Ishgard, post 3.3 (OBVIOUSLY SPOILERS FOR MSQ)

[111]

That's because we're the main antagonist.

 

WoL primal plz.

[Verad]

In the end, they didn't ask any of us how to write this, so what could it be but awful?

I wish you had written it Verad

 

Flattering, but I think you'd still be disappointed by the product. Whatever changes I made to the narrative and to the pacing of the story, I still would have arrived at the same conclusion, resolving the conflict by dismantling the authority of the church and reaching a tentative but genuine peace between Ishgard and the Dravanians. It's a good optimistic ending for the story, but it's a bit of a buzzkill for roleplayers.

 

Edited to add: Did anybody find Alphinaud's shift in motivation for saving Estinien to be jarring? At the end of 3.2, he seemed resolved to doing so out of principle, rejecting the theses put forth by Matoya et al of sacrifices being necessary in the conflict. That's all well and good, but in 3.3 it seemed more like he was personally invested in saving Estinien like they were good friends, which had never seemed the case to me in 3.0. I don't know about anyone else, but I thought it was a jarring shift.

[Warren Castille]

Alfy suddenly wanting to save his best buddy in the whole wide world, gee golly jillickers, did take me by surprise. He only even knew the guy for the duration of the 3.0 storyline and now they're best bros and practically shipping each other? I don't know.

[Aaron]

Estinien must've dragonfire dived him something fierce.

[111]

Verad makes a good point. What roleplayers want (ongoing tension and ambiguity that leaves room for conflict and plot), may not be what the average player wants (a satisfying conclusion to the dragonsong war, opening up room for the next enemy)

[Pip]

The problem with that is that a lot of the threats aren't really threats. Most of the Primals these days are summoned and then immediately dealt with in an enclosed battlefield. There's no risk of anybody being Tempered because the developers apparently aren't willing to have any major characters be Tempered. Imagine if, say, someone like Lucia was sent to aid us in a fight against a new Primal that emerges abruptly due to Ascian scheming.

 

Lucia - or someone of simply significance - is Tempered during the battle. Afterwards she babbles about her newfound obsession with said Primal and it is a grim and sad necessity to put her down as their is no known cure for Tempering.

 

Given the trends in the story I've seen up to now, we'd find the unknown cure for tempering. Or, more likely, an NPC we've never heard of but who is friends with everyone we know would do all the work of finding a cure for tempering and WOL would end up credited with the achievement. The power of our friendship and resolve is just so darn inspiring.

[Aya]

I

In the end, they didn't ask any of us how to write this, so what could it be but awful?

I wish you had written it Verad

 

Flattering, but I think you'd still be disappointed by the product. Whatever changes I made to the narrative and to the pacing of the story, I still would have arrived at the same conclusion, resolving the conflict by dismantling the authority of the church and reaching a tentative but genuine peace between Ishgard and the Dravanians. It's a good optimistic ending for the story, but it's a bit of a buzzkill for

I suspect you'd have still done so with more edifying pacing and story telling! As I mentioned in my first post in the thread, a video game story and an RP setting have very different criteria, so it's not surprising that the one doesn't satisfy the other. That doesn't change that I wish they'd let Ishgard well enough alone, but, as you say, it's not exactly a shocking resolution of the conflict they had set up.

 

Of course this goes back to why I think a single player storyline in an MMO is a bad idea, but that's just tilting at windmills in the FF world.

 

And let's not forget that the subject of this thread is personal: regardless of judgement upon the quality of the story, it has left anyone whose character was heavily invested in the Ishgardian conflicts suddenly clutching with empty hands.

[Caspar]

Alfy suddenly wanting to save his best buddy in the whole wide world, gee golly jillickers, did take me by surprise. He only even knew the guy for the duration of the 3.0 storyline and now they're best bros and practically shipping each other? I don't know.

I took it as Alphinaud essentially wanting to at least save one person to make up for his 2.0 screw up parade. He bonded with Estinian a little during the Churning Mists quest, but I took it as him essentially wanting to do right for the first time in what seemed like ages. Initially he hides his insecurity under morally disagreeing with making sacrifices, similar to his persona in 2.0, but I got the impression it was always personal to him. Estinian is not really his friend but rather someone to save. The convenience of the situation aside, I did kinda like Alphinaud achieving a small victory to make up for all his failed plans before. I like seeing him develop, and I'm curious about his sister who has been a non-entity for ages now and appears to be making her return.

 

There definitely were flickers of brilliance here and there, and I do agree with Verad that probably a happy ending is not conducive to RP and the interests of Ishgardian players. But I think that the story might have gone over better with me personally if they just put aside the Ascians and the Scions for one patch cycle and focused entirely on the internalized conflict.

[Verad]

 

There definitely were flickers of brilliance here and there, and I do agree with Verad that probably a happy ending is not conducive to RP and the interests of Ishgardian players. But I think that the story might have gone over better with me personally if they just put aside the Ascians and the Scions for one patch cycle and focused entirely on the internalized conflict.

 

I think that's about right. I'm fine with Thordan being the first threat in 3.0, because it precludes looking for an easy out to the war. I'm also fine with Nidhogg being the final threat because it's established in 3.2 that unending grief and rage that cannot be sated has to be stopped in both the Ishgardians and the Dravanians, and as the symbol of that Nidhogg has to go.

 

The Warriors of Darkness, however, could have been left out of that completely and we would have had much more time to deal with the particulars of the war, setting the WoD aside for a later patch.

[Kilieit]

Alfy suddenly wanting to save his best buddy in the whole wide world, gee golly jillickers, did take me by surprise. He only even knew the guy for the duration of the 3.0 storyline and now they're best bros and practically shipping each other? I don't know.

I took it as Alphinaud essentially wanting to at least save one person to make up for his 2.0 screw up parade. He bonded with Estinian a little during the Churning Mists quest, but I took it as him essentially wanting to do right for the first time in what seemed like ages. Initially he hides his insecurity under morally disagreeing with making sacrifices, similar to his persona in 2.0, but I got the impression it was always personal to him. Estinian is not really his friend but rather someone to save. The convenience of the situation aside, I did kinda like Alphinaud achieving a small victory to make up for all his failed plans before.

 

Yeah I very much got the impression it was a just this once, nobody dies thing rather than a "yes you are my best friend in the whole world and I would be personally devastated by your loss (as opposed to by the symbol which your loss would portray)".

 

He seems fond enough of Estinien, in that kind of "yeah he's a jerk but I respect him and we kid around" way. But the fact he decided very early on in Estinien's predicament that no, not this time, this is where the killing stops means that it's important to him in a way that cannot be explained if you look solely at their interpersonal relationship. It's a tonne of baggage that Alphinaud is carrying with him from - I mean honestly I'm gonna say probably from his childhood, given that Louisoix's shadow seems to have this effect on a lot of people...

 

 

Alphinaud's determination was more a battle-cry for his own self-worth than it was for Estinien. Which is not to say he was totally devoid of caring for Estinien; simply that the intensity with which said care was expressed was not solely a result of their friendship.

[Zelmanov]

So I made a visit to good ol' Dragoon trainer Alberic and asked him what was on the up and up and he gave this VERY interesting tidbit as to the state of Ishgard:

 

 

Alberic: Ah, Orrin. A pleasure to see you return. I see that you remain steadfast in your pursuit of the way of the dragoon.

 

[20:12]Alberic: The recent revelations have shaken Ishgard to its very foundation. Amidst this turmoil, the dragons continue their bloody rampage.

 

[20:12]Alberic: Deprived of their finest warriors, the dragoons struggle to bear the burden. But bear it they must.

 

[20:12]Alberic: For my part, I shall continue training the next generation of our nation's defenders.

 

[20:12]Alberic: Even with Nidhogg slain, the hatred his scattered Horde bears towards us is undying. An attack may not come this day or the next, but it will come, and we must be unceasing in our vigilance.

 

 

 

Either Alberic is now a paranoid "THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN" loon. Or it seems there is still tons of tension and conflict to be had by RP'ers.  Dragoons are not out of a job...It seems its more akin to winning D-Day or at least V-E day while US is still stuck with Japan.

[111]

So I made a visit to good ol' Dragoon trainer Alberic and asked him what was on the up and up and he gave this VERY interesting tidbit as to the state of Ishgard:

 

 

Alberic: Ah, Orrin. A pleasure to see you return. I see that you remain steadfast in your pursuit of the way of the dragoon.

 

[20:12]Alberic: The recent revelations have shaken Ishgard to its very foundation. Amidst this turmoil, the dragons continue their bloody rampage.

 

[20:12]Alberic: Deprived of their finest warriors, the dragoons struggle to bear the burden. But bear it they must.

 

[20:12]Alberic: For my part, I shall continue training the next generation of our nation's defenders.

 

[20:12]Alberic: Even with Nidhogg slain, the hatred his scattered Horde bears towards us is undying. An attack may not come this day or the next, but it will come, and we must be unceasing in our vigilance.

 

 

 

Either Alberic is now a paranoid "THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN" loon. Or it seems there is still tons of tension and conflict to be had by RP'ers.  Dragoons are not out of a job...It seems its more akin to winning D-Day or at least V-E day while US is still stuck with Japan.

 

So like this basically?

 

[Martiallais]

Late to the party (as usual) but I'll chime in and echo the 'yes it was a nice happy ending but now I think I need to see my dentist'. Ishgard's story was about war and loss and sacrifice...and while it probably would've been called equally predictable as a rainbow over Ishgard post-Final Steps, I think it would've been a little more touching emotionally to have Alphinaud have to say goodbye to Estinien before we (the WoL) sent him to that great big battle in the sky.

 

To be honest, when Ysale and Harchefaunt showed up, I thought that's exactly what they were hinting at.

 

All that aside, as for my personal RP with Mar, I'm kind of stuck waiting to see what to do with Ishgard going forward. I definitely don't want to be one of those RPers suddenly grabbing power/promotions/etc but I think it's been earned by now. Just a matter of implementing it in a way that doesn't feel cheap to me. Having Ishgard get a GC of some sort would be pretty perfect though, that's for sure. I'm also working on the kick off for a story arc dealing with a post-war Dragoon + family problems so in that regard, the overall HW ending works well for what I have planned.

 

EDIT: Oh and seeing both 'normal' knights and Lucia doing their thing in the cutscenes was a plus. It meant I've been RP'ing Mar's "power level" (lawl) pretty on par for the most part.

[AquiziTC]

Chiming in:

 

I spent the entire cutscene time waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it never DID (I assume it's coming in the patch before the next expansion, kinda the set up between the WoL and the WoD), I wasn't necessarily left wanting, as it was a satisfying enough close to the story for me.

 

As for my character, Ten's just waiting for people to start telling him he's not welcome anymore. He was brought back to be used for the war effort, but now they don't need him. The way I'm playing it is he's being kept close enough to be able to be used, but not included in anything involving the change of his house (minor noble stuff, Ten's a former exile -- it's complicated). So really he's just looking to the next fight, glancing towards Ala Mhigo and Sharlayan.

 

To him, Ala Mhigo seems more likely, considering how the rumors are swirling on how hard the 6th Legion got spanked up in Azys Lla.

[Seriphyn]

Lol, anyone beat 3.3 and starting leveling LNC/DRG?

[Steel Wolf]

Steel has only ever been in Ishgard because that's where her blade was needed and that's where her training was. Since this patch and due to recent events, she's only occasionally visiting the Manufactory in order to become more acclimated with the tech of the Machinist, or to pick at the job boards that need hunts or leves.

 

It was always a loose affiliation anyway. Time to ready for the next fight!

[Momo]

Not sure why this was...but Einstein and Aymurica look perfect for one another...like, one has paler skin and white hair and then the other has tanner skin with black hair. I found that very strange for some reason.

 

On another not, the nostalgic direction of this patch was fully felt by me. The scene where the camera pans onto the helm and the flower at the open window, was so in the vein of FF that is hurt. I loved this end, except for what happened with the eyes...now that was just dumb.

[Shoshopu]

What's to stop a particularly sneaky dragon from crawling down there and just getting the eyes back? If I were one of Nidhogg's brood, that's what I would do. Imagine having four eyes, dude.

 

I'm imagining some Spongebob-esque giant monstrosities living in that abyss and that's the only reason Aymeric thought it was a good idea. That, or the eyes are actually fleshy and not so protected by magic that they didn't bust like watermelons when they hit the bottom after a miles-long drop.

 

or you know the warriors of darkness could just take them like they're probably going to who knows