Plausibility of an FFXIV 1.23 Offline Edition

[Yrusama]

I understand. I do remember a decent portion of the forum community cheered when 1.23 went offline for good at the end of December. I can certainly understand there are some that would leave it dead and buried. Well maybe in time; a 10th anniversary thing? I'll necro this thread back in a decade lol


We were talking IP. I understand game development and production of a cartoon are two completely different things; in this case, they both use the FF IP and would have hence both been licensed.



I think you misunderstand. My question was about *if* it were done, how could it be done and would you play it. I wasn't suggesting that SE license anything to me for this! I was trying to illustrate that they could outsource the development of the idea to a smaller studio working under their guidance.

My own company's doing very well since you asked, and has had IP licenses much larger than FF (eg Star Wars, the Olympic Games). I'm sure if I could find a way to make an FFXIV live event profitable they'd have no problems granting a license to do so given my company's experience in the events field. Unfortunately I haven't come up with a profitable idea yet lol

You say a lot of things that make me a bit more optimistic that we'll see the Seventh Umbral Era again, especially during some kind of throwback expansion. I would totally buy a revival of 1.23, but as I've said before, I doubt they'd be able to properly adapt it to an offline game without tons of reprogramming, UI rebuilding, and balancing. I would not be surprised, however, if they at the very least gave us a chance to go back in time a la Wings of the Goddess. Atomos's presence during the SUE makes it plausible. On that note, I wonder:

• What if the Voidsent were really time travelers - Adventurers attempting to change the past, only to be deformed by Atomos and killed by their past selves and comrades?
• What could be the scale of such an expansion? Partial areas? City-states? Whole regions?
• If such an expansion came to pass, would the majority of 1.0 players embrace or scorn it? I can think of a few who might say "1.0 sucked. I don't ever want to go back."

[Yrusama]

You say a lot of things that make me a bit more optimistic that we'll see the Seventh Umbral Era again, especially during some kind of throwback expansion. I would totally buy a revival of 1.23, but as I've said before, I doubt they'd be able to properly adapt it to an offline game without tons of reprogramming, UI rebuilding, and balancing. I would not be surprised, however, if they at the very least gave us a chance to go back in time a la Wings of the Goddess. Atomos's presence during the SUE makes it plausible. On that note, I wonder:

• What if the Voidsent were really time travelers - Adventurers attempting to change the past, only to be deformed by Atomos and killed by their past selves and comrades?
• What could be the scale of such an expansion? Partial areas? City-states? Whole regions?
• If such an expansion came to pass, would the majority of 1.0 players embrace or scorn it? I can think of a few who might say "1.0 sucked. I don't ever want to go back."

Going to comment on something I said here just to get the idea out, even though it'll probably never happen. It's a possible Atomos plot line, and bear with me because it has vague similarities to Abyssea's plot (which was pretty damn good, considering the gameplay aspect arguably wrecked XI). Forgive me if there is any lore on Atomos or Voidsent to contradict this, though I'm pretty sure he was never fully explained.

Here's the outline:
Atomos reappears in ARR and Adventurers use it to travel into their past, hoping to stop the Seventh Umbral Era. But this causes a displacement within the Void. Assuming Atomos can't stabily contain the sudden entry/exodus of people/Voidsent, too many of us entering would cause Atomos to expel roughly the same amount of Voidsent at the intended destination. While Voidsent end up in our past (which already happened, so it can't be unwritten), we end up in an alternate 7th Umbral Eorzea, which ultimately has little to no effect on our present.

This ultimately puts us in an awkward situation: by going back in time, we unwittingly caused our past selves unnecessary anguish via Voidsent. However, knowledge of this fact doesn't empower us to change it, because history can't be unwritten. Beyond that, by the time we realize any of this we'll be too concerned with the struggles of Alternate Eorzea to abandon them. Our characters would embrace the opportunity to spare the other world the same tragedy.

Ending 1:
This would somehow involve a battle with Alternate Nael van Darnus (much requested 1.0 fanservice) before he has a chance to draw Dalamud so close it can't be reversed. Armed with our world's post-calamity knowledge (perhaps from Allagan archaeology), we'd be able to return Dalamud to Menphina.

Ending 2:
Dalamud falls anyway, but somehow our interference would change events so that Bahamut would actually destroy the whole world (clearly he didn't do enough to ours).

Further notes:

• Ending 2 would be a great finale for a temporary throwback event, but ultimately the scenario would be too expansive to simply delete it. The ending could be foreshadowed, but never shown, allowing players to continue to enter the Alternate Past zones.
• Ending 1 is the simplest, as it gives us a happy "saved world" ending and ensures we can continue visiting those areas. However, Ending 2 more easily allows Nael to reach his full power, which...is just so much more fun.
• Ending 1 also might involve battles with the rest of Garlemald (like Gaius van Baelsar), because they'd be PISSED that Meteor failed. However, Alternate Eorzea would by then have rallied itself enough to meet Garlemald head on, giving us leave to return to our own world.
• Any throwback expansion like this could easily make use of the 1.0 music, including Uematsu's score.
• Likewise, any throwback expansion would have slightly different content for 1.0 characters compared to new characters, particularly involving scenes where we meet our past selves. We'd meet our past selves in a cutscene or two, and they'd be in whatever outfit/class we logged out with before final save. (It would be neat to see BTN Yru as an NPC .)

There you have it. It sounds awesome in my head, it was fun to write, but I won't hold my breath.