Loose threads of the Void

[SannaR]

They've never been part of the MSQ. You'd be forcing players to do Warring Triad and get one of each job to 80 to complete all ShB Job Quests. Also, if you paid attention to what they're saying, their goal is restoring the XIIIth, which hasn't really been part of the 6.X MSQ at all, as we're only saving Azdaja.

A sidequest in 6.5 or after would be nice, but you're acting as if they were MAJOR CRITICAL lose threads. They're not. They're pending side stories not really related to the Golbez arc at all.

Want an actual (though not terribly important) lose thread? Travanchet.

My head canon is that Gaius killed him at some point in ShB. We don't actually know.

This. The devs with the exception of Crystal Tower will almost never mention side content as they will never assume the majority of players will have done X content. Or the person who only did the MSQ and didn't do the side stories cause they were in a rush to get to the current raid, or felt that if it's not required by the MSQ it can wait or is boring or not very relevant to anything else. It's why 6.1-6.4 has retreaded ground that would have been covered in said capstone quest. Why we're just now in need to go to the 1st to slam in some resplendent light. It's highly unlikely that the devs would force people to do all of those quests any time soon. If those npcs do get introduced by the msq the devs will have came up with something without the need to do all of those quests.

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

Regardless of whether or not previous loose threads were handled well, it really does feel like the void should have been given its own expansion so the concepts we've seen so far in 6.x could be expanded on further.

No joke, no meme.
A void focused expansion, or Full Arc would be cool to. Its mentioned something huge is gonna happen by the end of the Expansion...so who knows

[Enkidoh]

I doubt very much we're going to see an actual Void-focused expansion,

as technically us dealing with the Void now in the story is basically tying up loose ends of the original storyline that EW is completing, allowing the story to move in a new direction from 7.0 onwards. The Void also cannot be restored fully either, as that would completely invalidate all the many FATEs, repeatable battles and levequests that involve Voidsent crossing over to the Source and the First, so at best you'll probably see just a partial restoration if that (Troia? The nameless ruins Zero had claimed as her diminion?), but otherwise it's the same as it has always been, like the Empty in the First being restored during Eden but still looks like it always is from outside.

As for the Cloud of Darkness, I'm pretty sure in 6.2 it was mentioned that she's no longer around, and that explains why the Voidsent are fighting amongst themselves, in that they're taking aqdvantage of the power vaccum left in her wake (6.2 and beyond revealed Voidsent can actually die for good if another Voidsent 'eats' them by completely consuming their aether - like what happened to the unfortunate Beatrice during the Fell Court of Troia, who was consumed by Scarmiglione.). Canis canim edit is the fundamental aspect of the Void and it's chaotic environment, so this rings true.

Hence the Cloud of Darkness probably won't be reappearing (we did fight a version of her in Eden though, although that was more just a Primal-like recreation and not the real thing).

Either way, the big kicker that we're not going to see the Void in a new expansion is simply because Yoshi himself said there is no hints about how the next expansion is going to go in the current storyline, meaning, no Void sorry. We'll find out either way.

[Raikai]

I doubt very much we're going to see an actual Void-focused expansion,

as technically us dealing with the Void now in the story is basically tying up loose ends of the original storyline that EW is completing, allowing the story to move in a new direction from 7.0 onwards. The Void also cannot be restored fully either, as that would completely invalidate all the many FATEs, repeatable battles and levequests that involve Voidsent crossing over to the Source and the First, so at best you'll probably see just a partial restoration if that (Troia? The nameless ruins Zero had claimed as her diminion?), but otherwise it's the same as it has always been, like the Empty in the First being restored during Eden but still looks like it always is from outside.

As for the Cloud of Darkness, I'm pretty sure in 6.2 it was mentioned that she's no longer around, and that explains why the Voidsent are fighting amongst themselves, in that they're taking aqdvantage of the power vaccum left in her wake (6.2 and beyond revealed Voidsent can actually die for good if another Voidsent 'eats' them by completely consuming their aether - like what happened to the unfortunate Beatrice during the Fell Court of Troia, who was consumed by Scarmiglione.). Canis canim edit is the fundamental aspect of the Void and it's chaotic environment, so this rings true.

Hence the Cloud of Darkness probably won't be reappearing (we did fight a version of her in Eden though, although that was more just a Primal-like recreation and not the real thing).

Either way, the big kicker that we're not going to see the Void in a new expansion is simply because Yoshi himself said there is no hints about how the next expansion is going to go in the current storyline, meaning, no Void sorry. We'll find out either way.

Zero said this pátch that if the voidsent is defeated at the 13th, the ones they ate are released to be restored as they would normally if they were 'killed' there, and that's the point of the update to the plan to save Azdaja.

As for the Cloud of Darkness, I think it was also mentioned that bigger the voidsent power, the longer it takes to reform. They're absent more like, still reforming somewhere. It didn't state that specifically, but I wouldn't be surprised if a reformed voidsent plummets down in the hierarchy and would have to climb the power ladder all over again.

But the unlikely of an expansion completely focused on the 13th is literally the lack of strong cultures or a diversification of environment to breed an actual interesting journey there. I'd say, it could be better as one or two zones, rather than a whole thing.

[kaynide]

I mean, sure. Would be nice. But just because a character is from X, doesn’t mean they absolutely must be invested with every fiber of their being on X.

We meet many characters who have been displaced in the course of the game who are just trying to get by. There is no rule that people from the 13th must do anything about the 13th any more than saying G’raha must with every fiber focus on retaking Corvos. Or the conscripted Hrothgar living in Garland- they could just as easily leave and join the Ivalice situation. There might be some part of them that wishes for it, but it’s also likely they are fine becoming citizens of where they are now.

[Eorzean_username]

Cyella and Unukalhai are locked behind optional content, so of course they're not gonna be mentioned in the main story.

Mhach, the Void Ark, and Dun Scaith are all on the Source (and also only touched upon in optional content); and, like the above pair, are only in optional content.

Fragmenting what's supposed to be a persistent world into a bunch of quarantined "OPTIONAL CONTENT" that refuses to ever interact with the rest of the story basically just creates a crappy anthology collection, rather than a cohesive story or an actual "world".

From a storytelling perspective, no one should be making excuses for this. It's utterly abysmal.

If you can't trust your player base not to throw a tantrum about needing to complete storylines, don't include meaningful storylines in optional content.

If you can't handle writing branching dialogue, don't include meaningful storylines in optional content.

If your billion dollar corporation doesn't have the resources to include optional scenes based on previous content completion in the Main Scenario of your game, don't include meaningful storylines in optional content.

If you can't find any way to include huge and topically-relevant ideas when they come up later in other storylines, stop trying to tell epic stories in content you insist on burying in a nuclear waste pit as soon as its final patch comes out — or at least stop trying to pretend that you're telling a story with any kind of continuity or weight.

Clunky Tumblr fan fictions handle immersion better than this supposedly professional writing team.

And, Shadowbringers proved that they're perfectly capable of doing better — when they want to, and when it involves digging up and resurrecting Ishikawa's personal projects and obsessive pet characters.

I cut them zero slack about this.

[Eorzean_username]

And this is just awful. I think it's literally worse than saying nothing at all.

"My presence would be extraneous" ?? Outside the literal semantic, what does that even actually mean ? Some guy with a spear who shampoos and conditions a lot has been following us around crossing his arms and saying "hmph" every 5 minutes, but an actual former resident of the Void would be "extraneous" ??

It sounds like the kind of empty non-statement I write to pad out essays at 3 AM when I just want to hit minimum word count because I don't really care about analysing deeper meaning in a Jane Martin play.

And then: "YOU KNOW, I'M SOMETHING OF A MEMORIATE MYSELF" just randomly tacked on to Cyella. Along with "oh but I was depowered for vague reasons". Lovely.

And she never mentioned anything about this before, including when explaining how she got to the First Reflection, because...??

Actually, Unukalhai, who has been standing around in an office eating mints out of the courtesy bowl for like 6 years, also chose to never elaborate on any of these very salient facts and information, because...???

Obviously we know "why", but not even the slightest effort was made to address it. It's as hand-wavey as it gets. This is poor planning and lazy execution.

Just like Stormblood, actual logical characters are pushed out of the story in order to front-and-center a more marketable product mascot.

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And "buuuuuuuuut poor put-upon suffering innocent casual players would have to levellllllll FOOOOOOOOOOUR JOBSSSSSSS to EIGHTYYYYYYYY and then spend like THREE HOURSSSSSSSS doing QUESTSSSSSSSS ahhh no one could be expected to hannnnnnnndle thaaaaaaaaat ahhhhhhhhhh"

...dude. At the beginning of HW, Estinien just walked in, and was like "yo" — regardless of whether you'd ever done or touched the DRG Job Quests.

And? The audience somehow survived.

He then went on to become an established and well-liked main character — one that actually grew organically from the world and its stories.

"But optionallllllll ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" is a total non-issue, and nothing more than one of many clever excuses that the PR frontend has engineered to convince you that corner-cutting, resource-squeezing, and tactical marketability decisions are actually some kind of honourable dutifulness.

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I say this because the alternative to it being PR spin is just straight-up incompetence, and I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt that management directives probably have more to do with poor storytelling decisions than actual incapability.

"Okay we need a filler storyline."

"Firstly, it must contain gigantic hamfisted FFIV references non-stop, in order to draw in the 30-50 demographic FF nostalgia crowd."

"Also, it must center around Y'shtola, in order to draw in the Reddit fanart step-on-me demographic."

"Also, it must not bring in anything that would distract from either of the previous two goals, nor may it include any previously-established worldbuilding details that could be arguably considered too subtle for a Saturday morning syndicated anime children's TV series."

"Now, go — tell a story! Zerochu, I choose you!"

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...And yes, I am a massive salt-mine about this game's increasingly-compounding storytelling / content-utilisation issues.

No, I'm not mad at any specific person or poster just for adding their commentary, in case it comes across wrong.

But I know that the team can do better than this — they've proven it many times. This entire arc has had my jaw on the floor the entire time, and in the worst way.

[Asari5]

they should just put a warning at some point:

the following line of quests includes characters and topics from following optional content:

- warring triad
- shb role quests
- ???
- ???

if you havent finished these questlines it may influence your msq experience.


and then they should include that stuff

i still think they should have chosen that for hildi and the relic weapon

[undull1]

There's certainly ways to get around the whole optional content issue.

-Make the Shb role quests open to any role, the reasons were already flimsy and it's not worth locking them away from players who don't want to branch out.

-Create an extra scene or two with Unkullhai heading to the first to force him up to plot relevance of players haven't unlocked relevant stuff.

-Time shenanigans. If the 1st was moving at a faster rate to the source during SB patches then reason goes time has likely started moving quicker again during the endwalker timeframe. Perhaps they could appear because the few years needed to investigate voidgates has been completed and any interactions with them from non-completed players could go along the line of "oh, this was before we met" like Graha in Shb.

-Let it rock, just don't acknowledge it estinien style, after all half of the trial/raid quests use scions from earlier points in time. Maintaining continuity of the game world isn't nearly as big a priority for devs as some think.

Also just as a fun coincidence I noticed.
-Thancred/urianger are heading to this "new location" as per 6.4. They are the ones involved in the Eden questline.
-Mercydia is down south, So is the section of the empty explored in the Eden quests.

Anyway I'm sure alot of us are going wild with predictions for 7.0 and the void, for myself though it's not just a matter of matching semi-relevant characters to every plot thread. It's more that, from a marketing perspective I can't picture anything else. There are multiple links and intrigues relating to the 1st whilst every other lore well has been drained dry, Endwalker basically capped off all the locations fans had been curious about in one fell swoop without leaving any room to expand. The patches could have set seeds for something new but with only the 6.5/55 patches left there's no time to create a new source of intrigue, leaving it up to what we have left (I.E. The 1st, Unkullhai, cyella).

Because let's be honest, if the big selling point of 7.0 is "Getting to visit a continent nobody cares about with Krile and Zero", then the MMO will die.

[Lunaxia]

Because let's be honest, if the big selling point of 7.0 is "Getting to visit a continent nobody cares about with Krile and Zero", then the MMO will die.

I could be fantastically wrong, but I've been brooding on the reasoning behind the bizarre way they've chosen to handle the game's story since Endwalker for some time, and the only logical conclusion I can come to is that's exactly what they want.

I think they've seen the unprecedented success Shadowbringers brought them, felt the inescapable pull of money signs and decided to quite literally drop everything, prune off the rest of the story in one go and head in a completely new direction focusing on the factors that they think made ShB so popular and brought the game so much attention - that's why they've ramped up the fanservice on all cylinders across the board, dropped in more humour and gone lighter with the writing, because it creates more buzz and hype online and increases those tasty social media engagement numbers, which means more of that attention, more players, and most importantly, more moolah.

If 7.0 isn't a campy, hammy stew of innuendo, pairing teases, Hildibrand humour and "adorkable" character moments with flashy backdrops, sparkly gear and JRPG-tinted hero's journey tropes (and possibly peppering in a few fan favourite Ascian references, of course), I'll eat my hat.