Well done once again. Another expansion I forgot most of the story too since I only did it once a long time ago. I'm wondering if at some point you could summarize lore on entities like Alzadaal, although I'm not sure the game fleshes out the details on what those ruins actually are. Looking forward to the WotG recap!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Thanks for the comment! I love doing deep dives on lore like that, so don't be surprised if something like that pops up eventually. However, Alzadaal in particular doesn't have a ton of lore from what I watched making this video and reading I've found. What we do know is that Alzadaal was the emperor of Aridijah before the last Age of Judgement. The Alexander that fought Odin 900 years ago was his iron colossus, much like Razfahd built the one he uses in this story. His empire was extremely technologically advanced, and used techniques that have stood the test of time and even surpass what Aht Urhgan could do 900 years later. The Undersea Ruins and all of the Remnant areas are, indeed, the remnants and ruins of his empires holdings that survived through the devastation of The Age of Judgement, but we have no idea how much of his empires covered the land above ground that was destroyed. It's safe to say that whoever he was, he was definitely unbelievably powerful and super smart, but I don't know that we know a ton more than that.

@kasaioni7680

8 ай бұрын

@@sharlayanforum Oh nice! I honestly did know much about it, or just forgot.

Man I don't remember any of this lol. Well I do remember Naja and my fight with Alexander - was unusal as at the time it was first 45 minute timer for bosses. My team used literally every second of it - we wiped with only the whm left with just enough time to cast 1 raise, 1 hit away from KO, the boss at less than 1% health. So we quickly decided to have our ninja be raised and immediately use their 2 hour ability - high damage self destruct. Cleared it with seconds to spare and same whm last to survive - wins a win.

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Mijin Gakure is a legendary ability. Such limited uses, but man when it comes in handy it comes in handy.

@Skorion69

8 ай бұрын

Sounds akin to my party’s win against Promathia after many attempts, party wiped out and I as the whm use my re-raise to get myself up and away from Promathia who has been worn down a lot by the party and is currently attacking Prishe, I swap to my dryad staff, use divine seal and rather than using my mp to raise someone like I did in our numerous previous attempts I cast my strongest cure spell on Prishe which draws Promathia’s hate and proceed to run away from him. I don’t know how long I kited him for but at long last (not to mention amid several angry comments from the rest of the party) Prishe WSs Promathia and kills him, we are released from the battlefield and I rest and raise everyone once we are all back to full strength we gathered and took screen captures. As you say a win is a win. Also became known for a while as the most full on batshit crazy whm in all Vana’diel for a while, wish I had been playing on a PC and recording the fight to be able to show it to people.

@donnyyasu2764

7 ай бұрын

A well placed nin 2 hr, and a completely botched nin 2 hr was always amazing to see 😂

@jarrodmarma814

7 ай бұрын

Truly harrowing and respect worthy!

These are such wonderful refreshers/introductions for FF11 lore! Thank you so much for making these videos, and I'm sure I speak for many when I say that we all await what you make next!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Glad you like them! Happy to be the one to bring something like this to the people. 💚

I've waited so long for a series like this on ff11... Thankyou so much!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

It was crazy to me that one didn't exist. I figured someones gotta do it!

Back so soon! Awesome work again 👏 👍 Thanks for taking the time to so thoroughly cover this amazing story. The nostalgia you bring me is with these videos is invaluable. Love it!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Gotta keep the train rolling! Glad you're enjoying!

This one especially did need a shout out - with the mamool ja and all a big part of upcoming Dawntrail, it seems a certainty it would be referenced in some way? Thanks so much! it's kinda crazy looking back at the content :D

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

I imagine there's going to be a lot of character references for sure! I think the aesthetics probably won't be too similar, as Aht Urhgan is more Eastern/South East Asian while Tural looks much more South American.. but I'm willing to seriously bet we get a lot of character references, and maybe some area and zone names.

Oh shit I’m so hype you just uploaded this, I watched the other recap last night and loved it

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

I'm a man of the people

Great work. I'm looking forward to your continued recaps of the upcoming expansions. I was surprised while playing through Voracious Resurgence to learn about all the additional Odin lore. It adds so much to the story of the Shadow Lord and gives us so much more context on Hazhalm, and more background about his granting power to individuals like Lady Lilith. I'm particularly looking forward to when you eventually recap Adoulin. There were lots of interesting story pieces, and I hope that the underworld of Ra'Kaznar is revisited in Echoes of Vana'Diel, instead of it just focusing on Zilart or Promathia. We also have the auspices of Reisenjima that I hope we get to revisit.

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

There's a ton of great places they could take it, for sure! They might surprise us and find a way to hit all the big ones, but I feel like their gonna have to disappoint us in one way or another, even if they deliver big in a lot of other ways.

Thank you so much for continuing with the recaps. These are done amazingly well. Keep up the great work. I'll be sure to share it. And you got yourself another sub :)

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Thank you so much! More stuff to come! Probably some different stuff too!

Loving these my guy. You are a great storyteller.

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

I appreciate that!

Nice vid. Looking forward to the WotG video, SE really stepped up the cut-scenes from WotG onwards, really hit their stride with cut-scene direction from then on imo. But ty so much for covering ToAU, I really liked how it depicted Odin and Alexander, it really led me to enjoy the characterization of all the Avatars/Summons in XI to the point that they're the first iterations of them that come to mind nowadays. Particularly how callous Odin and Alexander both are to mortals and their fates. Really sells they're otherworldly and view things quite differently, viewing mortals like pawns on a board, to be used and nothing more. Altana help us all if Naja Salaheem ever meets Rowena though. Toxic CEO meets Toxic Middle Manager to girlboss gatekeep and gaslight everyone into binding contracts lmao.

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

That would be the real age of judgement. 😢Thanks for the comment.

OMG imagine if the Normal Raid series in Dawntrail ties in to not just these expansions of FFXI, but the old Normal Raid series of Alexander in the FFXIV Heavesward expansion! Thanks again for the videos!!

Again, TYVM, you are doing a fantastic job!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Thank you too!

That was a fun recap, I forgot how much ToAU was a web of deceit. Everybody's got an ulterior motive and agenda, Gessho allies and betrays everyone at least once and it's great, somehow all the threads come together at the end in a pretty satisfying way. Feels like CoP gets all the story credit when this one was ambitious and of high quality too.

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

It's definitely an interesting one! CoP feels more like the "final fantasy" story to me, with the big bad evil god and whatnot, but ToAU is a super fun political-intrigue drama-fest

I just remember Razfahd and Luzaf overcoming the control of Odin and Alexander because of their love for Nashmeira. One of the best expansion storylines that I remember from FFXI.

@sharlayanforum

2 ай бұрын

The classic "love conquers all" meme

5:07 "Ne me demande pas, frérot". I diiiiied laughing ! 🤣

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

C'est la vie

Thank thank thank you good sir, another amaaazing video

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it

Thank you, another great watch!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Thanks so much!

your voice is like, so chill. i love these recaps! i never played ffxi, but watching this made me want to go do the story content

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Thank you thank you. I grew it myself. :P It's a fun time, but it's tough to convince myself to pay another subscription

Love these expansion recaps! Please continue 😊

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Glad you like them!

Thanks for doing this!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

My pleasure! Thank you for watching!

Been waiting for this one 🔥

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

I hope you enjoy!

You glorious scholar you did it! And quick! Thank you!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

🤓 e z

This is a nice little summary of a story I'm unfamiliar with! And if YOU want to be the one to destroy Ovjang, you can find it in Central Thanalan!

Amazing video! Loved it as much as the first. Definitely have my sub and my attention!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Welcome aboard!

Yayyyyyy I just found out that this was out!! ToAU was my favourite xpac and PUP my favorite job ♥ Thanks so much for this recap!!

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoy it!

Subbed. Very excited for more!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Welcome aboard!

Can't wait to hear about what really happened in Wings of the Goddess and the Abyssea content!

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

Coming soon! It'll take some time though. :I

Wonderfully done! I got some major nostalgia hits watching through all this again as a refresher. Though seeing this reminds me of how much I loved the Blue Mage job from XI, and the lore and quests behind it. I know you're more focused on the expansions, but it'd be amazing if you'd consider a brief recap of those! Much as I like Blue Mage in XIV, the concept of the Immortals will always be far more appealing in my eyes.

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

As an XI BLU main, it hurts my soul to see how its been handled in XIV. I enjoy it, and it's fun, but man it sucks to not have the eastern-inspired dual sword welding battle mage thing going on

@adiscerningdunmer9311

7 ай бұрын

@@sharlayanforum I was initially furious, don't get me wrong. But after playing it for a while, I came to enjoy it for what it was. Kinda had to accept that it wouldn't be the same, and honestly the reason I'd rather not see Corsair get put in. I'd just go through the motions again.

This such a cool series I always was interested in 11 but couldn’t play it since it looks so old for a lack of better word thanks for all your hard work

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm glad you're enjoying the series and finding it interesting. It's always great to hear that my hard work is appreciated.

ToAH days were a good time. No level cap increase past 75 and your old Sky or SEA gear was still useful. Merit parties for horizontal power progression.

@AkuNoHana

3 ай бұрын

Aye ToAU was the golden years of FFXI for me.

Almost but you missed the epilogue of ToAU Where you have to fight Alexander again Then Odin daily for about 2 weeks to try and get Luzaf back

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

There were definitely things I left out! I just wanted to cover the main mission set of each expansion to make sure that people who have never played or haven't played in a long time have some ideas of what's going on. If I covered every mission and quest these videos would be ages long. :P

Loved toau, it was to me when the story started kicking up 20 notches as it was naturally started after lvl 50 and lvling. Great recap

Wow! This is amazing. I played FFXI for a big part of my childhood/teenage years. Revisiting this is so special. Thank you so much, I hope more are to come! I hope you consider covering the nation missions too 😊 - Saroa from Fenrir

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it!

enjoyed this! ty ty

@sharlayanforum

6 ай бұрын

Glad you enjoyed!

That was a good recap to listen to while playing XIV. It sounds like a great story to play through.

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

It's not a bad time!

One of my fav FFXI expansions at least before the lvl cap increase during that time.

@sharlayanforum

6 ай бұрын

It was a unique moment for sure!

awesome videos, can't wait for wotg and the rest!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Thank you very much!

These were amazing thank you very much! Would love to see wings of the goddess and abyssea!!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Coming soon!

So good.

@sharlayanforum

5 ай бұрын

Thank you!

Awesome jsut found you today and love these. Hope you do then all

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Welcome aboard! That's the plan!

Its been about 10 years since I touched FF and even longer for the lore, cool to brush up on this again.. I mean I DID restart on private servers over and over, game actually gets easy once you know all the tricks and what to do LOL

Shout out to Korvana too!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Korvana is 🐐'ed

Please keep these coming

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

More coming soon! Holidays are slowing things down, but soon!

Yessssssssssssssss!

Besieged was a lot of fun chaotic, especially after a maintenance and there are less than 10 players available.

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

I have a lot of fond memories of besieged. It was a really unique system.

All I remember in this expansion is Salvage and participating in Beseiged fights in the city. Hope they bring back Nyzul Isle for FFXIV alliance raid.

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

Nyzul Isle tower climb is such an easy deep dungeon idea

If you do continue it would be appreciated. I completed base story, and di 50% of zilart and promethia. I'd love to go back and complete those quests - but can't imagine the time that would be required to do the newer content!

@sharlayanforum

6 ай бұрын

WoTG video will be out in the next week or so! Really, going back and doing the older stuff is easy now-a-days with how powerful you can get with very little effort. The newest content is tough and time consuming, though.

the GOAT of ff11 xpacs

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

🐐

Loved ToAU. Such a highpoint of XI. Great new jobs, great new zones, great music, plus besieged stressing my crap PC out. 😂

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

I remember my Xbox 360 sounding like a helicopter prepping for takeoff during besieged

This changes a lot of how I feel about Besieged. I’m looking forward to Wings of the Goddess!

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Thank you for checking it out!

I wanna say thank you for this video, I'm taken it upon myself to make a ff11 tarot deck, and thankfully the first three MSQs are well documented on the Wikis, but strangely Treasures and beyond ..... are missing. I am writing down all the plot points in my notebook to make sure everything's accurate. Thank you for this video.

@sharlayanforum

4 ай бұрын

Best of luck!

Looking forward to WotG next!

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

Soon™

Excuse you.. I believe it's the Astral Candy-sense 🤭 Jokes aside, ToAU will always be my favorite for bringing for the best version of the Blue Mage to date, still untouched. And oh those waits until midnight in Japan just to advance the story 🙃

@sharlayanforum

6 ай бұрын

The original cut of the script has the Yoyoroon conversation and Candysense mentioned, but alas, it was way too long. 😢 Thanks for the comment!

OH MY TWELVE, HAUCHEFANT WAS AN XI REFERENCE?!

I am engaging with this content

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

I am engaging with this comment

Keep the ffxi lore/stories coming! I Appreciate your hardwork. Do you plan on doing the other expansions?

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Absolutely! There will be a brief pause in my schedule due to an event I have coming up, but the WoTG video will begin scripting as soon as I'm back!

@loyalkhayal5842

8 ай бұрын

@sharlayanforum I'm subscribed and locked in! Completely random... But I hope they used your story for the 24/man and use sky/sea gear as the rewards. Hell add the full kirin set to Eureka too lmao

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

I'm personally holding my breath for some classic AF's to make their way into the game as the raid gear. Let me be a Samurai in armor, I'm sick of robes.

@loyalkhayal5842

8 ай бұрын

@@sharlayanforum that would be valid af

Ok the new limited job for XIV is DEFINITELY puppet master based on this recap tbh

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

I would love to see PUP come to FFXIV. It could be a really cool to have it use a special currency for completing its special duty (ala BLU Masked Carnivale) to buy parts for their automatons that change the abilities they have active.

very nice. too bad u missed the true ending of ToAU, which requires beating Odin in amount of times, around 10ish or so. Hope u didn't forget this when planning to recap Adoulin way later since the story did has additional lore inside their series of sidequests & also another true ending which is normally locked behind getting one of great trust later on. Also don't forget about Odin again if planning to recap the latest story - Voracious Resurgence, since he's also one of very vital plot story. ;)

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

My skipping of that additional content was very intentional. Like I've said in previous videos/comments, my intention with these recaps is not to give an absolute 100% perfectly complete retelling of a story from 1 to 100 with every decimal between. They are meant to be brief recaps of the main mission story lines of the content, so that people who have/will never play or haven't played in an extremely long time can be brought up to speed with the main strokes. Thank you for the comment!

@boarMcberry

7 ай бұрын

@@sharlayanforum understood. guess can be understandable at least for ToAU. Still not sure about Adoulin if gonna cover that later, since that one is hella confusing, even overall story felt kinda half baked till finish, hence why they later releases several long series of sidequests which cover certain important individual Adoulin npcs, just to make its lore more understandable (not to mention they also kinda required to do in order to get to its true ending/final trust unlock), which imo the 1st in all expansions needing to do these kind of things, but guess gonna wait how you'll come up with it. ;) btw, can't wait on your take on WotG since it is my own personal best expansion of all. :D

Between recently replaying these missions, and watching your video recap, I'm confused by some of the early mysteries and how the ending tries to tie them up. By the time that Luzaf is unveiled until the ending, the story feels compelling and well-written, but the Ragnarok conflict feels a bit disjointed from the introductory mysteries. 1) Razfahd is rebuilding Alexander in large part to quash rebellion within the Empire's conquered nations, but at the earliest stages he opens the ports to the Middle Lands, which consequently gets them inundated with spies (our adventurer, Gessho, Trion, Shantotto, etc), which leads to the Middle Lands sending a war armada, plus all of Gessho's sabotages. Why did Aht Urghan open its ports? How does opening Aht Urghan to outsiders help any of Razfahd's plans? 2) Salaheem's Sentinels is emphasized to be the *only* mercenary group trusted to handle missions directly from the Imperial Palace, and as we see later with the Luminian Dagger, that translates to an extreme loyalty directly to Nashmeira II, over Razfahd or the Immortals. We see in Mission #7 that Nashmeira and Razfahd know that our adventurer is a spy reporting to Jeuno, know that we've "taken the bait", and in Mission #10 they both remark that we're given a "bell" i.e. the compass that we're tasked to use to help them find the other Candescenes (something that the Empire ultimately accomplishes without our assistance whatsoever). So when Razfahd is very aware of our adventurer and their usefulness, when he sees our loyalty to Aphmau, and when he sees Nashmeira getting cold feet about Alexander / getting sympathetic to Luzaf, he... doesn't really try to eliminate us or Salaheem's Sentinels? Shouldn't our and Naja's betrayal have been super-telegraphed to Razfahd? 3) It's repeatedly pointed out as odd how the Hall of Binding is lightly guarded and how there's a constant battle over the Astral Candescense. But the whole Beseiged system seems to inflame the beastmen, antithetical to the goal of summoning Alexander to secure peace. The beastmen only want the Candescense to prevent Alexander's revival, and they don't otherwise seem relevant to Razfahd's schemes, since they aren't in possession of the other Candescenses. Shantotto identifies Beseiged as a "trap" to lure the beastmen in, but doesn't elaborate on how the Empire benefits. What is the strategic purpose of Beseiged, versus keeping the Candescene and Gordeus down in Alzadaal where they'd be safe?

@sharlayanforum

3 ай бұрын

All great questions! I certainly don't *know* that I'm correct, but just based on what I understand I'll try to give my take... 1. I think rebuilding Alexander is more of a vehicle of Razfahds real desire which is for the Empire to just simply be the most powerful force in the world. He doesn't have a particular justification for resurrecting it outside of it just being an inexplicably powerful weapon that he feels entitled to possess. I think the goal in opening the borders is twofold; for one, it allows adventurers in to deal with beastmen and other tasks which frees up the immortals to push forward without interruption on Razfahds scheme, and secondly to potentially find the Candescences faster. 2. This I'm not sure about. I'm assuming that the decision to keep Salaheem's operational and not just nuke it off the map is purely a political move to keep up the appearance that everything is hunky-doory behind the closed doors of the palace. If the empires most trusted mercenary group just suddenly vanished and wasn't assigned anymore people would notice, especially at the assault deployment agencies. 3. I think this is simply a statesman play. The temple housing the candescence is simply a way to keep people fighting for something, and keep the beastmen engaged in a fight for a singular item while the immortals and their researchers can rebuild Alexander in the safety of the undersea ruins without attracting too much attention under the guise of scientific work, while the protection of the temple and it's heart *seems* much more important, rallying the adventurers and serpent generals in one place. Thanks for the comment!

@pavfeira

3 ай бұрын

@@sharlayanforum That does make a lot of sense! I remember Nashmeira and Razfahd making mention in an early mission along the lines of "no one must know." I initially took that as a throwaway line, but it does make sense that they'd use smokescreens and diversions to keep the beast tribes, the Empire's citizens, and even the Middle Lands distracted with misleading priorities. Thanks for the reply!

Any update to the the release of the WoTG?

@sharlayanforum

6 ай бұрын

Still working towards it! Holiday season has slowed me down with how much family time and travel we've had.

@sharlayanforum

6 ай бұрын

As an update: I should have WoTG out by the end of the month!

I don't think that's Trion "ee", I think the I is short for "the First."

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

I would agree, but numerals usually come at the end of a title, not in the middle.

@icarusavery5691

7 ай бұрын

@@sharlayanforum Not in this case - the d' is basically short for "of". His name is Trion I [of] Oraguille.

@sharlayanforum

7 ай бұрын

You're probably right, lol

thank you ^^

@sharlayanforum

8 ай бұрын

Thank YOU!