To answer the "why is everyone white" question, it's because the game is Japanese. Japanese people are generally pale, and very commonly depict themselves in art that way (especially anime) because they like pale skin (kind of like how people in the west like tan skin, they intentionally get tans). What we see as "white", they see as Japanese. It's a game for Japanese people first, so most of the characters in the game will be "Japanese" to represent their core demographic. There are many characters in the game that aren't pale, but most of the main characters are. In the game however, you're not playing a character they created, you make your own character (which can be whatever color you want). Also, these trailers are for "expansions" to the game's story, you're not really meant to understand them without having played the game, so don't feel bad for not catching on.
Not to mention most Japanese RPG are based on western high fantasy, which mimics medieval Europes. So it make sense to them to have majority of characters "paler" skin tone.
@@pngmk2 I can't necessarily support the claim, but I read that the reason so many characters are lighter in coloration is because its easier to render graphics wise than darker colors. SE tries very hard to keep the system requirements for ff14 down so a wider audience can play and not have a gaming cpu so that could also play into it.
Well, in this case at least, most of the characters in these_are_ depicted as white since a lot of the main areas are based on European places, but yeah that's generally true. There just aren't any trailers that show a bunch of Ala Mhigan or Hannish townsfolk.
Just a note on the girl in red's outfit being 'impractical' ..... If i remember correctly, 'loose' clothing with flapping/wavy sections at specific places around the person were actually 'part of' the martial arts in some aspects. They were employed to 'blind' the opponent to what your own body was doing.
lots of people have a weird idea of "impractical" when it comes to fantasy clothing and armor simply because they have no knowledge of actual historical clothing and armor.
I've noticed some games, like World of Warcraft, largely tell the story in cinematics (so you can watch a series of them and get the through line) whereas others, like elder scrolls online and apparently final fantasy 14, tell the story in game and just have the cinematic to show..general vibes I guess. The second is definitely my preference (it's a game, not a movie) but does lead to confusion if you're only watching the cinematics. Also, these cinematics are mostly aimed at current and returning players.
Cinematic trailer are really just to hype up new players as well as give a teaser to current players (eg. on HW trailer, we got to see big dragons! Oh what is that? Islands in the sky? We getting flying! Oh look at that, dragons are attacking! Oooooh we gonna be at war with dragons!) It also helps that SE generally does an amazing job at hyped up trailers that looks spoilery but isn't even close to it when you find the context.
@@darkmirror21 I'd say you have it backwards. It's to hype up current players whole giving a teaser, and potential spoilers, to new players. I'm looking specifically at the Heavensward trailer in regards to spoilers as its the only one that actually recaps previous events.
These trailers are most likely based on the assumption that the player base has already gone through the Main Scenario story in the game, so it's a trick to put out a trailer without giving too much. They mostly introduce new characters, suggest what the story would be about, introduce new locations, and a little bit of reminder of past expansions. I love the confusion that you had, and I hope it intrigues you enough for you to maybe want to go through the story in-game!
Yeah you need to realize that they are not going to tell you all the story, given that there's hundreds of hours of story. It is in fact one of, if not THE greatest continuous stories in all of gaming. There are things they set up 10 years ago that they are JUST NOW paying off in Endwalker, the latest expansion. These are EXPANSION trailers. You need to like find videos on the STORY of FF14 if you want more context. There's a bunch of people who have devoted hours and days of their lives to create such videos, you should watch them; but be prepared to spend hours on it. We don't "just go around fighting" in this game. There are friendships made and broken, enemies to make and fight against, grand quests to go on, monsters to slay, Primals to take down, secrets to find, lands full of forests, deserts, beaches and of ice and snow to explore, and even a chain of sidequests with a detective who can't detect but bumbles his way to the correct answer each and every time. You know how in our world we don't know what secrets the Earth holds under water and in hard-to-reach places of the world? In the game world its very much the same; we still don't know everything about the lands we inhabit here now 10 years on. We are still learning new things about old zones and cities. Also for the "white people" comment, you couldn't be more wrong. This is a Japanese game. They have a lot less compunctions and hangups about white/black race relations than the rest of the world does. They just don't get the whole thing. They create races to match the areas they are found in. Furthermore, there's a bunch of races in this game that are multicolored. In character creation you can literally do anything you want with color. There are even races of sentient animals. There are talking (and walking) catfish for god's sake. This is perhaps one of the most MULTIRACIAL games out there. You are taking a very small sample size of people you see in the videos and extrapolating it to the game at large and that's just not proper; especially given that the main character pictured is the same in each video AND they aren't going to show a lot of the characters from the expansions because they don't want to spoil.
(Some spoilers for the games story to follow) These trailers do make alot more sense if you play the game, as each one is basically a teaser for what is going to happen next. Like a big one is in the last trailer Shadowbringers where Thancred(The guy with the gunblade fighting the white lion with a crown) says "I'm not going anywhere, Minfilia" The name Minfilia made fans go 'WAIT WHAT!?' because Minfilia is a character that's part of the story way back in A Realm Reborn as well as Heavensward, but she wasn't a kid. So there was a lot of confusion and fan speculation as to what was going on with this kid that looked alot like Minfilia and was being called Minfilia. Other ones like Heavensward basically recapped the last bits of story from ARR and set the stage for us going to Ishgard to deal with the Dragons as we knew from the main story quests that Nidhogg had let loose his dragonsong to rally his brood and renew his war against Ishgard. Stormblood was mostly showing us we'd be going to Ala Mhigo as well as the Far East with Othard. The fight on the stone hand was just the Warrior of Light and Lyse sparring together as they are actually friends and allies. The east showed us that Gosetsu and Yugiri would be continuing to play a part.(THey were the big man and smaller gal with horns ontop of the building.) Yeah there are alot of white people in the game, but the game does also have a good many characters with darker skin tones that play parts in the story. Like a fan favorite character who you saw briefly in the Heavensward trailer is Raubahn who is a darker skinned Ala Mhigan and is the Flame General of the Immortal Flames of Uldah so we see him alot, and he's an amazing character, badass fighter but has a big heart for his people and his friends. Though you probably would enjoy knowing that the 3 Leaders of the main CIty States you deal with in game, Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, Ul'dah are all women who are badasses in their own ways and just awesome characters. FF14 has alot of really cool characters you meet over the course of the story which is like an epic journey that makes you feel like a part of the world.
The short version of clearing some of your confusion is: each trailer starts a new chapter in the story. You are confused because you don't see anything but the prologue of each chapter. Like reading a book and only reading the first paragraph of each chapter - you won't be able to piece together anything because of that but it's more confusing because you never played the game or you would at least understand some of what's going on. Unfortunately it's a game you either have to play or find a video containing all the hundreds of cinematic story videos that make up the everything outside of these trailers. And even then you would miss anything covered by playing the game directly in between cut scenes. It's a great game and story, but not easily understood without playing or a general understanding of how the game works.
I'm late to the show and it may have been explained elsewhere but, the guy you see in every video is Your stand in. He's the "hero" as you progress through the main story. He also changes his class with each weapon, Warrior - Axe, Dragoon (dragon knight) - Lance, Monk - fists, Archer - Bow, Samurai - Katana, DarkKnight - Greatsword. All throughout the story you are the warrior of light, in the last trailer you watched Sadowbringers you learn that you aren't the only warrior of light and in another reality their warriors of light doomed their world. You and your friends end up becoming the warriors of darkness to save their world. There's a lot of backstory between each trailer, but I hope this was somewhat helpful.
As many people have tried to state, what you've done here is essentially watch the trailers to different seasons of a long running show, except it's the trailers to different parts of a games story.
If it helps to think about it this way: These are all trailers for different seasons of a long running TV show. Each of these seasons lasted for around two years each. So that's a lot of episodes, so to speak. And continuing the logic, if the seasons ran for two years before a new season came out, then the trailer for season one is going to be way different than the trailer for season 2 or even 4. Hope that makes sense. Edit: It's not a TV show, I'm using an analogy
For the Heavensward cinematic it does recap some of the story that leads up to the start of the expansion. There is a lot of story that has happened since the A Realm Reborn trailer. Think of it as two seasons worth story has happened between them so it is understandable to be confused by just watching the trailers. Those that have played the through story up to this point in the game are probably still recovering emotionally from having to rewatch that first part :D
The trailers are intentionally vague so that the major plot points of the story aren't spoiled. It seems confusing as hell based on just the trailer, but it's all connected and it's great.
Since you like writing and reading fantasy books i think you might want to consider giving this game free trial a go honestly. It's A LOT of reading and little actual gaming until you finish the main story plus it's very beginner friendly. I know you are not a gamer but it's never too late to become one ;). It starts very slowly and the community is one of the most welcoming to newbies.
For a bit of added context: The generic dude who you constantly see in these trailers is meant to be YOUR character and with the character creation your own Warrior of Light can be any gender, skin color or fantasy race you choose (if cat or bunny ears are your thing.) While the game is an MMO with a heavy story focus, the trailers for each expansion try not to spoil too much of the story and are pretty much just teasing new locations you'll see and experiences your character will go through in the new expansion. While the Shadowbringers and Endwalker trailers do go a bit more heavy into the story, these trailers REALLY aren't meant as promotion for new players but are rather fan service to excite fans who are already invested in the characters and story of the games. It's actually advised for new players to AVOID watching these trailers because without context they lose much of the strength and excitement behind them, not to mention the spoilers rampant throughout the trailers.
to understand ffXIV trailers you need to know the stories untils each extention trailer cause they are intermission between them on ARR (a realm reborn) that was between FFXIV online and FFXIV ARR
The Shadowbringers trailer is the best, with or without context. When it released, it caused me to download and try the game. A few years later, I’ve played for about 2,000 hours. Now, *_that’s_* a trailer.
There is a LOT of context to these that really only make sense as being part of the "hype" cycle for the upcoming release of a new expansion for the MMO that is FFXIV. They're *supposed* to leave you going "what the hell was THAAAAAT?" more than once. That said, the dude who shows up in all of them is the Player Stand-In, also called Meteor Survivor. He's there to represent the Player Character. In each expac he changes to a different job to kinda highlight themes that are present in the story. ARR (A Realm Reborn) is about becoming the Warrior of Light and so he's a Warrior (that's the job that uses that big axe). In Heavensward, the story deals a LOT with a war between people and dragons, and so he's a Dragoon. In Stormblood we were dealing with wars on two continents and so he had *two* highlighted jobs, Monk and Samurai. The Shadowbringers trailer is beginning the whole "reminding players of the road they walked to get here" and so he starts out as Samurai (because Stormblood was ending) and cycles through all his jobs in order until he gets to the new "Poster Job" of Dark Knight, which highlights the themes of restoring Darkness to a world all but swallowed in deadly Light. In Endwalker, the current expac and the only trailer you didn't see, he changes to Paladin, for sheer determination and a dedication to protecting others. The Trailers are *not* strong on explaining the story. They exist to highlight the types of zones we're going to and the sorts of themes and cultures we're going to experience and MAYBE offer tantalizing hints about the story threads we've seen develop in-game that haven't been resolved. As for the prevalence of certain skin tones... that IS an issue and one that Square Enix seems to be aware of. The guy who got his arm sliced off is darker complected and there's an NPC added in Endwalker who is not only VERY dark, but VERY beautiful as well, and I have high hopes for his future inclusion in the story.
One thing that’s very interesting about FFXIV is that be friends Instead is generally the best outcome in the story. The trailers unfortunately don’t tell us any of that as they have the goal of exciting people who are already in-the-know or attract people who like explosions.
OH I feel so bad! These are definitely not your usual style of cinematics. The FF14 trailers are always promotional pieces that show off the new lands and highlight different battle classes that fit thematically with the new expansion's overall story. The trailers themselves hint at what the story in the expansion will be, but don't go into details as they follow the Generic Protagonist Insert Character (the brown haired guy who starts off with the huge axe and changes to new things every trailer, who the fandom has collectively dubbed Meteor) on his journey to these new lands, and show off important NPCs that'll feature heavily in the plot either before the expansion or during.
I think the Heavensward cinematic got the same reaction from a lot of people that you had. If you don't know the story from playing the game, then that cinematic meant nothing to you. Stormblood had nothing to do with the story. It just highlighted classes you can play in the game like Monk, Dancer, and Samurai. This is a very story driven game but you get the story via playing the game. The cinematics that introduce the expansions don't do a great job of explaining any much of the story.
So yea, if you only seen the trailers they hold massive spoilers since they are based on the idea that you had played the expansions, so without that knowledge the trailers are confusing. Example is the Heavensward trailer, the idea is that you know who the people are, what transpired, and why now you all of a sudden fighting dragons. The spoilers are that if you start playing then you quickly pick up what is going to happen from the trailers you have watched. Also imo the game has the best story telling I have ever played through
The first one you watched was the 1.0 trailer of the original FFXIV before they closed the severs, and remade it as FFXIV: A Realm Reborn which is 2.0. It is interesting how they used the closure of the serves as lore of what happened five years before ARR. If you haven't watched the 2.0 trailer, it would make sense to watch it before doing the trailer for the expansions. The base game, ARR, and all the expansions has their own trailers. Btw, that is not a castle being built, and you basically got being poisoned right.
FF XIV is EXTREMELY story driven. Each new expansion trailer ties the events of the last to the new, so unless you're actively playing, all of this is going to look random and impossible to follow because there's no context for you to draw upon. All you can really do is enjoy it as a cinematic and nothing more 😅
Just adding to the comments, the trailers are kind of intentionally vague. Because the story is such an important part of the experience, and there tend to be a lot of cliffhanger moments, I think they design these trailers as to avoid spoiling the story, even if you ARE playing the game but maybe aren't quite caught up. So there is a ton of context required to really understand what's going on. The short versions would probably be: Heavensward, you were framed for poisoning the Queen (the little girl) to a city that's been fighting dragons for ages, Stormblood, you're essentially trying to dismantle the British Empire by liberating/uniting nations from all over, and Shadowbringers, you travel to a world where "the balance between Light and Darkness" has been upset, but the twist is that there is too much "Light" in this world, and it has rendered it mostly a barren wasteland. If you go into Endwalker, the context will be; you've been trying to avert the end of the world, which has been heavily prophesied. An event literally known as "The End of Days" is upon you, and so it takes place in literal final days before a sort of "armageddon". You and your homies are all traveling across the globe, trying to figure out anything you can about it and avert the crisis.
4:40 Yes, you get information in game: Spoilers of course, this has been your warning! At the end of ARR, The WoL is invited to the princess quarters, then she is poisoned and dies. You, the player is framed for regicide and with help from your friends you flee to Ishgard (another city) while chaos happen in the city of Ul'dah. In the video it is portrayed that you have been not just framed, but betrayed by those who were supposed to be your allies. ... It still makles my blood boil to remember that!
The first two trailers you watched were the trailers for the new game: 1.0 which is the bar one 2.0 where they shut down the game and rebuilt it from the ground up which is the one with the giant dragon All the ones you watched today are game expansion trailers to show existing players what’s coming next in the story and locations. It expects you to have played the prior expansion to understand what is happening because in FF you need to play the story (unless you pay money to skip but then you wouldn’t care if you did that) Your level up experience is story quests through the main story. This is usually filled with cutscenes. Major fights and locations. Everything is locked behind it. Even if you have bought the newest expansion you cannot play it until you have completed the story for all the rest (or pay) which is fine because it’s one of the best few hundred hours of proper JRPG story telling if not the best.
I am going to need a meme made of dragonball fights in unfortunate locations and just have our chaperone Hannah in the background “um that doesn’t seem like a great place to be shock wave fighting”
If you want a bit of insight for the first trailer on a brief summary here it is: (SPOILERS AHEAD) Long ago the world had many people who were known as the Warriors of Light. One day a calamity happened and they all vanished. This is the event on the other trailers with the "Meteor" and the "Dragon" and the "Old Dude". The Main Character gets tossed into the story and it's kind of induced he might be the Warrior of light. In the meantime he joins this group of people who work behind the scenes and help different nations. They fight a empire thing in the base game and get known by every nation leader and everyone likes them. They create a subdivision of new "warrior recruits". Turns out some of those recruits are evil and plotting to stab the original group in the back. They work alongside a couple of leaders of a nation to assassinate the queen and pass the political power to some other dude. They also use this to frame the original group as being the ones who committed the crime. Here you look at all the nations that you helped, and you were friends with, and suddenly everyone is against you. The guy in jail was the queen's right hand and kind of knows about the truth, being one of the few that sticks up for you. But he goes berserk and is sentenced to jail (and death if I recall) for attacking the people he thought were the original criminals. You and the original group run away but the original group starts sacrificing themselves one by one to try and buy you some time. Only a couple survive. You try to look for help but every nation is against you. Luckily for you, during one of your travels you helped some fella from this one secluded region who decides to help you back and "sponsor you" into entering Ishgard, a city separated from the rest of the world full of pain and a political and economical imbalance (this is the main place where the first expansion takes place.)
Think of these video's as showcases/teasers. If you have never played Final Fantasy XIV, they are pretty much just eye candy. But if you have played the game, they are showing off the area's you will be going to along with hinting at some plot points. The story in the expansions is equivalent to a sequel in a book. You play the base game. Then the people who made the game spend a couple years creating the next chapter in the story. You buy the expansion as an add-on to your game and play through it. All these trailers are a showcase to that next "chapter" The story itself spans over hundreds of hours in game, so these may come off a little jarring if your trying to understand what's happening. (As a side note, the guy with the brown hair is a stand in for the player. In game you create what you look like so he's kinda a placeholder for us in these trailers)
There's definitely an aspect of "you'll know if you know" in these trailers. It's a very linear, story heavy game, and the trailers assume you know what came before. Heavensward is the first expansion, and the trailer recounts how we get to its starting point. At the end of the story prior to the expansion, Nanamo (that girl) is poisoned and the group we're a part of is blamed. Her protector Raubahn (the big black man who got got his arm chopped off) killed one of the _real_ traitors and was put in prison on death row. Most of our closest allies go into hiding or disappear completely due to a magic spell, and we and our two remaining allies take refuge in the frigid north that is Coerthas. Then we see our main enemies for the expansion, Nidhogg's hoard of dragons, who have been at war with Ishgard for around 1000 years if I'm not mistaken. Next we see Ishgard itself, followed by a shot of the Sea of Clouds, an area we will soon visit and a friend we know from the base game flying an airship (his name is Cid). The Warrior of Light (main character boy, also us) picks up the arms and armor of a dragoon, Ishgard's most elite dragon-slaying warriors. The violence to dragons is incredibly necessary.
The Stormblood (expansion following Heavensward) trailer doesn't show as much actual story, just locations and people. It starts with us sparring as a monk with our friend Lyse in the base of the Ala Mhigan Resistance at a place called Rhalgr's reach (Ala Mhigo is a city-state currently being occupied by the big bad evil empire. Rhalgr is the god of destruction and central figure for the monks of Ala Mhigo). Then it pans over to the far east, showing Doma (fantasy China) and the Azim Steppe (fantasy Mongolia) before diving into the Ruby Sea and showing one of the air domes used by the people living down there. It then shows us HIngashi (fantasy Japan) and a number of imperial soldiers chasing us (now a Samurai) into an alley. Cool movie shot. Then it pans up to the tower and shows us Yugiri and Gosetsu, who are 2 more allies we know that will be very important as the story progresses.
There's not even a slim chance of understanding the Shadowbringers trailer without playing the game. It starts with the final battle of Stormblood, as we fight and defeat the crown prince of the evil empire (the trailer does _not_ show him then reviving and nearly killing us, but eh). The voice that plays is that of the crystal boy we see at the end of the trailer. Backstory: Over the last few chapters of Stormblood, he's been "calling" us, which is later explained as him using magic to try and bring us to the world he resides on (this world is known as the 1st Reflection. There are/were 13 of these reflections, but only the first matters for our story right now). The callings had a side effect of ripping some of our closest friends souls out of their bodies and onto the first (the Elf man, cat girl, guy that fights the lion, and two others that don't appear in the trailer). The 1st is suffering from an imbalance of light. Basically, the light got so strong over there that it started swallowing the whole world and turning people into monsters. Also filled the sky with everlasting light. Then it shows the Warrior of Light (referred to from here on as WoL) on the first, remembering everything that came before (all of the trailer flashbacks) as a gremlin (you were right, it is in fact a gremlin!) taunts WoL about being in a hopeless situation before an angelic creature (we later learn that these are called Sin-eaters) descends to try and kill WoL. Through the course of this fight, the WoL tries fighting back with the skills they've gained over each previous expansions (denoted by the weapon/armor changes), but to no avail. Interspersed into the scenes of this fight are scenes of some of our allies who had been called. It shows some events that we don't directly see in the game as they happen before we arrive on the 1st. Y'shtola (Cat-girl) became de-facto leader of a group called the Night's Blessed, and the trailer shows as their base is attacked and destroyed by the Children of the Everlasting Dark (the fireballs are related to this, not the angel fight). Urianger (elf-man), who specializes in prophecy asks her what she intends to do about their fate, which she responds to resolutely. Then it shows our buddy Thancred breaking a young girl out of prison underneath one of the two surviving city-states before tussling with another Sin-eater. He calls her "Minfillia", which is incredibly significant if you've played the game, but this comment is getting a bit too wordy already. Suffice to say that it was very surprising, jaw-dropping even, at the time. Finally, it shows the other remaining city-state, called the Crystarium, takes a second to efficiently point out the new combat class (dancer) and new race (bunny people) in a single shot, before ascending into the crystal tower and showing our boy who called us saying "if history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten" (we will later learn that he comes from a future where a calamity fell upon our world, killing untold millions including us and our friends, and he aims to change that fate). He also tells us to "become what you must, become the warrior of darkness" as WoL uses the power of a Dark Knight to finally defeat the Sin-eater that was in the process of trouncing WoL, and bring the night sky back to the 1st.
Yea these trailers really don't work as well if you don't know the context. Might explain why I always feel underwhelmed when my friends (who have played many games, even MMOs) don't get as hype as I do when I show them these trailers. There's 2 years of story missing between each one 😅 they're ultimately marketing new features in the game, hence the weird lingering shots on like, Meteor slicing them bullets in half (samurai was introduced) or the bunny girl dancing (both dancer and the bunny girl race was introduced), which is super cool if you've been looking forward to these staples of the franchise over the last 30 years being brought into the game, but not all that useful for selling the game to prospective players.
If you want to get a gist of what happen maybe you can also watch some of the patch trailers. It might help (or it might not I don't know) but the patch trailer has dialogue so you can get some context even if it's not everything.
Anorher things to know is that each Final Fantasy are not connected together. Final fantasy VII has nothing to do with FFXIV, they are each their own world and their own stories. The trailers are more to show quickly what the extension is made of hat BUT the story itself is in the game the trailer spoil nothing of it so if you never played then it will be difficult to understand 😲
Soo basically for the Heavensward trailer. Your character is known as the Warrior of Light. The guy with the Axe represents the player and is the Warrior of Light in every trailer for ffxiv. The first trailer with the dragon and the egg was the start for the "A Realm Reborn". Several events happen in that storyline and at the end of that story we go into what can be known as the sequal to A Realm Reborn now called "Heavensward". In the trailer, several key events play out in cinematic format that also happened at the end of "A Realm Reborn" leading to the Warrior of Light being outcasted seeking refuge in a nation to the north in the cold mountains. As he walks into this nation that has opened up its gates to us specifically, we start to see and take part of several "Internal affairs" that they have been dealing with that caused them to be closed off to the world in the first place and a new chapter starts to be told. So "A realm Reborn" can be seen as book 1, and "Heavensward" is book 2. Same with "Stormblood" which can be considered as book 3 to the story. They are referred to as Expansions which expand on the world within the story as we know it with each entry. "A Realm Reborn" sets up the 3 main city states of "Gridania, Limsa Lominsa and Ul'dah" and their political struggles. "Heavensward" expands the world as u travel to the north to a nation in the snow mountains called "Ishgard" and then u enter "Stormblood" which expands the world further by taking u to the far east as u discover the lands of "Ala Migo" and "Doma" in their fight against oppression. Each trailer representing what role u as the Warrior of Light can end up playing as each story's events unfold.
Obviously its been said in other comments, but the trailers aren't there to give you a story when it comes FF14. They are there to show players new areas, new jobs(classes), important characters, etc that are coming up in the next expansion. The guy with the axe who puts on the dragon armor and the samurai and fighting on the hand are all one character. He represents your character in each expansion. He's just a place holder for you. Watching cutscenes and stuff you'll get an idea of the story, but there's a lot. Like 10 years of lore and stories that connect and reconnect with tons of side stories. Its a lot, but its been an amazing game and story. Ive been playing since Heavensward came out.
So this game is roughly 10 years old and the story arks introduced in each expansion ( which are the trailers your watching ) are told in 10+ hour segments in the game. This game is also the successor to another Final fantasy game by the same name that came out years ago which also had its own story. Unfortunately its just not possible to understand or contextualize whats going on in the world of Final Fantasy 14 A realms reborn and its expansions without playing it in its entirety, there are too many nuances and elements experienced in game that a trailer wouldn't have the time to detail. These trailers are more so an announcement to the 10s of thousands of concurrent players that new jobs ( in game classes ) and story's are coming to the world. In the first trailer you watched it announced a new Job the Dragoon along with a brand new in game area which was the giant castle you saw. The second trailer announced the Samurai and in game locations, and the third trailer you watched announced the Dance class, Gunbreaker as well as 2 new in game races. As far as the inclusiveness concerns you mentioned many of the main story characters are white or are of a non-human race, however both Louisoix Leveilleur and Raubahn Aldynn the Flame general are black ( he was in the trailer you first watched ). Square Enix is a Japanese studio and publisher and they do market their games in a manner that appeals best to a Japanese demographic. The white male protagonist you see in the all the trailers isn't real hes more of a generic metaphor for the character you play. In game you can be anyone you want any race or gender with any skin color and most importantly the people who play this game are very inclusive and nice. people play this game to meet, have fun and help other people; its an environment that thrives on building experiences with other people not being prejudice or hateful.
Most of these trailers are meant to show the world expanding. In some sense Narratively, and in others - Exploring. Lore is not so much the idea, but the excitement of what new Ideas and Yes…bosses are to come! Final Fantasy is a strange series, and FF14 is a strange Combination of all the Final Fantasies that came before. If you look at me game, you’ll start to notice a pattern of ideas, names, locations, and a cycle of Conflict that is both personal and also mythic! Sure, your character and you are left in the dust half the time, but the game does whip around and brings you back into the fold when the final battle forces you to be the One to fight.
So the closest comparison I can give is this is like season 3, 4 and 5 and each trailer is the big trailer for that season to showcase what's the theme and you are trying to understand the trailers without the context of the previous seasons
Yeah, if I was missing my 1000+ hours of gametime, I'd be confused by a handful of ~3 minute trailers, too. When you don't know the game it might be best to just lean back and enjoy the spectacle.
Each cinematic is prior to a whole expansion (equivalent to a whole game basically) so it's normal for you to be completely lost 😂 It's like you'd watch the trailer for "Movie", but didn't watch the movie, then the trailer for "Movie 2", but didn't watch the movie etc Basically you're missing all the informations for you to understand what's going on haha Your reactions were really great and funny tho! The only thing that you keep seeing in all of them is the main character, who is reprensenting your character in game (and some other important characters here and there) and you recognized him from the first cinematic that you watched :D
As others have stated - the trailers really don't make sense if you haven't played the game, because they tie in to the continuing story of the game. And it really is a freaking long story - I'm talking each expansion could pretty much be the length of a TV show season. Pretty much, the guy that shows up in just about every scene is the stand-in for your character, the main character of the story, who you can customize to your heart's content. There are people who aren't light-skinned in the game (and you can make your character dark-skinned), but yeah, most of the main supporting cast is light-skinned with white hair (which is actually a meme). And yes, racism and xenophobia exist in the FF14 world - one of the 3 starting locations is extremely racist and xenophobic, another is a place where the rich and powerful constantly oppress the impoverished and weak, and the third is well, a pirate city that constantly breaks its own treaties. No wonder why all three cities have problems with the tribal groups that surround them. Regardless, over time, we go (sometimes forced - as in Heavensward and, to a lesser extent, in Shadowbringers) to places that have their own sets of problems, while the original three cities slowly make changes in how they run things as they learn that their old ways aren't working. Even at the point in the game we are now (base game plus four expansions later), the original three cities still aren't perfect, but they've become much more egalitarian and understanding. And even the other places we've visited have made progress in how they run things.
Without the massive amount of story from the game she just cannot fathom how massive that Minfillia declaration bombshell was. Sort of like Japan finally nuking others in return.
lol. Yeah, these are really difficult to understand if you haven't played -- especially the opening cinematic for the [current] final expansion. But the guy you keep seeing is the stand-in for your own character, and each cinematic requires knowledge of the previous installment to understand what's going on. Heavensward is a direct continuation of A Realm Reborn -- which is a relaunch of Final Fantasy XIV because the initial game was a massive failure -- and as the opening text implies: basically, things went completely awry and that leads into the events of Heavensward, where you enter a conflict that's been raging for 1000 years between man and dragon. Stormblood continues Heavensward where you enter into another conflict, trying to help end a 25-year reign of tyranny over the people of Ala Mhigo. Shadowbringers continues from Stormblood, returning to focus on some plot points in Heavensward and actually takes you to a completely different world in the future, where most of the realm's citizens were either killed or turned into monstrosities from a swell of light after the balance between light and darkness was broken. I'm trying to keep details minimal on the off-chance you may play them someday. It is a game centered on fighting. But honestly, many players login just to hang around and chat; enjoying the world and doing things like fishing and crafting. There's literally endless stuff to do.
Lets try a little sumup: You start as an Adventurer doing little deeps here and there, then suck into internal affairs witch gets bigger by the time till you eventualy save the world. For the Openings you have to understand, that with each expansion of the game the world gets bigger, new classes appear and sometimes even new races which are teased in the videos. The other thing is, that you get emotionly attached to the people you see in the openings which skip them to another level then seeing them without played the game. I hope it helped ^^
Aaah, Hannah. You're watching trailers for a game. Each trailer is basically one for an expansion, a new "story", which is almost like an entirely new game. So the trailers aren't meant to tell you a story, just hype you up for each expansion. You don't have to understand. Just enjoy the music.
FFXIV is an online game with years of gameplay and storytelling between each of these trailers. When a new "chapter" of the game is released, they are called an expansion - Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, etc. These are each a trailer showcasing the expansion. They share many of the same characters and take place in the same world, but each is focused on its own story which is why, from an outside perspective, they seem to have no connection to one another.
It occurs to me now that these trailers weren't made for new players, they were made to hook current players in to buying the new expansion. None of this really makes sense without playing the game. (Also you're right - while the game does have a pretty diverse cast, the main characters are all very white. It's a shame that in spite of this, XIV still does better than a lot of its contemporaries in this regard because the bar really is just that low.)
these trailers were meant for people who already played the game which admittedly is feeding the echo chamber so it's kind of expected that you wouldnt experience the impact of basically all of the trailers. As someone who hasnt played any of it this it is completely wasted on you.
First... these trailers are for people who played the game and know the story rather well. They are not movies for you to just hop in and understand. Next, you gotta stop kinda being racist. It's weird to ask something like... "Why the hell are their so many black people in this show? Ugh." Trust me, that Shadowbringers trailer made everyone lose their shit.
I love the fact that a non-gamer react to game trailers. I get why they can be confusing. I get confused too, even though I play games a lot. But the way I see most games, they reveal some characters and locations. Not necessarily any story in many, unless you're a big fan and can rewatch trailers to find small details or know the comics or something XD But game trailers are most times, so entertaining and badass XD
Each video is kind of like a showcase of the things you will do and the places you will visit in the expansion it represents. Like, Stormblood unlocked Monk and Samurai as jobs. So you see Monks fight at the start, then a Samurai
This may come as a surprise to you, but the world is not just full of white and black people. The developers of this game franchise for example are Japanese, so they are neither black nor white. So stop looking at skin colour as the thing that defines a character. It's also hilarious that in a game that has cat people, bunny people, and lion people, the thing that first caught your eye was their skin colour.
These are at best 1% of the overall story so its kinda more a hype for features or teases half the time we're guessing till half way through the new exp pack
This was a hilarious watchthrough. Each of these trailers forecasts a new "game" which you play through. each game tells a new chapter. so each of these trailers is the start of another chapter. so it's totally normal that you wouldn't understand these trailers without the context inbetween.
My Miqo'te in this game has gray skin! XD It is confusing if you haven't played. I stopped playing a bit ago, after finishing Endwalker. The story is great stuff, but yeah just watching this without context is not an easy thing to follow!
You would never know the content if you only look at the cover of a book, if you want to know what is going on, you will have to dive into the world just like other players, the trailers are designed NOT to tell you the whole story since what is the fun of reading if you already knew the ending from the beginning.
It's really how interesting how FFXIV is almost the polar opposite of World of Warcraft when it comes to how the story is communicated to people who haven't played the games. WoW tends to put the main storybeats into the trailers so that there is kind of a narrative hook to get people interested in their games, though when it comes to the game itself, the storytelling isn't all that strong. FFXIV on the otherhand is so fundamentally driven by it's narrative, that the trailers are designed to give almost nothing away at all, and all the nuances of the trailers are almost completely lost on people who haven't played the game, even though the trailers make complete sense to the players. FFXIV trailers tend to give you a sort of cinematic vignette of the overarching storybeats of each expansion, but without the context of the game, they make little sense. Even though I'm a MASSIVE FFXIV fan, this has always been my main critisism of the game, but I'll try and explain the main overviews of each trailer you watched, then the other commenters can fill you in with more details :D Heavensward: Picks up where the base game left off. The queen (Sultana) of a major city state is assasinated, and you are framed for her murder. Your character ends up fleeing to the freezing city state of Ishgard which is currently under assault by dragons. You're rescured by the dragoons (their resident dragonslayers) and eventually learn their ways, just in time for a major war with the dragons. Stormblood: After the story of Heavensward has concluded, your character has moved on to the city state of Ala Mhigo and has learned the ways of the monk. You're sparring with one of your friends who comes from that land. Hand to hand combat is a massive part of their culture. The point is just to telegraph to the players that they are going to visit Ala Mhigo, which was a highly anticipated part of the game's world at that time. After the sparring session, there is a time skip and your character is in the Japanese inspired city of Kugane where he has taken up the discipline of the Samurai. At this point in FFXIV, players could not be a samurai yet, so seeing your character as Samurai was a super exciting reveal, so while not much actually happenes in this vignette, it's still a super exciting moment for the player. We've being shown that we finally get to go to this highly anticipated area, and get to be a badass samurai! Shadowbringers: This trailer is vauge almost on purpose, but I'll try and explain the best I can - at this point in the game, right before this trailer came out, the characters you see, (cat lady, guy in the black robe, guy with giant gun) have been your friends for the past 8ish years. Out of nowhere, they all fell uncouncious and it is revealed that their souls are no longer in their bodies. In the trailer we see them in this mysterious land that we've never been to, dressed differently. The giant gun guy is particularly interesting, because this, again, is a type of playstyle that the players haven't seen before. Long story short, your character is constantly changing his appearance when fighting the angel, to demonstrate that nothing you've learned so far is enough to take on this new threat. You have been called the warrior of light up to this point, but now you have to embrace something different and become a dark knight - the warrior of darkness to combat this new mysterious threat. Finally, as for the "white people" - It's super funny that you say that, but it's completely fair. Square Enix is a Japanese company and Final Fantasy is one of the IPs that they try to westernise to appeal to the west so the poster boy is a kind of generic looking white dude that the players affectionally refer to as "Derplander", but the game itself showcases a massive world that spans many different cultures, but mostly asian inspired for obvious reasons. Derplander is simply a stand in for your character and you can make your him (or her) look however you want. He just has that generic appearance in each trailer so we as players can mentally replace him with our own character. I hope this all of text helped, enjoy your Sunday!
Do not expect a story from the ff14 cinematics found that out tyhe hard way when I first started. They are more like teasers for people who played the previous expansion and know the story.
gotta play to see the whole story, and you know it turns out that the developers are turning the game noob friendly so new people can enjoy the full story through all the expansions without being hardcore Harley.
Yea... FF14 relies heavily on the context of the previous story for its trailers. Or a lot of REFERENCE for FF fans. Looking into the cinematics can be confusing to say the least. HW most of all since it is jam packed with spoilers.
It is a little confusing watching these without context haha. They do tell a very simplified version of the main story. But these are to show off the new areas of the game.
Hey there, Hannah. A lurker of your videos, here once again. I've only just finished the part where you've watched the FFXIV: Heavensward trailer, so please bear with me if I haven't absorbed the full gamut of your emotions just yet. I'm a relatively new player of Final Fantasy XIV, with just about a year under my belt; however, it has since become one of my favorite games to play and social spaces to dwell in-because FFXIV is an MMORPG, or a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. For the layman, an MMORPG is a genre of video games which is a live service, currently doesn't have a definite end point in the story, and content for it is being constantly churned out by the producer and developer of the game. Moreover, players of the game have a persistent world to dwell in using avatars they can control and play the game with, and can interact and chat with other players as well. In fact, a big chunk of the MMORPG genre is doing content in the game with other players, working together to overcome the challenges presented by the content they're playing. First off, the past trailers you watched. For context, the first of the trailers that you watched before these ones were for the first iteration of FFXIV, which players and developers refer to as 1.0, like the version of a computer program. The second one-which had the dragon in the moon-shaped egg-is the trailer for 2.0, which is a massive overhaul and rework of the game undertaken by a new team when 1.0 failed to meet the satisfaction of players at the time, hence christened the official title of "A Realm Reborn", to go with its new launch. The trailer showed the enormous dragon-called Bahamut-nearly destroying the world in flame. That event is actually canon to the story; more importantly, it's how the developers explain the changes to both the game itself and the game's myriad landscapes. The important piece of context about this is that the developers of FFXIV are unique in that they rebuilt a dying MMORPG from scratch (all while keeping its current version running for the players), as well as tied their overhaul of the entire game into its lore and narrative-so as to make the transition feeling natural to the players who didn't quit up to the point when 1.0 was eventually shut down. The thing to appreciate here is that such practices and impeccable work ethic is absolutely not a common occurence in the West with regard to game development, and this is why the developers of FFXIV are hailed and lauded by much of its players. FFXIV: Heavensward is an expansion series to A Realm Reborn; its first expansion, in fact. For an MMORPG, an expansion is the most tangible proof one can give that it is a live service game. An expansion adds new content to the existing game, new places to explore, new quests to do, new roles players can step into with regard to what their avatars can do, and a continuation of the story-if it's relevant enough to the game and to the players. The trailers themselves are actually very context-heavy, and appreciating them in full is contigent on the viewer being a player of the game and one who is caught up to the current 'end' of the story before the expansion (shown in that trailer) is released. Being the first expansion, Heavensward is actually unique among the trailers in that it basically picks up directly after the events of A Realm Reborn, which is why it feels like you missed something. The characters shown in the trailer are ones you've-ideally-already met and formed some form of relationship with as a player of the game. It's also important to note that the new team of developers from failed 1.0 to the more successful 2.0 release were also just beginning to get their groove, after effectively saving a sinking ship. After that process, they've since shown that they care as much for the game and story as their players, and have respected the time and money the players have put in their game over the years-which is another reason why they're lauded, loved and trusted by their community. For the trailers of Stormblood, Shadowbringers and Endwalker that come after, the narrative team has since managed to hit a stride and figured out what to show and what not to show. Instead of picking up directly-and contextually-after the events of the expansion prior like Heavensward did, they just showed a vague overview of what has occurred, what the players can expect to be doing, newly-added roles the players can try out, and the places and stories they can look forward to exploring and experiencing. As a final note, the recurring character that you see in the trailers is commonly known as the Warrior of Light, and his appearances in the expansions as certain roles is a canonical visual and cultural representation of what conflict he's about to get into, and how he deals with it in that part of the story. In certain cases, these roles-and some which are shown but are not necessarily tied to the Warrior of Light-are also newly-added with the expansion. This means that players can also have the opportunity to pick it up, step into it, and try out for themselves. A good example of this is Heavensward, where he sheds his role (and battle axe) as a Warrior from A Realm Reborn, and takes up the mantle and lance of a Dragoon-a fighter that excels in airborne combat, and is thus a foil to dragons that can fly. In the process, he's also helping a nation that has been at war with dragons for a thousand years, and is quite literally stepping into their shoes. In Stormblood, he goes into it as a Monk, because the people he's trying to help and inspire have a cultural history of hand-to-hand combat of a similar stripe, and then as a Samurai because the second place he visits is home to that lineage of fighting and its cultural roots. In Shadowbringers, he travels to a realm that's been nearly consumed by primordial Light, and so he invokes the shadowy powers of a Dark Knight to combat it-after every other role he's tried thus far have seemingly failed him in the process. He also meets-or reunites-with comrades who may have taken on a role that none of the players have seen or experienced thus far before that expansion. Stuff like that, and every role the Warrior of Light steps into is effectively using some form of magic-which can easily explain why he can do what he does. Anyway, I'm going to watch the rest of the video. I hope you manage to read this one among the sea of comments you often get. I've tried to explain it as best I can without going on forever, but still as simple and as informative as I can get it :)
Hi hi 😊 you having no clue what was happening was priceless and entertaining; but its all fair and warranted. This is an mmo with a preset story; the narrative goes on and each trailer reflects what youve been through and were your going in the next expansion. The main character in the trailer is a stand in for the character you make, and if you go in watching these without any context from the game, everything going on and its people wont make any sense. There are also a wide variety of races in the game in both color and species lol. technically it does a very good job at telling story but you will only understand it if you have context from the games. In the world though theres much you can do; live, play with millions of players, fish, cook, fight, etc. its a “breathing” world with economics, community, story. Hopefully that clears things up. Love the content btw ❤
Of course it's not really gonna make sense :D You're trying to piece together a 200+ hour story from 5-10 minute trailers, you're gonna miss a whole lot of context For FF14 players these trailers contain a lot of information For non-FF14 players it's meant to show a lot of flashy boom boom
If you wish to know more about the game I highly recommend watching a documentary series on the game by the channel Noclip. It gets into the challenges the developers faced creatinf this game.
Each trailer is announcing the new expansion for FF14, which is a Massively Multiplayer Online game, like World of Warcraft. Each one continues the overall story. For Heavensward, your character is on the run, blamed for the poisoning of the little girl, who is a Queen basically. Taking refuge in a kingdom that has been at war with dragons for 1000 years. Stormblood has your character liberating kingdoms around the world from the evil empire. And Shadowbringers is your character traveling to a literal parallel dimension and saving it. Hope that clears things up a little! lol
The big difference between FFXIV and WoW is that each WoW expansion is a self-contained story, where FFXIV is a single continuous story. This makes a new WoW trailer a lot easier to follow, because there's usually only one or two minor details from the previous expansion that are relevant to the new story being told, but each new trailer for FFXIV becomes harder to follow than the one before, because you are missing more and more context each time.
@@kellynine7438 Also the trailers aren't like a typical trailer for a movie. Its not meant to tell you the over all story. Its just showing you important locations and characters for the most part, giving hints on what you'll be seeing and getting players excited for content. The guy with the axe who put on the dragon armor then who fought on the hand, was a samurai all represent your character in the trailers. From ARR to heavensward-stormblood-shadowbringers-endwalker, all are telling one giant story arch with multiple smaller arches going through. The next expansion which will probably drop end of 2023, is gonna be the start of a whole new giant story arch.
@@JamesHulltheFabulousJ honestly it's the best way to describe her though xD you think the average person who's never played 14 is gonna understand she's part of a race of lolihags? 😂
Haven't even started watching but oh man am I excited to watch her brain have a melt down trying to understand what the hell is going on in this story 🤣
yeah Square Enix is very good with story but also it wouldn't do if they told the whole story in their short trailers so they make it vague you wont really get anything from only watching the trailer if you haven't played through the previous expansion. otherwise what would even be the point of playing.
@@jerome6519 japanese game trailers usually suck at presenting their stories though, its not just a Ff14 problem. Just compare this with something like eso or swtor where you can get a general gist of the story. Even though I love Ff14, the trailers are pretty nonsensical if you think about what its like for a newcomer. Even the ARR trailer is pretty bad at presenting its story.
@@ryanlin223 ffxiv's trailers aren't made with new players in mind. New players shouldn't even watch them to be honest because of potential story spoilers. Even the ARR trailer assumes you have some understanding of what was going on. This isn't even a Japanese thing. Gp back amd watch the first two WoW trailers.
As a fiction writer you would love this game, and it's specifically designed for non gamers so there's really no gamer curve to worry about. (P.s. it's also a great way to grow a channel as ff14 fan are constantly chasing a new player experience for our story high...)
We term ourselves emotional vampires. We so enjoyed playing the story that we want to see others doing the same and experience thier highs and lows too.
Well you see...the story in a nutshell....is....you start out on a chocobo carriage ride...find a crystal....and then, like 300 hours later you go to the store to replace all the tissues you've used up. And that's basically it.
As a hardcore FFxiv-er can I just say that was hilarious to watch!! This is definitely one of those games that looks ridiculous from the outside but honestly I love every odd thing about it 😂😂😂
Did you know that the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has a free trial, and includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime?
"I feel like I am missing a key component to the story" Yes. The whole thing lmao. Still loving the reaction! They should have just made a movie along with the game
Naw the game too long to be telling a movie like that.... i mean ppl didnt take to well to advent children. Plus XD how do you condense nearly 600 hours of story telling into 2 hour bits?
@@squallofthedai you had the impression XD but you dont speak for everyone around. Thats like saying everyone in the world loves Kingdom hearts... I met people who despise that game with utter passion and hate the fan base as well.
"I think I'm missing something." Well just a few hundred hours of gameplay, questing, raids, and dungeons. I've been playing video games since I was a wee lad playing Super Nintendo in the early 90s, and started FF14 last year and it quickly became one of my favorite video game stories of all time.
@@HannaHsOverInvested That's if you're slightly rushing things. I've put a few hundred into a second character and with the benefit of knowing what I need and want to do I still haven't reached that first trailer you opened the video with. The game is addicting and I agree it's got one of the most investing and emotional stories I've come across in gaming. And I haven't even made it to the most emotional expansion hence the second character, I'm not ready to be destroyed yet.
This is putting it lightly, I've been playing for the last year or so and have not caught up to current "end", in fact I still haven't finished the 3rd expansion Shadowbringers.
@@HannaHsOverInvested i think im currently in the thousands in terms of hours and i havent even finished the last expansion yet lol theres a whole lot of content
@@HannaHsOverInvested Some streamers actually have spent 1 year just going through every story element, so it's not completely unamanageable when you think of it as 10 years of story releases digested in 1 year. It's like diving into a long running book series that just gets better with each book.
You're just gonna keep getting upset if you expect a strong, simple connected narrative between trailers. This is an MMO game, and each of these trailers are for expansions AKA large content updates and new things to do. These trailers aren't meant to tell an arching story for a new viewer, they're meant as lore recaps for the previous expansion and then showing/inspiring us for the new expansion they're advertising, usually around showing a new zone/area/city and characters we've met in the game before
She didn't seem upset, just confused. And tbf not all mmos structure their trailers like this. WoW, for all of their faults, let's each trailer set itself up to be understood by anyone. FF14 takes the weird path of being very tired to the story in-game
@@GuyAngon That's because it leaves out everything from before one expansion to the next. Which reflects its stories; new expansion, forget everything from the previous trailer. FFXIV trailers recap major events to connect with the next chapter highlighted in a new trailer. They're more meant to be watched as you play the game; new expansion, remember what happened after you finished the previous expansion.
Final Fantasy 14 is a very story-driven game. Dozens and dozens of hours of story in between each expansion and each of these videos is an intro to each of those expansions. So yes, you are supposed to know what's going on in them. So don't feel bad that you don't because there is A LOT going on in this game. These cinematics are also meant to be a bit vague on what's to come because they don't want to spoil much but also want to deliver a visual treat. :)
-There are a couple of recaps but maybe the best for you is the one the channel IGN GAMES has titled "Final Fantasy 14: The Story So Far" its about 9 minutes only, there are others that last about 1 or 5 hours so i think the short one is the best choice for you. -The same thing as in the wow intros. Game has long fat story, in fact one if not the best on a mmorpg, but the intros serve more to present the new classes and new enviroments. Dont try to find a cohesive relation between them. -Each numbered final fantasy is a totally different story and universe, only certain thins in common like some creatures or the names of some characters.
"she's a rabbit, and i am confusion" 😭😭😭😭
🤣🤣
susssshsususushhhhh sssss accept the bunny girls.... and any other girls in the game 🤫
“Unnecessary violence to dragons.” Ysayle invites you to her party.
Pffft 😂
... meanwhile, HW-Estinien violently unfriends.
To answer the "why is everyone white" question, it's because the game is Japanese. Japanese people are generally pale, and very commonly depict themselves in art that way (especially anime) because they like pale skin (kind of like how people in the west like tan skin, they intentionally get tans). What we see as "white", they see as Japanese. It's a game for Japanese people first, so most of the characters in the game will be "Japanese" to represent their core demographic. There are many characters in the game that aren't pale, but most of the main characters are.
In the game however, you're not playing a character they created, you make your own character (which can be whatever color you want).
Also, these trailers are for "expansions" to the game's story, you're not really meant to understand them without having played the game, so don't feel bad for not catching on.
Not to mention most Japanese RPG are based on western high fantasy, which mimics medieval Europes. So it make sense to them to have majority of characters "paler" skin tone.
@@pngmk2 I can't necessarily support the claim, but I read that the reason so many characters are lighter in coloration is because its easier to render graphics wise than darker colors. SE tries very hard to keep the system requirements for ff14 down so a wider audience can play and not have a gaming cpu so that could also play into it.
Well, in this case at least, most of the characters in these_are_ depicted as white since a lot of the main areas are based on European places, but yeah that's generally true. There just aren't any trailers that show a bunch of Ala Mhigan or Hannish townsfolk.
To add, there are a lot of POC characters in the game that have important roles. Just non of them are the main cast.
@@Wicca_P This is also partially true. 14's lighting system is absolutely abysmal for skin tones darker than a latte.
Just a note on the girl in red's outfit being 'impractical' ..... If i remember correctly, 'loose' clothing with flapping/wavy sections at specific places around the person were actually 'part of' the martial arts in some aspects. They were employed to 'blind' the opponent to what your own body was doing.
lots of people have a weird idea of "impractical" when it comes to fantasy clothing and armor simply because they have no knowledge of actual historical clothing and armor.
I've noticed some games, like World of Warcraft, largely tell the story in cinematics (so you can watch a series of them and get the through line) whereas others, like elder scrolls online and apparently final fantasy 14, tell the story in game and just have the cinematic to show..general vibes I guess. The second is definitely my preference (it's a game, not a movie) but does lead to confusion if you're only watching the cinematics. Also, these cinematics are mostly aimed at current and returning players.
Cinematic trailer are really just to hype up new players as well as give a teaser to current players (eg. on HW trailer, we got to see big dragons! Oh what is that? Islands in the sky? We getting flying! Oh look at that, dragons are attacking! Oooooh we gonna be at war with dragons!)
It also helps that SE generally does an amazing job at hyped up trailers that looks spoilery but isn't even close to it when you find the context.
@@darkmirror21 I'd say you have it backwards. It's to hype up current players whole giving a teaser, and potential spoilers, to new players. I'm looking specifically at the Heavensward trailer in regards to spoilers as its the only one that actually recaps previous events.
These trailers are most likely based on the assumption that the player base has already gone through the Main Scenario story in the game, so it's a trick to put out a trailer without giving too much. They mostly introduce new characters, suggest what the story would be about, introduce new locations, and a little bit of reminder of past expansions. I love the confusion that you had, and I hope it intrigues you enough for you to maybe want to go through the story in-game!
Yeah you need to realize that they are not going to tell you all the story, given that there's hundreds of hours of story. It is in fact one of, if not THE greatest continuous stories in all of gaming. There are things they set up 10 years ago that they are JUST NOW paying off in Endwalker, the latest expansion.
These are EXPANSION trailers. You need to like find videos on the STORY of FF14 if you want more context. There's a bunch of people who have devoted hours and days of their lives to create such videos, you should watch them; but be prepared to spend hours on it. We don't "just go around fighting" in this game. There are friendships made and broken, enemies to make and fight against, grand quests to go on, monsters to slay, Primals to take down, secrets to find, lands full of forests, deserts, beaches and of ice and snow to explore, and even a chain of sidequests with a detective who can't detect but bumbles his way to the correct answer each and every time. You know how in our world we don't know what secrets the Earth holds under water and in hard-to-reach places of the world? In the game world its very much the same; we still don't know everything about the lands we inhabit here now 10 years on. We are still learning new things about old zones and cities.
Also for the "white people" comment, you couldn't be more wrong. This is a Japanese game. They have a lot less compunctions and hangups about white/black race relations than the rest of the world does. They just don't get the whole thing. They create races to match the areas they are found in. Furthermore, there's a bunch of races in this game that are multicolored. In character creation you can literally do anything you want with color. There are even races of sentient animals. There are talking (and walking) catfish for god's sake. This is perhaps one of the most MULTIRACIAL games out there. You are taking a very small sample size of people you see in the videos and extrapolating it to the game at large and that's just not proper; especially given that the main character pictured is the same in each video AND they aren't going to show a lot of the characters from the expansions because they don't want to spoil.
(Some spoilers for the games story to follow)
These trailers do make alot more sense if you play the game, as each one is basically a teaser for what is going to happen next. Like a big one is in the last trailer Shadowbringers where Thancred(The guy with the gunblade fighting the white lion with a crown) says "I'm not going anywhere, Minfilia" The name Minfilia made fans go 'WAIT WHAT!?' because Minfilia is a character that's part of the story way back in A Realm Reborn as well as Heavensward, but she wasn't a kid. So there was a lot of confusion and fan speculation as to what was going on with this kid that looked alot like Minfilia and was being called Minfilia.
Other ones like Heavensward basically recapped the last bits of story from ARR and set the stage for us going to Ishgard to deal with the Dragons as we knew from the main story quests that Nidhogg had let loose his dragonsong to rally his brood and renew his war against Ishgard.
Stormblood was mostly showing us we'd be going to Ala Mhigo as well as the Far East with Othard. The fight on the stone hand was just the Warrior of Light and Lyse sparring together as they are actually friends and allies. The east showed us that Gosetsu and Yugiri would be continuing to play a part.(THey were the big man and smaller gal with horns ontop of the building.)
Yeah there are alot of white people in the game, but the game does also have a good many characters with darker skin tones that play parts in the story. Like a fan favorite character who you saw briefly in the Heavensward trailer is Raubahn who is a darker skinned Ala Mhigan and is the Flame General of the Immortal Flames of Uldah so we see him alot, and he's an amazing character, badass fighter but has a big heart for his people and his friends.
Though you probably would enjoy knowing that the 3 Leaders of the main CIty States you deal with in game, Gridania, Limsa Lominsa, Ul'dah are all women who are badasses in their own ways and just awesome characters. FF14 has alot of really cool characters you meet over the course of the story which is like an epic journey that makes you feel like a part of the world.
The short version of clearing some of your confusion is: each trailer starts a new chapter in the story. You are confused because you don't see anything but the prologue of each chapter. Like reading a book and only reading the first paragraph of each chapter - you won't be able to piece together anything because of that but it's more confusing because you never played the game or you would at least understand some of what's going on. Unfortunately it's a game you either have to play or find a video containing all the hundreds of cinematic story videos that make up the everything outside of these trailers. And even then you would miss anything covered by playing the game directly in between cut scenes. It's a great game and story, but not easily understood without playing or a general understanding of how the game works.
I'm late to the show and it may have been explained elsewhere but, the guy you see in every video is Your stand in. He's the "hero" as you progress through the main story. He also changes his class with each weapon, Warrior - Axe, Dragoon (dragon knight) - Lance, Monk - fists, Archer - Bow, Samurai - Katana, DarkKnight - Greatsword. All throughout the story you are the warrior of light, in the last trailer you watched Sadowbringers you learn that you aren't the only warrior of light and in another reality their warriors of light doomed their world. You and your friends end up becoming the warriors of darkness to save their world. There's a lot of backstory between each trailer, but I hope this was somewhat helpful.
As many people have tried to state, what you've done here is essentially watch the trailers to different seasons of a long running show, except it's the trailers to different parts of a games story.
If it helps to think about it this way: These are all trailers for different seasons of a long running TV show. Each of these seasons lasted for around two years each. So that's a lot of episodes, so to speak. And continuing the logic, if the seasons ran for two years before a new season came out, then the trailer for season one is going to be way different than the trailer for season 2 or even 4.
Hope that makes sense.
Edit: It's not a TV show, I'm using an analogy
For the Heavensward cinematic it does recap some of the story that leads up to the start of the expansion. There is a lot of story that has happened since the A Realm Reborn trailer. Think of it as two seasons worth story has happened between them so it is understandable to be confused by just watching the trailers. Those that have played the through story up to this point in the game are probably still recovering emotionally from having to rewatch that first part :D
The trailers are intentionally vague so that the major plot points of the story aren't spoiled. It seems confusing as hell based on just the trailer, but it's all connected and it's great.
Since you like writing and reading fantasy books i think you might want to consider giving this game free trial a go honestly. It's A LOT of reading and little actual gaming until you finish the main story plus it's very beginner friendly. I know you are not a gamer but it's never too late to become one ;). It starts very slowly and the community is one of the most welcoming to newbies.
For a bit of added context: The generic dude who you constantly see in these trailers is meant to be YOUR character and with the character creation your own Warrior of Light can be any gender, skin color or fantasy race you choose (if cat or bunny ears are your thing.) While the game is an MMO with a heavy story focus, the trailers for each expansion try not to spoil too much of the story and are pretty much just teasing new locations you'll see and experiences your character will go through in the new expansion.
While the Shadowbringers and Endwalker trailers do go a bit more heavy into the story, these trailers REALLY aren't meant as promotion for new players but are rather fan service to excite fans who are already invested in the characters and story of the games. It's actually advised for new players to AVOID watching these trailers because without context they lose much of the strength and excitement behind them, not to mention the spoilers rampant throughout the trailers.
to understand ffXIV trailers you need to know the stories untils each extention trailer cause they are intermission between them on ARR (a realm reborn) that was between FFXIV online and FFXIV ARR
The Shadowbringers trailer is the best, with or without context.
When it released, it caused me to download and try the game. A few years later, I’ve played for about 2,000 hours.
Now, *_that’s_* a trailer.
There is a LOT of context to these that really only make sense as being part of the "hype" cycle for the upcoming release of a new expansion for the MMO that is FFXIV. They're *supposed* to leave you going "what the hell was THAAAAAT?" more than once.
That said, the dude who shows up in all of them is the Player Stand-In, also called Meteor Survivor. He's there to represent the Player Character. In each expac he changes to a different job to kinda highlight themes that are present in the story. ARR (A Realm Reborn) is about becoming the Warrior of Light and so he's a Warrior (that's the job that uses that big axe). In Heavensward, the story deals a LOT with a war between people and dragons, and so he's a Dragoon. In Stormblood we were dealing with wars on two continents and so he had *two* highlighted jobs, Monk and Samurai. The Shadowbringers trailer is beginning the whole "reminding players of the road they walked to get here" and so he starts out as Samurai (because Stormblood was ending) and cycles through all his jobs in order until he gets to the new "Poster Job" of Dark Knight, which highlights the themes of restoring Darkness to a world all but swallowed in deadly Light. In Endwalker, the current expac and the only trailer you didn't see, he changes to Paladin, for sheer determination and a dedication to protecting others.
The Trailers are *not* strong on explaining the story. They exist to highlight the types of zones we're going to and the sorts of themes and cultures we're going to experience and MAYBE offer tantalizing hints about the story threads we've seen develop in-game that haven't been resolved.
As for the prevalence of certain skin tones... that IS an issue and one that Square Enix seems to be aware of. The guy who got his arm sliced off is darker complected and there's an NPC added in Endwalker who is not only VERY dark, but VERY beautiful as well, and I have high hopes for his future inclusion in the story.
One thing that’s very interesting about FFXIV is that be friends Instead is generally the best outcome in the story. The trailers unfortunately don’t tell us any of that as they have the goal of exciting people who are already in-the-know or attract people who like explosions.
The guy you see in each cinematic is a stand in for your player character.
OH I feel so bad! These are definitely not your usual style of cinematics. The FF14 trailers are always promotional pieces that show off the new lands and highlight different battle classes that fit thematically with the new expansion's overall story. The trailers themselves hint at what the story in the expansion will be, but don't go into details as they follow the Generic Protagonist Insert Character (the brown haired guy who starts off with the huge axe and changes to new things every trailer, who the fandom has collectively dubbed Meteor) on his journey to these new lands, and show off important NPCs that'll feature heavily in the plot either before the expansion or during.
I think the Heavensward cinematic got the same reaction from a lot of people that you had. If you don't know the story from playing the game, then that cinematic meant nothing to you.
Stormblood had nothing to do with the story. It just highlighted classes you can play in the game like Monk, Dancer, and Samurai.
This is a very story driven game but you get the story via playing the game. The cinematics that introduce the expansions don't do a great job of explaining any much of the story.
So yea, if you only seen the trailers they hold massive spoilers since they are based on the idea that you had played the expansions, so without that knowledge the trailers are confusing. Example is the Heavensward trailer, the idea is that you know who the people are, what transpired, and why now you all of a sudden fighting dragons. The spoilers are that if you start playing then you quickly pick up what is going to happen from the trailers you have watched. Also imo the game has the best story telling I have ever played through
The first one you watched was the 1.0 trailer of the original FFXIV before they closed the severs, and remade it as FFXIV: A Realm Reborn which is 2.0. It is interesting how they used the closure of the serves as lore of what happened five years before ARR. If you haven't watched the 2.0 trailer, it would make sense to watch it before doing the trailer for the expansions. The base game, ARR, and all the expansions has their own trailers. Btw, that is not a castle being built, and you basically got being poisoned right.
FF XIV is EXTREMELY story driven. Each new expansion trailer ties the events of the last to the new, so unless you're actively playing, all of this is going to look random and impossible to follow because there's no context for you to draw upon.
All you can really do is enjoy it as a cinematic and nothing more 😅
Just adding to the comments, the trailers are kind of intentionally vague. Because the story is such an important part of the experience, and there tend to be a lot of cliffhanger moments, I think they design these trailers as to avoid spoiling the story, even if you ARE playing the game but maybe aren't quite caught up. So there is a ton of context required to really understand what's going on.
The short versions would probably be: Heavensward, you were framed for poisoning the Queen (the little girl) to a city that's been fighting dragons for ages, Stormblood, you're essentially trying to dismantle the British Empire by liberating/uniting nations from all over, and Shadowbringers, you travel to a world where "the balance between Light and Darkness" has been upset, but the twist is that there is too much "Light" in this world, and it has rendered it mostly a barren wasteland.
If you go into Endwalker, the context will be; you've been trying to avert the end of the world, which has been heavily prophesied. An event literally known as "The End of Days" is upon you, and so it takes place in literal final days before a sort of "armageddon". You and your homies are all traveling across the globe, trying to figure out anything you can about it and avert the crisis.
4:40 Yes, you get information in game:
Spoilers of course, this has been your warning!
At the end of ARR, The WoL is invited to the princess quarters, then she is poisoned and dies. You, the player is framed for regicide and with help from your friends you flee to Ishgard (another city) while chaos happen in the city of Ul'dah. In the video it is portrayed that you have been not just framed, but betrayed by those who were supposed to be your allies.
... It still makles my blood boil to remember that!
The first two trailers you watched were the trailers for the new game:
1.0 which is the bar one
2.0 where they shut down the game and rebuilt it from the ground up which is the one with the giant dragon
All the ones you watched today are game expansion trailers to show existing players what’s coming next in the story and locations. It expects you to have played the prior expansion to understand what is happening because in FF you need to play the story (unless you pay money to skip but then you wouldn’t care if you did that)
Your level up experience is story quests through the main story. This is usually filled with cutscenes. Major fights and locations. Everything is locked behind it. Even if you have bought the newest expansion you cannot play it until you have completed the story for all the rest (or pay) which is fine because it’s one of the best few hundred hours of proper JRPG story telling if not the best.
I am going to need a meme made of dragonball fights in unfortunate locations and just have our chaperone Hannah in the background “um that doesn’t seem like a great place to be shock wave fighting”
If you want a bit of insight for the first trailer on a brief summary here it is:
(SPOILERS AHEAD)
Long ago the world had many people who were known as the Warriors of Light. One day a calamity happened and they all vanished. This is the event on the other trailers with the "Meteor" and the "Dragon" and the "Old Dude".
The Main Character gets tossed into the story and it's kind of induced he might be the Warrior of light. In the meantime he joins this group of people who work behind the scenes and help different nations.
They fight a empire thing in the base game and get known by every nation leader and everyone likes them. They create a subdivision of new "warrior recruits". Turns out some of those recruits are evil and plotting to stab the original group in the back. They work alongside a couple of leaders of a nation to assassinate the queen and pass the political power to some other dude. They also use this to frame the original group as being the ones who committed the crime. Here you look at all the nations that you helped, and you were friends with, and suddenly everyone is against you.
The guy in jail was the queen's right hand and kind of knows about the truth, being one of the few that sticks up for you. But he goes berserk and is sentenced to jail (and death if I recall) for attacking the people he thought were the original criminals.
You and the original group run away but the original group starts sacrificing themselves one by one to try and buy you some time. Only a couple survive. You try to look for help but every nation is against you. Luckily for you, during one of your travels you helped some fella from this one secluded region who decides to help you back and "sponsor you" into entering Ishgard, a city separated from the rest of the world full of pain and a political and economical imbalance (this is the main place where the first expansion takes place.)
Think of these video's as showcases/teasers.
If you have never played Final Fantasy XIV, they are pretty much just eye candy. But if you have played the game, they are showing off the area's you will be going to along with hinting at some plot points.
The story in the expansions is equivalent to a sequel in a book. You play the base game. Then the people who made the game spend a couple years creating the next chapter in the story. You buy the expansion as an add-on to your game and play through it. All these trailers are a showcase to that next "chapter"
The story itself spans over hundreds of hours in game, so these may come off a little jarring if your trying to understand what's happening.
(As a side note, the guy with the brown hair is a stand in for the player. In game you create what you look like so he's kinda a placeholder for us in these trailers)
There's definitely an aspect of "you'll know if you know" in these trailers. It's a very linear, story heavy game, and the trailers assume you know what came before.
Heavensward is the first expansion, and the trailer recounts how we get to its starting point. At the end of the story prior to the expansion, Nanamo (that girl) is poisoned and the group we're a part of is blamed. Her protector Raubahn (the big black man who got got his arm chopped off) killed one of the _real_ traitors and was put in prison on death row. Most of our closest allies go into hiding or disappear completely due to a magic spell, and we and our two remaining allies take refuge in the frigid north that is Coerthas. Then we see our main enemies for the expansion, Nidhogg's hoard of dragons, who have been at war with Ishgard for around 1000 years if I'm not mistaken. Next we see Ishgard itself, followed by a shot of the Sea of Clouds, an area we will soon visit and a friend we know from the base game flying an airship (his name is Cid). The Warrior of Light (main character boy, also us) picks up the arms and armor of a dragoon, Ishgard's most elite dragon-slaying warriors. The violence to dragons is incredibly necessary.
The Stormblood (expansion following Heavensward) trailer doesn't show as much actual story, just locations and people. It starts with us sparring as a monk with our friend Lyse in the base of the Ala Mhigan Resistance at a place called Rhalgr's reach (Ala Mhigo is a city-state currently being occupied by the big bad evil empire. Rhalgr is the god of destruction and central figure for the monks of Ala Mhigo). Then it pans over to the far east, showing Doma (fantasy China) and the Azim Steppe (fantasy Mongolia) before diving into the Ruby Sea and showing one of the air domes used by the people living down there. It then shows us HIngashi (fantasy Japan) and a number of imperial soldiers chasing us (now a Samurai) into an alley. Cool movie shot. Then it pans up to the tower and shows us Yugiri and Gosetsu, who are 2 more allies we know that will be very important as the story progresses.
There's not even a slim chance of understanding the Shadowbringers trailer without playing the game. It starts with the final battle of Stormblood, as we fight and defeat the crown prince of the evil empire (the trailer does _not_ show him then reviving and nearly killing us, but eh). The voice that plays is that of the crystal boy we see at the end of the trailer.
Backstory: Over the last few chapters of Stormblood, he's been "calling" us, which is later explained as him using magic to try and bring us to the world he resides on (this world is known as the 1st Reflection. There are/were 13 of these reflections, but only the first matters for our story right now). The callings had a side effect of ripping some of our closest friends souls out of their bodies and onto the first (the Elf man, cat girl, guy that fights the lion, and two others that don't appear in the trailer). The 1st is suffering from an imbalance of light. Basically, the light got so strong over there that it started swallowing the whole world and turning people into monsters. Also filled the sky with everlasting light.
Then it shows the Warrior of Light (referred to from here on as WoL) on the first, remembering everything that came before (all of the trailer flashbacks) as a gremlin (you were right, it is in fact a gremlin!) taunts WoL about being in a hopeless situation before an angelic creature (we later learn that these are called Sin-eaters) descends to try and kill WoL. Through the course of this fight, the WoL tries fighting back with the skills they've gained over each previous expansions (denoted by the weapon/armor changes), but to no avail. Interspersed into the scenes of this fight are scenes of some of our allies who had been called. It shows some events that we don't directly see in the game as they happen before we arrive on the 1st. Y'shtola (Cat-girl) became de-facto leader of a group called the Night's Blessed, and the trailer shows as their base is attacked and destroyed by the Children of the Everlasting Dark (the fireballs are related to this, not the angel fight). Urianger (elf-man), who specializes in prophecy asks her what she intends to do about their fate, which she responds to resolutely. Then it shows our buddy Thancred breaking a young girl out of prison underneath one of the two surviving city-states before tussling with another Sin-eater. He calls her "Minfillia", which is incredibly significant if you've played the game, but this comment is getting a bit too wordy already. Suffice to say that it was very surprising, jaw-dropping even, at the time. Finally, it shows the other remaining city-state, called the Crystarium, takes a second to efficiently point out the new combat class (dancer) and new race (bunny people) in a single shot, before ascending into the crystal tower and showing our boy who called us saying "if history must be unwritten, let it be unwritten" (we will later learn that he comes from a future where a calamity fell upon our world, killing untold millions including us and our friends, and he aims to change that fate). He also tells us to "become what you must, become the warrior of darkness" as WoL uses the power of a Dark Knight to finally defeat the Sin-eater that was in the process of trouncing WoL, and bring the night sky back to the 1st.
If you do ever decide to watch the Endwalker trailer, expect to be at least as confused as you were by the Shadowbringers trailer.
Yea these trailers really don't work as well if you don't know the context. Might explain why I always feel underwhelmed when my friends (who have played many games, even MMOs) don't get as hype as I do when I show them these trailers. There's 2 years of story missing between each one 😅 they're ultimately marketing new features in the game, hence the weird lingering shots on like, Meteor slicing them bullets in half (samurai was introduced) or the bunny girl dancing (both dancer and the bunny girl race was introduced), which is super cool if you've been looking forward to these staples of the franchise over the last 30 years being brought into the game, but not all that useful for selling the game to prospective players.
If you want to get a gist of what happen maybe you can also watch some of the patch trailers. It might help (or it might not I don't know) but the patch trailer has dialogue so you can get some context even if it's not everything.
Anorher things to know is that each Final Fantasy are not connected together.
Final fantasy VII has nothing to do with FFXIV, they are each their own world and their own stories.
The trailers are more to show quickly what the extension is made of hat BUT the story itself is in the game the trailer spoil nothing of it so if you never played then it will be difficult to understand 😲
Soo basically for the Heavensward trailer. Your character is known as the Warrior of Light. The guy with the Axe represents the player and is the Warrior of Light in every trailer for ffxiv. The first trailer with the dragon and the egg was the start for the "A Realm Reborn". Several events happen in that storyline and at the end of that story we go into what can be known as the sequal to A Realm Reborn now called "Heavensward". In the trailer, several key events play out in cinematic format that also happened at the end of "A Realm Reborn" leading to the Warrior of Light being outcasted seeking refuge in a nation to the north in the cold mountains. As he walks into this nation that has opened up its gates to us specifically, we start to see and take part of several "Internal affairs" that they have been dealing with that caused them to be closed off to the world in the first place and a new chapter starts to be told. So "A realm Reborn" can be seen as book 1, and "Heavensward" is book 2. Same with "Stormblood" which can be considered as book 3 to the story. They are referred to as Expansions which expand on the world within the story as we know it with each entry. "A Realm Reborn" sets up the 3 main city states of "Gridania, Limsa Lominsa and Ul'dah" and their political struggles. "Heavensward" expands the world as u travel to the north to a nation in the snow mountains called "Ishgard" and then u enter "Stormblood" which expands the world further by taking u to the far east as u discover the lands of "Ala Migo" and "Doma" in their fight against oppression. Each trailer representing what role u as the Warrior of Light can end up playing as each story's events unfold.
Obviously its been said in other comments, but the trailers aren't there to give you a story when it comes FF14. They are there to show players new areas, new jobs(classes), important characters, etc that are coming up in the next expansion. The guy with the axe who puts on the dragon armor and the samurai and fighting on the hand are all one character. He represents your character in each expansion. He's just a place holder for you. Watching cutscenes and stuff you'll get an idea of the story, but there's a lot. Like 10 years of lore and stories that connect and reconnect with tons of side stories. Its a lot, but its been an amazing game and story. Ive been playing since Heavensward came out.
So this game is roughly 10 years old and the story arks introduced in each expansion ( which are the trailers your watching ) are told in 10+ hour segments in the game. This game is also the successor to another Final fantasy game by the same name that came out years ago which also had its own story. Unfortunately its just not possible to understand or contextualize whats going on in the world of Final Fantasy 14 A realms reborn and its expansions without playing it in its entirety, there are too many nuances and elements experienced in game that a trailer wouldn't have the time to detail. These trailers are more so an announcement to the 10s of thousands of concurrent players that new jobs ( in game classes ) and story's are coming to the world.
In the first trailer you watched it announced a new Job the Dragoon along with a brand new in game area which was the giant castle you saw. The second trailer announced the Samurai and in game locations, and the third trailer you watched announced the Dance class, Gunbreaker as well as 2 new in game races.
As far as the inclusiveness concerns you mentioned many of the main story characters are white or are of a non-human race, however both Louisoix Leveilleur and Raubahn Aldynn the Flame general are black ( he was in the trailer you first watched ). Square Enix is a Japanese studio and publisher and they do market their games in a manner that appeals best to a Japanese demographic. The white male protagonist you see in the all the trailers isn't real hes more of a generic metaphor for the character you play. In game you can be anyone you want any race or gender with any skin color and most importantly the people who play this game are very inclusive and nice. people play this game to meet, have fun and help other people; its an environment that thrives on building experiences with other people not being prejudice or hateful.
Most of these trailers are meant to show the world expanding. In some sense Narratively, and in others - Exploring.
Lore is not so much the idea, but the excitement of what new Ideas and Yes…bosses are to come! Final Fantasy is a strange series, and FF14 is a strange Combination of all the Final Fantasies that came before.
If you look at me game, you’ll start to notice a pattern of ideas, names, locations, and a cycle of Conflict that is both personal and also mythic!
Sure, your character and you are left in the dust half the time, but the game does whip around and brings you back into the fold when the final battle forces you to be the One to fight.
The last two trailers return to something more story esque
“Unnecessary violence to dragons.”
You do see them attacking the city yes?
These are trailers that without context, will have no emotional impact.
So the closest comparison I can give is this is like season 3, 4 and 5 and each trailer is the big trailer for that season to showcase what's the theme and you are trying to understand the trailers without the context of the previous seasons
Yeah, if I was missing my
1000+ hours of gametime,
I'd be confused by a handful
of ~3 minute trailers, too.
When you don't know the game
it might be best to just lean
back and enjoy the spectacle.
Each cinematic is prior to a whole expansion (equivalent to a whole game basically) so it's normal for you to be completely lost 😂
It's like you'd watch the trailer for "Movie", but didn't watch the movie, then the trailer for "Movie 2", but didn't watch the movie etc Basically you're missing all the informations for you to understand what's going on haha Your reactions were really great and funny tho!
The only thing that you keep seeing in all of them is the main character, who is reprensenting your character in game (and some other important characters here and there) and you recognized him from the first cinematic that you watched :D
As others have stated - the trailers really don't make sense if you haven't played the game, because they tie in to the continuing story of the game. And it really is a freaking long story - I'm talking each expansion could pretty much be the length of a TV show season. Pretty much, the guy that shows up in just about every scene is the stand-in for your character, the main character of the story, who you can customize to your heart's content. There are people who aren't light-skinned in the game (and you can make your character dark-skinned), but yeah, most of the main supporting cast is light-skinned with white hair (which is actually a meme). And yes, racism and xenophobia exist in the FF14 world - one of the 3 starting locations is extremely racist and xenophobic, another is a place where the rich and powerful constantly oppress the impoverished and weak, and the third is well, a pirate city that constantly breaks its own treaties. No wonder why all three cities have problems with the tribal groups that surround them. Regardless, over time, we go (sometimes forced - as in Heavensward and, to a lesser extent, in Shadowbringers) to places that have their own sets of problems, while the original three cities slowly make changes in how they run things as they learn that their old ways aren't working. Even at the point in the game we are now (base game plus four expansions later), the original three cities still aren't perfect, but they've become much more egalitarian and understanding. And even the other places we've visited have made progress in how they run things.
Without the massive amount of story from the game she just cannot fathom how massive that Minfillia declaration bombshell was. Sort of like Japan finally nuking others in return.
lol. Yeah, these are really difficult to understand if you haven't played -- especially the opening cinematic for the [current] final expansion. But the guy you keep seeing is the stand-in for your own character, and each cinematic requires knowledge of the previous installment to understand what's going on. Heavensward is a direct continuation of A Realm Reborn -- which is a relaunch of Final Fantasy XIV because the initial game was a massive failure -- and as the opening text implies: basically, things went completely awry and that leads into the events of Heavensward, where you enter a conflict that's been raging for 1000 years between man and dragon.
Stormblood continues Heavensward where you enter into another conflict, trying to help end a 25-year reign of tyranny over the people of Ala Mhigo.
Shadowbringers continues from Stormblood, returning to focus on some plot points in Heavensward and actually takes you to a completely different world in the future, where most of the realm's citizens were either killed or turned into monstrosities from a swell of light after the balance between light and darkness was broken. I'm trying to keep details minimal on the off-chance you may play them someday.
It is a game centered on fighting. But honestly, many players login just to hang around and chat; enjoying the world and doing things like fishing and crafting. There's literally endless stuff to do.
Lets try a little sumup: You start as an Adventurer doing little deeps here and there, then suck into internal affairs witch gets bigger by the time till you eventualy save the world.
For the Openings you have to understand, that with each expansion of the game the world gets bigger, new classes appear and sometimes even new races which are teased in the videos.
The other thing is, that you get emotionly attached to the people you see in the openings which skip them to another level then seeing them without played the game.
I hope it helped ^^
Nanamo being poisoned is its own 50ish minute long cutscene that is sort of the “season finale” for the first game.
Aaah, Hannah. You're watching trailers for a game. Each trailer is basically one for an expansion, a new "story", which is almost like an entirely new game. So the trailers aren't meant to tell you a story, just hype you up for each expansion.
You don't have to understand. Just enjoy the music.
I appreciate the commentary it made a rather dull video entertaining
For the, "A lot of white people, just sayin'" comment, I'll just point out the game is made by a Japanese company.
FFXIV is an online game with years of gameplay and storytelling between each of these trailers. When a new "chapter" of the game is released, they are called an expansion - Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, etc. These are each a trailer showcasing the expansion. They share many of the same characters and take place in the same world, but each is focused on its own story which is why, from an outside perspective, they seem to have no connection to one another.
These trailers aren't trying to tell you the whole story, they're just giving glimpses to intrigue you.
It occurs to me now that these trailers weren't made for new players, they were made to hook current players in to buying the new expansion. None of this really makes sense without playing the game. (Also you're right - while the game does have a pretty diverse cast, the main characters are all very white. It's a shame that in spite of this, XIV still does better than a lot of its contemporaries in this regard because the bar really is just that low.)
"not the best place to have a shockwave fight" I'M DYING 🤣
these trailers were meant for people who already played the game which admittedly is feeding the echo chamber so it's kind of expected that you wouldnt experience the impact of basically all of the trailers. As someone who hasnt played any of it this it is completely wasted on you.
"WTF is going on", Ha! welcome to the club pal.
Thank you! I enjoy it here
First... these trailers are for people who played the game and know the story rather well. They are not movies for you to just hop in and understand. Next, you gotta stop kinda being racist. It's weird to ask something like... "Why the hell are their so many black people in this show? Ugh."
Trust me, that Shadowbringers trailer made everyone lose their shit.
I love the fact that a non-gamer react to game trailers. I get why they can be confusing. I get confused too, even though I play games a lot. But the way I see most games, they reveal some characters and locations. Not necessarily any story in many, unless you're a big fan and can rewatch trailers to find small details or know the comics or something XD But game trailers are most times, so entertaining and badass XD
Each video is kind of like a showcase of the things you will do and the places you will visit in the expansion it represents. Like, Stormblood unlocked Monk and Samurai as jobs. So you see Monks fight at the start, then a Samurai
This may come as a surprise to you, but the world is not just full of white and black people. The developers of this game franchise for example are Japanese, so they are neither black nor white. So stop looking at skin colour as the thing that defines a character. It's also hilarious that in a game that has cat people, bunny people, and lion people, the thing that first caught your eye was their skin colour.
80% person, 20% content. Bleh.
These are at best 1% of the overall story so its kinda more a hype for features or teases half the time we're guessing till half way through the new exp pack
Teaser trailers without about 500 hours of story context 😅
This was a hilarious watchthrough. Each of these trailers forecasts a new "game" which you play through. each game tells a new chapter. so each of these trailers is the start of another chapter. so it's totally normal that you wouldn't understand these trailers without the context inbetween.
My Miqo'te in this game has gray skin! XD
It is confusing if you haven't played. I stopped playing a bit ago, after finishing Endwalker. The story is great stuff, but yeah just watching this without context is not an easy thing to follow!
You would never know the content if you only look at the cover of a book, if you want to know what is going on, you will have to dive into the world just like other players, the trailers are designed NOT to tell you the whole story since what is the fun of reading if you already knew the ending from the beginning.
It's really how interesting how FFXIV is almost the polar opposite of World of Warcraft when it comes to how the story is communicated to people who haven't played the games. WoW tends to put the main storybeats into the trailers so that there is kind of a narrative hook to get people interested in their games, though when it comes to the game itself, the storytelling isn't all that strong.
FFXIV on the otherhand is so fundamentally driven by it's narrative, that the trailers are designed to give almost nothing away at all, and all the nuances of the trailers are almost completely lost on people who haven't played the game, even though the trailers make complete sense to the players. FFXIV trailers tend to give you a sort of cinematic vignette of the overarching storybeats of each expansion, but without the context of the game, they make little sense.
Even though I'm a MASSIVE FFXIV fan, this has always been my main critisism of the game, but I'll try and explain the main overviews of each trailer you watched, then the other commenters can fill you in with more details :D
Heavensward: Picks up where the base game left off. The queen (Sultana) of a major city state is assasinated, and you are framed for her murder. Your character ends up fleeing to the freezing city state of Ishgard which is currently under assault by dragons. You're rescured by the dragoons (their resident dragonslayers) and eventually learn their ways, just in time for a major war with the dragons.
Stormblood: After the story of Heavensward has concluded, your character has moved on to the city state of Ala Mhigo and has learned the ways of the monk. You're sparring with one of your friends who comes from that land. Hand to hand combat is a massive part of their culture. The point is just to telegraph to the players that they are going to visit Ala Mhigo, which was a highly anticipated part of the game's world at that time. After the sparring session, there is a time skip and your character is in the Japanese inspired city of Kugane where he has taken up the discipline of the Samurai. At this point in FFXIV, players could not be a samurai yet, so seeing your character as Samurai was a super exciting reveal, so while not much actually happenes in this vignette, it's still a super exciting moment for the player. We've being shown that we finally get to go to this highly anticipated area, and get to be a badass samurai!
Shadowbringers: This trailer is vauge almost on purpose, but I'll try and explain the best I can - at this point in the game, right before this trailer came out, the characters you see, (cat lady, guy in the black robe, guy with giant gun) have been your friends for the past 8ish years. Out of nowhere, they all fell uncouncious and it is revealed that their souls are no longer in their bodies. In the trailer we see them in this mysterious land that we've never been to, dressed differently. The giant gun guy is particularly interesting, because this, again, is a type of playstyle that the players haven't seen before. Long story short, your character is constantly changing his appearance when fighting the angel, to demonstrate that nothing you've learned so far is enough to take on this new threat. You have been called the warrior of light up to this point, but now you have to embrace something different and become a dark knight - the warrior of darkness to combat this new mysterious threat.
Finally, as for the "white people" - It's super funny that you say that, but it's completely fair. Square Enix is a Japanese company and Final Fantasy is one of the IPs that they try to westernise to appeal to the west so the poster boy is a kind of generic looking white dude that the players affectionally refer to as "Derplander", but the game itself showcases a massive world that spans many different cultures, but mostly asian inspired for obvious reasons. Derplander is simply a stand in for your character and you can make your him (or her) look however you want. He just has that generic appearance in each trailer so we as players can mentally replace him with our own character.
I hope this all of text helped, enjoy your Sunday!
"Unnecessary violence to dragons" is a pretty good summary of the heavensward story lmao
To be fair for the trailer, the dragons were attacking the city in that scene.
Do not expect a story from the ff14 cinematics found that out tyhe hard way when I first started. They are more like teasers for people who played the previous expansion and know the story.
"unnecessary violence to dragons"
Oh you have no idea how unnecessary it was lol
Understatement of the millennia
gotta play to see the whole story, and you know it turns out that the developers are turning the game noob friendly so new people can enjoy the full story through all the expansions without being hardcore Harley.
A spoiler warning should've been given with this video.
Lyse probably got knocked out by that punch lol
Yea... FF14 relies heavily on the context of the previous story for its trailers. Or a lot of REFERENCE for FF fans. Looking into the cinematics can be confusing to say the least. HW most of all since it is jam packed with spoilers.
It is a little confusing watching these without context haha. They do tell a very simplified version of the main story. But these are to show off the new areas of the game.
Hey there, Hannah. A lurker of your videos, here once again.
I've only just finished the part where you've watched the FFXIV: Heavensward trailer, so please bear with me if I haven't absorbed the full gamut of your emotions just yet.
I'm a relatively new player of Final Fantasy XIV, with just about a year under my belt; however, it has since become one of my favorite games to play and social spaces to dwell in-because FFXIV is an MMORPG, or a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game. For the layman, an MMORPG is a genre of video games which is a live service, currently doesn't have a definite end point in the story, and content for it is being constantly churned out by the producer and developer of the game.
Moreover, players of the game have a persistent world to dwell in using avatars they can control and play the game with, and can interact and chat with other players as well. In fact, a big chunk of the MMORPG genre is doing content in the game with other players, working together to overcome the challenges presented by the content they're playing.
First off, the past trailers you watched. For context, the first of the trailers that you watched before these ones were for the first iteration of FFXIV, which players and developers refer to as 1.0, like the version of a computer program.
The second one-which had the dragon in the moon-shaped egg-is the trailer for 2.0, which is a massive overhaul and rework of the game undertaken by a new team when 1.0 failed to meet the satisfaction of players at the time, hence christened the official title of "A Realm Reborn", to go with its new launch.
The trailer showed the enormous dragon-called Bahamut-nearly destroying the world in flame. That event is actually canon to the story; more importantly, it's how the developers explain the changes to both the game itself and the game's myriad landscapes. The important piece of context about this is that the developers of FFXIV are unique in that they rebuilt a dying MMORPG from scratch (all while keeping its current version running for the players), as well as tied their overhaul of the entire game into its lore and narrative-so as to make the transition feeling natural to the players who didn't quit up to the point when 1.0 was eventually shut down.
The thing to appreciate here is that such practices and impeccable work ethic is absolutely not a common occurence in the West with regard to game development, and this is why the developers of FFXIV are hailed and lauded by much of its players.
FFXIV: Heavensward is an expansion series to A Realm Reborn; its first expansion, in fact. For an MMORPG, an expansion is the most tangible proof one can give that it is a live service game. An expansion adds new content to the existing game, new places to explore, new quests to do, new roles players can step into with regard to what their avatars can do, and a continuation of the story-if it's relevant enough to the game and to the players.
The trailers themselves are actually very context-heavy, and appreciating them in full is contigent on the viewer being a player of the game and one who is caught up to the current 'end' of the story before the expansion (shown in that trailer) is released. Being the first expansion, Heavensward is actually unique among the trailers in that it basically picks up directly after the events of A Realm Reborn, which is why it feels like you missed something. The characters shown in the trailer are ones you've-ideally-already met and formed some form of relationship with as a player of the game.
It's also important to note that the new team of developers from failed 1.0 to the more successful 2.0 release were also just beginning to get their groove, after effectively saving a sinking ship. After that process, they've since shown that they care as much for the game and story as their players, and have respected the time and money the players have put in their game over the years-which is another reason why they're lauded, loved and trusted by their community.
For the trailers of Stormblood, Shadowbringers and Endwalker that come after, the narrative team has since managed to hit a stride and figured out what to show and what not to show. Instead of picking up directly-and contextually-after the events of the expansion prior like Heavensward did, they just showed a vague overview of what has occurred, what the players can expect to be doing, newly-added roles the players can try out, and the places and stories they can look forward to exploring and experiencing.
As a final note, the recurring character that you see in the trailers is commonly known as the Warrior of Light, and his appearances in the expansions as certain roles is a canonical visual and cultural representation of what conflict he's about to get into, and how he deals with it in that part of the story.
In certain cases, these roles-and some which are shown but are not necessarily tied to the Warrior of Light-are also newly-added with the expansion. This means that players can also have the opportunity to pick it up, step into it, and try out for themselves.
A good example of this is Heavensward, where he sheds his role (and battle axe) as a Warrior from A Realm Reborn, and takes up the mantle and lance of a Dragoon-a fighter that excels in airborne combat, and is thus a foil to dragons that can fly. In the process, he's also helping a nation that has been at war with dragons for a thousand years, and is quite literally stepping into their shoes.
In Stormblood, he goes into it as a Monk, because the people he's trying to help and inspire have a cultural history of hand-to-hand combat of a similar stripe, and then as a Samurai because the second place he visits is home to that lineage of fighting and its cultural roots.
In Shadowbringers, he travels to a realm that's been nearly consumed by primordial Light, and so he invokes the shadowy powers of a Dark Knight to combat it-after every other role he's tried thus far have seemingly failed him in the process. He also meets-or reunites-with comrades who may have taken on a role that none of the players have seen or experienced thus far before that expansion.
Stuff like that, and every role the Warrior of Light steps into is effectively using some form of magic-which can easily explain why he can do what he does.
Anyway, I'm going to watch the rest of the video. I hope you manage to read this one among the sea of comments you often get. I've tried to explain it as best I can without going on forever, but still as simple and as informative as I can get it :)
I cant wait for DawnTrail You can choose a lot of races and different colours.
Hi hi 😊 you having no clue what was happening was priceless and entertaining; but its all fair and warranted. This is an mmo with a preset story; the narrative goes on and each trailer reflects what youve been through and were your going in the next expansion. The main character in the trailer is a stand in for the character you make, and if you go in watching these without any context from the game, everything going on and its people wont make any sense. There are also a wide variety of races in the game in both color and species lol.
technically it does a very good job at telling story but you will only understand it if you have context from the games. In the world though theres much you can do; live, play with millions of players, fish, cook, fight, etc. its a “breathing” world with economics, community, story. Hopefully that clears things up. Love the content btw ❤
Of course it's not really gonna make sense :D
You're trying to piece together a 200+ hour story from 5-10 minute trailers, you're gonna miss a whole lot of context
For FF14 players these trailers contain a lot of information
For non-FF14 players it's meant to show a lot of flashy boom boom
you wont understand whats really happening without playing the story
If you wish to know more about the game I highly recommend watching a documentary series on the game by the channel Noclip. It gets into the challenges the developers faced creatinf this game.
You're essentially getting snippets of story that are like 100 hours apart.
Each trailer is announcing the new expansion for FF14, which is a Massively Multiplayer Online game, like World of Warcraft. Each one continues the overall story. For Heavensward, your character is on the run, blamed for the poisoning of the little girl, who is a Queen basically. Taking refuge in a kingdom that has been at war with dragons for 1000 years. Stormblood has your character liberating kingdoms around the world from the evil empire. And Shadowbringers is your character traveling to a literal parallel dimension and saving it. Hope that clears things up a little! lol
The big difference between FFXIV and WoW is that each WoW expansion is a self-contained story, where FFXIV is a single continuous story. This makes a new WoW trailer a lot easier to follow, because there's usually only one or two minor details from the previous expansion that are relevant to the new story being told, but each new trailer for FFXIV becomes harder to follow than the one before, because you are missing more and more context each time.
@@kellynine7438 Also the trailers aren't like a typical trailer for a movie. Its not meant to tell you the over all story. Its just showing you important locations and characters for the most part, giving hints on what you'll be seeing and getting players excited for content. The guy with the axe who put on the dragon armor then who fought on the hand, was a samurai all represent your character in the trailers. From ARR to heavensward-stormblood-shadowbringers-endwalker, all are telling one giant story arch with multiple smaller arches going through. The next expansion which will probably drop end of 2023, is gonna be the start of a whole new giant story arch.
K....know FFXIV's songs... The Dragonsong War. It's just was going through
lol "little girl" is both inaccurate and correct
@@JamesHulltheFabulousJ honestly it's the best way to describe her though xD you think the average person who's never played 14 is gonna understand she's part of a race of lolihags? 😂
Haven't even started watching but oh man am I excited to watch her brain have a melt down trying to understand what the hell is going on in this story 🤣
LOL enjoy!
Game has like over 200 hours of story in the game, so yeah they mostly highlight new zones etc. in trailers and the somewhat "overall plot"
haha got it.
yeah Square Enix is very good with story but also it wouldn't do if they told the whole story in their short trailers so they make it vague you wont really get anything from only watching the trailer if you haven't played through the previous expansion. otherwise what would even be the point of playing.
@@jerome6519 japanese game trailers usually suck at presenting their stories though, its not just a Ff14 problem. Just compare this with something like eso or swtor where you can get a general gist of the story. Even though I love Ff14, the trailers are pretty nonsensical if you think about what its like for a newcomer. Even the ARR trailer is pretty bad at presenting its story.
@@ryanlin223 ffxiv's trailers aren't made with new players in mind. New players shouldn't even watch them to be honest because of potential story spoilers. Even the ARR trailer assumes you have some understanding of what was going on. This isn't even a Japanese thing. Gp back amd watch the first two WoW trailers.
200 hours more like 800 hours
As a fiction writer you would love this game, and it's specifically designed for non gamers so there's really no gamer curve to worry about. (P.s. it's also a great way to grow a channel as ff14 fan are constantly chasing a new player experience for our story high...)
Yeah watching streams of ff14 is like a new crazy addiction for me lol
We term ourselves emotional vampires. We so enjoyed playing the story that we want to see others doing the same and experience thier highs and lows too.
Well you see...the story in a nutshell....is....you start out on a chocobo carriage ride...find a crystal....and then, like 300 hours later you go to the store to replace all the tissues you've used up. And that's basically it.
it really is lmao i ran out of tissues and need to go to the store and im not even done witht eh latest expansion
Start for the adventure, stay to resolve the questions of existential crisis and finding hope and purpose in the depths of hopelessness.
this is accurate
that sounds like an extremely long winded way to tell a hentai story :D
Mean while I'm a entrainer bard dressed as a jester in the golden saucer and then i change into a cowboy for chocobo racing XD
As a hardcore FFxiv-er can I just say that was hilarious to watch!! This is definitely one of those games that looks ridiculous from the outside but honestly I love every odd thing about it 😂😂😂
I am so glad you enjoyed watching my video. Thank you!
It... Doesnt really.
Its high fantasy.
If you want the story, you have to play the game. There are hundreds of hours of story between everything. It's fantastic.
Did you know that the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV has a free trial, and includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime?
i could spend a century trying to explain how much i love your username and still not capture it properly
"I feel like I am missing a key component to the story" Yes. The whole thing lmao. Still loving the reaction! They should have just made a movie along with the game
Naw the game too long to be telling a movie like that.... i mean ppl didnt take to well to advent children. Plus XD how do you condense nearly 600 hours of story telling into 2 hour bits?
Maybe a series? With Vanilla FFXIV to Endwalker, you got enough story for several seasons!
@@loomingdeath1758: In what world was Advent Children not taken well, I always had the impression it was rather well loved.
@@squallofthedai you had the impression XD but you dont speak for everyone around. Thats like saying everyone in the world loves Kingdom hearts... I met people who despise that game with utter passion and hate the fan base as well.
"I think I'm missing something." Well just a few hundred hours of gameplay, questing, raids, and dungeons. I've been playing video games since I was a wee lad playing Super Nintendo in the early 90s, and started FF14 last year and it quickly became one of my favorite video game stories of all time.
haha just a few hundred.
@@HannaHsOverInvested That's if you're slightly rushing things. I've put a few hundred into a second character and with the benefit of knowing what I need and want to do I still haven't reached that first trailer you opened the video with.
The game is addicting and I agree it's got one of the most investing and emotional stories I've come across in gaming. And I haven't even made it to the most emotional expansion hence the second character, I'm not ready to be destroyed yet.
This is putting it lightly, I've been playing for the last year or so and have not caught up to current "end", in fact I still haven't finished the 3rd expansion Shadowbringers.
@@HannaHsOverInvested i think im currently in the thousands in terms of hours and i havent even finished the last expansion yet lol theres a whole lot of content
@@HannaHsOverInvested Some streamers actually have spent 1 year just going through every story element, so it's not completely unamanageable when you think of it as 10 years of story releases digested in 1 year.
It's like diving into a long running book series that just gets better with each book.
You're just gonna keep getting upset if you expect a strong, simple connected narrative between trailers. This is an MMO game, and each of these trailers are for expansions AKA large content updates and new things to do. These trailers aren't meant to tell an arching story for a new viewer, they're meant as lore recaps for the previous expansion and then showing/inspiring us for the new expansion they're advertising, usually around showing a new zone/area/city and characters we've met in the game before
Was I upset? If I was, I promise it didn't last long.
Also the later xpac trailers are full of red herrings
She didn't seem upset, just confused. And tbf not all mmos structure their trailers like this. WoW, for all of their faults, let's each trailer set itself up to be understood by anyone. FF14 takes the weird path of being very tired to the story in-game
@@GuyAngon Not really, my guy, it sets up a story and leaves it open ended, just like the FF14 trailers do. How every trailer does it.
@@GuyAngon That's because it leaves out everything from before one expansion to the next. Which reflects its stories; new expansion, forget everything from the previous trailer. FFXIV trailers recap major events to connect with the next chapter highlighted in a new trailer. They're more meant to be watched as you play the game; new expansion, remember what happened after you finished the previous expansion.
"That seemed like unnecessary violence towards dragons."
Yeah, that's heavenward lmao
But it was necessary :)
Or the entire Dragonsong War, when we think about it.
Never trust an Elezen.
Final Fantasy 14 is a very story-driven game. Dozens and dozens of hours of story in between each expansion and each of these videos is an intro to each of those expansions. So yes, you are supposed to know what's going on in them. So don't feel bad that you don't because there is A LOT going on in this game. These cinematics are also meant to be a bit vague on what's to come because they don't want to spoil much but also want to deliver a visual treat. :)
-There are a couple of recaps but maybe the best for you is the one the channel IGN GAMES has titled "Final Fantasy 14: The Story So Far" its about 9 minutes only, there are others that last about 1 or 5 hours so i think the short one is the best choice for you.
-The same thing as in the wow intros. Game has long fat story, in fact one if not the best on a mmorpg, but the intros serve more to present the new classes and new enviroments. Dont try to find a cohesive relation between them.
-Each numbered final fantasy is a totally different story and universe, only certain thins in common like some creatures or the names of some characters.
Cool! Thank you!
I second this! A short story recap would be great at adding much needed context to these trailers watched today.