My Life As A Writer: Final Fantasy XIV: A Narrative Reborn (Part Two)

A Decision Reconsidered

During the redesign process, the team decided to commit fully to making FF14 a Final Fantasy game first and a MMORPG second. Yet they knew that they would attract a significant number of players more familiar with MMORPGs that don't possess this sorting of priorities. In order to ensure that the narrative created would be put front and second, the team made the call to use the narrative as a gate behind quick they would lock off access to the content.

The result is the Main Scenario Quest ("MSQ" hence). What it allowed the team to do is to use content access as a milestone for narrative progress. The narrative would tell the player about something useful for the player to know, and at the conclusion of that scene or chapter the player would gain access to a new feature or some instanced scenario such as a dungeon.

This structure would be repeated for structuring the progress of various Classes and Jobs, such that the User Interface would not only display the MSQ but also the current Class or Job quest. The player would go to his Guild or Job mentor, and that NPC would give them a task that not only told a story to itself, but also compelled the player to display the mastery of his current skillset before learning the new technique. For example, the Archer quests have you proving yourself to key Archer's Guild members in order to learn their best techniques until you master all that they know, at which time are you directed to learn from a former guildsman that became a Bard and you repeat the process.

For a writer, analyzing this structure is useful. The real purpose is clear: you use the narrative as a means of getting the player to comprehend why he needs to go there and do this, learn that, etc. and so it is narrative used for didactic purposes first and pacing second.

However, take a step back and you see why the structure works. You see easily why it works because the MMORPG medium merges the psychological effect of direct and active participation with those of indirect and passive observation as an audience, and thus you can see the gears and levers do their work in real time.

This is a clear Problem->Reaction->Solution structure. It is equally applicable to episodic and serial storycraft, and very effective for audience-insert protagonists that are very common in popular fiction since you don't need to tailor the scenario to the protagonist's specific qualities to make it work; it's why this structure is often considered by Lit Fic snobs to be synonymous with genre literature.

The key here is that the FF14 team makes this structure do double and triple duty. While the player is told about a problem, the NPCs also relay information to him--under the guise of being an outsider that heretofore had no reason to know--that not only does the player need to know to complete the gameplay scenario before him, but that advances some aspect of the overall narrative- often by straight-up plot advancement. That information doubles as efficient worldbuilding.

By tying all of the repeatable content behind completion of the MSQ, and by making that achievable in pieces--the ARR unlock schedule can be seen here--the team successfully achieved the difficult task of merging a satisfying narrative with that a compelling gameplay experience. The MSQ is that solution, and later expansions refined how this solution got applied.

It is not a perfect display of craftsmanship. Especially later in the ARR narrative, there are some straight-forward infodumps and "As You Know, Bob" cutscenes where the protagonist's chief allies--the Scions of the Seventh Dawn ("Scions" hence)--masked by the cinematographers getting to show off how movie-like they can make their cutscenes. That said, even when they have to resort to such measures, the writing team still fulfills the two duties of a fiction writer: to provide an emotionally-satisfying conclusion to the story, and to provide an internally-consistent and believable story to the audience.