Final Fantasy XIV Cataclysm

[MrThinker]

But yes, it does seem flight is coming to ARR soon.

I will reserve judgement on this until the devs themselves come out and confirm it.

[Kamatsu]

They won't do anything cataclysm level to the world because the game is one ongoing story, so doing something like that would affect new players' stories unless they did like a big multi-instance thing permanently, which would probably be too resource intensive.

But yes, it does seem flight is coming to ARR soon.

This is something that seems to be forgotten by some regarding this whole situation - if SE was to do a big cataclysm that changed the face of the Source (to say bring flying in), they would be faced with a decision:

1. Do as WoW did with their Cataclysm expansion, wipe everything out and do it anew
2. Do it as split instances.

Both of these have huge issue's and problems, and I don't really see SE doing either.

1. Doing this completely invalidates ARR, HW, SB & Shadowbringers. While existing characters might still exist and be taken forward... what about new characters? They'd start in a remade world, where there was no ARR->HW->SB->ShB progression, as those lands, area's, NPC's, stories, etc are all gone. So they would have to write up a whole new story for starting players, as well as stories for existing players, and then run 2 different MSQ's from till they find some way to merge them. Even merged they would have to go to great lengths to write the MSQ, npc's reaction's, etc differently for new players who had never done the ARR->HW->SB->ShB storyline and those who had.

The only way to avoid the split MSQ and split story-writing would be to force everyone to start a new character. If you think the game would survive that... I have a plot of land I'd like to sell you. Seriously, the backlash from ppl who've played the same character(s) for 2,3,4,5? years... being forced to start fresh, with nothing carrying over? Nope, they'd not consider doing that. The only way this option would make sense is if they did it as a completely new MMO, which I seriously doubt they'd do... don't think SE wants 2 dead/on-maintenance FF MMO's running along with a 3rd one... esp considering there's no guarantee enough ppl from XIV would migrate along with drawing in new players to even make a new MMO worthwhile.

That is a LOT of effort to invalidate the past 4?5? years of the game's story. All for flying. Not to mention how they'd cope with ppl who still wanted mounts, gear, achievements, etc from the old content - just have that sitting out to do with no story so all can access them? Or close the door on all those glamors, achievements, mounts, etc for all players from that point on?

2. Splitting the old & new into separate instances / worlds would solve the issue mentioned in #1, but it would also then split the playerbase even more. You'd split the players between the new players still working on the existing game world & expansions, and those doing the new. The game already somewhat has an issue with this due to how many different capital cities there are, this would just make it worse.

However the biggest problem is going to be how much server load doing this would entail. It would require a lot more server structure to be implemented to keep performance up - and this cost's money for increased server structure, increased piping for data, etc. If they don't do it... then everyone will have lot more problems to deal with. Frankly, it could make the game unplayable for a chunk of people. One only has to look at ESO's huge performance issues in it's PvP zone to see what happens when an MMO's server's are overtaxxed (though admittedly ESO's issue's is more than just not-enough server power, but it's a contributing factor).
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So both options don't really work IMO. Both have high cost's involved, for what gain? You either ruin 4-5 years of story & take that away, or the other splits the playerbase up even further... and doesn't bring flying to the original zones anyways. Both options will cost SE a lot of time, manpower & money to do... and they have shown over the years they are not inclined to spend more than is needed on XIV, so I doubt they'd see the need to spend extra to go down either route... when both route's will cause backlash from players new & old (IMO).

[Enkidoh]

I will reserve judgement on this until the devs themselves come out and confirm it.

Exactly, these rumours about ARR areas getting zone lines added in areas above the ground meaning "flight in ARR zones confirmed!" seems more like just 'future proofing' things that are dummied out and ultimately never used (like the never used MSK and ACN classes in 1.0), or the many unused potential zone lines already in the game that are dummied out (such as the gate northwards into the Lily Hills in Gridania, or those many zone lines/gates into other areas in the East Shroud), they're just put in there "just in case" but with no real intention they would ever be used. Unless the developers confirm it officially, take it with a healthy dose of NaCl.

This is after all the reason why SE tells players not to talk about datamined info in the first place, because it's usually what is added is not how it appears to be and creates unrealistic expectations that are usually replaced by bitterness and resentment when things datamined does not end up being used or not how players expected it.

[KageTokage]

It seems odd that they'd bother adding detail to areas not even visible by the player under normal circumstances as well as collision to the tops of cliffs and other objects that are normally unreachable.

Then again, they've made weirder decisions before.

[LittleArrow]

Yoshida said something along the lines like this recently, and of course I can't find the quote.

I think it was something along the lines he would like to do another calamity and he -does- want to add flying in the old zones. I want to say he said something like he wanted to re-do the old zones entirely, but I could be wrong on that.


Can anyone else find that quote? I know he said it within the last year or so.

[EDIT] Of course I found the quote where he explicitly says he -doesn't- want to hit the world with another meteor.... sheesh.
"The starting city needed to be three city states in order to recreate that and to rework that we would need to use another meteor and hit the world to break everything. We don't want to do that again!" https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...-proofing-mmos

[EDIT2] Ok found where he says it, but he's talking about upping the story again "I might summon the meteor again and end the world, who knows?" https://ffxiv.jeuxonline.info/actual...rtie-extension
Eh, I think I'll take what he says with a bit more grains of salt... @_@;;

[Lium]

We've already had the calamity, having another one just as an excuse to screw up old areas and add flying would be poor storytelling - They'd need to do something else.

This +1000. Doing something like this would be a corporate decision, not a storytelling one.

And is something Blizzard would do.

[Bright-Flower]

I don't think it would work. Unlike WoW, FFXIV has a singular linear main story. That requires those old areas to be there.

While they could, theoretically, update the old maps to allow flying, they aren't going to mess with their linear story by throwing another cataclysm at the ARR zones and replacing them the same way Cataclysm did to WoW. WoW's story isn't nearly so rigidly structured so they could more easily do it than FFXIV could.

[MoonPhaseAlpha]

I recently went to South Shroud (haven't been in an ARR zone in a long while) and attempted to fly. Jumped with my mount to take flight and nothing... Almost started throwing a fit, then I realized I was in a 2.0 area. So spoiled with flying lol.

[linay]

WoW's story isn't nearly so rigidly structured so they could more easily do it than FFXIV could.

WoW's story structure has nothing to do with it. Blizzard and the vast majority of the player base it seems just don't care that the player character moves from Cataclysm-era storylines where the NPCs talk about the effect of the war in Northrend to BC-era storyline or WotLK-era storyline then back to Cataclysm.

The story still has a "linear" timeline, it's the quest that breaks that timeline with the options you can do. That's why I don't want the MSQ in FFXIV to be optional even as an option. It can make people start not to care when they decide to break the story in favor of questing/game play reasons. (And it may already happen in FFXIV, but that's no reason to have more of it.)

[Iscah]

(And it may already happen in FFXIV, but that's no reason to have more of it.)

They're very good about keeping continuity straight, actually. It's why they avoid bringing optional storylines back into the MSQ, or have variable dialogue to smooth things out when they occasionally do.