(SPOILERS)What do you think was meant by hints for the next expansion in Heavensward?

[EirolOcarrol]

Mide and Dayan don't leave Alexander in the future but in the past, they become the very founders of the tribe they belonged to (like Fry from Futurama situation) , speak to Backrix in Hinterlands Watcherbook III-3, Alexander created a timeloop to ensure it's own creation and it's own imprisonment.

Alexander is a neat as it can be with time travel and bringing it back a 3rd time is asking for headaches, we're still not sure on everything from the 2nd attempt(ShB) , Time travel is just asking for issues and hope to Yoshi P we are damn done with time travel. Alexander is about the only plot point in HW I don't want to see return in a story.

Gosh, was that ever confusing. Time loops hurt my mind. I'm still a bit embarrassed, though. I finished the raid and still felt a bit confused about what exactly happened.

I feel like it is very hard to do time travel stories well. Chrono Trigger was a story centered around time travel, and was created by both Square and Enix's best or 'Dream Team'. Under pressure to create something impressive and worthy of the Dream Team they had founded. Anything less than Dragon Quest would have been a disappointment, so everyone had given it their all.

Final Fantasy XIV is already an established game, where everything hadn't centered around time travel from the beginning. But of Evil Empires and Primals and mysterious ancient figures scheming doom. I have a hard time imagining an established MMORPG being able to pull off time travel more than Final Fantasy XIV already has.

[BlitzAceRush]

Based on their words, we also thought that the struggle with the Ascians would end with Elidibus. We were wrong there too.

Not really, they said back in Stormblood that the whole current ark Hydaelyn and Zodiark, the Ascians and the Empire likely had two more expatiation's till it ended and then during Shadowbringers they said we were most of the way done with them so it all still lines up with what they said back then.

[MorionQ]

Isn't Sharlayan basically the Hinterlands? That was where it was located before the calamity (thus being where Gubal Library is). I mean I'm sure they relocated somewhere, but I feel like that society has basically been scattered to the winds and taken refuge in other nations. I'm pretty sure we'll see Garlemald in the next expansion and maybe Thavnair.

It’s more confusing than it needs to be but, the ruins of Sharlayan in the Hinterlands was basically a colony set up by the homeland, so there are two cities called Sharlayan built by the same society. The Hinterlands based colony was abandoned wholesale when the Garleans first came knocking. The main city-state outside of Eorzea is still active. Most of this is explained in the Astrologian quests as your teacher is from the main Sharlayan city and being harangued for trying to teach their type of astrology to Ishgard’s astros.

[Unholychinchilla]

Isn't Sharlayan basically the Hinterlands? That was where it was located before the calamity (thus being where Gubal Library is). I mean I'm sure they relocated somewhere, but I feel like that society has basically been scattered to the winds and taken refuge in other nations. I'm pretty sure we'll see Garlemald in the next expansion and maybe Thavnair.

The Sharlayan we see in Hinterlands is just an off-shoot colony of the main nation. When they abandoned that colony (after Ala Mihgo fell) those dwelling there returned to the Sharlayan motherland, a group of islands to the west, which is where the twins grew up despite being born in the Eorzean colony. So Sharlayan proper is still going strong.

[Lium]

There is a giant dragon sitting in Azyz Lla. Tiamat, right? I feel like they are not just going to let her sit there forever.

[Crushnight]

Gosh, was that ever confusing. Time loops hurt my mind. I'm still a bit embarrassed, though. I finished the raid and still felt a bit confused about what exactly happened.

I feel like it is very hard to do time travel stories well. Chrono Trigger was a story centered around time travel, and was created by both Square and Enix's best or 'Dream Team'. Under pressure to create something impressive and worthy of the Dream Team they had founded. Anything less than Dragon Quest would have been a disappointment, so everyone had given it their all.

Final Fantasy XIV is already an established game, where everything hadn't centered around time travel from the beginning. But of Evil Empires and Primals and mysterious ancient figures scheming doom. I have a hard time imagining an established MMORPG being able to pull off time travel more than Final Fantasy XIV already has.

Time loops are the best way to use time travel and even they have to be handled with delicate care so not to make cracks. Alexander actually achieved this reasonably well and mad props to the writing team for doing so.

ShB is not a Time loop it is a divergence and oh boy do we now have cracks(at least my character does), Does the failed future timeline still exist? We don't know, all the stuff from the failed timeline is still existing yet if that timeline was erased then so too should anything made/come from it which'll create a paradox as to erase that future those stuff need to exist in the 1st place to set up said erasure. If that future continues to exist then we have 2 timelines moving simultaneously, which is the lesser of the two evils with this divergence, but you then have can these two timelines interact and based on last year's Rising event possibly, Failed future Biggs sends a message in a bottle (unlike the developer ones this could be canonical), how did it get there? Did it shoot out the CT when it made the jump from future to the 1st? or did it magically get sent both back in time but across timelines? I hope the former but the latter is also possible because never answered how it ends up there.


Time travel is something best steered clear of in storytelling unless your absolutely willing to go over with a fine tooth comb and sort out any cracks that even show a hint of popping up. A 3rd bout of time travel is going to cause major issues, and believe it or not a 3rd bout can come about because Cid is alive, he just doesn't have the driving force the failed future Cid had to try and get it to work but if he ever does, Twinning 2 Electric Boogaloo, and you get a different timeline and you get a different timeline.

So I'm in agreement Eirol FFXIV's is more stable than most with time travel as a central theme but it should now be avoided at all cost.

[kaynide]

(potential time travel idea)

Of course anything is possible, but because A) we broke the time travel device in the Twinning Dungeon and B) it took generations of ironworks peeps to develop it, I find it highly unlikely we will do any more time travel.

I think it might be worth looking into some subtle talk by the devs earlier this year- they said this was the end of the Ascian storyline. Cool. Then they went on to say that there is a distinction between Ascians and Ancients, which I understood as the Ancients built Amarout, and the Ascians were a sect of ancients who created Zodiark.

This means there could be other forms of Ancients..such as the lesser Black Robed fellows living on the moon or some such.

[Theodric]

Heavensward touched on a lot of different plot points in addition to the main premise of Ishgard. I think things can be narrowed down to Ilsabard, Meracydia or Sharlayan as the most likely candidates for where the next expansion will be set.

[Vyrerus]

They're going to finally use Tiamat for something. Finally take that Chekhov's Gun off the wall. Maybe one of the other of the First Brood that we haven't seen will go and free her without her asking, and they'll do something... maybe crash Azys Lla down into the ocean or something ridiculous. Or lower its elevation and position...

[FrightfulNight]

Since 6.0 is supposed to be the end of most major season 1 story lines before we go on to new stuff (which Yoshi P. has stuck to for quite some while in interviews) i feel it will possibly be Islabard focused with Sharlyan acting as sort of the Kugane for the expansion (since it is not large enough to have that many areas focused around it). This wraps up all the story lines in Islabard with the empire and still brings Sharlyan in for the big Zodiark conclusion, oh and i have said this for years now but i expect the final mystery zone ala Azyz La or the Tempest to be the Moon. I honestly think they will save Mercydia for after these story lines are up since there really is not much civilization there now and when we do go there maybe in 7.0 it may be a time travel expansion so we can go there when all the important events happened and even fight the Allagans proper instead of what they left behind.