Wow, Wuk Lamat is really single-handedly ruining the DT story...

[SteakDriven]

Lammy ain't as bad as all that - sure some of the line delivery sucks but i blame the directors more than the VA.
Someone tried to say something about "preventing white saviorism by not letting the player do anything".- banana oil!
The Warrior of Light is doing all the hard work and most of the general heroics. Sure, Wuk Lamat gets the spotlight, but that allows the Warrior of Light to be the Obi-Wan and not get hounded by fans for once.

[Sairaag]

It’s permanently damaged my trust in FFXIV to be honest.

Multiple people gave the green light to DT’s MSQ (and the Endwalker post MSQ). They wrote it, checked it, double checked it, and shipped it like this. Did Yoshi not play it first? Did any of them? The change in quality of storytelling was rapid and shockingly obvious, so much so I actually discovered and logged on to these forums for the first time since starting to play to find out what on earth had happened.

I hung around far too long after getting burned by Blizzard, and I swore never to give a company that much goodwill again. FFXIV felt like a breath of fresh air, a development team that actually really cared about the player enjoying themselves, cared about the lore and story.

The expansion was the first time I came looking for these forums. It is the first time the story felt like a slog rather than a joy. The first time I logged off in the middle of the last zone, vowing never to return because I was so annoyed/bored. And it is the last time that I will preorder an FFXIV expansion or play any of the post MSQ patches until I see reviews first and know which way the game is heading.

Hear, hear. I'm still shocked that the quality could have dropped this much after Endwalker. Sure, the weaknesses were already there and had been for a while, but the good stuff more than made up for it and the characters were in character. Dawntrail feels like the development of the story was outsourced to a third party. It's unbelievable.

It feels extra sour because I too was one of those people who finally left WoW after far too many years. It was the situation Yoshi-P has described: one day I simply stopped complaining, unsubscribed and never went back. The trust finally broke. The trust I had in FFXIV is certainly damaged now, but I came here to add my voice. Also, I still have some silly optimism because it's only been a week and I imagine it's going to take some time to put together a plan and a proper response to all this - like they've done before. However, I've seen these signs before, and this time I won't wait long.

[Karkarov]

Wuk Lamat's problem is not her VA in any language. It is that she is basically Naruto. Except this version of Naruto never learns from their mistakes, never has to deal with failure in any meaningful way, never grows as a person, and never lets anyone else have even one iota of agency when they are on screen. By the end of the expansion I was literally saying "oh god the group is splitting up again, devs I will pay money if you let me go with someone else or even alone, just not Wuk Lamat." But guess who it was I was forced to pair with 9 out of 10 times, or worse?

[_Rance-Sama_]

This my first time ever logging in and writing a post, even though everything i can say have been said at this point.
So i will say this, in the DT msq wuk lmao has 99% of the dialogue, and yet you could skip everything she has said and still not miss anything, amazing.

[DiscoDuck]

AN ALPACA?! SHE'S SUPOSED TO BE DEAD!

When is Wuk Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way going to say "fuk da prepz!"?

If they add the Galka minion the dangerhair localizer will likely use the mistranslation as "canon" (and twelve help if they make the Galka and Hume minions Cornelia and Raogrimm, they'll rewrite and butcher that story cause "uwu can't have icky gross het ships!" )

Will 7.1~ have genders replaced with "type 1 & 2" and blend the male and female voices together?

While I will finish the story on my main (cause might as well as crummy as it is just for completion sake) and write it off as "Eros Grehryss with his black mage staff in hand after getting Miss Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way to become Hokkage because he just thought "Oh what the hell, I'm here now might as well entertain her.", goes on the vacation he's finally been able to, working on his island and inviting Tataru for tea and picnics." and my alt "Athena and her husband Argus join Estinien on his adventures"

I wonder if FFXI will start becoming popular again because of this. (especially if the FFXI raid ends up being lame) And then... 14 shuts down servers before 11 does because some people never learn to never ever give people who hate them and the players and inch.

[Ayer2015]

I really didn't have any issue with Wuk. That said, I found the MSQ very underwhelming this time around. Its my least favorite expansion by a long shot.

[Soxxx]

Popping in here with my take of the day. I didn't really like her all that much myself and found her tolerable at best, but after reading positive comments and explanations of her character, and looking back on the story and ignoring the voice acting, I think that overall she was actually okay. However, I do think the biggest issues that myself and a lot of other people seem to have hinge on three main things. First, the decision to make her such a massive part of the story... In the end, the entire expansion really does live or die based on how much you like Wuk Lamat. Then that gets compounded by the increased visual novelization of the MSQ itself. On the first day, my friend I was running the story with was getting bored, and pointed out that we're 10 or 15 hours in and we'd only actually used our combat buttons maybe once or twice and that seriously hit me. We'd been going hard all day and we hadn't even really done anything but read. Obviously a lot of reading is expected because it's the story, but... For 15 straight hours in an MMO centered around combat? At the end of the day, we asked ourselves what we'd actually done all day, and all we could say was that we explored some cool new maps, and learned a lot about a character we don't really like.

As for her writing itself, I do feel like the intentions behind Wuk's character arc and overall plot was okay, and I actually did like a lot of the ideas that were presented, but I feel like the execution was incredibly rough and really came down to how much you interpret everything the way the writer intended. I feel like a lot of this comes from the writer's heavy preference or style to "tell" rather than "show." I've noticed that nearly all of the examples that people who enjoy the character point to in terms of her character development are purely things that are told/outright stated, rather than shown or displayed. This results in a situation where it feels like the character isn't "earning" our trust or the development in the way that characters would in other stories or expansions. If Wuk says that she's matured, then she's matured. If Wuk says that she's fixed her confidence issues, then she's fixed her confidence issues. Don't think about it.

[FlowerMilk]

Ishikawa didn't have much say in this beyond potentially a handful of scenes and it really shows when you compare it to Shadowbringers and Endwalker. And the scenes that did well, either it was a fluke or a fleeting stroke of genius. Might just end up going through new game + for those expansions then cancelling the sub. At least until I know there will be a positive future for the game.

The fact that it's really obvious for everyone what scenes she had a hand is very telling about the rest of the story. It's like taking a breath of fresh air whenever they come up and it feels like I'm actually playing one of my favorite games, FFXIV, again. She is very much missed, I hope they figure out how to bring back the same magic she brings to rest of the story. ;_;

Also I just realized Wuk Lamat is just this meme and sums up why I dislike her:



People will be like "I am literally going to kill you and everyone you care about" and she's like "let's get to know each other and have a debate about that" ughhh

[Alahian]

Just another voice adding the displeasure to the current MSQ. I am not a fan of WL. She feels like a lost, naive child that needs way too much hand holding or guidance, even though she was semi-raised by a warrior father figure, and a handmaiden that seemed relatively intelligent herself. I am not a fan of how it feels to have "Speak to WL" multiple times *in a single quest* when that could have literally been one cutscene that is linked together.

Like many others, by the time I got to a certain point in the MSQ (around the 94 quests), I was just done with listening to her. Anytime I had another CS that was majorly involved about her (which is most of them), I literally got to a point that I just skipped it. I understand the WoL isnt here to be the main story driver this time, but it feels like a bit of a slap to the face that we are effectively disregarded for anything, shoved back behind the orange cat, and given very few response options where its either agreeing with said Cheeto-cat or remaining silent then having someone else *speak for us*.

Right now, due to my sense of completionism, I will finish this MSQ/Expac, just to have it done, but I do not think I will ever feel the same trust I had before in future story lines.

"Pray Return to Weak Lemon" should be the title of every quest past the first. It fits better.

[Oizen]

Wuk didn't even have a character arc, which is why I dont get why she talked so much.