8.0 story wish

[YISUG]

I hope the Dimensional Key turns out to not be what we think it is, and it turns out to be Auracite, but it gets stolen in the lead up to 8.0. And so we have to get it back, and our adventure send us back to Dalmasca where we defeated Ultima The High Seraph, and back into the Aetherial Sea where we defeated Athena where we learn that it is being mined for energy, and the mining operation is being carried out from Meracydia.

unfortunately, chances that ultima and dalmasca will be involved are close to 0, because:-
1-side content
2-everything related to ivalice was 100% scrapped

this is definitely the biggest clue to why people believe that the game's team skipped a planned garlemald expansion, it seems bozja was supposed to be continued in the following expansion, but they just closed what happened to the 4th leigon in the codex shortly after they released the final part of bozja

these are 2 very strong reasons why we can't expect ANY high seraph involvment, beside, look at how they speed-ran old lore in endwalker like path of the twelve, they just want to close these and build new lore and new stuff, they even recently published a lore\story builder job listing for XIV

the twleve questline was a big chance for the deities to talk about older eras and calamities and reveal more lore, but it is what it is i guess

[mallleable]

unfortunately, chances that ultima and dalmasca will be involved are close to 0, because:-
1-side content
2-everything related to ivalice was 100% scrapped

this is definitely the biggest clue to why people believe that the game's team skipped a planned garlemald expansion, it seems bozja was supposed to be continued in the following expansion, but they just closed what happened to the 4th leigon in the codex shortly after they released the final part of bozja

these are 2 very strong reasons why we can't expect ANY high seraph involvment, beside, look at how they speed-ran old lore in endwalker like path of the twelve, they just want to close these and build new lore and new stuff, they even recently published a lore\story builder job listing for XIV

the twleve questline was a big chance for the deities to talk about older eras and calamities and reveal more lore, but it is what it is i guess

Yeah, Dalmasca might be trickier to pull off, but I think making Pandaemonium MSQ relevant could be a safer option considering its ties to The Heart of Sabik, and Ascians, and can be used to point us in the direction of like Ultima Prime being the big bad or something.

[Kozh]

unfortunately, chances that ultima and dalmasca will be involved are close to 0, because:-
1-side content
2-everything related to ivalice was 100% scrapped

this is definitely the biggest clue to why people believe that the game's team skipped a planned garlemald expansion, it seems bozja was supposed to be continued in the following expansion, but they just closed what happened to the 4th leigon in the codex shortly after they released the final part of bozja

these are 2 very strong reasons why we can't expect ANY high seraph involvment, beside, look at how they speed-ran old lore in endwalker like path of the twelve, they just want to close these and build new lore and new stuff, they even recently published a lore\story builder job listing for XIV

the twleve questline was a big chance for the deities to talk about older eras and calamities and reveal more lore, but it is what it is i guess

I'm still very salty about this. Thanks to yoshi-p deciding to ride on ShB success coattail, we will never get a garlemald and dalmasca expansion. Endwalker is a mistake is the hill I'll die on.

[ZXN]

My dream area before was, well, Bozja, after pretty much living in the area for the entirety of Shadowbringers. Once you completed the entire Bozja story, you could talk to Bajsaljen and ask him about "What will become of Bozja?", he ends his standard political stuff by saying they would hold elections where people can choose who best to represent their ideals and saying they were going to hold said elections in the next two years and then hoped you would see how far Bozja has come next time you visited. Unfortunately with Matsuno saying that the Ivalice/Dalmasca plans "disappeared", along with Yoshi-P and the devs apparently snuffing a planned Garlemald expansion, and them most likely not wanting to make any part of the Ivalice/Bozja raids/zones mandatory like they did Crystal Tower with Shadowbringers given how many people hated Ivalice/Bozja, any hope to go to a zone I would've liked to see died, so I stopped huffing that copium fairly quick.

Honestly with 8.0 I would rather they just try do their own thing instead of another "Here is just FF# being told in FF14!" Meracydia is probably the most obvious place to visit next world wise, but I get the feeling that would probably just also be reduced to nothing but constant "LOOK AT THE FF6 REFERENCES AND PARALLELS EVERYONE!!!" as jingling keys to hook players given the warring triad and omega raid series and whatnot along with throwing in as many stereo-typically Australian things as possible. Boomerangs and spiders for everyone.

[ThaCa]

I hope they would actually weave different storylines, instead of just following one trail. Like getting entangled with some local politics, hunting for treasure, progress on shard travel etc. so it becomes clear that the world lives and moves on outside of your character's influence and how you cannot be everywhere at once to solve all the problems.

Still sidelining some major events like the succession wars of garlemald and dalmasca among with other stuff feels bad. If the events have a relation to you, it would be nice to still have some level of coverage instead of almost complete bypass. It's fine if you aren't there for everything, but it would be nice to at least have characters talk or even show what is transpiring instead of demoting them to some footnote text.

[Aniya_Estlihn]

Since dawn trail had inspirations from ff9, I hope 8.0 has major inspiration from ffx.

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but according to the 7.2 Famitsu interview, after 7.3 the FF9 references and influences will only increase and become more direct leading into 8.0.

The initial idea for 7.2's dungeon and trial was to "keep it away from FF9" but for things that are coming after 7.3, putting in FF9 references more directly would be fitting. So things were changed a bit to reference FF9 more even if the substance of the story wasn't changed. That's why the trial is Beatrix-bot.

Source

It is highly, incredibly likely that 8.0 is going to take place on the Ninth.

likely not wanting to make any part of the Ivalice/Bozja raids/zones mandatory like they did Crystal Tower with Shadowbringers given how many people hated Ivalice/Bozja, any hope to go to a zone I would've liked to see died, so I stopped huffing that copium fairly quick.

Mandatory side quest requirements were killed with Endwalker when they stated during a panel at the last fanfest that the narrative from 6.0 onward would be written without taking side-quest completion into account. If the narrative needs it, they'll fit it in, regardless of if a player has completed it.
I can attest to this as I didn't do Bozja on one of my characters, and yet the Resistance was still present for me in the throne room seen and they acted like they knew me, despite the fact I had never done the content.

[mallleable]

Not to be the bearer of bad news, but according to the 7.2 Famitsu interview, after 7.3 the FF9 references and influences will only increase and become more direct leading into 8.0.

Source

It is highly, incredibly likely that 8.0 is going to take place on the Ninth.

Ehh, not necessarily. Post Endwalker patches were loaded with FFIV references, and yet Dawntrail has ended up being the FFIX expansion. 7.5, and .55 could throw us some curveballs that lead us in a totally different direction for 8.0.

Looking at the context from the interview, it seem like they are realizing that that the FFIX references can be used deliberately to tell their post Dawntrail story instead of it just being shallow nostalgia bait. Not a lot to glean about 8.0 still.

[Kozh]

Ehh, not necessarily. Post Endwalker patches were loaded with FFIV references, and yet Dawntrail has ended up being the FFIX expansion. 7.5, and .55 could throw us some curveballs that lead us in a totally different direction for 8.0.

Looking at the context from the interview, it seem like they are realizing that that the FFIX references can be used deliberately to tell their post Dawntrail story instead of it just being shallow nostalgia bait. Not a lot to glean about 8.0 still.

I think post EW is a bit different since they're more side quest like, rather than msq tbh.

Honestly I hope they don't double down on ff9 if we did eventually ends up in the ninth shard in 8.0.
I mean, what else can be referenced/told from ff9? We already have alexandria, sphene - garnet, the new villains probably referenced kuja. The only thing missing is necron, or whatever its name is.

(Also, does anyone else think wuk lmao is kind of supposed to be zidane?)

[Wired-Lain]

All good references have been used up anyway.
FF9 is last of of it
Sorry, FF13 and FF15 are just plain garbage for my taste
The 2 FF primary titles that I have not full clear

TBF they've barely touched FF7s more iconic elements but that seems like a real "break glass in case of emergency" situation, we have the Weapons, a "city of ancients" and the Unknown and guard scorpion fights, but I think when most people think "FF7" they think of disc 1s Midgar, Jenova, Sephiroth, I dunno Buster Swords? Hell 7 doesn't even really have any music in 14 outside of the gold saucer and crazy motorcycle chase for the store mount. I'm mixed though, I enjoy all the little thematic nods and echoes to older games but I think stories like Endwalkers patches went way too far in its FF4 love. The best application for me is either something like Eden, which while being "FF8 content" is entirely its own thing that at best feels like a sister story to 8, or fullblown side story fanservice nonsense like Delta/Sigmascape. Working explicit beat for beat plots and characters into the MSQ just feels a little hokey, even if I'm probably the target audience for it.

Others are mentioning the crystal tower or warriors of darkness and yes thats drawn directly from FF3, but if you've played that game you'll know just how light it is on... Well just about everything lol, XIV took those super thin concepts and expanded them massively to fit their own world, which is probably why it feels less jarring than Golbez just showing up and the story going through the motions to take us to Zeromus as we all predicted for months.

[Mawlzy]

I'm starting to think SE is consciously directing the FF14 so that it more appeals to teenagers.

The Disneyfication of DT is perhaps the clearest sign in overall style, but the presence of teens is also notable. We've always had the twins, of course, who I think start the story at 16, but equally they've both graduated college and seen some stuff the last few years. Ryne and Gaia are both sulky teens finding themselves. Two of the three Sphene's exhibited squeaky teenage simpering and petulance. That irritating brat in the Jeuno fight is apparently 35 and thus more of a female Peter Pan, since she presents as a child. Gulool Ja is a kid. Calyx is the classic teenage boy great with tech.

The dominant fight design philosophy also seems mostly aimed at teenagers.

Meanwhile, instead of escorting courtesans, current society quests have us as an intern at a bloody travel agency.

Maybe the plan is to pull in the kiddies now, so that when FFXXIV releases in 15 years and acts as a call-back to FFXIV and other assorted intervening titles, there'll be a ready-made consumer base.