Ultima Weapon

[Anonymoose]

How much did the Ascians participate in the plot of 1.0? Were they the primary antagonist like in ARR? Did they have anything to do with Nael Var Darnus and his Meteor Project? Was there even any hint that they were influencing events?

Version 1.0 was released at LV50 but only contained content up to about 30 to 35 aside from the main scenario, which, even though it went up to 50, was woefully incomplete. Much of it was broken down and reassembled into ARR, with the echoes in the city introductions (which we at this point in time assume took place in 1562 as the seal broke on Silvertear Lake) removed and the mystery of the echo itself solved right off the bat. What little information we got does seem to implicate the ascians as being the major antagonists even of that story, but we never saw the reveal. We know they wanted some horns... and we know that the horns seemed to mess with the aether and/or influence monsters. That's about it. The story mainly revolved around finding out who the paragons were and the Circle of Knowing coming to Eorzea to glean information about the invading empire only to discover that the threat was far larger.

Yes, it turns out that the Ascians are the paragons. Specifically, it seems that low-level ascians were dispatched to teach the beast tribes to summon primals in defense of their lands, as the Empire was soon to invade, knowing that this would antagonize the Empire further, leading to a feedback loop whereby the constant summoning would destabilize the aether of the realm and lead to the fall of the era through which they could resurrect their god.

[Catapult]

Yes, it turns out that the Ascians are the paragons. Specifically, it seems that low-level ascians were dispatched to teach the beast tribes to summon primals in defense of their lands, as the Empire was soon to invade, knowing that this would antagonize the Empire further, leading to a feedback loop whereby the constant summoning would destabilize the aether of the realm and lead to the fall of the era through which they could resurrect their god.

This is an ARR revelation, although it does bear out what we saw pre-Calamity.

It's important to remember the original development team had story plans. Ones that involved further explaining primals, starting with Titan, and getting into the bigger threats. But then the game systems fell on their face, the development leadership changed, and the new producer (Yoshi-P) asked the writers to accomodate a rebuild of the game by doing something like dropping a moon on the landscape. They obliged.

[StarDrake]

It's important to remember the original development team had story plans. Ones that involved further explaining primals, starting with Titan, and getting into the bigger threats. But then the game systems fell on their face, the development leadership changed, and the new producer (Yoshi-P) asked the writers to accomodate a rebuild of the game by doing something like dropping a moon on the landscape. They obliged.

Yes, it has to be remembered that ARR was not exactly planned out originally and that the story's been revised a bit since its original mapping out. I remember either Yoshi or Ferne mentioning once that the original plan was for Dalamud to be a whole set of zones ala the Red Moon of FFIV, and something like the Binding Coil would be there, instead of on Eorzea. Dalamud getting blown up has rather changed the progression roadmap, shall we say. :V