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Kieron Lohengrin · **07-21-2017, 04:53 AM**

Ala Mhigo / Gyr Abania remains the most boring thing about the xpac so far tbh. Loads of stodgy graybrown rock and the occasional out-of-the-way tomb. The best thing it has going for it is the Temple of the Fist, and that's locked away in postgame content.

Maybe 4.1-4.5 will make it better. But for now, Azim Steppe and the Xaela > all, just like how the goblins and Idyllshire stole the show in 3.1-3.5

Kallera · **08-04-2017, 09:26 AM**

I came to the conclusion a while back that, while the Garlean representation isn't as bad or the only thing I was taking issue with, the result is I've kinda lost faith in the setting and the WoL character. As if my sense of disbelief has been busted with the MSQ. I don't even know how or if it is possible for a story to get that back, but it has me on autopilot with the endgame content.

I'm trying to wrap my head around liking the roleplay, but seeing the game like this.

Saravahn · **08-04-2017, 11:22 AM**

I'm going to start by saying that I don't think SB is bad, so far... however, I really feel like it's leaps and bounds away from how good it could have been (and maybe still can be salvaged into?).

Naturally, I don't know how SE split their resources or time on the project. Maybe they had a Gyr Abania team and an Othard/Hingashi team and those two teams mostly did their own part of the expansion, crossing over only when the MSQ required it. Maybe it was just one team across the whole thing... I dunno. My point here is that I'm not a designer nor do I pretend to be, nor do I consider myself an amazing writer... but SB has felt lacking so far.

It really feels like the focus is Ala Mhigo. Which, in and of itself is not an issue, but when the expansion makes it feel like you spend 10 minutes in Gyr Abania, 20 days in Othard/Hingashi, then maybe one more hour back in Gyr Abania... it's hard to agree with that focus. If that makes sense. Everything led back to liberating Ala Mhigo and, in the end, I think that robbed both regions of a much richer story.

I'll start out by saying I've never enjoyed the "Asian aesthetic" in MMOs. Was not a giant fan of Pandaria in WoW, Blade and Soul drew no interest from me, and Othard (et. al.) just doesn't really matter to me. That being said, I respect that others DO enjoy such aesthetics and regions and still "force" myself to play through them (I enjoyed parts of Pandaria... and even parts of Othard/Hingashi). However, I feel the split focus robbed fans of "both ends of the aisle" a true, good experience.

Take Ishgard/HW for instance. I personally didn't care too much about the "elves of the north". But I feel that with the expansion largely focusing on them and their issues, I came to enjoy and acquire a new found "respect" (for lack of better term coming to mind) for them. I thoroughly enjoyed HW, even though at first I didn't care about Ishgard all that much.

With SB, like I said above, the focus always seemed to pull back to Ala Mhigo which, because I once played an Ala Mhigan as my main, I was happy about... but at the same time I was upset, not only for the "true fans", but also for myself not really getting to experience Doma in the "epicness" it should have been. The liberation of Doma really felt like a hand wave to me, and Ala Mhigo honestly wasn't much better.

Yeah, sure, there can (and should) be political strife still as people try to settle back in to an "Empire-less" life, but it felt like an extremely hollow victory because there wasn't really any struggle.

I feel like 4.x should be Gyr Abania/Ala Mhigo like 3.x was with Ishgard. We fight and fight and fight and at the end (whatever patch that'd be) we just can't quite win it. Make the entire expansion a struggle to liberate Ala Mhigo. Then at the end we do the whole "Hey, maybe we can help Doma so they help us..." which would be the ending MSQ that leads into 5.x which would be solely Doma. Perhaps at the end of that we finally succeed in Doma (and maybe Ala Mhigo), or perhaps make the start of 6.x finally winning in Ala Mhigo and that morale boost being the push we need to finally take the fight to Garlemald.

I dunno...

tl;dr: The split focus, I feel, robbed people of the truly epic experience the expansion could be. Sure there are still plenty of patches and story to come, but I'm not certain we'll get the same experience out of it had the liberations of both nations been drawn out across the expansion.

(Yes, I realize they could make it so that the empire comes back and takes over once more but... that just feels cheap and stupid to me.)

Kieron Lohengrin · **08-04-2017, 12:23 PM**

It's true, the entirety of SB was "look at how fucking awesome Othard is oh and here's Ala Mhigo too as an afterthought we guess"

My prediction for 4.1-4.5 is "look at how fucking awesome these raids in Dalmasca in Othard are oh and here's some Ala Mhigo MSQ plot too as an afterthought we guess"

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RPC has moved! These pages have been kept for historical purposes