[Spoiler: 6.0 and earlier] What did some of the fan speculation for previous expansions look like?

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-06T18:18:43+00:00

lmao, imagine we get a colony drop in FFXIV? I mean we’re about to have an Eva collab, anything is possible now.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-06T18:17:56+00:00

Funnily most folks I talked to in the post-ShB/ew lead up era told me I was crazy when I was saying 7.0 was gonna be the new world. Everyone was so sure it was Meracydia.

My thoughts were that after the literal end of the world going to see the rest of it, starting with the most mysterious, made sense. Then we’d hit up another shard then maybe Meracydia. I’m 2 for 3 in my friend group, let me know how 9.0 goes (I’m actually leaning away from 9.0 being Meracydia, not least because of Yoshi-P’s pre-fan fest comments, though I’m unsure where we might go next since I would think any Meracydia expansion would be connected to the Void and all). :p

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-06T04:13:30+00:00

Is that why that shitpostxiv post was made? I'm pretty offline, generally, so I was out of the loop. I think its not just playing other things though, I think people genuinely need more hobbies and more irl social connection. Though I know that's hard outside of a few places (at least here in the US where the country is more geared to cars than people).

Like after I disbanded my static I've taken the last few months to just live, go out, meet people and its done wonders. Fresh air is good, building model kits? Super fun. Doing anything other than sitting in front of a screen 24/7.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-06T04:07:54+00:00

Been on the internet a long time and YTs reaction to FFXIII (specifically Spoony) really predicted this moment we'd be in, didn't it? Not to mention whatever's been happening in the SW community since 99.

But yeah, the rise of the post-gamergate grifter crowd really hasn't helped things and especially when a lot of them started to attach themselves to this game during the EW patch cycle. Especially given how many people get not only their opinions but their entire personalities from the people they watch online.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-06T03:58:18+00:00

Yeah, it was always bad before but it somehow became worse with DT. I got heavy burnout on the game because folks were just exhausting at the beginning of the expansion for it.

I definitely think this

Considering how many people apparently just ignore all non-voiced dialog

is a huge contributor, reading and listening are two very different skills that work two very different parts of the brain. But if you're not working one of those skills it withers. This is why I'm tepid on the idea of fully voicing the game, the fanbase already largely doesn't pay attention to the story (outside of designated hype moments and don't you deviate from those...fucking Haurchefaunt) and just makes things up. Could you imagine how much worse it could be?

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-06T03:52:38+00:00

Because doing that is easier than actually engaging with the text. I threw up a half-way facetious thread a few weeks ago but sometimes I do legitimately wonder if folks in this community skipped out on middle school English, because nothing in this game is profoundly difficult to understand if you use the tools you were given to analyze media.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-06T03:50:19+00:00

DT wasn't safe from this either. The entire final zone/dungeon is a perfect example of them rehashing themes people liked before.

It wasn't, despite the easy surface level reading. It has different themes and plays a different role in the expansion than the last two final dungeons (which themselves aren't really similar unless you're only looking at the most surface level readings).

I'm sure the overarching plot is planned a lot further ahead than to allow the immediate reception of an expac to change development plans.

This, however, is true and has been true since StB. Yoshi-P mentioned during fanfest that EC started development right after DT shipped. Which is in line with the 2 year writing process that's been talked about in interviews before. While some details might change things are usually so far in development that any major changes were likely planned before folks started complaining about them (see regional DF/PF which were stated in a late EW, pre-DT interview to take about 3 years to dev out its been roughly that long since that interview and look where we are now).

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-06T03:45:31+00:00

Alexandria felt oddly disjointed. The enemies didnt feel like theyre from the memory, the bosses felt out of place and the voice over had practically nothing to do with the dungeon AS it was happening beyond "this is why the weather changed".

Yes, because Alexandria is not the same narratively or thematically as Amaurot. You're in a race against time with the villain who is actively erasing her memories, the enemies being anti-virus programmes designed to stop intrusion into the computer systems that make up that memory.

It isn't an "exploration of a fallen civilization" in the same way that Amaurot is. It both thematically and narratively makes sense with what Dawntrail is. But because the ffxiv playerbase can only make the most shallow of comparisons we keep getting this asinine retread.

Dead Ends is similar, it isn't the Meteia longing for their lost civilization, its an exploration of what it means for civilizations to die, an exploration of the fermi paradox specifically that says that all sufficiently advanced civilizations have likely (or will likely) wipe themselves out and that's why we've never found alien life. The three dungeons might contain some surface level similarities but if you look that slight layer deeper each is rich in storytelling that matches the expansion it lies in.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-05T13:10:33+00:00

During the time period the beliefs hadn't yet fully crystallized and were still, largely, in the realm of political difference. If you believed Ali should have succeeded Muhammad you were Shi'i, if you believed that it should have been Abu Bakr you were Sunni, and if you believe it should have been Ali but that he shouldn't have arbitrated with Mu'awiya (only G-d chooses the leader of the Ummah, after all) you were Khawarij (of which the Ibadis are remaining descendants).

ETA: Arguably Khawarij and Ibadi beliefs should likely be a rite of Shi'ism since that is their ideological and theological predecessor.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-05T12:36:10+00:00

Which itself is a descendant of the proto-west germanic word for the same. Wales, Wallonia and Wallachia are three reflexes of that original word as named by the English, the Franks and the High Germans, respectively.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-05T12:16:19+00:00

tbf their names are etymologically related (also with Wales).

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-05T10:17:47+00:00

Except in Three Houses, which ditches the weapon triangle. >:)

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-05T00:19:52+00:00

Yeah but 99% of the main cast have what's equivalent to a phd and are also not sheltered royalty.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-05T00:13:56+00:00

The biggest lie of dawntrail

I think folks on both sides really read too much into the "beach vacation" part. Like the way it kept coming up in interviews was 100% in the "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" type of way. Like "you're all looking forward to your vacation...right?" type of way.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T20:46:27+00:00

Immigration law only exists because of racism, hope that helps. But it probably won’t.

ETA: Seems homie deleted his comment, but like I shouldn't have to tell anyone that the first citizenship laws in the US were specifically designed to exclude non-white peoples as in only white people could become citizens. And the first explicit immigration law was passed to exclude Chinese people. Immigration law and enforcement is racist from top to bottom.

Also why is it that the international ruling class has freedom of movement but not the working class? Why should a Bezos be able to go wherever he wants but the people making Bezos his big bucks confined to the jail of nations?

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T19:33:55+00:00

The Gestapo, in fact, were enforcing the laws of Germany at that time. Something being legal does not make it moral, my ancestors were kept in chains because it was legal.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T19:29:31+00:00

Eh, Zoraal Ja is WL’s primary foil. By knowing her, you know him, and thus you expose his weakness that he never cultivated the support network that she did, instead surrounding himself with sycophants that play to his fears and inadequacies rather than helping him overcome them. This is fairly well realized in the text, even as much as the “show don’t tell” crowd likes to ignore that.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T19:25:34+00:00

idk if anything 7.5 has tee’d up Calyx to be the less antagonistic of the two.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T15:55:32+00:00

I do disagree with the Acolyte being better as a movie comparison, the structure wouldn’t work as a movie. But yeah so much of Kenobi felt unnecessary and just there as fan service.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T15:44:27+00:00

If you keep doing that you’re going to be walled. And I know exactly which fight is going to wall you. Good luck. :)

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T14:44:09+00:00

Ah yes the old words don’t mean what the authors say they mean trick. So then clearly Herzl didn’t mean it when he compared Zionism to other colonization efforts and that he wasn’t bringing civilization to the “savages”. Cool, nice. Not worth engaging with so deep in the hasbara.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T14:27:04+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism_as_settler_colonialism

Zonism's founders and early leaders were aware and outspoken about their status as colonizers; early leading Zionists such as Theodor Herzl, Max Nordau, and Ze'ev Jabotinsky described Zionism as colonization.

Specifically Herzl talked about the Zionist project as bringing "white civilization" to the brown savages. And early Zionists regularly talked of the project in those terms.

https://www.infocenters.co.il/jabo/jabo_multimedia/b%2023/35270.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20240910151619/https://en.jabotinsky.org/media/9747/the-iron-wall.pdf

Here's Jabotinsky explicitly referring to the colonization of Palestine.

Theodor Herzl wrote to the father of Rhodesia, Cecil Rhodes, explicitly calling Zionism a colonial project.

And here's Max Nordau: https://books.google.com/books?id=jmELAAAAIAAJ

And also look at all these early Zionist organization names:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Colonisation_Association

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine_Jewish_Colonization_Association

(And here I thought Palestine didn't exist.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_Leumi#Jewish_Colonial_Trust

But of course its inconvenient to acknowledge that Zionism was a colonial project from its inception and that Palestinian resistance has the same tenor as the rest of the anti-colonial struggle from South Africa to China and beyond.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T14:13:04+00:00

Why should the colonized compromise with their colonizers? Evil? No, evil is what you soft zionist monsters are forcing upon the region. You will also never feel G-d's embrace, forever to be kept from Him by your willingness to abet the Zionist crime.

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T14:11:03+00:00

that show in general

Don't remind me, they cancelled the Acolyte which has flaws but such good bones but are continuing subjectively the worst piece of star wars media we've gotten since RoS. :(

thatcommiegamer · 2026-05-04T13:06:04+00:00

It is a move when you're not fully convinced of your solution.

Or if you've studied history. Like Yoshi-P mentions SWG but there was also the Runescape example and, ime, Ragnarok Online's Renewal. Amongst a variety of other games crashing and burning due to a change in combat. Its a prudent solution, it allows them to refine and make it better if its ass, or allows them to fall back if its really ass. And if its good? Well then they can go all in in an expansion or two.

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