dont forget weve yet to visit more then a mountain outside the gates of kugane, imagining eventually we'll get to trave; the area [rp[er in another dungeon, or small area in a expansion
Speaking personally, I would like an adventure to another reflection. Somewhere where we are not known and we are stuck there (at least MSQ-wise) entire time. Sort of like shadowbringers. But instead of apocalyptic themes, there would be a thriving world where we dive into political game while at the same time we search for answers about the key from dawntrail/aurocite etc.
@@dmonee6196 oh for sure there were definite mistakes but overall its not as bad as people thought…if yoshi p wanted to tackle a new narrative, he needs to stop wussing out in fear of alienating people
The problem with going to other reflections is that they are being ravaged by an elemental aspect and that has been stablished already. It is a good idea to visit other reflections but the fans will say the FF14 is running out of ideas or they are doing shadowbringer 2.0 and so on. 😂
It's interesting that most of what Emet-Selch mentioned were portals to other reflections: Ruins beneath the waters of the bounty had a fissure to the 13th. Golden City was a portal to the 9th. Sacred Sites of the South Sea Isles had a portal opened by the Speaker for the Milala to another reflection. So maybe Blindfrost and Meracydia will also have something related to portals as well. Meracydia is where Azdaja was lost to the Void if I remember correctly.
Azdaja was lost to the Void at the site of the Crystal Tower. She dove into the rift that was opened to let the Cloud of Darkness in as far as I've been led to believe.
@@TarossBlackburn That is correct yes, the voidgate that the Cloud was supposed to emerge from was where Azdaja dived into the Void to try stopping the invaders at the source. No pun intended.
Ahhh damnit, the speech Emet said at the end of Endwalker always gets me, I miss him as a character, one of the best characters ever done in Final Fantasy genre, even in games as a whole
All I’ve ever wanted to see is all of midgardsormrs surviving children in one place interacting with each other, maybe even together fighting beside each other. All that’s happened with the dragons you don’t usually see them together. Tiamat Hresvelga Vtra and now Ajdia maybe even baby daddy talking to them all.
The fact that emet used plural for golden city and the giants found the "golden city" on skydeep cenote probably before the alexandrians got their calamity and even started to experiment with dimensional fusion, make me think the gate was hijacked by the alexandrians and there is more gates on tural leading to different reflections, probably being made by the Ronkan, who were aware of the sundering, and both skydeep cenote and the ruins unearthed by the giants on tender valley having very uncanny similarities
I'm not convinced the temple and gate in the cenote was Ronkan. There's some similarities, but it does feel distinct. I took the end of the Tender Valley to be the Source's version of Ronka rather than Ronka being a shard hopping civilization. The gate is more advanced than anything we've seen so far, no one has ever had the capability to just freely travel between shards. I don't think we've seen yet who has actually built it.
TL:DR- I think there is an Ascian Azem running around doing their own thing separate from the Ascians we know. Which includes saving the lalafels that ended up on Alexandria and creating the key artifact if not having a direct hand in the creation of the gold city portals as well. I honestly believe that there is/was an ascian awakened Azem fragment at some point that at the very least created the "key" artifact that we now have. Maybe even the portals themselves. The technology of the portals is well beyond the technology of even the Alexandrians, while incredibly similar and undoubtedly the same type but it seems leagues ahead of where they are currently at. As we know they were essentially plucked from their island home on the source and transported to the reflection of Alexandria using the "key" that they kept as a sacred relic of sorts. Once brought to the Alexandria reflection they suddenly advanced well beyond local feudal technology and almost instantly adapted electrope into fantasy/scifi future tech basically the moment they got their hands on it. As shown in the museum, not only was a general ascian influence over their people which likely explains their sudden burst of knowledge but also hints at something more. Ascians as we know them have always plotted and poked and manipulated never provided outright guidance or had an established presence. The mask room in the volcano, while a recreation, shows that the ascians were a little bit more involved than they normally are. A great paralelle would be Emet-Selch and the Garlians. He absolutely guided the Garlians on their path to being a world power but he did so under the guise of a dead man he had possessed similar to Elidibus puppeting Zenos. They only show themselves to a select few and stay entirely in the shadows, only taking direct action through the buffer of puppets. The volcano mask room was said to be a recreation of a similar room in the lalafel homeland. While there is nothing on the person/persons behind it, such a monument is well beyond the scope of previous physical evidence of ascians. I would suggest that Azem, with their heavy personal connection to the region and it's people, and the key itself intentionally guided the lalafel to Alexandria to save them, then further elevated them to take advantage of electrope, either as part of a greater ascian plan for a rejoining or even a subversion of that plan to guarantee the survival of at least someone with the impending rejoining. Presumably there is no fragment of Azem on the Ascian convocation but that does not rule out the existence of an awakened fragment. We ourselves are more or less confirmed to be a reincarnation of at least part of Azem. The Elidibus arc in Shadowbringers suggests that there are similar such fragments on other reflections although much more diminished than us. And the summoner story quests confirms there is essentially an army of lesser ascians running around doing the grunt work to make the larger plans work out. At any point Emet-Selch in his emotional weakness could have awakened a fragment of his dear friend Azem. Similar to when he created a constellation crystal representing the seat of Azem in spite of the elimination of the seat after the incident surrounding the south sea island and the creation of Ifirit. Ideally this Azem would have likely completely rejected the idea of a rejoining but could ahve possibly gone along with it for some amount of time. At the very least they were likely not present by the time ARR came around, although I dont think we have Identified everyone in the Ascian roundtable cinematics.
Skydeep had me screaming Ronkans as soon as we cleared the first boss. I'm honestly surprised they didn't feature much more heavily this expansion especially considering the Mayan influences in their architecture. Also, I wonder if there aren't more gates hidden around Etheyris that go to different reflections.
Do note that it's plural in english, but the original japanese has no such indication. Gonna need extra input from other localizations, barring actual writing team input, to see if it's not simply a localization goof.
@@AndrossianCiderI'm not sure I buy into all of the ideas here but I don't think it's incredibly far fetched either. Really interesting read, and some fun things to consider.
We haven't even fully explored Aldenard. Paglth'an was only briefly visited in one dungeon, but on the map you can see the amount of land we montage over when we go from East Thanalan to South Shroud is massive. East of Mor Dhona/West Shroud is also unexplored, despite how interesting going through the devastated land would be. And all that land underneath the Sea of Clouds. Combine those three together and there's basically an expansion worth of territory lurking between the lands we already know.
Don't forget that La Noscea is only the southern HALF of Vylbrand, with the northern half (O'Ghomoro) being controlled by beast tribes that were hostile to us until only recently. Mt. O'Ghomoro is a large volcano located in that region, I'd love to be able to visit it
Next? Probably the "Treasure Islands beyond the waters of Blindfrost in Othard's North." The one I'm most excited for? Meracydia. The story is all pointing to Meracydia. It was the scene of the Void incursion into the Source where Azdaja was lost. It was ground zero of the dragon vs Allagan war. When we get back to the void story, that's where we're going, and if we have some control of Azem's relic by then, who knows where the story is going to go from there...
Tbh i'm genuinelly scared of going to Meracydia after Dawntrail, because while i love this expansion. I didn't like how we burned through the biggest continent in the entire world in a single expansion, leaving nothing else to explore. I don't want to go to Meracydia and feel like in a single expansion we explored all there is to see in that place.
@@gfsdfsdf6546 I get that, but I'm excited because of FFXIV's track record. They do a setup expansion that is usually good, not great (ARR, SB), which perfectly set up the better story ahead (Heavensward, Shadowbringers/Endwalker). Post-EW and Dawntrail are on their way to setting up the next expansion(s?), which may or may not be Meracydia. My hope is, the Void and Meracydia get their own expansions. The Azem relic in Dawntrail also introduced an interesting concept to the lore: the idea of a bloodless rejoining.
I’m curious, if Midgardsormr can resurrect himself given enough time, and Azdaja has been reborn in a manner, would it be possible that the TRUE Bahamut has been laying low and regaining his strength in Meracydia? Perhaps we could even venture out using the Ragnarok and visit faraway worlds like Dragonstar with hopes to revitalize the planet and redeem the Omicrons
@@gfsdfsdf6546 We didn't visit some of the places we could SEE in Tural - the sacred hillsides, for example, which I was so certain would be our next zone, are probably going to either become a dungeon or a tribal area at best. Sadface.
Most of what Emet-Selch says at the end has to do with other reflections. After all he does says some of the civilizations of the reflections will surprise you. It's very possible that the way to another reflection is through the Blindfrost. Maybe it's a play on the Bifrost, the rainbow bridge that connects earth to asgard, and this will link us to a reflection that is Norse or Asgardian in nature. Maybe with mortal men ruling as gods.
I also wouldn't mind going deeper into places where we "already are". Like a closer look at Gelmorra, or is there really nothing else interesting in Xephatol? What about all those clouded areas in Ilsabard that we skipped? (and yes, of course I want to see Meracydia and the rest of Emets hints as well! :D )
Oh gods yeah Gelmorra...like do we even know what's going on down there? Like at all? There's a couple of NPCs claiming that it's all ruins now, but who has gone down there to confirm that? There's no way Palace of the Dead, the Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, and the Tam-Tara Deepcroft are all that rest underneath the Black Shroud. There could be any number of other things we know nothing about! Gelmorra could be the subject of an expansion all on its own. And I would eat it up. I agree with the other places as well. Xephatol, Paglth'an, the rest of Ilsabard, the rest of Othard and Hingashi, underneath the Sea of Clouds, and so on! I just want to see everything really, plot relevance or no.
@@Syogren a truly underground expansion that takes place underneath Eorzea would be awesome. Gelmorra is "down there" there's Sildihn which we've only scraped the surface of, there's whats left of the Coils. With how much excavation has taken place down there, it's no small wonder that Eorzea hasn't become a single country sized sinkhole.
There's still quite a lot of places in Ilsabard we haven't seen in the slightest, which is why it remains clouded on the map. We also still don't know the state of the 13th after Zero and Golbez started restoring the light there.
Even some places of hingashi and othard we haven't seen. And i highly doubt we would have seen EVERYTHING of tural.... i mean we got multiple maps of tural but tural is HUGE! Eorzia alone is like 21 maps.... no way they can justify all of tural in like 4/5 maps
My own theories: - The treasured islands of the Blindfrost will most likely be another Variant Dungeon. Most likely we'll explore the ruins of another lost civilization (like Aloaloa) - maybe this time it'll be the original homeland of the Au Ra. - Meracydia is super exciting to think about, especially considering all of the hype and lore we've gotten about it up to now. I feel that not doing it in at least someway would be the ultimate tease. - Exploring other reflections would be amazing, and not just the remaining ones. We can already go back in time to pre-sundered Etheirys - what if we're able to go back and visit those reflections that have since been destroyed. Or perhaps shades of these reflections - not unlike Amaurot, Ultima Thule, and Living Memory. It's interesting that all of the final zones in the last three expansions were all essentially (at least part) echos of the past in one form or another. - Speaking on exploring, I really, really want us to explore other existing stars outside of Etheirys and Ultima Thule. Is Etheirys really the only planet remaining after after the Final Days? Why would it not be possible for others to survive or escape (like the PuPu's)? - It also really want to return to the Void at some point. Maybe help with its recovering similar to how we did in the First?
When I hear "Treasured Isles" I don't think of actual treasure, I think of the islands themselves being a treasure. Be it a place of vast resources, idyllic beauty or unique fauna found nowhere else. But I really want to see Merycydia as it keeps coming up in lore to the point that I want to see this place that has so much tied to it.
That was my first thought too. I figured these isles could be like a reverse ishguard: a spot where there is lush greenery in the midst of a snowy waste because something something ehtaric currents
We still have so much of the star to explore, not only the places mentioned by Hades, but Nagxia, Dalmasca (after the BSF story), the west part of Othard as a whole aside the already mentioned areas. Even the shrouded part of Ilsabard still is a mystery. Even in Dawntrail, we still explored so little of the whole continent. Idk about what we could find in the other reflections, but I wonder how many years would take to visit them all.
Hingashi and Dalmasca are my two biggest desires for places to focus on for a future expansion. I love 12 and the Tactics series dearly, so Dalmasca as a whole holds great promise there, if it ever gets to be showcased outside of just an Alliance raid. Hingashi also just has a shitton of potential. Warring feudal lords, yokai, hell any number of interesting plots could be pulled from Japanese history. Its a goldmine, and the history that the devs would be most familiar with-- It'd shock me if they wouldn't want to do something with that.
I'm still kind of salty that we didn't get to learn more about raens and other xaela tribes (the ones that live on the frozen mountains for example). I really wanted to see a clan of swordsman being mostly raen warriors and such
You know, it really pains me that we really do not get a story about the cutthroat politics of Hingashi. It literally promises itself to be a place where it is so vile you have to do everything discreetly because you do not know who you are pissing off or which secrets you are revealing and yet it is just a stop to Doma. I know the Warrior of Light can’t solve that issue but at the very least they can deal with a misadventure in Hingashi that shows how bad politics are in there.
The place I want to visit the most is corvo, G'raha's homeland. Also I can't wait to enter Hingashi proper, I mean more than the Rokko mountain. Myracidia, we have hear about it for so long, I hope we will set foot there soon. There's a minion in a shape of a pyramid which is said to be the mini version of some real architectural feature of the continent, can't wait to see that. But closer to the current story, I want to see the 9th reflexion beyond the building we are in, there should be a way out to see the world.
I always felt like Emet-Selch's speech was mostly there for the people out there who weren't as close to the lore who needed to be sold on why they should stay subscribed after the end of their ten-decade-long story. It's marketing. That said, while he mentioned some items I had been wondering about, there's so much out there I want to get to know more about, like Nagxia, Gelmorra, Hingashi proper, or going back in time to experience the War of the Magi. There's whole eras I'd love to see. Don't think we'll be going to Meracydia soon. Feels like they wouldn't have back-to-back expansions of going to long-anticipated massive continents.
It was explicitly put in after development, causing the expansion to be delayed by 2 weeks, to quash the misunderstanding that Endwalker was going to be the end of FF XIV. People kept taking "The end of the Hydaelyn/Zodiark saga", "the finale to a 10 year story" etc. as "the last update for FFXIV" no matter how many times Yoshi P told us he was not leaving the game behind
@@talancorwell We actually know a fair bit about the war of the magi from the HW 24-man and the amdapor dungeons. It may share a name with the ff6 backstory, but it didn't seem to have much in common otherwise.
I still want to know more of Tural, I'm curious about the people further South and I want to finally see the Azure hills and the mages that Martyn told us so much about. After that, Meracydia is obviously alluring, though in my head Mount Rokkon was mistakenly thought to be the Blindfrost allusion, therefore I wonder what's there. Another aetherfont? Eh, too banal. A group akin to the Inuit? Or perhaps a group of proto Garleans who eschewed technology and conquest for tranquility, even in the cold
I would love to see more of Dalmasca, Hinganshi or Old Sharlayan. But at this point I take anything if it comes with a competent enough script and cast of characters. Having said that, why go to other reflections when there is still to much for discover about Hydaelyn?
Mericydia is probably what I want to learn more of most. Dragons, some of the races of Man, we know they have Roes and Hyurs at least, some plant-like folk, and some sort of dracotaur looking people, who may or may not be related to the dragon races. Of these, we also don't know what has occurred in...what, several thousand years? It's been at least 1500 since the 6th Calamity, and the last time Allag interacted was before the 3rd? Almost anything could have happened in the intervening time, save perhaps a dragon dying of old age.
I have been excited about Meracydia since learning about the Warring Triad. Just the thought of Zurvan-like creatures as an allied society questline makes me wonder what we'll see! What about the tree-people that worship Sephirot, or even the hyurs that worship Sophia, how did/do they live there? I remember when I finished the ARR relic for the first time: Radz-at-Han oils. Once we reached Endwalker, I couldn't be happier. I hope the feeling remains the same on Meracydia, and they do a full expansion there!
I would love to hear some lore about the Warring Triad! Equilibrium is my favorite FFXIV song and there's plenty of lore from it alone. Coming from later in 14's life cycle, I would assume many of us haven't heard the details of the stories
Isn't the Bounty also the analogue of the Tempest from the First? Are there more ruins to be found there besides Alzadaal's Legacy? The Source ruins of Amaurot, perhaps? Also, we found a whole damn Reflection at the bottom of one big deep hole in the ground in Xak Tural, and that whole damn country is full of big deep holes in the ground. Between the Golden Cities (plural) and "some of" the civilizations of the Reflections "surprising" us--he wasn't kidding--Alexandria and its Economy of Souls is certainly a surprise in the "horrifying" way. But he did say "some," so I'm almost certain that there are more civilizations and more Reflections in our future. He was the master of understatement when he said "surprise" if he even meant Alexandria--after all, Hades as the lifeguard of the Aetherial Sea would be noticing a Reflection whose Aetherial Sea was drying up, and I can't imagine him NOT freaking out about it. Tired or not, he's the only one who can still do the job... But Meracydia, given its history and close relationship with dragons, is a HUGE question mark to us. And given that it's been a few expansions since Heavensward (and its dragon-focused storyline), it's about time for dragons to make a re-entry onto the world stage...
I actually had a discussion with my best friend about why Amaurot is on the First and not the Source. I would not be surprised to see some ruins on the bottom of the ocean on the Source.
According to Sightseeing Logs, one structure in Azys Lla is a temple ripped right out of the ground from Meracydia to study the effects of faith on eikons/primals. Incredible levels of desecration aside, I'm looking forward to seeing if I can find a temple-sized crater somewhere in Meracydia, assuming eras of erosion and plant growth haven't buried it.
Wherever we go next, I just hope we get more time in them. Feels like since Endwalker we don't get enough info on what these places are like save for a few quests.
The interesting thing is that there is a scene where Uriange mentions the dialect of the "current" language of the Mericydian people being different from the ones we encounter during the quests involving the Warring Triad. I feel like that suggests either Sharlayans have made contact with Mericydia or at least come into contact with Mericydians at some point of their history.
As famously neutral scholars and particularly those of the Path of the Twelve who have familiarity with gods and dragons, it would make sense that Urianger and Louisoix would have personal connections there.
I’m mostly interested in seeing the reflections. I’ve never been a fan of snow games and don’t care for dragons in general But seeing how vastly different Alexandra was compared to our world was fascinating, especially learning what we already did. And what we do know filled me with many questions. Were they a failed rejoining since they overcame their calamity of lightning, were they a world instead still being primed to rejoin? What happened to Lindblum? Is the entire world dead due to Sphene’s manipulation of souls, or are there yet true living beings left on the world? And there are still many things I’d love to see on the 13th… and even after that there’s still many more worlds to see
Nobody seems to be talking about the places OUTSIDE of the map. This is a globe so how far is it from Othard to the New World? What is in between those places off the edges of the map? Just like in our world, there is actually a LOT between the Americas and Asia, there could be a lot between Othard and the New World. It would be SUPER interesting if that turns out to be the homeland, of the Warrior of Light. I know it needs to be ambiguous for emersion purposes but the WOL is a HUGE mystery. We only know them (the ones post calamity) as some guy who just got off the boat to Eorzia. We know nothing of their homeland, family, or history. I also think that Meracydia is where we will find the magical city of Mysidia.
Overall from what I see in the comments. From Meracydia, The Blind Frost, The other Reflections, and not to mention that we haven't really explored all of Eorzea to the fullest yet. Since who knows what other hidden areas can there be added into The Source or beyond. This MMO has the potential to be even grander then it already is. Which to me. I don't care what comes next. It just means it gives me more reasons to explore the world that I love.
Honestly, I want a ff7 esque reflection, where we the WoL goes alone, no scions, no back up due to a freak accident. After their time in that reflection, they're able to return home only to find out 5 years has passed back at the source. This will give the time skip the game needs and will allow the cast to get their glow up in terms of looks and appearanced.
While I like that idea for a timeskip, the issue is the disconnect between the story telling us we're trapped on a reflection, and being able to teleport wherever in gameplay. I suspect it's why we were able to travel freely to and from the First, while the Scions were trapped.
Then perhaps they can use what they have learned in Living Memory and swap maps and models depending specific MSQ events. That is, you can go freely from the Source to any Shard, but time would also pass by, and you can have specific sidequests do stuff for specific cities to show that time has passed after specific MSQ stuff.
i love how "Meracydia" is just represented by a small group of pockmarked islands in the middle of the ocean lmao also im not worried at all, the devs are known to take the story one expansion at a time instead of having a long term roadmap for it, they will have a vague goal in mind but nothing is finalized until they actually start working on the next expansion, and they sure as hell wont be worrying over the expansions after the next one until the next expansion comes out first. if you think that the Hydaelyn Zodiark story arc was planned from the start you'd be sorely mistaken, they had an end goal when they started with 1.0 but everything was only loosely planned, the fall of dalamud wasnt even originally part of that plan until much later but Yoshi-P basically didnt give Natsuko Ishikawa much of a choice. the events of Shadowbringers and Endwalker could have theoretically happened much sooner, but it would leave massive plot holes that would have failed to explain why any nation outside of Eorzea would even help us, much less entrust their fate upon us. so it stands to reason that nothing is set in stone and you shouldnt expect it to be, there is a "grand plan" but that plan is very loosely conceptualized at this time as it should be.
Personally, my blood was boiling when Emet-Selch brought up the Southern Continent and Meracydia. We literally have known about Meracydia existing since ARR and we still haven't gone. I am BAFFLED that Meracydia has been almost entirely forgotten and there are a lot of people who want to keep going dimension hopping to other reflections. We haven't even explored our entire STAR, why do we keep doing things like go to other reflections or even to where Endwalker left off?! I, personally, want to finally go to the Southern Continent just because its STILL shrouded in fog on the map like Ilsabard and the Garlean Empire is...meaning we know almost nothing of that area of the world. All I remember of Meracydia, in fact, is that its a nation of dragons and that Tiamat and Bahamut were rulers there. Please, please, please, let us finish exploring our own world before we have more off-world adventures; I am on my knees, BEGGING!!!
To be fair. We also knew about Thavnair since ARR as well and that took almost a decade to finally visit But speaking for myself, since I’m one of those ones who’d rather go shard hopping… I just don’t like dragons 🤷🏻♂️
I'm kind of annoyed that they followed up on all of Emet's hints so quickly. That's a lot of content I feel we just blasted through that could have been spread out a bit more evenly. :/
I feel ya, on the other hand so much of it is simply logical. The Twelve, New World and Meracydia as well as the Reflections were on the bucketlist even without Yoshida possessing Hades for a brief moment.
@@Rewwgh oh, absolutely. The Twelve make sense as a final bow on the Zodiark and Hydaelyn arc, and Tural being a whole expansion is cool. We'll see how the rest pans out though. Can't wait to see.
Agreed, we’re not even into the patches and already about half of Emets hunts are already done. And odds are we’re probably gonna head to the Northern islands for the patches, either as a criterion dungeon or in the MSQ. Which is a shame, because they could have spread all of those out across a few expansions pretty easily. But instead it’s all being pushed to the side for shard travelling
Certainly possible that there could be another city of gold, but he does specifically say "fabled cities of gold", referencing the fable and not factually what is there.
I was very hyped about the New World before Dawntrail, needless to say that is no longer the case. I only hope they do Meracydia justice where they have failed with Tural.
@@IaconDawnshire Shb/EW writer is senior story designer of DT, she was also the same senior story designer in EW/ShB/ST 3.4, 3.5 and so I do not understand how the writers should get fired for it. In the end they all approved it, and Yoshida knew it'd be a flop but pushed the green button - I personally understand what is happening and why, the question in the matter is only answered as we go along the story and I have a feeling all the negativity has woken them up from taking it all for granted, and improvise as they go. I think we should give everyone a fair chance. Nobody can rise and grow and become better for getting fired for failing once - even if they succeeded before.
@@yabiyabi DT was the culmination of warning signs apparent since patch 6.1, and I no longer have faith Yoshida even knows what his audience wants. At best, we might suppose that CBU3 became held hostage to bad ideas that subversive voices insisted would be popular.
There were good and bad things about Dawntrail. I’m disappointed we won’t see Gulool Ja Ja anymore, I enjoyed his character. Some others could fade into the background and I won’t complain, but I did like a lot of the map designs and some of the themes throughout the expansion.
The treasured islands would make another good variant dungeon maybe, we just need our guide NPC - a certain blue-eyed sailor we met springs to mind, renowned for his travels to difficult to reach places.
I would love for us to finish off the Source's locations before we go Shard Hopping. Like, we do the Tural/Alexandrian reflection stuff this expac, and then next is Mericydia and places like Naxgia, Hingashi, Gelmorra, etc. Make the Mericydia plot a mixed plot, where yes, we are helping Tiamat bring a sense of stability, but an underlying theme is that we go there because the Knickknacks of Azem are dangled before us by Tiamat. That she feels they are connected to us, and wants us to have them, collect them, but that they are spread throughout the world, and she will help us, if we help her. And that leads into the next expansion, which starts our Shard Hopping proper. Starts with the pre-expac quest where after collecting the Knickknacks, 'Shtola can finally make stable rift gates between Reflections... but on her end, only ones that she has been before. She teaches us how to do the same, but we flub it up (cause comedy insertion..) and suddenly we are on another Reflection. One that is peaceful, but provides huge amounts of adventure. We don't get involved in politics until later. I honestly would love it to be 1.0 starter questing style... where you are just a nameless adventurer, making your name, and get scouted by that Reflection's version of the -Avengers- -Super Friends- Scions. Have them all genderbent, or personality switched, something to spice it up. Have it be proper medieval fantasy, or make it a true magitek society that we end up in. Sadly, I kinda feel I know the direction they are building towards for the Reflection stuff, and that is Dimensional Overlay, which might as well just be called Rejoining 2, Electrope Boogaloo.
As many have said, there's Hingashi, the actual* FFXIV Japan, which we've just touched on. There's also a massive area of territories, including Dalmasca, that's still shrouded in clouds underneath and surrounding Garlemald that we've just gone to specific areas of. The thing is though, is as much as I'd love an expansion about it they're areas that could just as easily be explored with specific instances and I feel like that's probably all we're going to get. Myricidia is obviously a major location though, and one that they've hinted at for years. It's really one of the largest, if not the largest major territory left on Etherys as we know it. They could always add an entire landmass not on the current map. I think the way the story is heading though definitely leads to world hopping however. I believe we're, as a collective that is "Azem" going to regain the former's ability to traverse worlds at will. I believe this will also be where the new storyline generally heads. Like, we've gotten a taste of a "faction" from another reflection gaining the ability to enter a new world en-masse...and using it instantly for conquest. Whose to say another couldn't too? Perfect motivation, other than adventure, for us to reflection hop. It's not just reflections too we could possibly travel too, both that annoying new Circus stage as well as history around the time of the War of the Magi suggests the possibility of pocket dimensions or entirely new worlds outside the realm of the standard reflections may be a possibility and we know they like to take things in unexpected directions.
Personally I took "cities of gold" plural to mean the myths and legends of the city. I kinda hope we don't see more cause idk it'd kinda dampen the big impact of what the golden city really is, to me anyway.
The New World and Meracydia have been my top two locations I've been wanting to see since Stormblood honestly. It's nice we got N The New World, AKA Tural has finally been seen and ventured, and though I know we got more to venture through it, I've just gotten more and more curious and antsy about Meracydia. Need to know as much as possible about the land it sounds beyond cool
Something I felt Yoshi P tried to comment on during his interviews leading into Dawntrail is ultimately I don't think he's looking for this game to continue on forever. It sounds weird for an MMO to have an "end point" but I think its a trend more games really should strive for. If this new arc starting in dawntrail runs as long as the Previous ARR - Endwalker, we're looking at around 24 years of this game running, and if they provide us a really captivating and fun experience for that time, I think that's honestly incredible, and if they decided to make this arc's endwalker the final piece of major content for the game, I think that's totally fair, end on a high note, end with a meaningful conclusion to the story that everyone will remember fondly. I'd much rather that then seeing them constantly trying to justify why a new threat has come along, constantly scaling us up further and further, making things we did previously feel less impactful as a new threat needs to pop up to take its place, and stretching out the world. Like, look at WoW where its been a meme about how the map, even in the titan facilities, people who made the world are just highly inaccurate because the dev's just need to slap a new landmass down to expand out the world and justify further adventure. I know its a point of friction between the creative vision of the devs, and the business side, the potential lost income of keeping the game running as long as possible, but I truly feel there's so many examples of trying to bring series back, or trying to prolong the life of a franchise only builds resentment towards it, but when we look back at older titles, we can appreciate our time with it, even if it had to come to an end eventually.
The hints about the future of THIS world are running out but remember there are other reflections, and much like Zero's reflection they too have stories to be told and damage that needs be repaired honestly my theory is that the game as a whole will not end until all 13 reflections are repaired and OUR character the warrior of light becomes whole. As we all well know all people are a 1 of 13 shards of an ancient OUR character being a shard of Azem so far we have merged with one other shard if Azem that being Ardbert so currently we are 2/13 shards my theory is eventually as we repair all the broken reflections we will merge with our other shards and become whole and the LAST Ancient taking up the persona Elidibus claimed as "Mankind's first hero and his final hope." Which we all now know from endwalker he learned that from us having helped and saved him in the past and he is emulating us. Also we as the last Ancient will also take up the station Hydaelyn previously held spurring on new future heroes new Warriors of Light. Thus becoming the one who sets the future protectors of each star of the 13 reflections AND becoming the standard in which these future Warriors will hold themselves to. THAT is my theory of how FF14 will end and WE HAVE LONG ROAD till then so people stop worrying and click bait content creators stop acting like "it's Joeover for ff14."
Unfortunately, I think the Golden Cit*ies* of Tural may be a retcon so as to not complicate the other reflections. Unless there are different, more literal, cities of gold rather than electrope-gilded (which may be explored in side content), it's highly unlikely that similar materials and gates appeared from other reflections, espcially concentrated in Tural.
I missed the fact that the Warring Triad were from the war with Meracydia. I would love to hear more about them! And as for the "some of the civilizations on the Reflections may surprise you", I think we've had one surprise of that type already!
I'm personally really excited for the reflections but I feel like exploring blue magic in the new world and learning about how beast mastery fits into everything is a more pressing interest right now. while the additional areas mentioned on our star intrigues me I feel some of them may be explored in smaller, patch content rather then fully fleshing out the story around those locales so i feel the need to temper my expectations until something more is confirmed. Meracydia is the most promising well for more content and exploration on our star I feel but at the same time we have been waiting years for anything on that so more wait wont bother me on that front if it means we get more context and info when we do explore it.
When I think of Blindfrost, (or whatever it's called) I think of an area perhaps where the ice calamity started. And as a result maybe has bits and pieces of that shard imbedded in it. Just a theory of mine, that when shards are rejoined pieces of them quite literally smack into the source in some fashion. Like deep underwater somewhere could be the remnants of the shard that caused the calamity of water. And from that, could be a cause of concern perhaps? Maybe left over treasures from that shard that could bring about major issues for the source. Like an artefact that caused the calamity or some such.
A thought about the reflections. The Source has basically had it's entire development reset every time there's a Calamity. It's a continual cycle of rise and fall, development and backslide, but the reflections don't have that. They don't experience any Calamities, so their civilizations could be far more ancient and developed than our own. We saw how advanced Alexandria had become, and we don't really know what the rest of that reflection is like. Did the Storm Surge wipe out everyone else as well, or did other civilizations and kingdoms also adapt and develop in new and interesting ways?
I do have a theory that Hades was essentially giving the Warrior of Light the locations of the ruins under the Bounty, and the Golden City of the New World, because they were the locations of world ending or at the very least calamity triggering events. And his bidding us to "seek discovery" was his way of saying telling us to prevent upcoming disasters.
Maybe Blindfrost is a renmant of an ascian city? It is yet to be seen if there are other renmants of their civilization on the source, I may be wrong, but i think the only pre-sunder location remains we have discovered in the source is Elpis (Azys Lla). With Tender valley we now know there could be other remnants of pre-sundering civilizations.
@@MyVanir I always felt that since the modern day pandemonium on the aethereal sea was a portion of Azys Lla kinda implied it could be the same, both Azys Lla and elpis/pandemonium had pretty much the same role of developing and containing experimental life forms, otherwise there is no reason as to why the mind controled Claudien went straight to the Aetherochemical research facility to teleport a portion of it in the Aethereal sea. Maybe I am reading too much into it lol
@@marilynmonstermaniac We know that Azys Lla was built from scratch by the Allagans. They told us in msq that the soil was taken from what became The Burn.
not only there's surviving reflections, there's also other dimensions as well, like how the past collab events does. Now that one of those collabs becoming another permanent addition to 14's, in this case the upcoming 24-man 11's, whether it would actually treated as dimensional connections (since we do have prime examples of monster hunter trials & Nier automata's 24man raid, also Greg's), or one of either its reflection versions or the alternate lands like how ivalice got implemented.
After hearing about Meracydia all this time I just want to go there so bad! I really thought 7.0 was going to be in Meracydia this whole time since its a place that gets name dropped a lot but we got Tural. I think Tural was still cool to explore and to learn about but MAN give me that Meracydia! Thought there's a part of me that could see Meracydia being the last area we explore in FFXIV's plot as a whole due to how much it gets talked up and how unstable the continent is. Either way I can't really think of anywhere else to explore. I bet there will be more places and shards to check out but I'm curious how much the FFXIV writers have left to use. Cause at this rate maybe they are running out of places. IDK but I'm excited to see wherever they take us next.
I hope the shards let us explore other genres, though we've gone everywhere we have yet to see anything really gothic in the MSQ, I want vampires and werewolves. To that you might for some reason argue that we have the Haukke manor, well I retort with... really? a single one and done dungeon that has like... mostly bats and skeletons and fucking mushrooms as enemies, and the usual voidsent? Bro give me vampire hunters and werewolves and spikey brick buildings and I'm set. I want some undead!
It's worth noting that Hades also brings up that you know little of even Eorzea. It somewhat gives me hope that underutilized places like Gridania and Gelmorra will get at least a little more spotlight.
Just listening to Hades makes me tear up and bawl my eyes out… I can’t put properly into words how much I miss Emet-Selch. I love him so damn much. Probably a very unhealthy amount. No one can beat his character and presence for me. What I wouldn’t give to see him again. Even if it is just in the past again as part of a quest. Gods I miss him so much T-T For now, all I really hope for, is more Ancient Lore. I need MORE!! it’s my favourite part of the game qwq
Seeing him again in the past would make me probably even sadder. Like it's the past, he's already dead. I wish at least he wasn't entirely gone, maybe chilling at the aetherial sea or something and enjoying himself with Hytholdaeus😢
@@eggo5559 i know. I would probably feel the same. I'm just grabbing anything I can get at this point, even if it makes me sob xD I just crave Emet as well as the chance to see and visit an Amaurot back as it was bustling and alive.
From what I've gathered, the next expansion will be one of them, with us finally going to Meracydia. But his hints were only the tip of the iceburg with some suggestions with where to start.
If the pattern of patch MSQ turning into an expac holds, I fully expect Meracydia to be next to pay off Shadowbringers' patch MSQ. My headcanon is that for the rest of the planet that we have yet to explore we get a request to go there via Krile and the Students of Baldesion since their remit is examining odd phenomenon, and that all of these phenomenon end up connecting to the remaining shards somehow (maybe even deliberately on our part to face a new threat). Yoshi-P has also hinted at the war between Hingashi's factions in interviews, so while there is eventually a possibility of us entering that conflict eventually which would lead us to Blindfrost, it's always better to take that with a grain of salt until more is officially revealed. I also suspect we aren't done with the South Sea Isles just yet. We may have explored Aloalo in the V&C dungeon but now with The Key and the story of the Milala from Dawntrail, we may be off to find the original site of that tribe to find out more about The Keeper and how The Key works. For all we know Krile may be a direct descendant of this Keeper, making her the closest link we have. It's kinda ironic that the direct offshoots of the South Sea Lalafell end up creating not only a variant of arcanima in Scholar but also a variant of elemental manipulation in Black Magic given that electrope is essentially a marriage between the two, AND that the War of the Magi they were involved in was the source of the aetheric imbalance that the Ascians used to cause the Calamity that the Milala fled from into Alexandria's shard with The Key.
I want to see the rest of the middle continent, the Sharlayan overworld, more of FF America's (the roads out of Urko Patcha and where the railroad goes in particular). And of course I want to visit FF Australia and the other shards. Maybe we can finish, uh..., "the middle continent" with more explanatory content. We should probably hold off on going to Australia for a time though, since we *just* got to Murica.
Azem traveled not only through space but time. When Azem was absent, I'll bet they went forward in time to give one his relics to the Milala., and how to use the relic was lost. It makes you wonder just how powerful the seat of Azem was, Venat sundered a world, the next Azem had Emet-Selch at their beck and call not only in life, but in death. We have 6 Ancients + Azem left, should be some interesting story playing out.
I feel like all his speech was there for was to talk about the things we are going to do in the next few patches, and the next expansion. Not lay out all that there is left to do. He did say 'to see AT LEAST that much'
I just hope that wherever we go has proper buildup. Ala Mhigo had both ARR and HW hyping it up. Sharlayan and Garlemald had TWICE THAT MUCH. Tural made sense as a place to visit since we had a small amount of info from the blue mage quests, but it still came off as very rushed and forced. We should be doing much more exploring and rumormongering at this stage: Get to know these lands before getting to them.
And speaking of Blindfrost.. What if there will be some more history about 5th(?) Umbral Calamity, that covered all planet into ice? Like, we learned about a Lalafell who wished to get somewhere where there is no ice or snow and the relic he held opened a gate to Alexandria. Maybe there, in Blindfrost, we will learn more about this relic origin
This is the first video of your's that I have seen. IF you have already covered this, go ahead and ignore. Do you think we can heal the lightening sickness the boy we met in Solution 9 had using the Tempering removing pigs? I forget what they were called. Meracydia will likely be an expansion while I think the treasure Isles will be either a post expansion storyline or new variant dungeons.
The fact that we still have so damn little information about Meracydia after all this time save who's come from there and what happened to the dragons there by Allag's hand, is incredible to me How much longer is it gonna be It's THE southern continent, it's Australia and Antarctica in one
My question is about something you havent mentioned that was only teased towards the end of Dawntrail....The South Sea Isles. Where are they located in relation to Merycidia? We've also visited Mach briefly, and I question where the lalafels of Nym landed where they received the artifact that brought about the Green Death. The seeds planted at the end of Dawntrail seem to be leading us to the South Sea Isles to research how the Milala lived, and who or what used the key to lead the people to Alexandria to escape the Calamity of Ice. One last thing I will posit. They refer to the one that saved the Milala and opened the gate as "Speaker". Is it a coincidence that the title of Lahabrea was also referred to as "Speaker" of the Convocation? (Hence why his followers were called the "Words of Lahabrea") Food for thought.
I know we just got here, and Dawntrail's MSQ is quite disliked in general at the moment, but Tural has left kind of an empty hole in my adventurer's spirit. It's been very unsatisfying so far, and is diminishing my interest in potential future reveals.
Very excited to travel to Meracydia. Really thought that's where we would be going after EW, right up until the first teaser trailer. Also really excited to go on to another of the reflections.
I want to go back to the 13th and see what progress our experiment has had. I wonder if it would be possible to link every reflection to the Source, not in a Rejoining, but in a Rebalancing.
Blindfrost.... could be a data repository for events that happened in the unsundered world to explain how they came to wield such powers or maybe even a living museum that has recorded everything since the sundering in pure silence. Could also be a portal to a reflection set upon by an ice calamity much like a more recent lightning based one seeping into this world.
I think the pluralism of golden city translation might be a missed typo The JP script only mentioned眩き黄金京 (Mabayuki Ogon Kyo) which directly translated to Dazzling Golden City
Between Blindfrost and Meracydia, I think that the latter easily has an entire expansion's worth in it. Whereas Blindfrost sounds more like a post story or even Cryterion location. Except. There is one other location in the far north that we might visit eventually: Aerslaent. The ancestral home of the Roegadyn. Officially, it's in the Northern Empty, on the opposite side of Blindfrost in relation to Orthard. Further still than Old Sharlayan and the isle of Haam where we have the dungeon known as The Aetherfont. But go far enough north and that distance is shorter than one might think. Never mind that Roegadyn havebeen seen as far south as Meracydia. So there really is no reason why Blindfrost can't lead us to Aerslaent. To top it all off: Our favourite people of pirates has been in that business since forever, even in their ancestral home. And what was that about treasure being hidden in a location you need to know the way to? Meaning that Hades might have given us a tiny bit of a red herring by only mentioning Blindfrost. Mind you, Blindfrost might still be an appetiser the way Alolola was. But I do think that both locations can give us an entire expansion each.
As the self-proclaimed Princess of Allag, I am most excited for visiting Meracydia, although I won't say no to a Blindfrost adventure. Who knows what kind of mysteries are awaiting us there?
Blindfrost might be a dungeon or trial setting. I assume Meracydia will be a part of the next expansion. We've already seen a part of another reflection with Alexandria. And they can insert them going forward in small and large part as they wish.
I like to think Blindfrost was the original homeland of the Viera before the Age of Endless Frost. After the calamity, they went different directions to become the Viera we see in Othard and the Shetona we see in Tural.
I don't think it's a bad thing that we're almost done with Emet's list. So long as the devs setup for further story in those plot points Emet mentioned then it's fine. The Twelve setup there big contraption thing to take their place, no doubt it will have a purpose later. Claudien has the Heart of Sabik, Tural gave us the Azem cup key thing, Meracydia can be it's own whole expansion which will definitely set more things up, we still have the eventual rebalancing of the First and Thirteenth, and probably more other stuff from side quests I didn't even do. So yeah, even if Emet's little to-do list is almost over we still have so many more places we can go. Also the whole "Some of the civilizations in the reflections will surprise you" line is so vague that even if Alexandria was one of those civilizations, there's still like 3-5 more Reflections full of civilizations to go through.
Imo it's a good thing for us to go beyond Hades' hints. The ancients have already dictated enough of what we've done, the story has to move forward without constantly looking back.
I honestly am intrigued to go to Mercyadia because it has been widely tease somewhat in the game yet we know next to little to nothing about it other than Emet selch's hint and tiamat as for the reflections I would just say we will have to wait and see
i think in the water is maybe ultimas resting place hidden deep within blind frost. just would be maybe wierd thinking like this since we "did fight ultima" but at the same time maybe ultima finaly could rejoin itself with the other parts of it. and i refer the ultima from the lvl rabanastre raid.
I haven't done Baldesion Arsenal, so I don't know if that addresses the disappearance of the Island of Val. But after Dawntrail I'm wondering if it was a place that was relocated via the artifact/key that the Alexandrians used? Seems like it'd be worth checking out. Ever since doing Coils I've really wanted to see Meracydia, too.
As a fan of xii and tactics, is a easy answer Merecida, plus the fact that we have now one of the second brood as ally , "free" Tiamat, and has Mid as friends, is not hard come up with something that united, the sions, the dragons, the people of the flying circus, and maybe Maximos and Julios to create some form of alliance with then, add some trial elements, and we have a exp! Even new jobs, with xii and tatics as a frame kit, Jobs is not in short options s2
I’d love to see more content with Hingashi proper, since we’ve only really seen Kugane and some of its affairs. Of course I doubt we’ll be seeing that for multiple years, but I can only do one thing Wait and Hope
If I had to guess, we're probably not totally done with the places we've visited thus far. For example, ever since watching your video on the Black Shroud and the Elementals, I've had this conspiracy theory that we've barely even scratched the surface of Gelmorra. I think there's something hiding down there...many somethings. An entire expansion worth of somethings, if you're catching my drift.
I'm thinking Othard's north is going to be tied to us aiding Hingashi. We still have to help Hingashi(and explore it, that's an entire island/area we have not been, it's this world's Japan) and Othard is nearby, I'm guessing it's going to tie somehow. Since yoshi p mentioned the next expac is going to be "winter themed" it makes sense that we're going to go to Othard's north? At least in my head.
If anything with future content besides these two last things Emet himself mentioned, I half expect them to inevitably do a big FF7-related raid or such (because Square Enix and milking FF7 to the bone go together like PB&J) as well. And since most other FF titles either got raids or entire MSQ portions dedicated to them or their final boss (or reference them if we're talking FF8), we all know it's a matter of not if but when Sephiroth's mega long sword-ahhhh self shows up inevitably.
FFXIV is going to get a lot of mileage out of the Reflections, and Dragon Australia.
Can't wait for Dragon Australia myself, charaters in game have talked about it for years and I just want to go there already.
its not dragon australia its just normal australia
dont forget weve yet to visit more then a mountain outside the gates of kugane, imagining eventually we'll get to trave; the area [rp[er in another dungeon, or small area in a expansion
Ilsabard is a veritable treasure trove as well, alongside the 8th UC timeline.
GIVE US MIQO LORE
Speaking personally, I would like an adventure to another reflection. Somewhere where we are not known and we are stuck there (at least MSQ-wise) entire time. Sort of like shadowbringers. But instead of apocalyptic themes, there would be a thriving world where we dive into political game while at the same time we search for answers about the key from dawntrail/aurocite etc.
Its not gonna hit like shb but we arent ready for that convo lol
Honestly? That’s what I thought DT was gonna be and I was all for it.
I enjoyed DT overall but there were some def misses.
@@dmonee6196 oh for sure there were definite mistakes but overall its not as bad as people thought…if yoshi p wanted to tackle a new narrative, he needs to stop wussing out in fear of alienating people
The problem with going to other reflections is that they are being ravaged by an elemental aspect and that has been stablished already. It is a good idea to visit other reflections but the fans will say the FF14 is running out of ideas or they are doing shadowbringer 2.0 and so on. 😂
@@Yokai_Yuri4 of the remaining relefctions are untouched and are perfectly fine it's only the 13th and the 1st that are messed up still.
It's interesting that most of what Emet-Selch mentioned were portals to other reflections:
Ruins beneath the waters of the bounty had a fissure to the 13th.
Golden City was a portal to the 9th.
Sacred Sites of the South Sea Isles had a portal opened by the Speaker for the Milala to another reflection.
So maybe Blindfrost and Meracydia will also have something related to portals as well. Meracydia is where Azdaja was lost to the Void if I remember correctly.
Fascinating i did not realize that, good catch!
Azdaja was lost to the Void at the site of the Crystal Tower. She dove into the rift that was opened to let the Cloud of Darkness in as far as I've been led to believe.
@@TarossBlackburn Ah ok, thanks for the correction.
@@TarossBlackburn That is correct yes, the voidgate that the Cloud was supposed to emerge from was where Azdaja dived into the Void to try stopping the invaders at the source. No pun intended.
I have a feeling he did that on purpose. He literally told us it's our duty to explore, and he in a roundabout way told us how to do it.
Ahhh damnit, the speech Emet said at the end of Endwalker always gets me, I miss him as a character, one of the best characters ever done in Final Fantasy genre, even in games as a whole
Deffinetly up there yes
All I’ve ever wanted to see is all of midgardsormrs surviving children in one place interacting with each other, maybe even together fighting beside each other. All that’s happened with the dragons you don’t usually see them together. Tiamat Hresvelga Vtra and now Ajdia maybe even baby daddy talking to them all.
The fact that emet used plural for golden city and the giants found the "golden city" on skydeep cenote probably before the alexandrians got their calamity and even started to experiment with dimensional fusion, make me think the gate was hijacked by the alexandrians and there is more gates on tural leading to different reflections, probably being made by the Ronkan, who were aware of the sundering, and both skydeep cenote and the ruins unearthed by the giants on tender valley having very uncanny similarities
I'm not convinced the temple and gate in the cenote was Ronkan. There's some similarities, but it does feel distinct. I took the end of the Tender Valley to be the Source's version of Ronka rather than Ronka being a shard hopping civilization.
The gate is more advanced than anything we've seen so far, no one has ever had the capability to just freely travel between shards. I don't think we've seen yet who has actually built it.
TL:DR- I think there is an Ascian Azem running around doing their own thing separate from the Ascians we know. Which includes saving the lalafels that ended up on Alexandria and creating the key artifact if not having a direct hand in the creation of the gold city portals as well.
I honestly believe that there is/was an ascian awakened Azem fragment at some point that at the very least created the "key" artifact that we now have. Maybe even the portals themselves. The technology of the portals is well beyond the technology of even the Alexandrians, while incredibly similar and undoubtedly the same type but it seems leagues ahead of where they are currently at.
As we know they were essentially plucked from their island home on the source and transported to the reflection of Alexandria using the "key" that they kept as a sacred relic of sorts. Once brought to the Alexandria reflection they suddenly advanced well beyond local feudal technology and almost instantly adapted electrope into fantasy/scifi future tech basically the moment they got their hands on it. As shown in the museum, not only was a general ascian influence over their people which likely explains their sudden burst of knowledge but also hints at something more.
Ascians as we know them have always plotted and poked and manipulated never provided outright guidance or had an established presence. The mask room in the volcano, while a recreation, shows that the ascians were a little bit more involved than they normally are. A great paralelle would be Emet-Selch and the Garlians. He absolutely guided the Garlians on their path to being a world power but he did so under the guise of a dead man he had possessed similar to Elidibus puppeting Zenos. They only show themselves to a select few and stay entirely in the shadows, only taking direct action through the buffer of puppets. The volcano mask room was said to be a recreation of a similar room in the lalafel homeland. While there is nothing on the person/persons behind it, such a monument is well beyond the scope of previous physical evidence of ascians.
I would suggest that Azem, with their heavy personal connection to the region and it's people, and the key itself intentionally guided the lalafel to Alexandria to save them, then further elevated them to take advantage of electrope, either as part of a greater ascian plan for a rejoining or even a subversion of that plan to guarantee the survival of at least someone with the impending rejoining.
Presumably there is no fragment of Azem on the Ascian convocation but that does not rule out the existence of an awakened fragment. We ourselves are more or less confirmed to be a reincarnation of at least part of Azem. The Elidibus arc in Shadowbringers suggests that there are similar such fragments on other reflections although much more diminished than us. And the summoner story quests confirms there is essentially an army of lesser ascians running around doing the grunt work to make the larger plans work out. At any point Emet-Selch in his emotional weakness could have awakened a fragment of his dear friend Azem. Similar to when he created a constellation crystal representing the seat of Azem in spite of the elimination of the seat after the incident surrounding the south sea island and the creation of Ifirit. Ideally this Azem would have likely completely rejected the idea of a rejoining but could ahve possibly gone along with it for some amount of time. At the very least they were likely not present by the time ARR came around, although I dont think we have Identified everyone in the Ascian roundtable cinematics.
Skydeep had me screaming Ronkans as soon as we cleared the first boss. I'm honestly surprised they didn't feature much more heavily this expansion especially considering the Mayan influences in their architecture. Also, I wonder if there aren't more gates hidden around Etheyris that go to different reflections.
Do note that it's plural in english, but the original japanese has no such indication. Gonna need extra input from other localizations, barring actual writing team input, to see if it's not simply a localization goof.
@@AndrossianCiderI'm not sure I buy into all of the ideas here but I don't think it's incredibly far fetched either. Really interesting read, and some fun things to consider.
We haven't even fully explored Aldenard. Paglth'an was only briefly visited in one dungeon, but on the map you can see the amount of land we montage over when we go from East Thanalan to South Shroud is massive. East of Mor Dhona/West Shroud is also unexplored, despite how interesting going through the devastated land would be. And all that land underneath the Sea of Clouds. Combine those three together and there's basically an expansion worth of territory lurking between the lands we already know.
Don't forget that La Noscea is only the southern HALF of Vylbrand, with the northern half (O'Ghomoro) being controlled by beast tribes that were hostile to us until only recently. Mt. O'Ghomoro is a large volcano located in that region, I'd love to be able to visit it
Next? Probably the "Treasure Islands beyond the waters of Blindfrost in Othard's North."
The one I'm most excited for? Meracydia.
The story is all pointing to Meracydia. It was the scene of the Void incursion into the Source where Azdaja was lost. It was ground zero of the dragon vs Allagan war. When we get back to the void story, that's where we're going, and if we have some control of Azem's relic by then, who knows where the story is going to go from there...
I hoping to go to othard next for a Viking like job or other nordic based jobs
Tbh i'm genuinelly scared of going to Meracydia after Dawntrail, because while i love this expansion. I didn't like how we burned through the biggest continent in the entire world in a single expansion, leaving nothing else to explore.
I don't want to go to Meracydia and feel like in a single expansion we explored all there is to see in that place.
@@gfsdfsdf6546 I get that, but I'm excited because of FFXIV's track record.
They do a setup expansion that is usually good, not great (ARR, SB), which perfectly set up the better story ahead (Heavensward, Shadowbringers/Endwalker).
Post-EW and Dawntrail are on their way to setting up the next expansion(s?), which may or may not be Meracydia.
My hope is, the Void and Meracydia get their own expansions. The Azem relic in Dawntrail also introduced an interesting concept to the lore: the idea of a bloodless rejoining.
I’m curious, if Midgardsormr can resurrect himself given enough time, and Azdaja has been reborn in a manner, would it be possible that the TRUE Bahamut has been laying low and regaining his strength in Meracydia?
Perhaps we could even venture out using the Ragnarok and visit faraway worlds like Dragonstar with hopes to revitalize the planet and redeem the Omicrons
@@gfsdfsdf6546 We didn't visit some of the places we could SEE in Tural - the sacred hillsides, for example, which I was so certain would be our next zone, are probably going to either become a dungeon or a tribal area at best. Sadface.
Most of what Emet-Selch says at the end has to do with other reflections. After all he does says some of the civilizations of the reflections will surprise you. It's very possible that the way to another reflection is through the Blindfrost. Maybe it's a play on the Bifrost, the rainbow bridge that connects earth to asgard, and this will link us to a reflection that is Norse or Asgardian in nature. Maybe with mortal men ruling as gods.
I also wouldn't mind going deeper into places where we "already are". Like a closer look at Gelmorra, or is there really nothing else interesting in Xephatol? What about all those clouded areas in Ilsabard that we skipped?
(and yes, of course I want to see Meracydia and the rest of Emets hints as well! :D )
Oh gods yeah Gelmorra...like do we even know what's going on down there? Like at all? There's a couple of NPCs claiming that it's all ruins now, but who has gone down there to confirm that? There's no way Palace of the Dead, the Thousand Maws of Toto-Rak, and the Tam-Tara Deepcroft are all that rest underneath the Black Shroud. There could be any number of other things we know nothing about!
Gelmorra could be the subject of an expansion all on its own. And I would eat it up.
I agree with the other places as well. Xephatol, Paglth'an, the rest of Ilsabard, the rest of Othard and Hingashi, underneath the Sea of Clouds, and so on! I just want to see everything really, plot relevance or no.
@@Syogren a truly underground expansion that takes place underneath Eorzea would be awesome. Gelmorra is "down there" there's Sildihn which we've only scraped the surface of, there's whats left of the Coils. With how much excavation has taken place down there, it's no small wonder that Eorzea hasn't become a single country sized sinkhole.
There's still quite a lot of places in Ilsabard we haven't seen in the slightest, which is why it remains clouded on the map. We also still don't know the state of the 13th after Zero and Golbez started restoring the light there.
I think it's safe to say that they aren't very far along yet. We probably won't check in on them for a while.
Even some places of hingashi and othard we haven't seen. And i highly doubt we would have seen EVERYTHING of tural.... i mean we got multiple maps of tural but tural is HUGE! Eorzia alone is like 21 maps.... no way they can justify all of tural in like 4/5 maps
My own theories:
- The treasured islands of the Blindfrost will most likely be another Variant Dungeon. Most likely we'll explore the ruins of another lost civilization (like Aloaloa) - maybe this time it'll be the original homeland of the Au Ra.
- Meracydia is super exciting to think about, especially considering all of the hype and lore we've gotten about it up to now. I feel that not doing it in at least someway would be the ultimate tease.
- Exploring other reflections would be amazing, and not just the remaining ones. We can already go back in time to pre-sundered Etheirys - what if we're able to go back and visit those reflections that have since been destroyed. Or perhaps shades of these reflections - not unlike Amaurot, Ultima Thule, and Living Memory. It's interesting that all of the final zones in the last three expansions were all essentially (at least part) echos of the past in one form or another.
- Speaking on exploring, I really, really want us to explore other existing stars outside of Etheirys and Ultima Thule. Is Etheirys really the only planet remaining after after the Final Days? Why would it not be possible for others to survive or escape (like the PuPu's)?
- It also really want to return to the Void at some point. Maybe help with its recovering similar to how we did in the First?
When I hear "Treasured Isles" I don't think of actual treasure, I think of the islands themselves being a treasure. Be it a place of vast resources, idyllic beauty or unique fauna found nowhere else. But I really want to see Merycydia as it keeps coming up in lore to the point that I want to see this place that has so much tied to it.
That was my first thought too. I figured these isles could be like a reverse ishguard: a spot where there is lush greenery in the midst of a snowy waste because something something ehtaric currents
We still have so much of the star to explore, not only the places mentioned by Hades, but Nagxia, Dalmasca (after the BSF story), the west part of Othard as a whole aside the already mentioned areas. Even the shrouded part of Ilsabard still is a mystery.
Even in Dawntrail, we still explored so little of the whole continent.
Idk about what we could find in the other reflections, but I wonder how many years would take to visit them all.
Hingashi and Dalmasca are my two biggest desires for places to focus on for a future expansion. I love 12 and the Tactics series dearly, so Dalmasca as a whole holds great promise there, if it ever gets to be showcased outside of just an Alliance raid.
Hingashi also just has a shitton of potential. Warring feudal lords, yokai, hell any number of interesting plots could be pulled from Japanese history. Its a goldmine, and the history that the devs would be most familiar with-- It'd shock me if they wouldn't want to do something with that.
I'm still kind of salty that we didn't get to learn more about raens and other xaela tribes (the ones that live on the frozen mountains for example). I really wanted to see a clan of swordsman being mostly raen warriors and such
You know, it really pains me that we really do not get a story about the cutthroat politics of Hingashi. It literally promises itself to be a place where it is so vile you have to do everything discreetly because you do not know who you are pissing off or which secrets you are revealing and yet it is just a stop to Doma. I know the Warrior of Light can’t solve that issue but at the very least they can deal with a misadventure in Hingashi that shows how bad politics are in there.
btw we got a sneak peek at Tural in one of old dungeons - Gubal Library iirc. There was an interactive book telling about Mamool Ja and so on
Yeah, and blue mage quests also gave us some lore bits about the "New world".
The place I want to visit the most is corvo, G'raha's homeland. Also I can't wait to enter Hingashi proper, I mean more than the Rokko mountain. Myracidia, we have hear about it for so long, I hope we will set foot there soon. There's a minion in a shape of a pyramid which is said to be the mini version of some real architectural feature of the continent, can't wait to see that. But closer to the current story, I want to see the 9th reflexion beyond the building we are in, there should be a way out to see the world.
I always felt like Emet-Selch's speech was mostly there for the people out there who weren't as close to the lore who needed to be sold on why they should stay subscribed after the end of their ten-decade-long story. It's marketing. That said, while he mentioned some items I had been wondering about, there's so much out there I want to get to know more about, like Nagxia, Gelmorra, Hingashi proper, or going back in time to experience the War of the Magi. There's whole eras I'd love to see.
Don't think we'll be going to Meracydia soon. Feels like they wouldn't have back-to-back expansions of going to long-anticipated massive continents.
Jeez, this game's been going on for 100 years? (ten decades)
@@lhfirex Ha! I like that typo so much I will keep it!
It was explicitly put in after development, causing the expansion to be delayed by 2 weeks, to quash the misunderstanding that Endwalker was going to be the end of FF XIV. People kept taking "The end of the Hydaelyn/Zodiark saga", "the finale to a 10 year story" etc. as "the last update for FFXIV" no matter how many times Yoshi P told us he was not leaving the game behind
War of the Magi would be incredible. We got IX themed story in DT, and IV story in EW patches. Give me VI story! (Sigmascape doesn't count!)
@@talancorwell We actually know a fair bit about the war of the magi from the HW 24-man and the amdapor dungeons. It may share a name with the ff6 backstory, but it didn't seem to have much in common otherwise.
I still want to know more of Tural, I'm curious about the people further South and I want to finally see the Azure hills and the mages that Martyn told us so much about. After that, Meracydia is obviously alluring, though in my head Mount Rokkon was mistakenly thought to be the Blindfrost allusion, therefore I wonder what's there. Another aetherfont? Eh, too banal. A group akin to the Inuit? Or perhaps a group of proto Garleans who eschewed technology and conquest for tranquility, even in the cold
I would love to see more of Dalmasca, Hinganshi or Old Sharlayan. But at this point I take anything if it comes with a competent enough script and cast of characters.
Having said that, why go to other reflections when there is still to much for discover about Hydaelyn?
I'm not sure we'll see more of Dalmasca, considering Yasumi Matsuno isn't involved with XIV right now
Mericydia is probably what I want to learn more of most. Dragons, some of the races of Man, we know they have Roes and Hyurs at least, some plant-like folk, and some sort of dracotaur looking people, who may or may not be related to the dragon races. Of these, we also don't know what has occurred in...what, several thousand years? It's been at least 1500 since the 6th Calamity, and the last time Allag interacted was before the 3rd? Almost anything could have happened in the intervening time, save perhaps a dragon dying of old age.
It's also where Miqo'te were primarily indigenous to. There's a lot to learn from Meracydia about our catboys and catgirls
I have been excited about Meracydia since learning about the Warring Triad. Just the thought of Zurvan-like creatures as an allied society questline makes me wonder what we'll see! What about the tree-people that worship Sephirot, or even the hyurs that worship Sophia, how did/do they live there? I remember when I finished the ARR relic for the first time: Radz-at-Han oils. Once we reached Endwalker, I couldn't be happier. I hope the feeling remains the same on Meracydia, and they do a full expansion there!
I’m hoping those tree people are like the Guado from FFX.
I would love to hear some lore about the Warring Triad! Equilibrium is my favorite FFXIV song and there's plenty of lore from it alone. Coming from later in 14's life cycle, I would assume many of us haven't heard the details of the stories
I still want to know more about Aerslaent, the Roegadyn homeland
Amen to that!
Isn't the Bounty also the analogue of the Tempest from the First? Are there more ruins to be found there besides Alzadaal's Legacy? The Source ruins of Amaurot, perhaps? Also, we found a whole damn Reflection at the bottom of one big deep hole in the ground in Xak Tural, and that whole damn country is full of big deep holes in the ground.
Between the Golden Cities (plural) and "some of" the civilizations of the Reflections "surprising" us--he wasn't kidding--Alexandria and its Economy of Souls is certainly a surprise in the "horrifying" way. But he did say "some," so I'm almost certain that there are more civilizations and more Reflections in our future. He was the master of understatement when he said "surprise" if he even meant Alexandria--after all, Hades as the lifeguard of the Aetherial Sea would be noticing a Reflection whose Aetherial Sea was drying up, and I can't imagine him NOT freaking out about it. Tired or not, he's the only one who can still do the job...
But Meracydia, given its history and close relationship with dragons, is a HUGE question mark to us. And given that it's been a few expansions since Heavensward (and its dragon-focused storyline), it's about time for dragons to make a re-entry onto the world stage...
I actually had a discussion with my best friend about why Amaurot is on the First and not the Source. I would not be surprised to see some ruins on the bottom of the ocean on the Source.
The Tempest on the first corresponds to the deep sea near Limsa Lominsa. The bounty is on the other side of the world near thavnair
According to Sightseeing Logs, one structure in Azys Lla is a temple ripped right out of the ground from Meracydia to study the effects of faith on eikons/primals. Incredible levels of desecration aside, I'm looking forward to seeing if I can find a temple-sized crater somewhere in Meracydia, assuming eras of erosion and plant growth haven't buried it.
We thought Emet was giving us years of content. In the end it was 1 patch and an expansion. They dropped those hints and just couldn’t wait…
Bro just dropped like a 2ish year roadmap + a teaser or two lmaoo
Wherever we go next, I just hope we get more time in them. Feels like since Endwalker we don't get enough info on what these places are like save for a few quests.
The interesting thing is that there is a scene where Uriange mentions the dialect of the "current" language of the Mericydian people being different from the ones we encounter during the quests involving the Warring Triad. I feel like that suggests either Sharlayans have made contact with Mericydia or at least come into contact with Mericydians at some point of their history.
As famously neutral scholars and particularly those of the Path of the Twelve who have familiarity with gods and dragons, it would make sense that Urianger and Louisoix would have personal connections there.
I’m mostly interested in seeing the reflections. I’ve never been a fan of snow games and don’t care for dragons in general
But seeing how vastly different Alexandra was compared to our world was fascinating, especially learning what we already did. And what we do know filled me with many questions. Were they a failed rejoining since they overcame their calamity of lightning, were they a world instead still being primed to rejoin? What happened to Lindblum? Is the entire world dead due to Sphene’s manipulation of souls, or are there yet true living beings left on the world?
And there are still many things I’d love to see on the 13th… and even after that there’s still many more worlds to see
Nobody seems to be talking about the places OUTSIDE of the map. This is a globe so how far is it from Othard to the New World? What is in between those places off the edges of the map? Just like in our world, there is actually a LOT between the Americas and Asia, there could be a lot between Othard and the New World. It would be SUPER interesting if that turns out to be the homeland, of the Warrior of Light. I know it needs to be ambiguous for emersion purposes but the WOL is a HUGE mystery. We only know them (the ones post calamity) as some guy who just got off the boat to Eorzia. We know nothing of their homeland, family, or history. I also think that Meracydia is where we will find the magical city of Mysidia.
Overall from what I see in the comments. From Meracydia, The Blind Frost, The other Reflections, and not to mention that we haven't really explored all of Eorzea to the fullest yet. Since who knows what other hidden areas can there be added into The Source or beyond. This MMO has the potential to be even grander then it already is. Which to me. I don't care what comes next. It just means it gives me more reasons to explore the world that I love.
Honestly, I want a ff7 esque reflection, where we the WoL goes alone, no scions, no back up due to a freak accident. After their time in that reflection, they're able to return home only to find out 5 years has passed back at the source.
This will give the time skip the game needs and will allow the cast to get their glow up in terms of looks and appearanced.
While I like that idea for a timeskip, the issue is the disconnect between the story telling us we're trapped on a reflection, and being able to teleport wherever in gameplay. I suspect it's why we were able to travel freely to and from the First, while the Scions were trapped.
That means the twins would finally hit their growth spurt and I'm all in for that.
The wol would be so confused
Then perhaps they can use what they have learned in Living Memory and swap maps and models depending specific MSQ events. That is, you can go freely from the Source to any Shard, but time would also pass by, and you can have specific sidequests do stuff for specific cities to show that time has passed after specific MSQ stuff.
i love how "Meracydia" is just represented by a small group of pockmarked islands in the middle of the ocean lmao
also im not worried at all, the devs are known to take the story one expansion at a time instead of having a long term roadmap for it, they will have a vague goal in mind but nothing is finalized until they actually start working on the next expansion, and they sure as hell wont be worrying over the expansions after the next one until the next expansion comes out first. if you think that the Hydaelyn Zodiark story arc was planned from the start you'd be sorely mistaken, they had an end goal when they started with 1.0 but everything was only loosely planned, the fall of dalamud wasnt even originally part of that plan until much later but Yoshi-P basically didnt give Natsuko Ishikawa much of a choice.
the events of Shadowbringers and Endwalker could have theoretically happened much sooner, but it would leave massive plot holes that would have failed to explain why any nation outside of Eorzea would even help us, much less entrust their fate upon us. so it stands to reason that nothing is set in stone and you shouldnt expect it to be, there is a "grand plan" but that plan is very loosely conceptualized at this time as it should be.
Personally, my blood was boiling when Emet-Selch brought up the Southern Continent and Meracydia. We literally have known about Meracydia existing since ARR and we still haven't gone. I am BAFFLED that Meracydia has been almost entirely forgotten and there are a lot of people who want to keep going dimension hopping to other reflections. We haven't even explored our entire STAR, why do we keep doing things like go to other reflections or even to where Endwalker left off?! I, personally, want to finally go to the Southern Continent just because its STILL shrouded in fog on the map like Ilsabard and the Garlean Empire is...meaning we know almost nothing of that area of the world. All I remember of Meracydia, in fact, is that its a nation of dragons and that Tiamat and Bahamut were rulers there. Please, please, please, let us finish exploring our own world before we have more off-world adventures; I am on my knees, BEGGING!!!
We'll get there eventually.
Meracydia big field content
To be fair. We also knew about Thavnair since ARR as well and that took almost a decade to finally visit
But speaking for myself, since I’m one of those ones who’d rather go shard hopping… I just don’t like dragons 🤷🏻♂️
I feel like it's coming next expansion or the one after.
I feel like it would get boring to do 2-3 more expansions on our star, then 2-3 expansions shard-hopping. May as well mix it up a bit
I'm kind of annoyed that they followed up on all of Emet's hints so quickly. That's a lot of content I feel we just blasted through that could have been spread out a bit more evenly. :/
I feel ya, on the other hand so much of it is simply logical. The Twelve, New World and Meracydia as well as the Reflections were on the bucketlist even without Yoshida possessing Hades for a brief moment.
@@Rewwgh oh, absolutely. The Twelve make sense as a final bow on the Zodiark and Hydaelyn arc, and Tural being a whole expansion is cool.
We'll see how the rest pans out though. Can't wait to see.
Agreed, we’re not even into the patches and already about half of Emets hunts are already done. And odds are we’re probably gonna head to the Northern islands for the patches, either as a criterion dungeon or in the MSQ.
Which is a shame, because they could have spread all of those out across a few expansions pretty easily. But instead it’s all being pushed to the side for shard travelling
Certainly possible that there could be another city of gold, but he does specifically say "fabled cities of gold", referencing the fable and not factually what is there.
I was very hyped about the New World before Dawntrail, needless to say that is no longer the case. I only hope they do Meracydia justice where they have failed with Tural.
I just want to forget the entire experience.
They need to fire the current writers and get back our old shb/ew writer
@@IaconDawnshire Shb/EW writer is senior story designer of DT, she was also the same senior story designer in EW/ShB/ST 3.4, 3.5 and so I do not understand how the writers should get fired for it. In the end they all approved it, and Yoshida knew it'd be a flop but pushed the green button - I personally understand what is happening and why, the question in the matter is only answered as we go along the story and I have a feeling all the negativity has woken them up from taking it all for granted, and improvise as they go. I think we should give everyone a fair chance. Nobody can rise and grow and become better for getting fired for failing once - even if they succeeded before.
@@yabiyabi DT was the culmination of warning signs apparent since patch 6.1, and I no longer have faith Yoshida even knows what his audience wants. At best, we might suppose that CBU3 became held hostage to bad ideas that subversive voices insisted would be popular.
There were good and bad things about Dawntrail. I’m disappointed we won’t see Gulool Ja Ja anymore, I enjoyed his character. Some others could fade into the background and I won’t complain, but I did like a lot of the map designs and some of the themes throughout the expansion.
We went through that list so fast it's insane...
Meracydia's gonna be an expansion while the blindefrost will be either patch or side series/exploratory
The treasured islands would make another good variant dungeon maybe, we just need our guide NPC - a certain blue-eyed sailor we met springs to mind, renowned for his travels to difficult to reach places.
I would love for us to finish off the Source's locations before we go Shard Hopping. Like, we do the Tural/Alexandrian reflection stuff this expac, and then next is Mericydia and places like Naxgia, Hingashi, Gelmorra, etc. Make the Mericydia plot a mixed plot, where yes, we are helping Tiamat bring a sense of stability, but an underlying theme is that we go there because the Knickknacks of Azem are dangled before us by Tiamat. That she feels they are connected to us, and wants us to have them, collect them, but that they are spread throughout the world, and she will help us, if we help her. And that leads into the next expansion, which starts our Shard Hopping proper. Starts with the pre-expac quest where after collecting the Knickknacks, 'Shtola can finally make stable rift gates between Reflections... but on her end, only ones that she has been before. She teaches us how to do the same, but we flub it up (cause comedy insertion..) and suddenly we are on another Reflection. One that is peaceful, but provides huge amounts of adventure. We don't get involved in politics until later. I honestly would love it to be 1.0 starter questing style... where you are just a nameless adventurer, making your name, and get scouted by that Reflection's version of the -Avengers- -Super Friends- Scions. Have them all genderbent, or personality switched, something to spice it up. Have it be proper medieval fantasy, or make it a true magitek society that we end up in.
Sadly, I kinda feel I know the direction they are building towards for the Reflection stuff, and that is Dimensional Overlay, which might as well just be called Rejoining 2, Electrope Boogaloo.
As many have said, there's Hingashi, the actual* FFXIV Japan, which we've just touched on. There's also a massive area of territories, including Dalmasca, that's still shrouded in clouds underneath and surrounding Garlemald that we've just gone to specific areas of. The thing is though, is as much as I'd love an expansion about it they're areas that could just as easily be explored with specific instances and I feel like that's probably all we're going to get.
Myricidia is obviously a major location though, and one that they've hinted at for years. It's really one of the largest, if not the largest major territory left on Etherys as we know it. They could always add an entire landmass not on the current map.
I think the way the story is heading though definitely leads to world hopping however. I believe we're, as a collective that is "Azem" going to regain the former's ability to traverse worlds at will. I believe this will also be where the new storyline generally heads. Like, we've gotten a taste of a "faction" from another reflection gaining the ability to enter a new world en-masse...and using it instantly for conquest. Whose to say another couldn't too? Perfect motivation, other than adventure, for us to reflection hop.
It's not just reflections too we could possibly travel too, both that annoying new Circus stage as well as history around the time of the War of the Magi suggests the possibility of pocket dimensions or entirely new worlds outside the realm of the standard reflections may be a possibility and we know they like to take things in unexpected directions.
Personally I took "cities of gold" plural to mean the myths and legends of the city. I kinda hope we don't see more cause idk it'd kinda dampen the big impact of what the golden city really is, to me anyway.
The New World and Meracydia have been my top two locations I've been wanting to see since Stormblood honestly.
It's nice we got N
The New World, AKA Tural has finally been seen and ventured, and though I know we got more to venture through it, I've just gotten more and more curious and antsy about Meracydia. Need to know as much as possible about the land it sounds beyond cool
Something I felt Yoshi P tried to comment on during his interviews leading into Dawntrail is ultimately I don't think he's looking for this game to continue on forever. It sounds weird for an MMO to have an "end point" but I think its a trend more games really should strive for.
If this new arc starting in dawntrail runs as long as the Previous ARR - Endwalker, we're looking at around 24 years of this game running, and if they provide us a really captivating and fun experience for that time, I think that's honestly incredible, and if they decided to make this arc's endwalker the final piece of major content for the game, I think that's totally fair, end on a high note, end with a meaningful conclusion to the story that everyone will remember fondly.
I'd much rather that then seeing them constantly trying to justify why a new threat has come along, constantly scaling us up further and further, making things we did previously feel less impactful as a new threat needs to pop up to take its place, and stretching out the world. Like, look at WoW where its been a meme about how the map, even in the titan facilities, people who made the world are just highly inaccurate because the dev's just need to slap a new landmass down to expand out the world and justify further adventure.
I know its a point of friction between the creative vision of the devs, and the business side, the potential lost income of keeping the game running as long as possible, but I truly feel there's so many examples of trying to bring series back, or trying to prolong the life of a franchise only builds resentment towards it, but when we look back at older titles, we can appreciate our time with it, even if it had to come to an end eventually.
I still want to visit the rest of Koshu and Ilsabard personally.
The hints about the future of THIS world are running out but remember there are other reflections, and much like Zero's reflection they too have stories to be told and damage that needs be repaired honestly my theory is that the game as a whole will not end until all 13 reflections are repaired and OUR character the warrior of light becomes whole. As we all well know all people are a 1 of 13 shards of an ancient OUR character being a shard of Azem so far we have merged with one other shard if Azem that being Ardbert so currently we are 2/13 shards my theory is eventually as we repair all the broken reflections we will merge with our other shards and become whole and the LAST Ancient taking up the persona Elidibus claimed as "Mankind's first hero and his final hope." Which we all now know from endwalker he learned that from us having helped and saved him in the past and he is emulating us. Also we as the last Ancient will also take up the station Hydaelyn previously held spurring on new future heroes new Warriors of Light. Thus becoming the one who sets the future protectors of each star of the 13 reflections AND becoming the standard in which these future Warriors will hold themselves to. THAT is my theory of how FF14 will end and WE HAVE LONG ROAD till then so people stop worrying and click bait content creators stop acting like "it's Joeover for ff14."
Unfortunately, I think the Golden Cit*ies* of Tural may be a retcon so as to not complicate the other reflections. Unless there are different, more literal, cities of gold rather than electrope-gilded (which may be explored in side content), it's highly unlikely that similar materials and gates appeared from other reflections, espcially concentrated in Tural.
I missed the fact that the Warring Triad were from the war with Meracydia. I would love to hear more about them! And as for the "some of the civilizations on the Reflections may surprise you", I think we've had one surprise of that type already!
I'm personally really excited for the reflections but I feel like exploring blue magic in the new world and learning about how beast mastery fits into everything is a more pressing interest right now. while the additional areas mentioned on our star intrigues me I feel some of them may be explored in smaller, patch content rather then fully fleshing out the story around those locales so i feel the need to temper my expectations until something more is confirmed. Meracydia is the most promising well for more content and exploration on our star I feel but at the same time we have been waiting years for anything on that so more wait wont bother me on that front if it means we get more context and info when we do explore it.
When I think of Blindfrost, (or whatever it's called) I think of an area perhaps where the ice calamity started. And as a result maybe has bits and pieces of that shard imbedded in it. Just a theory of mine, that when shards are rejoined pieces of them quite literally smack into the source in some fashion. Like deep underwater somewhere could be the remnants of the shard that caused the calamity of water.
And from that, could be a cause of concern perhaps? Maybe left over treasures from that shard that could bring about major issues for the source. Like an artefact that caused the calamity or some such.
A thought about the reflections. The Source has basically had it's entire development reset every time there's a Calamity. It's a continual cycle of rise and fall, development and backslide, but the reflections don't have that. They don't experience any Calamities, so their civilizations could be far more ancient and developed than our own. We saw how advanced Alexandria had become, and we don't really know what the rest of that reflection is like. Did the Storm Surge wipe out everyone else as well, or did other civilizations and kingdoms also adapt and develop in new and interesting ways?
I do have a theory that Hades was essentially giving the Warrior of Light the locations of the ruins under the Bounty, and the Golden City of the New World, because they were the locations of world ending or at the very least calamity triggering events. And his bidding us to "seek discovery" was his way of saying telling us to prevent upcoming disasters.
Maybe Blindfrost is a renmant of an ascian city? It is yet to be seen if there are other renmants of their civilization on the source, I may be wrong, but i think the only pre-sunder location remains we have discovered in the source is Elpis (Azys Lla). With Tender valley we now know there could be other remnants of pre-sundering civilizations.
Azys Lla is not Elpis, it was created by the Allagans.
@@MyVanir I always felt that since the modern day pandemonium on the aethereal sea was a portion of Azys Lla kinda implied it could be the same, both Azys Lla and elpis/pandemonium had pretty much the same role of developing and containing experimental life forms, otherwise there is no reason as to why the mind controled Claudien went straight to the Aetherochemical research facility to teleport a portion of it in the Aethereal sea. Maybe I am reading too much into it lol
@@marilynmonstermaniac We know that Azys Lla was built from scratch by the Allagans. They told us in msq that the soil was taken from what became The Burn.
not only there's surviving reflections, there's also other dimensions as well, like how the past collab events does. Now that one of those collabs becoming another permanent addition to 14's, in this case the upcoming 24-man 11's, whether it would actually treated as dimensional connections (since we do have prime examples of monster hunter trials & Nier automata's 24man raid, also Greg's), or one of either its reflection versions or the alternate lands like how ivalice got implemented.
Aside from the one in the dungeon, have any additional hidden Azem symbols been found at the locations he listed?
After hearing about Meracydia all this time I just want to go there so bad! I really thought 7.0 was going to be in Meracydia this whole time since its a place that gets name dropped a lot but we got Tural. I think Tural was still cool to explore and to learn about but MAN give me that Meracydia! Thought there's a part of me that could see Meracydia being the last area we explore in FFXIV's plot as a whole due to how much it gets talked up and how unstable the continent is. Either way I can't really think of anywhere else to explore. I bet there will be more places and shards to check out but I'm curious how much the FFXIV writers have left to use. Cause at this rate maybe they are running out of places. IDK but I'm excited to see wherever they take us next.
I hope the shards let us explore other genres, though we've gone everywhere we have yet to see anything really gothic in the MSQ, I want vampires and werewolves. To that you might for some reason argue that we have the Haukke manor, well I retort with... really? a single one and done dungeon that has like... mostly bats and skeletons and fucking mushrooms as enemies, and the usual voidsent?
Bro give me vampire hunters and werewolves and spikey brick buildings and I'm set. I want some undead!
It's worth noting that Hades also brings up that you know little of even Eorzea. It somewhat gives me hope that underutilized places like Gridania and Gelmorra will get at least a little more spotlight.
Just listening to Hades makes me tear up and bawl my eyes out… I can’t put properly into words how much I miss Emet-Selch. I love him so damn much. Probably a very unhealthy amount. No one can beat his character and presence for me. What I wouldn’t give to see him again. Even if it is just in the past again as part of a quest. Gods I miss him so much T-T
For now, all I really hope for, is more Ancient Lore. I need MORE!! it’s my favourite part of the game qwq
Same. That voice. That speech. It gets me because it was almost like he was saying it to try to console us for leaving us behind.
Seeing him again in the past would make me probably even sadder. Like it's the past, he's already dead. I wish at least he wasn't entirely gone, maybe chilling at the aetherial sea or something and enjoying himself with Hytholdaeus😢
@@eggo5559 i know. I would probably feel the same. I'm just grabbing anything I can get at this point, even if it makes me sob xD I just crave Emet as well as the
chance to see and visit an Amaurot back as it was bustling and alive.
From what I've gathered, the next expansion will be one of them, with us finally going to Meracydia.
But his hints were only the tip of the iceburg with some suggestions with where to start.
Yoshi-P did mention the next expansion we would be going somewhere cold.
Source or no he didnt
If the pattern of patch MSQ turning into an expac holds, I fully expect Meracydia to be next to pay off Shadowbringers' patch MSQ. My headcanon is that for the rest of the planet that we have yet to explore we get a request to go there via Krile and the Students of Baldesion since their remit is examining odd phenomenon, and that all of these phenomenon end up connecting to the remaining shards somehow (maybe even deliberately on our part to face a new threat). Yoshi-P has also hinted at the war between Hingashi's factions in interviews, so while there is eventually a possibility of us entering that conflict eventually which would lead us to Blindfrost, it's always better to take that with a grain of salt until more is officially revealed.
I also suspect we aren't done with the South Sea Isles just yet. We may have explored Aloalo in the V&C dungeon but now with The Key and the story of the Milala from Dawntrail, we may be off to find the original site of that tribe to find out more about The Keeper and how The Key works. For all we know Krile may be a direct descendant of this Keeper, making her the closest link we have. It's kinda ironic that the direct offshoots of the South Sea Lalafell end up creating not only a variant of arcanima in Scholar but also a variant of elemental manipulation in Black Magic given that electrope is essentially a marriage between the two, AND that the War of the Magi they were involved in was the source of the aetheric imbalance that the Ascians used to cause the Calamity that the Milala fled from into Alexandria's shard with The Key.
I want to see the rest of the middle continent, the Sharlayan overworld, more of FF America's (the roads out of Urko Patcha and where the railroad goes in particular). And of course I want to visit FF Australia and the other shards.
Maybe we can finish, uh..., "the middle continent" with more explanatory content.
We should probably hold off on going to Australia for a time though, since we *just* got to Murica.
Azem traveled not only through space but time. When Azem was absent, I'll bet they went forward in time to give one his relics to the Milala., and how to use the relic was lost. It makes you wonder just how powerful the seat of Azem was, Venat sundered a world, the next Azem had Emet-Selch at their beck and call not only in life, but in death. We have 6 Ancients + Azem left, should be some interesting story playing out.
I feel like all his speech was there for was to talk about the things we are going to do in the next few patches, and the next expansion. Not lay out all that there is left to do.
He did say 'to see AT LEAST that much'
I just hope that wherever we go has proper buildup. Ala Mhigo had both ARR and HW hyping it up. Sharlayan and Garlemald had TWICE THAT MUCH. Tural made sense as a place to visit since we had a small amount of info from the blue mage quests, but it still came off as very rushed and forced. We should be doing much more exploring and rumormongering at this stage: Get to know these lands before getting to them.
And speaking of Blindfrost.. What if there will be some more history about 5th(?) Umbral Calamity, that covered all planet into ice? Like, we learned about a Lalafell who wished to get somewhere where there is no ice or snow and the relic he held opened a gate to Alexandria. Maybe there, in Blindfrost, we will learn more about this relic origin
This is the first video of your's that I have seen. IF you have already covered this, go ahead and ignore.
Do you think we can heal the lightening sickness the boy we met in Solution 9 had using the Tempering removing pigs? I forget what they were called.
Meracydia will likely be an expansion while I think the treasure Isles will be either a post expansion storyline or new variant dungeons.
Yea, the issue people are experiencing in Solution 9 seem like it should be easy enough to "adjust" with porxies.
The fact that we still have so damn little information about Meracydia after all this time save who's come from there and what happened to the dragons there by Allag's hand, is incredible to me
How much longer is it gonna be
It's THE southern continent, it's Australia and Antarctica in one
My question is about something you havent mentioned that was only teased towards the end of Dawntrail....The South Sea Isles.
Where are they located in relation to Merycidia? We've also visited Mach briefly, and I question where the lalafels of Nym landed where they received the artifact that brought about the Green Death. The seeds planted at the end of Dawntrail seem to be leading us to the South Sea Isles to research how the Milala lived, and who or what used the key to lead the people to Alexandria to escape the Calamity of Ice.
One last thing I will posit. They refer to the one that saved the Milala and opened the gate as "Speaker". Is it a coincidence that the title of Lahabrea was also referred to as "Speaker" of the Convocation? (Hence why his followers were called the "Words of Lahabrea") Food for thought.
I just wanna know what orchestrion roll is the background music and how to get it. I know its from the watchers palace but haven't found it.
I believe it is 'Neath Dark Waters (Scions & Sinners). It comes with purchase of the Scions & Sinners album
I know we just got here, and Dawntrail's MSQ is quite disliked in general at the moment, but Tural has left kind of an empty hole in my adventurer's spirit.
It's been very unsatisfying so far, and is diminishing my interest in potential future reveals.
Very excited to travel to Meracydia. Really thought that's where we would be going after EW, right up until the first teaser trailer. Also really excited to go on to another of the reflections.
I want to go back to the 13th and see what progress our experiment has had. I wonder if it would be possible to link every reflection to the Source, not in a Rejoining, but in a Rebalancing.
Blindfrost.... could be a data repository for events that happened in the unsundered world to explain how they came to wield such powers or maybe even a living museum that has recorded everything since the sundering in pure silence.
Could also be a portal to a reflection set upon by an ice calamity much like a more recent lightning based one seeping into this world.
"Golden cities" is clearly just the devs not knowing what Dawntrail was gonna be while writing Endwalker
I think the pluralism of golden city translation might be a missed typo
The JP script only mentioned眩き黄金京 (Mabayuki Ogon Kyo) which directly translated to Dazzling Golden City
Between Blindfrost and Meracydia, I think that the latter easily has an entire expansion's worth in it. Whereas Blindfrost sounds more like a post story or even Cryterion location. Except. There is one other location in the far north that we might visit eventually: Aerslaent. The ancestral home of the Roegadyn. Officially, it's in the Northern Empty, on the opposite side of Blindfrost in relation to Orthard. Further still than Old Sharlayan and the isle of Haam where we have the dungeon known as The Aetherfont. But go far enough north and that distance is shorter than one might think. Never mind that Roegadyn havebeen seen as far south as Meracydia. So there really is no reason why Blindfrost can't lead us to Aerslaent. To top it all off: Our favourite people of pirates has been in that business since forever, even in their ancestral home. And what was that about treasure being hidden in a location you need to know the way to? Meaning that Hades might have given us a tiny bit of a red herring by only mentioning Blindfrost. Mind you, Blindfrost might still be an appetiser the way Alolola was. But I do think that both locations can give us an entire expansion each.
As the self-proclaimed Princess of Allag, I am most excited for visiting Meracydia, although I won't say no to a Blindfrost adventure. Who knows what kind of mysteries are awaiting us there?
Blindfrost might be a dungeon or trial setting. I assume Meracydia will be a part of the next expansion. We've already seen a part of another reflection with Alexandria. And they can insert them going forward in small and large part as they wish.
I like to think Blindfrost was the original homeland of the Viera before the Age of Endless Frost. After the calamity, they went different directions to become the Viera we see in Othard and the Shetona we see in Tural.
I don't think it's a bad thing that we're almost done with Emet's list. So long as the devs setup for further story in those plot points Emet mentioned then it's fine. The Twelve setup there big contraption thing to take their place, no doubt it will have a purpose later. Claudien has the Heart of Sabik, Tural gave us the Azem cup key thing, Meracydia can be it's own whole expansion which will definitely set more things up, we still have the eventual rebalancing of the First and Thirteenth, and probably more other stuff from side quests I didn't even do. So yeah, even if Emet's little to-do list is almost over we still have so many more places we can go.
Also the whole "Some of the civilizations in the reflections will surprise you" line is so vague that even if Alexandria was one of those civilizations, there's still like 3-5 more Reflections full of civilizations to go through.
Imo it's a good thing for us to go beyond Hades' hints. The ancients have already dictated enough of what we've done, the story has to move forward without constantly looking back.
I'm a simple man. I hear "Emet-Selch," I click.
I honestly am intrigued to go to Mercyadia because it has been widely tease somewhat in the game yet we know next to little to nothing about it other than Emet selch's hint and tiamat as for the reflections I would just say we will have to wait and see
i think in the water is maybe ultimas resting place hidden deep within blind frost. just would be maybe wierd thinking like this since we "did fight ultima" but at the same time maybe ultima finaly could rejoin itself with the other parts of it. and i refer the ultima from the lvl rabanastre raid.
Presumably, the other shards have their own "new worlds," any and all of which may have golden cities on them...
There's still much more of Ilsabard to see, but I've wanted to go to Meracydia for a long time now.
I haven't done Baldesion Arsenal, so I don't know if that addresses the disappearance of the Island of Val. But after Dawntrail I'm wondering if it was a place that was relocated via the artifact/key that the Alexandrians used? Seems like it'd be worth checking out.
Ever since doing Coils I've really wanted to see Meracydia, too.
He also directed us to visit Aloalo island.
As a fan of xii and tactics, is a easy answer Merecida, plus the fact that we have now one of the second brood as ally , "free" Tiamat, and has Mid as friends, is not hard come up with something that united, the sions, the dragons, the people of the flying circus, and maybe Maximos and Julios to create some form of alliance with then, add some trial elements, and we have a exp!
Even new jobs, with xii and tatics as a frame kit, Jobs is not in short options s2
I’d love to see more content with Hingashi proper, since we’ve only really seen Kugane and some of its affairs. Of course I doubt we’ll be seeing that for multiple years, but I can only do one thing
Wait and Hope
If I had to guess, we're probably not totally done with the places we've visited thus far. For example, ever since watching your video on the Black Shroud and the Elementals, I've had this conspiracy theory that we've barely even scratched the surface of Gelmorra. I think there's something hiding down there...many somethings. An entire expansion worth of somethings, if you're catching my drift.
I love that music in the intro
I'm thinking Othard's north is going to be tied to us aiding Hingashi. We still have to help Hingashi(and explore it, that's an entire island/area we have not been, it's this world's Japan) and Othard is nearby, I'm guessing it's going to tie somehow. Since yoshi p mentioned the next expac is going to be "winter themed" it makes sense that we're going to go to Othard's north? At least in my head.
Help with what?
Before doing any more exploration, I want us to wrap up the dimensional travel issue and go back to the first
If anything with future content besides these two last things Emet himself mentioned, I half expect them to inevitably do a big FF7-related raid or such (because Square Enix and milking FF7 to the bone go together like PB&J) as well. And since most other FF titles either got raids or entire MSQ portions dedicated to them or their final boss (or reference them if we're talking FF8), we all know it's a matter of not if but when Sephiroth's mega long sword-ahhhh self shows up inevitably.
Mericydia for sure is my top choice, but I do hope that Eorzea itself will have a surprise or two waiting for us.
I've been impatient to see Meracydia ever since Emet Selch mentioned it. I'm not even sure why! BUT I WANT TO GO