Where to Start?

[BecauseCatgirls]

Hello, I recently started playing FFXIV frequently, after the latest WoW expansion was disappointing. The game has been very fun, but I've been missing something I became very familiar with in WoW: the lore. I know that much is wrapped up in the Main Story quests, but I wanted to ask if there was somewhere where most of the lore was covered in a clear and concise manner, as a catch-up mechanism.

[MPNZ]

Well, there are the lore books and a few youtube videos, but there is also history dumps via a historian for the mnk job quests that goes over some things involving the military conflicts between Ala mhigo and Gridania. Also, Hydalin is like a mirror and shattered) or a child taking its favorite shows and toys, games, and cartoons and mashing them together in a crossover event and then it gets into a fight with its sibling about the story and overall dierction et cetera. that is like the best explanation for FF14 I can like think of

[legg]

Hello ! welcome to the world of FFXIV

you could say the lore in this game is pretty massive. for the deep-world building, the Lore book will surelly help you.
some side-quest also have its unique lore and world building aspect on it, its like a "skip or miss" type of things.
i can't say much about the lore itself since every big thing that happened in this game (the Calamity, Wars, Creation of something, Revolutions) already explained inside the game somewhere in a side-quest or Main quest
there's also a youtube channel that mainly talked about the games lore, you could check that.

what lore do you intrested with btw ? the world of hydaelin as a whole or just something that catch up your attention ?

[MetalSnakeXI1]

Hello, I recently started playing FFXIV frequently, after the latest WoW expansion was disappointing. The game has been very fun, but I've been missing something I became very familiar with in WoW: the lore. I know that much is wrapped up in the Main Story quests, but I wanted to ask if there was somewhere where most of the lore was covered in a clear and concise manner, as a catch-up mechanism.

Some youtube channels do cover the lore for the game for stuff before A Realm Reborn like the summary of version 1.0 which I highly recommend you watch before u go further

Tho a lot of stuff will unfold as you go on with the main story quests and sidequests,if you want an instantly accessible version summarizing everything you can get the Encyclopedia Eorzea book....but beware cuz it has a lot of spoilers

Also welcome to the world of Final Fantasy XIV.Hope u have fun and if u want some help let me know...I can tank a dungeon/boss or two for ya ^_^

EDIT:Also,while not lore related per se,I highly recommend watching the documentary on Final Fantasy XIV and how much it changed from the original 1.0 release to ARR and onward

[Anonymoose]

Usually the best thing to do is just explore around the thing you're interested in. NPCs in the area, Levequests, sidequests, go back and read your journal. The thing about XIV's lore is that you rarely understand it properly without the little context clues - which, when curious, are often hidden close by to the thing you're curious about if you scratch the surface a bit.

Rule #1 is take anything someone tells you with a block of salt unless they give you a citation. Fan misinterpretation and misrepresentation of the lore is rampant, especially on YouTube and reddit (who get much of their information from YouTube). This isn't to put them down - they're content creators - they have to put out rhythmic content and are doing it for the clicks and the audience and building the brand, they don't have time to get all the nitty gritty details and it can go sideways.

When in doubt ... ask us here! (And yes, the lore book is worth every penny.)

[Cilia]

Welcome to Hydaelyn!

As a rule of thumb, anything you need to know should be covered in-game. Further details (such as most information in the Encyclopedia Eorzea a.k.a. Lore Book) are nice to have and can expand your understanding, but aren't necessary to fully enjoy the story. (I don't have one myself.)

Just get into it and if you have any questions don't be afraid to ask - just beware of bias, as a lot of things are open to interpretation.
Most (in)famously Garlemald, and if you happen across a heated debate on the issue my advice is thus:

[ObsidianFire]

If you are playing for the first time, do play at least through the 2.0 scenario before delving into the lore. The most basic need-to-know stuff is covered there and all the lore that comes afterwards builds off of it.

That said, here's a couple of very helpful references that I've found for after you finish 2.0 and want to go through the lore with a fine-toothed comb.

Garland Tools - This is an amazing resource. It has all the Journal Entries, all the unvoiced dialogue and most of the quest-dependent NPC dialogue of every single quest in the game. This lets you browse through the vast majority of the information given in quests without needing to have the game open in front of you. The only thing it doesn't have is the voiced dialogue since the sub-titles for that are stored differently in the game files, but you can find that dialogue in-game in the Unending Journey (in an inn room). Just beware of what you're clicking on as there is spoilers for everything in the game in there... This is my go-to resource for figuring out where/when in the game various pieces of lore comes from.

This site also has a ton of other useful information and functions in it that help with normally playing the game. If you only have time to look at one resource, it should be this one; everything in this is from the game itself, so everything in here is canon by default.

Encyclopedia Eorzea Vol. I (and soon to be Vol. II) - Otherwise known as the Lore Book. If you are a lore nerd, this is invaluable. It's written from the PoV of scholars living in Eorzea and contains so much information in it. A lot of information that is hinted at in the game is explained here in scholastic detail. And much of the information in here never made it into the game in the first place since there's never been a natural place for it to be included. You'll find everything in here from a detailed cosmology to a bestiary to detailed descriptions of all the places in the zones to a history of the Sixth Astral Era. Volume I runs from the start of history to 3.4. Volume II will coming out this November and most likely have information from 3.5 to 4.4. In a nutshell, this is practically the unofficial FFXIV Dungeon Master Guidebook. Spoilers naturally abound in this, so play most of the MSQ before reading it.

1.0 Resources

Okay, so technically the game does explain what roughly happened in 1.0 to the player, but that still glosses over a lot of character interaction that goes a long way in establishing why a lot of the main characters do what they do. Again, I wouldn't look into this until playing at least until the end of the 2.0 MSQ. Just keep in mind that some of the nitty-gritty lore in here was retconed when FFXIV was relaunched, but the broad strokes of it are correct.

The Rise and Fall of the White Raven - This is probably the best text summary of 1.0 and the events leading up to 1.0 on the internet. It's about as close to 1.0 canon as you can get without watching the 1.0 cut-scenes yourself. Many thanks to Anonymoose for collecting all that data and putting it in writing!

Incidentally, the rest of the GamerEscape FFXIV wiki is a good source of basic info about characters, events, locations, etc. Most of the information there is from the game or the Lore Book and there's enough in-game references in there to know where to start looking for more information. There's also quite a few other lore articles and interviews on this site, but most of those are centered less on general lore and more on specialized lore. So I'd take a look at those once you've finished the bulk of the MSQ.

1.0 Cut-scenes - If you do want to watch the 1.0 cut-scenes, this would be the playlist to use. It's got all the MSQ cut-scenes from 1.0 to 1.23 and even includes the 1.0 Hildibrand cut-scenes! This play-through starts in Ul'dah. Fortunately, you can find the other starting city-state 1.0 cutscenes on YouTube. Here's the 1.0 Gridania cut-scenes and here's the 1.0 Limsa Lominsa cut-scenes. You can find other 1.0 cut-scenes on YouTube, but the MSQ ones are the ones that impact 2.0 the most.

One site you'd be better off not going to for FFXIV lore is the Final Fantasy wikia. There's a lot of unconfirmed data on there and some things that are flat out wrong. Let's just say it doesn't have the best quality control and leave it at that.

[Enkidoh]

Welcome to Eorzea!

As well as echoing the above (especially Moose's "don't take this as true unless there is proof to back it up", something that I admit I have been guilty of in the past - posting a theory that I thought had proper proof but was more just something I had misremembered! ), are you also new to the FF series itself? The reason I ask is FFXIV, including it's story, features references, callbacks and allusions to all the FF games that came before it, along with references to a number of spinoff and non-FF SE titles, so you would be likely to miss many of these clever fanservice references if you're unaware of the games that FFXIV is alluding to. Each FF game has a unique setting, characters and story though so don't worry if you haven't played like FFVII and feel you're 'missed out' on understanding FFXIV's story!

The only previous title that really has a deeper connection to the current FFXIV story and setting is the original version of FFXIV, version 1.0, that has been shut down, and which ARR is a sequel of story wise - you do not have to know anything about the events of FFXIV 1.0 to appreciate and understand FFXIV ARR's story though, as the revelant info is covered in ARR.

Hence, the FF Wiki is probably the best place to start with getting your feet wet about the FF series in general and all the titles that FFXIV refefences if you're unfamiliar with the FF series at large. Although I agree with Obsidian above about avoiding it's specific FFXIV pages, as there are few things there that are wrong (mostly the page on the Echo involves a misconception of how it works and how it helps the player, which I won't go into here), the rest of the site, and the pages for FFXIV 1.0 at least, are fine.

And this is the FFXIV forum thread where players have tried listing all the known references and allusions to past FF games (many of which are not on the FF Wiki's own listing!), naturally this is a work in progress so there is bound to be a lot that still lies buried!

Anyway, welcome once again to Eorzea! (And the lore forum!).

[SannaR]

Hi and welcome. I think one youtuber who is as in love with the lore as Moose is would be Ethys Asher. He doesn't post many videos these days because of Youtube's calculations but he does use twitter n twitch a lot more. He also will go back if new stuff has made past comments not 100% true any more. I'd also tell you to go and read the side stories SE puts out. They might not have a lot of lore but there's a lot of connective tissue to things that tie into the story that explain some whys to some character developments that you won't see on screen. A lot of people might give SE a lot of flack for things but one of them is so far not forgetting things they've brought up in the past. Even something that might seem small and forgetable they'll bring it up again and you'll go wow.

[Iscah]

I'd also tell you to go and read the side stories SE puts out. They might not have a lot of lore but there's a lot of connective tissue to things that tie into the story that explain some whys to some character developments that you won't see on screen.

...with the important warning to not read them until you have played the games they are related to! All kinds of spoilers in them.

The Side Stories page is here.

"Tales from the Calamity" can probably be read straight away, but is better appreciated once you've finished ARR and know that group of characters.

"Tales from the Dragonsong War" should only be read after completing Heavensward and its post-credits storyline.

And "Tales from the Storm" should be read post-Stormblood.