Lore, FFXI or FFXIV

[Haprimac]

Good King is probably my favorite, just from speculation on his origin (their relation to the Twelve being Thordans Twelve Knights, rather than the Twelve, the calamity in the sky being Nidhoggs rage, rather than second(?) Umbral Era, etc.), but even that pales in comparison to the short stories we got with the six Avatars...

Where was that mentioned? o.o I can't honestly remember anything like that, but it sounds super interesting. Was it the moogle sidequests? Must've been, because I didn't have the patience to read through all those kupos.

[Keramory]

What bothers me too about the primals is the very uneven amount of lore (as little they give) between them. Shiva has an entire saga after her and ifrit.. Well he's just angry.

I said I'm staying away from gameplay but I will say the massiveness of ffxi and having to run everywhere played a huge part in my opinion in its vastness. I easily felt overwhelmed (in a good and bad way) and every bit of story had more impact. I felt small. Every monster my level could almost kill me... Let alone story content where I needed people desperately. I was an adventurer! Eventually a hero! Not some over powered god like Ffxiv.

As for the cities, I think they did them near perfect and different from one another. Juneo being.. Woah. Ishgard just fails to me.

The beast men were scary and ... An actual race of creatures! There's nothing of notice with these beast men. They went the right way in 1.0 then just dropped the ball. I want to see a beastman city I have to infiltrate!

[Nalien]

I will say that Odin being behind basically everything was pretty obnoxious, straight out.

Agreed. Wings of the Goddess is where I completely switched off with XI... Partly because I had to, I mean the rate we got story with that expansion was appalling... Odin did it, though? Christ... Why? The general Cloud of Darkness plot RoV gave made much more sense to me... The opening cinematic mentioned the crystal banishing the darkness, yet that darkness never manifested until RoV, I was convinced Wings was going to involve that for explaining Shadow Lord, but nope... Odin...

Before that though? I really quite enjoyed the God meta XI had going on... Celestials were the "old" Gods, while the Terrestrials arose from Vana'diel... Throw in a plot to "humanize" the old Gods with those short stories and it was much more enjoyable than the frankly pathetic amount of information we get on Primals... Primals, for the most part, exist because magic, there's some mythology tied to that, but they've not explored that nearly enough to satisfy me...

Where was that mentioned? o.o I can't honestly remember anything like that, but it sounds super interesting. Was it the moogle sidequests? Must've been, because I didn't have the patience to read through all those kupos.

It's speculation, and yes, it's tied to the moogle sidequests.

Good King was based on the legend of how the Moogles got to the Twelveswood; They once worshiped the Twelve in the Sky, but a calamity occurred and fire rained down from the sky, so the Good King lead a group down to the surface.

If you view that in terms of Eorzean history, it sounds like perhaps the Second Umbral Era (IIRC that was fire?), except the Gods (Twelve) left Eorzea before/during the First Umbral Era, so that doesn't line up... When you take the Moghome stuff into consideration, though... You have Moogles serving Sky (Dragon) and Land (Thordan) Lords prior to the Dragonsong War... Thordan had Twelve Knights... Nidhogg (a dragon, who spits fire...) clearly caused a mini-calamity when he went nuts, given the damage can still be seen all around Dravania... I'd imagine the Twelveswood Moogles left at the start of the Dragonsong War and the Twelve they served were Thordans Knights...

In some ways, I love that... It's speculation and is never out right explained... Shame the rest can't be on that level... At the very bottom you've got Leviathan, they completely butchered him... This is actually a large part of why I want a Beast Tribe expansion next, that takes us into their territory (that and it would be the perfect expansion to provide new GC Ranks, FC Primal Summoning, Hamlet Defense, and pretty much everything I'd hoped 2.0 would add that still haven't been added...).

XI didn't leave the same room for speculation with the short stories basically spelling out the Avatars origins, but at least all of them had a solid piece of lore behind them... Here? Shiva and Thordan do, but those weren't Primals, they were people playing Primals... Bahamut does thanks to Tiamat (who we can't tell about Dalamud or Coil because screw satisfying conclusions), but that is it... Best case you've got Ramuh, who gives us a nice bit of dialog, worst case you've got Leviathan, who was just there...

[LineageRazor]

The God-meta is completely crazy in XI, and possibly even inconsistent within itself with the introduction of Hades in Seekers of Adoulin. By virtue of having some form of sanity (so far), XIV wins here.

I'm not sure what you mean by Hades adding inconsistency.

The Adoulin storyline makes it clear that Hades is NOT a natural part of Vana'diel in any way. He's an extradimensional invader. Or, to be more specific, he's a mortal from Vana'diel who found his way to that other dimension (Tartarus) and used the power he found there to transform himself into a nihilistic god-like being. In either case, though, he has no relation to the various gods and god-like beings found in Vana'diel, and doesn't interfere with the lore of those beings in any way I can think of.

[CyrilLucifer]

I'm not sure what you mean by Hades adding inconsistency.

He adds an inconsistency is because he is an anomaly. He has control over spirits and undead (Ra'Kaznar is filled to the brim with fomor, not to mention the whole totally-not-a-vampire-we-swear Teodore; his servants also include Umbrils and Dullahans, which presumably work the same way in XI as they do in XIV, being spirits inhabiting an armor.), which fall under the realm of true Gods, and higher gods like Promathia/Altana at that. He's Hades, but he's not Hades. He's somewhere in-between man and God without a place really specific for him - something of a false God, if you will, in a game that previously lacked false Gods. All of the Avatars are true Gods.

He just doesn't fit.
I actually feel like he wouldn't be out of place in XIV at all specifically because of what I mentioned. You can tell they were drawing from Ascians with him already.

Edit:

Best case you've got Ramuh, who gives us a nice bit of dialog, worst case you've got Leviathan, who was just there

Ah, if you didn't at least finish WotG you should. I actually quit then, too, for exactly the same reasons you did, but went back. Twice. I'm like FFXI's battered wife at this point, that keeps being abused and goes back for more.

As for the above, can I just say how disappointing Levi is? He's my favorite summon and just...blarg. The Sahagin, however, are very interesting. Easily better than their XI counterparts. XI's Sahagin were cuter, though.

[Berethos]

What bothers me too about the primals is the very uneven amount of lore (as little they give) between them. Shiva has an entire saga after her and ifrit.. Well he's just angry.

I believe much of how the lore is uneven is down to the place in the story the Primals occupy - they are more deconstructions of deities than actual deities, as often as the stories that involve them are centered on the faith and beliefs and current status of the culture that births their current form. For each of those cultures we get a fair amount of exposure, even if we don't get much background on the summoned being itself.

Even with Shiva, who has one of the most fleshed out backgrounds of just who served as the inspiration, is more about the beliefs of Ysale and the heretics and the manipulation or action/inaction of certain dragons than it is about a deity-like being.

So the Avatars themselves do seem more interesting, because they occupy a different place in the story...a higher tier of sorts, due to being actual deities.

[Nalien]

Ah, if you didn't at least finish WotG you should. I actually quit then, too, for exactly the same reasons you did, but went back. Twice. I'm like FFXI's battered wife at this point, that keeps being abused and goes back for more.

Thankfully (I guess), I can't bring myself to go back... I've attempted to view summaries of recent stuff, but it's not exactly drawing me back... Some of what I've seen from RoV is just down right off putting... SoA interested me with what seemed like some Zilart technology being involved? It's hard to get invested when you're not playing it, though...

As for the above, can I just say how disappointing Levi is? He's my favorite summon and just...blarg. The Sahagin, however, are very interesting. Easily better than their XI counterparts. XI's Sahagin were cuter, though.

He's fallen far from the King of all Summons...

On that subject though, I'd say beast tribes are much better in XIV than XI. XI they were just kinda there, and we maybe got something with the nation missions... XIVs done a much better job exploring them so far, and with large portions of Eorzea locked off as their territory, I have hopes we'll one day see an Beast Tribe Expansion...

[Keramory]

And that's fine, I actually liked how they showed shiva off and explained primals (although a complete rip off fma humuculous where reviving goes totally wrong) I just don't understand the lack of info on ifrit.
The sad part is he was the first! By far! Think he was the only dude the original staff made. And we get like two sentences on him which sums up... He's crankier then the other primals (which says a lot).
We could have an npc just say a paragraph to give in detail. He's based from an anorexic beastmen who was made fun of so he got really angry and became a strong warrior for the a-team tribe. Things went south when they tried to bring him back. Better story then "oh hell these guys got guns, we're calling daddy"

[Rhodkr]

I dunno, I liked XI's beast tribes better honestly. I mean for the Yagudo, (XIs Ixali) they had Giddeus and Ozortra. Every beast tribe had about two areas devoted to them, fleshing out their cities and having quests making you sneak through these cities. If you explored them on you own and went in deep enough, you could actually fight their bosses in the form of notorious monsters. These nms where rare spawns and they couldn't be soloed, at least at lvl 75!

Edit: Ozotra was almost like a keep, where you had to solve puzzles, find secret doors desguised as walls, hit hidden switches to go deeper. The switches reset daily (vanadeil time) or was it weekly? And when you hit the wrong switch a trapdoor would open and dump you into the basement.

[CyrilLucifer]

The Yagudo and Quadav were interesting, especially the Yagudo. Their idol was a female child chosen for her singing voice and placed in the role against her will. The Quadav had an interesting give and take relationship with Bastok. The Lamia and Merrows are also neat for the same reasons BLUs are.

I also liked the Gobbies in XI. While XIV absolutely gives the Gobbies more personality, XI gave them more of a sense of danger. Someone on this board is always saying Alexander is flaws because it suffers from "tell, not show -" XI's Gobbies are exactly opposite, they're "Show, don't tell." Some Gobbies hired the Troll Mercenaries. Because they had the funding and because they wanted to. They had the power and they used it. While they could be helpful and sell things or upgrade your pack, they could also be unpredictable and dangerous. It was based on the individual, rather than the faction; they were true neutral and I really loved them.

Also, times have changed, Rhodkr. Nowadays, you can even solo the ToAU beast kings!

The Orcs were basically just humor fuel, especially in WotG, and the Sahagin were throwaway. The Tonberries in XI were equally amazing as XIV's though, from an interest perspective.