FFXI Plot-holes and unclear issues

[ronin sparthos]

I wouldn't say that that are more concerned with self-preservation, most of them (everyone except Bahamut) seem to be very fond of the human races. I am sure that self-preservation is a motivation, but I think that most of them would actually would help even if their lives weren't on the line as well.

I should rephrase.

The terrestrials are certainly more sympathetic than the celestials but Diabolos wasn't very confident in the races ability to defeat the Emptiness and Promathia. After Tenzen requested help in protecting the mothercrystals during the events of CoP, he berated Phoenix for feeding Tenzen false hopes and was quick to jump to extreme action in his desire to have everyone join him in Dynamis. The very same Phoenix was later willing to have you sacrificed to prevent Al'taieu from falling back into Vana'diel and Bahamut balked at any compromise for most of CoP.


The terrestrials aren't the jerkass celestials but they're not afraid to do things on behalf of Vana'diel (that could negatively affect the 5races) that happen to also be in their best interests. Carbuncle and Fenrir have shown acts of heroism, Bahamut later gains faith in 5races after being beaten by the adventurer and Diabolos apparently feels you're strong enough later on to help him with his Dynamis troubles so we know for sure they aren't Odin-tier.

I never got to complete Waking the Beast but why exactly does Carbuncle fight you there?

[ronin sparthos]

The Seed Crystal was a waste of a perfectly good expansion add-on and $10. We wanted a story about how Aldo escaped from Tavnazia and finishing with the reunion between him and his sister. Instead we got some shitty story with a crystal that just shows up, we fight it, and nothing of consequence happens because everyone was dreaming.

This so much.

[Septimus]

I should rephrase.

The terrestrials are certainly more sympathetic than the celestials but Diabolos wasn't very confident in the races ability to defeat the Emptiness and Promathia. After Tenzen requested help in protecting the mothercrystals during the events of CoP, he berated Phoenix for feeding Tenzen false hopes and was quick to jump to extreme action in his desire to have everyone join him in Dynamis. The very same Phoenix was later willing to have you sacrificed to prevent Al'taieu from falling back into Vana'diel and Bahamut balked at any compromise for most of CoP.


The terrestrials aren't the jerkass celestials but they're not afraid to do things on behalf of Vana'diel (that could negatively affect the 5races) that happen to also be in their best interests. Carbuncle and Fenrir have shown acts of heroism, Bahamut later gains faith in 5races after being beaten by the adventurer and Diabolos apparently feels you're strong enough later on to help him with his Dynamis troubles so we know for sure they aren't Odin-tier.

I never got to complete Waking the Beast but why exactly does Carbuncle fight you there?

Looking at how things turned out on Abyssea, Diabolos had a very strong chance of being correct about our ability to defeat Promathia. It may have been pessimistic, but he had justification in what he believed, but ultimately Phoenix was correct. (At least on Vana'diel.) Phoenix's plan was to sacrifice you at the Al'Teiau Mother Crystal, but (I think it was Prishe who said it) Phoenix's was going to then sacrifice herself again to resurrect you.

But really, Diabolos's heart was in the right place. He was genuinely trying to help people in the best way that he could because he didn't want them to suffer and die. (It's just that most people wouldn't find his brand of help to be very helpful.) Out of all of the Terrestrial Avatars, Phoenix is the most selfless; but most of them do seem to try to help the races of Altana as much as they can. I look at it like this, if I had a decision to make to side with the Terrestrials or the Celestials, I would side with the Terrestrials without thinking.

And as for Waking the Beast:

Spoiler: show

Short story: Carbuncle fights you because the Celestial Avatars are total dicks.

Longer story: When you go to the Full Moon Fountain with the enhanced power from the harder Celestial fights, the Celestials show up and try to take all of their power back. They were being channeled through the player, so Carbuncle says that they only way to stop them (and the potentially disastrous consequences) is to defeat the one who is summoning them. (i.e. you) So, they were being total dicks. But the good news is that the Celestials didn't seem to totally hate humans in the cutscene, so maybe Carbuncle's plan is working.

Seriously, Square could look at this thread and write 5 expansions based off of the stuff we talk about.

[ronin sparthos]

I really wish they gave us a glimpse of what Phoenix's complete form looked like.

[Septimus]

I really wish they gave us a glimpse of what Phoenix's complete form looked like.

If I wrote the storylines they would...

[Apelila]

With how well the long plotlines in this game tie together (for a JRPG) I was surprised when XIV was announced instead of XI 2.0.
Then again, given how well that worked out for Everquest 2 maybe that's just as well.

[Shenrien]

The Seed Crystal was a waste of a perfectly good expansion add-on and $10. We wanted a story about how Aldo escaped from Tavnazia and finishing with the reunion between him and his sister. Instead we got some shitty story with a crystal that just shows up, we fight it, and nothing of consequence happens because everyone was dreaming.

Seriously, look at this picture:

http://images.bluegartr.com/wiki/f/f...alline_Art.jpg

Isn't that epic? There's a young Aldo fleeing the ruin of Tavnazia with his sister's image burning in his memory. Who are these people in the background? Did they help Aldo escape? Did they teach him important lessons that would turn him into the man that he is today? Did they protect him from harm? We will never know because we got a terrible story about an evil crystal who tried to destroy the world but couldn't for some unspecified reason. We didn't even get a reunion between Aldo and Mathilde. How hard would it have been to add in an extra cutscene in Selbina and an extra line of text on Aldo and Mathilde? Obviously too hard for $10.

Mathilde was involved because it needed her to sing the Lay of the Immortal or some junk, but really, who it was or what it wanted is of no consequence whatsoever. It was just the product of a blatant cash-grab. (Yes, I am bitter about it still.)

Watch the opening Cutscene the illustration I'm guessing reflects those that fought against the beastmen as they invaded Tavnazia them being not colored I guess resembles their spirits that were left un-rested on that night, the models drawn in the picture closely resemble the characters of the cutscene.

The expansion was pretty shallow it could have been so much more then what it turned out to be but that's what 10$ is worth, could go buy a bunch of bubble gum and some pretzels and have a better evening then playing through the mini-expansions that offer up no real story.

[Spira]

What exactly IS the Seed Crystal? Is it the Mothercrystal? It kind of randomly shows up as a the last boss of ACP without much explanation like FF1 Chaos.

I wrote this some time back on ffwiki when i was trying to clean up their ffxi articles.. i think its a pretty good summary of what the Seed Crystal is.

A sentient crystal from ages past, it was drawn to Vana'diel by the ancient song Memoria de la S^tona resonating within Emeline's heart. As the song itself prophesies destruction, the Seed Crystal seeks to return Vana'diel to the darkness from which it was born. It was banished by both the efforts of the player and the song's antiphon, the Ode of Life Bestowing, through the peoples' will to live.

essentially, it was a badly thought out plot device. ACP was the worst add-on by far.

[Eurell]

I wrote this some time back on ffwiki when i was trying to clean up their ffxi articles.. i think its a pretty good summary of what the Seed Crystal is.

A sentient crystal from ages past, it was drawn to Vana'diel by the ancient song Memoria de la S^tona resonating within Emeline's heart. As the song itself prophesies destruction, the Seed Crystal seeks to return Vana'diel to the darkness from which it was born. It was banished by both the efforts of the player and the song's antiphon, the Ode of Life Bestowing, through the peoples' will to live.

essentially, it was a badly thought out plot device. ACP was the worst add-on by far.

I actually think ACP was my favorite of the 3 (which isn't saying much at all). I get that the moogle one was supposed to be funny or something, just wasn't for me I guess. But Shantoto kept that stupid ass multi-verse story going, which I hate so fucking much. I feel like all these other worlds sort of takes away from the epicness of WotG. They should have just left 2 worlds. Our's and Lilith's. Abyssea should have been Lilith's world instead of vanadiel version 5. Same with Voidwatch. And they should have just never done ASA at all.

[Ophannus]

The Tarutaru on the bottom left of Septimus's ACP picture looks so fucking pensive. Can we get a zoom in please?

[Spira]

agreed to that extent. they overdid trying to stretch the world laterally instead of just going ahead with adding new areas. it kinda spoils the experience of the world view tho..
i mean.. how many universes and parallel worlds are there now? its almost as bad as a marvel comic.

[ronin sparthos]

The Tarutaru on the bottom left of Septimus's ACP picture looks so fucking pensive. Can we get a zoom in please?

He's probably wondering how his agent managed to convince him to do the ACP cover.

[Eurell]

agreed to that extent. they overdid trying to stretch the world laterally instead of just going ahead with adding new areas. it kinda spoils the experience of the world view tho..
i mean.. how many universes and parallel worlds are there now? its almost as bad as a marvel comic.

Our Vanadiel
Lillith's world
Shantoto B
Shantoto C
Abyssea
Voidwatch

So at least 6 (and im sure im missing some from the shantoto story or from voidwatch story)? When 2 with Walk of echoes staying as the inbetween world would have been 634785623786978x more epic. I'm still sad they didn't make abyssea as Lilliths world, when it would have been such an easy tie in.

[Rocl]

I mean six is the maximum for the minimum (oh god what), in theory, Voidwatch, Shantotto C, and Lilith's world could all be the same. We don't know enough to say that all of those are separate, other than Abyssea is definitely apart from all of those (except potentially Voidwatch?).

Oh, and obviously our Vana'Diel is separate from all of them. So the minimum I'd say would be like 4. It could also be 10,000,000; I think if you care less about enumerating the number of worlds and just focus on the idea that there are several parallel dimensions or w/e it works better.

[Gwynplaine]

I've always been under the assumption alternate Shantotto came from Abyssea. I thought it was their way of alluding to the next coming set of addons. Sort of how past expansions have contained traces of the next expansion.

[Eurell]

I've always been under the assumption alternate Shantotto came from Abyssea. I thought it was their way of alluding to the next coming set of addons. Sort of how past expansions have contained traces of the next expansion.

That would still leave the Other alternate Shantoto lol.

I agree with Rocl that theres probably 1000000000 worlds and its dumb to count. It just annoys me, because in my mind, that takes away from the epicness (im overusing this retarded word, i know) that was WotG. "Heroes" from 2 worlds battling against eachother because Atomos says there can only be one vanadiel isn't nearly as cool now that we know there are at the very minimum 4 vanadiels, if not 6 - inifnity.

[Septimus]

Watch the opening Cutscene the illustration I'm guessing reflects those that fought against the beastmen as they invaded Tavnazia them being not colored I guess resembles their spirits that were left un-rested on that night, the models drawn in the picture closely resemble the characters of the cutscene.

The expansion was pretty shallow it could have been so much more then what it turned out to be but that's what 10$ is worth, could go buy a bunch of bubble gum and some pretzels and have a better evening then playing through the mini-expansions that offer up no real story.

I think what really burns my ass is that the picture has absolutely nothing to do with the content of ACP. Nothing.

Look at the other two pictures:

http://images.bluegartr.com/wiki/2/2...27Etat_Art.jpg http://images.bluegartr.com/wiki/d/de/Shantotto_Art.jpg

At least they aren't complete misrepresentative of the plots of the stories. You have to fight ghost, skeleton, and evil weapon NMs for AMK, and there is an army of fomor guys in ASA. The fall of Tavnazia doesn't even figure into ACP, and the young Aldo in the story isn't the Aldo in the picture.

I wrote this some time back on ffwiki when i was trying to clean up their ffxi articles.. i think its a pretty good summary of what the Seed Crystal is.

A sentient crystal from ages past, it was drawn to Vana'diel by the ancient song Memoria de la S^tona resonating within Emeline's heart. As the song itself prophesies destruction, the Seed Crystal seeks to return Vana'diel to the darkness from which it was born. It was banished by both the efforts of the player and the song's antiphon, the Ode of Life Bestowing, through the peoples' will to live.

essentially, it was a badly thought out plot device. ACP was the worst add-on by far.

It seemed like the fight with the player was entirely unnecessary, the plot to have resolved in the same way without it. It's not like the player had any hand in causing the antiphon, we just fought the crystal and it decided to destroy the world anyway but it failed.

agreed to that extent. they overdid trying to stretch the world laterally instead of just going ahead with adding new areas. it kinda spoils the experience of the world view tho..
i mean.. how many universes and parallel worlds are there now? its almost as bad as a marvel comic.

Marvel isn't nearly as bad as DC when it comes to alternate universes. Your head may explode from that link.

[Rocl]

I hope someone punches the FFXI multiverse so hard everything is rebooted.

Spoiler: show

THE REBOOT IS XIV

[ronin sparthos]

I hope someone punches the FFXI multiverse so hard everything is rebooted.

Spoiler: show

THE REBOOT IS XIV

Honestly the multiverse hasn't become so bloated yet that a reboot would be needed. We've got 3 important universes in XI: Lilith's , Prime universe, Abyssea. The rest are just throwaway.

Spoiler: show

Sadly XIV is the only thing slated for some lore in the upcoming future. >(

Spoiler: show

A followup expansion on WOTG (a trip to Lilith's steampunk future) or Abyssea (rebuilding after the nigh apocalypse) wouldn't be terrible if done correctly. All of the previous expansions have followed eachother chronologically anyway.

[Niiro]

I hope someone punches the FFXI multiverse so hard everything is rebooted.

Spoiler: show

THE REBOOT IS XIV

Spoiler: show

AND XIV IS ALREADY BEING REBOOTED

Spoiler: show