FFXIV story/lore thread

[Raldo]

Peoples' different names in the past generally threw me off the trail, and age isn't well represented in the game (are there even child models for anything other than Hyur?). In retrospect, I like to think of any time I said "What the fuck is going on?" or "How is this relevant in any way to the story so far?" as echo portions.

[Rocl]

There are Elezen children models. In fact one has lived through the Calamity and is found by the Carpetner's Guild in the present day. Unsure if the girl existed pre-2.0 but there's an Elezen girl there as well.

When you're suddenly seeing characters years younger and experiencing past events described by NPCs.....2 and 2.

Explain to me how you knew the Archons in Futures Perfect were ten years older than any other time you'd seen them in 1.0

[Niiro]

I took umbrage at you calling 2.0 a disjointed experience when what little experience 1.0 had was literally a well documented case study of "how not to tell a story." If you're calling the 7UE storyline better, it's the same team so idfk what to tell you other than they made 7UE with the expectation everyone was at/near cap and made 2.0 MSQ for leveling.

In 1.0 you were a random adventurer with a mysterious gift that worked up the ranks to become a soldier of note within your chosen GC for your efforts combating the empire. The empire is headed by Gaius, who was such an awesome character that he makes you wish you could choose to join him. There's a lot of political strife between the 3 nations and their willingness to work together is tentative at best. The PC is treated like an adventurer in a world full of adventurers (tho after doing actually impressive shit your respective commander stops treating you like a no-name grunt). The Circle of Knowing reaches out to you as they seek other people with the Echo as they try and use their abilities to help everyone (they're more focused on handling the beastmen/primals).

1.0's story was flawed in a lot of ways, but considering everything that's happened with the game and 2.0 it's pretty understandable. What was really important to me was how the story was told, the atmosphere, how the world and the actors were framed, etc.

In 2.0 you're a super special star child blessed by Altana Hydaelyn in the goddamn opening cutscene who's a national hero and "Warrior of Light" by level 20 when you run off and join Scooby Doo and the gang as they fight the generic black-clad, demon summoning bad guys. The 3 nations are BFFs after you run some errands for them and the GCs may as well not exist as far as the PC is concerned, you don't work for them.

The empire goes Wile-E-Coyote with Ultima Weapon. Nael was meant to be batshit for fucking with unknown Zilart Allagan tech and almost destroying the world but now the empire is balls deep in it.

Gaius, previously the rational, reasonable, cautious enemy opposite Nael's Bahamut-tempered madess, is now running amuck with his giant primal eating Gundam and he and his 2 bland cronies are unceremoniously offed in boss battles during the MSQ and quickly forgotten about since they were just pawns of the generic black-clad etc anyway (Garlean David Bowie is the only interesting character from the empire that they seem to have a plan for). Gaius's relationship with Cid/Cid's father isn't explored any further as much as it is re-iterated right before you kill him.

They didn't even have the balls to make Thancred an actual spy within the ranks or have him die in the last fight to add some kind of weight or drama to the events of the MSQ. Nope, everyone gets saved, no one with a name dies. Were those mounds of nameless NPC corpses that we awkwardly moved around Vesper Bay supposed to invoke some feeling of drama or loss?

I could go on but I'm tired of hearing myself at this point.

[Karbuncle]

You can make any good story sound generic in boring with your copious amounts of buzz words >_>

[Rocl]

The empire is headed by Gaius, who was such an awesome character that he makes you wish you could choose to join him.

This is all I had to read. Gaius was in one cutscene in 1.0. If you're talking about 7UE shit, you're talking about the same team who did 2.0.

Gaius had absolutely no backstory in the original 1.0. His name wasn't even Gaius. He didn't have a name. The model was called "Zulvan."

I mean "Impressive." and "The cloying stench of shadow lingers still." are good lines but that's pretty much all Gaius does in 1.0; be some guy who sounds like Darth Vader spout one liners and disappear in one cutscene in one quest at the end of the story.

Any time he was referred to as Gaius you're reading dialogue from the same scenario team who wrote 2.0. Yoshida was in charge by that time and the entire history of Hydaelyn/Eorzea was already rewrote.

[Eldelphia]

I actually enjoy the cutscenes in 2.0

[Niiro]

This is all I had to read. Gaius was in one cutscene in 1.0. If you're talking about 7UE shit, you're talking about the same team who did 2.0.

Gaius had absolutely no backstory in the original 1.0. His name wasn't even Gaius. He didn't have a name. The model was called "Zulvan."

I mean "Impressive." and "The cloying stench of shadow lingers still." are good lines but that's pretty much all Gaius does in 1.0; be some guy who sounds like Darth Vader spout one liners and disappear in one cutscene in one quest at the end of the story.

Any time he was referred to as Gaius you're reading dialogue from the same scenario team who wrote 2.0. Yoshida was in charge by that time and the entire history of Hydaelyn/Eorzea was already rewrote.

I have no idea which team did what parts of the story in 1.0, but Gaius was made out to be a very different character compared to how we see him in 2.0.

[Lucavi]

You can make any good story sound generic in boring with your copious amounts of buzz words >_>

This. Anyone can make any story sound like shit if they're that salty about it.

[Obsidian]

This is all I had to read. Gaius was in one cutscene in 1.0. If you're talking about 7UE shit, you're talking about the same team who did 2.0.

Gaius had absolutely no backstory in the original 1.0. His name wasn't even Gaius. He didn't have a name. The model was called "Zulvan."

I think his name was officially given on the Lodestone during 1.0 (around the time they introduced the Grand Companies) but I can't remember for certain.

[Niiro]

I guess using colorful and amusing (at least to me) language somehow invalidates my point.

And "salty" for some reason, because I apparently have some personal stake in the quality of the game's storytelling other than wishing it was better.

[Rocl]

I think his name was officially given on the Lodestone during 1.0 (around the time they introduced the Grand Companies) but I can't remember for certain.

He was, but the whole Grand Company thing was a Seventh Umbral Era storyline. Grand Companies weren't a thing until Yoshi-P.

[Tomino]

The game being an MMO designed for a wider audience, I can deal with the fact they added quite a few traditional rpg themes - the player being the chosen one, bad dudes in black tunics, the good guys being good - just because the main storyline has to be accessible. Still, there are a lot of interesting plotlines hinted at, which give me those famous "FF feels" Yoshi always talks about.

Tho I do agree that adding those boring, cheap fetch quests each new patch really kills the story pace, but I get that they wanted the narrative content to last more than one hour, and they couldn't have one sensational event after another.
Fear that will be their structure of choice for every patch - "Warrior of Light, there's a terrible threat looming! BUT before you go and save the world, my uncle needs vegetables and some wood to light the fire."

[Lyall]

Here's what I remember about the MSQ from 1.0 (not 1.21):

Goobbue runs loose. Some dude dies. A meteor kills everyone in a dream. Some dude dies. Some kid is really angry and threatens to become a bad guy.

The revelation that there was a timeskip involved blew my mind, but that was mostly because people who paid more attention than I had were able to break it down into things I'd missed or didn't understand. Saying the story was "better" in 1.0 seems disingenuous. Saying you "put 2 and 2 together" is a slap in the face given the models were identical or people's names were outright changed.

No one (not even you, unless you were keeping mum the year+ XIV was out and the countless people going ???? enthralled you) realized we were going in and out of the Echo. The developers (after the servers shut down) explained that this was in fact using the Echo after something like 20+ pages of discussion on the NA Localization forums about why the story made no goddamn sense.

I refuse to accept that ANYONE playing the game realized the opening questline was 10~ years in the past, mostly because there are NO HINTS to it outside of the Echo SE that we didn't even realize was important then.

[Rocl]

Goobbue runs loose. Some dude dies. A meteor kills everyone in a dream. Some dude dies. Some kid is really angry and threatens to become a bad guy.

No John, you are the Scions.

[ronin sparthos]

You can make any good story sound generic in boring with your copious amounts of buzz words >_>

The story is pretty paint by numbers. Gaius is your generic order through force big bad and you're the stock rebels who choose freedom amidst uncertainty. I feel for the way Gaius and his subordinates are presented the way you mow down Livia and Rhitahtyn unceremoniously were wasted characters that could have been fleshed out. I'd have much rather seen those thee retreating in failure to be used again later with Nero peeling off to do his outmechanic Cid thing. Bad voice acting didn't help the MSQ but I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it's a dealbreaker since you can still enjoy the story for what it is - a cursory introduction to the world of Eorzea.

What XIV has going for it are the interesting pieces in play. I find myself enjoying the personalities of the primals (go Garuda!), wanting to know more about the Ascians and Zodiark, expecting Nero to be piloting the next Mobile Suit Allag, the fallout of the empire being defeated in Eorzea, the nature of elder primals, what the alliance will do going forward to ensure its existence and more about the world at whole. I just hope they pull back on the Allagan civilization once its been used up, getting mean Odin vibes from the whole thing.

[Obsidian]

I thought the voice acting improved considerably for 2.2's cutscenes, for whatever that's worth.

[Raldo]

Quality, perhaps, though the quantity of it was still low, if I recall correctly.

I sat in on an "MMO panel" at a con recently, and FFXIV got a whopping three sentences. One of those was "There's no voice acting." (the full quote was "It looks pretty. The story sucks, and there's no voice acting. Also, the GCD is too long." but please don't turn this into a discussion on two guys' opinions). The people I was with squabbled with each other for a bit over this since we're all FFXIV players, but while certainly is some voice acting, it's certainly not very much.

[Obsidian]

Voice acting in large quantities isn't really something I expect from an MMO, in all honestly. Certainly, I don't expect every MSQ line to be voiced. There are too many NPCs involved and ESO is already being lambasted for all its NPCs having the same three VAs (just as every other Elder Scrolls game does). More of 2.2 was voiced than I expected to be. As long as the quality of the voice work is decent (and I thought it was pretty good in 2.2), I'll be happy with whatever they decide to voice.

In an attempt to re-rail this thread at the cost of exposing my own ignorance, I'm still not really clear on why a distinction is made between Paragons and Ascians, if they're the same thing. I believe Minfilia refers to the Ascians as Paragons in 2.1 (or near the end of 2.0?) and the Sahagin summoner guy does as well when they summon Leviathan (I think). If they're the same thing why does Minfilia continue to refer to them as Paragons? Force of habit?

[Rocl]

The Paragon = Ascian reveal happened off screen for us, but you can tell it was supposed to be a pretty big reveal (that we'll never get to see cuz RIP 1.0). The Paragons were spoke of glowingly by the beastmen (including Sylphs) in 1.0 as friends, but they feared the Ascians. (There was no reason to believe Paragon= Ascian in 1.0 and if someone tries to say they knew all along they're lying to your face.)

They're two words for the same thing, so using them interchangeably isn't wrong. I don't recall the exact references you mention, but it's likely that Paragon has a more 'positive' connotation (why the tempered beastmen use it) and is, for reasons just discussed, associated with beastmen while Ascian is a much more negative word associated with the ruination of Eorzea.

[Obsidian]

Do we know why the Ascians (or at least, Elidibus) refer to Umbral Eras as "Ardors", or is that just another nomenclature thing?