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

[Graeham]

I did not believe the place I visited was Garlemald. It is the biggest city on the world map, many times bigger than Limsa. When I go there are oil pipelines, one train station, a few broken buildings, and one tower. Everyone ran away after the possessed soldiers attacked. But I have seen many bases bigger than this, and this is the main city.

When I go to Sharlyan, it is not only a big city, but has an underground greenhouse with artificial weather. How is it possible for them to have advanced technology more than the greatest country in the world?

[Theodric]

You have a habit of claiming that you "agree to disagree" while continuing to make one last attempt to disprove or refute the opposite point. Which negates the point; it thus comes across as an attempt to get one final word while claiming you want the argument to stop.

No, that simply isn't true at all. Firstly, suggesting to agree to disagree does not mean that a topic of discussion is to be brushed under the rug entirely. If anything, the people trying to get the last word would be those desperately attempting to make a moral statement out of absolutely everything.

Which is precisely why I am rather firmly opposed to subtle or not so subtle attempts to ridicule or portray posters as 'bad people' for liking or arguing in favour of the 'wrong' characters in a fictional setting. That some people are unable to separate fiction from reality is, quite frankly, not my concern. Someone immersing themselves in a fictional story and rooting for the 'bad guys' is not in any way a statement in support of such events happening in the real world.

It's perfectly possible to say 'I don't like this character or faction' without drawing bizarre conclusions about those who do. Which is precisely why I'm not petty enough to go around declaring that if someone likes Venat then that means that they support genocide in the real world.

[CrownySuccubus]

No, that simply isn't true at all. Firstly, suggesting to agree to disagree does not mean that a topic of discussion is to be brushed under the rug entirely. If anything, the people trying to get the last word would be those desperately attempting to make a moral statement out of absolutely everything.

If a topic isn't "brushed under the rug", and you continue trying to prove that you're right, it's not a case of agree to disagree. I don't see how that's debatable.

Which is precisely why I am rather firmly opposed to subtle or not so subtle attempts to ridicule or portray posters as 'bad people' for liking or arguing in favour of the 'wrong' characters in a fictional setting. That some people are unable to separate fiction from reality is, quite frankly, not my concern. Someone immersing themselves in a fictional story and rooting for the 'bad guys' is not in any way a statement in support of such events happening in the real world.

It's perfectly possible to say 'I don't like this character or faction' without drawing bizarre conclusions about those who do. Which is precisely why I'm not petty enough to go around declaring that if someone likes Venat then that means that they support genocide in the real world.

Again, rooting for the bad guys is fine. But not all reasons for doing so are valid or reasonable.

For example, it's one thing to say, "I root for the violent communist invaders in Red Dawn", but (to use a hyperbolic example) it's another to say, "I root for the violent communist invaders in Red Dawn because I support violent communist invaders IRL.

That's an extreme example, but I stand by the point; feel free to have any opinion you like, but that doesn't mean the reasons for said opinion are laudable.

[Jagick]

I did not believe the place I visited was Garlemald. It is the biggest city on the world map, many times bigger than Limsa. When I go there are oil pipelines, one train station, a few broken buildings, and one tower. Everyone ran away after the possessed soldiers attacked. But I have seen many bases bigger than this, and this is the main city.

When I go to Sharlyan, it is not only a big city, but has an underground greenhouse with artificial weather. How is it possible for them to have advanced technology more than the greatest country in the world?

This bothered me too, but it's yet another of example of the game's regions or "overworld" being extremely compressed for the sake of game play. But it is absolutely comical in its execution. For a more concrete example of what I mean, just look at Ishgard as you wander that city. Look out beyond its boundaries and the city seems absolutely MASSIVE both in width and height, something that would take days to full explore were we given more than two tiny zones you transition between in seconds. Then leave the city into Coerthas Central Highlands and fly your mount past (over and past) the the gate supposedly leading to the steps of faith. What you will see is an absolutely tiny and narrow cobblestone walkway connecting to a doll house not much larger than the watch towers already scattered around that zone, and that building is supposed to be the city of Ishgard and the path leading to it are The Steps of Faith, something absolutely tiny and considerably bootleg looking compared to their instance version. It sucks, but expect plenty more zones to get this treatment going forward.

She singled out this thread as an example of trolling on the forums in a livestream she did on twitch. I wonder what she would feel if a fundamental issue she cared about like say Viera hairstyles had a megathread and then along comes another streamer or prominent individual that brands it as an example of trolling too.

Anyway I'm taking a break from arguing in circles and working on a total rewrite concept of the missing Garlemald expansion and a new take on what Endwalker could have been. I don't promise anything as in-depth as the Meracydia expansion concept I did a long while back but hopefully it'll be a more entertaining read than how some of the last few pages of this thread have been.

I can already sense the replies telling me that what I've written is too dark or emotional to be palatable to a playerbase that was enamoured by the slice of life scenes of Endwalker, or too political in the style of Ivalician storytelling with not enough meme sequences. Please look forward to it! With any luck those threads will be called out live on stream as well.

I absolutely look forward to this. Please change nothing in an attempt to make it more digestible for the squeamish. This story could use a little more grit if you ask me.

[Theodric]

If a topic isn't "brushed under the rug", and you continue trying to prove that you're right, it's not a case of agree to disagree. I don't see how that's debatable.

I don't post to prove myself to be right. I post to put my opinions out there in the hope that I might encounter people who share similar concerns for the direction of the game's narrative as well as reinforcing the idea that they're not alone. I also hope that the thread is being read by someone employed by Square Enix who may very well pass feedback along to someone involved in the story.

Again, rooting for the bad guys is fine. But not all reasons for doing so are valid or reasonable.

For example, it's one thing to say, "I root for the violent communist invaders in Red Dawn", but (to use a hyperbolic example) it's another to say, "I root for the violent communist invaders in Red Dawn because I support violent communist invaders IRL.

That's an extreme example, but I stand by the point; feel free to have any opinion you like, but that doesn't mean the reasons for said opinion are laudable.

I imagine many posters have all sorts of different takes on what would be 'valid' or 'reasonable' on any given subject. Ultimately we're dealing with a fictional setting which is primarily there to entertain. It can't please everybody but that's precisely why many favour more variety across the board in terms of how elements within the story play out.

Someone rooting for House Stark in Game of Thrones is going to have very different expectations than those who roots for House Tyrell or House Lannister and so on.

This bothered me too, but it's yet another of example of the game's regions or "overworld" being extremely compressed for the sake of game play. But it is absolutely comical in its execution. For a more concrete example of what I mean, just look at Ishgard as you wander that city. Look out beyond its boundaries and the city seems absolutely MASSIVE both in width and height, something that would take days to full explore were we given more than two tiny zones you transition between in seconds. Then leave the city into Coerthas Central Highlands and fly your mount past (over and past) the the gate supposedly leading to the steps of faith. What you will see is an absolutely tiny and narrow cobblestone walkway connecting to a doll house not much larger than the watch towers already scattered around that zone, and that building is supposed to be the city of Ishgard and the path leading to it are The Steps of Faith, something absolutely tiny and considerably bootleg looking compared to their instance version. It sucks, but expect plenty more zones to get this treatment going forward.

It's why I'm drifting back to single player games for my immersion needs. It never fails to impress me every time I enter Novigrad in The Witcher 3. It's one of the more immersive cities I've seen in an RPG to date. Equally, as far as MMO's go I'd say Divinity's Reach in Guild Wars 2 is a good example of what FFXIV could do if it really pushed itself to its limits.

[MikkoAkure]

I did not believe the place I visited was Garlemald. It is the biggest city on the world map, many times bigger than Limsa. When I go there are oil pipelines, one train station, a few broken buildings, and one tower. Everyone ran away after the possessed soldiers attacked. But I have seen many bases bigger than this, and this is the main city.

When I go to Sharlyan, it is not only a big city, but has an underground greenhouse with artificial weather. How is it possible for them to have advanced technology more than the greatest country in the world?

Most of the city is behind the city walls, we just go to the outskirts. Though I don't know why their senate building is outside the city walls.

As far as Sharlayan goes, it's been around for about 1500 years, has had no wars, and has been constantly doing research that entire time. According to interviews, they've always been intended to be a space-faring civilization going back to 1.0. The Garlean Empire meanwhile has only had magitek for 60 years.

[Lauront]

This bothered me too, but it's yet another of example of the game's regions or "overworld" being extremely compressed for the sake of game play. But it is absolutely comical in its execution. For a more concrete example of what I mean, just look at Ishgard as you wander that city. Look out beyond its boundaries and the city seems absolutely MASSIVE both in width and height, something that would take days to full explore were we given more than two tiny zones you transition between in seconds. Then leave the city into Coerthas Central Highlands and fly your mount past (over and past) the the gate supposedly leading to the steps of faith. What you will see is an absolutely tiny and narrow cobblestone walkway connecting to a doll house not much larger than the watch towers already scattered around that zone, and that building is supposed to be the city of Ishgard and the path leading to it are The Steps of Faith, something absolutely tiny and considerably bootleg looking compared to their instance version. It sucks, but expect plenty more zones to get this treatment going forward.



I absolutely look forward to this. Please change nothing in an attempt to make it more digestible for the squeamish. This story could use a little more grit if you ask me.

It annoyed me with the Steppes as well. Normally they'll use visual tricks to at least add an illusion of grandeur, but you had entire tribes there in these itty bitty little settlements. While one wouldn't expect giant metropolises, neither would you expect them to amount to a few dozen individuals or so.

[Raoabolic]

It annoyed me with the Steppes as well. Normally they'll use visual tricks to at least add an illusion of grandeur, but you had entire tribes there in these itty bitty little settlements. While one wouldn't expect giant metropolises, neither would you expect them to amount to a few dozen individuals or so.

It's not that shocking considering when there is a "crowd" in any cutscene. I guess more than 2 and less than 10 can be considered a crowd, lol.

[aveyond-dreams]

Roughly 6000 words of my rewrite of Endwalker and a potential Garlemald expansion done, though formatting and setting up spoiler text/images will take me a considerable amount of time still. Unfortunately I did not manage to include too much in-depth character arc beats for each party member because of my focus on reworking major plot points in general.

Trying to make this all make sense while still salvaging whatever I could of pre-existing material was an incredible hassle. I definitely feel like I burned myself out with the earlier portions and then started struggling a bit with the later portions, but if nothing else I didn't make for a cakewalk zone like Ultima Thule was. Admittedly, I tried for an ending that cut some slack to the surviving characters and (tried) to respect the decisions and sacrifices made by others who were lost over the course of the story. I challenged myself by trying to make some characters that I actively dislike more likeable, or at least opened the door for them to have something of a decent arc in the future.

I tried to cut back down considerably on the preachiness and didn't delve too much into "yay hope!" aside from the moments where I felt it was most appropriate and I severely limited the "despair" nonsense outside a moment where it is used to advance a specific plot point. I think I cut back on the mouthpieces for hope specifically to just one character, if I did things correctly. Shockingly it's not Alphinaud this time, who barely came into mind as I wrote this aside from one single instance. I found a villain who is more enamoured by the vanity of inflicting widespread torment onto people for her own amusement beneath an unassuming facade far more compelling, though I don't feel like I was able to explore this aspect of her character in my descriptions as much as I would have liked.

I'm trying to be as aware as possible when it comes to the flaws of what I just wrote down, and will try to revise it a bit before posting. But no, I'm not apologizing for not including a bunch of slice of life moments in this outline, I was too busy trying to keep the momentum going - something that I feel writers should strive for in their work. Endwalker did quite literally the opposite, instead of a rollercoaster there were times when things proceed apace at the speed of the Disneyworld teacup ride.

[anhaato]

It annoyed me with the Steppes as well. Normally they'll use visual tricks to at least add an illusion of grandeur, but you had entire tribes there in these itty bitty little settlements. While one wouldn't expect giant metropolises, neither would you expect them to amount to a few dozen individuals or so.

The Steppe was pathetic and definitely the most egregious zone compression pre-EW. For a “steppe” there sure is hardly any flat grassland, and a whole lot of mountains cutting off the northwest and southeast ends. And they put chasms to separate the east and southwest ends from the actual flatlands that went past them. If absolutely any zone is to have a bunch of empty land, stuff that’s far apart and separated by lots of nothing, I would expect it for that. And what’s wrong with walling off zones without having to invent some silly geographical features to do it? Like any of us would care if they put the boundary in ay the end of walkable ground? Tons of games do that!