Solution 9 - Unfounded Speculation!

[Lady_Silvermoon]

Well, I think the people setting themselves up for disappointment are the ones who insist the city must be the work of surviving Ancients who found a way to escape from the shard that fell to the Calamity of Lightning, or whatever the most far-flung theories currently are. Mundanity is possible.

I don't trust any trailer significance implications since they hyped up "Master Matoya" in the Shadowbringers trailer.

I don't think those people will be disappointed if it's something else. They are just used to it being Ancients, the text being used is Ancients, so they assume it's Ancients. I don't think managing to surprise people with something beside the default answer for every mystery in the game will upset them. I may end up eating my words and people rage over whatever Solution 9 is, myself included, but that'll be six months from now and I'm banking on no one remembering this conversation by then.

[SannaR]

I don't think those people will be disappointed if it's something else. They are just used to it being Ancients, the text being used is Ancients, so they assume it's Ancients. I don't think managing to surprise people with something beside the default answer for every mystery in the game will upset them. I may end up eating my words and people rage over whatever Solution 9 is, myself included, but that'll be six months from now and I'm banking on no one remembering this conversation by then.

Oh people will definitely be upset and I think you'll be surprised by how many will remember these conversations. Just look at the whole I thought the Scions were disbanding and we'd never see any of them again crowd. Or those who still thought Island Sanctuary was going to give them a free house and that it would be closer to Animal Crossing. Despite the devs repeatedly telling us it wouldn't and to lower our expectations.

[Cilia]

Oh people will definitely be upset and I think you'll be surprised by how many will remember these conversations. Just look at the whole I thought the Scions were disbanding and we'd never see any of them again crowd. Or those who still thought Island Sanctuary was going to give them a free house and that it would be closer to Animal Crossing. Despite the devs repeatedly telling us it wouldn't and to lower our expectations.

More pointedly a significant number of people were utterly convinced Shadowbringers was going to reveal Hydaelyn to be evil, and have the PC switch sides in the cosmic conflict to become Zodiark's champion instead (if not necessarily join the Ascians)... all because the Crystal Exarch (G'raha) said we'd "become the Warrior of Darkness" in the teaser trailer. Needless to say, none of those things happened and the people who wanted them to were disappointed (though not with Shadowbringers as a whole; and they are some of Endwalker's most vocal critics, but I digress).

Without context an educated guess is next to impossible to make. Personally, I will be very disappointed if it winds up being more Ancient / Ascian crap on account of Endwalker concluding their story and continuing to bring them (or their proxies the Allagans and Garleans) into the forefront would defeat the purpose of having done so.

Just my two cents.

[Mayhemmer]

More pointedly a significant number of people were utterly convinced Shadowbringers was going to reveal Hydaelyn to be evil, and have the PC switch sides in the cosmic conflict to become Zodiark's champion instead (if not necessarily join the Ascians)... all because the Crystal Exarch (G'raha) said we'd "become the Warrior of Darkness" in the teaser trailer. Needless to say, none of those things happened and the people who wanted them to were disappointed (though not with Shadowbringers as a whole; and they are some of Endwalker's most vocal critics, but I digress).

Without context an educated guess is next to impossible to make. Personally, I will be very disappointed if it winds up being more Ancient / Ascian crap on account of Endwalker concluding their story and continuing to bring them (or their proxies the Allagans and Garleans) into the forefront would defeat the purpose of having done so.

To be fair, I do recall, in the fanfests leading up to Shadowbringers, there were some lines spoken giving vague implications that we might become some sort of dubious person (though I couldn't actually manage to find any video footage of the ShB keynotes, as those were paid events, so I don't have exact quotes). And the bit at the end of the 4.5 patch trailer also offering some cryptic symbolism that, even if we did get context for afterwards, was still cryptic on purpose. The point is, the devs know what they're doing when they do this. Yoshida says vague, out-of-context things, and then encourages people to ponder, on purpose, and the CG trailers always do the same. Honestly, I really wish they would stop trying to lead people on this way, but I guess it's just what he does.

We're always going to get context later, so I guess ultimately it doesn't matter. I do agree though, I really hope this isn't just yet more pre-sundering Ancient stuff, or even Allagan stuff. I'm making the personal assumption that it isn't Allagan, due to it simply not looking typical Allagan. I know people are bringing up the alphabet topic, and since I don't really follow, can somebody kindly point me to citation where I can read up on that, please?

[Iscah]

Oh people will definitely be upset and I think you'll be surprised by how many will remember these conversations.

Prettymuch, yeah. It's clear that some portion of the fanbase are dead certain that this lightning aspect is something super special and unnatural, but the lorebook sets out that this sort of thing can be just how the world naturally functions.

I know people are bringing up the alphabet topic, and since I don't really follow, can somebody kindly point me to citation where I can read up on that, please?

Simple enough, the recently released third lorebook had a page on a "hypothetical common ancestor" to the Eorzean and Vrandtine alphabets (basically Eorzean with a few extra lines, used on maps in Amaurot and Elpis), and then a week later Fan Fest gave us the setting preview for S9 which conveniently is using that very same proto-alphabet.