It isn't "throw shit into the cloud and be good" - they are literally having issues where they do not have enough hardware to handle people logging in, and it's causing all the queue issues like timeouts/etc. If they put this into either GCP, AWS, or Azure, they could scale it as needs dictate (or have multiple instances) vs. going "well we have 21000 slots open and that's as much as we can physically handle."
I work in site reliability at a SaaS company. I'm fully aware of what they could be doing and how it could be utilized. If they are able to just stack their demo servers into prod, that means the code is to some degree scalable. Which translates directly to a cloud provider with on demand instance generation would help tremendously with the queue issues.
And to be clear, I'm not talking about running the game out of the cloud; I'm just talking about their current queuing system. That could 100% be handled in a full cloud environment and then have it pass people into the physical datacenter.
It isn't "throw shit into the cloud and be good" - they are literally having issues where they do not have enough hardware to handle people logging in, and it's causing all the queue issues like timeouts/etc. If they put this into either GCP, AWS, or Azure, they could scale it as needs dictate (or have multiple instances) vs. going "well we have 21000 slots open and that's as much as we can physically handle."
I work in site reliability at a SaaS company. I'm fully aware of what they could be doing and how it could be utilized. If they are able to just stack their demo servers into prod, that means the code is to some degree scalable. Which translates directly to a cloud provider with on demand instance generation would help tremendously with the queue issues.
And to be clear, I'm not talking about running the game out of the cloud; I'm just talking about their current queuing system. That could 100% be handled in a full cloud environment and then have it pass people into the physical datacenter.
No idea; I never got onto the classic wow bandwagon that people thought was good. Wrath > * for WoW. But I imagine so since they have hour+ queues for normal servers around xpac launches as well.
YoshiP has been pretty transparent in the fact that their login servers are logical datacenter specific, and their limitations. What I'm saying is that if it's a lack of physical hardware and not a login application specific issues (ie, they were able to stack their demo servers into their prod login environment, to increase the queue cap to 21000 from 17000) then it stands to reason that they could handle this with expandable cloud resources to at least negate a lot of the people getting kicked out of the queue issues. The queue itself? Yeah, expect it to stay the same as I'm not saying they should spin up EC2s to replicate world servers where people are actually playing, but the login server application from their own admission is scalable and they are simply lacking hardware to do so.
No idea; I never got onto the classic wow bandwagon that people thought was good. Wrath > * for WoW. But I imagine so since they have hour+ queues for normal servers around xpac launches as well.
YoshiP has been pretty transparent in the fact that their login servers are logical datacenter specific, and their limitations. What I'm saying is that if it's a lack of physical hardware and not a login application specific issues (ie, they were able to stack their demo servers into their prod login environment, to increase the queue cap to 21000 from 17000) then it stands to reason that they could handle this with expandable cloud resources to at least negate a lot of the people getting kicked out of the queue issues. The queue itself? Yeah, expect it to stay the same as I'm not saying they should spin up EC2s to replicate world servers where people are actually playing, but the login server application from their own admission is scalable and they are simply lacking hardware to do so.
Oh yeah, you meant to fix the errors and shit, yeah I guess that'd be a possibility although no idea if it'd really be easy for them to switch all the login servers to the cloud. But you'd still have a bunch of queues until they add more actual servers and that's really a large part of the discontentment. It'd only fix one of the issue, the other day I went through a 2500queue and while I didn't get any error it still took 2.5 hours to get in and there's not much to be done about that.
Was a great ride, definitely didn't expect some of the story line points we went through such as Elpis, but was a great story overall, but I'm a sucker for character driven stuff like this. Kinda hoping Meteion ends up journeying with us, I feel like the Dynamis concept isn't something they will just throw out there then forget about and having an empath party member would allow for some interesting group character dynamics that we haven't had much of yet. I get the feeling that the core group going forward will be the WoL, twins and G'raha. Gives you a guaranteed tank, healer, and DPS for Trust dungeons and other characters and any new characters can fit in from there.
Gotta admit, I did get a kick out of Zenos flying to the end of the universe just because he wants his fightand is like "What, you haven't won already? Come on, this should be cake for you. Lets get this done and get to the real action ! "
Yeah the queue itself is just a thing until they can spin up more datacenters. I'm actually curious if they even have the rackspace available (the post referenced earlier in the thread where it is roughly ~20 servers to build a world) - depending on if they are using modular blade chassis or just stacks of racks can be a huge factor as well. I want to say prior to this big burst of players in the last 6m, the population has been largely predictable. They likely thought they were basically as big as they were going to get, so I can't imagine they just had a bunch of empty racks chilling in their cages, especially after they moved the NA region to Sacramento. Just getting the space alone could take months depending on what colo they are running out of, let alone getting people in there to install the gear itself.
I know they have an oceanic datacenter lined up for like February, but that is a long ways away and people are just going to continue to be pissed until it takes whatever percentage of the playerbase out of the NA/EU queues. Sad times.
I put some time in on the first trial extreme today. Any tips for finding the safe spot when the snakes are in play? That seems to be the last mechanic that I can’t quite figure out fast enough. Maybe the snakes are visible earlier than when I’m looking for them, I dunno.
Spent 3 or so hours trying to get a clear this afternoon. Got a single 1% enrage wipe but couldn’t finish. Frustrating, for sure.
I know they have an oceanic datacenter lined up for like February, but that is a long ways away and people are just going to continue to be pissed until it takes whatever percentage of the playerbase out of the NA/EU queues. Sad times.
I do wonder if that will even make a big dent. I presume the majority of Oceanic is split between JP and NA. Isn't Tonberry pretty much the unofficial Oceanic server?
I put some time in on the first trial extreme today. Any tips for finding the safe spot when the snakes are in play? That seems to be the last mechanic that I can’t quite figure out fast enough. Maybe the snakes are visible earlier than when I’m looking for them, I dunno.
Spent 3 or so hours trying to get a clear this afternoon. Got a single 1% enrage wipe but couldn’t finish. Frustrating, for sure.
As far as I could tell with my limited experience, the snakes just like normal only spawn in set opposite patterns. If a snake is against the wall, the other one is not against the opposite wall, and vice versa. This means you don't have to necessarily look at both snakes, only one. I like watching the one that's against a wall, then seeing where that ends up when rotated, since it'll also be against the wall. If I'm on the opposite side of the wall snake, then I just invert the results. So say I'm on front right side(kinda have to pick right or left based on firewall and rotation, can go to the back but that sucks for uptime so better stick to front) and snakes are behind, and the arrows are going clockwise(right). If the snake is on the right wall, then against the wall in front is safe. If the snake is off the right wall, then away from the wall is safe. That said I didn't do enough pulls to know for sure it works like that, I just know it works like that in normal so I applied the same logic and it seemed to line up with where we were stacking.
Alternatively you just stack wherever everyone is, either someone was smart and picked the right spot, or everyone eats a vuln, which isn't deadly anyway, as long as the person doesn't keep fucking up. Only need one person who knows what to do to resolve these really easily, but even if you don't as long as you don't fuck up the other mechanics, your vuln stack drops before the next rotating room I think(at least the snake ones, they do the donut ones and shit but these are easy as fuck imo)
I got lucky with that one, joined an enrage party on first try because it looked really braindead, and killed it on 2nd pull(first was 4% enrage so wasn't even that far off). Fucked up a few of the mechanics but a lot of it is just very similar to the normal mode, which is pretty simple imo. Only downside is the guide I've watched didn't mention the tank swap, so I assume the other tank was really fucking angry at me after the first buster lol. I figured it out after he died on seemingly nothing though.
Oceanic was intended to be open at launch, but even in the summer they knew they were unable to get it up in running in time and just set the goal to "6.1, hopefully"
As for expanding the current data centers, I want to say they discussed Cloud (yoshi P actually reads chats during live letters so he explained during them why a lot of every solution was not possible for them), decided against it, offered above market value for the servers they needed, were told to get in line with everyone else offering above market value, etc.
Not login specific, but I know one of the reasons they were worried about cloud was security. They were wary of putting their code on any thing they did not own.
Not login specific, but I know one of the reasons they were worried about cloud was security. They were wary of putting their code on any thing they did not own.
Holy crap what an experience this expansion has been. I wondered how they would do after shadowbringers success, story-wise, but man this was above and beyond that experience.
LOL, I feel like I have to decompress since I just finished.
What I'm saying is that if it's a lack of physical hardware and not a login application specific issues (ie, they were able to stack their demo servers into their prod login environment, to increase the queue cap to 21000 from 17000) then it stands to reason that they could handle this with expandable cloud resources to at least negate a lot of the people getting kicked out of the queue issues.
Depends how they structured their servers. If the login servers double as protocol servers, like an application level firewall leading into the DMZ where the zone/instance servers are, then they would really need the login servers to be in the data center.
This is most likely the case because they spun up the test server for additional login capacity.
Depends how they structured their servers. If the login servers double as protocol servers, like an application level firewall leading into the DMZ where the zone/instance servers are, then they would really need the login servers to be in the data center.
This is most likely the case because they spun up the test server for additional login capacity.
Yeah; if it's how they have defined their ingress and is entirely DC based? Dunno if they can scale out (I mean, you can set up aws dx links per cage and run ipsec through them, then host a firewall like paloalto and direct traffic that way... but that's not a day one fix, that's a couple of weeks at a minimum) but I was mostly just responding to the idea that "throwing things into the cloud" solves them; until SE gets hardware on the ground, it would be a reasonable stopgap, but yeah it depends on exactly how their login servers are orchestrated.
After sleeping on it, I REALLY enjoyed this story, sure there were some McGuffins but setting those aside, the story was very well written and reasonably well executed. I think the team took some liberties when it came to exposition but when I consider their audience, it makes sense.
I wanna claim that, before playing the game and during I was theory-crafting the story and direction before it was happening. I am kinda laughing that I was correct on a good many things.
The music, dear god the music was amazing...in MOST places....There were a couple times where I was cringing, "The zone music changed, I really hope it isn't forever because this high pace / fast beat music is TERRIBLE for this location." Overall the scoring team did an extremely amazing job, 95% of the time the music enhances the scenes dramatically.
I play with japanese audio, I really hold the belief that if you experience something, you do it in the medium that the creator of that thing originally intended. The Japanese voices would be the closest version to "The Directors Cut" that I have. Kinda like watching "Dubbed" programming of any kind, you lose an aspect of the emotion a person or character feels because of the translation and acting choice. I feel like the actors did an amazing job, you really felt the emotion in the voices for all the scenes that were voiced.
Couple things:
I am really intrigued by a couple things, the biblical and Greek mentions throughout the expansion.
Also the commentary of "Humanity", the ascians refer to themselves as "Humanity" and then, I believe, our planets life forms are too referred to as "Humanity".
Finally, "Star" doesn't just mean OUR STAR, it is synonymous with "This Reality".
I mean this was really the "Setting the scene" chapter, it's long and, possibly, long winded. I can understand how people found this part boring but I don't agree.
You had an amazing scene with the 2 sisters dying in the snow because their people have been killed and killing the rest of the planet for generations, to the point that they would rather die than risk whatever they have left to place faith on "Hope". Which goes into the heart of the whole story. Many people from this chapter sought death over life and the point of illustrating that was really well done.
Then came one of the best off-segments I've experienced in this game, the forced possession of the soldier and the struggle around it. After all the previous content showing how everyone else was seeking death, you were fighting against it even to the point of dragging your broken host away from an explosion on his belly.
We end this chapter with the heroes party falling into a half-despair with the twins rethinking everything about their approach to saving people but still pushing on and into the Tower of Babel.
Immediately after this we are pushed onto the killing of Zodiark and the visions that follow.
Ultimately at this point, the player knows how fucked things are about to become, the thoughts about the party being already stretched thin over the impact of Garlemald, the reluctance of the people to accept help and aide and then combined with a sudden insanity of their hero being corrupted. The pacing, at this point, needs some levity of SOME kind.
---
Moon bunnies, I honestly thought this was a great break from the down-turn that happened prior plus a reprieve prior to the shit-storm you were about to experience. I don't know if the LENGTH of the detour was intended or not but I feel like their goal was to make it ultra sappy and ultra "Cringe" in a way. Such that you, the player / hero are taken to a stance of "This is "A" way but not "THE" way." as the thoughts of other realities that will cease to exist if you do use the moon for what it is are presented to you. I loved the music here though, everything was throw back, a little sappy but the point was to add levity so..
---
Honestly this was some of the most disturbing content outside of the Vauthry content I remember experiencing in FFXIV. The effect of the lull was well taken because i knew some fucked shit was gunna happen. I appreciate that the creators didn't just do something neutral for the lull because it wouldn't have raised your mentality prior to this part if it had just been some eureka moment where "We use the moon!" by the forum.
The lead up, seeing fresh characters that we spent so much time with during the Garlemald series about to succumb to becoming a monstrosity was disheartening.
Watching a child turn into a husk only to be smashed by a larger husk was ultra fucked, ultimately they showed us, "Yo, you thought you knew how bad shit was gunna get...? You were wrong".
As annoying as that elephant was, that quest line with him running with the daughter as she lost all hope, causing him to lose all hope, only to finally be caught between two monstrosities really hit me, emotionally. The joy of finally getting a "Win" in this madness with Estinien and the dragon was amazing.
100% thought the chai-tea scene was out of place but they really wanted to hammer home this theme of "No, there is another" in regards to Aether and "Chi" (lol).
---
Having Elidibus fade was pretty emotional for me, I know and understood that he is and likely was always evil, but having this last connection to the Ascians just fade away in a calm voidless sleep was just charged for me, especially after all the death and chaos we had observed. As I said, I play in japanese audio and just hearing the emotion in his voice as he quietly fades away was very depressing.
I was chuckling during the time transition scene, my wife is a HUGE fangirl of emet-selch and she was a LITTLE behind me in story. I zoned in and thought, "well shit this will be a tease for her", did the collection of the various points, clicked the door and was like "OH FUCK I GOTTA MAKE SURE SHE CAN'T SEE MY SCREEN" 10 seconds later.
Ultimately I'm a little torn on the "Back to the Future" scene. I KNEW that nothing would change, nothing COULD change, so the whole thing was a bit of a cock-tease. The final groundwork was laid for the idea of Dinamis, or whatever it's spelled. I really enjoyed the innocence of "Meteion", I'm a little confused and it's a point of debate between my wife and I, was Meteion responsible for destroying civilizations that still existed or was she simply just corrupted by seeing that most ends are brutal with people crying out for death in their final moments?
Ultimately the "McGuffin" of the memory wipe seemed very forced but I understand the WHY of it. Without the McGuffin, they would have a billion other timelines on their hands, which would be interesting from a longevity of the game aspect but, they clearly didn't want to go that route.
It feels like a cheapening of the encounter to go back to farm fates at some of these places because of how emotionally impactful they were.
---
The Underworld encounter was pretty brutal, emotionally but really brought up some good points that I was thinking about prior. People are reborn, all the ascians, all of the creatures on the source, but for some reason...no one is? Rebirth is a constant theme in almost all FF games and Japanese culture, this game is no different. The concept had been made that "When you die, you return to the aetheric sea" with the assumption that EVENTUALLY you are reborn again. For some reason, from what I could see, there wasn't any rebirth happening on ANY worlds aside from the main character and their reflections (Ardbert being "reborn" as a child). All the ascians that remained were never fully killed (as far as I recall), Argus never died (hence why he remembers you where in the back to the future scene he doesn't know you and requires Hydaelin to fight you), YOU never "die"..ect.
Hearing the final laments of Amon to the player and the conversation of Asahi to the scions and Amon were interesting to say the least. His comments talk about how he doesn't want to see the player again giving the impression that this is fore-shadowing and we will be going to the underworld again in the future.
The killing of Hydaelin and the "Destruction" of the Mothercrystal was pretty emotional for me. I dunno this is more about me seeing the first thing we are greeted with as a new player just gone. I feel like this is a good effect of a story well told though, they did a good enough job selling the emotion of Hydaelin and the Mothercrystal to me that when they were finally put to use, the player feels an emotion tied to the encounter.
---
I'm gunna be talking through the final scenes so, if you aren't done-done, then may wanna skip for now.
Ultima Thule was honestly really dark, not just in the lighting LOL. Talking through all these races, you basically get hopelessness and suicide. I'm really kinda shocked they went that direction with the story, I mean we already knew that the races were wishing death but it's a whole other ballgame to hear someone describe how they want to die.
I kinda figured after watching Estinien dissipate that there would be a return of the scions and after Yshtola made mention of it, I knew they would be back. Still watching G'raha Tia in his final moments really was impactful, the crystal tower hit me super hard back in shadowbringers and him basically turning to you and saying, "I'm sorry, I know how to solve this, I guess our adventure was shorter than expected" here was hard. After that point I was determined to finish. I thought it was interesting the floating people offering voices to you as you slow-walked to Meteion, really enjoyed hearing some of the voices.
The final ascian talk from Emet-selch was interesting, honestly it felt more like Yoshi P talking to the player than the character. Saying, "Look, I know you all want more Ascians, I'm not saying it won't happen but...we have so much more in store for you as players and if we just do ascians, then this will change the game in a way you won't like and You'll miss out on a lot of cool content."
The last battle, oh god that was impressive visually. I can't wait to experience some of this on a higher difficulty.
The Zenos Save, I was laughing SO hard. Really early on in the expansion I said to my wife, I'm gunna laugh so hard if this dude is the last thing that "Saves" us because of his determination. I was dying laughing when he Koolaid mans thru the dungeon wall and is like YO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DONE YET? BRUH WHAT THE FUCK HURRY UP. Dude literally got bored waiting on Eorzea, went to his enemy and was like, can you tell me what restaurant the warrior of light went to and fucking crashed a party at the end of reality. If he is dead, it'll be wasted as fuck. I am ASSUMING he is dead because he didn't finish his monologue and his chest stopped moving. That said, the last battle was brutal as fuck on a black mage, cheesy as fuck in a story sense but it makes me wonder if there isn't a greater thing at play with him and I, I'm going under the idea of "Aspects" and he is the aspect of determination and the player is the aspect of hope.
I know that last scene with Elidibus was in the past but I wonder why now of all times are they revealing that to us. Okay, he knew about the end times and "Wasn't aware" of us visiting the past? I dunno, it seems odd. maybe i need to do some side quests in the area to understand?
Being all the above said, I have no clue where this game is gunna head, with the chapter of ascians and the end of days closed. Thats a pretty insane bookmark to place, if you consider WoW in relationg to FFXIV lore. We are essentially gods now. Where the shit do we go from here?
Man I still have more to unpack and unwind from this.
After sleeping on it, I REALLY enjoyed this story, sure there were some McGuffins but setting those aside, the story was very well written and reasonably well executed. I think the team took some liberties when it came to exposition but when I consider their audience, it makes sense.
I wanna claim that, before playing the game and during I was theory-crafting the story and direction before it was happening. I am kinda laughing that I was correct on a good many things.
The music, dear god the music was amazing...in MOST places....There were a couple times where I was cringing, "The zone music changed, I really hope it isn't forever because this high pace / fast beat music is TERRIBLE for this location." Overall the scoring team did an extremely amazing job, 95% of the time the music enhances the scenes dramatically.
I play with japanese audio, I really hold the belief that if you experience something, you do it in the medium that the creator of that thing originally intended. The Japanese voices would be the closest version to "The Directors Cut" that I have. Kinda like watching "Dubbed" programming of any kind, you lose an aspect of the emotion a person or character feels because of the translation and acting choice. I feel like the actors did an amazing job, you really felt the emotion in the voices for all the scenes that were voiced.
Couple things:
I am really intrigued by a couple things, the biblical and Greek mentions throughout the expansion.
Also the commentary of "Humanity", the ascians refer to themselves as "Humanity" and then, I believe, our planets life forms are too referred to as "Humanity".
Finally, "Star" doesn't just mean OUR STAR, it is synonymous with "This Reality".
I mean this was really the "Setting the scene" chapter, it's long and, possibly, long winded. I can understand how people found this part boring but I don't agree.
You had an amazing scene with the 2 sisters dying in the snow because their people have been killed and killing the rest of the planet for generations, to the point that they would rather die than risk whatever they have left to place faith on "Hope". Which goes into the heart of the whole story. Many people from this chapter sought death over life and the point of illustrating that was really well done.
Then came one of the best off-segments I've experienced in this game, the forced possession of the soldier and the struggle around it. After all the previous content showing how everyone else was seeking death, you were fighting against it even to the point of dragging your broken host away from an explosion on his belly.
We end this chapter with the heroes party falling into a half-despair with the twins rethinking everything about their approach to saving people but still pushing on and into the Tower of Babel.
Immediately after this we are pushed onto the killing of Zodiark and the visions that follow.
Ultimately at this point, the player knows how fucked things are about to become, the thoughts about the party being already stretched thin over the impact of Garlemald, the reluctance of the people to accept help and aide and then combined with a sudden insanity of their hero being corrupted. The pacing, at this point, needs some levity of SOME kind.
---
Moon bunnies, I honestly thought this was a great break from the down-turn that happened prior plus a reprieve prior to the shit-storm you were about to experience. I don't know if the LENGTH of the detour was intended or not but I feel like their goal was to make it ultra sappy and ultra "Cringe" in a way. Such that you, the player / hero are taken to a stance of "This is "A" way but not "THE" way." as the thoughts of other realities that will cease to exist if you do use the moon for what it is are presented to you. I loved the music here though, everything was throw back, a little sappy but the point was to add levity so..
---
Honestly this was some of the most disturbing content outside of the Vauthry content I remember experiencing in FFXIV. The effect of the lull was well taken because i knew some fucked shit was gunna happen. I appreciate that the creators didn't just do something neutral for the lull because it wouldn't have raised your mentality prior to this part if it had just been some eureka moment where "We use the moon!" by the forum.
The lead up, seeing fresh characters that we spent so much time with during the Garlemald series about to succumb to becoming a monstrosity was disheartening.
Watching a child turn into a husk only to be smashed by a larger husk was ultra fucked, ultimately they showed us, "Yo, you thought you knew how bad shit was gunna get...? You were wrong".
As annoying as that elephant was, that quest line with him running with the daughter as she lost all hope, causing him to lose all hope, only to finally be caught between two monstrosities really hit me, emotionally. The joy of finally getting a "Win" in this madness with Estinien and the dragon was amazing.
100% thought the chai-tea scene was out of place but they really wanted to hammer home this theme of "No, there is another" in regards to Aether and "Chi" (lol).
---
Having Elidibus fade was pretty emotional for me, I know and understood that he is and likely was always evil, but having this last connection to the Ascians just fade away in a calm voidless sleep was just charged for me, especially after all the death and chaos we had observed. As I said, I play in japanese audio and just hearing the emotion in his voice as he quietly fades away was very depressing.
I was chuckling during the time transition scene, my wife is a HUGE fangirl of emet-selch and she was a LITTLE behind me in story. I zoned in and thought, "well shit this will be a tease for her", did the collection of the various points, clicked the door and was like "OH FUCK I GOTTA MAKE SURE SHE CAN'T SEE MY SCREEN" 10 seconds later.
Ultimately I'm a little torn on the "Back to the Future" scene. I KNEW that nothing would change, nothing COULD change, so the whole thing was a bit of a cock-tease. The final groundwork was laid for the idea of Dinamis, or whatever it's spelled. I really enjoyed the innocence of "Meteion", I'm a little confused and it's a point of debate between my wife and I, was Meteion responsible for destroying civilizations that still existed or was she simply just corrupted by seeing that most ends are brutal with people crying out for death in their final moments?
Ultimately the "McGuffin" of the memory wipe seemed very forced but I understand the WHY of it. Without the McGuffin, they would have a billion other timelines on their hands, which would be interesting from a longevity of the game aspect but, they clearly didn't want to go that route.
It feels like a cheapening of the encounter to go back to farm fates at some of these places because of how emotionally impactful they were.
---
The Underworld encounter was pretty brutal, emotionally but really brought up some good points that I was thinking about prior. People are reborn, all the ascians, all of the creatures on the source, but for some reason...no one is? Rebirth is a constant theme in almost all FF games and Japanese culture, this game is no different. The concept had been made that "When you die, you return to the aetheric sea" with the assumption that EVENTUALLY you are reborn again. For some reason, from what I could see, there wasn't any rebirth happening on ANY worlds aside from the main character and their reflections (Ardbert being "reborn" as a child). All the ascians that remained were never fully killed (as far as I recall), Argus never died (hence why he remembers you where in the back to the future scene he doesn't know you and requires Hydaelin to fight you), YOU never "die"..ect.
Hearing the final laments of Amon to the player and the conversation of Asahi to the scions and Amon were interesting to say the least. His comments talk about how he doesn't want to see the player again giving the impression that this is fore-shadowing and we will be going to the underworld again in the future.
The killing of Hydaelin and the "Destruction" of the Mothercrystal was pretty emotional for me. I dunno this is more about me seeing the first thing we are greeted with as a new player just gone. I feel like this is a good effect of a story well told though, they did a good enough job selling the emotion of Hydaelin and the Mothercrystal to me that when they were finally put to use, the player feels an emotion tied to the encounter.
---
I'm gunna be talking through the final scenes so, if you aren't done-done, then may wanna skip for now.
Ultima Thule was honestly really dark, not just in the lighting LOL. Talking through all these races, you basically get hopelessness and suicide. I'm really kinda shocked they went that direction with the story, I mean we already knew that the races were wishing death but it's a whole other ballgame to hear someone describe how they want to die.
I kinda figured after watching Estinien dissipate that there would be a return of the scions and after Yshtola made mention of it, I knew they would be back. Still watching G'raha Tia in his final moments really was impactful, the crystal tower hit me super hard back in shadowbringers and him basically turning to you and saying, "I'm sorry, I know how to solve this, I guess our adventure was shorter than expected" here was hard. After that point I was determined to finish. I thought it was interesting the floating people offering voices to you as you slow-walked to Meteion, really enjoyed hearing some of the voices.
The final ascian talk from Emet-selch was interesting, honestly it felt more like Yoshi P talking to the player than the character. Saying, "Look, I know you all want more Ascians, I'm not saying it won't happen but...we have so much more in store for you as players and if we just do ascians, then this will change the game in a way you won't like and You'll miss out on a lot of cool content."
The last battle, oh god that was impressive visually. I can't wait to experience some of this on a higher difficulty.
The Zenos Save, I was laughing SO hard. Really early on in the expansion I said to my wife, I'm gunna laugh so hard if this dude is the last thing that "Saves" us because of his determination. I was dying laughing when he Koolaid mans thru the dungeon wall and is like YO WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DONE YET? BRUH WHAT THE FUCK HURRY UP. Dude literally got bored waiting on Eorzea, went to his enemy and was like, can you tell me what restaurant the warrior of light went to and fucking crashed a party at the end of reality. If he is dead, it'll be wasted as fuck. I am ASSUMING he is dead because he didn't finish his monologue and his chest stopped moving. That said, the last battle was brutal as fuck on a black mage, cheesy as fuck in a story sense but it makes me wonder if there isn't a greater thing at play with him and I, I'm going under the idea of "Aspects" and he is the aspect of determination and the player is the aspect of hope.
I know that last scene with Elidibus was in the past but I wonder why now of all times are they revealing that to us. Okay, he knew about the end times and "Wasn't aware" of us visiting the past? I dunno, it seems odd. maybe i need to do some side quests in the area to understand?
Being all the above said, I have no clue where this game is gunna head, with the chapter of ascians and the end of days closed. Thats a pretty insane bookmark to place, if you consider WoW in relationg to FFXIV lore. We are essentially gods now. Where the shit do we go from here?
Man I still have more to unpack and unwind from this.
She found dead worlds (the empty fragment in the zone), she found dying worlds (dragonstar, omega's world, first fragment in the dungeon), she accidentally caused some worlds to end (second and third fragments in the dungeon) and eventually she purposefully ended worlds (her attempt on Etheris).
I really liked how they didn't just explain her experience like they did in Elpis, you play through it from her point of view in Ultima Thule. The Metions the Scions cleanse in the zone follow you to the dungeon and one of them is the narrator, she starts off blue and throughout the zone turns to black as you see all the fucked up shit.
I think everyone expected a Zenos or Fandaniel corrupted Zodiark as the final boss, having that at lv83 was insane. I don't think anyone was expecting what happened, but it was mind blowing and very disturbing/terrifying.
This is a textbook example of how to introduce an antagonist in the second half of a game and having it be a satifying conclusion to a multi year story arc. The Jailer is laughable in comparison.
I also liked that they had a Shadowlands like dungeon which had as many returning characters as the entire Shadowlands expansion, a Zereth Mortis like creator testing ground zone and a Maw like trash pile of the universe zone. This just curbstomped WoW hard and I hope there'll be a lot of discussion and memes after the spoiler period has passed.
She found dead worlds (the empty fragment in the zone), she found dying worlds (dragonstar, omega's world, first fragment in the dungeon), she accidentally caused some worlds to end (second and third fragments in the dungeon) and eventually she purposefully ended worlds (her attempt on Etheris).
I really liked how they didn't just explain her experience like they did in Elpis, you play through it from her point of view in Ultima Thule. The Metions the Scions cleanse in the zone follow you to the dungeon and one of them is the narrator, she starts off blue and throughout the zone turns to black as you see all the fucked up shit.
I think everyone expected a Zenos or Fandaniel corrupted Zodiark as the final boss, having that at lv83 was insane. I don't think anyone was expecting what happened, but it was mind blowing and very disturbing/terrifying.
This is a textbook example of how to introduce an antagonist in the second half of a game and having it be a satifying conclusion to a multi year story arc. The Jailer is laughable in comparison.
I also liked that they had a Shadowlands like dungeon which had as many returning characters as the entire Shadowlands expansion, a Zereth Mortis like creator testing ground zone and a Maw like trash pile of the universe zone. This just curbstomped WoW hard and I hope there'll be a lot of discussion and memes after the spoiler period has passed.
One of the other things I was wondering, okay so Meteon stopped the rebirth cycle, she says as much with her star dungeon. So, now that Meteon is hopeful and the soul star is no more, I wonder whats going to happen. I wonder if we will start to see rebirths of specific people sooner than later and it will be the topic of expansions in the future.
