A Storyteller’s Point of View on Final Fantasy XIV

[VelKallor]

. I understand the crystal represents something the way the MSQ is currently setup, but I turn it into a purple one, that evaporates into a burst of smoke to link this to the other incidents.

..and what of the one you find after the sword? Not the one at the Guardian tree. The one before that. The one you didnt mention AT ALL.

Or did you skip THAT cutscene as well?

[VelKallor]

The large change I make to support the direction is to play up the Ixal incursion

There is an entire questline to cover this elsewhere.

The large change I make to support the direction is to play up the Ixal incursion

Thats a gear check, reminding new players to check their gear.

. When it’s over, we find out the brigands had been helping the Ixal

Um..the Ixal dont trust any Gridanian. Ever.

[Zebraoracle]

At this point we could talk about anything and just ignore his posts. Favorite game of yours? Mine's Vagrant Story.

That's such a hard freaking question for me...

Several games jump to mind, but it's so hard to pick one

Rimworld
Black & White
Chrono Trigger
Guild Wars 1
Tales of Symphonia
Xenoblade Chronicles

I can't choose, man! D:

[PirateRyanG]

I was wondering how long it would take someone to point this out. Watching this thread the past few days, I don't remember him responding to any criticism on his posts while he kept on posting his "review" or whatever you call this. Red flags abound.

He said he won't respond to criticism because he is limiting himself to 3 posts per day.

[Zebraoracle]

He said he won't respond to criticism because he is limiting himself to 3 posts per day.

Ah, that'll do it. Is it a tactic to avoid dealing with criticism, or just an attempt to not spam or play too much of the game? You, the readers, can decide!

[PirateRyanG]

Ah, that'll do it. Is it a tactic to avoid dealing with criticism, or just an attempt to not spam or play too much of the game? You, the readers, can decide!

He has actually already done these quests. He played it a long time ago. He is writing up his 'notes' and gradually releasing them.

[Iscah]

He has actually already done these quests. He played it a long time ago. He is writing up his 'notes' and gradually releasing them.

You seem to have a remarkable amount of insight into this other person.

[PirateRyanG]

You seem to have a remarkable amount of insight into this other person.

It is literally in his first post.

This is his second time through the quests, and he hated it the first time.

[rainichan]

This quest feels deserved. The people involved in it come across as competent, what we do matters, and the stakes feel like they matter too. There is even a ‘twist’ to the story.

The one aspect I think could be improved, is when the author inserts arrive. It would work better for them to come in at the last moment if I’m about to lose the fight, and even arrive just after I’ve won, if I don’t need rescuing.

I'm going into a troll thread but this is gonna bug me if I say nothing. This is one of those instances where the older quests getting large XP boosts and you being vastly outleveled for this encounter shows and hurts the actual story for it, because when I did this back in 2013, that was exactly what happened. About a third through the fight with the demon, that's when the mysterious stangers come in (Yda and Papalymo for Gridania, Thancred for Ul'dah, and Y'shtola for Limsa) to assist you in the fight. I can go back and do these quests easily now and I laugh with my friends who have played for a while "damn, remember when this was hard?!" because they used to be difficult quests. They're not so much any more because of the fact that so many adjustments have been made to it, you're already sitting at like, lv20 or higher for a level 14 or so quest.

On the topic of "this doesn't feel urgent," I'll also add to the chorus of "that is gameplay mechanics at play" but also, everything in this game happens in a time bubble; if you do the crafting quests from 1-50 there's one that a lot of people went "wtf?!" over when they finished it partway through Heavensward (if you know, you know - no spoilers, just in case here!) because it made zero narrative sense for it to happen like that. However, the devs explained that no, that quest happens around the same time as the final level 50 quests in the vanilla A Realm Reborn and not whenever you're actually finishing the quest in. Everything happens in a specific bubble, and the MSQ happens in its own: anything that happens outside of it is either happening at around the same time, or before/after your important quest that you NEED to do RIGHT NOW. I'm sorry it takes you out of the story, but it's designed like that when you may have to put the game down for a time.

The MSQ is also like that: just because there is a gap between you finishing a quest and the NPC saying "this is very important to do this now" and you taking the next quest where they say "time is of the essence", does not mean that narratively there is also a gap. Same with you actually going and doing the quest! If you have to stop for the night because you need to sleep or whatnot, the arbitrary timer you keep bringing up would time out and then you'd have to... idk, start over or something. That's not fun for anyone. If you look at it more from "these quests are designed to, in a narrative sense, be told to happen in a short timeframe, as a story would have happen in a series of events" it makes it not... however you're seeing it. Another way to look at it: you fall asleep or are getting sleepy while reading a book. You're not to the end of the chapter, but you're getting to a break in the chapter before moving into a different part to continue the story. The end of the break has a character saying "we need to find the killer, time is of the essence." If you pause to put your bookmark in to sleep, or if you're busy and need to go back to work, etc. you're doing what the story is doing: creating a bookmark in real time to come back to. The story picks up exactly where it left off when you pick your book back up to continue to the end of the chapter, picking up with them preparing for what is important to do and going to do it.

This story is not without its flaws, nor is it pristine, no critique needed writing - there are plenty of flaws, but I agree with others that you seem to not be looking at what you do enjoy. I've been writing for a couple of decades now (not professionally, but I was on the track for it if I had kept with it) and what you're focusing on isn't narrative, nor are you really... paying attention? To a lot of story beats. You're a run of the mill adventurer. You're no different than the scores of regular joes coming to the Adventurer's Guild in each of the three City-States trying to make a name for themselves or just help a realm of people who have been dealt a crappy hand in life after the Calamity because you're that kind of good person. You make a name for yourself in doing the MSQ, sure, but the game also assumes you went and did some of the sidequests, making the NPCs talk about you that hey, you've done more than just look for the big jobs to propel yourself into Celebrity Adventurer status, you've helped the little guy. You may have stumbled into some of the bigger things and the NPCs thank you for that, because hey, they needed the extra help and you went above and beyond for nothing than maybe a pat on the back and a thank you, maybe a little coin, but not much more... but the people who are in charge talk, and now people in charge of the City-State know your name. You're not going into this as an already established Warrior of Light, the saviour of the realm and of Carteneau, but someone who is there helping out and is slowly making a name for themselves.

The Sultantree, Lifemend Stump, and the Seasong Grotto introduce characters who are already investigating the very things you're stumbling into, who kind of infodump at you after the scripted fight, or if you already know them from 1.0 you're seeing people you know. 2.0 assumes you do not to be new player friendly, and it's not an "author insert" to have a character who does know more than you at this time. You see them later and you'll hear about them later, but a simple "who is this masked character" moment isn't the author of a story going "I'm just going to insert myself to write some exposition and then off I go like Tuxedo Mask" in this case, it's introducing characters the game writers want you to be curious about. Why did they show up? Why are they here? What do they know that I don't? Characters that look unique compared to the rest of the generalized cast are always going to play a part in the story (happens in plenty of other rpgs, not just XIV here). There aren't any Maechens in this game like there are in FFX, no one really shows up to do one huge lore infodump to pass on information that isn't relevant to the now unless you're a lorehound and want it for your own character's backstory, but there are characters you're introduced to that are part of your character's journey: keeping on with the FFX example, Luzzu and Gatta are introduced early on to you and give you some exposition but then go off to do whatever Luzzu and Gatta do as Luzzu and Gatta things. They pop up on Tidus' journey a lot up until Mushroom Rock, giving you more information about what's going on in the world while you travel with Yuna's summoner party that you haven't heard about because you're kinda busy with... idk, protecting Yuna and making sure she's on her path to defeat Sin. Getting summons. On a completely different path than theirs, but your paths line up, they keep seeing you, and Tidus is that weird kid who got a little too close to Sin and thinks he's from Zanarkand so they tell him things. It's not much different from that in XIV, as word of your deeds reaches these specific NPCs, your deeds are lining up with what they're doing, and they keep running into you. You might not know the driving force behind these characters or what their needs/wants are, but that's followed by a big fat yet.

All in all, I think you're missing the forest for the trees (hah, funny joke with Gridania starting city and all, god I amuse myself) with the story. You're focusing on small plot points that are there to drive the story, yes, but you're only looking at them in the case of that individual quest, not the whole of the story. A gameplay mechanic with the Monoa Mask wherein you can rebuy it if you need to is there for convenience. The Voice of the Just (the Ul'dah quest item for the Ul'dah quest of the same part of the story) shares a model with amethyst earrings, among others, but that doesn't mean they aren't a unique item for what they're used for. The Monoa Mask sharing a model with some low-level masks is the same: it's made from a specific tree, not just a random tree from the Shroud as others may be, but cutting cost when your budget is crap after overhauling an entire mmo is going to happen in the early days. Giving it a black mark for ease of "oh god I dropped this item by mistake what do I do" isn't the story saying "this unique item is not unique like we said it was," it still IS because the story will go on as if you didn't accidentally drop the item and need to reacquire it. Most gameplay mechanics are not a part of the story, they're there for ease. AOEs are not seen by the character (though players like to say "oh, it's because of [story element you haven't gotten info on] we can see what they're doing before they do it!") but by the players for ease of battle.

If you take the time to actually enjoy the forest and not scrutinize each individual tree for not having the amount of branches you think it should, you'll see a lot more than you currently do in terms of story beats, information that has a plot thread that may come up later - you may not remember it, but no one will get mad if you ask "has this been brought up before?" because we can't remember every detail and that's fine! - or even just something that is resolved quickly but gives you requisite information important to the Plot Happening Now and Not Later, character introductions, and will likely enjoy what ARR has a little more. ARR is probably the weakest in storyline, but it also has to a) resolve things that began in 1.0 that some players may have 0 clue into what is going on until relevant plot points are brought up alongside the "you're a random adventurer" narrative until it merges, and b) keep to the "you're a random adventurer who grows in notoriety as they learn about what's actually happening and becomes the saviour of the realm" narrative because you can't just be a Super Saiyan, the build up from Zero to Hero, as Disney's Hercules puts it, is much more interesting than "they can already do all this cool max level stuff" unless that's what the story is about... which, this one is not.

Hope you can eventually enjoy the game's story, even a little.

[AlyaNimfa]

Probably too late in the thread, but just to point out that Stephen king dumped on stephenie Meyers writing ability, yet she sold well over 100 million books. I’m not a fan of either, but one man’s trash is another’s treasure.

And let’s be honest, the game is successful. Not sure about the reaction vids on YouTube with people crying over the story, but as games go it wasn’t terrible. And that makes it better than any movie in the last ten years.