The Gentleman of Darkness, Agent of Enquiry - Potential Spoilers Within

[TheHyperFusion]

Potential spoilers for those who have not completed the Hildibrand questline up through Stormblood.

So, after I finished Shadowbringers, I went back and did the (in)famous Hildibrand quests all the way up through Stormblood. Now, as many people would potentially believe, our ever-lovable sweet (yet almost-completely incompetent) Hildy and Nashu likely ended up on the First due to the shenanigans involved in Greg's ability to basically move between dimensions.

I'm sitting here, really hoping they'll bring back the questline for this expansion. Anyone else wishing they'll add it in?

[Noitems]

They will. Normally we would have had the first Hildy part by now but I think they're more focused on storing everything into 5.2 considering it's our first big boy patch.

My guess is when the next PLL happens they will reveal Hildy and it'll prob be in 5.26 or so, maybe possibly in 5.2 itself considering they could only speak so much about the patch as a whole for now.

[DrWho2010]

also considering travel to the first is difficult for everyone but the Warrior of Light - having everyone else just jump into a portal made by Greg kinda seems too inconvenient unless for story purposes he's not really able to control it that well. and since he was under the influence of drugs when he made that portal well that makes it more difficult to replicate. lol

[Enkidoh]

The thing to remember is though, SE themselves do not seem to know what to do with Hildibrand anymore - he was originally created as part of the Seventh Umbral Era storyline in the original version of FFXIV (version 1.0) as a bit of light-hearted comic relief (initially connected to the quest to unlock the Inn) in a main scenario and setting that was getting increasingly dark and depressing. And he was brought back in ARR to kind of give some closure to his story, but carefully sent off in a such a way that he could be brought back at a later stage.

However, SE themselves did not seem to have any plans to do that - in HW the much maligned scholisate quests in Ishgard were meant to be a replacement for them (they after all feature Inspector Briardien as a major npc), but their more serious tone (as well as being a pretty obvious reference to Harry Potter) probably did not win as many fans as Hildibrand did.

So they belatedly brought him back.... but without a specific direction from him. He's just mindless slapstick comedy, nothing more (not a bad thing at all of course). And that continued in SB, and will probably be the case here in ShB as well.

It's almost as if SE doesn't want to bring him back, but because players keep requesting him to, they oblidge.

As for how he could show up on the First, given the revelation during ShB's story that

everyone on the First are 'soul fragments' of people on the Source (it's to explain why there are... certain similar npcs with similar appearences and names on the First to certain npcs on the Source),

maybe the player bumps into someone like Hildibrand, but is also... 'different'.... But I'll leave that theory alone for now.

[Theodric]

I'm quite enjoying the break from Hildibrand. I'd much rather see the bulk of quest development directed elsewhere. I enjoyed the Moogle Delivery quests immensely and they were a neat throwback to the side quest of the same name present in FF9. Yet they were discontinued (despite being a great avenue for catching up with various NPC's and being an opportunity for a healthy mix of both serious and comical quests). I think Hildibrand has become very 'samey' and should be ditched in favour of something else. As Enkidoh pointed out the development team themselves seem to be unsure as to how to handle them moving forward as well.

[Iscah]

(as well as being a pretty obvious reference to Harry Potter)

I'm halfway through the Scholasticate and not really getting specifically Harry Potter vibes from it at all - it's a school story, yes, and the architecture is similar (and Theomoncent looks kinda like Harry), but that's about it.

But then I read all the Enid Blyton school series prior to Harry Potter, so it just seems like part of a genre to me.

[Noitems]

The thing to remember is though, SE themselves do not seem to know what to do with Hildibrand anymore - he was originally created as part of the Seventh Umbral Era storyline in the original version of FFXIV (version 1.0) as a bit of light-hearted comic relief (initially connected to the quest to unlock the Inn) in a main scenario and setting that was getting increasingly dark and depressing. And he was brought back in ARR to kind of give some closure to his story, but carefully sent off in a such a way that he could be brought back at a later stage.

However, SE themselves did not seem to have any plans to do that - in HW the much maligned scholisate quests in Ishgard were meant to be a replacement for them (they after all feature Inspector Briardien as a major npc), but their more serious tone (as well as being a pretty obvious reference to Harry Potter) probably did not win as many fans as Hildibrand did.

So they belatedly brought him back.... but without a specific direction from him. He's just mindless slapstick comedy, nothing more (not a bad thing at all of course). And that continued in SB, and will probably be the case here in ShB as well.

It's almost as if SE doesn't want to bring him back, but because players keep requesting him to, they oblidge.

As for how he could show up on the First, given the revelation during ShB's story that

everyone on the First are 'soul fragments' of people on the Source (it's to explain why there are... certain similar npcs with similar appearences and names on the First to certain npcs on the Source),

maybe the player bumps into someone like Hildibrand, but is also... 'different'.... But I'll leave that theory alone for now.

I don't think people are asking for a grand epic when it comes to Hildy, just a fun experience.

To me the SB quests were just that. It did tap into some elements from the 2.x quests, but it was generally contained in it's own world, just being a fun time. It had some emotional moments (which I will still defend as being better then the end of Stormblood), but the main point is it was fun and that's all you can ask for in a comedic side quest line.

I have a feeling when Hildy comes back the story will be akin to Heavensward's story. A contained story featuring characters of the Hildibrand world however they would be reflected through the First and will feature no instanced fights and be raw story. I would assume Greg would play a part in the story trying to get them back to the source, but we'll probably run into a new villain that will make that difficult along with a mystery revolving around something ridiculous but fun to watch.

At the end of the day Hildy should best be looked at it's own contained stories over a full narrative of the three current ones. There are elements that try to make it seem like a whole flowing narrative, but I find going through a Hildy story to be like watching it's own movie akin to a 007 film.