Due to it's namesake, and the premise of the first expansion of said saga, it's quite clear it will focus on shard-hopping.
In fact, if Tender Valley and all the constant serpent symbols are any indication, we'll probably get a Ronkan expansion down the line. They gave a reason for the Withering with the loss of Hydealyn, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was more to it than that.
But where does this leave The Source? We can speculate that Meracydia will show up somewhere down the line but ultimately that's all we have to go off.
In some interviews, YoshiP brought up a potential Higashi civil war scenario, which as of yet, exists merely in said interviews. Higashi is an isolationist nation, so it makes sense that news might not travel freely, but setting up some mentions of this civil war somewhere in Doma om future quests and side content to build it up a smidge couldn't hurt.
Furthermore, the normal and alliance raid's for Evercold are both crossovers. Due to the nature of crossovers, it is unlikely that they will focus on FFXIV lore, especially if Echoes of Vana'diel is any indication. I think in some part that's fine, since raids and alliance raids are normally self-contained for the most part, Coils and The Crystal Tower being the only exceptions. That being said, the Crystal Tower is a great example of how crossover content can meaningfully expand the world of FFXIV in a way that elevates both. Maybe if we're lucky the FF7 raids will do this. Evangelion I have much less hope for setting wise, but you never know. Hopefully 9.0 will keep to one crossover or maybe if we're lucky they'll both be original to make up for it.
This is further exacerbated by the loss of the Trial Series. Instead of giving trials like Zelenia and Enuo a greater place in FFXIV's world, you just hodge-podgenly have them inserted in the MSQ like an obligatory commercial cutaway. (Shout out to Enuo literally just being some random dude that exists for a quarter of a cutscene at best before we fight him very cool use SE) A hypothetical Evercold Trial series could have expanded on The Source a bit, instead of being after dungeon obligatory filler bosses. Of course, even if said trial series existed, it would likely have been on The Fourth, or even potentially the First or Ninth, but it's a big loss in terms of expanding the world.
It also feels very easy for one to imagine that virtually nothing at all impactful will happen to The Source bar like, six/eight upcoming job-quests, and maybe 3-4 variant dungeons if they don't cut those. among 3-4 expansions. Post-patch storylines (X.1- X.5) will likely have a vast focus on the current shard (X.1 - X.3) and then setting up the next shard (X.4 - X.5) leaving little room to develop stuff on the source.
Perhaps Role Quests could fill in for The Source. EW had us go back to all the city leaders, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. ShB were mostly on The First, save for a brief part on the final role quest, so it's a toss-up there.
For example, take Aerslant. The homeland of the Roegadyns sounds like an interesting place to explore, and we'll probably learn some stuff about it given that the Bastion job. That being said, we probably won't visit.
It's possible they handwave this by having this saga be like two weeks in Eorzea time or something though lol.
I also think the new World Raids system could bring new life to old areas if they wanted to, and be an interesting avenue to explore developments on the source if they felt inclined. It's possible that Evercold's World Raids won't take place in The Fourth, but I wouldn't bet on it. It sounds like a good way to build up the X.3 patch so I could see it go either way.
Besides which, every seed they plant now will probably help immensely when they run out of shards and have to come up with what follows The Withering expansion. There's a lot of places on The Source we haven't explored yet, namely Ilsabard, but there is Hingashi and the aforementioned. Occult Crescent also introduces the idea of twelve past Eorzean city states, some we already know, such as Mhach, Nym, Amdapor and Skalla. The only notable new thing we learned was a city state by the name of Karnak existed. A small crumb, but one that seems like it could easily be expanded.
Plus, despite the New World having a much larger landmass than Eorzea, it feels like we explored most of it already when it could probably have easily carried multiple expansions on it's own if they scaled it down. Tural has six areas, whereas not counting ARR, Eorzea has 12 areas. If we add ARR areas as a whole, La Noscea, the Shroud, Thanalan, A part of Coerthas and Mor Dhona, brings that number to 17, which is funnily enough almost three expansions worth today. I feel they could heavily benefit from scaling down areas in future.
I think with how EW hastened to close off potential plot lines like The Twelve and how sidelined Tural was in favour of Alexandria and Solution Nine (On a side note, if we were to get a cyber city, I feel cyber South America would have been much more interesting setting wise compared to your average cyber city, but I can understand the devs being shy of the idea), where it is beyond clear the devs absolutely had a favourite, it really feels (<- Keyword) like currently there's not much love if any for The Source in comparison. And I fear this feeling will only grow with the next few expansions.
Worst case we'll solve The Withering, and then immediately do a G'raha and learn to time travel so we can save the other shards, connecting them with a post withering Eitheirys. That or we'll further neglect the source in favour of the 8th calamity timeline where Black Rose was used. Doomposting a little and I don't think they're necessarily bad plotlines to follow far far into the future, but I think both would feel pretty egregious right after.
Theoretically we still have Ultima and the Heart of Sabik, and that would probably involve Altima in some way. That would leave two or three ascians after depending on Emmerolereth's status, since Halmarut seems to be the sole ascian for 'The Godless Realms' unless Evercold reveals otherwise.
As an addendum, so it's not all doomposting here, what would you hope to see for future shards?
Sometime during 7.1 or 7.2 (I don't remember which) me and a friend were discussing how The First mirrored Eorzea, being A Realm Recoloured, and discussed how a future shard could carry this energy while setting itself apart. Instead of twisting the world, what if you twisted it's peoples instead? We joked about Elezen's being chocobo people because of their long necks (Dhalmels are probably more accurate, but nowhere near as iconic), and theorycrafted Roegadyns with the sharks on account of their seafaring history. Perhaps ironically, Hrothgar could be the most Hyuran of the races there haha. In light of The Winterers, it also seems like an easy Winterer plot, becoming one with nature to survive it's coming storm. Thematically, it could even serve as an example of what a post Withering Eitheirys could potentially look like.
And how would you like to see The Source expanded upon outside of the MSQ, since it's unlikely to do so for quite a while.
Continue reading...
In fact, if Tender Valley and all the constant serpent symbols are any indication, we'll probably get a Ronkan expansion down the line. They gave a reason for the Withering with the loss of Hydealyn, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was more to it than that.
But where does this leave The Source? We can speculate that Meracydia will show up somewhere down the line but ultimately that's all we have to go off.
In some interviews, YoshiP brought up a potential Higashi civil war scenario, which as of yet, exists merely in said interviews. Higashi is an isolationist nation, so it makes sense that news might not travel freely, but setting up some mentions of this civil war somewhere in Doma om future quests and side content to build it up a smidge couldn't hurt.
Furthermore, the normal and alliance raid's for Evercold are both crossovers. Due to the nature of crossovers, it is unlikely that they will focus on FFXIV lore, especially if Echoes of Vana'diel is any indication. I think in some part that's fine, since raids and alliance raids are normally self-contained for the most part, Coils and The Crystal Tower being the only exceptions. That being said, the Crystal Tower is a great example of how crossover content can meaningfully expand the world of FFXIV in a way that elevates both. Maybe if we're lucky the FF7 raids will do this. Evangelion I have much less hope for setting wise, but you never know. Hopefully 9.0 will keep to one crossover or maybe if we're lucky they'll both be original to make up for it.
This is further exacerbated by the loss of the Trial Series. Instead of giving trials like Zelenia and Enuo a greater place in FFXIV's world, you just hodge-podgenly have them inserted in the MSQ like an obligatory commercial cutaway. (Shout out to Enuo literally just being some random dude that exists for a quarter of a cutscene at best before we fight him very cool use SE) A hypothetical Evercold Trial series could have expanded on The Source a bit, instead of being after dungeon obligatory filler bosses. Of course, even if said trial series existed, it would likely have been on The Fourth, or even potentially the First or Ninth, but it's a big loss in terms of expanding the world.
It also feels very easy for one to imagine that virtually nothing at all impactful will happen to The Source bar like, six/eight upcoming job-quests, and maybe 3-4 variant dungeons if they don't cut those. among 3-4 expansions. Post-patch storylines (X.1- X.5) will likely have a vast focus on the current shard (X.1 - X.3) and then setting up the next shard (X.4 - X.5) leaving little room to develop stuff on the source.
Perhaps Role Quests could fill in for The Source. EW had us go back to all the city leaders, so it's not outside the realm of possibility. ShB were mostly on The First, save for a brief part on the final role quest, so it's a toss-up there.
For example, take Aerslant. The homeland of the Roegadyns sounds like an interesting place to explore, and we'll probably learn some stuff about it given that the Bastion job. That being said, we probably won't visit.
It's possible they handwave this by having this saga be like two weeks in Eorzea time or something though lol.
I also think the new World Raids system could bring new life to old areas if they wanted to, and be an interesting avenue to explore developments on the source if they felt inclined. It's possible that Evercold's World Raids won't take place in The Fourth, but I wouldn't bet on it. It sounds like a good way to build up the X.3 patch so I could see it go either way.
Besides which, every seed they plant now will probably help immensely when they run out of shards and have to come up with what follows The Withering expansion. There's a lot of places on The Source we haven't explored yet, namely Ilsabard, but there is Hingashi and the aforementioned. Occult Crescent also introduces the idea of twelve past Eorzean city states, some we already know, such as Mhach, Nym, Amdapor and Skalla. The only notable new thing we learned was a city state by the name of Karnak existed. A small crumb, but one that seems like it could easily be expanded.
Plus, despite the New World having a much larger landmass than Eorzea, it feels like we explored most of it already when it could probably have easily carried multiple expansions on it's own if they scaled it down. Tural has six areas, whereas not counting ARR, Eorzea has 12 areas. If we add ARR areas as a whole, La Noscea, the Shroud, Thanalan, A part of Coerthas and Mor Dhona, brings that number to 17, which is funnily enough almost three expansions worth today. I feel they could heavily benefit from scaling down areas in future.
I think with how EW hastened to close off potential plot lines like The Twelve and how sidelined Tural was in favour of Alexandria and Solution Nine (On a side note, if we were to get a cyber city, I feel cyber South America would have been much more interesting setting wise compared to your average cyber city, but I can understand the devs being shy of the idea), where it is beyond clear the devs absolutely had a favourite, it really feels (<- Keyword) like currently there's not much love if any for The Source in comparison. And I fear this feeling will only grow with the next few expansions.
Worst case we'll solve The Withering, and then immediately do a G'raha and learn to time travel so we can save the other shards, connecting them with a post withering Eitheirys. That or we'll further neglect the source in favour of the 8th calamity timeline where Black Rose was used. Doomposting a little and I don't think they're necessarily bad plotlines to follow far far into the future, but I think both would feel pretty egregious right after.
Theoretically we still have Ultima and the Heart of Sabik, and that would probably involve Altima in some way. That would leave two or three ascians after depending on Emmerolereth's status, since Halmarut seems to be the sole ascian for 'The Godless Realms' unless Evercold reveals otherwise.
As an addendum, so it's not all doomposting here, what would you hope to see for future shards?
Sometime during 7.1 or 7.2 (I don't remember which) me and a friend were discussing how The First mirrored Eorzea, being A Realm Recoloured, and discussed how a future shard could carry this energy while setting itself apart. Instead of twisting the world, what if you twisted it's peoples instead? We joked about Elezen's being chocobo people because of their long necks (Dhalmels are probably more accurate, but nowhere near as iconic), and theorycrafted Roegadyns with the sharks on account of their seafaring history. Perhaps ironically, Hrothgar could be the most Hyuran of the races there haha. In light of The Winterers, it also seems like an easy Winterer plot, becoming one with nature to survive it's coming storm. Thematically, it could even serve as an example of what a post Withering Eitheirys could potentially look like.
And how would you like to see The Source expanded upon outside of the MSQ, since it's unlikely to do so for quite a while.
Continue reading...