Clip from the Grinding Gear YouTube stream on https://www.youtube.com/amovetv
Original video by Jesse, go give it some love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXFTSrn2nGs
Subscribe to the main channel: https://www.youtube.com/amovetv
Support Garrett & Kyle on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/garrettandkyle
Subscribe to the stream VOD channel: https://youtube.com/garrettandkyle
#GrindingGear #FFXIV
Follow Garrett: https://twitter.com/garrettart
Follow Kyle: https://twitter.com/kylefergusson
Follow Grinding Gear: https://twitter.com/garrettandkyle
source
Morning! Thanks for the wonderful clip! o/
🍿
Yeeeeep. That's my reaction too, garrett whenever someone brings up Shadowlands
Good mornin
Except we knew who Endsinger was. yea she wasnt around for a large chunk of the expansion, but we knew where she came from and knew about her well before we found her and defeated her. on top of that, we received hints since at least Shadowbringers, that something was causing doom and despair to destroy worlds and while they didnt straight up say it was her doing it..there were clues that some entity was causing it.
so it isnt like Endsinger was 100% completely secret or hidden. just not fully revealed until the later half of EW
I think Garrett's triggering feelings for Shadowlands is because Endwalker ended so well and so triumphantly good that it raised the ceiling and bar so high for MMO stories for him. So when he looks back to Shadowlands it's just an even more disgustingly disappointing thing. That's probably before we add in his distaste for what they did to Arthas, Garrett's favorite Blizzard villain.
22:52 "I see shadowlands as a coward's story"
That may be true. But I think it has more to do with the modern disdain for "fan-service" that most people from some lit. crit or other humanities degree might have and spread on social media. "Ugh, that's just fan-service. That's not ~real~ art."
Endsinger theme being "our" theme song is just so perfect ❤️. Beautifully put by Jesse love this video.
The Endsinger fight is so beautiful that watching you two listen to Jesse's explanation of it ALSO made me cry a little.
EW did more in one dungeon–the Aitiascope–than Shadowlands did in the whole expansion.
SHADOWLANDS COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOOD!🤬 They could have shown Saurfang reuniting with his son in the afterlife. They could have had Thrall meeting Orgrim Doomhammer and having to explain what has become of the Horde. They could have given Baine something to do with Cairne, instead of leaving him sitting in a corner all expansion. So many misser opportunities that were staring them right in the face, and those examples were just the Horde!😩
It's okay, Garrett, there's a lot of us out there that still get twitchy anytime we see Shadowlands stuff
i think the lasts quests of the heavensward's bard class questline foreshadow a lot of elpis and the endsinger, the whole questline in heavensward was about searching an ancient lost minuet of the song of oblivion, with research it throws directions to the sea of clouds which was also foreshadow as an elpis fragment after the hydaelyn's strike, so there you have it, the song of oblivion in elpis? the song of oblivion in the sea of clouds, both in floating lands, pretty cool, the cool sht is that the minuet was never found, i can't remember tho, i did the quest like SEVERAL years ago.
Besides being a bard's quest makes a lot of sense, since emotions dictate reality in a place filled with dynamis, you can't manipulate your own feelings without a factor, unless you add a catalyst such as music, ngl i think bard should be more op than it is, but i think The staff stopped working hard on making sense of the classes, i was very dissapointed that there were no significant power ups after we come to know that we are a fragment of azeem.
Blizzard: of course people didn’t like the jailer, we only had one expansion to flesh him out.
FF14: here is Emet Selch in Shadowbringers or Endsinger in Endwalker…
WOW: You're lucky to be here.
Ff14: We're lucky you're here.
I believe in lizardman superiority, Garret. Warhammer needs to accept The Old One's true children.
One thing about FFXIV’s narrative structure that veterans should be familiar with by now is that there’s always a pivot from an A-Plot to a B-Plot. It usually also involves a shift to a different antagonist. It's not so much that there's "something worse to come" but more like "there's something else to deal with". The previous B-Plot antagonists were Gaius, Thordan, Yotsuyu, Emet and finally Meteion.
For Dawntrail I fully expect the same trope to be used. We know the A-Plot because it’s always the one that is more widely covered in-game or in pre-release media: There’s a challenge for the throne in Tuliyollal with one of the contenders seemingly the antagonist. That will almost certainly not be the entire story and I expect there will be a pivot to a B-Plot. Some people are speculating the B-Plot will involve Solution 9 and the northern half of Tural since that location looks so weird and exotic that it's ripe for having some kind of story arc of its own, like the Far East during Stormblood.
Also from a game dev standpoint, the A/B split in the plot allows for material that can be marketed during pre-release, while also keeping a chunk of secret stuff to surprise the players in the latter half of the MSQ, such as the “final 6th zone” in every expansion where your last dungeon and 8-man trial takes place. BTW for those who dont know there is always a very tiny sneak peek of the final 6th zone in the Launch Trailer, but it's usually from some inconspicuous camera angle or shown very briefly to avoid spoilers (eg. ShB launch trailer shows amaurot at 2:36)
You're a bit behind on Twitter culture. It is full to the brim with people who fucking love genocide.
Pretty ironic that being grossed out by senseless fictional murder is the opposite of pearl clutching but calling it such literally is that thing. 🤡
I can relate to the person who didn't want to play WOW because of Mowing down orcs because the game at the same time paints ALL races as intelligent emotional beings that we can play as ourselves. So, am I just not supposed to care about these characters period? Because that's what that scene says to me
"I'll tell you what I'm not doing. I'm sure as shit not playing Final Fantasy."
48:31 – I can imagine if FFXIV's raids were bigger narrative or included zones a little more between the duties it'd give that effect. Hoping Dawntrail plays with their co-op content more.
Shadowbringers also kind of did it with Vauthry and Emet Selch, except Emet Selch wasn't exactly a secret. Mt Gulg was also a very definitely final dungeon
WOW's story is too inconsistent to care about. Their character development is pretty awful too, but even if that was fixed — caring is an investment and it demands returns and when the return for your investment is "nvm that did not happen or nvm that did not matter because of this bigger thing" then after a while it stops making sense to care. It's a bad investment. Meanwhile FFXIV pays back most of the emotional investment you put in and it makes it worthwhile to care which functions as their hook. This is why (ARR's length aside) it takes a minute to get into FFXIV, because you need to get pass the point where you realize getting involved is a good investment, at which point you become excited to keep investing into it and effectively become hooked.
They did my boy Arthas so dirty in Shadowlands…
Shadowlands was terrible, and the fact that in the lead up to 10.2 they began saying "It's the end of a ten year arc!" To coattail off of Endwalker? It's was abysmal.
When I ran out of things to do in WoW, I just quietly uninstalled and moved on.
When I ran out of things to do in FF14 I stuck around, although at only half capacity. Because I just can't wait for the next part of the story. Can't wait to see the characters I like so much again.
You just can't underestimate how much value there is in a good story and personal investment.
WoW is just one example, I can say the same things about Guild Wars 2, Path of Exile, Elder Scrolls Online. I like the people that I spent a lot of time with in those games, but eventually that's not enough to keep me around.
WoW to me is just like Magic the Gathering with its expansions: Each new expansion is just a new theme deck. There is no real story, its just a blurb of flavor text to fit the theme setting so you can play the game as if its drastically changed in some massive way when it hasn't at all.
Nothing against MTG, but lets be honest on how it like WoW hasn't really changed much let alone offers a story in any capacity – Though I would say MTG doesn't need to change as in at its core, the gameplay is fun and solid no matter what edition cards you use. I just wouldn't call it a story based game nor would I call it compelling to anyone not already playing it, just like WoW which has no real story or anything compelling to garner new players let alone retain those who want more than just game play mechanics.
I like the Ardenweald aesthetics but that zone's story was terrible. The Winter Queen did nothing the entire time except I guess be snarky at Bwonsandi (who is the only god in WOW who tried to protect his people from the jailer and the only deserving of worship), ask her people to die for her, fail to safeguard her sigil (literally her ONE job) which she just left in the open for anyone to find. Then Tyrande gets blue balled right when she was about to beat up Sylvanas who seriously needed someone to treat her like a pinata. Then the realization that Elune is a moron. The idea that the Night Elf genocide was okay because those souls went on to nurture Ardenweald and that this is sanctioned by their goddess and in addition to that the fact that at no point before or after the genocide Elune warned or explained this to any of her many priestesses at any of her many temples or the fact that Elune gave Tyrande the power of the Night Warrior for seemingly no reason at all — she did not let her have her vengeance and Tyrande did nothing of note with her power. No deep lore on the Night Warrior either, other than the power eventually kills the wielder (which we knew) and exists in multiple planes/planets which means Elune despite being just another member of the pantheon created artificially like AI somehow has the power to connect to other planets and planes (a power her sister lacks) — and that she is still a moron despite that grander perspective. Then if you did the story for Ardenweald that effing terrible garden of souls mechanic… honestly the only good thing that happens in that zone is the avatar-like little play they put on that pokes fun at the games' earlier expansions.
FF14 caused me to weep with its story and music.
WoW caused me anguish with its community.
"Since Warcraft 3…"
That moment with Anduin meant nothing to me, I did not play Alliance, I had no idea what that sword meant.
I don't agree that fan service should be the focus of anything. Fan-service was tolerable in Endwalker because it was literally the culmination of a 10-year story. It wasn't the focus, though. It wasn't the entree. It was just a very tasty dish to compliment the main course.
I was excited for Shadowlands. The four different factions sounded great for me and my alts. But then they lock the powers behind those factions. So if you liked a faction but hated the power they gave you… You were just irritated and frustrated. And they added the Torghast thing, but then made it mandatory for a power progression. No one liked that. And at this point I would have quit WoW back in BFA if I had not felt responsible to our guild raid group. Which was already suffering from manpower shortage. So I made it through the first rate of Denarius, and to let my sub lapse. I haven't been back since. Sylvanas turned out to be stupid and duped by the moronic jailer. Who had zero charisma, and at the end just says "I was saving you from the bigger bad!" 🤦 I hear Dragonflight mechanically was pretty good but the story was a snoozefest.
people cared more for meteion in the short time we learned about her then all of Shadowlands for the jailor
The rant about Arthas being the best final boss of a wow expansion still to this day hits home. My group was the first in our guild to kill Arthas (we had 12, TWELVE ACTIVE raiding groups 8 10 mans and 4 25 mans) all racing for first kill. The fact that we got it actually caused the guild to implode because the officers/leader group were unable to raid that night due to missing people and we were down a tank so they lent us a new undergeared tank from their raid figuring we would get some good prog and then they would take our best healer/dps and clear it the next day. Except we cleared it that night in 2 shots. The officer group was so pissed they all left the guild without even a grats. The leader was left with none of his assistants so he quit and the guild collapsed over the next few weeks. Our raid team stuck together and we cleared all difficulties in Cata before breaking up
I think Blizzard is going to forget the Jailer ever existed and the bigger bad he was protecting the world from is never going to show up. 😆
Any story WoW had, was at best, just the cliff-notes from the thousands of books and comics out there that Blizzard just pointed at and said "Yep, that's canon." That's my reason for not really giving a shit about the characters. Not to mention the endless grind just to unlock even a fraction of the story, only to hit another grind for the next chunk of story. Then you have FF14, where the only walls blocking the story, is 1 or 2 levels or just a slightly too low item level. WoW is like scaling the Great Wall of China, whereas FF14 is like a fence with a locked gate and the key is hidden under a rock right next to the gate.
Bellular and T&E when they were spitballing how Shadowlands could have been better… If either of those had been true I would still be playing. Their ideas for the story arc were a thousand times better.
When I started Warcraft back in Burning Crusade I appreciated NOT being the main hero of the world. In later expansions when you became the 'Champion Of Azeroth' I didn't like it. Let me be the nameless faceless dude that comes in, kicks ass, grabs loot and leaves. Let the world leaders do the world leader things.
BFA and Shadowlands were so bad… I was actually rooting for N'Zoth and the Jailer to win. 🤣
How everyone feels about Shadowlands, is how I felt about BFA when I quit for good. I still remember my prediction for Sylvanas, because it largely came true. In short I said she would do something no one else is capable of doing, and be redeemed either dead or alive, probably alive.
Fan service is only bad if that's the only thing you have to offer.
Just an aside: RIP Google Podcasts