The expansion on the horizon

[MikkoAkure]

For clarification on the main place I want to go to: It's definitely confirmably habitable, because the Encyclopeda Eorzea section on it mentions that the main reason it's a near-total unknown is that the natives are actively hostile to visitors. That also combines with the clear Australian influences in its other descriptions probably give us a more accurate idea of what kind of 'wasteland' it is: Some very plausibly habitable pockets (mostly around water sources), and a whole lot of land that just doesn't have the access to natural resources to sustain a sizeable human population. ...and possibly also a LOT of very dangerous wildlife.

Which honestly, sounds like a perfect environment for setting an expansion. Only a couple cities and major settlements, and then an entire continent full of improbably murderous plants, insects and animals? I mean that's basically just describing Norvrandt without the Sin Eaters.

The main problem I have with it though is that we're already told in that same passage off the Encyclopedia Eorzea that you're looking at that nearly the entire continent was rendered a wasteland by war with areas rendered uninhabitable and the remaining reclusive population is openly hostile. We can see Meracydia from the moon and the entire continent is desert unless there's jungle hiding behind the clouds in the corner. I personally don't find getting multiple variations of desert zones as being interesting, and we already have all of Thanalan, Ahm Araeng, and the 3 Ala Mhigan zones. We also had variations on a jungle zone in each of the past 2 expansions.

The past 2 expansions have given us a variety of different environments and I don't really see that happening with Meracydia. I don't personally know anyone who counts any of the existing desert zones as their favorites and at least on my server, Goblet is the least desirable housing zone. There's only so many ways you can make beige, arid zones visually appealing or at least interesting, and the other zones they're released with get more love anyway.

I would prefer an expansion that isn't necessarily chained by past story, where the writers can do something completely brand new in a region that has actual variety.

[RyuDragnier]

The main problem I have with it though is that we're already told in that same passage off the Encyclopedia Eorzea that you're looking at that nearly the entire continent was rendered a wasteland by war with areas rendered uninhabitable and the remaining reclusive population is openly hostile. We can see Meracydia from the moon and the entire continent is desert unless there's jungle hiding behind the clouds in the corner. I personally don't find getting multiple variations of desert zones as being interesting, and we already have all of Thanalan, Ahm Araeng, and the 3 Ala Mhigan zones. We also had variations on a jungle zone in each of the past 2 expansions.

The past 2 expansions have given us a variety of different environments and I don't really see that happening with Meracydia. I don't personally know anyone who counts any of the existing desert zones as their favorites and at least on my server, Goblet is the least desirable housing zone. There's only so many ways you can make beige, arid zones visually appealing or at least interesting, and the other zones they're released with get more love anyway.

I would prefer an expansion that isn't necessarily chained by past story, where the writers can do something completely brand new in a region that has actual variety.

You do know that if they use Australia as a visual aid for how the place would be, it would be pretty varied, right? It have basins (and perhaps a rainy city like Burmecia), coastal areas, a small island off the coast we start at (think Besaid/Kilika from FFX), mountain ranges (where Tiamat's brood could live), perhaps a giant underground area (think Underworld from FF4), and the big desert area could be the final location for the expansion, spiced up with Allagan ruins and horrors.

[SaitoHikari]

I'm not entirely convinced we're going to Meracydia immediately. The central part of the Three Great Continents is still shrouded in clouds as far as our world map goes, there's a few remaining loose ends and locales there that we haven't been to yet, and... It's worth noting we still can't travel on foot from Eorzea all the way to Doma, for one.

I can see us going to level 100 while remaining on the Continents or traveling to the South Sea Isles, and whatever alternate leveling system they might come up with would come into effect when we actually do cross all the way to Meracydia in the next expansion after.

[george357]

we will get their when we get their its just a matter of time.

[Lyth]

It's easy to forget that places that we haven't yet visited are nothing more than collections of references until someone sits down to actually draw it up. We've heard various bits and pieces about Meracydia, sure. But in the words of Emet-Selch, do we really know 'aught of its present state of affairs?' The land bridge to Meracydia was last up during the Fifth Umbral Era, prior to the Flood, so we're talking over 1600 years since we've had proper access. All of the modern city states were built from the ground up in that timeframe. There are plenty of ways that the writing team can explain why we know so little about it. It's quite literally a blank slate if they want it to be. I do hope, as Ryu has suggested previously, that they draw on some FF9 Mist Continent inspirations for it, like the Iifa Tree for Sephirot's people or perhaps even Burmecia.

I think that there's a bit of a risk in getting there too fast, though. I become more interested in a place as more references filter down and there are more unanswered questions about it. If you're just given all the information upfront, it's a bit more difficult to get attached.

Take Corvos as an example. The remarks that Fourchenault made about Locus Amoenus having other names historically is pretty interesting, given its proximity to Dalmasca. And then you have the Unyielding Blade, the Corvosi sword technique that Zenos originally trained in, which perhaps could be a reference to the Divine Knight techniques of the same name that Meliadoul used in FFT. There's also a lot that could tie Southern Ilsabard into a Void story arc, if that's the direction this is going. Perhaps we'll then get more references around the South Sea Isles, leading to some Spira tie-ins. There are plenty of ways that a story like this can grow organically without dropping places on us fully formed. Either way, I'm sure we'll have a lot more information in a few weeks, as 6.4 will likely be the set-up leading into the next expansion announcement.

[MikkoAkure]

You do know that if they use Australia as a visual aid for how the place would be, it would be pretty varied, right?

Australia wasn’t blasted to oblivion via magical warfare by an evil magitechnical empire with an undead army on one side and the summon of a fully unleashed Bahamut along with multiple other eikons on the other. Australia also has some green on it from space, where Meracydia seemingly does not. Meracydia is the way it is because it was rendered that way by unnatural means.

The book says the landscape was blasted into a wasteland and while we don’t know how well it recovered, so far our view from space and the 1 concept art we have say “not very well”.


Meracydia seems to borrow more from the Sahara more than Australia anyway since it has things from Egyptian culture beyond just the fauna.


Either way, while they could turn around and make it more full of life and varied scenery and that would be nice, I’m going off what little we know instead of hopium. The other issue to get around is the hostile native population. I don’t see us unlocking the city at the very beginning of the expansion unless something happens in 6.5 that causes them to suddenly accept outsiders or we go in with an adventurer colony like Monster Hunter World.

I would also hope the story of whatever expansion we get can actually stand on its own and isn’t formed by the leavings of dangling plot threads from an older expansion. They managed that with Shadowbringers, but it doesn’t mean they should do it again and the moments Endwalker’s story lost me were the times when it was trying to be more like Shadowbringers. I was under the impression that the whole point of Endwalker was to completely end any plot threads so they can start completely over anyway.

If I never have to deal with the Allagan Empire’s leftovers again, it will still be too soon.

Either way, I'm sure we'll have a lot more information in a few weeks, as 6.4 will likely be the set-up leading into the next expansion announcement.

Not happening this time, per Yoshi-P, so we have more time to figure out what the direction will be.

6.x will change somewhat from the usual pattern of .1-.3 wrapping up the old storyline and .4-.5 setting up the next expansion. He says we can expect to start seeing signs of the direction of 7.0 in 6.5.

[RyuDragnier]

Australia wasn’t blasted to oblivion via magical warfare by an evil magitechnical empire with an undead army on one side and the summon of a fully unleashed Bahamut along with multiple other eikons on the other. Australia also has some green on it from space, where Meracydia seemingly does not. Meracydia is the way it is because it was rendered that way by unnatural means.

If you look at actual pictures of Australia taken from space, there's barely any green visible from it either, also making it look like an inhospitable wasteland (though we know differently).

[Denishia]

Considering that FFX is still my favorite for overall design and having a distinct and appealing visual aesthetic to the world-building, cultures, and gear, I'm all for more integration of allusions to it in whatever new zones 7.0 or 8.0 provides. Considering how popular Hawaii is a tourist destination in Japan, I'm a little surprised that more hasn't been done yet with the South Seas Lalafell. But my biggest fear is that an expansion would shove Meracydia, Corvus, the rest of Ilsabard (I'll grumble and gracefully accept never going to Dalmasca or Landros but I want to go to Nagxia and one of the northern Islabard Hellsguard homeland regions), and all of the New World into only one (or two) expansions. Meracydia can easily cover at least five zones with a modicum of thought. Especially because it offers an almost-blank slate for creating new empires and interwoven politics between new city states and countries and tribes.

[SannaR]

That guild is the Musketeers guild. The devs seem to want and wish we would just forget about it. Still sour as heck that we've never gotten it. I still held out hope as long as they left the npc you could poke that would tell you about it was still there to poke.

Edit: I ran out of daily posts anyway. Even though it is hard for the devs to come up with various skill names. The bigger problem is partially it's lore. As in 1.0 the reason they didn't allow you to join it was due to lack of gun training. Then 2.4 rolls around and they go and put a dang Musketeer in the Rogue storyline. So everyone and their pet goldfish got excited. When we saw the Yoshida job teaser tee for Machinist and before we got told they wouldn't be making any more classes the fan base went oh so we're finally getting Musketeer. Then it was oh well it'll start off as Musketeer, right? Then we find out Stephanivien isn't as cautious about who wants to use his guns. And really you don't think they could have clobbered something together from all the other gun wielding characters and jobs strewn across the franchise? You have Corsair, Matsudio, Vincent, Irvine, the gunner dress sphere, Balthier.

[Cleretic]

This is a really messy and ugly way to hold a conversation, so I'll try to keep this short, but I do think there's something worth saying here.

The bigger problem is partially it's lore.

First of all: lore is never an actual development barrier, it's the apparent player barrier. Lore can always change or just never be written to be a problem in the first place, because it's always supplemental to the story it's supporting; it should never overpower, dictate, or block it. What it can do, though, is provide an in-world explanation for out-of-world decisions that were made; basically, it's not 'we aren't getting Musketeer because Limsan firearms laws are too strict', it's 'Limsan firearm laws are strict because we aren't getting Musketeer'.

Second... well, yes, I don't think that gun-havers from previous games provide enough tricks to build a functional kit out of. Did you play those games? Because most of them don't actually provide very much of use:
-Corsair cracked in a bunch of gambler skills which worked well for it in FFXI, but the RNG mechanics were given to AST at the time this was relevant, and over time has been realized as an approach that doesn't work for FFXIV in the first place.
-Mustadio in Tactics only actually has two particularly noteworthy skills, the support skills Arm Shot and Leg Shot. Arm Shot we don't have, but Leg Shot is basically Leg Graze and Foot Graze.
-Vincent's unique abilities weren't related to his guns at all, and were instead related to him transforming into monsters. Dirge of Cerberus doesn't really provide any additional variety here, because it's a shooter, so all it needed was 'Shoot Gun'.
-Irvine's only unique Gun Thing is a limit break that amounts to 'pick an ammo type and mash a shoulder button'. Being generous, I'll say that's a mechanic that doesn't provide ways to translate into XIV's gameplay. And being not-generous, I'm pretty sure it was even a bad LB in VIII.
-Balthier has absolutely no extra ability with guns beyond point-and-shoot, on any level, in XII; that's just not a thing in FFXII. In fact, Balthier is the worst gun-user in the game because his unique firing animation is longer for no additional gain. In Revenant Wings he did have a gun-based skillset, but all it provides are some status moves (amusingly, basically reskins of Mustadio's Arm Shot and Leg Shot), a knockback, and a line AoE. Good try, but not providing us much.
-X-2's Gunner gets the closest to being an independently interesting skillset, but all of its skills are some variant of '<adjective> Shot' (the English translation got slightly fancier on its names), and none of their effects really translate to the game FFXIV is; like, how does damaging the enemy's MP work in a game where the enemies don't have MP? The only one that does translate is one Machinist basically has: a guaranteed crit. It also has the ability Trigger Happy, which is... just Irvine's LB.

So basically, no, none of those characters provide nearly enough. Mustadio and Revenant Wings Balthier are character archetypes that make sense in a tactical RPG but provide barely anything for what a XIV job would need, Vincent had to move into another genre to make full use of his guns, and X-2's gunner couldn't provide diverse visuals and mostly uses effects that worked for the specific game FFX-2 was.

A lot of those characters were from games where they could've made 'The Gunner' their entire skillset; a tactical RPG has a place for that character and doesn't need them to do very much, an RPG where the party has mostly common abilities can spare room to give one guns for regular attacks. But FFXIV is a game where a job needs thirty goddamn active skills; Arm Shot and Leg Shot aren't gonna fill up your repertoire, and there's only so many ways you can animate 'point and shoot' in a game where a visually interesting skillset is expected. The 'gun-haver' skillset needed extra sauce, and they found it in Machinist.