just something in the water of Limsa Lominsa. Truth be told, I fear there might be a lot of things in the water of Limsa Lominsa, some less savory than others...


Just so my post isn't completely off-topic: the MIN/BOT quest NPCs discussing Ancient culture was so bizarrely wholesome it gave me warm fuzzies. On one hand, of course a couple of Sharlayan scholars would absolutely love the concept. But on the other hand, aw. Ancient positivity in Endwalker! In game!

[PawPaw]

Just so my post isn't completely off-topic: the MIN/BOT quest NPCs discussing Ancient culture was so bizarrely wholesome it gave me warm fuzzies. On one hand, of course a couple of Sharlayan scholars would absolutely love the concept. But on the other hand, aw. Ancient positivity in Endwalker! In game!

I hadn't seen this! I'll have to check it out whenever I log in next.

[Lauront]

Out of curiosity, have these posters quit because the main storyline is done so they've decided they are as well? Did some quit because of discontent with Endwalker specifically?

The latter, and for varying reasons to do with how they concluded the story.

Having lurked on the lore forums from time to time for patch reaction threads, I like reading it sometimes but it's always seemed a little niche to me. I find it a little intimidating too, it's often the same long time posters engaging in long discussions and I feel like I would contribute nothing the lore buffs haven't already said, beside just giving my unrequited opinion (take a shot every time I say "I feel / It feels like ...").

Certainly there tends to be some of the same posters engaged in 'long' discussions there, but it's not a debate forum - it is a lore discussion forum, and the standard of discussion is by and large similar to what goes on here, since it is there to discuss the lore/story elements, not submit a thesis on it. It's not the Studium. Plus there are a lot of newer posters, as well as some returning ones, or some who bid their time before making a forum account to post. There's some "lore buffs" but it's not like it's limited to discussion between them. There are also some who'd attempt to gatekeep on there, but I'd just ignore them entirely. They have no ability to stop you from posting there. Besides, you seem to have a firmer grasp on the lore than most players, so I'd not be too apprehensive if I were you...

but I personally don't remember fans of the Lannisters or Littlefinger getting personally attacked for liking villainous characters. But I suppose in the case of non-RPG media, the hero isn't your creation, specifically, so it's less personal.

Also partly the case because it's much harder to single them out for it in a setting where everyone is given to some level of scheming or other, and those who aren't, are simply new to the 'game'. However, I think it's also partly down to the fanbase. With WoW my experience was that there was generally a more even split in people who enjoyed antagonists or shadier characters, and again it's aided by the fact that the playable races themselves all have skeletons in their closets (or are said skeletons in the case of the Forsaken.) The game had a share of players who reminded me of XIV's more puritan segments but they were merely one cohort amongst many.

[Theodric]

I wish I could say I have no idea what you guys are talking about, because I don't interact with the general fandom much, but I have unfortunately seen this on FFXIV Twitter. People quote-retweeting or outright replying with snark and abuse just to insult other people because they project the other's taste in (villainous) fictional characters onto their real-life ideals urgently need to touch real grass, in the real world that is separate from fiction. My favorite example is one particular denizen of Primal who was apparently offended by SE posting Tales From The Shadows 7 "'Ere Our Curtain Falls" because its main subjects are "genocidal maniacs". This just in: please do not give your main antagonists backstory or the Twitter Vigilantes will judge you as an author.

Is it something specific to FFXIV fandom, or just fandom in general as of late? I mean, there's always been a decent amount of people preferring the villains, right? Sephiroth, Kefka, a handful of Batman villains, Darth Vader, movie characters that happen to be played by the late Alan Rickman – it isn't exactly new. I am just weirded out by how prominent the moral crusaders seem to be in here. I feel like I need some kind of licence to be allowed to like villains, all while constantly walking on eggshells to remind anyone I interact with that I do not condone genocide as an actual person in the real world. I didn't feel like this was the case when I was actively participating in the ASOIAF/Game of Thrones fandom around 2014. Good thing, too, else I would be routinely accused of being a manipulative, back-stabbing malignant narcissist grooming a teenager, and frankly that would be a little awkward.

I think, at its core, it's an inability for those deep in the social media sphere to separate fiction from reality. There's always been some weird stuff in pretty much every fandom, some more than others. I suppose it's so prominent in FFXIV because of the strong crossover between people who use Twitter and those who play FFXIV.

After all, most of what is considered to be 'problematic' is based entirely on bizarre talking points copied and pasted from Twitter; a place that - especially over the last two years - has made it crystal clear that it is often very disconnected from reality as most of us know it.
Personally I don't care what characters or factions people end up liking. It doesn't affect me in itself. I'm not the type to just roll over and pretend not to like something because a vocal group of social media users try to shame others for it.

Endwalker further emboldened me to simply laugh it off. If the issue was genuinely that the actions of the antagonists were truly so abhorrent then Venat would be thrown under the bus as a consequence of partaking of the same behaviour and to a greater extent.

She gets a free pass from many of her supporters, however - which is fine - but in the process it exposes the concern towards fans of the antagonists as little more than a petty attempt at narrative control.

I'm not even a 'lore guy' usually. I primarily want a game to play first and foremost but I do appreciate it when a story is consistent and makes sense - which unfortunately is something that I think cannot be said of Endwalker.

That vocal portions of the lore community tried and failed to control what is and isn't 'allowed' to be discussed simply made me double down even more where I might have taken the fire and forget approach to posts each time a new patch went live.