Quote Originally Posted by Payotz View Post
The passage of time point definitely has merit. I now look back and realize that a lot of story beats, especially in ARR, have been exactly like that, but I do think that it's also kind of a mindset at the time.

When you were new, you were excited and you're just willing to overlook any slight in the video game, or at least that was for me. I wasn't really analyzing the story beats very much cause it honestly just took me 2 weeks to beat ARR MSQ to 4.2.

I think the fact that we're kinda getting used to it is a factor. Like there's probably a bunch of other games where you being new think X feature is fun and exciting when the old players think it's stale because they just spam it all over the place.
That's a common situation, yeah. I also just think it's something that can scarcely be avoided in most cases. That said, writing can always be adjusted and improved, so that's not an excuse for it or anything. It's more with content cadence and type that I can see it being hard (if not outright undesirable) to keep shaking it up. Writing is a different beast and is ever-changing, even if some things stay the same.

I do think there's also merit to your point about the stakes. They definitely weren't universal at that juncture, but I still thought they were pretty high. Either way-- every time I replay the MSQ or a part of it, I notice something new, "for weal or for woe" as the characters would say. Sometimes it's a neat little detail or callback or what have you, other times it's realizing that a story I really enjoyed has a lot of problems when your mind hasn't cleansed it of the negatives. (I still like the story overall, though, but like everything, it's not flawless.)