Well, well, well…

You either quit in ARR or live long enough to become a walking advertisment for the The Critically Acclaimed MMORPG FFXIV when you reach Heavensward. ARR was like a 7/10 because of time and ressource restrictions. Now with Heavensward they had all they needed to make a 9/10 some say 10/10 expansion.

Welcome to the real game.

When he said the FF people will laugh, I didnt laugh....I just smiled. So awesome to see him basically geeking out over the lore in FF. A lore fan getting the lore he has always wanted planted within in a game. Keep enjoying it! You will be well rewarded as you move forward. :) Same thing when I watch Pyromancer.

"I need to talk about this stuff goddamn right now!" F*cking finally

People aren't "rushing" through the game. I was thinking that many were, but in retrospect, we were all just so hooked that we can't stop playing and play 12 hours a day....

Bells talking a half of an hour about ARR's end, Pyro cheering on the comments, Asmon talking about how we wants to show us his Yoshi P's interview...sometimes I think I'm in a weird alternative timeline.

That feeling when you reach this point in ff14..and realize.. how little WoW ever offered us and gave us for our time, love and devotion.

End of ARR: Storytelling isn't even in the same ballpark... HW, StB, ShB: Holy shit, they're not even playing the same sport...

You’re starting on the rollercoaster for real now, man. It’s been an uphill climb so far, but now it’s just gonna start pulling you along.

It's so good seeing WoW veterans' eyes light up with hope as they experience FFXIV. It's almost like we're remembering how MMORPGs used to make us feel, and why we liked them so much years ago. Bellular, you're gonna have a good time.

FF in the last several weeks has changed the way I think of MMOs. I always avoided theme park MMOs cause I didn't think I could suspend my disbelief when trying to relax and immerse myself in the world. But I was wrong, not only can I suspend my disbelief, but this storyline has allowed me to experience and understand the cities around me with a depth that improved my immersive experience! And everyones characters have so much customization and the players have so many varied interests and desires, they when I'm looking out into a town of busy players playing music and crafting and chatting... It's so lively and every feature so well used and every place so lived in that I have no problem at all suspending my disbelief and completely forgetting the WoL storyline to imagine a world where in WoL is someone else-- doing his own thing, and I am one of the many adventurers scrounging together a living in Eorzea.

13:12 I think sometimes people forget that the name of the genre is mmoRPg. Where the RP stands for ROLE PLAYING, which means if you're not getting yourself immersed into the narrative/world you aren't doing the RP of the RPG you're just only doing the G. WoW is more of a mmoG than an mmoRPG atm.

"Several cutscenes are about to play in sequence. It is recommended that you set aside sufficient time to view them in their entirety." The deceptively simple phrase which has traumatized every single FFXIV player who doesn't skip cutscenes.

Make sure to talk to all the NPC's around quest areas, even after you accept or when you finish the whole line. What NPC's say change pretty significantly and often have massive lore hints

I admit, I was playing ARR solely to ocean fish, stuck in the post praetorium slog, and motivated to advance on the MSQ solely so I could get more FSH skills so I could get the ocean fishing mount. But boy, once I hit that cutscene... I was in, just fully in. Of course I didn't skip cutscenes prior, I just didn't pay that much attention. After that, I was fully invested.

Did you do Binding Coils yet? Seirously: do them. They are MASSIVELY important for the Lore.

That *"SLOPPEH"* scared the hell outta me. Excited to see your thoughts on Heavensward!

Every Expansion finale wraps up AMAZINGLY. Each expansion has two endings: The .0 patch ending and the .3 patch ending. All three expansions NAIL these endings. They are all so satisfying, and in the case of patches like 3.3, 5.0 and 5.3... emotional. No WoW expansion ending even comes close besides maybe WotLK.

"It's been sitting there for 8 years..." Yep, and this is why so many long time FF players feel the way they do and just sort of give a raised eyebrow and a chuckle for all of this recent reaction to the game. So much of the recent attention to FF14 is treating it as some kind of revelation that just came out of nowhere; as if it's some brand new upstart game that just came out. So many people are asking why no one told them about this Final Fantasy 14 game before. It just goes to show how living in the WoW bubble has blinded people to, well, everything else.

Worth baring in mind, FF14 is actually an ongoing story. One of the biggest issues i always had with WoW narritively is that at the start of an expansion you feel like every NPC is meeting you for the first time or that your past accomplishments were all just done by some other random adventurer. FF14 is an ongoing story what you do in one Expansion cycle is still remembered in the next, For example in Heavensward if you are a dragoon you will be recognized as such by NPC's, they will acknowledge your accomplishments from the Dragoon Storyline within the MSQ And yes, the hardest content in the game is a Bard (Modelled after YoshiP) Telling the story of your battle but embelishing details to make you sound more badass than you actually were

I'm just sitting here like... "Isn't everything he's saying normal for every game?" It's wild how you're gushing over story actually being in game. Like... Hearing WoW players talk about these things makes me appreciate what we have. It's making me remember to not take FFXIV for granted.

The Suramar questline is really the only time WoW ever did tell a whole story, from multiple perspectives.

I've always been confused when people call everything that isn't fighting "not gameplay." Like there's tons of games where running around exploring the setting is the only point. It's still gameplay, just... not action gameplay. Idk it's a weird mindset I see from a lot of WoW people.

Players gushing about ARR's story is particularly adorable. I envy you the journey you have ahead of you.

Watching you be happy and animated while talking about the story in FF is as awesome as it was watching Asmongold do the level synched, no echo raiding. It's fantastic watching you guys actually find something you obviously enjoy so much after all the hard letdowns that World of Warcraft has been making for year after year after year.

SE stuck to their core, which is a good FF game with a mesmerizing story, and tried to build a fun MMO that will keep people playing on top of that. Blizzard, on the other hand, took a good MMO and built that into a brutal monetization machine.

He just experienced the beginning of why FF players are so vocal about their love of the game and why they are defensive of wow players shitting on it. Getting tied up in FF either provides you with a wonderful new world to lose yourself in, or shows you a new standard that wow could be held to.

If 2.55 doesn't hook a person, then the game simply isn't for them. And that's fine. I think the moment that convinced me the journey was worth seeing through was returning to the Waking Sands after dealing with Titan.

The one thing I loved about the ARR ending, isn't the ending itself, but how they lay the ground work for it. You know something is coming, and it won't be good, but you're not clear on what or how bad and then it just slams you! It would have been easy for them to have all this stuff kick off with no hints, but they gave us lots of hints that things weren't right.

"So that i can play with you guys at the start of endwalker" Poor guy

It's amazing to see Bellular ACTUALLY excited for something!

I imagine YoshiP watching this video and just smiling at his and his teams accomplishments

I'm happy that no one spoil your 2.55 experience. Still, getting to EW in 6 weeks is a big ask... Good luck.

I don't know why but it's just so much fun watching someone having so much with the game I have loved for years

"It's the experience." You nailed it Bellular. When I was in a band we always said of music that "Song is King". Mechanics aren't everything. It doesn't matter if you have the fastest drummer, or the best solo guitar player that ever lived, the real question is can you write songs that connect with people. Some of the simplest music has lasted generations because of the overall experience of listening to that song. "Song is King."

It's amusing that he's so excited, because this is just the beginning.

I agree that the post-ARR patches aren't half as bad as people claim. I was super happy to hear I'd actually get to fight Rahmu, Leviathan, and an ice primal of some type to round out the six elements. This is my first real Final Fantasy game experience so I didn't know who to expect for that last one but I was so excited to find out, and man was it worth waiting for.

As a sidenote about gameplay vs storytelling: there is actually *lots* of gameplay content in the patches (in particular plenty of dungeons, the Coils, grinding your relic weapons and, as you mentioned, extreme primals) but they are not directly tied to the msq because they aren't compulsory content (coils though have important story content). And then there is content that's almost exclusively about side story development (Hildebrand quests, Moogle Post). You can check the patch notes for each patch and there's a list of all that extra content I guess one of the reasons why the game does not hint more heavily at all that extra content via the msq is because players coming in from an FF/ jrpg perspective will primarily come for the story, and they don't want to put too many skill walls that would frustrate casual players who just want to experience the msq Fun fact: crystal tower used to not be compulsory until very recently, that was change for Reasons which you'll find out eventually ;)

That part where you said, it has been here for 8 years, and I did not really know. That is how I continuously feel. I cannot believe I did not retry this game sooner. I tried it when it first launched and lasted an hour tops... Now, I am fully invested, and cannot wait for Endwalker.

It took me nearly 4 months to get through the entire story, finished 5.5 last week...That was with doing nearly nothing but MSQ and skipping most side content. Good luck getting caught up for Endwalker Bell, it's gonna be a lot of 12 hour plays. Also, if ARR storytelling blew your mind, Shadowbringers is going to actually kill you.

I played 2.55 when it came out and I knew for a fact that I was witnessing greatness unfolding. Unfortunately not a single friend of mine liked nor played FF games, so I had to sit on this moment for a good while. Can't tell you how happy I am that FFXIV is giving so many others that same excitement 😁

I always chuckle at talking point like "what if blizzard wasn't blizzard".

What stands out the most for me is what you are getting for your money, when you buy a FF expansion you get a full story from start to finish, in wow you get an introduction to future patches.

the thing about the ARR patches is they're such a huge info dump your first time through, then you replay them after being caught up on the MSQ and you realize how relevant and important everything that happens in those patches is

I really appreciate the sloppeh soundclip in the spoiler section.

The merchant from the beginning of the game being your 'get away driver' of sorts, is such a fun moment.

I totally get it, I gave the game an other go some time in June, and after some struggles in 2.0, I found myself more and more invested in the story during the patches, and knew I was really and completly hooked once I finished them. It was a point where any remaining doubt about my commitement to play all of it vanished, and I knew I wasn't going anywhere.

"This an mmo you do do alot of killing" *laughs in drk story*

As we usually call it " the bloody banquet", i would say: you know nothing, Jon Snow. You re in for a bumpy ride 😀

After playing through the XIV story, it's become one if my favorite pastimes to watch others reactions to it. It's just so so good.

As a WoW player I was legit glossing over ARR then 2.5 happened. That’s when I knew I had to pay more attention. Now here I am waiting for Endwalker nerding out for the story.

WE FINALLY HAVE HIM! Ive been watching you since you started FF and knew there would be a point it gripped you! glad your having fun!!!

I'm so happy to see you getting to Heavensward! Buckle up because the storytelling from here on out is better than I ever imagined was possible in an MMO.

@8:30 When you mention that it feels contiguous, and this is aimed at the 1-50 experience, it does especially because of what you do from around 35-42 in Coerthas Central Highlands. Watching a clip of Asmon playing that section and I realized "Oh wow, I didn't even realize the guy I saved from a corrupt inquisitor is the guy heading the Ishgard Reconstruction projects in Shadowbringers" because for me those events were 7 years apart. And Ishgard Reconstruction literally involves the players using their crafting and gathering to in-universe build what will become additional player housing around 6.1... like how cool is that to not just add housing but even make it content to involve players in the process?

If you ever want to try playing on gamepad again I HIGHLY recommend Ginger Prime's controller guides, the settings he goes over makes playing on pad much more enjoyable and you'll have more than enough crossbare for skill all the way up to 80 without ever switching off your 1st crossbar set.

Welcome to Heavensward! You've finished one journey, and you're setting out on another. I will still say "take all the time you need", but y'know, sometimes "all the time you need" is to run that MSQ as fast and hard as you can because hot damn, does FFXIV know how to invest people in a story.

This is when the game’s story goes from good to exceptional, and it’s only uphill from here. Heavensward is a beautiful fantasy, Stormblood is a sweeping epic, and Shadowbringers is truly mind-blowing.

One of the greatest parts of FFXIV for me is seeing how the world around you recovers, grows, and embraces greater challenges after each main story is wrapped up. Patch 2.5 really set the bar in that respect, but some of Heavensward's best moments are in the 3.X patches -- and imo Stormblood REALLY comes into its own in the 4.X with some fantastic character moments. In other games, the credits roll when you beat the big bad and save the world. In FFXIV, you explore the world you've saved and watch it flourish. It's fantastic.

That cutscene length warning 'Please set aside some time' is such a good considerate little headsup... We usually use it a sign to grab a drink, snacks and tissues and I love it!

Can confirm 2.55 was the patch where the story really gripped me and made me invested and binging the rest of the story like a really good single player RPG or Netflix series

This is why you should never boost to Heavensward. Skipping ARR means skipping Before the Dawn, which IMO, is one of, if not the best story patch pre-Shadowbringers. 6 weeks may seem like a short time to get to Endwalker, but if you really want to get there in time, its still possible. 2 Weeks to beat each expansion is completely doable and not in a rushed pace. Each Expansion is much shorter than ARR.

As someone who started playing a few months ago, that collection of cutscenes was when the game finally hooked me permanently. Your brain is going to be shredded to bits when you come to realize it was nothing compared to some story stuff coming. The budget goes up, the VA gets 100 times better, and the storytelling becomes even more confident and nuanced.

It really is a nice bookend, and I've always appreciated the touch, especially if you begin the game in Ul'dah like I did (thaumaturge). Your opening cutscene is being brought into the city on a chocobo carriage with Brendt, and then at the end of 2.55 you'll escape Ul'dah in that same carriage. And Alphinaud is with you both times.

Its really cool to see Michael going through this, and Pyro breaking down on stream and crying over the weekend at the end of 3.3. Even the more... disengaged content creators like Rich Campbell get so invested in the story of FF they cant keep a dry eye. I think you absolutely nailed it when you said "gameplay first" isn't necessarily working in its current form - gameplay can absolutely come first, but they seem to be using "story last", which isnt the same thing.

I recommend doing coils of Bahamut before Heavensward. Even when someone drags you through them unaynced. They have massive lore within and one of the Best boss transition phases i ever seen in games

It’s been a lot of fun watching you get progressively more invested. Your first podcasts talking about ff a bit helped to get me to finally try it after unsubbing from wow (I would imagine permanently) back in spring. I’m still in college so I got to spend 6+ hours a day with it to catch up and have been level 80 and caught up for a couple months now, checking back in periodically to hear you talking about how much you’re enjoying being an archer in Gridania and now you’re done with ARR! The whole time I’ve just been waiting for you to get to my favorite parts and hear how you’re just as blown away by them. While shadowbringers is completely amazing I think Heavensward is still my favorite, you’re in for a real treat!

Finished with ARR: He thinks he knows but he really doesn't. Not even close.

you're hooked on FFXIV by their *half assed* effort. This is them with their efforts divided by putting out legacy fires. From here on out, YoshiP, Soken, Natsuko, the Dev team...you will have their attention Also: Machinist is awesome and my favorite job to play, but if you want a preview of top notch writing, try Dark Knight a bit. The storyline was written by Natsuko Ishikawa.

I’m glad FFXIV got to live in its own bubble until now. It got to grow off to the side and become a really good thing instead of comparing itself to WoW.

The thing is, Heavensward isn't _just_ "better than ARR". It also justifies everything that happened in it because it's all connected.

The reason the pacing felt a bit weird when the Crystal Tower content came up is because it wasn't originally MSQ content. To keep it as vague as possible, eventually there's a later point in the MSQ where the Tower becomes relevant, so they added that ARR questline to the MSQ so people later on actually know what's going on / are invested. So they did the best they could to insert that questline into the story as naturally as possible.

I personally feel WoW could really benefit from going in a Guild Wars 2 direction for their open world content. Something a bit more dynamic that the current world quest system, that causes people to group together to do things as they spawn, causing you to see more familiar faces as you run around the zone, rather than just grinding the same dailies on repeat. Like what you said at the end of the video, when combined with their strong endgame instanced content, I think we could have something really great. Something that still captures the feeling of character power progression, with the fun "sand-boxyness" of the other MMO's have without the horizontal progression.

Absolutely yes, Ive said a long time - WoWs philosophy is plain WRONG. Gaming is not mechanics, mash button, kill thing - or rather not just that. Gaming is the journey, the experience, the story, the community. Gaming is all these things and I was a gamer long before Wow and I say now, w/o hesitation, WoW has ruined utterly the expectation of what Gaming should be for So Many ppl

Honestly the thing that blows my mind the most, after playing Shadowbringers, is to hit the MSQ roulette, play the Praetorium and just listen to Lahabrea in the ending cutscene. Planning vs making it up as you go

Honestly Bellular, I think this is maybe the byproduct of having a large number of voices in your audience and not knowing how seriously to take them all, no one faults you and everyone is just glad that you're giving it a try and enjoying it. But the best, and most important part, is that all of that story... all that content... all that incredible lore... it's still there, still in a state where you can and should enjoy it. You won't lose anything except some of the raids feeling much easier. But you'll still be able to enjoy it all and can do it at your own pace. And when you finish it all, everyone will be happy to nerd out about all the lore with you. As someone who's watched your vids for a long time on WoW lore, I'm just so excited to see you, of all people, jump into a game with story and lore that is so, so, soooo much deeper and richer. Like most here, I'm excited to hear you gushing about the end of ARR.... but the one thing I can say that I truly hope you DO take to heart is... "You have no idea yet. Just wait."

Matt, grab Bellullar and make him go through Coils please. Edit: OKAY WHO PUT "SLOPEH" THERE ROFL, cheers for whoever edit this XD

Good story in games gives gameplay context. It gives meaning to your actions beyond conquering a challenge and improving your skill (intrinsic value) and collecting items and min maxing (extrinsic value). Beyond that, it is its own reward if good, and if it evokes emotions, it is a rare achievement sought out in almost all artistic expression in media.

Thr funny thing about the ending of patch 2.55, is that although (spoiler) You are "exciled" from Ul Dah, and the Crystal Braves and Brass Blades are after you, you can go straight back to Ul Dah or Revenant's Toll, and if you talk to the guards that appear in those locations, one of them is too scared to even try to arrest the warrior of Light, and the other refuses because they believe you are innocent. You can also talk to the guild bosses of class guilds you are part of , and they will also express support for you

What's actually interesting about all the post ARR primal fights(save Leviathan beside the reason why) there is a bit more lore with each primal. GKMM - Never really existed, proving that primals aren't something being brought back to life Rahmu - Not all Primals are evil, some just want to protect their people. Shiva - A person who has the echo can embody/self-summon/control a primal This is why I am against removing the fights, and even wish that the Warring Triad and Four Cardinals were part of MSQ. Sure ARR wasn't as high tier as HW/ShB but it was still actually building up some story from the embers of 1.0

ARR may have spoiled you to reflect on WoW. Heavensward will spoil you to reflect on the entire MMORPG in general. Buckle up for the critically acclaimed Heavensward.

Oh sweet summer child. It only gets waaaay better from this point on. I cannot explain how excited I am for you & your videos!!!

24:44 "Ladies and gentlemen. We got 'im." [Loud bass boosted FFXIV music]

I've never played WoW, but from what I understand about covenants, covenants are some quests or tasks you do to increase your reputation with a certain group to gain special perks as you rise up in reputation rank. We do have something similar with our Beast Tribe quests, where we do daily quests to raise our reputation with a beast tribe. They don't give us gameplay perks, but the higher your rank, the more unique things are sold at the vendor, such as dyes and crafting materials, and a mount once you reach max reputation. And they also have their own story lines, too.

Dat Bozja music at the end. What a jam!

I think a big reason post ARR story gets such a bad reputation from the player base is there spoiled by how incredible the later story is. ARR leading into HW is still a fantastic story, honestly the ARR ending is still the best. (The .5 not .0)

You're talking about narrative events from 2.0 coming back in 2.5, and they're good about that, but the key thing about ARR as a whole is it sets up narrative threads that are still super relevant in Shadowbringers and Endwalker. The nature of primals, aether, what the Ascians are and why they do what they do, the political situation in Garlemald... all of these are introduced very early on and develop over time and are only just now starting to get a real resolution. It's one big narrative tapestry and ARR is the linchpin that holds it all together.

@14:10 I would argue in anything adjacent to a "rpg" as a genre, trading story for gameplay is often a bad call. A mediocre gameplay experience can be a lot more fun and memorable because of story or rp elements around it, but a good gameplay experience in a rpg without any good story around it is just "Zone 3-2", you forget it almost the moment you get to "Zone 3-3". Incorporating both is ideal, when you can tell a good story AND then also integrate that into the gameplay. And that's something 14 progressively improves upon... while I mostly felt regression or stagnation on WoW's end from Cataclysm dungeons, which were largely a good mix of gameplay and narration.

WoW should lean into using instanced combat encounters more than even FFXIV does to tell their story, instead of trying to copy the slowburn cutscene style storytelling they can't compete with.

Laughs in Coils of Bahamut

I can't wait to see the reactions to the latest stories, raids, dungeons and Endwalker, without spoilers I could say that the best is yet to come.

I also really like that the story makes you actually appreciate your character. It makes your character such a part of its world that you become attached to it.

it's funny, blizzard sees gameplay and story as two separated things, while in fact both are important to a narrative experience.

At first coming from wow I was a little kind of thrown off by the cutscenes and in many cases there's very little actual gameplay between the story bits but I think as I progressed playing I started to truly deeply appreciate what I was being fed story-wise in my understanding of the world made so much more sense and then I also started to realize that the content actually expands off it branches off of all of the story bits and there's so much looking back that I missed that I have to now go back and do all those side quests in those side things that just kind of add more flavor to what's happening Looking Back Now that I have a level 80 job and I finish the entire shadowbringers storyline I look back and there's some of the raids that I really wish they would have made mandatory like the Crystal Tower. I really would have liked it if they had made the coils be required because at the time I didn't realize how Indigo they were to the story so I missed them and I went back and did them anywhere incredible I also would say that pay attention to everything and all these raids inside Quest because they end up the information you get their ends up paying off substantially as you get further into the expansions ahead and the story ties back so much it's incredible I had no idea what I was missing from World of Warcraft until I started playing Final Fantasy it's absolutely amazing

I'm glad you are feeling excited and engaged with FFXIV man. That was fun to feel your energy. I look forward to hearing about your next experiences. Keep it up! 😀

It makes me really happy to see you making FFXIV content, I played WoW 12 years, watched you for a long time, but left all of that for FF. Glad to start watching your videos again.

Well, hope you enjoy the Heavensward ride. Extremes are not just ANY bard telling the story... Its Yoshi-P.

People who spout the "gameplay over story" fail to realize that it's quite possible to do both. There's no need to sacrifice one for the other, in fact they can build one another up with a competent team at the helm.

One thing I still love about FF14 to this day (having played since ARR, I know not as long as some but long enough) is that ALL content is still relevant, if I do a leveling roulette for example, I might get anything from Sastasha, to Mt Gulg, and whilst the really early dungeons might be easier, they are often by no means "oh I can just ignore the mechanics and DPS it down", especially as things get higher level, so there's still years and years worth of content that's not just been thrown in the bin after a new expansion is released

I'm also just discovering the world of FFXIV after spending many years in WOW. I have been blown away by the level of story telling in FF. You've only scratched the surface and you have such a ride in front of you. I'm so looking forward to Endwalker!