The expansion on the horizon

[Cleretic]

You do know that if they use Australia as a visual aid for how the place would be, it would be pretty varied, right?

Yeah, as an actual Australian, I can confirm that Australia isn't an entire nation of barren, bland desert. Most of it's uninhabitable on any large scale, but there's a lot of variance in why that's the case. Off the top of my head, based on real locations, I think I can rough up a six-zone outline of varied locations:

1. Yeah, just a straight-up desert. Let's base it on the region around Uluru to give it some variation from Ul'dah and Ala Mhigo, as a more 'central elevated location' structure like the Azim Steppe. Decent finale potential (especially if you base it on Bikanel from FFX), but not my personal pick.
2. A rainforest region, perhaps patterned on the Daintree. We've gone to smaller jungle areas, but never just an entire zone that embraces all that can be. It also gives a plausible location for where Sephirot's people might've been from, who otherwise would be a bit out-of-place in some kind of Fantasy Australia.
3. Big-ass CLIFF of a coastal zone, borrowing from the Great Australian Bight; rather than beaches and harbors, an entire zone set on a giant cliff overlooking the sea.
4. As Ryu said, a basin would do quite well, we've got a few of those; perhaps base it on one of the more northern ones that have a less arid and more tropical climate going.
5. Australia doesn't have much in the way of mountains, but we do have them, and a smaller mountain range standing apart from the landscape would help set it apart form Coerthas, and resemble Dravania without straight-up being a Dravania retread.
6. We need a weirdo finale zone, and while, again, I respect doing a desert based on FFX's Bikanel, I kinda prefer the idea of making it an underground city, combining real-life Coober Pedy (which already feels like a weird fantasy location) with FFIV's Underworld and FFIX's Oeilvert.

If you were making the expansion with no concern for being too similar to existing locales, I'd also throw in 'giant salt flats' and 'let's just do the Great Barrier Reef', but I think those would struggle to escape the shadows of The Lochs and The Tempest. All this is just spitballing to show what's possible; you could massage this into something real and probably even more interesting, but that's where I'm landing.

Whenever talking about Australia a a whole, it works well to remember: it's about the size of the United States. Australia has a whole lot of Australia in it, so while it an be characterized as generally less habitable than other landmasses, it's not just an entire island of desert, there's a lot more to see here.

EDIT: I also think it's perfect for an area entirely disconnected from the existing game's stories and troubles, because while there's some hooks there around the dragons, Allag and the Warring Triad, we lost view on it five thousand in-universe years ago; they've had a lot of time to change and become something totally new, with only a few little threads to link them to stuff we've seen before. Also true of the New World, of course; I just prefer Meracydia for entirely personal bias.

[Lyth]

It's easy to forget that places that we haven't yet visited are nothing more than collections of references until someone sits down to actually draw it up. We've heard various bits and pieces about Meracydia, sure. But in the words of Emet-Selch, do we really know 'aught of its present state of affairs?' The land bridge to Meracydia was last up during the Fifth Umbral Era, prior to the Flood, so we're talking over 1600 years since we've had proper access. All of the modern city states were built from the ground up in that timeframe. There are plenty of ways that the writing team can explain why we know so little about it. It's quite literally a blank slate if they want it to be. I do hope, as Ryu has suggested previously, that they draw on some FF9 Mist Continent inspirations for it, like the Iifa Tree for Sephirot's people or perhaps even Burmecia.

I think that there's a bit of a risk in getting there too fast, though. I become more interested in a place as more references filter down and there are more unanswered questions about it. If you're just given all the information upfront, it's a bit more difficult to get attached.

Take Corvos as an example. The remarks that Fourchenault made about Locus Amoenus having other names historically is pretty interesting, given its proximity to Dalmasca. And then you have the Unyielding Blade, the Corvosi sword technique that Zenos originally trained in, which perhaps could be a reference to the Divine Knight techniques of the same name that Meliadoul used in FFT. There's also a lot that could tie Southern Ilsabard into a Void story arc, if that's the direction this is going. Perhaps we'll then get more references around the South Sea Isles, leading to some Spira tie-ins. There are plenty of ways that a story like this can grow organically without dropping places on us fully formed. Either way, I'm sure we'll have a lot more information in a few weeks, as 6.4 will likely be the set-up leading into the next expansion announcement.

[MikkoAkure]

You do know that if they use Australia as a visual aid for how the place would be, it would be pretty varied, right?

Australia wasn’t blasted to oblivion via magical warfare by an evil magitechnical empire with an undead army on one side and the summon of a fully unleashed Bahamut along with multiple other eikons on the other. Australia also has some green on it from space, where Meracydia seemingly does not. Meracydia is the way it is because it was rendered that way by unnatural means.

The book says the landscape was blasted into a wasteland and while we don’t know how well it recovered, so far our view from space and the 1 concept art we have say “not very well”.


Meracydia seems to borrow more from the Sahara more than Australia anyway since it has things from Egyptian culture beyond just the fauna.


Either way, while they could turn around and make it more full of life and varied scenery and that would be nice, I’m going off what little we know instead of hopium. The other issue to get around is the hostile native population. I don’t see us unlocking the city at the very beginning of the expansion unless something happens in 6.5 that causes them to suddenly accept outsiders or we go in with an adventurer colony like Monster Hunter World.

I would also hope the story of whatever expansion we get can actually stand on its own and isn’t formed by the leavings of dangling plot threads from an older expansion. They managed that with Shadowbringers, but it doesn’t mean they should do it again and the moments Endwalker’s story lost me were the times when it was trying to be more like Shadowbringers. I was under the impression that the whole point of Endwalker was to completely end any plot threads so they can start completely over anyway.

If I never have to deal with the Allagan Empire’s leftovers again, it will still be too soon.

Either way, I'm sure we'll have a lot more information in a few weeks, as 6.4 will likely be the set-up leading into the next expansion announcement.

Not happening this time, per Yoshi-P, so we have more time to figure out what the direction will be.

6.x will change somewhat from the usual pattern of .1-.3 wrapping up the old storyline and .4-.5 setting up the next expansion. He says we can expect to start seeing signs of the direction of 7.0 in 6.5.

[Denishia]

Considering that FFX is still my favorite for overall design and having a distinct and appealing visual aesthetic to the world-building, cultures, and gear, I'm all for more integration of allusions to it in whatever new zones 7.0 or 8.0 provides. Considering how popular Hawaii is a tourist destination in Japan, I'm a little surprised that more hasn't been done yet with the South Seas Lalafell. But my biggest fear is that an expansion would shove Meracydia, Corvus, the rest of Ilsabard (I'll grumble and gracefully accept never going to Dalmasca or Landros but I want to go to Nagxia and one of the northern Islabard Hellsguard homeland regions), and all of the New World into only one (or two) expansions. Meracydia can easily cover at least five zones with a modicum of thought. Especially because it offers an almost-blank slate for creating new empires and interwoven politics between new city states and countries and tribes.

[fay2]

lol seems I missed a bit when I cut and paste to get about the character count plus it was late

Ok there has been a ship being build in Moraby drydocks for 5 expantions now that needs to finish now the factors of the garlean war threat are off the table they can get on getting on and finish it.

-----The missing bit-----
Plus an expansion on the high seas wouldn’t be negligent not to have a few nods to the limsa opening quests
I find a lot of ul’dah starters feel more invested in StB than most other city sate starters find it ,with how tied Ul’dah and Ala Mhigo are narratively.

Longer still the “crossed gun” guild in Limsa 1.0 devs seeded in and has stayed unlike the other unutilized guilds which were removed in the start ARR or the case of gamblers “2 dice” guild flags in ul’dah removed by HW.



A Buccaneers job would be great to add for a sea fairing expansion as the poster job of the expansion of the WoL.


Lastly to add to all this would be Merlwyb's word in the patchs of EW
Merlwyb is doer not a sayer this will happen so long as she lives



with that missing bit now done and and posted. now back to the thread lol

We use other ships to travel from Limsa to Kugane and Sharlayan so "they're building a ship since ARR" doesn't mean too much. That unfinished ship is also mentioned in MSQ or sidequests in ARR so I don't think it will ever be finished anyway.

So this bit was the threads focus after I posted for a time
lol what I get for not checking my post after posting I guess



Seeing this ship launched feels like something a lot of people from a Limsa start would find a great a true start to new adventure on the open ocean.


As for this idea it’s stuck in asset on the map they can’t change
that wouldn’t stop them They have removed similar things before for story reasons

here’s an example




Also seems people are straight over looking the fact the ocean could be zones we have an under used swimming/diving function in game

There are heaps over myths about undersea/ocean places
Davy Jones locker
Atlantis
Polynesia myth has a realm of demons under the ocean
that come to mind quickly

Lol just think Cannibalistic islander Lalas how the table would turn
being a lot of people j/k lalas are food lol
or getting thrown into a volcano to appease its god

What if there that a thunder plain under the ocean of a zone

In fact there are a lot they could do with that like have us start a zone in dropped the middle of it for once because we fell though the ocean once we get the aether currents we can escape the zone back into the ocean above and ship above that

It's painfully obvious that Oschon's familiar is the opo-opo. Unless the writers are trying to throw an extreme red herring out there, Oschon's familiar is the only one not hanging around and Deryk fits the bill for being Oschon himself.

We could get stuck on familiars over animal avatars,
but really
I'm guessing you missed the interaction between Krile and Deryk about the Opo opo

I don't believe we have. Those 4 shards you are pointing to have been destroyed completely and utterly, reduced to aether and absorbed into the Source as part of separate Calamities. Unless we're told that they're actually remnants of absorbed shards, all of the EW Alliance raids take place in the "Godly Realm" including the hub zone.

Its fair to believe we haven't, however we just spent the initial expansion learning about Dynamis even going to an area primarily made of said Dynamis.

While the Aether content of the rejoined shards have returned to the source nothing was stated about the Dynamis of those Shards returning.

[RyuDragnier]

Australia wasn’t blasted to oblivion via magical warfare by an evil magitechnical empire with an undead army on one side and the summon of a fully unleashed Bahamut along with multiple other eikons on the other. Australia also has some green on it from space, where Meracydia seemingly does not. Meracydia is the way it is because it was rendered that way by unnatural means.

If you look at actual pictures of Australia taken from space, there's barely any green visible from it either, also making it look like an inhospitable wasteland (though we know differently).

[SannaR]

That guild is the Musketeers guild. The devs seem to want and wish we would just forget about it. Still sour as heck that we've never gotten it. I still held out hope as long as they left the npc you could poke that would tell you about it was still there to poke.

Edit: I ran out of daily posts anyway. Even though it is hard for the devs to come up with various skill names. The bigger problem is partially it's lore. As in 1.0 the reason they didn't allow you to join it was due to lack of gun training. Then 2.4 rolls around and they go and put a dang Musketeer in the Rogue storyline. So everyone and their pet goldfish got excited. When we saw the Yoshida job teaser tee for Machinist and before we got told they wouldn't be making any more classes the fan base went oh so we're finally getting Musketeer. Then it was oh well it'll start off as Musketeer, right? Then we find out Stephanivien isn't as cautious about who wants to use his guns. And really you don't think they could have clobbered something together from all the other gun wielding characters and jobs strewn across the franchise? You have Corsair, Matsudio, Vincent, Irvine, the gunner dress sphere, Balthier.

[Cleretic]

The Musketeers fell victim to raw game design problems. From what I know and see, quite simply: it's hard to design an MMO character out of just being good at a ranged weapon. There's only so many ways you can name abilities that amount to 'shooting', only so many animations that make sense and only so many mechanics you have access to, before you have to get clever somehow. It's the same reason Archer became Bard. Across other MMOs you can see the same problem, and different solutions: FFXI didn't have a solution for Ranger and its skill list is anaemic and samey as a result, while Corsair got gambler mechanics; WoW made its Hunter a pet class; The Old Republic borrows mechanics from actual shooters.

Put simply: we didn't get Musketeer until it became Machinist because 'Shoots Good' doesn't provide enough ideas for a class, especially since we already had a bow-user.

It might be neat if they used the Musketeers' Guild as a story setpiece at some point, but I feel like it's basically impossible do that in a way people wouldn't read as 'they're teasing Musketeer'; think how many people still read the Heroes' Gauntlet as forshadowing an upcoming Thief, Necromancer and Berserker. So, eh, I'm fine with just the signage being around as an 'oh hey, that's neat' thing that, if we're being completely honest, most people don't notice enough to care about. I know I only really noticed all the signs once I was researching a video literally about the concept of in-universe combat styles we don't have (and in most cases probably never will).

[Cleretic]

This is a really messy and ugly way to hold a conversation, so I'll try to keep this short, but I do think there's something worth saying here.

The bigger problem is partially it's lore.

First of all: lore is never an actual development barrier, it's the apparent player barrier. Lore can always change or just never be written to be a problem in the first place, because it's always supplemental to the story it's supporting; it should never overpower, dictate, or block it. What it can do, though, is provide an in-world explanation for out-of-world decisions that were made; basically, it's not 'we aren't getting Musketeer because Limsan firearms laws are too strict', it's 'Limsan firearm laws are strict because we aren't getting Musketeer'.

Second... well, yes, I don't think that gun-havers from previous games provide enough tricks to build a functional kit out of. Did you play those games? Because most of them don't actually provide very much of use:
-Corsair cracked in a bunch of gambler skills which worked well for it in FFXI, but the RNG mechanics were given to AST at the time this was relevant, and over time has been realized as an approach that doesn't work for FFXIV in the first place.
-Mustadio in Tactics only actually has two particularly noteworthy skills, the support skills Arm Shot and Leg Shot. Arm Shot we don't have, but Leg Shot is basically Leg Graze and Foot Graze.
-Vincent's unique abilities weren't related to his guns at all, and were instead related to him transforming into monsters. Dirge of Cerberus doesn't really provide any additional variety here, because it's a shooter, so all it needed was 'Shoot Gun'.
-Irvine's only unique Gun Thing is a limit break that amounts to 'pick an ammo type and mash a shoulder button'. Being generous, I'll say that's a mechanic that doesn't provide ways to translate into XIV's gameplay. And being not-generous, I'm pretty sure it was even a bad LB in VIII.
-Balthier has absolutely no extra ability with guns beyond point-and-shoot, on any level, in XII; that's just not a thing in FFXII. In fact, Balthier is the worst gun-user in the game because his unique firing animation is longer for no additional gain. In Revenant Wings he did have a gun-based skillset, but all it provides are some status moves (amusingly, basically reskins of Mustadio's Arm Shot and Leg Shot), a knockback, and a line AoE. Good try, but not providing us much.
-X-2's Gunner gets the closest to being an independently interesting skillset, but all of its skills are some variant of '<adjective> Shot' (the English translation got slightly fancier on its names), and none of their effects really translate to the game FFXIV is; like, how does damaging the enemy's MP work in a game where the enemies don't have MP? The only one that does translate is one Machinist basically has: a guaranteed crit. It also has the ability Trigger Happy, which is... just Irvine's LB.

So basically, no, none of those characters provide nearly enough. Mustadio and Revenant Wings Balthier are character archetypes that make sense in a tactical RPG but provide barely anything for what a XIV job would need, Vincent had to move into another genre to make full use of his guns, and X-2's gunner couldn't provide diverse visuals and mostly uses effects that worked for the specific game FFX-2 was.

A lot of those characters were from games where they could've made 'The Gunner' their entire skillset; a tactical RPG has a place for that character and doesn't need them to do very much, an RPG where the party has mostly common abilities can spare room to give one guns for regular attacks. But FFXIV is a game where a job needs thirty goddamn active skills; Arm Shot and Leg Shot aren't gonna fill up your repertoire, and there's only so many ways you can animate 'point and shoot' in a game where a visually interesting skillset is expected. The 'gun-haver' skillset needed extra sauce, and they found it in Machinist.

[Zero-ELEC]

Longer still the “crossed gun” guild in Limsa 1.0 devs seeded in and has stayed unlike the other unutilized guilds which were removed in the start ARR or the case of gamblers “2 dice” guild flags in ul’dah removed by HW.



A Buccaneers job would be great to add for a sea fairing expansion as the poster job of the expansion of the WoL.

We know what discipline of war the "crossed gun" guild teaches; musketeer. You can identify them by the way they holster their guns on their hips rather than on their backs.

Not that we couldn't get a "buccaneer" job, but that guild isn't "seeding" anything. It's a remnant of a once intended discipline that was never implemented due to how the game developed.

Second... well, yes, I don't think that gun-havers from previous games provide enough tricks to build a functional kit out of. Did you play those games? Because most of them don't actually provide very much of use:
-Corsair cracked in a bunch of gambler skills which worked well for it in FFXI, but the RNG mechanics were given to AST at the time this was relevant, and over time has been realized as an approach that doesn't work for FFXIV in the first place.
-Mustadio in Tactics only actually has two particularly noteworthy skills, the support skills Arm Shot and Leg Shot. Arm Shot we don't have, but Leg Shot is basically Leg Graze and Foot Graze.
-Vincent's unique abilities weren't related to his guns at all, and were instead related to him transforming into monsters. Dirge of Cerberus doesn't really provide any additional variety here, because it's a shooter, so all it needed was 'Shoot Gun'.
-Irvine's only unique Gun Thing is a limit break that amounts to 'pick an ammo type and mash a shoulder button'. Being generous, I'll say that's a mechanic that doesn't provide ways to translate into XIV's gameplay. And being not-generous, I'm pretty sure it was even a bad LB in VIII.
-Balthier has absolutely no extra ability with guns beyond point-and-shoot, on any level, in XII; that's just not a thing in FFXII. In fact, Balthier is the worst gun-user in the game because his unique firing animation is longer for no additional gain. In Revenant Wings he did have a gun-based skillset, but all it provides are some status moves (amusingly, basically reskins of Mustadio's Arm Shot and Leg Shot), a knockback, and a line AoE. Good try, but not providing us much.
-X-2's Gunner gets the closest to being an independently interesting skillset, but all of its skills are some variant of '<adjective> Shot' (the English translation got slightly fancier on its names), and none of their effects really translate to the game FFXIV is; like, how does damaging the enemy's MP work in a game where the enemies don't have MP? The only one that does translate is one Machinist basically has: a guaranteed crit. It also has the ability Trigger Happy, which is... just Irvine's LB.

So basically, no, none of those characters provide nearly enough. Mustadio and Revenant Wings Balthier are character archetypes that make sense in a tactical RPG but provide barely anything for what a XIV job would need, Vincent had to move into another genre to make full use of his guns, and X-2's gunner couldn't provide diverse visuals and mostly uses effects that worked for the specific game FFX-2 was.

A lot of those characters were from games where they could've made 'The Gunner' their entire skillset; a tactical RPG has a place for that character and doesn't need them to do very much, an RPG where the party has mostly common abilities can spare room to give one guns for regular attacks. But FFXIV is a game where a job needs thirty goddamn active skills; Arm Shot and Leg Shot aren't gonna fill up your repertoire, and there's only so many ways you can animate 'point and shoot' in a game where a visually interesting skillset is expected. The 'gun-haver' skillset needed extra sauce, and they found it in Machinist.

What's funny, is they could follow Irvine's ammo thing to a logical conclusion and give different types of rounds with different skills.... but they already did that with machinist, what with their split shots, slug shots, gauss rounds, etc. They already spent most of what the games have already set about gunmanship (for gunners, fusiliers, flintlocks, and machinists) in the series with the machinist discipline.

I guess it would be neat to see their interpretations of cannoneer, but again, they don't need the Musketeer Guild or the Victory for that.