What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[Theodric]

I'll leave it to other posters to come to their own conclusions. It isn't possible for me to be everybody's particular favoured cup of tea and that's completely fine. I am not the poster who, in numerous threads, has capitalised and italicised random words throughout their lengthy posts. Nor am I the poster who has implied through weasel wording that if someone is critical of the game's story then they are prone to being hateful.

I'm just a regular guy born and raised in the UK who happens to be posting on a video game forum in his spare time. It really isn't any deeper than that and if, for whatever reason, you believe that this is all some sort of personal crusade and conspiracy against you then all I can say to that is that you are deeply mistaken.

I'd claim to be surprised that a post simply pointing out a retcon in the game's story caused such forced controversy though that would be a lie - because as mentioned in a previous post, here, to be precise:

The OP has long since stopped posting in this thread, which in turn became a refuge for those of us critical of the story given that many of us have been dealing with unhinged stalking, death threats, sexual assault threats, attempts at character assassination and bizarre insinuations from various self proclaimed 'lore enthusiasts' who have proven many times that they will do and say whatever in order to attempt to silence and dismiss anyone even remotely critical of the game's story. Given that you have your own 'stalker' who went as far as to create a parody account to ridicule you I imagine you're well aware of the lengths some here go in order to discredit and harass those they disagree with.

Many who post with regularity within this thread are well aware of the tactics deployed by this point.


Furthermore, here's an older post of mine touching on a similar issue:

At the end of the day, it's just a video game. One many of us are varying degrees of passionate about, certainly, though I personally don't care for rivalries to form over something that is entirely fictional. As such, my stance has ever been to agree to disagree where common ground cannot be found. I don't care for endless arguments over morality and I'd like to think I've made it perfectly clear that if anyone has a problem with me, then they're very welcome to come and talk it out in a civil manner.

I like working out and discussing the 'how' and 'why' things happen in the way that they do in any given story or historical event, though my personal preferences drift towards characters and factions that have lofty stakes over those that have everything work out to their benefit most of the time.

One thing I noticed, however, was that some pretty spiteful and nasty accusations were aimed at anyone who ever dared to speak up in favour of the antagonists. This included death threats, homophobic comments and other unpleasant elements. Given that the offending posts were deleted, however, then such will have to be taken with a pinch of salt - though I'd like to think those who are being genuine and who have been around for a while will be aware of what I'm speaking of. Especially since some of the offending comments leaked into Reddit, Twitter and certain Discord servers.

The most fascinating thing I observed was that certain posters would repeatedly launch thinly veiled attacks and sometimes direct personal attacks at fans of the antagonists, implying all manner of horrible things about their person and real world morality. When finally those being assaulted had enough, even a minor quip in response would be treated as some deeply horrific crime and personal attack.

I will say that things have improved somewhat since then. Right around the same time that the game itself revealed that, yes, actually there was more to the Ascians and Garleans all along.

Ultimately any given individual is going to have their personal preferences and interests. I've never suggested that anyone has to like specific characters or factions. I only ask that the same courtesy is extended to others in turn.

In closing, I'd also note that the game attracts players from many different countries, cultures, backgrounds and belief systems. We all have different life experiences, so that is going to influence what we like and we don't like.

Here's the source for that particular post, incidentally posted back in 2021:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post5778011

Perhaps that sheds some further light on the situation, since it's been an issue for some time now for even the most polite critique or commentary of the game's story to result in some utterly bizarre reactions at best and spiteful insults and insinuations at the worst. To be blunt, it isn't my responsibility to identify or tiptoe around the personal pet peeves of particular individuals. The only responsibility anyone here has is to abide by the established terms of service/code of conduct - they're not beholden to the whims or specific posters. I certainly do my best to be polite and civil, though that doesn't equal being a pushover and I'm going to take a stand in response to...whatever this is meant to be.