Revelations from Dawntrail (7.0)

[Alleluia]

I'm not yet ready to throw my hat into the "It was Ascians! Again!" ring just yet. I can't imagine they would go through the whole Rejoining business if they had the doohickey that could brute force dimensional fusion, but Yoshi-P did say to remember both the Ascians and the Twelve...

Considering the symbol on it...

was Azem's, even if the ascians were working on it, they probably couldn't get it to work cus Azem ascian-proofed it.

But either way, I doubt Preservation was ascians, cus their goals of preserving people from the lightning would be counterproductive to ascian goals of rejoining. And also, are any ascians gonna be ok with directly consuming soul aether like mako from FF7? If it actually destroys the aoul aether, then I'd think that's a hard no.

Course they could have been involved till they weren't....? Like Allag being set in motion and then left to do w/e stupid stuff it wanted. G'raha even compares Preservation/Alexandria to Allag during one of the dungeons. So what do I know? lol

I'm most interested in the artifact that can bridge worlds having our symbol on it when it activates. Perhaps THIS is what Azem was doing during the Final Days-- finding a way to peacefully bridge the separation that Hydaelyn would cause, without killing everyone to do it. Still leaves the mystery of how Azem knows to pursue this course in the first place? Could be Venat told them, but they also have that unexplained foreknowledge that we'd be showing up for Panda. So they might know about the sundering for the same reason they knew about that, whatever that reason is.

I'm excited to get more answers on this. The idea of leaving what Azem was doing ambiguous always bugged me. If they were truly Emet and Hyth's best friend/found family, they should have been there for them at the end if they were able. Especially for someone who's primary magic is motivated by the idea of friends being there when you need them most. Unless they had a good reason to not be there. Finding a solution to the aftermath of Hydaelyn/Zodiark is a good reason.

[therpgfanatic]

Actually, involving that scene, I assumed that the

reason Azem's symbol appeared on it is because we hijacked control over it to use it to summon other Warriors of Light to help us. So its probably a device of Ascian make.

[Iscah]

95-97 zone:

Yeah, there's something there, hopefully MSQ and not allied society related.

At most I was able to deduce that both Shepetto and Koana have purple eyes, though not the same shade of purple. Also, he's height 0 tail 0 (like G'raha) rather than being a new body type, so the illusion of youth is the result of making his head slightly larger than normal, which also makes him slightly taller than my height 4 WoL.

Regarding the character customisations

I haven't done a direct comparison on heights, but the hairstyle Shepetto uses is the same style (and same face) I use for my character Zi'aba and it is very fluffed up around the back of the head, and I've thought before that it makes his head look bigger than it actually is. It works well for shorter characters since they just end up smaller overall, so making the head look bigger balances them out a bit.

I need to play around with it, but I suspect the actual customisation they've done is just removing the thick eyeliner that has been added to face 3 during the character redesigns, which on the standard faces (and G'raha) is covering up that they've moved changed the shape of the eyelid a lot. At one point while discussing the character changes at the benchmark stage I had experimentally photoshopped a version of Zi'aba with the eyeliner erased back to skin colour, and it ended up looking not unlike Shepetto's face.

I'm generally not happy with the alterations to male Miqo'te faces – not just my own two characters but a lot of NPCs just have an off look about them.

[Alleluia]

Regarding the character customisations

I haven't done a direct comparison on heights, but the hairstyle Shepetto uses is the same style (and same face) I use for my character Zi'aba and it is very fluffed up around the back of the head, and I've thought before that it makes his head look bigger than it actually is. It works well for shorter characters since they just end up smaller overall, so making the head look bigger balances them out a bit.

I need to play around with it, but I suspect the actual customisation they've done is just removing the thick eyeliner that has been added to face 3 during the character redesigns, which on the standard faces (and G'raha) is covering up that they've moved changed the shape of the eyelid a lot. At one point while discussing the character changes at the benchmark stage I had experimentally photoshopped a version of Zi'aba with the eyeliner erased back to skin colour, and it ended up looking not unlike Shepetto's face.

I'm generally not happy with the alterations to male Miqo'te faces – not just my own two characters but a lot of NPCs just have an off look about them.

I agree on some of the customization change stuff. Like, the twins have noticeable puffiness under their eyes that I do not recall existing before. Their mom had it, but I thought it was a sign of age, not just a family trait. I mean, I suppose it makes them look more like their mom to have it now, but still, it was jarring. To be fair, I'm mostly not noticing it now. lol

[Iscah]

I agree on some of the customization change stuff. Like, the twins have noticeable puffiness under their eyes that I do not recall existing before. Their mom had it, but I thought it was a sign of age, not just a family trait. I mean, I suppose it makes them look more like their mom to have it now, but still, it was jarring. To be fair, I'm mostly not noticing it now. lol

Puffiness under the eyes seems to have been an all-round curse across lots of character models, and in at least one case I think it has been deliberately added and not just the new "realistic" lighting casting shadows differently. It's really disappointing and I hope they can fix it, or change their mind if it was a stylistic choice.

It's making some of my characters look like they haven't slept for a week.

[Cleretic]

Considering the symbol on it...

I actually think the symbol knocks a lot of theories people are throwing around, while also raising a lot of questions.

So, the key lets people travel across to another shard--possibly just one other shard, possibly multiple, it likely doesn't matter. That makes sense why it pulls up Azem's symbol; they're the traveler, they're exactly the right figure to evoke for a form of impossible transit.

...but the form of transit it provides actually rules out it being made by Azem, because the shards didn't exist until after they did. The key would have been utterly useless back when they were someone who could've made it. On a slightly different tack, it also reasonably wouldn't be the Ascians, who didn't need the extra help to do that. So I'm just left with a big shrug; I don't know who could've possibly made it, or to what end.

...however, the way Sphene talks about it, I can't entirely rule out that it's somehow a trigger weapon being described and evoked by someone who doesn't have a concept of primals. That seems really unlikely, but if it's true, that means EUREKA'S BACK ON THE MENU, BABY!

And as for Preservation: if the Ascians are involved in anything around Alexandria that matters, I think it's there. It smells like them, especially from the angle of, again, the perspective of people who don't know their angles. It reads to me like an Allag-style 'set up a big piece for a big fall', perhaps also mixing in Elidibus' 'controlled opposition' angle. However, I'd also add that if it is an Ascian plan, I don't think it's a successful one; I think they screwed it up even before they started dying to Critical Underestimation Incidents.

[Denishia]

I've been calling our new plot MacGuffin the Hougyoku from Bleach, because the parallels are a little too strong. Said jewel was at first theorized to be just a power-up creation but then the theory was too limiting in its true plot vague potential of "grants the secret unacknowledged desires of the holder" - and ultimately it was also the plot device to create the artificial key to open up a dimension to travel to.

The MSQ keeps beating you over the head that its original purpose was more extensive or originally designed for something other

than Shard opening. It only got pigeon-holed into that because the South Seas Lalafell wished for 'escape our island' instead of 'power to melt all the ice'. Speaking of which, until proven otherwise, it is the best explanation for the secret of Gulool Ja's creation.

[Alleluia]

I actually think the symbol knocks a lot of theories people are throwing around, while also raising a lot of questions.

So, the key lets people travel across to another shard--possibly just one other shard, possibly multiple, it likely doesn't matter. That makes sense why it pulls up Azem's symbol; they're the traveler, they're exactly the right figure to evoke for a form of impossible transit.

...but the form of transit it provides actually rules out it being made by Azem, because the shards didn't exist until after they did. The key would have been utterly useless back when they were someone who could've made it. On a slightly different tack, it also reasonably wouldn't be the Ascians, who didn't need the extra help to do that. So I'm just left with a big shrug; I don't know who could've possibly made it, or to what end.

...however, the way Sphene talks about it, I can't entirely rule out that it's somehow a trigger weapon being described and evoked by someone who doesn't have a concept of primals. That seems really unlikely, but if it's true, that means EUREKA'S BACK ON THE MENU, BABY!

And as for Preservation: if the Ascians are involved in anything around Alexandria that matters, I think it's there. It smells like them, especially from the angle of, again, the perspective of people who don't know their angles. It reads to me like an Allag-style 'set up a big piece for a big fall', perhaps also mixing in Elidibus' 'controlled opposition' angle. However, I'd also add that if it is an Ascian plan, I don't think it's a successful one; I think they screwed it up even before they started dying to Critical Underestimation Incidents.

10characters

the fact the shards didn’t exist yet doesn’t rule out Azem making it. Venat knew what was going to happen and how. She may have confided in Azem what she was planning to do and Azem just needed to be familiar with the mechanism behind the sundering to eventually work out this rift bridge.

Or there’s the more out there idea that Azem knows the future on their own somehow and used that knowledge to give them an idea of what they needed to make. Again, Azem knew we were coming for Pandemonium and nothing has explained how, yet.

Regarding the ascians in the unlost world, I’d have expected their fingerprints to be all over Lindblum and it’s super weapon rather than on Preservation. I mean they could be in both. But the weapon very obviously creates the overwhelming presence of lightning on the shard, which is what you’d need from it for a rejoining. Preservation seems to bring the world back from the brink in a way. Of course, eulmore offered a certain kind of solace from the flood, too, but it ultimately served their plans, so this could be the same. It’s certainly a house made of dubious moral cards, like eulmore.

[Rannie]

So i finished the msq a few days ago I've been half disgusted of it to even finish up my thoughts on it. However I decided to go ahead and try to. And if people agree with me they agree if they disagree they disagree.

so i stopped off basically with the first half of it. Which was some of the most boring parts of the game mostly and that is by much either. I still stand by the fact that Wuk Lamat is this worst character I have ever come across in any game, book, or movie that I've laid my eyes upon and took in. People like to tout that she had character growth during the game, however, there was little if any... absolutely none in my estimation. She's an over powered unlikeable Mary Sue/Blackhole Sue and quite honestly looks she's someone's OC character that was put into the game. Her English voice actress from from the previous patches caused me to play it in Japanese which while she was better that doesn't even save the character. Her comedy also fell flat and looked like it tried to emulate Sailor Moon... No Tsukino Usagi had better silly slap stick comedy than what the character Wuk Lamat has. Also she was better written than that cat person.

The whole portion with us going to the wild west version of the world was while better than the beginning of the game still had the plot jacked by something that involved Wuk Lamat and killed any enjoyment that I would have had with it. That's also not mentioning the whole it's the "lawless" wild west but using rubber bullets. I mean even Mch uses an aetherically created bullets for their guns. All in all even though i was running around with Erenville, the enjoyment just wasn't there.

the last areas and last parts of the game... I don't even know where to begin. They took, SHB, Endwalker, as well as pieces of the Matrix and decided to smush it all together in a rewrite... it was horrible. Honestly this is the portion where I'm sitting here holding my head in my hands saying what the.... the whole time. I mean using souls as batteries and putting the memories in a VR system to they can "live on". It kills me to see people constantly go on about the Endless and our characters turning off the computers but not one person is saying a peep about the whole they're using souls as fricken batteries!!!! Like seriously if souls with the memories were going to be going to the aetherial sea when they died the MEMORIES are going to be erased to begin with. What exactly is happening with the actual Soul portion that they're using to raise themselves. are they destroying the souls or what?!?

Then there was what looked like the ass pull of them just so happening to create a treaty between Radz at Han and Tural? All because of Alphinaud and Estinien...

I'm not going to even get started on that "azem" Key Mcguffin... no... just no...

I just really don't know what the writers where thinking when they wrote this....

I've been playing this game since 1.0 Closed Beta... and having to repeatedly start in Limsa in beta didn't even make me hate this game this much. I get that a story can start out slow. Even then a story can be slow but still have hooks in it. This one had absolutely none and quite frankly I'm really starting to wonder if i should even keep my sub.


One more Edit:

I forgot to mention... Krile got shafted HARD in this expansion especially after they said that she would be more of a focus on it. Like i said in another thread... Damn near ever time she dared to asked about her grandfather she was rebuffed with a "we can't talk about it" .... like seriously i'd rather be drip fed and had little parts of the story told as we went along... no we get an echo scene that was narrated and not even a true echo with what happened. The show don't tell is completely lacking in this story.

[Vallavia]

10characters

the fact the shards didn’t exist yet doesn’t rule out Azem making it. Venat knew what was going to happen and how. She may have confided in Azem what she was planning to do and Azem just needed to be familiar with the mechanism behind the sundering to eventually work out this rift bridge.

Or there’s the more out there idea that Azem knows the future on their own somehow and used that knowledge to give them an idea of what they needed to make. Again, Azem knew we were coming for Pandemonium and nothing has explained how, yet.

Regarding the ascians in the unlost world, I’d have expected their fingerprints to be all over Lindblum and it’s super weapon rather than on Preservation. I mean they could be in both. But the weapon very obviously creates the overwhelming presence of lightning on the shard, which is what you’d need from it for a rejoining. Preservation seems to bring the world back from the brink in a way. Of course, eulmore offered a certain kind of solace from the flood, too, but it ultimately served their plans, so this could be the same. It’s certainly a house made of dubious moral cards, like eulmore.

I have to agree.

I always assumed that the reason for Azem's absconding from society during the Final Days was due to the knowledge of Venat's plan requiring them to be sundered rather than a necessarily ideological objection to the summoning of Hydaelyn, but I think there was at least some acknowledgement that neither endless sacrifices to Zodiark nor the Sundering were ideal solutions. Even Hydaelyn views her trial of mankind as cruel and unjust and borne of urgency rather than being the ideal solution. Going rogue and pursuing a means to mitigate the metaphysical fallout of the two summonings seems in line with Azem's prior characterization, and like Denishia said it seems likely that the Key has other purposes as well.