Hitting RESET | Zepla covers BBC’s Article on FFXIV Dawntrail



BBC Article Here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4nnnpm993xo

Watch Zepla play FFXIV LIVE on her Twitch channel here: https://www.twitch.tv/zeplahq

📺 Follow me on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/zeplahq
👕Check out the new Merch Store: https://streamlabs.com/zeplahq/merch
🤗 Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zeplahq
🗣 Official Discord server: https://discord.gg/zeplahq
🐦 Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/xepla

Editor : TakLunae [Discord : taksangre]

source

29 thoughts on “Hitting RESET | Zepla covers BBC’s Article on FFXIV Dawntrail”

  1. I'm playing on Xbox. Don't use any coin thingies. It sucks that in order to be able to play the game I have to be a Game Pass subscriber even if I have purchased the game on Xbox AND pay the subscription for Final Fantasy.

    Reply
  2. Im so tired of hearing "of course the story wasnt going to be as good as endwalker, that doesnt mean its bad". I didnt expect this story to be as good as endwalker, obviously that would be nesrly impossible to do when it was closing out 10 years of story. However, look at shadowbringers, it was almost a self contained story, in a lot of ways, and it was interesting. It was well written. This story has to establish a new beginning, i understand that, but it doesn't mean it inherently had to be boring. There was poor writing, poor pacing, loss of momentum multiple times and uninteresting quest structure. That has nothing to do with a comparison to endwalker, its boring all on its own.

    Reply
  3. The story is not mind blowing good but normal. Pacing is a little bit too long. Not as emotional as previous expansion. You shouldn't judge the story like EW, because EW is an end of a story and DT is a new one, it's a rollercoaster slowly go up.

    Reply
  4. FFXIV won't run on Switch. Maybe Switch 2. FFXVI did good for the install base of the PS5 with almost a 1 to 10 attach rate… but you are 100%, exclusives only help those trying to sell the consoles. I want FFXIV and FFXVI on everything that can run it.

    Reply
  5. At least when Square Enix makes a mistake; they learn from it and do better. Unlike some gaming companies that continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over and are too proud to admit they messed up. I love that Square Enix (while it might take them a little time) do step back and rethink / reimagine where the game is going and what can be improved. It's one of the things that always brings me back to FF14 =) <3

    Reply
  6. Im dislikimg the story, its seems its a culture acceptance propaganda . The diversity trans hire english va for wuk lamat is so freaking annoying and our character is a third wheel in this story. I had to switch to Japanese language and boy she sounds like a true sweet kind heart woman ❤. It seems square enix ethic department has infected ffxiv aswell. The plot sucks so hard. The only fun thing are the dungeons, and hopefully the raid side quest 6 future trial side quest are good and wuk lamat is never brought back. Ffxiv dawntrail is another Japanese game that feels more like a western game. Japan needs to stop catering to the west

    Reply
  7. I'm in the middle of Dawntrail, and I reached a point where I'm skipping lore pieces, cinematics, I don't care what dialogue options are offered, etc, I just want to reach level 100, and complete all the expansion so I don't have to talk to Wuk ever again

    After achieving that goal, I may do some side quests in older content, and that kind of stuff

    Reply
  8. Anyone saying that the story sucks because it's new, it doesn't have the stakes, it builds the world and so on is huffing pure copium. Y'all should know that a good story can be told regardless of the stakes or it's novelty. This is just bad writing. You literally spend the first half gathering the dragon balls so Wuk can find the One Piece so she can become Hokage. Then the next half is the Wukage of Light (the new WoL) saving the world from certain doom. If you told me this 2 weeks ago I wouldn't have believed you and would have called you a doomer.

    Reply
  9. "No one is allowed to talk about FFXIV. Unless they mention the launch.."
    It's only the same as every video game podcast presented by people in their 20's feeling compelled to mention the 'video game crash of 1983' every 10 minutes in their videos.
    At least with FFXIV that disastrous launch was real. I know, I was there. To be fair to SE they never actually charged anyone subs for that period after 1.0 launched. Because the game was never playable enough to justify them charging. Yeah people had paid for the actual game (as I did) But those accounts were there to play the game with when it relaunched.
    As it happens I was also there in 1983. And whilst I'm sure the kids of a few video games execs didn't get Christmas presents that year, the effect on the game playing part of the industry was absolutely minimal. Certainly in the UK the only sign of any crash was in fact the release of a new magazine covering the Sinclair Spectrum in fact called 'Crash!' (which didn't actually release until 1984 due to problems.)

    Reply
  10. DT used too many concepts from other expans (besides too much slice of life moments, odd logic occasionally, woke vibes, not enough action during the MSQ)
    .. but still a 8/10,.., its a filler until the big 8.0 reboot with dropping the PS4
    (EW 9/10, ShB 10/10)

    Reply
  11. Woke BS, all female viera caster pieces have flat butts & chests..
    (during 3/4 of the MSQ had donzens of hot dudes.., only near the end did a few hot chics show up)
    => but still think Yoshi / SE is waking up the over-woke BS, like he took over near the end of the MSQ development (atleast the later quarter of DT seemed less / non woke.., just hope the next female gear are more feminine)

    Reply
  12. I don't get this whole "it's a new story arc!" point. I havn't finished dawntrail yet but I don't see any difference to previous expensions and quite some similarities to stormblood. We set sail to a new country that suddenly "exists" in the world and was isolated before to help some royal to get to the throne and rule the country. On our way we have to visit the country and help the inhabitants. Really it's like stormblood.
    Also ALL characters we met before are still there. The alliances are still there. Nothing changed in that regards. (That's why I smirked when we said "goodbye to our friends" at the end of endwalker… as if they won't see each other in a couple of months again. Seems like I was correct after all)

    It would feel new if there wasn't an Alphinaud, Alisaie, Urianger, Thancred etc. For me it's the same as any other expansion. It's no "big reset". You don't understand the npc's and references if you havn't placed the earlier expansions. The world isn't destroyed or anything. There are just no more ascians. That's all. Wow.

    I don't think the expansion is bad (though I think it's kinda slow, especially at the beginning. Lots of reading) but it is waaaay too much hyped for what it actually is – just another expansion.

    Reply
  13. Zepla got that Fable 3 lore about being a good ruler of people, where you have to chose who benefits and who loses out. Heavensward endgame was what happened when listening to the vocal minority and it was the most hardcore raiding and grinds that almost killed the game again. Whilst old school MMO design is fun for those that enjoy it, most people don't have that kind of time or heavily organised social group to always be working with.

    Reply
  14. I personally wasn't expecting this to hit Shadowbringers or Endwalker levels of story or anything like that. But maybe unrealistically, I was hoping for something more like Heavansward. But so far to me it feels more like the Ala Mhigo part of Stormblood, but without Zenos being a compelling antagonist. I'm sure I'll get through it, and I don't think it's BAD or anything. But I'm 4 days into a 6 day vacation to play it, and I find myself feeling like I have to force myself to log in, rather than being really excited to like I was for say Elden Ring. We'll see how it goes!

    Reply
  15. Switch Pro with a better UI, backwards compatibility with OG switch, and more power will kill the other two competitors and may even position Nintendo to actual sweep the market.

    Also, I’m waiting to see what Xbox 14 actually did. Trends suggest that it won’t move the needle much… but we shall see if that has changed.

    Reply
  16. I am not afraid to say it: this new story is sub-standard and extremely poorly told. It does not compare to ARR, it is light years behind Stormblood

    I hated Shadowbringers as it was a “welcome to this gross purple world with a piss yellow skybox everywhere, you don’t know anyone here or have a reason to care. But you WILL care, that is not optional. Save these strangers.” But at least Shadowbringers didn’t have a character as horribly written and voiced as this annoying cat lady in our faces every second.

    This was a mediocre story that never established real stakes, and had the most poorly executed and developed character in the game’s history be made the shining star of the entire expansion- and our character was never even allowed to resist this. No agency.

    You can love the game and dislike when Square under-delivers. Lot of people here are the exact type of people who get mentioned when non-FF14 lovers talk about how this fanbase is very difficult to deal with

    Reply
  17. I want to preface all of this by saying I've completed Dawntrail's entire story, and I frankly had a great time with it. I think many of the complaints levied against it are hollow/superficial and can be made at nearly every expansion, and that none of the most common complaints are a problem unique to Dawntrail. In fact most of the complaints are unique to the subsection of the player base levying them. That said, I believe there are some interesting reasons why Dawntrail appears to be so divisive so early on. The way I see it, there are three major issues Dawntrail faces by virtue of both its place in the FFXIV overarching plot, and by the story it wants to tell.

    Dawntrail's most obvious problem is its lack of a compelling big bad. It has a compelling villain in Bakool Ja Ja for the first half of the expac, but both of our "big bads" this expansion have erred into the extremes of their philosophy to the point where it's less extreme and more stupid. Zoraal Ja will do anything to rule even if it's just a pile of ash he rules in the end because he can't get his head out of his ass long enough to realize it's stuck there in the first place. Sphene meanwhile, keeps harping on about doing everything she can for her people, but immediately chooses a genocide that will not solve the problem plaguing the people she's allegedly trying to help, and constantly hiding behind calling herself a benevolent ruler in order to minimize the absolute shame and guilt she ought to feel.
    That said, while I agree that this decision absolutely hurts the expansion as a whole,….I think they made it for thematic reasons. Zoraal Ja and Sphene are Resolve and Reason taken to their extremities and being used to horrible ends. This expansion is a story about duality. Most zones are divided in two, with each half having a different culture living alongside the other one. Our big bads attempt something like this, but fail horribly at it because they have their own agendas that they work on their own to complete, spurning any solutions contrary to the paths they have long decided upon. Again, being thematically appropriate doesn't suddenly make it okay for the villain to not be compelling, and anyone complaining about this is well within their right to, but it's better than a villain that's neither compelling nor thematically appropriate (howdy Stormblood Zenos).

    Another "problem" with Dawntrail is that insists on the player taking the time to immerse themselves in the various cultures of Tural. That was the whole point of the rite to succession. To cultivate a candidate that would love and understand the cultures/wants/needs of the myriad peoples living there. This is going to lose people who just want to get to the action, but it is by no means a bad decision story-wise. It's the first time i've ever felt actually invested in the fate of the setting *because* of the slower story beats, and that investment made the threat posed during the second half of the story that much more of a threat. I didn't really care what happened to Ishgard during HW, I was just more concerned with figuring out the truth of the Dragonsong War. I didn't really care about the Ala Mhigans, I was just there because Ilberd forced the Alliance's hand. I didn't really care about the First, my friends and I were literally forcefully brought there and our efforts were more towards the goal of saving the Source/ourselves in the future. I actually did care about saving the entire world during Endwalker, but I didn't really care that much about Old Sharlayan or Garlemald, or Thavnair, or the moon, and this is all because those quests never really got me as a player immersed in the cultures living there. They did get me immersed in the culture of the Ancients, to the point I understood exactly why Hermes did what he did, why their response was what it was, and why Venat was so opposed to it, but the nations in actual danger in the present day were not afforded such a luxury. Dawntrail manages to do that for me, get me immersed, but it only manages to do that because it takes the time to set it all up, slowing the 'main' story down. Anyone without my interest in worldbuilding would understandably get impatient (they always do, every expansion, you'd think they'd be used to it by now). But Dawntrail doesn't have the end-of-a-saga or warrior-of-darkness hype surrounding it that its predecessors did, so these early complaints about pacing have nothing to drown them out.

    Perhaps the biggest problem though, is main character syndrome. That is, people who joined in Endwalker likely have only played Endwalker or at best Shadowbringers and Endwalker. They aren't used to the WoL not being the main character of an expansion. So now that they see Wuk Lamat, Krile, Erenville, all getting more screentime and reacting to the baddies more than we the WoL do, they're upset, and not paying as much attention as they otherwise would be, because if the plot isn't directly affecting their player character, why should they care? Why are they even here? Which unfortunately means that they miss out on the reasons Dawntrail expects the player to care…that is to say, the myriad cultures of Tural are what's immediately at stake, and if you approach the story in the way the other claimants approach the rite, you won't care as much.

    Reply
  18. As someone who just completed the first dungeon, I don't expect this dungeon to be mind blowing as the past two expansions in terms of story.

    We are in a brand new Arc and things has to start building up, just like in ARR.

    Basically I see Dawntrail as ARR+.

    Reply

Leave a Comment