The Story Behind Ffxiv
Today is our last day of the "A Realm Reborn" 2.x era. Tomorrow is going to be a 24 hour maintenance, and then Friday we will all be in 3.0 "Heavensward". Recently I found out the full story behind XIV and A Realm Reborn and it blew my mind. It's a pretty incredible behind-the-scene video game story and I think it would be good to educate the others who don't know if it, as a farewell to our 2.0 version and as a hello to the new Heavensward version.
Video Summary found [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5MT6yRe3C4]here[/url] by joshscorcher
So in 2002 Square Enix released FFXI as their first Final Fantasy MMO and to this day I consider it to be legendary amongst the history of the genre. In 2010 they created a new MMORPG to carry the torch called Final Fantasy XIV. Unfortunately the ratings hit it hard and received very low scores calling the game boring, uninteresting, and unoriginal. XIV was from then on known as a failure to be the successor of XI.
In 2012 a game-wide public event was held in XIV. In [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgEg8kXmifo]This Video[/url] you can see that the setting was changed as you can see a flaming blood moon coming closer to Eorza. You can see in the chat box, the System Messages they send out in the final minutes. It looks as if the servers were talking to the players, foreshadowing the game will be shutting down. When the time comes, a cutscene airs called [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39j5v8jlndM]End of an Era[/url] to all logged in players. This is the first part of the opening cutscene to A Realm Reborn's main menu. In the cutscene you can see that blood moon was actually a prison that held Bahamut. The Primal breaks out and destroys the prison, then the people, and then finally almost the entire continent of Eorzea.
After the cutscene ends, and most everyone and everything dies, players get booted back to the login menu unable to log back in. Turns out Square Enix pulled the plug and killed their servers after the cutscene and was to remain shut down until the game was redone.
Midway into 2013 the game re-opens again with the new title of "Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn". The new opening cinematic shows the "End of an Era" XIV ending cutscene, but now with a new addition [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h542YbZuwkQ]starting at 5:30[/url] depicting Eorzea after years of the countryside healing itself. The game takes place after XIV's finale, which in ARR is known as "The Calamity" for when Bahamut scorches and destroys everything as if it was the Rapture. The game was then moved out from XIV's 1.0 title and now moved into 2.0 - A Realm Reborn. After launch, the game received excellent reviews and player approval, as well as a huge spike in popularity. It now has the approval and affection of the players to be the successor to Final Fantasy XI, just in time before their servers shut down early next year in 2016.
As I said earlier, today is the last day of 2.0, previously launched in 2013. We'll have a maintenance all day tomorrow Thursday, and then Friday we'll all be moved into the 3.0 update "Heavensward". I'm very glad to see Square Enix showing and taking responsibility to fix and polish their failures with so much care. In time FFXIV [i]may[/i] be World of Warcraft's rival in the world's top MMORPG.
Thanks for reading (if you did) and I hope you guys are just as hyped up for Heavensward as I am. Enjoy your last day in 2.0 everyone!
3 Comments • Newest first
3.0 STORY SPOILERS KINDA.
RIP MY HEART AND OTP. I wanted them to make him a Scion
[quote=Yuel]eh thinking about trying XIV not too sure though the game play compared to XI is just ehh don't like how the screen is cluttered with skills and such.[/quote]
Not sure what you mean? Hot Bars? That is a custom thing in pc. The amount of skills is part of the strategy each skill works very different and when they all go on a global cooldowns or some on individual cooldowns it comes off a bit like a fast paced game of chess. The UI is customizable so it's only as cluttered as you want it to be. My screen looks nice and clean so I don't have that problem. It's actually super streamlined and polished.
eh thinking about trying XIV not too sure though the game play compared to XI is just ehh don't like how the screen is cluttered with skills and such.