XIV Fan Fest returns! (2023-24)

[Drai]

100% will be Iroha since she is already floating around Eorzea

I’ll stick with my original guesses, Raid 1 we get Lion, Raid 2 we get Prishe and Ulmia and Raid 3 we get Lilisette

[Madeline]

al'taieu and tu'lia or bust

or promyvions

[arus2001]

Wouldn't be terribly surprised if each one is just fixated on the city states and the encounter just takes us through a reimagining of the beastman strongholds.

[Gokulo]

Wouldn't be terribly surprised if each one is just fixated on the city states and the encounter just takes us through a reimagining of the beastman strongholds.

Sounds horrible. Hopefully they'll decide to choose some more visually interesting areas.
Well, considering Shadowlord was shown then I guess Zvahl is a given, maybe Xarcabard too.

[arus2001]

Regardless of whatever route they choose, it'll be incredibly reductive. Some could argue that the Shadowlord should be a final encounter, and if sticking to pre-RotZ content, that'd be true. On the other hand, what XI bosses prior would be narratively appropriate? HNMs like Roc, Serket, Simurgh, Lumberjack, et all have no lore behind them. This does put the onus on the beast tribes, but at the same time, a stale gauntlet of just killing one after the other wouldn't mean much, either. This generalized approach also diminishes the potential appearances of various national NPCs. Some people like Lion, sure. I don't give a shit about her as bargain bin Rikku. I'd rather see Curila or Ayame. Frankly, I want more investment in this than the Nier line. It's honoring another FF, and specifically the other MMO, after all.

[Anoat]

I could see the first raid being Yagudo/Quadav/Orc leaders and Shadowlord as final boss

2nd raid Ark Angels (solo instance vs 1, raid boss 1 will be two, raid boss 2 will be remaining two) and then the Zilart bros

3rd raid for Promathia is a bit harder to project because so many of the CoP bosses have already made their way into XIV. If I were to guess, since this is FF and we *must* kill god, I’d say bosses would be Promathia, Apocalypse Nigh version of Promathia, Voidwatch version of Promathia, and then finally Altana

[tenkiki]

I'd rather they spread out the raids through all of FFXI's history instead of just the 75 cap era, encourage people to go back and finish every expansion. 2nd one could be the WoTG/Adoulin crossover teased with Arciela's father ending in Tartarus and 3rd capping off with RoV/TVR in Valhalla, hub/ending zone in Tavnazia just to royally piss off XI players with zones that aren't in the original game lol.

[Lokus]

XI being another long running MMO will make it difficult for them to cover it in depth since they only got 12 spots for bosses. It's gonna be a greatest hits medly and Iroha is definitely gonna show up and probably be our main NPC contact.

[Anoat]

A lot of FFXI players stopped during WOTG and never played Adoulin, if they are looking to hit nostalgia among XI players they should probably not hit any story beats after Aht Urghan imo

[Lokus]

The FFXI x FFXIV collab was way past 75 cap as it involved Iroha and her time travel shenanigans. The Granblue Fantasy x FFXI anniversary collab had Prishe, Lilisette, and Iroha as the collab characters with it's story being based on Abyssea and some events after. SE definitely doesn't just want to limit XI to its earlier era.

[Gokulo]

https://twitter.com/The_Ben_Starr/st...FkDl-TW2w&s=19

[Drai]

Just give us an FFXIV graphic version of the RoV cutscene pre Cloud of Darkness fight, with all the Heroines showing up to make you a path through, and yeah, there’s WAY too much nostalgia to fit in only 12 fights over 3 raids, so maybe the field exploration will piggy back off these raids?

[Shenrien]

Talking story only? They could easily work with 12 slots, its not like black dragon is a memorable boss experience. I can't imagine many even know of seeker's that are veteran players of FFXI and even know who August and Hades are to have them be considered.

Shadowlord
Ark Angels
Kam'lanaut
Eald'narche

Shikaree X,Y & Z
Ultima/Omega??
Promyvion Bosses
Promathia

Odin
Alexander
Lilith
Cloud of Darkness

[tenkiki]

I figured that's the whole point, SE wants players to go back to XI and go through the rest of the story to double dip on sub money for both MMOs. Why would they want the entire series to be understood from playing on a free private server still stuck on CoP/ToAU? Also, since it's only 12, they could put those Master Trials to good use and use them as a template for some of the fights to condense several of the fights into 1 encounter:

Shadowlord + 3 beastkings
Ark Angels + Kam'lanaut + Eald'narche
Odin + Alexander + Valkyries
Altana + Promathia
Omega + Ultima (remixed into Omega-Hades and Ultima-Balamor from the unused concept art)
Iroha+Heroines/Teodor+August assisting you instead of SC+MBing you into oblivion

[arus2001]

I'd say it's safe to rule out anything that'd be overlapping a primal encounter, so stuff like Odin and Alexander is out. I'd even say the CoD encounter would be iffy if they even dared try to cover Rhapsodies. That said, Shantotto was also an early event appearance, so thinking they'll just shoehorn Iroha down our throats is also a bit of a stretch. I don't really see it as an attempt to try to get people who quit with ToAU to play again, either.

Whatever NPCs rope us into the encounter(s) needn't even be XI specific. They could play off the angle of it being another shard world, but I'm still going to hope it's more impressive in storytelling than Nier or the FFT line was. I view this more as a chance of telling people what XI was in all the important beats. Private servers are both not the retail experience and also not the full game, and I doubt those few thousand people leeching an old game are the draw, either.

[Prothescar]

I completely doubt that they're going to break the mold on how they handle these collabs. Nier had Yoko Taro's direct involvement. Ivalice had Matsuno's direct involvement. They were still both divergent from the original material while including just enough direct links, Easter eggs, and fan service to give some form of spirit to them without going too close to creating new canonical events or oversatursting XIV's world with the other game/franchise's lore. This can also be seen in things like the Monster Hunter collab.

My expectation is that EoV will follow the same principles. The barest of ties to anything that actually happens in XI. The characters will be pale simulacra of their originals and the raid series will tell its own story in some way or another. I do expect to see Iroha, maybe they'll even try to incorporate emptiness or something into it. But I think people expecting these raids to be some grand retelling or synopsis of the events of XI are setting g themselves up for disappointment.

To be clear I prefer it this way. A unique story tying some Vana'diel flavor into XIV would shit all over a short, limited pantomime of the game's actual soul. They can achieve a lot by hooking people with the charm of the game's general feel and premise and nudging them toward maybe playing through Rhapsodies of Vana'diel in the real thing than giving a shitty, boiled down version of dozens of hours of narrative.

[Gokulo]

If there's no banter with XI race names though I'm gonna be disappointed

[Mrbeansman]

Y'all keep talking about the story all I want is for one for the gear drops to be an adaman hauberk and for it to be ambiguous whether its blue or purple.

[arus2001]

Hmm, if the cursed gear does wind up being the raid drops, let's see...

WAR/PLD/DRK/GNB = Koenig
RPR/DRG = Adaman
MNK/SAM = Shura
BLM/RDM/SMN = Zenith
BRD/MCH/DNC = Crimson
WHM/SCH/AST/SGE = ???
NIN = ???

I guess they could make alt versions of Zenith and Shura like how the Nier basically shared looks across the different types, but I'm wondering if they'll try to cobble together an independent look.

[Vaspinne]

Giving Drg the adaman hauberk is just wrong. Hecatomb set makes way more sense