Where do we go from here? DT Story and beyond

[Andevom]

I don't like the cup thing with shard travel. It trivializes what before was such a difficult, rare feat, that even impressed Emet Selch when G'raha could do it - and that took him years and a lot of effort to be successful at. Now in less than 2 years we've been to 3 more different shards, have parts of it in the Source and have something that potentially gives us free access to others.

I wish we'd ignore everything about Dawntrail and do as Emet said at the end of EW: let's only explore Etheirys for a while. I'd love an expansion focused on Meracydia, about dragons and allagans. We don't need all the Scions with us at all times, but I still want them there! In a Meracydia expansion, the obvious companions would be Estinien and G'raha because of what they know (and also because we still have 3 promises to keep to G'raha that the game completely ignored after 6.0). We could maybe take Krile as well, because it could be a Students of Baldesion thing and we'd get to finally learn what they're doing and how they work, and give her the development we expected from her in Dawntrail and never got. She got a backstory, but never CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. I want to see her research things, show us what she loved and what she is passionate about.

I feel it's a given the Allagans are gonna get the focus at some point.

But I'm not that enthused about it. I like that we only get bits and pieces of their history, and they're something we explore through stumbling across their handiwork. It ruins the magic if it goes further than that.

[chizLemons]

I feel it's a given the Allagans are gonna get the focus at some point.

But I'm not that enthused about it. I like that we only get bits and pieces of their history, and they're something we explore through stumbling across their handiwork. It ruins the magic if it goes further than that.

But couldn't that be said about anything that we learn more about, though? Why is learning more about the Allagans any different than learning more about the Ascians, for example? Did it ruin the "magic" to you?
Even with an entire expansion focused on them, I don't even think we'd learn everything there is to learn anyway. Their influence and empire was huge and lasted very long. If we also compare it to the ascians again, even today as much as we learned about them during ShB and EW, there's still a lot that's not been explained and we don't know about.

[Andevom]

But couldn't that be said about anything that we learn more about, though? Why is learning more about the Allagans any different than learning more about the Ascians, for example? Did it ruin the "magic" to you?
Even with an entire expansion focused on them, I don't even think we'd learn everything there is to learn anyway. Their influence and empire was huge and lasted very long. If we also compare it to the ascians again, even today as much as we learned about them during ShB and EW, there's still a lot that's not been explained and we don't know about.

The Ascians are a perfect example of this. Wasn't a fan of the whole Elpis section of Endwalker and Pandemonium. It did ruin some of the magic for me, and I don't feel exploring it that deeply was necessary.

[TBerry]

I'm willing to bet Y'shtola will take great interest in the artifact so you'll have to bear with it.
I personally would like to know about the history of Milala's and whether what they say is indeed true.

[Andryl]

I'd hope for a true adventure with Erenville, he talked about exploring new grounds, and the WoL said he/she was going back on the roads, so I'd like a true exploration adventure with the bunny boy.

I kinda liked the desert mini-story with erenville before going in Alexandria, unfortunatly it was the classical "ho damn, there are bad guys, Warrior of Light, defender of the whole univers and slayer of ancient gods, solve this scooby-doo mistery !" but the vibe in the desert, it was the only area i wanted to explore at 100%, and the fact that we were NOT with the scions was quite refreshing and it hyped me a lot

[Shibi]

I still see a convoluted way that time might be involved.

[Bonoki]

We'll probably use the hourglass goblet for the Cosmic Exploration lifestyle content.

Imagine SE using the remaining shards as Island Sanctuary lifestyle content. lmao

[aTanpopo]

Going to Meracydia would be cool since its one of those places that has been mentioned since the beginning. Also wouldn't mind seeing Corvos- honestly I expected to get to go there either in post EW or in the expansion (this was before they announced DT) since G'raha was talking about how the fall of The Empire was going to effect it.

Shardhopping could be fun, though I'm more interested in going back to the First and Thirteenth than seeing completely new shards tbh. Giving the scions a chance to go back and see people from Shb would be some nice content for post-MSQ and seeing if there has been any development in restoring the Thirteenth would be cool too. I would even suggest tying the two together with restoring the area in the first during Eden having parallels to the Thirteenth, but I guess that would cause a lot of continuity issues if players hadn't actually done the Eden raids so that specific dream might be dead in the water. Maybe it could be a side quest.

Outside of the scions, I think Erenville probably has the biggest reason to come with us on any content in the near future since he says he wants to fulfil his mother's dream of seeing all kinds of nature there is to see in the world, but whether they will actually keep him around or he'll just pop up in places as a cameo appearance idk. I hope he stays- rotating reoccurring characters in and out for future expansions might help avoid more incidents like the Twins being in DT and contributing absolutely nothing. Focussing on actually giving characters who haven't had arcs for a while (looking at you Y'shtola) instead of trying to just include everyone all the time would be my biggest wish going forward. So far G'raha and Erenville have specifically said they want to journey with you, and Y'Shtola and Estinien haven't really had much done with them for a while, so they're top of my list for next expac companions.

I'd hope they make Wuk Lamat mature a bit and realise she can't just keep going off on adventures as she needs to rule a nation now, but I suspect she'll probably have to come with us too. Whatever ends up happening, I'm trying to manage my expectations as to not get my hopes up too high and end up disappointed lol.

[Midare]

I'd rather explore more of the world, we've barely seen anything.

However, there's another thing that's been bothering me, specifically who created that goblet... was I seeing things when at the last trial Azem's sigil lighted up atop of it?

[Khutulun]

By the end of the 2nd story arc (however many expansions that may be) we'll have visited all the reflections in some capacity- even if just a minor visit for raids, dungeons, deep dungeons, Eureka content, etc.

Hopefully, whenever FF14 cashes in on the setup for the 13th, we also get a few more zones on the first. It'd be nice to see the progression of the world healing through the lenses of new explorable locations in the wider world.