Lore Discrepancies between 1.x and ARR

[Myxie Tryxle]

I posted my first storyline for Myxie, Impressions and Memories, last night. Today I realized that it may be a breach of lore depending on how people are viewing the transition from 1.x to ARR. While I imagine this is more of a matter of individual interpretation, and that the old players will likely lean towards one option and new players towards another, I wanted to run a poll none-the-less.

 

The question is, how are people dealing with lore discrepancies between the two versions? To get more specific, I used an adult male Miqo'te as well as a twelve year old male Miqo'te in my story, which is set many years in the past and before the timeline transitioned. Is this a breach of the lore under 1.x lore (for you old lore buffs)? If it isn't, what if a scenario did occur where someone was writing a story in the past before the time jump that breached the 1.x lore but was fine in ARR lore?

 

I guess what I'm asking is should the 1.x lore carry over for stories and events that happened within its timeline, or is this a full reboot and the new lore (like Miqo'te males and Roegadyn females existing significantly) roll backwards into stories set within the previous timeline?

[Havoc Snow]

I posted my first storyline for Myxie, Impressions and Memories, last night. Today I realized that it may be a breach of lore depending on how people are viewing the transition from 1.x to ARR. While I imagine this is more of a matter of individual interpretation, and that the old players will likely lean towards one option and new players towards another, I wanted to run a poll none-the-less.

 

The question is, how are people dealing with lore discrepancies between the two versions? To get more specific, I used an adult male Miqo'te as well as a twelve year old male Miqo'te in my story, which is set many years in the past and before the timeline transitioned. Is this a breach of the lore under 1.x lore (for you old lore buffs)? If it isn't, what if a scenario did occur where someone was writing a story in the past before the time jump that breached the 1.x lore but was fine in ARR lore?

 

I guess what I'm asking is should the 1.x lore carry over for stories and events that happened within its timeline, or is this a full reboot and the new lore (like Miqo'te males and Roegadyn females existing significantly) roll backwards into stories set within the previous timeline?

 

I'm actually not entirely clear what you're asking here, what discrepancies in the lore are there regarding the Miqo'te? Are you just referring to the fact that we never saw male Miqo'te in 1.0? That doesn't mean they didn't exist.

[Myxie Tryxle]

I'm actually not entirely clear what you're asking here, what discrepancies in the lore are there regarding the Miqo'te? Are you just referring to the fact that we never saw male Miqo'te in 1.0? That doesn't mean they didn't exist.

 

As far as clarifying my own post, that is what I'm asking. First I'm not sure if it's a breach of 1.x lore. Second, and the question for the poll, has the ARR lore overwritten the 1.x lore in any case where there may be a conflict?

[Havoc Snow]

I'm actually not entirely clear what you're asking here, what discrepancies in the lore are there regarding the Miqo'te? Are you just referring to the fact that we never saw male Miqo'te in 1.0? That doesn't mean they didn't exist.

 

As far as clarifying my own post, that is what I'm asking. First I'm not sure if it's a breach of 1.x lore. Second, and the question for the poll, has the ARR lore overwritten the 1.x lore in any case where there may be a conflict?

 

Well regarding the Miqo'te (and by extension the Roegadyn) there really was no lore supporting the lack of male (and female) versions of these races, especially for the Roegadyn. The decision for making them gender exclusive was because that's how their former counterparts were in FFXI. The fact that we see Merlwyb as not only an NPC, but as a MAIN NPC showed us in 1.X that the opposing gender versions of these races were in the world, somewhere. There was just never an opportunity I guess for them to introduce a male Miqo'te, so including them in your story is not lore breaking in any way. The impression a lot of people got was that Miqo'te, like the Mithra, rarely gave birth to males so they were hidden away somewhere and not allowed to become adventurers because they were too vital to the survival of their species. We see now that this is not the case, as the only clan that suggests they're rare are the Keepers of the Moon, and I believe even then it only suggests that it's like 1 in 10 Keepers are male or something like that. The Seekers on the other hand never suggest anything of the sort so we can assume that they are just as likely to give birth to male children as they are female.

 

As far as whether or not it's a continuation or a reboot, there is no lore that contradicts the previous setting as far as I know and they make no attempt at retconning anything that took place in the original game. Characters from 1.X being ported over into 2.0 are treated as if they existed in the previous storyline, Bahamut did in fact destroy a lot of Eorzea, the Garlean Empire still exists in the same form and fashion they did previously. Final Fantasy XI: A Realm Reborn could actually be viewed as a direct sequel to 1.X if anything, because the story doesn't pick up right after the events of the previous game like an expansion would, and it doesn't take place during the same scope of events like a reboot would, it picks up years later and continues the story that was concluded in the previous version of the game like a sequel would, so in short A Realm Reborn is kind of like Final Fantasy XIV-2.

[FreelanceWizard]

I'm actually not entirely clear what you're asking here, what discrepancies in the lore are there regarding the Miqo'te? Are you just referring to the fact that we never saw male Miqo'te in 1.0? That doesn't mean they didn't exist.

 

As far as clarifying my own post, that is what I'm asking. First I'm not sure if it's a breach of 1.x lore. Second, and the question for the poll, has the ARR lore overwritten the 1.x lore in any case where there may be a conflict?

 

The 1.x lore is that male miqo'te are exceedingly territorial and live solitary lives (Gamer Escape's lore capture), which is why they weren't seen in game. SE hasn't really explained why they've become less so in ARR such that they're viable PCs, especially since the 2.x lore indicates that "(m)ales in particular are said to shy from contact with others" (official site). I suppose my speculative argument would be that the Calamity forced everyone to change their behaviors and integrate further with society or die.

 

So, it's not a breach of lore to say that there are male miqo'te and that your character knew of or interacted with some. It would be weird to say that your character grew up around a bunch of them, however.

[Asyria]

It's not a matter of opinion, it's an official fact that ARR isn't a reboot and is the 5 year later sequel of 1.0.

 

However, this doesn't really have anything to do with the presence or absence of male miqo'te.

 

I think the only reason we didn't have them in 1.0 is... they never made them.

They did exist, though! The lore reason feels like it was just patched on to excuse their absence. Original dev team was a bit lame... which is why they got replaced I guess. o_O

[Ildur]

No reason to think male Miqo'te poofed out from under a rock. That would be silly. We can assume they were around during 1.x, but they were simply not depicted in-game because of meta reasons: the devs were lazy, there were no models, whatever. They existed canonically. It's just that they had no in-game representation.

[Eva]

I've regarded it like male miqo'te and female roegadyn/highlanders existed all along, but prior to ARR none happened to be more than just a passing acquaintance.  I don't really RP like they all just started popping out of the woodwork all of the sudden.  I figure they've been on the streets in the marketplace, out adventuring, and all that other good stuff all along.

 

I see nothing wrong with this, and to address the poll itself I'm not rebooting 2-3 years of RP experience, effort, emotion, etc. for the sake of something like that.

 

As a point of note, S-E has also said that all of 1.0 is supposed to have taken place during the year 1572 (even though there were over 2 years of playtime), and all of ARR will take place 5 years later, within one year time, so there's not really regarded any passage of time.  I think the devs regarded it as being like The Simpsons, how Bart never ages even though the show's gone on for years and years.  For the sake of keeping things real I - and several others I know - overlook this detail as well.  I'll accept that there's more male miqo'te now than there were five years ago ICly, but none at all back then?  No, I don't think so.  Not for me, anyway.  I think there comes a certain point where looking too far into the lore results in one's own character proverbially shooting herself in the foot, and I'd rather not cross that line, for myself.

[Havoc Snow]

Not to mention that for those of us playing as male Miqo'te it would mean we were all required to have some kind of amnesia, or something similar, because it would imply that we simply materialized as fully adult male Miqo'te out of the blue. For my part my character (who is in fact a male Miqo'te) has a history not only tied to the lore of 1.X, but I also place him at the Battle of Carteneau because he'll be a remake of my original character who I did play during 1.X, he'll have the mark showing he time jumped, things like that.

[Kyatai]

I think you're fine, Calli. Your story was great.

Maleqo'te Keepers existed and you made it clear in your story that he wasn't a common sight... its all good.

 

And I agree- no worries of having to 'retcon' 1.0 lore to fit 2.0.

1.0 was 1.0. The world is a different place now, 5 yrs later.

(tho I -am- curious why the gods decided to return Merri as a Miqo'te... *giggles* I suspect there was some mischief and a touch of Garlean gene splicing with a Coeurl goin' on somewhere in the Aether...)

 

 

 

 

*note: that comment is not meant as anything but me being silly... who and what you play is totally your own deal. I just was making a joke... Feel like I must say this since attempts at humor have sometimes been misinterpreted.*

[Asyria]

All in all, I guess the poll question is kinda unrelated to the issue. ^^;

 

2.0 is a continuation of 1.0... but it has nothing to do with the catboys (male miqo) and the big girls (female roe and highlander).

 

EDIT: added a couple T's that somehow slipped out of the post. O_O

[Havoc Snow]

All in all, I guess he poll question is kinda unrelaed to the issue. ^^;

 

2.0 is a continuation of 1.0... but it has nothing to do with the catboys (male miqo) and the big girls (female roe and highlander).

 

It actually totally slipped my mind that the Highlanders were male only in 1.0!

[Myxie Tryxle]

Thanks everyone. That's very enlightening.

---

Part of my confusion was in talking to my roommate about FFXI, which she played a lot more than I ever did, she said that in that game male Mithra were about 1% of the population and locked away in secret locations because they were far too valuable to the survival of the species to have running around.

---

Just remembered the other question I had about this, if it's not a reboot, how are people dealing with this notion of total world affecting amnesia. This notion that no one remembers any of these "Heroes of Light" who mysteriously must have dealt with the problems that culminated five years ago. Surely there must be plenty of character journals, inn ledgers with signatures, receipts for custom weapons/armor from the guilds, etc. to indicate exactly who such people were. Are people just ignoring that notion of everyone's forgotten 1.x characters?

[Ildur]

Me and some of my acquitances and friends are not ignoring it. It wouldn't make sense to ignore it, if you ask me: it's just too big of a deal and it's the first thing we get slapped in the face with during the storyline missions.

 

You do pose an interesting problem, though. The Warriors of Light lived in Eorzea, so their stuff should be still around. I think it's safe to assume that whatever spell caused the amnesia and shoved the Warriors of Light into the future also erased all mention of them. So people who knew them just forgot completely about them, ledgers and other written media that coul have had their names just don't have them anymore...etcetera. You get the idea. Kind of a cosmical retcon.

 

It poses an interesting dilemma on the matter of families. Would a mother remember that she had a daughter, if that daughter was a Warrior of Light? Maybe she would remember having a daughter, but couldn't really recall her features, or how she looked or her name. It's an interesting thing to ponder about.

[Havoc Snow]

Well one thing to be clear on, the game states that people only forgot the faces of the people who fought in the Battle of Carteneau, not specifically the people themselves. This is a complicated concept, but to put it simply as an example, lets say you had a long time friend before the Calamity, then you went off to the Battle of Carteneau and vanished into the time warp. Five years later go by and you suddenly reappear, more then likely your friend is going to remember you, probably be upset that you've been gone for the last five years without telling anyone where you were going, but won't remember you took part in the battle.

 

This is all speculation of course, but not everyone has forgotten about the returning members, Minfilia for example states she remembers who are you, and presumable others will as well. The whole amnesia thing (according to Yoshida) was not just a mechanic to allow for rewriting some of the story and integrating old characters, it's actually part of the story and tied to Bahamuts disappearance so we'll probably uncover the source and possibly ways to reverse it as we progress in the story.

[Aysun]

Wow. This is an odd topic. I guess I'll explain my vote:

 

Of course it's a continuation of the 1.0 story! They even gave us a special way for our 1.0 characters to be transferred to ARR ICly if we wanted to utilize it.

 

No way in the seven hells am I voiding 2+ years of RP because people don't like that 1.0 and ARR don't match up perfectly and they can't explain every little tiny difference.

[FreelanceWizard]

The reason Minfilia remembers you is because of the Echo, IIRC. Those with the Echo aren't subject to the spell's "flashy thing," it seems. From my play of the main scenario quest for ARR, I largely agree with Ashren Snow's interpretation -- people who know you through adventuring but don't have the Echo don't remember you, since the memory wipe covers essentially the story of 1.x. (This is why the Adventurers' Guilds treat you as someone new.) Those who knew you for other reasons -- friends and family, possibly enemies gained prior to that story -- are probably wondering where in the Seven Hells you've been for the last five years. Whether they believe you when you say you're one of the Warriors of Light when all they remember is you going off to be an adventurer is another matter entirely.

 

Oh, and as for the poll? I feel it's clearly intended to be a continuation of the story, and that's coming from someone who played 1.x for all of like a day post-launch.

[Havoc Snow]

I actually didn't realize there was even room for debate that it was a continuation/sequel to 1.X. The storyline clearly continues from the original, they reference it continually, not just in dialogue or storyline, but in the world as well. The giant flamey orange crystals you see scattered all over the place (especially in Thanalan) were remnants of Bahamuts attack, Gaius' assault on Eorzea is a continuation of his work in 1.0 before Nael showed up and took over things, and there are a lot of returning characters that have changed since.

 

If nothing else the addition of Cid's facial hair shows it's a continuation!

[Myxie Tryxle]

Wow. This is an odd topic. I guess I'll explain my vote:

 

Of course it's a continuation of the 1.0 story! They even gave us a special way for our 1.0 characters to be transferred to ARR ICly if we wanted to utilize it.

 

No way in the seven hells am I voiding 2+ years of RP because people don't like that 1.0 and ARR don't match up perfectly and they can't explain every little tiny difference.

 

Actually, this post stems from an interesting difference I realized based on your post on one of my other threads. It seems to me that the 1.x players and the new ARR players (in which I'm including myself because I only played 1.0 for two months after it released) are on different pages.

 

Looking back through my previous threads, I found a trend based on the join date listed under the information on each poster's placard. The newer members who joined in the last few months were a lot more likely to join in on the speculation or post/PM their appreciation for the discussion. The older members were more likely to try to reign in or discourage the discussion or just not post at all. I came to the realization that this community is going through growing pains. Ideas that are fresh and interesting to us newer players may be concluded or jaded to the older players.

 

So I'm trying to bridge that gap a little and appreciate the older players' point of view as well as clear up some of the lore I missed from 1.x. For example, before posting this poll, I had no idea that characters were time-warped or that the amnesia was only partial. I thought the whole thing was a reboot and wondered how the older players would deal with that considering several years of RP history in their character's backgrounds. It's been enlightening.

---

If nothing else the addition of Cid's facial hair shows it's a continuation!

 

Or that he's bizarro Cid and can't be trusted! >.>

[Ildur]

I think that if the memory-wipe only obscured the Warriors' faces and nothing else, then people would have made memorials with their names or, on a meta level, it would have been mentioned in the introduction. It's more likely that the spell made people forget about their individual features. They know the Warriors existed, but can't tell anything specific about them.

 

We'll have to wait until we play through the storyline to know all the details, I guess.

[Eva]

Looking back through my previous threads, I found a trend based on the join date listed under the information on each poster's placard.  The newer members who joined in the last few months were a lot more likely to join in on the speculation or post/PM their appreciation for the discussion.  The older members were more likely to try to reign in or discourage the discussion or just not post at all.  I came to the realization that this community is going through growing pains.  Ideas that are fresh and interesting to us newer players may be concluded or jaded to the older players.

 

Coming from the perspective of a legacy player, I can agree to a certain extent.  I want to help and share what lore there was from 1.0 and help other RPers see this world the way that I have seen it.  But I also see that a lot of newer RPers want to take certain liberties with the lore themselves, or in some cases ignore what is there entirely in favor of alternative interpretations, often based on content which may have nothing at all to do with the game's lore.  In most cases this is just fine since there will exist a plethora of sub-communities that may support some things and frown upon others, and the like-minded folks will clump together.  People are afraid of "cliques" like it's some awful thing, but this is natural behavior and though I think some efforts should be made to branch out with newer folks, there will usually inevitably form a handful of RPers with whom people may grow closer and more comfortable - and that should be celebrated because making friends and spending time with those friends is a good thing, just as being open to making new friends is also a good thing.

 

But pertaining more to the lore, most things are open to interpretation and as time goes on I'm sure we'll all be closer to meeting somewhere in the middle.  I don't think us old fogeys have any expectations or anything.  Most of us are eager for the chance to RP with you young whippersnappers.  But regardless of how many years of RP experience one might have, it doesn't necessarily equate to experience within the realm of Eorzea.  So while we want to help and foster creative thinking and stuff, I think some of us may get a little put off when there's a sort of disconnect between what the legacy folk have seen over a longer span of time, and what newer folk coming to Eorzea, hungry for lore that, in many cases, might just not be there.

 

So perhaps a standard was established by some in 1.0 and some (not myself personally) might see it as a bit of a disruption when there crop up a number of threads theorycrafting all manner of things.  I have tried in some threads to post links to original discussions that happened back in 1.0.  I'm hesitant to say outright, "This has all been discussed before," because that suggests we're not open to alternative interpretations.  But for some of us these are older discussions brought back to life.

 

I guess that's just my POV.  I'm not saying "don't make ripples" or any such thing.  Make waves!  Question things!  I realize that us folks who actually stuck with the game for 2+ years and RPed throughout that entire duration are something of a minority, and we're as eager to RP with some fresh new faces as you are (or I hope so, anyway!)  But this is a place that has come to feel like home to many of us, and we've gladly opened our doors to everyone and the only analogy I can think to make is that sometimes it feels like y'all are coming in and moving the furniture around and stuff.    Maybe the sofa does make more sense up against that other wall, but we've grown used to it where it was, and there is a bit of resistance to that sort of change.  It doesn't mean it's wrong.  Just that it's different and it's something we'll have to learn to adapt to or we all just find some place to meet in the middle.

 

But we're certainly not telling y'all to get off our lawn!!!  We want you here, and we hope you'll stay and RP!  :thumbsup:

 

------------------------------------------

 

EDIT:  Since it has also been brought up here, these are two fairly recent threads that discuss the "foggy memory syndrome" and the Warriors of Light - these might be worth checking out or bumping if there is room for further discussion on those matters:

1. http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=2179

2. http://ffxiv-roleplayers.com/showthread.php?tid=2661

[Havoc Snow]

Well it's also complicated because it's not just the people who fought in the war, it's the war itself that was made fuzzy by the amnesia which suggests it wasn't just the time traveling that caused it. The fact that people don't remember a lot about what happened during the Calamity means there's something much bigger going on. I'd like to say that people who knew you well were likely to remember you, but sadly the only person I ran into that showed any signs of remembering me was Minfilia. When I played in 1.X it was in Ul'dah with the Immortal Flames which meant I did a lot of quests that involved Thancred and Raubahn but neither recognized me during the storyline in Phase 3.

 

Still I think it's safe to assume that people you grew up with, family members, things like that they would have a very difficult time forgetting who you are, even if they don't remember your part in the events of the Calamity.

[Myxie Tryxle]

Thanks, Eva. You're mirroring my own sentiment. While I'm not sure if my posts are making waves, I did try to rock the boat a little to get discussion going. I find it gets people talking. Hopefully no one felt like I was stepping on toes (or throwing out a beloved thread-worn sofa).

 

For those other new players like me who are itching to learn more about the story of 1.x and its lore, I would suggest checking out Merri's post on "A comprehensive look at the Seventh Umbral Era story arc," which I just discovered. For some reason when I saw that before in the RP Discussion forum, I thought it was about ARR, not 1.x, so I didn't read it because I didn't want spoilers. The calendar in this setting is very confusing to me for some reason.

[Havoc Snow]

Another good thread to check out (also by Merri) is Eozean lore and facts, it's mostly small tidbits but it still seems pretty handy.

[Ildur]

You have to eat those spoilers like a professional spoiler eater if you want your roleplay to be consistent with lore. Otherwise, those spoilers might come back to bite you instead.