Shadowbringers Feature Lists 9 New Dungeons... I count Eight?

[Fynlar]

I think some of you are placing a lot more weight on the light/dark thing than was "advertised"

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss. Yet when some people heard about the whole WoD thing for FF14 it had them wondering if we would become the outright evil villains of the story. Uhh, no?

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

[Iscah]

I think some of you are placing a lot more weight on the light/dark thing than was "advertised"

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss. Yet when some people heard about the whole WoD thing for FF14 it had them wondering if we would become the outright evil villains of the story. Uhh, no?

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

I wasn't expecting a "characterisation shakeup" exactly - which is why I was incredibly puzzled by the direction the advertising was taking.

- emphasis on "Warrior of Darkness"
- If our powers as the "Warrior of Light" are given to us by Hydaelyn, what does it mean to become the "Warrior of Darkness"? Logically that means aligning with the opposite of our Light-power-giver, ie. Zodiark.
- Japanese sub-title "Jet-Black Villains" - if we're the Shadowbringer(s), are we also the "villain"?
- all prior examples of Darkness in the story being aspected to Ascians/Zodiark/chaos and the opposite of our heroic efforts
- trailer scene with taunting gremlin implying we were all alone in a desolate Light-soaked wasteland (didn't happen)
- pre-existing implications from the Warriors of Darkness arc that Ardbert's group caused the Calamity by being too good at being Warriors of Light and defeating the Ascians on their world, triggering the Flood.
- combining those two points, the implication that we triggered a similar flood because we defeated Zenos/Elidibus.
- a following conclusion (now known to be based on incomplete information) that Hydaelyn's command for us to fight the Darkness and spread Light might be anything from 'a bad idea' to deliberately evil, causing us to turn against Her.
- the ominous command to "become what you must", ie. something you maybe don't want to do, but have to. I think this was from the first trailer, long before we knew the identity of the mysterious voice and had reason to trust him.
- Dark Knight, the story that puts a darker-and-edgier spin on your characterisation, as the "poster job" for the expansion.


I didn't want it to happen - if you browse back through the Lore forum at that point you'll probably find a lot of me saying "but we can't go that direction! It doesn't work with the rest of the story!" - but it sure looked like it was the direction they were going, and I was expecting to be dragged unwillingly down that path and hoping there'd be a good explanation at the end.

As it turns out, the explanation seems to be "we wanted the trailer to look impressive".


(See also: the "just there to send us into theory meltdown" scene of Y'shtola being addressed as Master Matoya. The actual explanation for that felt so weak that I would not be surprised if they invented the entire plot point just for trailer shock value.)

[Valic]

I think some of you are placing a lot more weight on the light/dark thing than was "advertised"

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss. Yet when some people heard about the whole WoD thing for FF14 it had them wondering if we would become the outright evil villains of the story. Uhh, no?

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

I think it's more like... they talk about us being the warrior of darkness, they show WoL shrouded and covered in darkness, becoming a dark knight, and every trailer teased the idea of us embracing the darkness or changing from being a warrior of light to a warrior of darkness. "Become what you must".. well I didn't become anything, I just kept taking light and then using it to open the sky's darkness again. Not to mention the american commercial they played as if it was to imply we're ya know... gonna relate to DARKNESS.

I don't think we wanted to become a villain, I think we just wanted to see us not be more "oh glorious warrior of light" and use light every dang instance. We did get the type of feel we needed this expansion with light wardens and sin eaters being creations of beings that were once people, which set the right tone of us being the warrior of darkness putting down souls who didn't have a choice in their fate since it was changed.... But as far as the darkness aspect, I can't say I saw much "darkness" going for us in any of it other than us changing the sky back to night.

Okay now that you mention it that might have been awesome. Especially since this expansion made me sympathize with the Ascians/Zodiark a lot more. Would have loved to get some interaction with him.

For all we know, it still may go in that direction. We still don't truly know the story from Zodiark himself and we still haven't really dealt with the idea that our "mother" is a primal and we're possibly tempered ourselves. There's a lot still to be dealt with and honestly, I could see them having us delve more into the other half of things now that we have some more to the whole story.

[Kohdo]

I think some of you are placing a lot more weight on the light/dark thing than was "advertised"

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss. Yet when some people heard about the whole WoD thing for FF14 it had them wondering if we would become the outright evil villains of the story. Uhh, no?

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

"No guys really, you're clearly not paying attention, to truly understand this expansion's marketing you should've gone and played through a thirty-year-old FF title that released before most of you were born. You can only truly understand the advertising if you play through the advertising's source material."

[AnimaAnimus]

Anyone who was expecting a huge WoL characterization shakeup hasn't been paying attention, IMO.

Meanwhile the trailer is all like "If history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten. Become what you must, become the Warrior of Darkness"

While we see the WoL beating down a light aspected creature and embracing the darkness while the sky around the crystal tower goes dark.

Even though it make sense now, back then it really spoke of a plot shift away from being the chosen of the light. Like I said, it was creative marketing because it made us believe that there was going to be that huge shift but the WoD thing turned out to be merely a sidenote.

Have you ever played FF3? The Warriors of Darkness in that game never opposed the Warriors of Light, and even helped you out against the final boss.

Have you played FFXIV because in FFXIV, you know the game we are actually playing, the WoD did in fact oppose us.