How is ffxiv heavensward story and quests compared to ARR?

[Delaborga]

i heard alot of good things about heavensward and onward, is the story, and quests where you go from a-b-c back to a still festering around or is it fun with unique encounter quests and something fun to play through? :) dont get me wrong, i love playing the game, but for me the main story of ARR was fine, but the quests around it for the most part was so boring that it made me miss kill quest :P

the biggest issue is that if you skip alot of the quests your just mindlessly running around for people which could easily be handlede better, it may be part of the lore and stuff but engaging it sure wasnt , to meet some1 in lominsa, just to right after go to dry docks, then back to limsa lominsa after talking to the person,

[Delaborga]

lets take a good example of wow, they have alot of reading quest but most of the neewer quest is voiced as u go through them, you dont really read or care about the story some times but your NOT at all confused about what ur doing and why, but in ARR, if you skip content you dont know why ur doing this and that, and u feel like it could be presented way stronger for a 2012 game ,

so many things you do when u skip that feels like you just wanna go kill 12 rats just to get some fun gameplay and practise rotations and dps and stuff. would love if the story in ffxiv could give you the story better even if you skip stuff, just like most mmo do nowadays

[Oberon]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dalapie:

lets take a good example of wow, they have alot of reading quest but most of the neewer quest is voiced as u go through them, you dont really read or care about the story some times but your NOT at all confused about what ur doing and why, but in ARR, if you skip content you dont know why ur doing this and that, and u feel like it could be presented way stronger for a 2012 game ,

so many things you do when u skip that feels like you just wanna go kill 12 rats just to get some fun gameplay and practise rotations and dps and stuff. would love if the story in ffxiv could give you the story better even if you skip stuff, just like most mmo do nowadays

If you're skipping the story, it's not the game's fault that you're getting confused.

[Trew Domko]

honestly i've never beaten a mainline FF game before so i cant really say im a FF fanboy and even so i still find the game to be fun in the viewpoint of it being an MMO and not just a final fantasy game. a lot of the class MSQ stuff is go there and go here but the stories are pretty good IMO.

[Delaborga]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย The Mayor of Murder Town:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dalapie:

lets take a good example of wow, they have alot of reading quest but most of the neewer quest is voiced as u go through them, you dont really read or care about the story some times but your NOT at all confused about what ur doing and why, but in ARR, if you skip content you dont know why ur doing this and that, and u feel like it could be presented way stronger for a 2012 game ,

so many things you do when u skip that feels like you just wanna go kill 12 rats just to get some fun gameplay and practise rotations and dps and stuff. would love if the story in ffxiv could give you the story better even if you skip stuff, just like most mmo do nowadays

If you're skipping the story, it's not the game's fault that you're getting confused.

not true, the story can be presented in a way where the npc also speaks instead of having dialogue, and with important moments you can still hear them talking to you when your questing, just like wow did, a little pop op with the voice line comes up as you venture into ur quest so you can tell what is happening as you play,, its not even ripping from wow, its basicly just a good feature most mmo should have

[Oberon]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dalapie:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย The Mayor of Murder Town:

If you're skipping the story, it's not the game's fault that you're getting confused.

not true, the story can be presented in a way where the npc also speaks instead of having dialogue, and with important moments you can still hear them talking to you when your questing, just like wow did, a little pop op with the voice line comes up as you venture into ur quest so you can tell what is happening as you play,

Or you could just pay attention to the story as it's already presented. That would be much easier for everyone involved.

[Delaborga]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย The Mayor of Murder Town:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dalapie:

not true, the story can be presented in a way where the npc also speaks instead of having dialogue, and with important moments you can still hear them talking to you when your questing, just like wow did, a little pop op with the voice line comes up as you venture into ur quest so you can tell what is happening as you play,

Or you could just pay attention to the story as it's already presented. That would be much easier for everyone involved.

again not true, not everyone wanna stand still listening 5 minutes to a conversation that they may not find interresting, :)

[Oberon]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dalapie:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย The Mayor of Murder Town:

Or you could just pay attention to the story as it's already presented. That would be much easier for everyone involved.

again not true, not everyone wanna stand still listening 5 minutes to a conversation that they may not find interresting, :)

Well tough. The story is already being presented, it's not the game's fault you chose to skip it.

[Mandodo]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dalapie:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย The Mayor of Murder Town:

If you're skipping the story, it's not the game's fault that you're getting confused.

not true, the story can be presented in a way where the npc also speaks instead of having dialogue, and with important moments you can still hear them talking to you when your questing, just like wow did, a little pop op with the voice line comes up as you venture into ur quest so you can tell what is happening as you play,, its not even ripping from wow, its basicly just a good feature most mmo should have

Oh, voice acting.....like SWTOR.....I mean, they spent 500 million on voice acting alone....and yet.....WTF is SWTOR anymore.......

What works for one, barely, does not work for the other.

I read faster than people talk and HUMANS, us, we actually learn and retain stuff faster and longer if READ and not SPOKEN.

Take for example, I can quote every single line in FF VIII. No Voice acting. I can only quote a few lines from FF X, fully voiced.

On top of that, since most read faster than spoken word, most get stuck in a 30 minute long convo waiting for the npc to finally get done and that ♥♥♥♥ is boring and droning.

=====================================

Now, if you talk to NPC's , you would notice their dialogue changes during events in the game. They recognize you, notice you, things you did etc.

====================================

I been done with Shadowbringers for a while now I can say from experience, YES, almost all important characters and npc's DO COME FULL CIRCLE.

There is tons of people from ARR ONLY that come back in a HUGE story way.

OMG, I wanna name drop so damn bad but it would spoil it.

Most who skipped and are playing through SHB are having to go back and do ARR on an alt to get the full scope of the story.

No fanboy, no whatever, just straight up, do you like story? Do you like it when characters are reused and not just discarded? Do you like twists?

Well, do like I say to everybody, do ARR ONCE. After that, skip every time.

The 100 quests to get from ARR to HW are much more important NOW than they seemed when we did them.

i.e. you help someones mom and some kids with chocobos.

Sounds dumb right?

It's not. Those 2 stupid events/quests actually hold immense weight later on....Doman Reconstruction(kids) and I cant say the other, it is major spoilers.

So what seems like a chore and unimportant, is actually really important, just not at that second.

But it comes full circle.

As a story lover, my characters name is Hellbound Heart named after Clive Barkers Novella The Hellbound Heart, you all know it as Hellraiser the movie, and an avid reader of many, many books, don't skip anything and power through it. ARR is slow to a point but it does pick up fast as hell.

Not saying it as a FF Fanboy or video game fanboy, but as a story lover. Lore lover, etc.

[SinCanDory]

It gets better and better with each expansion pack

[arejang]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย rocketskates69:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dalapie:

not true, the story can be presented in a way where the npc also speaks instead of having dialogue, and with important moments you can still hear them talking to you when your questing, just like wow did, a little pop op with the voice line comes up as you venture into ur quest so you can tell what is happening as you play,, its not even ripping from wow, its basicly just a good feature most mmo should have

Oh, voice acting.....like SWTOR.....I mean, they spent 500 million on voice acting alone....and yet.....WTF is SWTOR anymore.......

What works for one, barely, does not work for the other.

I read faster than people talk and HUMANS, us, we actually learn and retain stuff faster and longer if READ and not SPOKEN.

Take for example, I can quote every single line in FF VIII. No Voice acting. I can only quote a few lines from FF X, fully voiced.

On top of that, since most read faster than spoken word, most get stuck in a 30 minute long convo waiting for the npc to finally get done and that ♥♥♥♥ is boring and droning.

=====================================

Now, if you talk to NPC's , you would notice their dialogue changes during events in the game. They recognize you, notice you, things you did etc.

====================================

I been done with Shadowbringers for a while now I can say from experience, YES, almost all important characters and npc's DO COME FULL CIRCLE.

There is tons of people from ARR ONLY that come back in a HUGE story way.

OMG, I wanna name drop so damn bad but it would spoil it.

Most who skipped and are playing through SHB are having to go back and do ARR on an alt to get the full scope of the story.

No fanboy, no whatever, just straight up, do you like story? Do you like it when characters are reused and not just discarded? Do you like twists?

Well, do like I say to everybody, do ARR ONCE. After that, skip every time.

The 100 quests to get from ARR to HW are much more important NOW than they seemed when we did them.

i.e. you help someones mom and some kids with chocobos.

Sounds dumb right?

It's not. Those 2 stupid events/quests actually hold immense weight later on....Doman Reconstruction(kids) and I cant say the other, it is major spoilers.

So what seems like a chore and unimportant, is actually really important, just not at that second.

But it comes full circle.

As a story lover, my characters name is Hellbound Heart named after Clive Barkers Novella The Hellbound Heart, you all know it as Hellraiser the movie, and an avid reader of many, many books, don't skip anything and power through it. ARR is slow to a point but it does pick up fast as hell.

Not saying it as a FF Fanboy or video game fanboy, but as a story lover. Lore lover, etc.

There are ways to make reading appealing and the devs definitely did not do that in ARR. The story is a jumbled mess and pacing is an absolute nightmare to get through. The fact that Shadowbringers puts that much emphasis on filler quests in ARR is actually more disheartening than it is hopeful.It's a cheap way to excuse the terrible job they did with the introductory experience. I just hope the entire story isn't comprised of repeatedly going back to ARR over and over again. Shadowbringers has been praised as one of the best stories so far, and if the whole thing is just references to inconsequential narrative that continually halted the pacing of the story of the base campaign...wow that actually makes me really dread what's upcoming for me.

Like if it turns out Trachtoum is actually some primal that returns for Shadowbringers...I can't even...And Trachtoum is only one of a literal myriad of inconsequential characters that repeatedly halted the narrative. And how many of these people are coming back to salvage ARR? Is that the entire point of the Shadowbringers story? To rescue the mess that is ARR? I really hope it isn't, but your emphasis on everything coming full circle and not much emphasis on SB telling its own story is really not giving me much hope lol.

[Mandodo]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย arejang:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย rocketskates69:

Oh, voice acting.....like SWTOR.....I mean, they spent 500 million on voice acting alone....and yet.....WTF is SWTOR anymore.......

What works for one, barely, does not work for the other.

I read faster than people talk and HUMANS, us, we actually learn and retain stuff faster and longer if READ and not SPOKEN.

Take for example, I can quote every single line in FF VIII. No Voice acting. I can only quote a few lines from FF X, fully voiced.

On top of that, since most read faster than spoken word, most get stuck in a 30 minute long convo waiting for the npc to finally get done and that ♥♥♥♥ is boring and droning.

=====================================

Now, if you talk to NPC's , you would notice their dialogue changes during events in the game. They recognize you, notice you, things you did etc.

====================================

I been done with Shadowbringers for a while now I can say from experience, YES, almost all important characters and npc's DO COME FULL CIRCLE.

There is tons of people from ARR ONLY that come back in a HUGE story way.

OMG, I wanna name drop so damn bad but it would spoil it.

Most who skipped and are playing through SHB are having to go back and do ARR on an alt to get the full scope of the story.

No fanboy, no whatever, just straight up, do you like story? Do you like it when characters are reused and not just discarded? Do you like twists?

Well, do like I say to everybody, do ARR ONCE. After that, skip every time.

The 100 quests to get from ARR to HW are much more important NOW than they seemed when we did them.

i.e. you help someones mom and some kids with chocobos.

Sounds dumb right?

It's not. Those 2 stupid events/quests actually hold immense weight later on....Doman Reconstruction(kids) and I cant say the other, it is major spoilers.

So what seems like a chore and unimportant, is actually really important, just not at that second.

But it comes full circle.

As a story lover, my characters name is Hellbound Heart named after Clive Barkers Novella The Hellbound Heart, you all know it as Hellraiser the movie, and an avid reader of many, many books, don't skip anything and power through it. ARR is slow to a point but it does pick up fast as hell.

Not saying it as a FF Fanboy or video game fanboy, but as a story lover. Lore lover, etc.

There are ways to make reading appealing and the devs definitely did not do that in ARR. The story is a jumbled mess and pacing is an absolute nightmare to get through. The fact that Shadowbringers puts that much emphasis on filler quests in ARR is actually more disheartening than it is hopeful.It's a cheap way to excuse the terrible job they did with the introductory experience. I just hope the entire story isn't comprised of repeatedly going back to ARR over and over again. Shadowbringers has been praised as one of the best stories so far, and if the whole thing is just references to inconsequential narrative that continually halted the pacing of the story of the base campaign...wow that actually makes me really dread what's upcoming for me.

Like if it turns out Trachtoum is actually some primal that returns for Shadowbringers...I can't even...And Trachtoum is only one of a literal myriad of inconsequential characters that repeatedly halted the narrative. And how many of these people are coming back to salvage ARR? Is that the entire point of the Shadowbringers story? To rescue the mess that is ARR? I really hope it isn't, but your emphasis on everything coming full circle and not much emphasis on SB telling its own story is really not giving me much hope lol.

Maybe you just don't get it?

ARR was made, I should say, re created from 1.0 and was told that ARR would not last a year.

Again, the fate of ARR hanged in the balance so they gave a ton of quests and stuff to do so that if the game did not do well, you at least had about 200 hours of gameplay.

As they got popular, they started to fix things and as time went on HW, SB, and now ShB, their future is secure and don't have to take so many chances and ♥♥♥♥ like that.

ARR is a beast. Confusing story? Not at all. A mess? Maybe with the amount of quests.
Badly written? Not at all. Not even in the slightest.

It's the same writers since 1.0 all the way to ShB.

I imagine in about 4 more years people will say, "Man, HW is a core to get through".
Then SB. Then ShB.

This happened with FF XI.

Now, those kids you help in those 100 quests, is HUGE IN STORMBLOOD and the DOMAN RECONSTRUCTION project.

Extremely important.

Things in ARR had EXTREME relevance in HW.

Everything does come full circle. NPC's are not just used once and their now just place holders.

I enjoyed seeing NPC's from ARR in Ishgard. That was awesome and they had new dialogue.

It's funny, where you are now, looks 100% different from where I am.

Your still surrounded by crumbling buildings and im here while they have been built back up.

By us and those NPC's that people say never mattered. You meet them in menieal quests, go fetch x. y, z, etc.

I can name more than 25 NPC's that give crappy quests who you thought were nobodies and one time NPC uses that have a HUGE impact on HW, SB, and ShB.

A lot of them appear in Eureka and other places too.

Theres a guy who catches a ride with you to the gold saucer for the first time. He's looking for work. Now he's an attendant there and he's happy.

For most who are not there yet, it's just some guy with a wish to get a job lol.

I have to add, note how we have NO junk items, gold bags dont count.

Every single item has value. There is no, "Sell junk for money" option like WoW and ESO, etc.

Every asset is reused and updated dialogue as you go through the story.

Again, I could spoil so much but I wont.

[arejang]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย rocketskates69:

Maybe you just don't get it?

ARR was made, I should say, re created from 1.0 and was told that ARR would not last a year.

Again, the fate of ARR hanged in the balance so they gave a ton of quests and stuff to do so that if the game did not do well, you at least had about 200 hours of gameplay.

As they got popular, they started to fix things and as time went on HW, SB, and now ShB, their future is secure and don't have to take so many chances and ♥♥♥♥ like that.

ARR is a beast. Confusing story? Not at all. A mess? Maybe with the amount of quests.
Badly written? Not at all. Not even in the slightest.

It's the same writers since 1.0 all the way to ShB.

I imagine in about 4 more years people will say, "Man, HW is a core to get through".
Then SB. Then ShB.

This happened with FF XI.

Now, those kids you help in those 100 quests, is HUGE IN STORMBLOOD and the DOMAN RECONSTRUCTION project.

Extremely important.

Things in ARR had EXTREME relevance in HW.

Everything does come full circle. NPC's are not just used once and their now just place holders.

I enjoyed seeing NPC's from ARR in Ishgard. That was awesome and they had new dialogue.

It's funny, where you are now, looks 100% different from where I am.

Your still surrounded by crumbling buildings and im here while they have been built back up.

By us and those NPC's that people say never mattered. You meet them in menieal quests, go fetch x. y, z, etc.

I can name more than 25 NPC's that give crappy quests who you thought were nobodies and one time NPC uses that have a HUGE impact on HW, SB, and ShB.

A lot of them appear in Eureka and other places too.

Theres a guy who catches a ride with you to the gold saucer for the first time. He's looking for work. Now he's an attendant there and he's happy.

For most who are not there yet, it's just some guy with a wish to get a job lol.

I have to add, note how we have NO junk items, gold bags dont count.

Every single item has value. There is no, "Sell junk for money" option like WoW and ESO, etc.

Every asset is reused and updated dialogue as you go through the story.

Again, I could spoil so much but I wont.

So I intentionally tried (in vain hopes) to throw out a name of an NPC that's one of the worse offenders filler narrative in the ARR. Instead of reassuring me that someone like Trachtoum won't return for SB, you continued your original train of thought that not only will the likes of he return, but possibly (and probably) every single NPC I didn't care for in ARR will return for no other reason than to excuse the garbage pile that is ARR's story.

So Drunken Stag is coming back. So is Gisilbehrt, Hremfing, Meffrid, Brunadier and the whole cast of people I've literally only met once in my entire journey so far. Do you remember what each of those guys were responsible for? I'm sure you would because they are now apparently all playing critical roles for the fate of this story, but let's be realistic here. Would anyone else who hasn't yet been through the SB campaign yet remember what they originally did in ARR? Even if they were fully engrossed in the story?

Simply bringing back inconsequential characters from a long-forgotten past isn't what makes a story good. It's a very weak reason to go back and play the story again just to remember, "oh yeah, this guy made me drop everything spray a chocobo with febreeze. Turns out he was a Jesus-figure in disguise and literally the whole universe with implode without his cooperation." That's a horrible way to approach storytelling. It's just a way for the writers to say "Hey, our writing wasn't so bad back then! Look at how important literally every character from back then becomes!" I'm face-palming so hard right now. I couldn't care less about any of these no-names. You (the writers of FFXIV) don't have to bring back ARR just redeem yourselves. I was willing to look beyond that and now you're going back to ARR for no apparent reason than to thinly veil how horrible it was except now, you've effectively made the story worse by bringing it up again!

Tell me I'm wrong. Please. I'm throwing out every opportunity for you to tell me that it's actually not that bad, but you keep telling me I'm not far off from the truth, and every single nobody in ARR is preparing to be the next Minfilia or Alphinaud in the SB story. And I'm telling you that that absolutely does not work for storytelling, no matter how convinced you are that it does. It just doesn't. It was bad enough I had to brace myself through ARR and Astral Era. Now there's literally no hope to salvage this crumbling narrative.

[Brigadeos]

The quest in this game are so freaking boring, i just do it with my brain turned off at this point. But, the bosses and dungeons are REALLY fun, thats the good part about the game (bosses on extreme are really fun). The story, well, ARR is kind of meh but acceptable, Heavensward is really good, Stormblood is boring as hell and Shadow is really good. So basivally its a roller coaster of emotions with the story, but all the bosses and dungeons are awesome.

[Mandodo]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย arejang:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย rocketskates69:

Maybe you just don't get it?

ARR was made, I should say, re created from 1.0 and was told that ARR would not last a year.

Again, the fate of ARR hanged in the balance so they gave a ton of quests and stuff to do so that if the game did not do well, you at least had about 200 hours of gameplay.

As they got popular, they started to fix things and as time went on HW, SB, and now ShB, their future is secure and don't have to take so many chances and ♥♥♥♥ like that.

ARR is a beast. Confusing story? Not at all. A mess? Maybe with the amount of quests.
Badly written? Not at all. Not even in the slightest.

It's the same writers since 1.0 all the way to ShB.

I imagine in about 4 more years people will say, "Man, HW is a core to get through".
Then SB. Then ShB.

This happened with FF XI.

Now, those kids you help in those 100 quests, is HUGE IN STORMBLOOD and the DOMAN RECONSTRUCTION project.

Extremely important.

Things in ARR had EXTREME relevance in HW.

Everything does come full circle. NPC's are not just used once and their now just place holders.

I enjoyed seeing NPC's from ARR in Ishgard. That was awesome and they had new dialogue.

It's funny, where you are now, looks 100% different from where I am.

Your still surrounded by crumbling buildings and im here while they have been built back up.

By us and those NPC's that people say never mattered. You meet them in menieal quests, go fetch x. y, z, etc.

I can name more than 25 NPC's that give crappy quests who you thought were nobodies and one time NPC uses that have a HUGE impact on HW, SB, and ShB.

A lot of them appear in Eureka and other places too.

Theres a guy who catches a ride with you to the gold saucer for the first time. He's looking for work. Now he's an attendant there and he's happy.

For most who are not there yet, it's just some guy with a wish to get a job lol.

I have to add, note how we have NO junk items, gold bags dont count.

Every single item has value. There is no, "Sell junk for money" option like WoW and ESO, etc.

Every asset is reused and updated dialogue as you go through the story.

Again, I could spoil so much but I wont.

So I intentionally tried (in vain hopes) to throw out a name of an NPC that's one of the worse offenders filler narrative in the ARR. Instead of reassuring me that someone like Trachtoum won't return for SB, you continued your original train of thought that not only will the likes of he return, but possibly (and probably) every single NPC I didn't care for in ARR will return for no other reason than to excuse the garbage pile that is ARR's story.

So Drunken Stag is coming back. So is Gisilbehrt, Hremfing, Meffrid, Brunadier and the whole cast of people I've literally only met once in my entire journey so far. Do you remember what each of those guys were responsible for? I'm sure you would because they are now apparently all playing critical roles for the fate of this story, but let's be realistic here. Would anyone else who hasn't yet been through the SB campaign yet remember what they originally did in ARR? Even if they were fully engrossed in the story?

Simply bringing back inconsequential characters from a long-forgotten past isn't what makes a story good. It's a very weak reason to go back and play the story again just to remember, "oh yeah, this guy made me drop everything spray a chocobo with febreeze. Turns out he was a Jesus-figure in disguise and literally the whole universe with implode without his cooperation." That's a horrible way to approach storytelling. It's just a way for the writers to say "Hey, our writing wasn't so bad back then! Look at how important literally every character from back then becomes!" I'm face-palming so hard right now. I couldn't care less about any of these no-names. You (the writers of FFXIV) don't have to bring back ARR just redeem yourselves. I was willing to look beyond that and now you're going back to ARR for no apparent reason than to thinly veil how horrible it was except now, you've effectively made the story worse by bringing it up again!

Tell me I'm wrong. Please. I'm throwing out every opportunity for you to tell me that it's actually not that bad, but you keep telling me I'm not far off from the truth, and every single nobody in ARR is preparing to be the next Minfilia or Alphinaud in the SB story. And I'm telling you that that absolutely does not work for storytelling, no matter how convinced you are that it does. It just doesn't. It was bad enough I had to brace myself through ARR and Astral Era. Now there's literally no hope to salvage this crumbling narrative.

Tell you what, actually get to SB and then come talk to me. Finish ShB and come back.

You'll be like everybody else here who has not got there yet and assume they know everything.

That's the point of great story telling. You make the most little of characters a big part.

I can name millions of movies, tv show, and books that do this same exact thing.

Again, when you get there, you'll see.

Not every pleb NPC just stays a fisher or some guy walking around. They evolve and grow.

That's what your missing but, your commenting and yet, your not there yet to even actually see it.

So yes, you are wrong.

EDIT - I'm sure you know nothing of Manfillia. Just wait till ShB. Nobody can be the next Manfillia, again, you'd know this if you were in ShB

[arejang]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย rocketskates69:

Tell you what, actually get to SB and then come talk to me. Finish ShB and come back.

You'll be like everybody else here who has not got there yet and assume they know everything.

That's the point of great story telling. You make the most little of characters a big part.

I can name millions of movies, tv show, and books that do this same exact thing.

Again, when you get there, you'll see.

Not every pleb NPC just stays a fisher or some guy walking around. They evolve and grow.

That's what your missing but, your commenting and yet, your not there yet to even actually see it.

So yes, you are wrong.

I'd much prefer to know that I'm not going to spend hours being reintroduced to every single quest-giving NPC in ARR again. I don't want an excuse to say ARR wasn't bad because it was bad. But I'm willing to look past that. I don't need an entire expansion that's wholly devoted to trying to redeem ARR again when I was never asking for its redemption in the first place. If that's all I'm looking forward to, then I'm not even going to try. And anyone else who asks about this game, I'll just tell them SB is ARR revisited, and ARR is riddled with horrible narrative and constant halts due to filler quests. Except ARR had a salvageable story outside of these filler quests and SB's story is actually entirely devoted to ARR's filler quest NPCs.

I'm not asking for you to spoil SB. But I need you to tell me you got off on the wrong foot trying to sell this game's strength as being entirely about filler NPCs from ARR. Just. No. Literally anything but that. Please. I want to give this game a chance and you've done no service to this game. At all.