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

[SentioftheHoukai]

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.

Necessary though it may have been, with how much cultural erasure they've been engaging in lately in regards to anything Ancient I find it unlikely they'll continue to engage in the Azem plotline beyond the tangential.

[MoofiaBossVal]

Absolutely. The Garlean empire was one of the most interesting factions in the game. Would be cool if you could have stuck with them rather than defecting to the Alliance. Even if you did defect to the Alliance, that right there is a more interesting backstory to the WoL than any of the other starts.

[Cleretic]

Necessary though it may have been, with how much cultural erasure they've been engaging in lately in regards to anything Ancient I find it unlikely they'll continue to engage in the Azem plotline beyond the tangential.

...so can I ask what cultural erasure there was? Because we learned about the Ancients at the tail end of 5.0, only within the context of Amaurot, and in 6.0 we went to Elpis, which was... essentially a government department of Amaurot. That sounds like there is exactly one culture in the Ancient world to our knowledge, and we have never once left it or received knowledge of the existence of others. There's a mention of other cities that fell to the End of Days before Amaurot, but no indication that they were actually of other cultures. Basically, if Amaurot is New York, we don't know if it was Tokyo or Chicago that got wiped out.

I mean I don't like the Ancient storyline as a whole for a lot of reasons, but nothing has suggested that it wasn't essentially a one-world government in the first place; in fact, given the Convocation makes decisions for and sacrifices portions of the entire planet's population, my best guess is that it was essentially one-world.

[Lyth]

I think that it would be great if the story was able to draw a distinction between 'Amaurotians' and 'Ancients'. I would love to learn about other societies of 'Ancients' that have their own unique values, beliefs, and knowledge systems, and see how their differences of opinion with the Amaurotians helped shape modern Etheirys. If the Amaurotians were backing Allag, for example, could there not have been someone else backing the Meracydians? A society of 'Ancients' that considered the Amaurotians and their stuffy Convocation to be short-sighted in their plans? I think that if you want to create interesting clashes, you really need a setup that doesn't link everything back to a single puppeteer. I think that the writers are smart to move away from a Ptolemaic system which places Amaurot at the center of the universe.

[Cleretic]

If the Amaurotians were backing Allag, for example, could there not have been someone else backing the Meracydians?

Well, that wouldn't happen because the Unsundered Ascians were the only survivors of the Sundering, and they were all from Amaurot. So even if there were other nations, they've been dead for too long to be relevant anyway.

Which I think is why Amaurot being effectively one-world (or at least, the only part of the Ancient world we care about enough to discuss) is both correct and probably the right thing for them to do. The Ancient world is basically a total dead-end for the game's story narratively; it's a society that's extremely dead, it has no survivors, and existed so long ago that all remnants are basically just dust in the wind. Continuing to fill in the Ancient world does absolutely nothing for the game's present-day, where all the still-living characters, nations and events are. Filling it in would be like spending a whole season of Better Call Saul on the daily life of the peasantry of the Roman Empire; just because they both existed within the same timeline, doesn't mean that one has any impact on the other and that it wouldn't be a waste of time.

If they wanted to make a whole game set in Amaurot, then they could go ahead and make all the other contemporary nations they want, and I would go ahead and not play it. But in a game that's spent most of its story twelve thousand years after Amaurot, I think doing that would be a waste when we could instead make content about something current like--looping back to the actual focus of the topic--Garlemald's once-occupied territories.

[Lyth]

It's hard to really say for sure, though. The Amaurotians, for all of their supposed power, wisdom, and knowledge, were blindsided by a lack of awareness about dynamis. Which should naturally you to ask the question: what else didn't they know about?

All we know from the 'Final Days' and the Sundering is about what happened specifically to Amaurot, the supposed center of the universe (and even with that there are still pieces of the puzzle that we're uncovering). Who's to say what the impact was like the other side of the world, to beings that may or not have had the same soul densities, who may or may not be native to the star, and who may or may not have even depended on aether-based practices to begin with? I think if there's a running theme about 'broadening your horizons' through travel, then we can't entirely take anything for granted. The only thing that you can do is keep an open mind and see where the story takes us.

In short, I don't think that the story needs to be fixated on the past, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was much more to the 'Ancient' world than the Amaurotians were even aware of.

[Iscah]

I can't see the story ever managing a "separate entry point" that allows the character to not be involved in earlier parts of the plot. It would just wall off the ability to ever call back to anything before that point without having to provide a second alternate version of events, and I think it would be to the game's detriment. When it's written the way it is with a main character who has done distinct and significant things, and built personal relationships with a lot of people, creating an alternate narrative for some players means they have to restrict how deeply they can reference the single existing narrative.

Some games have two-sided narratives but it isn't a necessity, however sympathetic the other side may or may not be.

If we do ever get a "skip to season 2" opportunity for new players, I would sooner expect that they make it explicitly "you are fast-forwarding through season 1 but your character did still go through all those things".

[Cleretic]

If we do ever get a "skip to season 2" opportunity for new players, I would sooner expect that they make it explicitly "you are fast-forwarding through season 1 but your character did still go through all those things".

I doubt they'll ever do this either, because it devalues perfectly legitimate parts of the game, but it really would be the smartest thing to do.

Means that you don't need to write in a new way to meet Ifrit, for example, you can just go 'yeah this happened previously'. Maybe open with a truncated 'the story so far' thing, like... I believe one of the Mass Effects did when it hit a platform it wasn't on yet, but I can't recall exactly which one.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I doubt they'll ever do this either, because it devalues perfectly legitimate parts of the game, but it really would be the smartest thing to do.

Means that you don't need to write in a new way to meet Ifrit, for example, you can just go 'yeah this happened previously'. Maybe open with a truncated 'the story so far' thing, like... I believe one of the Mass Effects did when it hit a platform it wasn't on yet, but I can't recall exactly which one.

When 3 was ported to the Wii U without the first two, they made a sort of interactive digital comic that let you make some of the major decisions from the first games. I've heard it wasn't very thorough about it, though.

[SentioftheHoukai]

Well, that wouldn't happen because the Unsundered Ascians were the only survivors of the Sundering, and they were all from Amaurot. So even if there were other nations, they've been dead for too long to be relevant anyway.

Which I think is why Amaurot being effectively one-world (or at least, the only part of the Ancient world we care about enough to discuss) is both correct and probably the right thing for them to do. The Ancient world is basically a total dead-end for the game's story narratively; it's a society that's extremely dead, it has no survivors, and existed so long ago that all remnants are basically just dust in the wind. Continuing to fill in the Ancient world does absolutely nothing for the game's present-day, where all the still-living characters, nations and events are. Filling it in would be like spending a whole season of Better Call Saul on the daily life of the peasantry of the Roman Empire; just because they both existed within the same timeline, doesn't mean that one has any impact on the other and that it wouldn't be a waste of time.

If they wanted to make a whole game set in Amaurot, then they could go ahead and make all the other contemporary nations they want, and I would go ahead and not play it. But in a game that's spent most of its story twelve thousand years after Amaurot, I think doing that would be a waste when we could instead make content about something current like--looping back to the actual focus of the topic--Garlemald's once-occupied territories.

See, that's where you're wrong Cleretic. The things I've been seeing, recent plot-wise they bring up the Ancients rather frequently but default to vilifying them every time they do so. Meanwhile, conversely every time Venat is brought up she's literally venerated as being responsible for everything good in the world. Case in point, the conclusion to the recent Omega quests. They offer platitudes to appease the backlash they failed to see coming but top it off with a message encapsulating the beliefs they think we should embody. FORGE AHEAD but forget the Omicrons and Sir, they failed the test and as such should be looked back on as what not to do.... no, wait lets ignore history and our own failings all together and just move forward.


.....Come to think of it, just watch the Twelve end up being creations of Hydaelyn meant to "safeguard the Star after she's gone" or something equally asinine. Hasn't she done enough? Is she not enough of a SANKTA already, with enough deeds to her name for Eorzea to canonize her as the "one true Supreme Deity that saved us all, forget those immortal losers what were their names again?"