Patch 6.1 trailer speculations

[MikkoAkure]

-The Tam Tara summoners and the mysterious void guy might be related and that will be the thing that will "make us confused" and be the start of the void storyline.Yoshi P even said we might be dealing with the void soon. Also suspicious that their voices were heavily distorted.

-Yshtola researching shard travel will also play into the void/13th shard storyline.

The most important Void NPC in the entire game being involved in the previous expansion's role quest capstone and what happens to them makes me feel like they can never touch the topic of the Void for main story content unless SE forces players to level up different jobs of different types and makes them do that questline first. As much as I want it revisited, my gut feeling is that SE won't make the average player do all that work required in order to continue the game.

I don't see the Void being a serious part of the game that is explored in detail outside of sidequest content that continues on the previous story. Though I'd like to be proven wrong.

[aveyond-dreams]

If not the void, then what other powerful supernatural force are we supposed to contend with for season 2? Outside of new gods arising in the style of Materia/Spiritus from Cosmos/Chaos like in Dissidia, there is literally nothing given that we are about to go finish off the 12.

It is unlikely that void MSQ quests will deal with the role quests, at best a cameo and that would be all.

[Kranel_San]

The most important Void NPC in the entire game being involved in the previous expansion's role quest capstone and what happens to them makes me feel like they can never touch the topic of the Void for main story content unless SE forces players to level up different jobs of different types and makes them do that questline first. As much as I want it revisited, my gut feeling is that SE won't make the average player do all that work required in order to continue the game.

I don't see the Void being a serious part of the game that is explored in detail outside of sidequest content that continues on the previous story. Though I'd like to be proven wrong.

Unless they revamp the void quests. I don't really understand why they locked it behind role quests. Sure it has many requirements aside from the role quests but that has eliminated a lot of possibilities regarding the void. Even if they lowered the requirements to lv70. Its still pretty hard to ask players to level up other jobs unless that's something they want to gamble on.

[MikkoAkure]

If not the void, then what other powerful supernatural force are we supposed to contend with for season 2? Outside of new gods arising in the style of Materia/Spiritus from Cosmos/Chaos like in Dissidia, there is literally nothing given that we are about to go finish off the 12.

It could be something that doesn't exist in the game yet as far as we know. When FFXI finished their whole main story with the Shadowlord, Zilart, and Promathia, we went to a random country to solve their problems (some of which linked to Odin, who also gave the power to the Shadowlord). Then the next expansion we were suddenly told "Actually, that war 20 years ago? Everyone lost and we live in a fake world that only exists because Altana got really sad and she made a new world where the forces of good won but someone who tried fighting the Shadowlord using Darkness (also from Odin) got upset that Altana wanted to get Atomos to eat her world so she's fighting Her and us."

Neither of these were foreshadowed and the 2nd one came completely out of nowhere so I can see the FFXIV team doing something similar and coming up with something small to link them together with the original story in the same way Odin did.

I'd rather a story that is completely fresh and new and unexpected rather than something that deals with stuff we already know about.

Unless they revamp the void quests. I don't really understand why they locked it behind role quests. Sure it has many requirements aside from the role quests but that has eliminated a lot of possibilities regarding the void. Even if they lowered the requirements to lv70. Its still pretty hard to ask players to level up other jobs unless that's something they want to gamble on.

Yeah... As much as I got excited about the Void when doing those, I knew that the way they did them meant that they could never come back to this unless future Void content is completely absent of that one character and that makes 0 sense to me unless...

ShB VOID QUEST/ROLE QUEST SPOILERS:

We work with Cylva instead of Unukulhai and if you've done the previous quests, he might show up as a cameo that makes no difference in the quest itself beyond exposition. Though even that much spoils the surprise of who she is and gives a bit of continuity error if you do the role quests after any potential future Void content.

[KageTokage]

I don't really consider the ShB role quests an obstacle to giving the threat of the void a presence in the MSQ.

It's not as though the involved characters are essential to realizing that it's a problem that should probably be addressed at some point since the Crystal Tower and Void Ark raids already demonstrated that, and a presence in the MSQ is just going to serve as an unavoidable reminder that there are still significant threats out there.

[MikkoAkure]

I don't really consider the ShB role quests an obstacle to giving the threat of the void a presence in the MSQ.

It's not as though the involved characters are essential to realizing that it's a problem that should probably be addressed at some point since the Crystal Tower and Void Ark raids already demonstrated that, and a presence in the MSQ is just going to serve as an unavoidable reminder that there are still significant threats out there.

It feels like it would be a giant disservice (ShB role quest spoilers)...

to have a future Void-focused story without the only 2 "living", uncorrupted characters from the Void, plus a boy who was sent there for a time, all of whom are wrapped up in the post-role quest Void quest series. Then there's the fact that two of those characters are the only ones who can open and close Void portals, something that you would think would be extremely important for a story relating to the Void.

I think SE kind of screwed the pooch a little by investing these super important characters hard into a questline that has a barrier like this if they intended on ever coming back to it. It would be a shame if they continued without them, especially since their story ended with a character saying "come back later and we'll have this Void stuff figured out".

[JeanneOrnitier]

I have to agree that doing future void stuff without Unukalhai and Cylva, the only people we actually know from the Thirteenth, would feel pretty crappy. Obviously voidsent will continue to be a threat in MSQ and other sidequests, but if we ever see a story dealing with actually going to the Thirteenth and maybe trying to undo the damage, I expect it will continue from where ShB's role quests left off with them. Potentially locking it behind leveling four different classes to 80 is a problem though.

[Lyth]

So let's see. If you were exploring new areas, the first thing to do would be to uncover the rest of Ilsabard. Following along with Emet's monologue, we might travel down to the South Sea Isles (for lalafell pirates and Blitzball) and then ultimately the entire continent of Meracydia (which should take more than one expansion, if Ilsabard was any indication).

If you set up Meracydia as the end point for another five expansion saga, what sort of an overarching plot thread could you form around that? We've only recently learnt that the Garlean farmers took to making pacts with the Void in order to survive. And we also know that Allag vs. Meracydia involved Ascians + Voidsent vs. [???] + First Brood. And then there's the small issue of our friend Zenos dying after absorbing a planetary-sized stockpile of Aether while being contracted to a Voidsent. So if I had to pick a big mystery to slowly solved over multiple expansions, the Void seems to be the logical choice. And it doesn't really have to be front and center now. It just needs to be a common thread underpinning other story arcs that we encounter along the way.

I'm sure that Unukalhai and Cylva will become involved when they're needed. I'm sure that the Thirteenth will become plot relevant when it needs to be. And I'm sure that you'll be given the 'Crystal Tower/Omega' warning when doing those respective storylines actually influence the MSQ dialogue.

[KageTokage]

I could definitely see the void gradually swelling to become a greater threat if perhaps the boundaries separating the shards start weakening as a result of Hydaelyn's absence, as being one who governed over stability that would logically just make the state of the world even more unstable then it already was.

It was stated that the presence of voidsent tends to increase as calamities draw near specifically because of those boundaries weakening temporarily, so to have their numbers begin to increase despite the Ascians no longer working towards the rejoinings (As far as we're aware...) would be an ominous portent indeed.

[Raikai]

Hm, the decision of 7.0 going to be in either unexplored Source continents OR another Shard is still unclear lol. They did - seem - to have hinted both in the trailer... My theories:

a) Everything Red Herring and the new direction isn't hinted at all in the trailer because it's still not going to reveal itself just yet, or maybe this reveal is the cliffhanger for 6.2

b) G'raha and the WoL disappearing on the lake is how they get to the Alliance Raid place, since as per shown by the fights it's clearly not in Eorzea. G'raha was shown in a picture to be related to one of the raid's NPCs

c) The plot will take us towards another shard, following Y'shtola's research and this patch dungeon is either just a temporary distraction (adventuring) or will serve to find a component required to make whatever she's looking into possible;

bonus: The carriage race seems to be related to the Beast Tribe quests, and I hope is a racing minigame!