Please don't harass people for ignoring/disliking the story

[Jojoya]

I dunno about anyone else, but I'm excited to see what an actual novelist has to say. Enough of these basement dwelling wannabes.

Why would that be important to you?

Novels are a different medium. The author has the ability to develop the story and characters at a pace of their choosing, whether it all happens in 100 pages or 10,000. They have the luxury of being able to write it in a week or in a decade (assuming they don't tie themselves to a publisher contract in advance of completing their work).

Writers for games have to work around the game play elements and production deadlines. They don't have the luxury of going into depth for story and character development.

Ultimately the only opinions that matter are those of the end user - the reader or the player. Since not everyone finds the same things entertaining, there's going to be disagreement over how good something was. It's especially true when the reader/player starts taking an obsessive interest in specific characters and the writer creates a story path for the character that runs counter to the interest the reader/player has in the character. Certainly we see more than enough of that around here.

You most definitely implied that the mere act of hating on Shadowbringers was contrarian (since you put emphasis on the expac and not the contrarian comments) but whatever.
I could perfectly see how one could hate Shadowbringers without being merely a contrarian, as it dramatically shift the game's focus from world-driven political story, to a character-driven more intimate story. A lot of people seem to prefer the latter, but I've seen fans of the former being legitimately disappointed by the game's direction. There is very little in the game currently that feels remotely like 2.1-2.5 ARR.

By the same token, the opposite would probably explain the disappointment many had in Stormblood. It was a good expansion but lacked the character development we saw in Heavensward.

Players are looking for different things. What satisfies one won't satisfy another. It's fine for people not to agree.

[kaynide]

to be fair, how do they have hamburgers in medieval times

It's not medieval times though?

[Deveryn]

Why would that be important to you?

The importance might be overstated. It's mostly a dig at what passes for story commentary from certain people.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

It's not medieval times though?

Old Sharlayan and Garlemald definitely aren't Medieval. They are way more Modernized and have technical advancements.

[TheMightyMollusk]

The game's a fantasy kitchen sink. We've got steam age, medieval, samurai, futuristic magitek, functional magic, aliens, and whatever else the writers feel like throwing in at any given time.

[kaynide]

Old Sharlayan and Garlemald definitely aren't Medieval. They are way more Modernized and have technical advancements.

Hamburgers are just a strange thing to be fixated on if someone considers a fantasy game as "Medieval".

Like why would burgers be the problem? Why not zippers? or the fact the color blue is widely available? Or large sailing ships? Pasta with tomato sauce? Widely available medicine?

In the literal dark ages where people simply couldn't afford meat and were struggling to just get by. Of course they wouldn't have the luxury of ground beef. The only thing stopping it was people not having the time/resources to make them.

Even further back when people DID have free time, Romans had a burger (Link), so it's just a weird hangup. They even had restaurants with take out.

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Hamburgers are just a strange thing to be fixated on if someone considers a fantasy game as "Medieval".

Like why would burgers be the problem? Why not zippers? or the fact the color blue is widely available? Or large sailing ships? Pasta with tomato sauce? Widely available medicine?

In the literal dark ages where people simply couldn't afford meat and were struggling to just get by. Of course they wouldn't have the luxury of ground beef. The only thing stopping it was people not having the time/resources to make them.

Even further back when people DID have free time, Romans had a burger (Link), so it's just a weird hangup. They even had restaurants with take out.

Purple is also widely common. There was a reason it was the color of royalty.

[Rannie]

Not to mention the game literally has holograms and holographic technology Ala the Allagans.

[aveyond-dreams]

And another page full of people missing the point, being deliberately disingenuous and still wondering why people don’t bother engaging in drawn out back and forths with them.

May they enjoy their cute and quirky college town expansion for however long it lasts, if I were Yoshi I would’ve cut Endwalker short in the same fashion WoW did to one of its expansions in order to send us into 7.0 all the faster.

Though it will mean nothing if the big event he teased amounts to little more than superficial feels revolving around the scions or the dragon, combined with us eating Taco Bell in the New World or Pancakes in Meracydia.

These writers need to rebuild their image and make it quick if they ever want to be taken seriously by players like myself again, 6.2’s msq was a step in that direction but my confidence is too shaken to place any further trust in them. Especially since sometime later this year we’ll be made to endure whatever story is sending us into a dungeon with Nanamo, Loporrits dancing atop the Crater of Martyrs, the Starbucks at the edge of the universe, and in 6.3 more adventures with one of the worst characters in the entire game combined with a pantheon whose presence is scarcely felt in the game’s world outside 2, long since abandoned regions.

[Lunalepsy]

So many tears, so little time.