Are we expecting TO MUCH from 8.0?

[RedLolly]

Take the story out and Dawntrail has been the best expansion so far. I agree the story was poor, and forked tower fell flat as it really needed a normal mode. Other than that the rest of the content has been incredible.

Anyone trying to say WoW is better in the story is acting in bad faith. As a long term WoW player myself, sure it's improved a lot, but even the latest WoW expansion makes ARR look like a masterpiece in VA and storytelling.

If the game isn't fun to you anymore then that's fine, people move on, people get bored after all this time, it's okay and in life it happens. But if you say it's because of a decline in quality of the content then that's just a straight up lie.

It's once again so interesting to me since "Didn't like the story but loved most other content" is the exact same sentiment that floated around Stormblood.

But as a comparison to ARR, Tural still feels very underbaked, and the Ninth is much more alive and functional than Alexandria initially implied. There were tons of smaller details in ARR that meant something later.

It seems like the devs now want the Right of Succession to just be the equivalent of a filler arc going forward, with how fast they swapped Wuk Lamat for Sphene in 7.2 and stopped giving us any reason to stick around Turali locations in the MSQ if they weren't directly linked to Alexandria.

They're even dangling G'raha and Y'shtola in front of us like a pair of keys while sending the twins away (oh, wait, THESE are the favorite male and female characters, not the children) and actually did a big story moment for Krile, who we all agreed was robbed in the base MSQ.

Like, they are ABSOLUTELY feeding into what we want right now and I get more intrigued by 8.0's potential with every new bit of content.

If anything, it feels like SE gave the devs an actual budget again after 7.0.

[VeyaAkemi]

the Ninth is much more alive and functional than Alexandria initially implied.

I will say that's not remotely the impression that 7.4 gave me, the impression I got is that Treno was at the brink, even if they had managed the breach that happened with the Thundergust Griffin, they would've done so at extremely heavy losses, and the Doomtrain could've done them in completely, WoL and co. literally showed up at the nick of time to avert a major crisis, and it is simply a depiction of the abyss of power that is WoL compared to everyone else, even the Doomtrain, the strongest weapon of their world, was another "it was Tuesday" for WoL, this is something Halmarut further echoes towards the end of the patch story, and while she may be wrong that there is no hope, she is not wrong to not be particularly optimistic, it will only take another crisis like that, where they don't have the living demigod and their not-as-demigodly-but-damn-close crew to save them.

To sum it up, while I am not sure I agree with her, I was given a full understanding of why Eternal Sphene believed there was no hope in that world.

[Valence]

If anything, it feels like SE gave the devs an actual budget again after 7.0.

We must save the hettso!

[RedLolly]

Snip.

”Much more alive and functional," as opposed to a dead wasteland of literally nothing that I, at least, assumed remained outside of what Alexandria had going within their dome.

Instead we learn there are settlements scattered about surviving with some advanced tech with trade between them still clinging on and entire functioning natural ecosystems still going despite the levin influence. Despite everything being bad, it really doesn't feel that far removed from what we were seeing in Norvrandt in the little towns in places like Kholusia. People just barely making it work, but they still were making it work.

[Batbrat]

No, I'm expecting the standards that they themselves set with their previous expansions that I enjoyed a lot more than Dawntrail.
If that's too much, then it's time for them to wrap it up and go full mobile.

[Daralii]

We must save the hettso!

Koana's storyline was where XIV's narrative peaked.

[MayuAmakura]

Everytime I go to ARR zones I feel something nice and become happy. Really makes me wonder how ARR zones are better in quality than what we have now even though they are much smaller in size.

[TeresaFortell]

Exactly what are we expecting other than that? If they revamp some of the systems entirely, it would not be unreasonable to expect too much.

[Daralii]

Everytime I go to ARR zones I feel something nice and become happy. Really makes me wonder how ARR zones are better in quality than what we have now even though they are much smaller in size.

1.X, for all its many faults, placed more emphasis on the world. A lot obviously changed between 1.23 and 2.0, but there was still an emphasis on basic things like towns, landmarks, and interconnectivity, especially when emphasizing the impact of the Calamity. Zones nowadays are first and foremost intended to fill quotas and be set pieces for the MSQ and daily hubs.

[RedLolly]

Everytime I go to ARR zones I feel something nice and become happy. Really makes me wonder how ARR zones are better in quality than what we have now even though they are much smaller in size.

Because they were redesigns of the really terrible 1.0 zones that kept the good stuff and are as loaded with detail as current zones but a fraction of the size.