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

[EusisLandale]

okay honest question. Aside from le tacos xD , what was the culture in each zone?

Birds like wind magic and reeds, easily forget about big wind magic float making it so they have reeds.
Goblins like kidnapping people who make stuff, have turned to legal means of doing it.
Short people like alpacas, booze, and trading. They also wear big goofy masks.
Giants enslaved people, but it's ok now that they only just recently stopped and became historians.
Cats like tacos, dislike lizards but get along anyway because big lizard liked tacos.
Lizards have a eugenics program that necessitates a dead baby storage area, dislike cats but only some can get along because they hate living in a pit.
Bunnies and non furry cats have banditry, and banditry disguised as law enforcement. Also farming, the only thing they wouldn't give up when conquered by a super advanced society.
Advanced society worships a god queen computer, erased the concept of death by way of mass brainwashing and treating souls as currency but not actually solving death itself.
Deadman Disneyland.

[Papayatar]

okay honest question. Aside from le tacos xD , what was the culture in each zone?

Pelupelu: Mostly trading focused but also Alpaca farmers.

HanuHanu: Reeds are important to their culture/way of life, so much so a Harvest-like festival is about them.

Giants: Afterlife stuff based around memory to keep them “alive”. To the point that important events or deeds are recorded in stone (p.much long form epitaph) even while the person is alive.

Xbr’aal & Mamool Ja: ?????
The tacos came from a combination of foods from both zones but that didn’t really seem culturally important? Felt more like if one side had fries and the other had chili and they made chili fries as a sign of peace/unity, but weirdly only one side embraced it as special. I think them putting aside their differences was the “culture” thing but that really just resulted in a long term ceasefire since they didn’t intermingle ever and still were secretly trading goods between one another.

Western Town: Wild West is the culture…probably?

Heritage Found/S9/Living Memory: Similar to giants philosophy but put to the extreme via AI Ghost made with memories, and also erasing memories of the dead from the living so they don’t have to deal with the sadness and suffering of loss.
Also using souls as a resource, such as 1UPs with human souls and “performance enhancer” with beast/non-human souls.

[LisseyCrowe]

The fact that I can't even tell how Tural is governed or what a Dawnservant even does says a lot more how much world-building was truly done. It gets stranger by the minute just how much of practically everything was dedicated to the Wuk. Gulool Ja Ja connected all these factions together 80 years ago and ... and ... and ..? And then we're culture-rich? Yeah?

ARR presented us with 3 fleshed out hubs and even hinted at future ones. DT gave us more questions than anything and everyone, be it supportively or not, is building their own theories to make sense of it all. The Night's Blessed are more developed than either Hubs here.

[Raven2014]

The fact that I can't even tell how Tural is governed or what a Dawnservant even does says a lot more how much world-building was truly done. It gets stranger by the minute just how much of practically everything was dedicated to the Wuk. Gulool Ja Ja connected all these factions together 80 years ago and ... and ... and ..? And then we're culture-rich? Yeah?

Yep, they dedicate so much of the writing to make sure the players can see and appreciate Wuk that there isn't much space left for other thing. You raised a good point, we are often given a good picture of how the government of the place we visit, and Tural is like the first one that were just kinda brushed over.

We had more insight on the social structure and fuction of the Azem steppe tribes in one zone than Tural in the whole expansion.

[Ramiee]

ARR presented us with 3 fleshed out hubs and even hinted at future ones. DT gave us more questions than anything and everyone, be it supportively or not, is building their own theories to make sense of it all. The Night's Blessed are more developed than either Hubs here.

I want more Eorzea zones tbh. Honestly I dream of them having the connected map from 1.0 somehow readded into the game, it will never happen but the idea of travelling that giant bridge to go to into the city of limsa is so cool.
Also want to actually see more of ala Mihgo there's no way that area in stormblood is the entirety of it, like come on it should be as big as uldah.

[Alchemii]

I want more Eorzea zones tbh. Honestly I dream of them having the connected map from 1.0 somehow readded into the game, it will never happen but the idea of travelling that giant bridge to go to into the city of limsa is so cool.
Also want to actually see more of ala Mihgo there's no way that area in stormblood is the entirety of it, like come on it should be as big as uldah.

I agree, it is probably about time they start bringing back 1.0 stuff.

[ViaDesperare]

How did Hiroi land this job? How did zero editors fix these brutally repetitive, pointless sections? How much of a say did Ishikawa actually have in any of this? This isn't just bad, it's worryingly bad.

Didn't Hiroi used to run his own theatre company? His plays must've been atrocious.
Considering his other works, I do question if he had an editor influence him. Mangakas often have an editor to work with and they'll give advice and what not, so it wouldn't be strange to have an editor oversee his writing. The writing just feels so off, to the point that I expect that someone else had a strong involvement with it. Wouldn't want to blame it all on Hiroi when his other works were at least acceptable.

[Raven2014]

WL comes to our room clearly anxious about something. My ears perk up because I usually love quiet scenes like this where we have a 1:1 convo with an NPC! She looks shifty and concerned - wow, maybe there's something important on her mind! Maybe she's doubting her worldview a little. Maybe she's been challenged!

...

I knew that!! It's never been challenged by the narrative even once! Why would I have forgotten this?? Why are they treating this scene like it's a grand revelation on WL's part? Absolutely nothing has changed! Why was she anxious to restate this character motivation?!

They did it because it was done before with the like of G'ahara, with Albert of the first, or other scions near the end of EW ... the problem they copied the act, but not the essence.

A lot of things in DT felt like the writers watch a great performance of a certain singer with a certain song and think it's just the song, and as long as they use the same song it will always be a great performance as long as they use the same song ... regardless of the singer.

[Mortex]

Emet's first appearance in Stormblood had him get shot dead with a closeup on his corpse's face, and the post-Elpis cutscene with Venat had her caked in blood. They can't have a character collapsing in a pool of their own blood for age rating reasons, but they didn't shy away from pushing what they could get away with either. A duel using real bullets, someone taking one, and having some red around the wound and on the ground wouldn't be at odds with how things were in the past.

Don’t forget estinien killing nidhogg and effectively using his blood (that came out like a fountain) as a dye for this fukking armor. Like they did way way way way gruesome stuff over the years but stop at wild animals western duels and rubber bullets. Like reading this dialogue made more wheeze so bad I needed water afterwards because of how pitiful this idea was.

[OgruMogru]

Don’t forget estinien killing nidhogg and effectively using his blood (that came out like a fountain) as a dye for this fukking armor. Like they did way way way way gruesome stuff over the years but stop at wild animals western duels and rubber bullets. Like reading this dialogue made more wheeze so bad I needed water afterwards because of how pitiful this idea was.

Last expac someone "rubber-bulleted" themselves in the head and the bloodsplatter was there for months >.>