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

[aveyond-dreams]

words

Seriously this is going nowhere and all you are giving me are less reasons to be interested in whatever cause you're pushing, drop it. I would rather hand over the reigns of Summoner back to the warlocks I argued against for the past several months in exchange for an expansion set in the high fantasy zones of Heavensward or magitek zones of Garlemald than try my chances with Final Fantasy Safari Edition. I'll gladly put up with the era of 2015-style gameplay all over again if it means I actually get zones I want to go to and spend time in.

I just want a proper conclusion to Garlemald's story. Knowing we were meant to get an entire expansion devoted to it - which would have likely put it well on the path of recovery - simply makes it all the more jarring to see it go from showing up in almost every teaser cutscene to becoming completely irrelevant.

Agreed. A Garlemald expansion would have given so much to this game, far more than throwaway concepts like Dynamis ever could. We could have gotten blueish-green forests like that one scene where Alphinaud and Gaius came upon the camp afflicted by Black Rose. Perhaps even an entire Garlean main city, where we could have met up with surviving members of the royal family. There were so many possibilities and all of it thrown away for the sake of Meteion and Hermes.

Potential plots could have explored ideological differences between the different nobles and generals, with so many different figures from Russian or Roman history they could have been inspired from. We could have also been given characters that took after "imperials" from other games, such as Celes Chere. Imagine being able to witness and participate in her rescue in a 3d environment like FFXIV's, and witness her emotions in scenes like her being accused by a Kefka-like figure of being a spy to scenes based off the Opera, or her famous leap from the cliffs off the solitary island. Other figures could draw from people like Gabranth, whose story I desperately wanted to see through to the end only for Zadnor to leave me with no reason to bother continuing the Bozja storyline.

After watching the trailer it seems like the scions are still around, though I was shocked to see that Y'shtola had already begun trying to find ways to travel between worlds. Perhaps if something interesting comes of it soon then her screentime won't feel as wasted as it usually does. I imagine the dungeon we are visiting is located in the South Sea isles, and I look forward to teaming up with Estinien again for it. Garlemald's scenes appear to be linked to the role quests, which I am unfortunately too far behind in levelling to participate in yet. Still, what I saw seemed interesting even if that region appears to be ignored by the patch MSQ.

In any case, in wake of them wasting the opportunity for such an expansion we can only realistically hope we get to explore the former territories in the future, and that they are prioritized over the more obscure locations championed by other certain posters. Again, there is little entertainment value to be had for people outside hardcore fans of certain characters if we're just sent off to an empireless, godless region of the world that is too far removed from what got people interested in the first place.