Zepla's Dawntrail MSQ Analysis

[DiaDeem]

I absolutely give Zepla more credit than I do a few other creators. She said she isn't expected to be invited again to do media tour interviews after the criticisms, and that she failed at challenging Yoshida when she had the chance, given that (understandably so) she was a bit starstruck.

[wereotter]

Honestly I watched this video and found a lot of her criticisms to be valid.

I don't outright hate Dawntrail... but I did find some of the choices to be baffling, the pacing to be odd, and the biggest thing she brings up is a complaint I shared immediately, the dialogue of a lot of the characters just didn't feel like them. I was really excited in the lead up when they said we'd be pairing off against our fellow scions over who we chose to support in the succession, even more so when I saw our team consisted of the twins. I was really looking forward to the comedic relief they bring to a lot of the scenes they're in with their bickering and teasing, but neither of them felt or sounded like themselves, and far too often when I'd talk to them while they were just standing in the field alongside the next quest objective they'd just have some kind of bland statement like "I wonder what Wuk Lamat thinks about this?"

And I mean I get it, a lot of the expansions in the past really focused on one or two major characters alongside us... Heavensward had a lot of talking to Alphinaud, Stormblood the same with Lyse... but this was just excessive.

Also like Zepla I remember as I was midway through the story thinking that Wuk is in NO way qualified or prepared to be the leader of the entire new world, and that her journey might have educated her on the various cultures of the peoples of the lands... but it didn't prepare her for leadership. And I kind of started wishing I could swap teams to Koana.... and just like Zepla I was so tired of her being constantly around after she became dawnservant... I was looking forward to seeing more development of Erinville... but no. It was Wuk all the way down imposing herself onto the story every moment like a thousand screaming toddlers...

[CuteBucket]

Just finished the video, agree with everything she said. If anything, she still found more to enjoy than I did. I think she did a really good job of highlighting how yes, Wuk Lamat is a badly written, annoying, omnipresent character that does a lot of harm to the narrative, but she is NOT the core problem. ALL of bizarre writing choices, like the corporate platitude speak, lobotomized Scions, plot grinding to a halt to talk about boring shit that doesn't matter and then glossing over or ignoring the actual interesting parts, character motivations that don't make any sense, and so on, all come together to make the story bad, with Wuk slapped on the cover.

When she said she was actually depressed for a month after Dawntrail came out, I really felt that. Honestly I only feel like I've been starting to come out of that fog myself lately because I've been finding other games to play that bring me joy. But I still love this game. I MISS this game. I WANT to play it! But I have no reason to. Nothing is out that interests me, and what I wanted to play, I've done and farmed and finished now. I miss logging in and seeing all my friends, who like me, now just pop in every now and then because we're playing other games.

And maybe to some people that sounds normal, but as a person that started this game because of hearing about how good the story was, who got so deeply invested that I met a bunch of people through communities dedicated to discussing the story and characters and who made my own little community to do the same with other fans, not have a good story and characters to discuss anymore is extremely detrimental to our enjoyment of the game. We pretty much exclusively still discuss the ARR-EW story because no one even wants to talk about DT. It's literally too boring and forgettable for a group of story focused players to want to bother talking about.

[Batbrat]

Her analysis is mostly about her rents being due

Really hate flippant replies like this.
I'm sorry your favorite game in the entire world for once is rightfully getting criticized, even by one of your biggest local e-celebrities. I know it must be so hard and unconscionable-clearly to the point that the ONLY possible explanation for it HAS to be that the persons rent is due, because why else would anyone say any of this??? It's not like any of it is true, right??

Like, I honestly-I don't get it. I don't get the ones who defend this game to this extent that any and all criticism is clearly motivated by something else. No, your game just sucks. Ok? Your game sucks. Dawntrail was terrible. It was terrible, and a large number of people disliked it. It was mediocre, rushed, and had a chance to bounce back via the success of further patches which it has thus far failed to do too as well. Our rent isnt due, we're not being paid by WoW-none of these schizophrenic conspiracy theories as to why someone would ever say anything negative about the game are true. We just played the game while also paying attention to it. That was our crime. We played eyes open, ears listening, mind comprehending-not slack jawed, half scrolling on twitter for memes and clapping every time the Smile song came on. Dawntrail was a disaster.

I don't even like any of this games parasitic attention starved """content""" creators, and even I have to objectively agree that everything that girl said in that never-ending video was true. She meticulously pointed out a mountain of flaws in the story with evidence and paired it side by side of examples previously in the game- and she wasnt wrong. Hate her as much as you want, but she wasn't wrong. The story was all this game had left and now even THAT is falling into the trash.

[Hyperia]

It really looks like the DT story was created quite some time ago and it was going to be a good one. But somehow, someone meddled in the story, like a late rewrite and that messed everything up. I bet a lot of the spoken dialogue was done but had to be thrown out due to the rewrite. Spoken dialogue that was missing but obviously should have been was probably part of the new material.

All the Scions and especially Krile most likely had their special moments, but they had to be thrown out or dramatically scaled back to allow for the new focus on Wuk Lamat.

I have a hunch as to who this could be but I will not say because I do not have verifiable evidence.

If someone did meddle and their identity comes out, and I am right, the amount of heck to pay is going to be really bad.

[TemporalFruitsAndVeggies]

It really looks like the DT story was created quite some time ago and it was going to be a good one. But somehow, someone meddled in the story, like a late rewrite and that messed everything up. I bet a lot of the spoken dialogue was done but had to be thrown out due to the rewrite. Spoken dialogue that was missing but obviously should have been was probably part of the new material.

All the Scions and especially Krile most likely had their special moments, but they had to be thrown out or dramatically scaled back to allow for the new focus on Wuk Lamat.

I have a hunch as to who this could be but I will not say because I do not have verifiable evidence.

If someone did meddle and their identity comes out, and I am right, the amount of heck to pay is going to be really bad.

This just sounds like total conspiracy theory. Of course you have a bunch of vague reasons as to why you can't reveal who you think "meddled" and why, just like every conspiracy theorist about every topic. What "heck to pay" will there be? Will SE lose your $15 a month until you come inexorably crawling back for 8.0? Oh dear.

Basically every long-running story has had sub-par chapters, across all media, for all of time. This isn't even FFXIV's first, lol.

[Oizen]

The most concerning part is Square Enix's radio silence on this

[KitaiAryik]

The most concerning part is Square Enix's radio silence on this

This is my biggest concern as well. Outside of maybe a couple comments in live letters/interviews that has me concerned YoshiP and team misunderstood feedback, is the lack of updates from the devs outside of live letters on basically anything and the only LL we even had since launch is right before 7.1 aslo has me real worried/wondering wtf is going on over there for this kind of radio silence. hell we didn't even get a roadmap this time around.

[CuteBucket]

This just sounds like total conspiracy theory. Of course you have a bunch of vague reasons as to why you can't reveal who you think "meddled" and why, just like every conspiracy theorist about every topic. What "heck to pay" will there be? Will SE lose your $15 a month until you come inexorably crawling back for 8.0? Oh dear.

Basically every long-running story has had sub-par chapters, across all media, for all of time. This isn't even FFXIV's first, lol.

They're probably blaming the specter of "Woke" "DEI" consulting firms or something, just guessing from what I've seen the conspiracy folks around the forums say since DT dropped.

I seriously disliked Dawntrail and was shocked at how incompetent of a story and world it built, but I don't think it has anything to do with Sweet Baby Inc. or whatever company is in people's crosshairs that isn't even confirmed to have worked on the game. I think it's the usual mundane suspects when a project like this goes wrong: bad management and corporate financial decisions on Square Enix's part, shuffling former writers and devs into other projects and leaving FFXIV with less staff and budget.

[BigCheez]

Really hate flippant replies like this.
I'm sorry your favorite game in the entire world for once is rightfully getting criticized, even by one of your biggest local e-celebrities. I know it must be so hard and unconscionable-clearly to the point that the ONLY possible explanation for it HAS to be that the persons rent is due, because why else would anyone say any of this??? It's not like any of it is true, right??

Like, I honestly-I don't get it. I don't get the ones who defend this game to this extent that any and all criticism is clearly motivated by something else. No, your game just sucks. Ok? Your game sucks. Dawntrail was terrible. It was terrible, and a large number of people disliked it. It was mediocre, rushed, and had a chance to bounce back via the success of further patches which it has thus far failed to do too as well. Our rent isnt due, we're not being paid by WoW-none of these schizophrenic conspiracy theories as to why someone would ever say anything negative about the game are true. We just played the game while also paying attention to it. That was our crime. We played eyes open, ears listening, mind comprehending-not slack jawed, half scrolling on twitter for memes and clapping every time the Smile song came on. Dawntrail was a disaster.

I don't even like any of this games parasitic attention starved """content""" creators, and even I have to objectively agree that everything that girl said in that never-ending video was true. She meticulously pointed out a mountain of flaws in the story with evidence and paired it side by side of examples previously in the game- and she wasnt wrong. Hate her as much as you want, but she wasn't wrong. The story was all this game had left and now even THAT is falling into the trash.

The people who parrot this nonsense don't even realise how dumb they are. If I were you, I wouldn't even waste my time responding to them.

Long form content does not do well on YouTube. The algorithm pushes 10 minute videos infinitely harder than 1 hour+ videos and shorter videos require much less time to make. If you want to make money on YouTube, you push out short videos regularly. You do not spend a long period of time writing, recording and editing a 1 hour and 15 minute video and have that be the only piece of content uploaded to your channel over a period of several months.

Trying to dismiss this kind of well considered and presented criticism as a cash grab is peak brain damage.