Awfully weak story... or is it? [WARNING:SPOILERS]

[Felis]

I do not recall tales of child abduction anywhere, so before you attack a man's home do have a source to prove your claims.

Maybe he mean the Padjali, but which has nothing to do with abduction?

[RexValentino]

Character development was sorta missing from the storyline. If you are interested in some in-game story that has a bit of character development i recommend some of the crafting class quests. They don't last long, but they have a bit more feeling than the main story.

I wish everyone could have played 1.0 for the storyline ... if you liked ffxi's story, then you would have loved how in-depth the 1.0 story was and where it was going. There are some nice 1.0 youtube videos on all the story CS's ... you miss out on the feel of the quests and fights along the way, but if you want some good story and about 90% of what this game's story is based on you should go check it out ... just type ffxiv all cs in youtube ... 1.0 will come up since i don't think people really care to record 2.0's just yet. ;p

[Ramzal]

-snip-

You do know how conquest of an area goes, right? The area is taken over, the culture and lifestyle of the people is all but annihilated and there is a large increase in crime, murder, etc. People are resistant to change, especially on a macro scale. Eorzeans seem to treasure their religious rights to worship the Tweleve, and that would be the first thing to go namely because the Empire sees them as false gods. This would just lead to internal rebellion if the Empire -did- win and more bloodshed on a pretense that they're "Just trying to help" when in reality they're looking to expand their lands and become more powerful. The only reason to give the other side a chance to surrender is so that YOU don't use up resources that could be used anything else.

He was using Ultima Weapon as a "balance" to soften the blow of being taken over. "Sure I'll come to your lands, tell you how to live, what to believe in, and pretty much wreck your entire concept of life but... I'll get rid of these monsters for you." Which if you look at it, Ultima Weapon was a pretty poor bargain. A group that was given a blessing of some sort trashed that machine and look at what happened--the primals got out of it. Gaius didn't eliminate the primal threat---he contained it. Very poorly and with technology he didn't even fully understand and was tricked into using it. Why in the heck would you follow someone who just finds something, doesn't fully research it extensively enough and just uses it right out the flood gate without any second thought?

[Arriverderci]

FFXI had the best characters and stories I have ever seen in my 25 years of gaming carreer (excluding, maybe, Mass Effect and Silent Hill), so it's not really comparable. And yeah, if you read carefully last part of main story, it's pretty clear Gaius was not only a honorable man, but also his actions, was he succeed, would actually save and evolve planet. So, yeah, I would sign for an empire in a heart beat.

Believe it or not, I was actually thrown into a loop when I saw Thancred the...Laberurea whatever. I was so damn surprised LOL.
I totally forgot about him. I liked Cid. Him, Biggs and Wedge are my faves. The whole Amnesia thing was stupid though.

I have to laugh whenever people raise FFXI as an example of quality storytelling when it took five years for the storyline to truly get going.

I expect a decent storyline and not take 40 levels to actually pay much attention.
I liked AION's storyline as soon I started playing it.
I never played FFXI but the story does seem pretty interesting.
The craft/gather story is pretty good to me...just the main storyline is not what I was expecting.
The Scion's aren't all that cool...

[KaleHitsuga]

Maybe he mean the Padjali, but which has nothing to do with abduction?

Maybe, but even then the Padjal are not children. They are a long lived people blessed by the elementals. True they may be born of any walk of life, it is not as though they are wrested from their parentage. Their natural connection to the elementals simply tends toward a path of Conjury. It is even difficult to say how old Kan-E-Senna, E-Sumi-Yan, and the others are due to the longevity of the Padjal. It is well believed that they have been around the Twelveswood for decades. For many of the above reasons the nature dwelling Gridanians turn to them to be the guides of living alongside the forest, and as leaders of various organizations in Kan-E and E-Sumi's cases.

[Borfin]

The only real complaint I've had about the storyline is the stupid GET X FACTION TO TRUST YOU fetch quests around every corner.

Frankly, I'd rather have the story quests just level-gated and have FATE spammed, to be honest. The fetch-story quests were pathetic.

[Astarica]

The story pretty much combines the worst of single player stuff (linear path with no possibility of variation) and MMORPG stuff (how you're always doing totally irrelevent things because there isn't enough relevent things to do in a story). At least when you talk about WoW, most people I know just hit 'Accept' and were never aware that they just sold out their integrity for another 50K XP. In this game, the deliberate pacing of the dialogue almost forces you to actually pay attention to the story, compared to the average MMORPG where people aren't even aware of what the main story is. Now that could be fine if the main story was good, except it's not. The amount of stupid things your character has to do pretty much ranks him as the biggest loser for a main character in MMORPG history. I'm sure there are MMORPG that are just as bad, but in those games at least they don't waste your time to present a bad story. You just hit 'accept' and will be done with it. Most people can't tell you what is supposed to be the main storyline of a given WoW arc, and this at least ensure they didn't suffered.

I mean, so far as bad single player story goes, FF14 is definitely not the worst of the bunch. But it makes sure you have to suffer unless you've enough conviction to just hit escape on something you never seen before. It's kind of like the games with 30 minute cutscenes where you know it's probably junk but you just can't skip it just in case it's somehow good, or that there's something important that happens. After you sat thorugh the entire cutscene you realize it's junk but you already suffered. That's what FF14's story does.

[Jinrya-Geki]

He had you Dead-to-rights several times in 1.0 and let you live.

He took several cities by force and forced peace as said by his right-hand mad.

Instead of just wiping everyone out with Ultima effortlessly, he gives everyone to chance to surrender.

he seems to be a better anti-hero than a true villain. He seemed to be doing wrongs to make the right.

[Linadae]

Btw the initial rebellion in Ala Mhigo while brewing on its own was instigated and encouraged by Garlean infiltrators. Then during the chaos they marched in to bring 'order' to the city. It was initially bloodless but once the citizens realized the had made a deal with the devil did violence break out.

The Admiral isn't exactly changing limsa life. There's still plenty of pirates. She's just insisting (and enforcing) that they harass the Garlean's ships instead of each other or/and the other city states.

There's no excuse for Ul'dah. Though the Sultana is against the treatment she is little more than a figurehead due to the Syndicate.

I can excuse Gridania because they are only in the Shroud by the grace of the Elementals. They can be easily kicked out if they anger the forest. So it comes down to the symbiosis. The forest will protect them as long as Gridania protects it.

[Lecreuset]

Nice try, Garlean Empire Spy! Almost had me going there..