Gamerescape E3 Interview

[Iscah]

Please not Moenbryda. Not when Urianger has just slowly come to acceptance of her death.

[Anonymoose]

Just think, this entire conversation about Bizarro NPCs (in spite of the devs shooting it down for months) because this generic Hyur has the same beard, shirt, and capacity as "random dude who talks to you about the world like he's two weeks from retirement" as the Brothers Bre. I feel kinda bad for whoever it is on the team with a romanticist attraction to literary symmetry.

[Iscah]

Just think, this entire conversation about Bizarro NPCs (in spite of the devs shooting it down for months) because this generic Hyur has the same beard, shirt, and capacity as "random dude who talks to you about the world like he's two weeks from retirement" as the Brothers Bre. I feel kinda bad for whoever it is on the team with a romanticist attraction to literary symmetry.

It's not about the merchant (I'd be fine with just him!), it's the interview quote from Yoshida, particularly the last line:

So, while they may look similar, they are not exactly the same person who follows the same path. Their fate may be different in the different realms. We wanted to depict that aspect of it as well. You will probably encounter other similar situations with other characters that you come in contact with throughout the story.

It's not a one-off, it's apparently something we'll see with multiple characters whose "fate may be different" to what we know.

Maybe the translation is misleading and/or I'm blowing it out of proportion - especially considering how often I tell others to calm down over interview quotes! - but that wording heavily implies we'll be seeing characters whose original fate (a term often linked with negative outcome if not death) we might wish could be altered.

[QT_Melon]

It's probably far easier to reuse assets, including NPCs as dopplegangers for lore hounds that want to play Where's Waldo. I don't think there's much more to that. Re-using assets is all part of a game dev's plan.

Just like the bushes in Super Mario are the same as the clouds.

[Cilia]

I'm willing to forgive the merchant (though I was originally of the mind it was the same merchant from 2.0's opening and 2.55's ending, and that he was more important than initially assumed), but I'm not a fan of trans-dimensional doppelgangers. Having doubles beyond minor, low-key NPCs kind of ruins the whole "other world" feel Norvrandt is supposed to have.

Then again they all still speak the same language with the same accent despite ~12,000 years of divergent history making that nigh-impossible, so I guess it's not too surprising...

Maybe Urianger is calling Y'shtola "Master Matoya" by that name in the OP because it's not actually her, but her double...

[Iscah]

I was originally of the mind it was the same merchant from 2.0's opening and 2.55's ending, and that he was more important than initially assumed

I thought you got rescued in 2.55 by whichever merchant you met at the beginning of the game, though the script on Garland Tools only has dialogue for Bremondt (the Gridsnian merchant). Maybe it works differently within the game, but I can't check now.

Maybe Urianger is calling Y'shtola "Master Matoya" by that name in the OP because it's not actually her, but her double...

Possible, though I saw some character profile slides the other day (from the live letter?) and it does seem to be "our" Y'shtola in the black outfit.

I certainly hope there's a more interesting explanation for it that "just an alias that we deliberately showed to confuse you all when it's barely even a plot point".

[MrThinker]

I thought you got rescued in 2.55 by whichever merchant you met at the beginning of the game, though the script on Garland Tools only has dialogue for Bremondt (the Gridsnian merchant). Maybe it works differently within the game, but I can't check now.





Possible, though I saw some character profile slides the other day (from the live letter?) and it does seem to be "our" Y'shtola in the black outfit.

I certainly hope there's a more interesting explanation for it that "just an alias that we deliberately showed to confuse you all when it's barely even a plot point".

As someone who started in Ul'dah, I can confirm the brother that comes to your rescue varies on your starting city state. The only time you ever see the 3 together themselves is at the end of 2.0 in the Waking Sands before accepting the quest rewards for 'The Ultimate Weapon'

[LineageRazor]

I certainly hope there's a more interesting explanation for it that "just an alias that we deliberately showed to confuse you all when it's barely even a plot point".

We're using assumed names to conceal our identities! On a completely different world where no one knows who we are anyway!

Then again they all still speak the same language with the same accent despite ~12,000 years of divergent history making that nigh-impossible, so I guess it's not too surprising...[/size]

Couldn't that be chalked up to the WoL's Echo ability to comprehend languages? (As for the other Scions, they're a bright lot and might have picked up the lingo swiftly.)

[Zetsumei_Tsunarashi]

Naoki Yoshida: As you know, the world was shattered into 14 different shards, including The Source, about 10,000 years ago. When the world split into the different shards, because it was based off the same ether, each is a similar realm. So there may be a possibility that certain people, while not exactly replicated, will look similar on the different realms.

So this part of the quote is something I've been zeroing in on lately in my thoughts. It kind of sounds like Yoshida is saying that people may look the same, for the same reason that say Norvrandt is the same shape as Eorzea. The same aether was used in the creation of the shards, so that same aether also comprises the people of Norvrandt as well. In essence it's sort of saying that genetics isn't necessarily what makes people look like they do in XIV, but moreso aether is what governs that. Or rather, aether takes the place of genetics in XIV. So like for example, the Solus clones are actually copies of Solus's aether moreso than they are copies of Solus's DNA.

Since aether returns to the lifestream on death, it could be that aether simply gets recycled and when people are born there's a chance that aether from someone who died can be used in the creation of a new life. If aether is what determines the appearance of people rather than DNA, it would mean that the appearance of people has nothing to do with what their parents look like. So even if we see people we recognize it doesn't mean that they necessarily had the same parents etc.

When you think about Varis's idea that all the races of today were once a single race, it kind of makes sense. In the same way that Hydaelyn and Zodiark were split into the 14 shards, that one single race was split into the races we have today. So each person's aether is comprised of aether from that original race, and since aether simply gets shuffled around over and over again in the lifestream, you repeatedly end up getting people that look the same over and over again throughout time.

More crazy ideas for this forum ! \o/

[EdwinLi]

So this part of the quote is something I've been zeroing in on lately in my thoughts. It kind of sounds like Yoshida is saying that people may look the same, for the same reason that say Norvrandt is the same shape as Eorzea. The same aether was used in the creation of the shards, so that same aether also comprises the people of Norvrandt as well. In essence it's sort of saying that genetics isn't necessarily what makes people look like they do in XIV, but moreso aether is what governs that. Or rather, aether takes the place of genetics in XIV. So like for example, the Solus clones are actually copies of Solus's aether moreso than they are copies of Solus's DNA.

Since aether returns to the lifestream on death, it could be that aether simply gets recycled and when people are born there's a chance that aether from someone who died can be used in the creation of a new life. If aether is what determines the appearance of people rather than DNA, it would mean that the appearance of people has nothing to do with what their parents look like. So even if we see people we recognize it doesn't mean that they necessarily had the same parents etc.

More crazy ideas for this forum ! \o/

Aether is basically the DNA of life for FF14 world by now considering all the lore that was presented since 2.X about Aether and how it affects life. Not to mention after death the person's Aether returns to the Aether that flows through the planet and eventually is reborn again.

Despite the split in worlds for 10,000 years, majority of the Aether for the First and Source still remains the same and due to this the possibility of plucking a Aether similar to another person in the Source is still possible even if result the counterpart being born in different time zones.

Only real difference between two people of the same Aether/DNA would be their life experience and personality that developed through their different life experiences.