So, let's speculate about future Story developments (SPOILERS!!!)

[Mahri]

Another thing: Teledji is just such a terrible villain.

Everyone else got some kind of buildup and characterization. For him, though, we pretty much had it dropped in our laps, "Oh hey remember that guy? By the way he's evil" and he was evil. Terrible example of telling rather than showing.

And the only piece of him we got past that point was just ludicrous mustache-twirling cartoon crap.

Gaius had tons of nuance and gave off a believable sense that he sincerely felt that he was the hero of his own story. Nael was entertainingly warped. The Ascians are fun to watch for their constant need for amicability while carrying out full-scale supervillain projects. Even Lolorito gives off a sense that his callousness is borne from world-weary cynicism rather than psychopathy, adding potential layers. Teledji? He's a bad joke.

[EdwinLi]

Another thing: Teledji is just such a terrible villain.

Ya Teledji is just too generic evil for my taste as well.

His entire reason for being Evil in FF14 is the "classic generic evil guy who wants to take over the world" Villain with the side of "evil politician who manipulates the weak members of society" for political gain.

He even only going after Omega Weapon because he wants to use it to take over the world.

[Phe]

"classic generic evil guy who wants to take over the world"

take over the world or destroy the world are basically the only 2 threat scenarios in the whole FF series.

[dice137]

Of course he's a terrible villain. He's Lalafell trash. >=)

[SekhmetM]

Lots of people hate the animu Crystal Tower ending. It was so hammed up and cut short.

"Sorry we're too stupid to handle this technology so i'm gonna lock it away until we can build technology on par with Allagan, which kind of defeats the purpose since then we won't need the tower, I suppose."

The writers just wanted to wrap it up and go back to work writing for the Pokemon anime.

[Nalien]

- Speaking of which, with The Crystal Tower essentially being "Final Fantasy III: The Raid", I'm wondering what the next nostalgia-inspired raid might be.

We already know, Alexander. It's basically Final Fantasy IVs Giant of Babil in raid form. If we don't get the four fiends as bosses I'll be damned surprised.

Also the chances of Nanamo dying are slim at best. She is involved in the Culinarian questline, if she dies in the main scenario before someone does the Culinarian quest, what happens when they finally do the quest? This is the same reason Yugiri wasn't involved with Ninja (though if you'd done 2.2 she is mentioned) and a character like Cid wont be involved with Machinist.

I'm hoping Ilberd isn't a walking cliché, "Character we introduced almost solely to deal with a traitor is himself a traitor!", it would honestly be more of a twist if Ilberd was loyal... I'd hope he is simply abusing his position to further non-evil goals, like taking the weapons and giving them to Ala Mhigan Rebels, or maybe he is leveling his Desynthesis skills. It certainly wouldn't make him good, but it's a whole lot better than "Hahaha! I'm actually working for Teledji!", would be a nice way to introduce Ala Mhigo as well, considering we've had concept art for the place as long as we have Ishgard, I do kind of wonder if it will also be opened up in 3.0 or if that's something for 4.0...

[Lemuria]

Plot spoilers ahead. You've been warned.

I see Nanamo resigning as Sultana only to be reinstated later on by proving her worth in some fashion. Teledji will take over in the interim and ruin everything while Nanamo, and the warrior of light, come to the rescue.

Omega Weapon will be activated, giving us another super powerful boss to destroy. My hunch is it won't be at its full power when we fight it. There will be some event to give us a window of opportunity which hinges on Omega not reaching its full potential. Teledji will either die in the resulting destruction of Omega or be arrested. Either way, happiness will ensue.

A means to combine the aether gathering Tsupimati and the device to create a blade of light will be found, giving the Ascians a genuine reason to soil themselves in fear. They now see us as a true threat and bring their dark plans forward to complete them before we can interfere.

Fighting ensues between Ishgard and the dragons in force, and they reluctantly open their gates to accept adventurers as reinforcements to their ailing armies. They are distrusting of us and see us as a tool rather than a people. An attempt to broker a lasting peace between Ishgard and the Dragons will go poorly resulting in a big battle, and forcing us to take sides. We learn the truth of the war, and find that Ishgard has a lot to answer for. Ishgard likes us even less.

Midgardsormr will also be a shish-kebab on my Dragoons lance, roasting over Ifrit's fallen corpse. (How's that for a test, you mean ol' dragon). Why? Just because he still hasn't apologised yet.

[Donjo]

- I never really noticed until I was thinking about it the other day, but you know, there are virtually zero male Miqo'te NPC's in the world. In fact... are there *ANY* outside of the Forgotten Springs, aside from G'raha Tia?

There are very few. There's the (mostly absent) master of the Arcanist guild and the Coeurlclaw King. One or two of the npcs that tell us about hunt targets are Male Miqo'te. It's just keeping up with the lore that Male Miqo'te are incredibly rare. It can be presumed that their rarity is artificially increased because most males are likely kept in their respective tribes to help breed instead of being allowed to do anything that resembles adventuring. This has lost its punch because they're currently playable, greatly increasing the male/female Miqo'te ratio to something that doesn't fit the lore at all. This is actually the main reason I chose female over male for my character

[Kyuuen]

Potential spoilers, don't read

Apologies if this is a little off topic, but I LOVE how aptly named this patch is. "Before the Fall" can be applied to quite a few things at the moment, which is leaving me in a state of 'what's actually going to happen?' You have the culminating point that the Sultanas hand is being forced, backing her into a corner, leaving the fate of Ul'dah in a truly dangerous spot. You have the Ascians pushing their agenda in awakening their deity/god, pushing the Scions to near their breaking point. You have a potential traitorous element skulking around in the newly founded Crystal Braves, potentially breaking them before they're truly valuable. And finally Midgardsormr has stated that Ishgard WILL burn, in which we may not see Ishgard whole upon our arrival.

SE's done quite well to set things up at this pivotal point, leaving us to wonder who/what will fall and who will remain standing after their struggles, if only a little haggard.


What do I think is going to happen?

Ul'dah will experience some rough turbulence. The Sultana will stick around, to what extent I'm not sure.

The Crystal Braves traitor will be a misdirect. The traitorous element is present, but it's not who we thought. (hopefully)

The Ascians will be slow coming back into the story after having killed Nabriales. Putting a soft stop (temporary) to their continued goals.

Ishgard; I'm thinking will be partially destroyed, parts in ruin while the important parts remain intact or a little damaged. Granted this won't be until the expansion.

[EdwinLi]

take over the world or destroy the world are basically the only 2 threat scenarios in the whole FF series.

Ya I know but Teledji doesn't have any other reason for taking over the world since his only reason is that he wants to take over the world because he just wants to take over the world.

Gaius reason for taking over the world had a Grey zone reasoning behind it because what being all Gods in the world are just a bunch of Primals feeding off of Aether and using their worshipers to perform their own deeds. Along with the fact that the leaders of Eorzea lacked proper unity and that lack of unity did lead the city-states to go a down hill state as time passed so he believe this was the only way to unify Eorzea.

Teledji is just "Hey I'm Evil and I can take over the world because I can"

There is just no complex reasoning relating to actual issues that is happening like Gaius had. Just a straight forward evil guy want to take over the world for the sake of taking over the world mindset.

On Topic:

As for Hildibrand Season 2...

Episode 1 we focus on a case to find Hildibrand and the legendary sword Excalibur while running into Greg again. To find them we use the Hildibrand Thinking Emote and at the end of the episode we get one cliffhanger and the Hildibrand Thinking Emote (aka /hildythink) as our reward.

Episode 2 we meet Briardien again for the next case and he tells us how Ellie is doing during his time in prison then continue the search for Excalibur. Once the case is over and the next cliffhanger is done we are rewarded the Adjust Glasses Emote (aka /adjust)

Beyond this I do not know...