Revelations from Patch 4.56

[ChaoticCrimson]

From the way the alternate worlds have been presented - evolving separately since they split, with different cultures and races - I think it's logically very unlikely that we would encounter duplicate people. That's 12,000 years of every single person in your family tree finding the same partner - implausible to happen once, let alone for a whole group of people, especially when the world they live in is so different to the Source.

I'll be disappointed if we get alternate versions of people - it simply shouldn't happen unless the split was recent and the worlds are mostly identical.

From a realistic standpoint, you'd be very likely correct, and as I said there's no substantial evidence yet to suggest there even will be alt versions of characters. But this is also a fantasy setting, so I'm aware that "suspension of disbelief" does make these alts somewhat of a possibility. Either way, I have no strong feelings with whatever path they choose on the matter. However, I will be interested to see what they do with the story in either case.

[Vulcwen]

From a realistic standpoint, you'd be very likely correct, and as I said there's no substantial evidence yet to suggest there even will be alt versions of characters. But this is also a fantasy setting, so I'm aware that "suspension of disbelief" does make these alts somewhat of a possibility. Either way, I have no strong feelings with whatever path they choose on the matter. However, I will be interested to see what they do with the story in either case.

I really don't think alts would work, even in this setting, at least not without a good explanation. That said, it is possible that G'raha was cloned, and then sent to the First, this explains the alternate version of a character, but the alternate version is also still from the Source. I'd consider this option quite unlikely tho, more likely is that it actually is G'raha.

[Eloah]

I really don't think alts would work, even in this setting, at least not without a good explanation. That said, it is possible that G'raha was cloned, and then sent to the First, this explains the alternate version of a character, but the alternate version is also still from the Source. I'd consider this option quite unlikely tho, more likely is that it actually is G'raha.

Considering were going to an alternate world and not a parallel one, means the likelyhood of us finding duplicate is rare, except maybe Rowena, we know she's gonna appear somehow, lol. That being said until further information is gathered, it's not unlikely that the "mysterious man/Miqo'te" isn't our G'raha Tia. The biggest hint is he knows who we are, even the Warriors of Darkness didn't know who we we're until we showed proof. Secondly, we know now, and it was hints way back when that the Crystal Tower can trancend dimensions, which given it's source material should of been a given in hindsight. G'raha said he was going to sleep until the time came to reopen the tower. But that has been some time, and we don't know if he was summoned to the tower on the first during his "slumber". Plus I've seen this a few times but I don't think he's a clone, like others have speculated. His story depicts him as a natural desendent of the Allagans. Whether some Allagans were Miqo'te or not, because of the Allagan creation debate, or if he is just a very diluted mixed breed is debatable.

Personally though, I am glad to see him return for 2 reasons. 1, he was a really interesting character, that I enjoyed interacting with. And 2, we finally have our first male Miqo'te main character, it only took 3 expansions, lol.

Also appologies for any spelling mistaken this tablets auto correct sucks.

[LineageRazor]

i'm left wondering if there was supposed to be more msq updates but they forgot/ran out of time.

Interestingly, in retrospect I think that they produced precisely as much story as they planned to. If you recall, it was noted in Patch 4.5 that there were more Main Scenario Quests than usual. At the time, I took that to mean that they had a lot of story left to tell, and that there'd be a lot to sink our teeth into both then, and again now at this patch. Now, instead, I suspect that they simply had run into the problem that the Ghimlyt Dark just couldn't be penciled into the schedule any earlier than it was - and since they HAD to have a dungeon added with 4.5, they were left but no choice to give us the lion's share of the remaining MSQs in that patch, leaving us the pitiful two quests we got to wrap things up in 4.56.

So, the problem wasn't running out of time or budget, but simply that the story they decided to tell was poorly plotted. Taken as a whole, the the 4.5 + 4.56 MSQs work a little bit better. Folks were excited about the revelations in 4.5, and talked about it in the forums for months. If those MSQs had been released NOW instead of THEN, the hype could have tided us over for most of the three months until Shadowbringers. Unfortunately, the 4.56 quests pretty much did nothing but maintain the status quo, so there isn't really anything new to get hyped about.

I will say, though, that even taken as a whole, the MSQs really ought to have done more to cement our reason for playing along with the Enigmatic Dude. Right now, we don't have an awful lot of reason to trust him - he's clearly the ones responsible for the Scions' current state, after all. We had definite goals at the end of ARR (clear our names!) and HW (prepare for war!), but our intentions right now are a lot more nebulous. The Garleans are a clear and present danger, but we're somehow supposed to be faffing about with the Enigmatic Dude? Perhaps the expansion will offer a good reason why we'd choose NOW to go to the First Shard, but I honestly wish we'd gotten some of that in this patch.

[RenewalXVII]

Interestingly, in retrospect I think that they produced precisely as much story as they planned to. If you recall, it was noted in Patch 4.5 that there were more Main Scenario Quests than usual. At the time, I took that to mean that they had a lot of story left to tell, and that there'd be a lot to sink our teeth into both then, and again now at this patch. Now, instead, I suspect that they simply had run into the problem that the Ghimlyt Dark just couldn't be penciled into the schedule any earlier than it was - and since they HAD to have a dungeon added with 4.5, they were left but no choice to give us the lion's share of the remaining MSQs in that patch, leaving us the pitiful two quests we got to wrap things up in 4.56.

So, the problem wasn't running out of time or budget, but simply that the story they decided to tell was poorly plotted. Taken as a whole, the the 4.5 + 4.56 MSQs work a little bit better. Folks were excited about the revelations in 4.5, and talked about it in the forums for months. If those MSQs had been released NOW instead of THEN, the hype could have tided us over for most of the three months until Shadowbringers. Unfortunately, the 4.56 quests pretty much did nothing but maintain the status quo, so there isn't really anything new to get hyped about.

I will say, though, that even taken as a whole, the MSQs really ought to have done more to cement our reason for playing along with the Enigmatic Dude. Right now, we don't have an awful lot of reason to trust him - he's clearly the ones responsible for the Scions' current state, after all. We had definite goals at the end of ARR (clear our names!) and HW (prepare for war!), but our intentions right now are a lot more nebulous. The Garleans are a clear and present danger, but we're somehow supposed to be faffing about with the Enigmatic Dude? Perhaps the expansion will offer a good reason why we'd choose NOW to go to the First Shard, but I honestly wish we'd gotten some of that in this patch.

Taking both your points into account, my gut says that this is a bit of storytelling that will feel better in a single big binge than played on release. I think (or at least hope) that there's a big, complicated story arc being built up that will make a lot of sense fully laid out in hindsight with 5.0 out, but is currently lacking because of the enforced periodic release schedule of an MMO. Kinda like the opposite of the 2.X series in terms of pacing, which infamously have the daunting reputation of 100 MSQ in a single block.

Anyway, much moreso than 2.4 and 2.5's build up to 3.0 and 3.4 and 3.5's to 4.0 with their climaxes, 4.5 feels a lot like the middle part of an arc started with 4.4 and will hopefully be fully resolved in 5.0. And this ultimately might be better narratively. Like, considering the deaths thread currently in the forum, 2.5 was very climactic but ultimately wrote a lot of checks for the narrative that ended up bouncing--it was a very hollow climax. 4.5 is kinda lacking in any significant climaxes and revelations, but that just might mean a better payoff come 5.0. Just my thoughts on the situation anyway, in trying to make the most of my mild dissatisfaction with 4.56's presentation.

[domovoi]

It's called "A Requiem for Heroes", and nobody died.

for what it's worth

it's a Requiem for Heroes because the next time the gang gets together we're turning into (Jet-black) Villains

[Iscah]

(When do we actually stop putting spoiler tags on everything? It should be safe to leave MSQ spoilers uncovered now, right? It's been a week and a half, and we've accidentally slipped out of it anyway.)

I will say, though, that even taken as a whole, the MSQs really ought to have done more to cement our reason for playing along with the Enigmatic Dude. Right now, we don't have an awful lot of reason to trust him - he's clearly the ones responsible for the Scions' current state, after all. We had definite goals at the end of ARR (clear our names!) and HW (prepare for war!), but our intentions right now are a lot more nebulous. The Garleans are a clear and present danger, but we're somehow supposed to be faffing about with the Enigmatic Dude? Perhaps the expansion will offer a good reason why we'd choose NOW to go to the First Shard, but I honestly wish we'd gotten some of that in this patch.

At this point, even if our character doesn't trust him at all, he's our best (and only, and important) lead on what has happened to the other Scions. So for now we *do* have to play along, at least until we can work out what's happened to them and how we can bring them back.

We want to rescue our friends, of course, but we also need their support to be able to stand our best chance against the Garleans and Ascians. So it's still furthering our goals in that way as well.

On the pacing of 4.50/4.56, I wonder if ideally the Ghimlyt Dark was meant to happen in 4.56 - or maybe there wasn't supposed to be a 4.56 at all (or had further plot ideas that got pushed into 5.0 instead), so they insisted on splitting it.

I was rewatching some older cutscenes to review what we've heard from "the voice" each time the Scions are taken, and the last is Alisaie in the post-dungeon scene there - shortly before 4.50 comes to its awkward halt and we get sent back to the Rising Stones to rest up for a vague amount of time.

But in 4.56, when we wake up after that vision... one of the specific dialogue choices we get is between [Is Alisaie alright?] or [How are the Scions?] - and it seems really odd to single her out like that if it's been some time since she fainted, but makes perfect sense if we went straight from Ghimlyt into the battle sequence of this patch.

It also accounts for the time anomaly of Edmont telling us that Artoirel had just departed for Ghimlyt in 4.56, despite Emmanellain telling us that back in 4.50.

So if that's correct, the intended progression would have been:

- The Ghimlyt Dark, with multiple teams of characters on the battlefield.

- post-Ghimlyt, Alisaie faints; maybe we return to Raubahn at the base and get some combination of the end-of-.50/start-of.56 scenes with him.

- "Zenos" arrives on the battlefield, and fights Hien, Yugiri and Lyse.

- everything else plays out as for 4.56.

[Belhi]

So having finally caught up with the MSQ:

I can see why a lot of people are frustrated and it might be that I binged a lot of the MSQ recently but I see a hell of a lot of moving pieces being set up here and some peoples concerns miss some huge things that have been implicated.

First and for most is the issue with the balance between the Light and Dark. We know we cant deal with the Ascians yet because if we do we trigger a flood of light and lose. My suspicion is the thinning of aether is the first sign of a flood of Light approaching. That means even just beating the Garleans might start it. We need to learn how to solve that before we finally come to a climax against Acians and by proxy, Garlemald.

This last bit, as small as it is, set up a lot of explanation on why we have the time to deal with that. We see that Thancred's idea has paid off and it has forced the Garleans to divert their attention to stabilising their control before pressing against Eorzea again. That gives time for things to brew, including the Black Rose.

We get our in game indication that the Crystal Tower is a way to travel to other shards. As for why, apart from getting our allies back, we are told outright that either outcome of our current war ends in us losing, something which has been very strongly hinted at already and told that the solution lies on the First. That, more than anything else, would be an extremely compelling reason to go there. It is an answer we have needed rather desperately since we found out about the First from Albert.

Finally we see a lot of set up of things happening at home which almost certainly will brew to pay off later. We see Solas, probably possessing his grandson now, seems to have a plan involving the Black Rose and the rising light. My guess is he has seen a potential way of using how the Black Rose is effected by the Light to trigger a Calamity event which would probably cause a lot of rebalancing. I suspect he is hiding this from Elidibus because "he was ever the worrier" and there is a risk in allowing the Light to continue to rise. Ironically, I suspect becoming the WoD will lead to us effectively stopping the next calamity.

Finally we see our old friend, Zenos, still in some poor Elezen's body, and seemingly making the decision to 'reclaim what is his'. I think this will be important in two ways. Firstly he is a massive wildcard and I think he will end up throwing a major wrench in the Ascian's plans, maybe even managing to kill off Elidibus to reclaim his body. Secondly, I could see our final confrontation with Zenos being with him leading Garlemald in 6.X, particularly if Solas is riding in Varis's body and we end up killing Solas next expansion.

One other aspect of this I have been wondering about is if our assumption that it is just the Silvertear lake which is the 'Source' of Aether on Hydaelyn. This makes me a lot more interested in the Crystal Tower as it strike me as something that could very much be a relic of the pre split world or something created on each world when the split happened, sort of like the Aetheric epicentre. It would explain why the tower could be used to travel between the shards.

[KarstenS]

We see that Thancred's idea has paid off and it has forced the Garleans to divert their attention to stabilising their control before pressing against Eorzea again.

What if the very last scene with Varis means more he will use the blaqck rose for this and will destroy much of the Garlean empire this way?

He went back from the front to stop an internal fight for the leadership and rigth after this he gehts the information the black rose is ready for production.

Remembering the scene with Gaius in the camp, he already was using the black rose this way.

1234567890

[Belhi]

What if the very last scene with Varis means more he will use the blaqck rose for this and will destroy much of the Garlean empire this way?

He went back from the front to stop an internal fight for the leadership and rigth after this he gehts the information the black rose is ready for production.

Remembering the scene with Gaius in the camp, he already was using the black rose this way.

1234567890

The Garleans seem to be definitely using it already and apparently wanted to use it against the Eorzean Alliance.

I think Varis intended to use it regardless but Solas seems to have something specific planned. He seemed particularly interested in how it would interact with the Light's rising influence.

This is why I think becoming the WoD will ironically stop a Cataclysm. I think Solas has some idea where the Black Rose's interaction with the light will turn it into some kind of supertoxin that will gas everything. In gaining the ability to tone down the Light's influence we will be able to stop this plan from going off. That is my hunch. Solas is on the poster art after all.

On a side note, I wonder what the twins new outfits will look like. I kind of want to see them grow up a bit too though that might be messing with the whole 'bubble of time' thing.