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

[Teraq]

The fact this topic is still going is telling me Endwalker's story must have really been a let down for some people here.

Well, it is indeed this in part.

But I feel like you are doing this game's great community a significant disservice by ignoring the other half of the equation: the fact that it is living rentfree in the minds of some people who are way more bothered than they should reasonably be by people being disappointed in a piece of fiction they had expectations for, or liking different characters than they do.

I believe this thread has lived on until now in large part because of the forums' format: there are no downvotes, no reply notifications, no private messages, no "feed" algorithm pushing controversial threads down into oblivion. It's just a good old message board of eld, where people can dig up old threads if they so wish with a quaint "BUMP" to give their post that musty 2001 scent, risking nothing but the unbridled wrath of the esteemed lore masters in doing so, and drop their hot takes without having to care about whether or not they get downvote-bombed or hundreds of angry replies in their nonexistent inbox. And literally anyone with an internet connection can readily and easily read their hot takes as long as the thread keeps getting replies pushing it back up to first page. You can also just block posters you don't care to read, because you're an individual who curates their internet experience, and there is little said posters can do about it – there is no way for them to even find out if you don't mention you've blocked them.

It is kind of a perfect storm for people who feel shunned by most other FFXIV social media to vent in a decently anxiety-free way.

And I guess that bothers some people who would rather we shut up or not exist in the social landscape at all. (Which, again, I find really weird. Other fandoms I've been in didn't feel anywhere this dramatic with regards to criticism and different opinions or "problematic" characters. I am honestly not sure what is in the water of this fandom, though if it is the waters surrounding Limsa Lominsa's aetheryte plaza, I'd rather not find out. I'm not sure my hepatitis B serology is up to date.)
It's not like we're going to "kill" this game by voicing our minority opinion. Blizzard didn't even manage to kill WoW in spite of their employees stealing breastmilk from the fridge, so I think FFXIV will survive people wondering what the point of that quite lackluster story in Endwalker was just fine.

This thread is inevitably going to get closed once it gets too "heavy", and its successor will most likely not get as much traction. (I suspect this is some people's primary motivation for posting their… ah… constructive contributions.) But also, by the time this happens, I certainly hope my SRI addled brain will have moved on to greener pastures. As cringe as it is to admit, it still hasn't for now, so I enjoy finding and reading likeminded people here. I've certainly made some new friends.