FFXIV has lost it's heart

[Hallarem]

"Nearly the entire continent being rendered a wasteland. While some areas remain uninhabitable even today, those which have been repopulated remain recluse and very rarely welcome contact with the civilizations of the northern hemisphere, often times attacking any who approach, whether it be by sea or by air." The art associated with Meracydia from the partial quote I gave is a desert.

So my apologies, I mispoke, it is largely cut off, but because the locals are hostile. What this means on an expansion there could be anyones guess. Maybe Garlemald style where the locals are slow to warm up to you. But I can't imagine they would make it a whole expansion. Maybe as one of two continents you visit.

Thavnair was supposed to have slaves, corruption, nobles and pleasure barges, and all that jazz according to some lore items. But it was pretty much solved too and rounded off as a happy go lucky place with just a representative of the nation and a dragon behind it, aside from the apocalypse that lasted for.. half a day? I wouldn't expect much with this writing team, they are doing their best to cut out any nuance and destroy anything (including Garlemald) that would make us look at anything "problematic" or solving politics that they had courage to tackle head on with Heavensward and partially in Stormblood. Anything that isn't "Good vs bad" "Happy vs sad" seems to be hard for them now. I miss that scene where Varis stuck the heads of the Eorzean City States with some hard facts of their hypocricy, and Nanamo fired back at him.

You know what, hot take. But if they are so adamant in simplifying everything into an emotional simple soup of goop. They might as well make the next expansion a straight up love story between two characters in the MSQ. Mix in some politics into that, a bit of Romeo and Juliet, us in the middle of it as observers and solving adventurey stuff. Easy win.

[BunnyReaper]

You know someone doesn't really have a good arguement or are just looking for reasons to be annoyed in situations like this, when they pull out the ol' diversity boogieman that the internet told them was the reason for all their (mostly fictitious) woes lol

I just know you and the other guy LOVED concord

[BunnyReaper]

Dei...really? Were you hoping for cheap robes and pointed hats? Lol, thugs robbing a CVS in NYC. I just can't right now.

Tell me one game that worked well and is still alive with heavy DEI involved.How did Dragon Age Veilguard do? Or a show maybe? I know you loved Concord, I'm sorry it shut down... But there was a reason for it.
DEI doesn't benefit anyone btw, it only lowers the quality of any product, stop trying to play virtual paladin
Also their comment has more likes then yours... Curious, maybe people are tired of token characters and stories?

[Exmo]

Elon is that you?

[BunnyReaper]

Elon is that you?

I'm sorry you can't handle opinions that differ from yours </3

[Gunz_Zbestest]

Tell me one game that worked well and is still alive with heavy DEI involved.How did Dragon Age Veilguard do? Or a show maybe? I know you loved Concord, I'm sorry it shut down... But there was a reason for it.
DEI doesn't benefit anyone btw, it only lowers the quality of any product, stop trying to play virtual paladin
Also their comment has more likes then yours... Curious, maybe people are tired of token characters and stories?

The critical success of BG3 and never heard of Concord. Why do they always say so little with so many words?

[Absurdity]

Thavnair was supposed to have slaves, corruption, nobles and pleasure barges, and all that jazz according to some lore items. But it was pretty much solved too and rounded off as a happy go lucky place with just a representative of the nation and a dragon behind it, aside from the apocalypse that lasted for.. half a day? I wouldn't expect much with this writing team, they are doing their best to cut out any nuance and destroy anything (including Garlemald) that would make us look at anything "problematic" or solving politics that they had courage to tackle head on with Heavensward and partially in Stormblood. Anything that isn't "Good vs bad" "Happy vs sad" seems to be hard for them now. I miss that scene where Varis stuck the heads of the Eorzean City States with some hard facts of their hypocricy, and Nanamo fired back at him.

You know what, hot take. But if they are so adamant in simplifying everything into an emotional simple soup of goop. They might as well make the next expansion a straight up love story between two characters in the MSQ. Mix in some politics into that, a bit of Romeo and Juliet, us in the middle of it as observers and solving adventurey stuff. Easy win.

Nuance flat out died when we went from Shadowbringers' MSQ back to "Hydaelyn good, Zodiark bad".
But on top of that they did an any % speedrun to kill any and all mystery in the game as well. Everything has just been Ascians or Ancients all along, even the gods.

Dawntrail is simply continuing that atrocious trajectory. It's actually very reminiscent of Blizzard rushing through all their actually interesting lore every expansion until they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel with clown shows like the Shadowlands and the Jailer.

[Chasingstars]

Thavnair was supposed to have slaves, corruption, nobles and pleasure barges, and all that jazz according to some lore items. But it was pretty much solved too and rounded off as a happy go lucky place with just a representative of the nation and a dragon behind it, aside from the apocalypse that lasted for.. half a day? I wouldn't expect much with this writing team, they are doing their best to cut out any nuance and destroy anything (including Garlemald) that would make us look at anything "problematic" or solving politics that they had courage to tackle head on with Heavensward and partially in Stormblood. Anything that isn't "Good vs bad" "Happy vs sad" seems to be hard for them now. I miss that scene where Varis stuck the heads of the Eorzean City States with some hard facts of their hypocricy, and Nanamo fired back at him.

You know what, hot take. But if they are so adamant in simplifying everything into an emotional simple soup of goop. They might as well make the next expansion a straight up love story between two characters in the MSQ. Mix in some politics into that, a bit of Romeo and Juliet, us in the middle of it as observers and solving adventurey stuff. Easy win.

Yeah, something has changed within the writing team. As much about prior expansions, like shadowbringers and before, was how dysfunctional things were, how there was just an abundance of corruption and suffering, from the elite to those barely getting by on the streets. Like with dawntrail my assumptions based on the teaser stuff was there would be a lot of disputes between tradition and progress, of natives and foreigners, of ceruleum being strip mined by eorezan mining companies (as demonstrated in the blue mage quests). Instead, no, there is hardly any disputes, at most "Those dang trains are too loud and the rnnoek keep getting on the tracks", and both are solved with relative ease. The closet this gets is like a side questline with a pelu who gets scammed by a ul'dah lala, and the lala later apologizes. And like a side quest of how an old guy sold some Shaaloani land for less than it was worth like 20 years ago, but the descendant of the old guy is doing fine as a money loaner.

That it almost feels saccharine sweet with how clean the morality of the Tural societies are. The most morally bankrupt it gets is like over in Solution 9 and Heritage Found, but that is like "You mean the cultish society that likes to memory police people to prevent them from remembering dead loved ones, performs inhumane experiments, and also collects and abuses other's souls for personal survival is...evil? Nah, really?" Its like finding out Sauron and his orcs are the bad guys. Like what gave it away?

[Hallarem]

Nuance flat out died when we went from Shadowbringers' MSQ back to "Hydaelyn good, Zodiark bad".
But on top of that they did an any % speedrun to kill any and all mystery in the game as well. Everything has just been Ascians or Ancients all along, even the gods.

Dawntrail is simply continuing that atrocious trajectory. It's actually very reminiscent of Blizzard rushing through all their actually interesting lore every expansion until they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel with clown shows like the Shadowlands and the Jailer.

Elune is a robot, oh yeah, I know the feeling well. The afterlife, what about beeeehind the afterlife?
Every curtain doesn't need to be opened.

But it's a very japanese rpg thing to kill all gods and remove all mysticism. I absolutely despise this trope, but it is what it is. It leaves fantasy worlds devoid of fantasy and mystery. Destroying your imagination or any theorycrafting.

[Hallarem]

Yeah, something has changed within the writing team. As much about prior expansions, like shadowbringers and before, was how dysfunctional things were, how there was just an abundance of corruption and suffering, from the elite to those barely getting by on the streets. Like with dawntrail my assumptions based on the teaser stuff was there would be a lot of disputes between tradition and progress, of natives and foreigners, of ceruleum being strip mined by eorezan mining companies (as demonstrated in the blue mage quests). Instead, no, there is hardly any disputes, at most "Those dang trains are too loud and the rnnoek keep getting on the tracks", and both are solved with relative ease. The closet this gets is like a side questline with a pelu who gets scammed by a ul'dah lala, and the lala later apologizes. And like a side quest of how an old guy sold some Shaaloani land for less than it was worth like 20 years ago, but the descendant of the old guy is doing fine as a money loaner.

That it almost feels saccharine sweet with how clean the morality of the Tural societies are. The most morally bankrupt it gets is like over in Solution 9 and Heritage Found, but that is like "You mean the cultish society that likes to memory police people to prevent them from remembering dead loved ones, performs inhumane experiments, and also collects and abuses other's souls for personal survival is...evil? Nah, really?" Its like finding out Sauron and his orcs are the bad guys. Like what gave it away?

Eorzea and everything is just being washed squeaky clean. I didn't play 1.0 but I hear a lot of stuff including the horrid things the elementals did to people, like turning them into wildlings was washed away. I think the mining guild in Ul'dah was a bordello too? Aaand lo and behold, rubber bullets and happiness, and people casting aside ages of conflict because they like tacos.