Actual lore regarding the current civilizations on Meracydia (potential spoilers)

[Theodric]

As an aside, Azys Lla remains one of my favourite zones in the game to date. I'd love to see more of Allag's influence and aesthetics if we do head to Meracydia.

[Jandor]

After the original countries introduced in 1.0, SE has leaned heavily into cultural tropes for everything else, for better or for worse. Limsa Lominsa, Sharlayan, Ishgard, Ul'dah, Gridania, and Ala Mhigo all seem to have elements of real-world cultures, but don't depend on them and can stand alone. Thavnair, Hingashi, Azim Steppe, and Nagxia are ripped right out of our world and pasted into FFXIV with a fantasy coat of paint.

Thavnair is very heavily influenced by the Indian subcontinent. Nagxia is Vietnam, complete with their food, clothing, and a guerilla war against a larger, more technologically advanced empire in their jungles. Azim Steppe are Mongols on yol-back, complete with Nadaam and morin khuur. And the laziest copy/paste to me is Hingashi: a xenophobic, closed-off island nation with a single port allowed for foreigners on their western-most island and would be a 1-for-1 copy of Edo-era Japan if it weren't for the Tengu and Au Ra.

Then Doma is awkwardly "Japanese" despite having Chinese music, geography, and architecture.

I wouldn't get my hopes up too high for something that doesn't lean heavy into trope territory based on what we've seen since ARR.

The copy and pasting from the real world after 1.0/2.0 has bugged me a lot. Hingashi could have been so much more interesting if it was a more Japanese inspired nation and less ... well, just Japan.

[KariTheFox]

I'd rather have the writers simply create a cool story and not concern themselves overly much with attempting to please those who seek to twist everything into a potential 'issue'.

Let me put it another way then, a story that challenges the colonialist tropes of western pulp and adventure fiction, (by say, depicting native people as people with agency and culture of thier own, instead of dangerous obstacles to be overcome or victims to be pitied) would be a "cool story" to me

I feel like you've constructed some kind of sjw strawman to argue against when all I am hoping for is that boring stereotypes and tropes are not mindlessly regurgitated. Because I'd find it dull before I find it offensive.

[Theodric]

Hingashi could have been so much more interesting if it was a more Japanese inspired nation and less ... well, just Japan.

Each to their own, I suppose. Hingashi remains one of my favourite in-game regions to date. I thought Kugane was a pretty interesting and beautiful place which brought a lot of things to the table that I enjoy.

I think the 'J' in JRPG's also stands for 'Japanese' so I suppose it makes sense to have an in-game region based around 'fantasy Japan'.

Let me put it another way then, a story that challenges the colonialist tropes of western pulp and adventure fiction, (by say, depicting native people as people with agency and culture of thier own, instead of dangerous obstacles to be overcome or victims to be pitied) would be a "cool story" to me

I feel like you've constructed some kind of sjw strawman to argue against when all I am hoping for is that boring stereotypes and tropes are not mindlessly regurgitated. Because I'd find it dull before I find it offensive.

FFXIV isn't a western game, so I'm not certain such tropes apply and even if they did, they'd be applied from an Eastern perspective.

Putting that aside, however, what is considered to be 'exciting' or 'dull' is entirely subjective in itself.

[MikkoAkure]

I think the 'J' in JRPG's also stands for 'Japanese' so I suppose it makes sense to have an in-game region based around 'fantasy Japan'.

This thread has gotten a bit off-the-rails but I think it's a bit odd to suggest that just because the developers are in Japan, they NEED to have a complete carbon copy of their home country in their game. Other than Doma, Wutai, and whatever country Tenzen came from in FFXI, I can't think of any other examples in the whole FF mainline series.

My problem is less that there's a "fantasy Japan" and more that to me it felt a bit awkward and lazy that a whole real world country was almost completely copied into a video game where there was no precedence for that up to that point. It's one thing to lean on the tropes of "Eastern country uses curved swords and has ninja" and another to transport Edo-period Japan complete with their political system and real-world history into the game. Not only that, the geography is very close, from the shape of the archipelago minus an island or two, to the capital "Bukyo" being close to their own version of Mt. Fuji. It just feels lazy.

[Jandor]

Each to their own, I suppose. Hingashi remains one of my favourite in-game regions to date. I thought Kugane was a pretty interesting and beautiful place which brought a lot of things to the table that I enjoy.

I think the 'J' in JRPG's also stands for 'Japanese' so I suppose it makes sense to have an in-game region based around 'fantasy Japan'.

Based around Japan is fine, basically just being Japan was a tad underwhelming.

I wouldn't even mind if that's how they'd been handling locations from the start. Hingashi, Othard and Thavnair are all perfectly fine locations, they just don't feel anywhere near as creative as Eorzea did.

[aveyond-dreams]

I'd be a bit more specific when referring to "Eorzea" - Ishgard's lore was pretty great but a lot of ARR's other locations are quite underwhelming. I'm supposed to believe Gridania is supposed to invoke a "Lord of the Rings" feel when at best it felt like just a generic starter fantasy village and forest. Ul'dah's political situation was intriguing but took what felt like an absurd amount of time to set up back in the day, and on various fronts doesn't hold up when compared to more fleshed-out desert kingdoms like say, Dalmasca from FFXII. Limsa Lominsa, while visually impressive for a starter city, doesn't have that much going on.

Not one of these 3 locations could have held their own without the threat of the empire looming over the horizon-which is what ultimately interested me more than the conflicts between the beast tribes.

Contrast this with Ishgard and their 1000 year war against the dragons, or the oppression seen in Doma while its neighbouring states did nothing to help them and instead chose to protect themselves, or the various cultures on the First. I truly cared more for the barely-existent lore of the Elven kingdom in Lakeland or Nabaath Areng than I ever have for Gridania or Ul'dah.

There has to be some kind of "wow!" factor that makes people care for and get attached to locations, as opposed to just "oh no the bad guys have shown up to the festival" vibe that the ARR beast tribe conflicts and Stormblood primals gave off. Luckily the monster of the week type setup for trials/villains was done away with at last in Shadowbringers and Endwalker for the most part, in favor of antagonists with a little more backing to them.

With all that said, I don't think having 7.0 start us off with an African/explorers vs colonialists conflict is anywhere remotely in the right direction for this game. While I wouldn't say for sure if I'd straight up quit, I do not believe a location based off that or such themes would retain or attract others. Rather than "tribes" wouldn't it be more impressive if we could visit a location in Meracydia that draws from Assasin's Creed's interpretation of Alexandria in ancient Egypt? Or rather than just another bad empire trying to take over the innocent magic-wielding fantasy people, how about a fleshed-out kingdom vs kingdom conflict like FFIX's wars on the Mist Continent?

As for an eventual high-tech/sci-fi zone, Lufenia from FFI is one potential way of exploring that without stepping on Garlemald's/Allag's toes, given their civilization's "Flying Fortress" was actually a space station where the original Wind Crystal was held (though this was unfortunately retconned in later remakes of the original FFI). In Stranger of Paradise, interviews have all but pointed to Lufenia being the location Jack et co. were isekaied from and that it's about as modern as New York City, skyscrapers and all. I cannot stress enough how tired I am of hearing the word "Allag."

[Denishia]

As the poster that quasi-derailed the topic- I was impressed with Thavnair because it wasn't a shallow and lazy stereotype of India - emphasis on shallow. So because if they are going to base Meracydia on various civilizations and empires and mythologies of the African continent, my hope and expectation is that they actually do so - that there are more than enough cultures and historical empires and mythologies to use as inspiration. They already have dipped into that well with some of the various overworld mobs. I won't ask for great nuance, but considering XIV's track record and that groundwork has already been done that Meracydia had a history of a multi-cultural and advanced empire that did successfully rebuff and defeat a multi-continent technological highly advanced empire and it took Ascian and Omega assistance to be defeated. But this is a game with an international audience and one that doesn't do worldbuilding as shallow a damp napkin, so I do expect a lot better than 'savage dark continent of early pulp novels Africa expy and the only large city-state is Ancient Egypt'

(As for Allag- I find its aesthetic rather ugly and am far more interested in the places that opposed it like Meracydia and Bozja - but it's a tradition to have an Allagan ruin dungeon per expac and Meracydia should have at least one. Lore-wise it would be less awkward than other places).

[Veloran]

Wherever we go, there will be some sort of conflict we involve ourselves in. If WoL was to travel to Meracydia for example, they will invariably combat some of the local peoples - That's just how the game works. We don't know what form that will take, but as it is there aren't exactly a lot of extant third party forces running around to insert themselves wherever it's convenient - Unlike WoW for example, FFXIV doesn't have the omnipresent faction war, demons, or old god shenanigans that can basically pop up anywhere. Previously the closest equivalents would have been the Garleans, the Voidsent, and the Ascians. Two of those are basically narratively defunct now, meanwhile some distant runners up would be "Allagan stuff" and dragons.

Like sure, they could pull a "actually Bahamut wasn't REALLY dead" in Meracydia and do a Heavensward 2.0, and have the place be crawling with Allagan ruins and technology on top of that, but we're kind of running thin on antagonists overall. Meaning that most likely we'll invariably have to deal with people rooted in where we're going, somehow.

[KageTokage]

I'd be surprised if there weren't major political powers at play in both Meracydia and the New World that we've simply yet to see much influence from.

The onset of the Final Days and its aftermath might be what gives them a push to start interacting with the outside world...for better or worse.