Would you have chosen a starting area where you could join the Empire?

[Selvokaz]

I don't think it would really be feasible..*snip*.

I'm not so entirely sure about this. As you mentioned one of the Scions scouts you based on an encounter with them during one of your missions that they just so happened to be nearby and investigating something as well. Nothing you did prior to this event really mattered to them and any future impact decisions on whether or not they vouch for you. Just the initial encounter, and from that point on no one ever falls back to that information ever again, you don't have MSQ conversations about the first time you met your recruiting Scion. After fleeing the Empire to Eorzea if not already being there since the Empire already has a foothold in Eorzea via Ports in Limsa, right next to the Shroud there is a huge military base, as well as another one in Mor Dhona, you'd have very little trouble getting to Eorzea or one of the nearby City-States. Then there is the Echo manifesting once you're in Eorzea, almost no one who showed signs of the Echo did not end up in the Scions and since the Echo isn't a big secret amongst well anyone worth mentioning seeing as the Leaders of the City-States seem to know about it, once word that a potential new recruit in one of the Grand Companies has it it's unlikely you'd go unnoticed by the Scions. You're not really breaking the story here, just giving another avenue to arrive at point B. One that might have you see different parts of the game earlier than other players, that's really it. You don't even have to be a Pure-Blood Garlean, the Empire conscripted anyone able to fight into their ranks, Au'Ra, Elezen, Hyur, and so on, some who grew up under Imperial Rule and see themselves as true Garleans despite not being a pure-blood Garleans. I think it'd only impact the starting classes not that Garlemald didn't have people using similar if not identical abilities, and by the time you get your memory stones for jobs, I could easily see you just visiting the quest starting NPC somewhere and then being directed to the person who will have you undertake the job stone giving quest, in short, you're at best just skipping the base class story quest.

[Cleretic]

I admit I haven't done all the regional starter quests, but I'm fairly sure that you're a blip on the Scion's radar specifically because they cross paths with you in the early quests and know you're fairly legit, they don't just have an Echo Radar. And your introduction to things on a larger scale actually isn't with them; it's after the regional starts, when you act an an envoy between the Grand Companies because of achieving something pretty significant. After the opening three dungeons, then you get sent to the Scions, who already know your deal.

So the limiter for a 1-15 Garlemald opener, if that's really what you were asking for, is actually twofold:

1. You need a Scion to personally know you, at least as 'oh hey, I've seen that person before and know they can hold their own in a fight',
2. You need to be trusted with official business at least enough for one of the grand companies to vouch for you.

Both of those are actually extremely big asks for a Garlean refugee that's basically fresh off the boat. Especially in ARR, as all the Scions are accounted for (so none of them can be in Garlemald), and xenophobia is at an all-time high. You'd basically just have to do the original 1-15 anyway. And... hell, that might not even be enough for a Garlean refugee in ARR. Especially in Limsa, where the boat would've presumably docked, so word would get around pretty fast to be wary of them.

Again, I'm not really on board with a Garlean start on any level, but with the story start we have it's actually not an especially feasible framework for a fresh Garlean refugee. You'd have to put in a fair bit more legwork to plausibly get a Garlean character to the same place as everyone else.

[KariTheFox]

Again, I'm not really on board with a Garlean start on any level, but with the story start we have it's actually not an especially feasible framework for a fresh Garlean refugee. You'd have to put in a fair bit more legwork to plausibly get a Garlean character to the same place as everyone else.

In order to squeeze what you'd need into the first 15 levels, you'd either end up with something incredibly rushed feeling that moves at a breakneck pace - and not in a good way imo. OR... an incredibly long and indepth questline that would be far and away better than any other starting experience, a huge expenditure of writing and assets for something that ultimately is just going to fold back into the MSQ anyway. I'd prefer the developers spend that time and energy on something else.

[Cleretic]

In order to squeeze what you'd need into the first 15 levels, you'd either end up with something incredibly rushed feeling that moves at a breakneck pace - and not in a good way imo. OR... an incredibly long and indepth questline that would be far and away better than any other starting experience, a huge expenditure of writing and assets for something that ultimately is just going to fold back into the MSQ anyway. I'd prefer the developers spend that time and energy on something else.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking.

The other potential angle is that you have Theoretical Garlean WoL join at a later point that gives it more time in its own story and might be a less weird entry point. My immediate thought is probably Sylph-management, since that gives an extra five levels to the Garlean intro story and the sylph storyline is low-stakes enough that the Scions would conceivably give it to an unproven rando.

But then that opens a separate problem: you would have to find a completely different way for Theoretical Garlean WoL to hear the introduction to all three grand companies (and their cities), be given the option to join all three grand companies, get the chocobo, do the materia tutorial, and be introduced to Ifrit pretty much verbatim because Ifrit's intro might be one of the most information-dense scenes in the entire game (and also the fact you kill Ifrit is kinda the big defining point in the WoL being the WoL to others). And even then you still hit major losses, because for everyone who didn't start in Ul'dah, the Ifrit leadup is their introduction to Thancred, and you need to know who Thancred is to care about when he gets possessed by Lahabrea.

I do love a good spot of textual intervention, but a big part of trying to rewrite a story is learning what you'd lose by doing it. And especially after the pruning in Shadowbringers patches, it's actually really hard to rewrite ARR like this, because ARR is super dense with all the required worldbuilding and character introductions to make the entire rest of the game story work. It's way harder to segment out FFXIV's story than other MMOs, because FFXIV's story has very few points where a specific story stops and another specific story starts.

To a degree that's why the faction argument comes up, because that actually is a solution to it, albeit one that requires an absurd amount more work and warps the entire game structure around it. You can worry a whole lot less about the question of 'where and how does this alternate start flow most naturally into the main story' if your answer is that it doesn't.

[Lyth]

I suppose it depends on whether there's any future plans for the Grand Company system, and how entrenched it is in the game systems. I'm assuming that we're going to be encountering a lot more nation states in the future. I don't really see a significant difference in picking an alternate starting zone only immediately be funneled over to pledge yourself to Eorzean military services. I think a more useful flavor change would be if you could actually sign up to join the Radiant Host or something.

A starting city is not an 'origin' city. We're travellers from elsewhere (which may or may not get explained by a certain storyline). So it's not like you'd be an expat from the Garlean empire, but rather a traveler first arriving in Garlemald from elsewhere. So unless you get forcibly conscripted into the shortest military career in history, it probably makes a lot less of a difference than having more choice over your Grand Company.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The main issue I see with it is practicality. Either a theoretical Garlean PC would have to follow the same story as everyone else (which defeats the point of an alternate story), or you'd need an entirely new experience for nearly the entire game. Considering the sheer length of the game at this point, that's quite a lot of material to redo, and that manpower would take away from other areas of the game.

Alternately, they could just start at a higher level and skip over some of it, but then it's unfair to people who want to play as another race and have to start fresh at level one. Unless you have to have another character up to a certain level first, but the game doesn't particularly promote alt characters, especially on cheaper subs that don't even get all of the alt slots.

Again, I'm not opposed to the idea, I'm just not sure how it would work.

[Veloran]

Again, I'm not opposed to the idea, I'm just not sure how it would work.

The only way, if they were to actually design an opening for it at all, would be to set a sequence before the beginning of ARR. The most likely scenario, and the one with evidence behind it, would be that the player is a survivor of the decimated VIIth Legion from 1.0, and after that became an adventurer. Not exactly an impossible achievement given that Kan-E's personal bodyguard achieved that position from that same background in that period of time. And in theory - if you squint and handwave a bit - any current player races could have also been part of the VIIth and come into being an adventurer from that backstory.

[Lyth]

Starting cities aren't really places of origin. They're just where the story started. I was always under the impression that even in the current story setup, we're not native denizens of Eorzea, but rather wanderers from elsewhere. Who knows, perhaps the Azem storyline will eventually show us where we're really from.

[Cleretic]

Starting cities aren't really places of origin. They're just where the story started. I was always under the impression that even in the current story setup, we're not native denizens of Eorzea, but rather wanderers from elsewhere. Who knows, perhaps the Azem storyline will eventually show us where we're really from.

No, it's deliberately nebulous in the same way as, like, Skyrim's opening is. You're just put in as 'entering the city' as an opener with it being deliberately vague as to why. Maybe you're a local coming back in from a trip, maybe you're from the boonies finally heading to the big city, maybe you're an immigrant from Dalmasca; you're whatever works for you.

They won't throw that out in favor of More Azem Story. At least, I hope not; I feel like Azem's presence in the story is more to give the player somewhere to slot themselves into this weird world of Amaurot, not to give the WoL some highly specific grand journey.

[Lyth]

I don't think that linking the two stories really has any consequence. Every Convocation member had a different life before joining the Convocation and adopting their new identity, and there's nothing to say that they even had to be native Amaurotians to begin with.

What I find really fascinating is whenever a mythological figure picks up different names and different stories as the concept spreads across different cultures. I think it would be fantastic if every Ancient civilization from the landmasses of Meracydia to the New World had its own 'wanderering trickster deity' figure, and that Azem was merely one name out of many.