Revelations from NA Fan Fest (July 2023)

[KageTokage]

That's kind of the direction I was expecting things to go in, as well...though I'm also half-expecting there's going to be some foul play involved on the part of one of the political parties that ends up forcing them to get involved once it's exposed.

[Cleretic]

That's kind of the direction I was expecting things to go in, as well...though I'm also half-expecting there's going to be some foul play involved on the part of one of the political parties that ends up forcing them to get involved once it's exposed.

Yeah, I think a struggle with that idea on reflection is that while non-intervention is a perfectly justifiable stance on a moral perspective, from a player perspective it basically plays out as 'willingly not doing the fun thing', so they'd be forced into intervening anyway just so they don't sit out an entire expansion... which then feels like it abandons or insults the concept of non-intervention in the first place, so why bother giving it lip service?

[Denishia]

Yeah, I think a struggle with that idea on reflection is that while non-intervention is a perfectly justifiable stance on a moral perspective, from a player perspective it basically plays out as 'willingly not doing the fun thing', so they'd be forced into intervening anyway just so they don't sit out an entire expansion... which then feels like it abandons or insults the concept of non-intervention in the first place, so why bother giving it lip service?

Agreed. This ties overall into the valid apprehension about Dawntrail's writing. Not from Latam myself, but even the overwhelming racist tropes and the long painful history of colonialism and coups fostered by outside business interests meant that my biggest fear was that a New World expansion was going to blunder into them (I enjoy the Blue Mage questlines but small parts of it make me cringe, and it's one of the reasons why I love EW's Thanvair). Hence my deep relief that our impetus for going to Tural isn't tied solely to Eorzean interests, but I'm bracing myself for the Wol 's side backing the successor candidate that wants to open and maintain closer ties to Eorzea, and in-game framing it as the virtue of everyone working together and then fandom imploding because soft imperialism is still imperialism even when heroes do it. What little I've seen of Dawntrail and Tural is dodging my greatest fears while giving me what I want from the setting, and I am especially excited to get a thousand year old fallen empire to dungeon crawl through that isn't Allagan for once. The longer the contest of succession plotline proceeds without an outside villain derailing it, the more surprised I will be.

[EdwinLi]

Agreed. This ties overall into the valid apprehension about Dawntrail's writing. Not from Latam myself, but even the overwhelming racist tropes and the long painful history of colonialism and coups fostered by outside business interests meant that my biggest fear was that a New World expansion was going to blunder into them (I enjoy the Blue Mage questlines but small parts of it make me cringe, and it's one of the reasons why I love EW's Thanvair). Hence my deep relief that our impetus for going to Tural isn't tied solely to Eorzean interests, but I'm bracing myself for the Wol 's side backing the successor candidate that wants to open and maintain closer ties to Eorzea, and in-game framing it as the virtue of everyone working together and then fandom imploding because soft imperialism is still imperialism even when heroes do it. What little I've seen of Dawntrail and Tural is dodging my greatest fears while giving me what I want from the setting, and I am especially excited to get a thousand year old fallen empire to dungeon crawl through that isn't Allagan for once. The longer the contest of succession plotline proceeds without an outside villain derailing it, the more surprised I will be.

Well considering the focus here is to find the Golden City (Thanks Emet for spoilering this), it is most likely going to be a Finding Eldorado journey compared to Colonialism.

Not to mention this is still a small area of the New World being explored and with the WoL returning to his/her roots as a Adventurer, I feel the New World story arc may focus a lot more on Exploring this New World one location at a time in each expansion.