[Spoilers] Suggestion: Using the Echo to play through the other starter-city stories

[Eorzean_username]

(I'm sorry if this is the wrong subforum, I wasn't sure where to post this suggestion)

Minor spoilers for:

• Ul'dahn questlines
• 2.x MSQ
• HW PLD quests

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So, I had just started my HW PLD quests, and was contacted at the end by ... Papashan. Who is Papashan? I don't know. But he seemed to know me. I wiki'd him, and noticed he was connected to the Ul'dahn section of the introductory MSQ. I started in Gridania, so I never saw these quests.

Well, I'm stubborn, so the next thing I did was roll up an alt and choose Ul'dah as my starting city. And... the difference was surprising.

The tone and theme of the introductory experience is so completely different than Gridania's. And the amount of information I've learned about the workings of Ul'dah go way beyond anything the 2.x MSQ taught me, despite being set so heavily in Ul'dah and its politics.

I've read that Elder Scrolls Online has a system where you begin as one faction, but after completing its storyline, you're given the option to 'relive' the stories of the other two factions in a lore-respecting way (magical visions, or something). I think this would be a satisfying feature to add to FFXIV, for players who want to see the whole picture of the lore without grinding up disposable alts, or to have a headcanonical sense of their one main character being aware of all these details. And to help ensure everyone (who cares) is on the same page lore-wise moving forward.

Something like, after you complete your starting city-state's MSQ storyline, you can somehow trigger the Echo to 'unlock' the other two city-state storylines and play through them as well.

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Edited out some misinterpretations on my part, once I finished the entire Ul'dahn MSQ

[dejiko_san]

Since the stories are only different until level 15, it's easily doable with an alt. This could be a thing if the entire storyline changed though...

[Enkidoh]

You're also misunderstanding how exactly the Echo works - it's not actual time travel at all, but merely viewing another person's memories of an event they lived through, so to experience each city's starting story, the player's character would need to interact with someone else who experienced those events - which technically there would be none who experienced every story event for that city (as that's the player's role in the first place). It's just not possible lore wise.

Plus, fundamentally each city has more or less the same narrative pacing with only differences in the npcs featured, story details specific for each city and (some) of the enemies you face. But ultimately for all three cities you start in a dream with Lahabrea (that foreshadows the end of the original 2.0 main scenario) - this is also where the player is awoken to the Echo, only to wake up on a chocobo carriage or ferry enroute to your starting city, talk with a merchant who reveals a bit about your starting city only to be interrupted by the local beastmen showing up and causing trouble that the carriage/ferry manages to escape from, walking through the gates of the city and being directed by a gate guard to head to the adventurer's guild, joining up with said Guild, joining the Guild for your chosen class, doing odd jobs for the city which eventually causes a series of events that results in encountering the Archon for that city, have a vision through the Echo of the starshower, are instructed by Hydaelyn to seek out the Crystals of Light, defeat a minor Ascian and the Voidsent they summon, meet with the head of state for that city and are instructed to attend a special event (ball/banquet/festival) where they have an Echo vision of the Calamity, and are ultimately dispatched to the other two cities as that nation's envoy. All that is shared between all three cities - only area specific details differ.

So it's not really worth SE spending all that resources to change it that the player can view those alternative stories through the Echo/Unending Journey when a player can already just create a new character and start in those other cities, as Dejiko mentioned.

[Cilia]

There's also the matter of the local Scion being considered closest to you - if you start in Limsa, for instance, you are implied to have a deeper relationship with Y'shtola because she is the one who helped you through your initial trials there. At various points this is brought up, and if they let you do all of them... which to choose? Your starting city, or your favorite story?

[bswpayton]

I have four alts so ive seem each startin city

[Morningstar1337]

Its likely that the Papashan cameo thing was an oversight (the devs were overworked to the point of needing a vacation remember). Can anyone check to see if there was a bug?

[Naria]

Everyone else actually meets Papashan during the MSQ "Into Copper Hell" (and I think he has shown up a few other times) but he is fairly forgettable if you don't start in Ul'dah. FFXI did have a option that let you change starting cities in order view the different storylines; I'd prefer a pure gameplay mechanic like that than trying to make it work within the lore. We already handwave certain things, Fantasia for instance. Ofc, that is not likely as it would probably play hell with a character's quest flags and unlocks. As it is, I just made alts in the different cities.

[RobinMalvin]

Papashan is still involved in an early and easily forgettable MSQ where you unlock Copperbell Mines dungeon. His status as semi-retired paladin and close acquintance of Sultana isn't mentioned if you don't start in Ul'dah, but the point is the devs team tried to introduce us to important NPCs (Reyner of Limsa, Lewin of Gridania) regardless where you chose your starter city.

[Eorzean_username]

I understand the Echo isn't time travel. The 'real' events would still be the ones that occurred in your true starting city, you would just be observing (vicariously) the other events that were occurring in parallel at that time in the other regions.

That said, I'm also not very hung on the semantics of it, but more the effects on filling in gaps and blanks in the storytelling in a way that's more natural than awkwardly creating disposable alts — in whatever manner the developers and storytellers would be comfortable implementing it.

Mostly it would just ("just", I know nothing is actually that simple in MMO spaghetti code) be about opening the locks that prevent a player, currently, from seeing and accepting the city-specific quests in each region, along with some safety rails and window-dressing to prevent anything too weird.

[Hinoto-no-Ryuji]

I understand the Echo isn't time travel. The 'real' events would still be the ones that occurred in your true starting city, you would just be observing (vicariously) the other events that were occurring in parallel at that time in the other regions.

The issue being, that's not what those were - they weren't events that were happening elsewhere. We weren't exactly a passive observer that just happened to be around to witness those events - those quests were a kickoff to the whole plot, with our actions and struggles actively affecting the outcome of things. Which isn't something possible with the Echo. For this to be implemented in a lore-friendly way, it would require presenting the other scenarios as they occurred without the Warrior of Light - something that would require a bit more effort than opening locks.