Endwalker is the lowest point of this game since 1.0

[VentVanitas]

Then when we go to explore the place directly it had all its rough edges sanded away to be little more than a glorified university town where pretty much everyone is very friendly and for some strange reason, there's a bunch of male viera running about despite it being established as part of the worldbuilding that they're exceptionally rare.

I had always struggled to put into words why EW's depiction of Sharlayan bothered me but you hit the nail on the head with this post for me. It comes off more like a college paradise for 20-somethings to me (hell the last stand might as well be a starbucks too) rather than what previous expansions had alluded to.

[IkaraGreydancer]

I had always struggled to put into words why EW's depiction of Sharlayan bothered me but you hit the nail on the head with this post for me. It comes off more like a college paradise for 20-somethings to me (hell the last stand might as well be a starbucks too) rather than what previous expansions had alluded to.

You ever think things were set up that way as a means to keep folks away per the whole isolationist angle? It makes sense to me that they would create a more tense air around themselves to keep the outside world from interfering with their work. And now that their work is complete that facade now longer needs to be kept.
Thancred alone let me know Shar wasn't how some made it seem (to me ofc).

[SomeGuy22]

You ever think things were set up that way as a means to keep folks away per the whole isolationist angle? It makes sense to me that they would create a more tense air around themselves to keep the outside world from interfering with their work.

Sending actual goddamn assassins to murk someone teaching astrology isn't a nation trying to keep up a facade, it's a nation trying to bury dangerous intel. I would understand if it was directly related to the Final Days, but how would teaching astrology to Ishgardians put the mission at risk? It's not like Ishgardians at that point even gave Leveva or her grandpa the time of day anyway, and sending people to kill them in secret isn't the answer if you want to just look uninviting. You don't even get a mention of the astro storyline in EW!

At best it made it look that the forum had an internal divide between their members ethics-wise, and at worst made the entirety of Sharlayan look like they had some gigantic skeletons in their closets. Honestly, both potentially way more interesting worldbuilding than just "we were all pretending to be mean to save the world "