The Negative Impact of Poor Character Writing on the Quality of Dawntrail's MSQ

[Zaniel]

I think that's a solid write-up that gives a good summary of the core problem with the writing. I do think there are other almost-as serious problems with the narrative based on pure logical plotholes (which either weren't a thing previous to Dawntrail or were cleverly covered up by quick thinking writing), the utter non-connection to existing FF14 lore (we've had 4 expansions about Primals and the dangerous power of belief and all of a sudden we're back to religion and faith again, plus no Final Days in Tural apparently). Also the unbelievably slow pacing (worse than ARR) and constant missteps in narrative design (Erinville is about to tell us something interesting and before he can finish his sentence someone is interrupting us to praise Wuk Lamat again and we neever heear the lore). Not to mention the almost complete lack of gameplay in the first 30 hours, just a bombardment of visual novel (that's a game design thing, not really writing but it makes the writing feel even worse).

The writing problems are not just confined to characters (although that is the core), they are numerous, all encompassing and omnipresent to the point it wears at your soul.

[duckorz]

I think that's a solid write-up that gives a good summary of the core problem with the writing. I do think there are other almost-as serious problems with the narrative based on pure logical plotholes (which either weren't a thing previous to Dawntrail or were cleverly covered up by quick thinking writing), the utter non-connection to existing FF14 lore (we've had 4 expansions about Primals and the dangerous power of belief and all of a sudden we're back to religion and faith again, plus no Final Days in Tural apparently). Also the unbelievably slow pacing (worse than ARR) and constant missteps in narrative design (Erinville is about to tell us something interesting and before he can finish his sentence someone is interrupting us to praise Wuk Lamat again and we neever heear the lore). Not to mention the almost complete lack of gameplay in the first 30 hours, just a bombardment of visual novel (that's a game design thing, not really writing but it makes the writing feel even worse).

The writing problems are not just confined to characters (although that is the core), they are numerous, all encompassing and omnipresent to the point it wears at your soul.

Yeah, totally. The fun thing about approaching DT critically is that you can write literally 500,000 words about how fundamentally broken it is in every single way. I think if I made a 10 hour video essay about it I don't think it would be exhaustive. I felt that the character writing was the most fundamental issue, and a core problem that causes a lot of what you're outlining in terms of lack of narrative coherence, plot structure, pacing, etc; so I had to limit my write-up to just that for an "introduction" of sorts to what's so horribly wrong with Dawntrail. I may end up writing like, 5 more posts this long, though, about how every single plot element, zone, and premise is completely annihilated by how bad the writing is. I just graduated with my English degree and I've never been so compelled by how transcendentally, auteristically bad something is. This is "The Room" of FFXIV expansions.