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

[Felis]

Appetite for Destruction - Part 3 (from 1.0)

Shield your eyes! Look away!

Cid: It is done. Those beasts, they dread the brightness.

Cid: Tell me, are you Arthur?

Cid: You're hurt. Can you stand?

Arthur: Don't touch me!

Arthur: That flare, the airship... You are of the Garlond Ironworks.

Arthur: You fled to Eorzea, fearing only for your own craven hides, ignorant of the atrocities suffered by the people of Ala Mhigo. Atrocities committed by your hand! By the weapons you created!

Arthur: You bloody murderers! An eternity in the seven hells would be too merciful a punishment for your like! I ought to flay you where you stand and leave you for the crows, gods damn you. Gods damn you all!

Lewin: Arthur! Enough!

Cid: So you were there... You saw the atrocities? The devastation?

Cid: Aye, I will not deny it. The magitek weapons we created laid waste to Ala Mhigo, and slaughtered its people. Would that I could undo it. But I cannot. And now those weapons are trained upon all of Eorzea.

Cid: What the Emp─what we have done, can never be forgiven. Nor should it. A deed forgiven is too easily forgotten. We knew when we chose to walk amongst you that we would not escape your anger and your hatred.

Cid: But now is the time to fight. We mean to face the coming evil, but cannot do so without your strength. It will be hard, I know, but I must learn what you saw in Ala Mhigo.

Arthur: Liar! Craven! Stay that traitor's tongue before I rip it out! I─

Lewin: He was long in Ala Mhigo. All who were have learned to trust no one, more's the pity.

Lewin: Pray give him time. He needs rest. We will see him back to Gridania.

Lewin: I ask that you come to Gridania as well. I shall await you at Stillglade Fane. Come in your own time.

http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Ap...n/Plot_Details

This sound like a happy place, a city under the empire reign

[Vanguard319]

They are FORCING change on people who don't want to change. They don't just want to get rid of the primals. They want to get rid of the Twelve, who like the Primals, they consider false gods.

Agreed. They genuinely believe that they alone have the wisdom to rule Eorzea, and all counter arguments are heresy or the ignorance of misguided individuals. The Eorzean alliance sees it for what it is: The empire doesn't care about Eorzea's people, they only care about control. You only need to look at history to see that dictatorships generally are bad, no matter how they try to justify themselves as being for the greater good. Consider how many of Rome's Emperors were tyrants and despots, and how easily some of them gained power.

Eorzea simply wants to keep it's culture and traditions, it seeks alternative solutions to the Primals aside from genocide, Something the empire as a conqueror cannot understand. Conflict was inevitable.

[tymora]

MMO stories tend to be weaker than single player stories simply because they have to account for the player.

Anyway the characters on both sides are not meant to be black & white. They are in all shades of gray.
This makes them believable and more realistic and meant to keep the question of "should I be working for them" valid at all times.

How am I suppose to hate that guy!

Because you are not supposed to. Gaius view is skewed from an Eorzean perspective but entirely valid from Garlemald's.

From a military standpoint, the greatest victories are won without shedding a drop of blood. Gaius wins by intimidation (threats, ultimatum), subterfuge (fanning Ala Mihgo unrest) and resorts to brute force only when necessary.

Nero on the other hand will probably end up as the psychopath taking over the White Raven's role.

[Bloodclaw]

Umm, has no one else noticed the systematic discrimination of the beastmen tribes? When you start the game Grid you have an arrow shot right at your feet, but when you look at the beastmen they are not holding any bows, the Elezen are the ones with bows. Was this a stray shot, or was it just a shot to make it look like the beastmen were attacking so they could validate their slaughter? Time and time again I noticed that when dealing with the beastmen that maybe we of the 3 nations were actually oppressors, purists, and even on the verge of genocide of the beastmen. Maybe that is just me, but what ever.

[LiadansWhisper]

Umm, has no one else noticed the systematic discrimination of the beastmen tribes? When you start the game Grid you have an arrow shot right at your feet, but when you look at the beastmen they are not holding any bows, the Elezen are the ones with bows. Was this a stray shot, or was it just a shot to make it look like the beastmen were attacking so they could validate their slaughter? Time and time again I noticed that when dealing with the beastmen that maybe we of the 3 nations were actually oppressors, purists, and even on the verge of genocide of the beastmen. Maybe that is just me, but what ever.

Actually, the Botany questline makes it clear that Gridania and the Ixal had peaceful relations for many, many years. Their current state of hostility is not explained, but Fufucha says nothing to indicate that it was Gridania that initiated those hostilities (which, given the fact that she is a fervent critic of the current conflict, would seem to indicate that Gridania didn't start that war). Additionally, Gridania very much wants peaceful relations with the Sylphs, who they have a treaty with and who are also a beast tribe.

[Akujin]

Hello folks,

After taking some time to digest the story of FFXIV:ARR and confirming its weaknesses until the very end of the credits, I came to a conclusion. Something is not right.

I have a friend, who was a player from FFXIV, from beginning to the end. Every time we have an argument about the story, he inevitably ends up stating something from FFXIV that is not present in FFXIV:ARR.

I did my share of researches. I also own the collector edition of this game, so I have access to the blu-ray with detailed information on Eorzea and the meaning behind the cinematic opening. Even with that, something is not right.

For instance [WARNING:SPOILERS]:
Gaius van Baelsar is awesome.
-He is noble, proud, compassionate, honest and honourable.
-He is a strong warrior and a conqueror.
-Not only does he plan to conquer Eorzea, but before even engaging the battle, he thinks forward to the Primal threat for the people and how to stop them efficiently.
-He knows how a lot of people are suffering and wants to bring peace and order.
-When he acquired a power strong enough to crush the Primals, instead of just attacking Eorzea with a superior force, utterly destroying Eorzea's armies and imposing a reign of fear, he actually gave a chance for a peaceful surrendering with terms that were so tempting that all 3 grand company leaders were about to accept until a kid shown up with a childish speech (and most likely charming magic) to turn them against the Empire.
-He helps loyal supporter of the Emprie even though they are not pure-blooded Garlean.
-When he wanted to destroy the Scions of the 7th Dawn, he organized a very quick and precise strike. Only the Scions were killed/captured, leaving the city they were in alone and doing absolutely no harm to anyone except their enemies. Kill the opponents, leave the innocents alone, the mark of a true villain.

How am I suppose to hate that guy!

Grand Company leaders are generic, useless and immoral.
-You have the scared veteran soldier, the compassionate healer woman and the cold-hearted trigger-happy woman captain. Note: all of this is suppositions based on a few dialogs and rumours in the game. We were never shown anything in the main story that remotely looked like that. You get to know more of Merlwyb in the lvl50 armourer quest than all of main story.
-None of the grand company are able to deal with the Primals. You have to do it yourself because there is NO ONE ELSE in the entire Eorzea that could help you fight. Also, only three Primals shows up in the story, one for each grand company. There are more Primals out there and three is already too much. Also, Maelstrom is directly responsible for the summoning of Titan.
-None of the grand company are doing much to protect Eorzea as they are very prompt to use adventurers to do that useless job.
-The three grand company leaders are somehow able to decide the fate of Eorzea, risk the lives of everyone, decide for all-out wars, but they are not the ones actually ruling their city-state.
-The world of Eorzea is full of problems, authorities are all shorts in man-power and yet, the grand companies don't help.
-They decided to strike against the Empire using a sneak attack manoeuvre, attacking without responding to the Empire who gave decision time for their offer of surrendering without unnecessary deaths. The mark of civilized and honourable folks.
-When the Empire is defeated, all of a sudden, life is good, problems that were never actually solved are ignored and it's time to go into a peaceful and prosperous age, as if the Empire was the one behind every issues. In reality, the Empire had nothing to do with the bad state of Eorzea. Eorzea is in such a bad state that they mostly just settled themselves, took their distances and observed. Anybody else assumed a lot of soldiers died fighting the Empire? Wouldn't that just throw Eorzea in a worst state than before and now the authorities AND the grand company are understaffed? I assume they know soldiers are not produced like machines. Do they?

And I'm suppose to side with these folks?!? Where do I sign up for the Empire?


Sure, you also have the evil being (Ascian) which is trying to manipulate the Empire into doing it's own business. Yet, Gaius was preparing for being betrayed (he just didn't know when it would happen). It's not really manipulation when the one you are trying to manipulate is working on counter-manipulating you because your manipulation attempts are too obvious.

Next goes the Scions of the 7th dawn. It would be more accurate to say that they work for you than you working for them. They only do easy tasks or small investigations and you handle the rest (which is more or less everything). Also, for people that openly goes against the dark forces of the world, they are rather defenceless against frontal assaults and endangering the innocents that live around them.


This is from FFXIV:ARR, and only from FFXIV:ARR. On the other hand, FFXIV apparently got build up for all these characters mentioned above. This means all the observations I made could have been significantly wrong. It feels like I'm playing a sequel, but it's not suppose to be a sequel.

If FFXIV:ARR just builds on the top of FFXIV and assume every new players knows Gaius, the Grand Company leaders, the Ascians, all the core Scions members... Wait a minute, this is pure stupidity. There isn't a professional story teller that would build awesome characters just to end up and not saying/showing a thing about them and expect everyone to know them.

This can mean only one thing. Game development decided to cut/exclude important cut-scenes, leaving only the skeleton of a good story to save some money. This concept is so crazy, it's like a Micheal Bay film without explosions and sexy girls. A Final Fantasy title that decided to save money by cutting on story elements?

All would-be conquerors are good in their own eyes. Hitler, for instance, felt he was doing the right thing by his own people by creating a world cleansed of anything but blond hair, blue eye whites.

Evil is in the eye of the beholder.

[Enkidoh]

Actually, the Botany questline makes it clear that Gridania and the Ixal had peaceful relations for many, many years. Their current state of hostility is not explained, but Fufucha says nothing to indicate that it was Gridania that initiated those hostilities (which, given the fact that she is a fervent critic of the current conflict, would seem to indicate that Gridania didn't start that war). Additionally, Gridania very much wants peaceful relations with the Sylphs, who they have a treaty with and who are also a beast tribe.

If I can add a small detail to that Liadan - during the early Gridanian storyline, a gate guard in Hyrstmill clearly mentions that the Ixal originally tried settling in the Black Shroud (before the five races arrived in Eorzea), as they regarded the forest as a holy place, which they named 'Tequloia', only to be driven out by the elementals, forcing the Ixal to settle in what is now Natalan in Coerthas on the outskirts of Xephlatol.

When they saw the ancient Gelmorrans strike a pact with the elementals and were given the right to settle in the forest (the founding of Gridania), this enraged the Ixal who felt only they were the rightful settlers of the forest. Hence, a lot of the Ixal's animosity towards Gridania is just pure and out jealously over their treatment by the elementals and Gridania accomplishing what they couldn't. A lot of their rage is also a direct result of their summoning of Garuda - this was made quite clear in 1.0 when it was first mentioned that some of the beast tribes were becoming noticeably more hostile (ala, the Ixal and the amalj'aa), due to the summoning of the Primals corrupting them.

The already souring relationship between Gridania and the Ixal isn't helped also by the later's blithe disregard for environmental protection, cutting down trees to build the blimps they fly in, a enormous heresy of the worst kind in the eyes of the Gridanians, who treat every tree and bush in the forest with respect, due to the very real danger of enraging the elementals, even if the elementals' power is on the wane.

[Bloodclaw]

Actually, the Botany questline makes it clear that Gridania and the Ixal had peaceful relations for many, many years. Their current state of hostility is not explained, but Fufucha says nothing to indicate that it was Gridania that initiated those hostilities (which, given the fact that she is a fervent critic of the current conflict, would seem to indicate that Gridania didn't start that war). Additionally, Gridania very much wants peaceful relations with the Sylphs, who they have a treaty with and who are also a beast tribe.

So perhaps we have a traitor or two dozen amoungs our ranks that helped start the war between the 3 nations and the beast men.

[Kiayin]

If I can add a small detail to that Liadan - during the early Gridanian storyline, a gate guard in Hyrstmill clearly mentions that the Ixal originally tried settling in the Black Shroud (before the five races arrived in Eorzea), as they regarded the forest as a holy place, which they named 'Tequloia', only to be driven out by the elementals, forcing the Ixal to settle in what is now Natalan in Coerthas on the outskirts of Xephlatol.

When they saw the ancient Gelmorrans strike a pact with the elementals and were given the right to settle in the forest (the founding of Gridania), this enraged the Ixal who felt only they were the rightful settlers of the forest. Hence, a lot of the Ixal's animosity towards Gridania is just pure and out jealously over their treatment by the elementals and Gridania accomplishing what they couldn't. A lot of their rage is also a direct result of their summoning of Garuda - this was made quite clear in 1.0 when it was first mentioned that some of the beast tribes were becoming noticeably more hostile (ala, the Ixal and the amalj'aa), due to the summoning of the Primals corrupting them.

The already souring relationship between Gridania and the Ixal isn't helped also by the later's blithe disregard for environmental protection, cutting down trees to build the blimps they fly in, a enormous heresy of the worst kind in the eyes of the Gridanians, who treat every tree and bush in the forest with respect, due to the very real danger of enraging the elementals, even if the elementals' power is on the wane.

Now that's something I was really conflicted about since 95% of the quests in Gridania ask you to go chop something off, kill a wild animal or 20 since the forest is "overrun" by them.. no matter what every npc was saying at the end of the day I felt like I was doing the exact opposite. If Gridanians hadn't been building new outposts, villages and farms every 20 meters, those poor critters would have probably still had enough space to live in peace.

[Enkidoh]

Yes, but whatever the Gridanians do, they run by the elementals first (through the Hearers of the CNJ's Guild) - the first CNJ's class quest E-Sumi Yan actually states this that through no fault of their own the animals he orders you to terminate have been driven to desperation and are upsetting the balance of the forest, hence the elementals deemed it necessary to eliminate them. Time and again whenever a Gridanian npc orders the slaying of some wild animal they explicitly state that they do so with no relish or enjoyment, but simply because it's necessary for the forest's sake. The whole 'nature is cruel' idea taken to extremes.