Anyone else get the feeling they are still figuring out the story for 6.X and 7.0 ?

[Kes13a]

Unfortunately, yes. These recent interviews have only left me further disheartened and anxious about this game's future. The story is too big a part of mine and others' overall enjoyment and drive to participate and be in this game's world. The interviews made it seem like the Void isn't even going to be the focus of 7.0, and that it's subject to the reception by some of the more vocal sections of the playerbase on social media rather than establishing a beginning, middle and end for character arcs and the setting.

The release timing is also an issue, the fact that Endwalker might last until Summer 2024 is a thought that weighs heavy on my mind. As much as I want these patches to redeem and salvage my experience with this expansion, I don't know whether that will actually happen. Maybe it'll be that we just have to deal with the scions until the end of 6.5 and after that we get a whole new party, a whole new high fantasy setting, and things will finally reground themselves in a new adventure. I just don't know. I just want my confidence and faith to be restored.

you have to be the biggest doom sayer in these forums. there is nothing you like, is that called black knighting or something like that?

it is okay to take breaks and exist outside of a game. if you are ALWAYS looking for baqd things, then you will be amply rewarded by confirmation bias.

what do I expect? very little aside from entertainment. if they retain my engagement, thats all I need. I dont need some deeper meaning to restore faith in gaming companies. because I lost that years ago after sinking my soul into a game they catastrophically changed, and told the player base "dont let the door hit you on the way out" If you never played early Star Wars Galaxies then you have not got a clue about that, but thats besides the point.

stop pinning your hopes and dreams on something you have zero control over. its their game, their direction, good or bad. go along for the ride, or not, but when it comes right down to it, they dont care. no game company does. and your dislike of the game, the direction, the information etc.. will never.. ever.. EVER.. change that. enjoy the ride.. or dont. thats the only choice you really have.. if you do not feel they earn your money, stop giving it to them.. plain and simple.

no, not telling you to quit, or that this isnt the game for you, but that whatever you do.. is always your choice. they dont tell you how to live, you do. make it worthwhile and have fun, because in the end.. its a sudden stop...

[Hanayumi]

Last I heard, they mentioned having story up to like 8.0, now who knows if thats all set or if they change things frequently. As for whats been dealt, follow the dragon seems like a good indicator, Void and possibly to Meracydia for a future expansion.

[NekoMataMata]

I think this was obvious to those of us who have played for years though. They give us this little story in the patches to keep us distracted until the expansion and then do something different.

They give lots of information, so if you think that they don't, you most likely are unaware of where that information is. When you launch the game, you can see the lodestone news but you can also take a look at it here https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/

There will usually be 2 live letters before each patch. The first one is vague and the second one is a lot more detailed and provides footage and gameplay from Yoshi-P. Most of these are in Japanese, but you can find translations on the FFXIV reddit discord or in stream chats. These streams are announced on the lodestone and in the game when they are beginning. You can watch the summaries by content creators if you don't have time for it.

After it, they publish a dedicated website for the patch with videos and the media they showed in the live letter https://sqex.to/uuTTH

Lots of interviews are given to websites in this time, some of them in Japanese, but we usually translate them to find any interesting information. My advice to find out about these is to subscribe to some youtube content creators or find posts about the interviews on reddit.

At special game events, Yoshi-P tries to go there and do 20-30 interviews, but there haven't been as many of these events because of covid.

• https://youtu.be/Dn42qwlQ0t4
• https://youtu.be/Jz_Hfs9yYIM
• https://youtu.be/cCaCtmJZ9xE

You see the problem with all of this is...

It's actually not that much information? So much of it is fluff or recaps.

[aveyond-dreams]

you have to be the biggest doom sayer in these forums. there is nothing you like, is that called black knighting or something like that?

it is okay to take breaks and exist outside of a game. if you are ALWAYS looking for baqd things, then you will be amply rewarded by confirmation bias.

what do I expect? very little aside from entertainment. if they retain my engagement, thats all I need. I dont need some deeper meaning to restore faith in gaming companies. because I lost that years ago after sinking my soul into a game they catastrophically changed, and told the player base "dont let the door hit you on the way out" If you never played early Star Wars Galaxies then you have not got a clue about that, but thats besides the point.

stop pinning your hopes and dreams on something you have zero control over. its their game, their direction, good or bad. go along for the ride, or not, but when it comes right down to it, they dont care. no game company does. and your dislike of the game, the direction, the information etc.. will never.. ever.. EVER.. change that. enjoy the ride.. or dont. thats the only choice you really have.. if you do not feel they earn your money, stop giving it to them.. plain and simple.

no, not telling you to quit, or that this isnt the game for you, but that whatever you do.. is always your choice. they dont tell you how to live, you do. make it worthwhile and have fun, because in the end.. its a sudden stop...

I looked up the interviews because I was excited for hopefully some good news. I then read the translations and realized more or less what it looks like they plan to do with the story, to say nothing of other content. I have my standards for what I think FFXIV can do and should be aiming for. I'm not sure that this shift in direction is conducive to that. As a longstanding fan of the game I'm going to voice my opinion about it. I just want things to be better. I want them to listen to those of us who care about the game and want to see it succeed.

I guess 7.0 will be as close to a fresh start as we're getting, but until then all I can hope for is that the Void is treated with more care than the other major foundational aspects of the game's world like the Ancients and Garlemald. The main things I liked about the story were wrapped up in such ways that it left me wanting for new threads to grasp, but if the way they were treated is any indication for how things will go for the Void I have to express my concern. I hope that they manage to see things from the player's perspective and not just their own. Leaving feedback is important for that, so I'll continue doing so. The only thing I can hope for is that someone somewhere reads it.

[Jeeqbit]

You see the problem with all of this is...

It's actually not that much information? So much of it is fluff or recaps.

I'm not sure what more you want. The only way to get more information is to play it yourself and that isn't going to happen until it releases.

[DrWho2010]

[Lustre]

??? Op was saying it doesn't seem like they have a plan for 7.0 or after, considering they essentially said they're making up the 6.x patches on the fly as they go, perfectly valid point to raise and be concerned about but here comes the same old people acting all passive aggressive and dismissive because it was slightly negative towards SE. Why? I'm actually really curious on the mindset behind that. You do realise forums are places of discussion, criticism and feedback and the vast majority of your posts are the equivalent of a child bursting into a room screaming because.... reasons? i guess

[Sotaris]

Who is crying and who is presenting doom and gloom?

You, kind of with OP.

[Jojoya]

Does anyone else get the feeling that 7.0 is not as far a long as it should be and we shouldn't expect it in Holiday 2023?

Based on that recent Famitsu interview by Yoshi P, it seems like they are still figuring out the stories for 6.3-6.5 and even said depending on what happens in those it could drastically change the story course of 7.0. While I know 7.0 has started production, it is feeling like we could be looking at a 2.5-3 year gap between expansions at this rate.

This is starting to feel like a Summer 2024 release if Yoshi P's comments are any indication. Also with FFXVI being released in Summer 2023 and Winter 2023 for FF7R, I have to wonder scheduling-wise where 7.0 would fit.

I didn't get that feeling at all. It sound like they have it all mapped out. They're just not sharing details in advance, as usual.

So I'm just curious, but is this just a Japanese thing maybe? They've never seemed to give a whole lot of information on upcoming releases since I've started playing.

I would think that if they were excited and were making good progress on what would be big releases that they'd share more, that they'd hype it up. That's what makes sense to me but it also makes me wonder if it's just a cultural thing.

They tend to release a lot more information to the JP gaming publications than to NA and EU.

It's just a matter of whether bilingual members of the player community are keeping track and providing the unofficial translations. A few members of the FFXIV subreddit are pretty good about it but if they've got other stuff going on in real life so don't have the time to translate, we'll sometimes miss out.

You see the problem with all of this is...

It's actually not that much information? So much of it is fluff or recaps.

Probably because they're trying to avoid too much in the way of spoilers.

Do you really need to know everything in advance of release? If you're thinking you don't want to spend money on a sub if there's a chance you're not going to care about what's released, there's always waiting until after release and seeing what players have to say.

[Nezerius]

This is starting to feel like a Summer 2024 release if Yoshi P's comments are any indication. Also with FFXVI being released in Summer 2023 and Winter 2023 for FF7R, I have to wonder scheduling-wise where 7.0 would fit.

Based on their recently updated 4 month patch release cycle, even if patch 6.5 [part 1] and patch 6.5 [part 2] were to last 4 months each, that would still put 7.0 at a March 2024 release. Not exactly close to a Summer 2024 release. A more likely release window would be January 2024, possibly February.