Main Story Disconnect and World Altering Events

[Orenji-kun]

Devs naturally have to provide ways for anyone to enter the world at any time and generate content that can be reused for every player. This is very efficient when it comes to how much play time they can generate across all users, but because anyone can access this content at any time, it creates a disconnect with the world, making the story far less immersive compared to what can be done in a traditional FF.

I think that world altering events, executed like holiday events, could greatly improve immersion provide a sense of shared progression among the players. Rather than centering around the player's role as the chosen one, which I'm not all that fond of, these events could center around politics and general adventuring. For example, a city could be attacked by the Garlean Empire or the alliance could assemble a warship and attack a Garlean military base. Even simply adding an in-game event for expanding the map would make the world way more immersive.

[Orenji-kun]

At least I wouldn't skip as much dialogue from quests if the world had current events that actually shaped the landscape and were well written; witty dialogue can only go so far.

Does anyone else think that this might make them more interested in the story and its details and dialogue? or does anyone have any better ideas or thoughts on how to improve this?

[Hito-Shura]

That's why we can't have nice things and that is also why nothing will happen in Ul'Dah like many people believe... It would break the story coherence of other players if the statu quo was to be permanently changed by the story and too many quests would require changes aswell.

If something does change though... I'll be very surprised and I like to be surprised! ;3

[Enkidoh]

What you're stating was exactly what happened with the original version of FFXIV (version 1.0) - but that was a way of sending 1.0 off with a bang as the original game was planned to be shutdown for good, thus making any changes to the world at large moot. ARR itself is essentially a reflection of those changes.

The lead up to the expansion looks like it may be featuring a special event (touted as 'the Battle of Ishgard'), so it's possible SE may be doing something similar to the 'Seventh Umbral Era' events in 1.0, but nothing is known for certain as this stage.

[Sakuraluna]

Also, hasn't Revenant's Toll in Mor Dhona been evolving somewhat over time?

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Visually, yes, though from a story perspective, it doesn't hold any significance to the plot.

[Nalien]

Visually, yes, though from a story perspective, it doesn't hold any significance to the plot.

Isn't the fact that it has been steadily expanding the reason behind the Scions moving there, Doman settlement and Crystal Braves formation?

If you were playing the game as those updates were hitting and doing the quests, it was significant enough imo.

[Jacost]

It's more like a nod to continuing players than a drastic alteration to the core experience. A nice little touch.

If anything big does happen, it'll be in the shift from 2.0 to 3.0. From what I understand, 2.0's purpose was to win back the gamers (which I'd say it succeeded at, considering we now have 8 times the subs they were originally expecting), while 3.0 would realize the game's true vision and pick up from 1.0 to an extent. The stereotypical "Chosen One vs Empire" plot was probably chosen for being completely no-risk, but the recent stuff with Midgardsormr might be leading to a deconstruction of the concept... *shrug* One can dream.

[Cutie_McSnuggles]

Actually there's quite a bit that changes with the story.

NPCs will react to you differently depending on how far you are in the story or what city you started in or what GC you're affiliated with.

Crystal Brave's will show up throughout Eorzia after you've encountered them in the story.

The Scions move from Thanalan to Mor Dhona.

Of course the growth of Rev. Toll.

I'm actually quite surprised by the amount of things that actually change as you go through the story. Of course they can't do something like totally destroy a city but there are still big changes happening. But they are done in such a way that your progress doesn't affect another adventurers world.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Isn't the fact that it has been steadily expanding the reason behind the Scions moving there, Doman settlement and Crystal Braves formation?

If you were playing the game as those updates were hitting and doing the quests, it was significant enough imo.

I meant that in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter too much. For someone who was with the game since 2.0, yeah they can see the changes happening and can see why and how. For anyone else joining in later on, they wouldn't have missed out on anything important. Jacost summed it up best; the upgrading Toll is a nod for players who stuck by since 2.X while newer players get to see something cool from the get go.