Thanks for all the Fish

[Argantaelle]

ARR story can't be judged as the whole piece, imo. It has very different components. 2.0 story wasn't the best and was full of mindless, boring quests designed just to waste your time or give you enough exp to level (the corrupted crystal storyline is one of the examples). I've been playing since 2013, and I remember quite well that I wasn't fond of the story, but I liked the world, characters, and PvE, so I stayed. 2.1 was horrible (does anyone remember repairing Minfilia's earring or gathering tea leaves in Coerthas?). 2.2 got somewhat better, and since about the middle of 2.3, the story improved greatly. It became coherent and engaging; the pacing was good with the pinnacle, which was the Bloody Banquet.

It's a pity SE removed one of my favourite dialogues in the game, though.
(ARR spoilers)
(when WoL is looking for the merchant stirring people up in Ul'dah)

[Avoidy]

Crazy how Dawntrail's abysmal story sorta jogged people awake to all the problems this game has had this entire time. I've complained about so many of these issues for years only to have people tell me I was overreacting or being negative for no reason or whatever, and I guess it really was just because the story was good enough to sort of ... disguise all those flaws, maybe? On the MSQ front alone, I've always hated the presentation behind it. Cutscenes are unvoiced more often than not, with stiff vaguely gesturing animations that loop while Machinations or some other ARR/early HW song plays in the background. The quests cycle between "talk to X number of people" "go to Y location and wait" and occasionally, if you're lucky, "go to Z location and kill a monster" and that's about it. That variation of quest objectives, on loop, for at least 20 hours. Broken up occasionally by a dungeon where you run down two hallways of trash mobs, kill a boss, and then repeat that cycle three times. Anytime 8 people appear, a trial is near. If your quests are at a certain level, you already know you're about to head into a trial or a dungeon soon. Nothing dynamic ever happens in cutscenes, even the battles are boring to watch. Our character rarely interferes. Dialogue options mean absolutely nothing and might as well not exist. It's unenthusiastic and boring as hell to me, and has been for years. I only really enjoyed ShB because it took us away from the world that I'd long since stopped caring about. But even ShB had insane pacing issues: after that high point leading into holminster switch, the story slows down like crazy until Emet rolls up with a pistol. Anyone else remember slogging through a trainyard? I don't even remember the specifics of it, but I remember being bored as hell. Then the post game would release at a slow pace of like 3-4 months per patch and barely anything to show for it.

Anyway, I'd complain about all manner of that kind of thing back then and people would tell me I was insane, or in some cases they'd insinuate I had literal ADHD for just wanting voiced cutscenes in a video game in 2024. Game reviewers would call the story legendary. It'd win awards. People couldn't stop glazing this game that had content drops less often than a f2p game run by a skeleton crew. Folks would literally say verbatim "ShB was the best story I've ever seen, period" even though it was like baby's first sympathetic villain tier of writing. But now that DT is so in-your-face about being dogshit, suddenly everyone's finally waking up to the fact that the story's told in a boring way and the content rollouts are slow as hell. I can't imagine what the DT writer must be feeling. Imagine crafting a story so bad that it shakes the community out of their collective stupor and makes them realize the delicacy they've been eating for years has been garbage the entire time.

[sindriiisgaming]

I mean ppl can say can I have your stuff all they want. But assuming this is a real tangible statement this is another subscription gone and this is more money to s.e lost. And whole 1 may not seam alot. It's 1 more than the 30% we've already lost. And not only that but it's a departure on a sour note. Wanting to stay but feeling like there's nothing to stay for and that the community doesn't respect the investment they gave. Xiv will be lucky if it ever wins best community again after this whole thing is over with, zepla already exposed the play another game mentality so it's no kept secret