Thread: 8.0 speculation

Originally Posted by Cleretic

... [P]erhaps there's something going on with some echoes to what happened earlier in Dawntrail, so they call us to go 'hey we've got a mid-grade Zoraal Ja situation going on here, might need some help getting on top of this'. Which leads to the notion of an expansion that's largely focused around helping and securing a post-occupation Ilsabard, which is the 8.0 that I think seems the most likely and could be quite interesting, albeit not the one I want (mostly because it's not Meracydia).

Originally Posted by Zero-ELEC

Ah, there we go, the Letter from the Producer LIVE official English translation recap thingy came out and confirms that the Clyteum is Garlean, which I feel was only in doubt due to the uncertainty of the translation of what Yoshida said.

Well, that kills that idea. Having said that, I don't think we're doing an Ilsabard expansion; one of the points of Endwalker was seemingly to fill in the gaps of the known world, and thus far issues with former provincial territories have been limited to "help a former Legatus save the territory he once conquered" (e.g. Werlyt). Considering post-6.0 has been nothing but dealing with reflections that serve as adaptations of previous series entries, it would be a strange pivot to make at this point. Not saying that's not happening, but the storyline trend doesn't support it.

I guess we'll figure out why we're going to Garlemald in about a month. Stay tuned, I guess.

Originally Posted by Pimsan20

Going to change the subject away from garlemald. I’m really curious on what the next alliance raid will be in 8.0. There is a lot we can go through. But personally I think a dragon quest alliance raid based of the first trilogy would be a good pick for it.

Originally Posted by Voidmage

I could really do without another Raid story that you need to have played the origin games to understand the story. FFXI raid is fun but the story is only references right now with an Explanation NPC for those who haven't played it only...

We don't have any idea where 8.0 itself is headed yet; there's absolutely no way to know or even really guess what the Alliance raid will be. Trends towards "abridged adaptation of previous entry" (III - Crystal Tower; Tactics / XII - Return to Ivalice; VIII - Eden; XI - Echoes of Vana'diel), with some original content (Shadow of Mhach / Myths of the Realm) and second-party content (YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse). No way to say what things will be, but it's more likely than not not going to be something like Dragon Quest.

The XI raids have little to nothing to do with XI itself; they're basically just a hodgepodge of "Hey, remember these cool fights / characters?" for nostalgic players of that game. Not surprising, given as XI is one of those old-school MMOs that doesn't feature a compulsory, linear, cinematic MSQ. You don't need to understand anything from that game to understand it's plotline; just that Gulool Ja Ja is... pretty much the exact opposite of his XIV incarnation and Sareel Ja wants him to take his alter ego's place to usher in an age of Mamool Ja dominance (with himself as the true ruler behind the scenes, of course).

Originally Posted by Voidmage

I could really do without another Raid story that you need to have played the origin games to understand the story. FFXI raid is fun but the story is only references right now with an Explanation NPC for those who haven't played it only...

I actually think the Vana'diel raids are doing very well at that; the whole thing is obviously rooted in FFXI with plenty of references to that, but the actual story isn't; the story is that Sareel Ja accidentally made life while trying to do a holodeck episode of Star Trek where he tries to prove the greatness of some abstract fiction/history, and the people who know this world cannot and will not be theirs are trying to stop him anyway while he tries to prove the new Dawnservants to be unworthy.

This is not a story that needs to be FFXI necessarily, and you don't need to already know who Prishe or Alxaal is to get the gist of the story--hell, nobody knows who Alxaal is right now, including the FFXI fans, I've checked. There is an extra layer to the fact that they did use FFXI, though, and I think it deepens Sareel Ja's story; it gives a specific, understandable context and meaning to his desires. He's a man motivated basically by blind hatred of The New and a need to prove that it's worse than The Old (and the fact that he'd be in a higher status under The Old is probably a factor too); giving him the tools of FFXIV's ancestor is a great way to metatextually reinforce that.

Originally Posted by Cleretic

snip

You need a whole NPC there to explain those bosses because they are just thrown in references that aren't even mentioned again after that by the other characters.
Ultima and Omega aren't even really brought up again by even us given their importance outside.

I haven't played FFXI and me as well as some others, really don't even know who half of those bosses are or why they are there. Why should I be excited for Card-dude when his existence doesn't even matter in the very same raid he is in?
Prishe as well lives much off of previous knowledge about her and who she actually is (I have read about her) because otherwise she is just a random companion.

I don't mind taking from previous titles and forming them into the setting of FFXIV like Crystal tower (even back then when it was basically the only Allagan content) and to a lesser extent Ivalice (which was heavily tied to Garlemald) had been but this raid is much closer to Nier in that regard.
Why not have people in the setting speculate more about Ultima and Omega instead of ignoring their existence?
Why not have the last two bosses of the second raid actually be an overarching thing from the beginning instead of appearing just to get thrown away next?
The whole thing would matter more when we actually saw impact outside like Sareel Ja and his Dawn servant copy confusing the people outside for example or the whole "Copy of another world out of Electrope" impacted the the rest of the world more given it's extreme potential.

I don't want to take away from those who enjoy the story of it but as someone who doesn't know the background of the setting it is extremely disappointing outside of the fights and looks themselves and I know that I am not the only one who thinks that.
Because in the end it will end like Nier. A self contained story without impact.

Whatever the whole thing is off topic anyway and I don't want to discuss about obvious personal taste even from my side because it's a neverending discussion.
Don't want to derail the thread here.
Let's just say that I think they could have done a way better job at integrating Vanadiel and as of right now the whole thing really just feels like "Greatest hits" for someone who hasn't played FFXI.
And because of that I genuinely don't want another crossover in the next raid, even less with something that isn't even FF.