The downside to being the MMO "with the good story" is that when you inevitably fuck that story up you can't detangle the rest of the game from it. And since writing is so subjective you will eventually find some way to fuck it.
And I'll assume, as I never got into XIV, that the stories aren't like WoW's where they are mostly self contained and barely relate to one another. So they can't just completely bury it next year and move on with washed hands.
You are right that every expansion’s story was connected to one another until the recent one, Dawntrail (Mostly because the last expansion closed off the first story very tightly.) They could easily continue with a new story over this one with the next one and say it was the filler expansion equivalent to a beach episode in any anime. However, people will still have to buy it since the leveling system requires you to go through that expansion.
However, people will still have to buy it since the leveling system requires you to go through that expansion.
That's one of the upsides to modern WoW that they managed to solve, with the Chromie Time essentially allowing you to pick your favorite expansion and just play it to get up to current content. It only works because of how separate each expansion is from one another (and how little the plot matters to them), but it makes playing the game for the first time or even on an alt so much nicer.
The downside to being the MMO "with the good story" is that when you inevitably fuck that story up you can't detangle the rest of the game from it. And since writing is so subjective you will eventually find some way to fuck it.
And I'll assume, as I never got into XIV, that the stories aren't like WoW's where they are mostly self contained and barely relate to one another. So they can't just completely bury it next year and move on with washed hands.
You are right that every expansion’s story was connected to one another until the recent one, Dawntrail (Mostly because the last expansion closed off the first story very tightly.) They could easily continue with a new story over this one with the next one and say it was the filler expansion equivalent to a beach episode in any anime. However, people will still have to buy it since the leveling system requires you to go through that expansion.
That's one of the upsides to modern WoW that they managed to solve, with the Chromie Time essentially allowing you to pick your favorite expansion and just play it to get up to current content. It only works because of how separate each expansion is from one another (and how little the plot matters to them), but it makes playing the game for the first time or even on an alt so much nicer.