Preferences for a new world in 6.x, 7.x and beyond

[RyuDragnier]

Right, even if 6.0's story ends with Zodiark and Hydaelyn destroying each other (and Zenos and Fanforced), there are still four named Ascians unaccounted for, so I'm fully expecting them to make some kind of appearence causing trouble for the world, especially as the cycle of rejoinings is broken and their 'one true god' is destroyed.

You mean in Pandaemonium, which is confirmed to be the new 8 man raids and confirmed to be linked to Lahabrea? If I were a betting man, that's where the rest of the Ascians will be dealt with, assuming they don't decide to be like Gaia and "retire" from it. We have 3 tiers, and assuming Lahabrea does not come back to life, that's 4 fights that can be done in the final tier. Or if one of them is helping us and wants to "retire", that's an Ascian destroyed at the end of every Tier.

[Anonymoose]

The fact that Yoshi-P dropped "time travel" and "other shards" as places we could go in the future terrifies me, lol. I don't actually want ever-bigger-and-better. I don't want to become a god. I want to explore the rest of my home and retire proud, lol.

Once upon a time I was all about a Wings of the Goddess expansion where we went back to the War of the Magi and did Campaign stuff and after Shadowbringers I'm nervous - like, "AT WHAT COST?" Would we end up with more unaddressed time shenanigans and SE retconning in how we, the Warrior of Light, actually inspired Amdapor to make sin eater statues by regaling them with stories of what the "opposite of voidesent" are while everyone slobbers all over The Coven to fill the void left by the Ascians? For better and worse, we've drifted a bit from the game I thought I was playing.

Anyroad, I think the first thing on the agenda for me would be the New World. Much like ARR was a metaphor for destroying FFXIV and saving it to be reborn, I think 7.0 can be a metaphor for A WHOLE NEW WORLD beyond Hydaleyn and Zodiark; this isn't the end.

But where I'm at right now, I do mislike time and shard travel when this world, the world we dedicated so much to, still has so much more to offer me, right now. Take me to Mamook. Show me the Whalaqee. Start an unjust war in the Caribbean and unleash the forsaken pirates of Limsa Lominsa on a new era of privateer opportunity. Let me see the ruins of Meracydia and fight the leftover things there to bring hope that it won't be a wasteland forever. Have a boomerang generation ship of Allagans come back and cross that oddity off the list. Show me the bizarre fusion of cermet and stone Garlemald made of the cities of Ilsabard. Show me the beast tribe homelands. Explain what what or who in the Seventh Hell Abalathia was. Let Matsuno-san break some more vases we'll have fun trying to glue back together in the third and final chapter of Ivalice. I'm holding out hope Purple Promyvion is under the lunar surface but if not I've still got that on my wish-list. If you still haven't gotten around to it with The Sound, let me finally fight whatever's under Silvertear Lake. Tell me what Mor Dhona means in Dragonspeak while we're at it. And let me into Ala Mhigo, for crying out loud.

There's a lot of our own world left to flesh out and sometimes I fear it just won't be seen as big enough or cool enough to retain subs so we'll just ignore it.

[Theodric]

I'd like to explore more of Hingashi. Other than that, Meracydia and the New World immediately spring to mind.

Ilsabard is a pretty huge chunk of territory so there's ample room to explore more of what resides there. I imagine it'll probably be used whenever there's room for a side story along the lines of Werlyt and Bozja.

I'm especially keen to see FFXIV's version of Lea Monde, admittedly because Vagrant Story is the game that got me into the fantasy genre in the first place.

I guess it could be interesting to explore the Thirteenth shard, too. If we go to another world, though, I hope we see some alien aesthetics in play.

I'll admit, I'm a little concerned that the quest to see each expansion be flashier than the last will lead to similar problems to what WoW faced in regards to its own story over time. After a certain point, too many elements and mysteries are burned through and contrived plot devices are required in order to make things work.

In other words, hopefully things don't become too convoluted.

[Iscah]

The fact that Yoshi-P dropped "time travel" and "other shards" as places we could go in the future terrifies me, lol. I don't actually want ever-bigger-and-better. I don't want to become a god. I want to explore the rest of my home and retire proud, lol.

This. The talk of using time travel again also suggests that – as essentially a consumer rather than creator of the story, if I'm understanding it right – Yoshida has failed to grasp just how difficult it was to implement that time and dimensional travel and the costs that it placed on the characters: the work of generations and a huge personal sacrifice for G'raha, not to mention the implication that he went alone because nobody else could survive the trip.

He sounds like he's just looked at it and gone "cool, we have time travel now. We can do more plots with that."

[Kesey]

This. The talk of using time travel again also suggests that – as essentially a consumer rather than creator of the story, if I'm understanding it right – Yoshida has failed to grasp just how difficult it was to implement that time and dimensional travel and the costs that it placed on the characters: the work of generations and a huge personal sacrifice for G'raha, not to mention the implication that he went alone because nobody else could survive the trip.

He sounds like he's just looked at it and gone "cool, we have time travel now. We can do more plots with that."

Idk. Yes time travel narratives can get messy, but I think we have a few potential ways it could be used without messing things up.

My first thought was just throwing the WOL into the lifestream and have them wake years in the future. They could make new models for the twins, now all grown up and the other scions look older as they bring their friend back to face the new real threat.

Another one is traveling back to Allag, which has already laid the ground work as the nodes on Ayzs Lla who recognize your soul as a citizen of Allag. I think the intention is that you were reincarnated during the time of Allag as part of the Azem soul thing, but they could always make you go there physically too. It also be kind of fun and ironic to bring along G'raha who could sit at the center of another time travel plot.

[Vyrerus]

In reality I am much in the same mindset as Moose. I would like a more down to earth sort of story, where we go somewhere where we aren't known. We struggle again/get barred by leaders we haven't met. Maybe a trusty Alisaie or Alphinaud along for the journey. Meracydia interests me greatly. I'd also very much like an underground similar to the one in FFIV(which I don't think we'll really be getting, Labyrinthos be damned!).

But if we absolutely must raise the stakes again and go insane... let us forsake time travel. Let me revive Midgardsormr and ride his flaming mane unto the stars, back to the Dragonstar, back to bring the dragons their homeland restored. Let me fight and defeat what's left of Omega's civilization. Let me go be an alien to some race of people that we've only heard about through implication and data recordings. Maybe let me carry Alpha and Omega in my knapsack, such that they can both become major characters for an ark of the main story.

I'd rather leave the Source and its Shards behind completely if the story must become ever more outlandish. Let it truly, literally be outlandish.

[Tsiron]

The major loose ends right now I think are:
- Dalmasca... but they'd have to make the Ivalice Raids and Bozja mandatory in order to build an expansion around that, and I don't see that happening;
- The Thirteenth, which would require Warring Triad, the ShB Role Quests and subsequent Void Quests, which would still not be as arduous as Bozja, at least, imo;
- Meracydia has been namedropped a lot (in the Coils of Bahamut, Warring Triad, most recently in the MSQ), and we have the cooperation of the Dragons now too, so it's not out of the question... but whatever story they set there would essentially be entirely new;
Then again they could do...
- Something completely out of nowhere, like ShB was;

[Kesey]

The major loose ends right now I think are:
- Dalmasca... but they'd have to make the Ivalice Raids and Bozja mandatory in order to build an expansion around that, and I don't see that happening;
- The Thirteenth, which would require Warring Triad, the ShB Role Quests and subsequent Void Quests, which would still not be as arduous as Bozja, at least, imo;
- Meracydia has been namedropped a lot (in the Coils of Bahamut, Warring Triad, most recently in the MSQ), and we have the cooperation of the Dragons now too, so it's not out of the question... but whatever story they set there would essentially be entirely new;
Then again they could do...
- Something completely out of nowhere, like ShB was;

The Dalmasca situation was recently addressed in an interview. It seems that Bozja was a pivot from Dalmasca, as they originally wanted the story to continue there, but those working on the Bozja story were unaware that they planned to fix tempering in post-6.0. So a continuation of that story plus a visit to Dalmasca is still very much in the future and they implied a few more plot points need to be covered before picking that thread back up.

And the misinformation about the ending with Lyon and the battlefield notes was intentional too. That was done to create speculation for the future.

[Cleretic]

I don't even want to go to any new locations at all. I've been rather unimpressed with how regions have felt a bit undercooked since about Stormblood onwards, and how some story threads have been neglected since at least ARR, if not even earlier (I can't exactly blame Yoshi-P and company for things 1.0 neglected, though).

I want expansions that color in the world we already have. I want a 'Garlean rebuilding' expansion so they get more than a single zone, or more on Thavnair, Sharlayan, Doma, Hingashi. I want us to focus more on how bad Ul'Dah is as a government, how Limsa handles their maritime enforcements. I want to finally learn more about Gelmorra and the Elementals, oh god please finally let me learn more about them, I'm a Duskwight player, I need it!

[ReynTime]

I don't even want to go to any new locations at all. I've been rather unimpressed with how regions have felt a bit undercooked since about Stormblood onwards, and how some story threads have been neglected since at least ARR, if not even earlier (I can't exactly blame Yoshi-P and company for things 1.0 neglected, though).

?
Why?
1.0 was a janky game but there was a lot of interesting lore and subplots that Yoshi-P's team cowardly abandoned instead of exploring further like Lake Silvertear, 90% of the Shroud and Gridania culture lore, elementals weakening 'because Calamity', Lominsan piracy intrigues, Ul'dah's underground, all the Factions related lore that was just dropped and forgotten, etc.
Even with some of them being left incomplete (and I can't blame TANAKA's team for it because they were removed from the team relatively early) 1.0 did a good job at highlighting each nation's cultural and internal problems and potential to expand on them in the future. Instead of that we got a short surface-level political intrigue in Ul'dah that went nowhere and just focused on "united we stand" for every single nation subplot since.

People love to talk about rose tinted glasses, but I think more people in XIV's community need to take off the Yoshi-P-o-Vision and notice the few things 1.0 did that weren't anywhere near as bad as the game itself was.