What's the point with that quite lackluster story in Endwalker?

[SentioftheHoukai]

Which one is your post right here doing, I wonder?

See, that's the problem with this "gatekeeping" argument. Bringing up a topic of discussion does not mean that people can't have an opinion ON an opinion. If someone in here right now came in this thread, and said, "I didn't like Endwalker because it didn't have Captain America in it", they would rightly be called out for it. Having a rant thread isn't a declaration that every single rant is equally valid or reasonable.

I just happen to find this constant vitriol about burgers to fall into the "unreasonable" area, and will continue to say as much unless something changes my mind.

You know, I almost MIGHT believe you if I'd like..... ever seen Theodric engage in anything remotely resembling gatekeeping instead of, you know? Defending poster's right to express their opinion against actual gatekeepers. As it stands, the only one currently engaging in such is you. Attempts at being subtle by shaming others into silence instead of the bog-standard method of shouting "SHUT UP!" isn't as obfuscative as you'd like it to be.

I'm convinced at this point there's a vested interest in seeing this thread crash and burn, especially as efforts to derail it have increased in both intensity and frequency since the Zepla mention. I've had people message me to say they felt 'run off' so, you know, good job. This was supposed to be a bastion of catharsis for those who didn't enjoy the EW MSQ and instead it's turned into dozens of pages of pettiness that's not going to result in any meaningful change in story direction, which is at least what I wanted.

Not that I expect my speaking on it (again) will change anything since it didn't before but, yeah, it's very much not appreciated.

Wouldn't surprise me, no heck I'm quite certain that's the case here. As I've said before, passive-aggressiveness rules the day here and this thread has doubtlessly been persona non grata since its inception. So what's likely going on is subtle pokes and prods until one of us slips and loses our patience against the ones with the cattle prod. Then the thread gets shut down and of course it's our fault and naturally always has been.

Also, Zepla? Did someone mention her or did she bring this thread up on Youtube?

[aveyond-dreams]

Also, Zepla? Did someone mention her or did she bring this thread up on Youtube?

She singled out this thread as an example of trolling on the forums in a livestream she did on twitch. I wonder what she would feel if a fundamental issue she cared about like say Viera hairstyles had a megathread and then along comes another streamer or prominent individual that brands it as an example of trolling too.

Anyway I'm taking a break from arguing in circles and working on a total rewrite concept of the missing Garlemald expansion and a new take on what Endwalker could have been. I don't promise anything as in-depth as the Meracydia expansion concept I did a long while back but hopefully it'll be a more entertaining read than how some of the last few pages of this thread have been.

I can already sense the replies telling me that what I've written is too dark or emotional to be palatable to a playerbase that was enamoured by the slice of life scenes of Endwalker, or too political in the style of Ivalician storytelling with not enough meme sequences. Please look forward to it! With any luck those threads will be called out live on stream as well.

[jameseoakes]

I can already sense the replies telling me that what I've written is too dark or emotional to be palatable to a playerbase that was enamoured by the slice of life scenes of Endwalker, or too political in the style of Ivalician storytelling with not enough meme sequences. Please look forward to it! With any luck those threads will be called out live on stream as well.

While I'm not sure how dark I'd want to the story to actually be I've been really surprised just much the the game seems to have switched to from the story telling we'd seen previously to whatever Endwalker actually is

[anhaato]

It’s almost like an insidious plot to fill as many pages as they can with trolling and infighting in order to make that the entire thread’s image when people read through the recent pages. I’m no conspiracy theorist so I’m mostly joking, but it’s certainly going to look that way upon first impression if things keep going the way they are.

[Xirean]

"What's the point with that quite lackluster current topic in this thread?"

Maybe we should start a new thread complaining about this one.

[MikkoAkure]

Emet-Selch himself says in shadowbringers that conquering is easy, what comes after is the hard part. Point was that you need to treat the conquered with dignity. The way Garlean rule has been portrayed and told, even Gaius' rule that supposedly was no different even though it obviously should have been, has always been as bad (and just plain stupid) as possible to justify everyone hating them. Even that stoning scene was less to show Eorzeans as bad and more to show how Garleans don't care unless you're Garlean (and to show why Fordola does what she does). Basically just a grotesque caricature of the worst possible ruler(s).

Yeah, besides the “designated villain fantasy empire” stuff you mentioned, I don’t think the Garleans were ever meant to be seen in a good light and that was part of the point of that whole part of the game.

Emet-Selch purposefully created the Garlean Empire in a way that it would come crashing down, causing as much chaos and death on the way. It was never meant to last very long and it didn’t matter how unstable and unsustainable it was because it was just a tool to cause a Calamity. He just found a group of people who were technologically inclined and had a giant chip in their shoulder and impressed them and fed into their resentment until the conquered the continent and then straight up lied to them in order to take over Othard and begin a campaign in Aldenard.

People can argue until the chocobos come home about how it had potential and could have been good, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was never meant to be a real, lasting country, everything behind it was fake, and the original emperor laughed while talking about how his exit nearly completely destroyed it and caused more mayhem than expected.

We could’ve had a FFXII-esque plot of Varis fighting against the Ascians in order to regain the reigns of his own country but instead, he drinks the Ascian kool-aid and goes to trigger Calamity after Calamity. In 8UC, the Garlean Empire doesn’t even survive the first one he causes. So much for that plan. Then he purged the country of anyone with half of a good idea that could have led to an Empire that could actually survive and sustain itself and went full evil.

[Theodric]

We could’ve had a FFXII-esque plot of Varis fighting against the Ascians in order to regain the reigns of his own country but instead, he drinks the Ascian kool-aid and goes to trigger Calamity after Calamity. In 8UC, the Garlean Empire doesn’t even survive the first one he causes. So much for that plan. Then he purged the country of anyone with half of a good idea that could have led to an Empire that could actually survive and sustain itself and went full evil.

Right, but that's exactly what many Garlean fans were pushing for...and why when people claim to like Garlemald they usually point at the likes of Regula van Hydrus as to why. Garlemald and the Ascians both suffer from similar writing issues as Hydaelyn. Motivations are so readily retconned that retroactively a lot of things simply don't make sense.

Furthermore, by their own admission they never had any solid plans for many aspects of the story so I don't think it's as simple as Garlemald never being intended to be anything more than outright villains. To me it always seemed to be set to have much of the nuance uncovered when finally it entered the spotlight front and centre. Which was likely going to be the case if not for the bizarre decision to cut the story short across the board.

It's also worth noting that a lot of people came to FFXIV from other MMO's such as WoW or single player games that weren't afraid to introduce factions that were darker than the playable choices but who ultimately would shift into becoming something to side with later on.

The Illidari and Worgen in WoW are excellent examples of such. Both were hostile to begin with and then through the natural evolution of the story both became playable options. Such options don't even need to be playable either - just written in a way to reflect the actual nuance that exists given the circumstances of a faction's existence.

I think FFXIV would have benefitted immensely from such an approach. Expecting everybody to root for the self proclaimed 'supreme deity' was always going to be a questionable move and it certainly wasn't Hydaelyn or the Scions that many of us stuck around for over the years.

Much like how in Elder Scrolls Online I care nothing for Orcs but I can't get enough of Dunmer, Nords, Bretons or Altmer.

[MikkoAkure]

Right, but that\\'s exactly what many Garlean fans were pushing for...and why when people claim to like Garlemald they usually point at the likes of Regula van Hydrus as to why. Garlemald and the Ascians both suffer from similar writing issues as Hydaelyn. Motivations are so readily retconned that retroactively a lot of things simply don\\'t make sense.

Furthermore, by their own admission they never had any solid plans for many aspects of the story so I don\\'t think it\\'s as simple as Garlemald never being intended to be anything more than outright villains. To me it always seemed to be set to have much of the nuance uncovered when finally it entered the spotlight front and centre. Which was likely going to be the case if not for the bizarre decision to cut the story short across the board.

The revelation that the Garlean Empire was engineered to be unstable came in Shadowbringers so I don’t think much would have changed much in a Garlean-centric expansion. If Solus ended up not being an Ascian and was just some guy, I could’ve seen more nuance being added, but it’s creation being tied to the main existential threat of the game directly instead of just simply being used by them changes things. The citizens are still victims, but the empire is not.

Then on top of that, while the Garlean Empire’s image could have been rehabilitated after Heavensward, especially after our time with Regulus, Stormblood ended up throwing a lot of that potential good will away with Zenos going around doing random acts of evil on purpose to get people to rebel so he could kill strong, angry fighters. Unlike the Archadian Empire, the Garleans didn’t leave cities intact after war and while originally left intact after conquest, both Rabanastre and Doma were completely razed after they rebelled. Neither even have anything to do with the supposed reason for the empire’s existence so it’s difficult to see the point there other than “bad guy stuff”.

Another reason why an Archadian Empire narrative doesn’t work here is that we never had any characters from near the beginning of the story that could add more nuance to Garlemald. If they wanted to leave their options open, we would have had a Larsa-equivalent in the MSQ back in ARR or HW. All of the main Garlean protagonists we’ve had through the years are deserters and turn coats who changed completely to Eorzea and aren’t in a position to change things. The closest we got was Maxima (who doesn’t even get a unique model) and that was a ray of hope for nuance, but his whole faction ended up getting purged by Varis. That let us know that the individual citizens aren’t necessarily bad, but didn’t change our ideas about the government.

[Rosenstrauch]

They did actually introduce a potential Larsa-equivalent in Shadowbringers—Nerva Galvus.

Only they kept him offscreen all the way to his reveal in 6.1, where he was dead all along, having turned into a blasphemy. Fun stuff.

[Raoabolic]

They did actually introduce a potential Larsa-equivalent in Shadowbringers—Nerva Galvus.

Only they kept him offscreen all the way to his reveal in 6.1, where he was dead all along, having turned into a blasphemy. Fun stuff.

But they explained it in a couple of sentences, are you that shocked they wrapped up Nerva's ending like that considering how they handled the Ascian/Hydaelyn storyline? You can tell the new writers were just tying up loose ends so they can do their own thing without the old writing team's "baggage", lol.